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[Colossus-checkins] SF.net SVN: colossus: [2660] trunk/Colossus/docs
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From: <cl...@us...> - 2007-04-20 22:05:45
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Revision: 2660
http://svn.sourceforge.net/colossus/?rev=2660&view=rev
Author: cleka
Date: 2007-04-20 15:05:41 -0700 (Fri, 20 Apr 2007)
Log Message:
-----------
Updated some docs to reflect the newest state; namely,
removed the reference to the "All Stacks visible" option,
and replaced it with a link to a new document that
explains all settings in the Get Players dialog.
Modified Paths:
--------------
trunk/Colossus/docs/README.html
trunk/Colossus/docs/network.html
Added Paths:
-----------
trunk/Colossus/docs/GetPlayersOptions.html
Added: trunk/Colossus/docs/GetPlayersOptions.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/Colossus/docs/GetPlayersOptions.html (rev 0)
+++ trunk/Colossus/docs/GetPlayersOptions.html 2007-04-20 22:05:41 UTC (rev 2660)
@@ -0,0 +1,168 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
+<!-- $Id: $ -->
+<html>
+ <head>
+ <meta name="generator"
+ content="HTML Tidy for Linux/x86 (vers 1st July 2002), see www.w3.org" />
+ <title>Get Players startup dialog</title>
+ </head>
+ <body>
+<h1>Settings in Get Players startup dialog</h1>
+This document is a start to describe the available settings in the
+Colossus startup dialog (like player selection, which variant, and so on)
+and their meaning. Some descriptions are not too detailed yet.
+<p>
+The top part of the startup dialog consists of a tabbed pane with 3 panes:
+<b>Players</b>, <b>Options</b> and <b>Variant README</b>.
+<P>
+In the bottom are controls for Variant selection and Game startup,
+always visible no matter which pane is selected.
+
+<hr>
+<h2>Players pane (player selection, variant selection, and action buttons)</h2>
+
+Here you can select the number of players by setting that number of
+player types to a type (different than "none"): human player on same
+host, network player (human player on some remote host), or a number
+of "AI" types, i.e. robot players.
+<P>
+Fill in the wanted number and types of players, leave the remaining one as
+<b>none</b>. For human (local) players give a name; remote players should
+be left to their default <b><By client></b>, and for AI players it
+is usually useful to leave the setting to <b><By color></b>.
+<P>
+With Colossus on can play Titan (the original board, creatures, etc.) as
+well as a number of variants - modified board or creatures
+(different/additional ones, their skills and abilities modified, different
+recruiting possibilities, and so on).
+<p>
+<hr>
+<h2>Options pane (various settings for the game)</h2>
+
+<h3>Section "General"</h3>
+Those are hopefully self-explaining:
+<ul>
+<li>Autosave
+<li>Log debug messages
+<li>Balanced starting towers
+<li>AIs stop when humans dead
+<li>Auto quit when game over
+</ul>
+
+<h3>Section "Viewability of legions and events"</h3>
+
+This controls whether one is
+allowed to view the contents of other players legions, and how long
+the events which reveal such information are visible before they
+vanish.
+<p>
+<b>Viewable legion content:</b><P>
+That is a popup menu box with three possible selections:
+<ul>
+<li>Only own legions
+<li>Ever revealed (or concludable) since start
+<li>True content for all legions
+</ul>
+This setting controls which or how much information is shown to you when
+you look into legions using right-click or the Inspector window (those of other players - for your own ones you see
+always the full true content).
+<p>
+The first one is like standard Titan - you are only allowed to review the
+contents of your own legions; information what is in other players legions
+you can only know based on events where such information is publicly revealed
+(e.g. recruiting, teleport), and you must memorize and conclude all by yourself.
+<p>
+The last one is simple - you can simply look into every legion, be it
+yours or that of any other player. <p>The middle one, "Ever revealed
+..." is more complex. Colossus has a feature called split-prediction;
+it keeps track of such revealed information, and automatically draws
+conclusions ("if the angel is here, then the Titan must be in that
+legion because it is the only other uncertain one right now"). If this option is selected, you see the result of such automatic tracking and conclusions,
+i.e. the same what the AI's will know.
+<p>
+This view shows you for other players legions all creatures which can with
+has ever been shown or can with certainty be concluded that a certain creature
+is in a certain legion.
