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X11 interface
Mac interface
Curses interface
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Xconq manual
Game design manual
Hacking manual
Games Library
Xconq history

About Xconq

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.

Xconq's forte is turn-based strategy with overhead map views. Tiles are hexagonal, and worlds may be very large; the largest in the library is an 800x320 map of the world, a 256,000 hex monster! The game design language GDL is a declarative language where you define the units, terrain, etc, then fill in tables defining their interaction. Literally hundreds of different tables are available to the game designer. For graphics, the Xconq library includes hundreds of unit images and tiles that may be used by a game.

All this makes Xconq 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.

The latest released version is 7.4.1. Development is proceeding on 7.5. Xconq is free software licensed under the GPL, and full sources are available for downloading. Xconq is also a very large and open-ended project, with lots to do; if you're an artist, game designer, play-tester or programmer, and want to help Xconq reach its full potential, we'd love to have you join in!

News

Not everything which is going on is mentioned here. See the mailing list archives for stuff which no one thought to add to the web page.

20 May 2004 - Xconq 7.5 pre-release packages are now available on the Xconq ftp site

See the Download Page for more information.

Older News

Links

Eric McDonald's Xconq Depot - The latest Windows installers and Linux/Unix RPMs.

Internationalization (I18N) of Xconq - Information about the internationalization of Xconq.

Cast Iron Life - they have a game which runs in xconq plus lots of ideas for future development (both of the game and the xconq engine itself).

Civil - open source cross-platform, turn-based, networked strategy game, developed using Python, PyGame and SDL--allowing players to take part in scenarios set during the American Civil war.

Freeciv - open source multiplayer strategy game.

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