Welcome to Xconq version 7.4! 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 providing a single system for modelling 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. The file INSTALL tells how to get Xconq running on your system. Xconq has been tested in a wide variety of systems and environments, including most versions of Unix, Linux, Macintosh (PowerPC only), and Windows. Once Xconq is installed, depending on your system you should be able to either type "xconq" at a shell or click on the program's icon. The program will guide you the rest of the way. If this is your first time playing Xconq, choose the "Introductory" game; this is a simple preset scenario that uses the standard rules. The Xconq home page is at http://sources.redhat.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@sources.redhat.com. This list is for both users and developers. If you just want to receive announcements, xconq-announce@sources.redhat.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. Since Xconq is free, you can copy it, hack on it, and redistribute the hacked version as you like; but PLEASE identify clearly any changes you make to an "official" release - this will be of immeasurable help to me, other Xconq hackers, and users. I always enjoy hearing about and seeing any improvements, fixes, or suggestions, and will try to incorporate the best ones into future versions of Xconq. 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.