+<P>
+For the remaining creatures in the legion, the Split prediction has a
+"best guess" - like, parent before a split had Titan, some weak and
+some strong creatures, and Titan teleported and is known, the rest
+not; most likely the strong creatures are with the titan and the weak
+ones in the split-off - but that is not certain. For those which are
+uncertain (if and only if this view mode is selected), every client (=
+every individual player) has in his Graphics menu (in the running game
+then) a option called "<B>Uncertain as blank</B>" which controls,
+whether for this uncertain ones shall be displayed the best guess
+(with a question mark over it) or rather nothing (just a question
+mark).
+<P>
+<b>Events expire after (turns):</b><P> That is a popup menu box with
+numeric values. The selected value specifies for how (at maximum)
+long back the
+events are viewable in the players "EventViewer" window (also from
+Graphics menu). This EventViewer windows "reveals" all those events
+that would in an actual board game be mandatory to be revealed to
+other players - like: splitting, recruiting (what creature was taken,
+and what does he have that allows him to do so), teleport, acquired
+and summoned angels, and battle results (Note: the latter one are not
+fully implemended in the EventViewer, but there is a separate
+"Engagement Results" window).
+<P>
+In the EventViewer itself a player can select to display (beside which
+types of events) fewer than the number of turns set in "Events expire after
+(turns)" setting, but not more than those.
+
+
+<h3>Section "Teleport"</h3><p>
+Those are hopefully self-explaining - the named teleport types are or are not
+allowed.
+<ul>
+<li>No tower-to-tower teleport on first turn
+<li>No teleport on first turn
+<li>No Titan teleport
+<li>Tower-to-Tower teleport only
+<li>No Tower teleport
+</ul>
+
+<h3>Section "Rules"</h3><p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Slowing is cumulative
+<li>Always allow one hex
+<li>Use non-random battle dice
+</ul>
+See questions <B>What's the option "Slowing is cumulative"</B> and <b>
+What's the option Always allows one hex?</b> in the <A HREF="FAQ.html">FAQ</A>.
+<P>
+The last one would use always a predefined sequence of rolls for battle
+dice rolling. Probably only relevant for debugging purposes.
+
+<h3>Section "AI timing"</h3><p>
+Those values control how long an AI will pause after certain actions and how
+long time it may maximum take for certain steps (calculating what is the best move and so on).
+<hr>
+<h2>Variant README pane</h2>
+
+In the <b>Players</b> pane you can choose from a number of Variants, for
+which in this <b>Variant README</b> pane is then a description shown that
+tells what is different in this variant comparing to the standard Titan.
+
+<hr>
+<h2>Bottom area</h2>
+
+In the <B>Variant</B> section under the tabbed pane you can select which
+variant to play. There are several variants built-in, or alternatively
+you could load an external variant from local files on your
+computer. By default preselected variant is called <b>Default</b>
+which is corresponding to the original Titan board and creatures.
+
+<P>
+In the bottom (<b>Game Startup</B>) section are action buttons to start
+the game, load a previously saved game, run a network client (see <A
+HREF="network.html">Networked Colossus</A> for details), or Quit.
+
+</body>
+</html>
+
+
+
Modified: trunk/Colossus/docs/README.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/Colossus/docs/README.html 2007-04-20 19:24:49 UTC (rev 2659)
+++ trunk/Colossus/docs/README.html 2007-04-20 22:05:41 UTC (rev 2660)
@@ -105,15 +105,16 @@
each player's score, number of legion markers remaining, etc. And
there's a Caretaker window which tracks how many of each creature
remain in the stacks. (These are both optional: turn them on or off from
- the Graphics menu.)</p>
+ the Graphics menu. There are several other useful viewers windows in the
+ Graphics menu - try them!)</p>
<p>You can right-click (or control-click if you have a one-button mouse) on
- a legion to see its contents. (Unless you've selected
- <b>All stacks visible</b>
- on the Game menu, the contents of other players' legions are hidden,
- except for those creatures which have recently been revealed via fighting,
- recruiting, or teleporting). You can right-click on a hex to call up a
- menu, which lets you either see what you can recruit in that hex, or its
- battle map.</p>
+ a legion to see its contents - except if the setting <b>Viewable legion
+ content</b> in Game startup menu was changed from it's default setting
+ (more detailed <A HREF="GetPlayersOptions.html">option descriptions
+ here</A>).</p>
+ <P>You can right-click on a hex (empty hex,
+ or on that small free area beside a legion) to call up a menu, which lets
+ you either see what you can recruit in that hex, or its battle map.</p>
<h4>Splitting</h4>
<p>The active player first needs to split his initial 8-high legion.
