7.3 announcement, long form

[Stan Shebs <shebs at shebs dot cnchost dot com>]

(This is the long form of the Xconq announcement that I'm sending
around to the usual places - basically the README with a few
tweaks.  This first round should go primarily to Linux places,
Mac and Windows announcements should wait until the respective
binary packages are done. -s)

I'm pleased to announce the 7.3 release of Xconq, available at

	ftp://sourceware.cygnus.com/pub/xconq/xconq-7.3.2.tar.gz

Xconq is a general strategy game system.  It is a complete system that
includes all the components: a portable engine, graphical interfaces
for Unix/Linux/X11, Macintosh, and Windows, multiple AIs, networking
for multi-player games, and an extensive game library.

In addition to Xconq's "standard" game, which is similar to the
classic Empire/Empire Deluxe games of years ago, the game library
includes games for ancient civilizations, the Peloponnesian War, the
Roman Civil War, Frederician strategy, Napoleonic strategy, Gettysburg
at a brigade scale, the Russian revolution, the Normandy invasion,
WWII at scales from tactical to grand strategic, Beirut street
fighting, voyages of discovery, African exploration, and many others,
including space and fantasy games.

As befits its emphasis on strategy, Xconq's forte is turn-based play
using overhead views of a tiled world.  The world is basically
two-dimensional, although varying elevations are available for games
that need elevation effects or line-of-sight.  Xconq is especially
interesting for games about unusual or lesser-known strategic
situations; it is unique in its ability to model the conflicts and
strategies of any period in history.

Xconq games may include up to 126 types of units, 126 types of
materials (ammo, fuel, etc), 126 types of terrain, and 126 types of
technological advances.  Worlds may be up to 32,767 x 32,767 in size,
over a billion cells (hexagons)!  The largest map currently in the
library is a monster 800x320 map of the Earth.  Xconq can also
synthesize new worlds for its games.

Up to 31 sides may participate in a game, with any mix of human and AI
players.  Xconq networking is peer-to-peer, so no separate server is
required.  (Note: networking is not yet fully functional on Macs.)

To set up new types of games, Xconq includes an interpreter for a game
design language (GDL).  While the syntax resembles Lisp, GDL is a
declarative language, where you create a game just by defining the
properties of types and objects, and then filling in tables describing
their interactions.  There are literally hundreds of properties
available, and hundreds of tables relating units, materials, terrain,
and advances.  Xconq is capable of emulating many other strategy
games, and Xconq's generic AI includes the ability to analyze a set of
rules and to figure out (usually!) how to play it.

In addition, the game designer gets a collection of nearly a thousand
graphic images available for use in games, including unit icons,
terrain tiles, and national emblems.  It's also easy to import
additional graphics content of your choice.

To help keep the both new and experienced designers from being lost in
the complexity, Xconq includes a game designer's manual that describes
all of this machinery in detail.

Xconq 7.3 represents two years of development work since the last
public release (7.2.2).  In that time, we have rewritten the Unix GUI
and made it easier to use; ported to Windows; improved the appearance
of the graphics; added a technology tree, variable-size cities,
Civ-type games, active independent units, and many other features;
and fixed hordes of bugs.

The Xconq home page is at

	http://sourceware.cygnus.com/xconq

This page includes information about new versions of Xconq, screenshots,
online versions of the manuals, and so forth.

There is a general mailing list, xconq7@sourceware.cygnus.com.  This
list is for both users and developers.  If you just want to receive
announcements, xconq-announce@sourceware.cygnus.com is available also;
see the home page for information on how to subscribe.

Xconq is free software, and is licensed under the Gnu Public License,
version 2; see the file COPYING for more details.

						Stan Shebs
						shebs@shebs.cnchost.com


Thanks to the many Xconq players and hackers around the net who have
contributed literally hundreds of suggestions, fixes, and improvements
since Xconq's first release to comp.sources.games in 1987.  The manual
includes more detailed acknowledgments.  Hans Ronne deserves a special
mention for 7.3; he has done an enormous amount of work for it, both
in extending the kernel to handle Civ-type games, as well as in the Mac
interface.