[Xconq-general] New File Release: xconq-7.5.0-0pre.0.20050416

[Eric M. <mcd...@ph...>]

The new file release has finally arrived. Some significant, tangible AI 
improvements have been made. More can still be done, but this new file 
release is definitely recommended for download. The download can be 
found here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=124062&package_id=135573&release_id=320851 


In particular, the following AI improvements have been made:
(1) AI-controlled Fighters don"t crash as often in the Default game. 
This is due to a economy bug being fixed.
(2) The AI is somewhat better at using transports. There is still a lot 
to be desired, but some progress has been made. In particular:
(a) Transports which are headed for a destination don"t keep coming back 
to pick up one more unit.
(b) Transports are more likely to keep going where one of their occs 
told them to go. (This could still use improvement.)
(3) Unit construction choices are much more spread around. This is 
noticeable in a number of games, including the Default game.
(4) Colonizers don"t mill around aimlessly anymore. They find a spot 
that they want to build at, and go for it. This is most noticeable in 
the Advances and Civ II games. (There is still a problem with colonizers 
initially grabbing spots that are too close together on the first turn. 
That can be fixed, but hasn't yet.) Colonizers also will explore, and 
colonize if they find a good spot during exploration.
(5) There has been a tremendous speedup in AI performance for most 
games. This is extremely noticeable in Korea 2006, for example. Opal is 
still somewhat slow, but much quicker than before.
(6) The problem with naval units being produced in land-locked cities 
has now been fixed for all games.
(7) The AI recognizes manual change-type actions and will schedule them 
if an unit can change type to a better unit type. "Better" is, of 
course, subjective....

Some bugs also have been squashed. In particular, thanks to Matthew 
Skala for fixing a crashing bug with image scaling.

Thanks to Elijah Meeks for contributing some new code that allows side 
treasuries to be modified on capture or defeat of an unit, combat 
experience to be gained for defeating an unit, and attacks to carry an 
explosive punch. Also, thanks to Elijah for updates to his family of games.

Note to Windows users: The program with "SETUP" in all uppercase letters 
and ending in ".exe" is an installer program which will install Xconq on 
your computer.

Note to people installing from RPM packages: The 'common' package is a 
prerequisite to the other packages; it contains parts of Xconq in common 
to the interfaces, such as documentation and the games library.
You must have this package in order to install one of the interface 
packages. The interface packages are: 'tcltk', 'sdl', and 'curses'.
You will need to install at least one of them to actually play Xconq.