You'll notice that the hex containing the active player's legion is
Modified: trunk/Colossus/docs/network.html
===================================================================
--- trunk/Colossus/docs/network.html 2007-04-20 19:24:49 UTC (rev 2659)
+++ trunk/Colossus/docs/network.html 2007-04-20 22:05:41 UTC (rev 2660)
@@ -9,26 +9,38 @@
<body>
<h2>Networked Colossus</h2>
<p>Colossus is now playable over a TCP/IP network. However, the network
- functionality is still not perfectly stable. And turn-based games are
- inherently brittle -- if one player stops moving or drops his
+ functionality is still not perfectly stable (it has improved a lot
+ recently, i.e. since beginning of 2007), and the setup of a networked
+ game is not overly easy-to-use or user-friendly. And turn-based games
+ are inherently brittle -- if one player stops moving or drops his
connection, then the game is ruined for everybody. (For now --
we'll add the ability to reconnect or have an AI take over later.)
So I recommend starting with 2-player games rather than 6-player
games.</p>
- <p>One person needs to run the server. Currently, Colossus servers are
- short-lived, staying up only for the length of one game.</p>
+ <p>One person needs to run the server; his computer has to be
+ reachable for the clients (see below). Currently, Colossus servers
+ are short-lived, staying up only for the length of one game.</p>
<p>The server operator simply starts the game as usual, using Java Web
- Start or the
- <b>run</b>script for a local copy. The startup dialog should appear,
- allowing you to set the variant, optional rules, and how many players
- of which types you want. Human players are local to the server machine.
- Network players are remote. The game will wait for *exactly* the number
- of network players you specify, then start the game. If you have a
- local copy of the game you can use command-line options instead. Use
- <b>run -h</b>to see them.</p>
+ Start or the <b>run</b> script for a local copy. The startup dialog
+ should appear, allowing you to set the variant, optional rules,
+ and how many players of which types you want. Human players are local
+ to the server machine. Network players are remote. Press the
+ "Start Game" button. The game will wait for *exactly* the number
+ of network players you specify, before the actual game starts and the
+ masterboard(s) appear.
+ If you have a local copy of the game you can use command-line options
+ instead. Use
+ <b>run -h</b> to see them.
+ </p>
+ <p>A server progress startup dialog (recently added, 2007) shows the
+ progress which clients (their IP and player name) have already
+ successfully connected. For practicing purposes, I recommend to start
+ with a server and one "remote" player, but running that network client
+ on the same machine.
<p>Each client needs to wait for the server to be started, then run the
- <b>runclient</b>script or start the game from Java Web Start and select
+ <b>runclient</b> script or start the game from Java Web Start and
+ select
"Run client" from the startup dialog. This will pop up a
small dialog that lets you enter a player name, hostname, and port. The
player name will default to your OS user name. The server host will
@@ -39,10 +51,8 @@
<b>runclient -h</b>to see them.</p>
<p>Once all the clients have connected, then the game should start up
like a normal Colossus game. When the game ends, kill all the clients
- and the server and restart from scratch if you want to play again.</p>
- <p>There is a simple chat client built in, but it's not very good.
- I recommend using your favorite IRC or instant messenger client
- instead.</p>
+ and the server and restart from scratch if you want to play again.
+ </p>
<h2>FAQ</h2>
<ul>
<li>How do I find opponents?
@@ -50,7 +60,8 @@
should update this document if someone starts a new one.</p></li>
<li>What about firewalls?
<p>The server accepts connections from clients on port 26567 (used
- for game traffic) and 26568 (used to serve files). Return traffic
+ for game traffic) and 26568 (used to serve files
+ [[is that still true??]]). Return traffic
is piggybacked on the same sockets rather than opening more. So
client machines only need the ability to connect out on those
ports, while server machines need a publicly visible IP address
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