Usenet 1994 October/usenetsourcesnewsgroupsinfomagicoctober1994disk2.iso/games/volume13/dominion/part01/README

Text File | 1992-02-11 | 11KB | 247 lines

WHAT IS THIS?
-------------

This is release of Dominion (version 1.06), a world simulation and
conquest game.  Dominion runs on every version of UNIX on which we
have tested it.

The dominion source code is available by anonymous ftp on
max.physics.sunysb.edu [129.49.21.100], in the directory
pub/dominion-version.  For example, to get version 1.06 you would
type:

    ftp -i max.physics.sunysb.edu        (or ftp -i 129.49.21.100)
    <log in as "anonymous", with any password you want>
    cd pub/dominion-1.06
    ls
    binary
    mget DOM*

The files you will retrieve are "shell archives", so after
uncompressing, you un-bundle them with the Bourne shell.

Send bug reports to:
    [e-mail]

Send flames to /dev/tty :-).

Don't forget that this is copylefted free software.  Read the file COPYING.


HOW DO YOU COMPILE DOMINION?
----------------------------

Once you have unpacked all the files, you might be lucky and just be
able to type "make all" and "make new-world".  Even better would be
"gmake" and "gmake new-world" if you have GNU Make.  If not:

You should browse the Makefile, and modify the top part of it.  There are
some customization options:

0.  if you don't have GNU make, remove the 2 lines that refer to RCS.
    otherwise, you can always type "make" with some target, such
    as "make all" or "make install" or "make new-world".

1.  if you have Berkeley UNIX, or sunOS, you should put -DBSD in the
    CFLAGS, rather than -DSYSV.  We have noticed that on mach (NeXT)
    and ULTRIX (VAX, DEC 5000) we need -DBSD, whereas AIX and System V
    will compile with -DSYSV.

2.  you should also set the LIBDIR (essential), THIS_GAME_LIBDIR
    (typically equal to LIBDIR), and BINDIR (not so essential).  You
    should also set the DEBUGFLAGS to "-O" if you want your compiler to
    optimize.  when dominion is shipped, the "-g" flag is specified.

3.  get the name of a basic mail program on your system, and set the
    Makefile variable DEFAULT_MAIL to be that.  This can be overruled
    with the DOMINION_MAIL environment variable, or in the dominion
    [O]ptions menu.

4.  do the same as step 3, with a basic visual editor:  the Makefile
    variable DEFAULT_EDITOR should be the editor most people
    use.  This can be overruled with the VISUAL environment variable,
    or in the dominion [O]ptions menu.

5.  There are some other Makefile variables that you might want to
    change, though they are not essential.  Some of the things we
    have in the Makefile are for software development.

    If you do not have LaTeXinfo, or you just want to use the manual
    as we shipt it, you should comment out the lines that generate
    dominion-man.info.  If you have LaTeXinfo, then you should set
    EMACS to be the name of GNU emacs on your system, and
    LTI_START to the name of the file with your LaTeXinfo lisp
    code.

    There is a newsgroup in which general things are posted.  This is
    called "News" by default, but it can be changed with the NEWS_GROUP
    variable in Makefile.

6.  Run "make all", and it will make 5 programs:
      "dom_make", "dom_add", "dominion", "dom_update" and "dom_print".

7.  Make sure that the file "dominion.info" is there.  We provide
    a copy of it with the distribution, in case you don't have the
    emacs lisp code needed to generate this file from "dominion.tex".
    This emacs lisp code comes with the LaTeXinfo package.

8.  Run "make new-world" to make a new world, then run "dom_add" to add
    a nation, then run "dominion" to play that nation, and
    "dom_update" to update the world after you run a turn etc...  It
    is convenient to run "make new-world" instead of manually typing
    "dom_make", since "make new-world" will copy all the relevant files
    to the LIBDIR.

9.  If you want to play with NPCs (nations run by the computer),
    type "dom_add -f npcs", where "npcs" is the name of the file
    with all information on these Non Player Countries.  From version
    1.05 on, the computer playes a pretty good game for the NPCs:
    they will definitely be a challenge!!  If you want to put in
    your own file for NPCs, just copy it to $LIBDIR/misc.

    The "npcs" file we distribute has 26 NPCs in it.  If you are
    running a small world, you might want to comment some of them
    out: do so by editing the file $LIBDIR/misc/npcs putting a '#'
    at the beginning of the line for each NPC you don't want.

10. If you don't like some of the hard-coded parameters, you can
    change them by editing the "dominion.h" and "costs.h" files.
    Other parameters are defined in "techno_levels", "army_types",
    "spirit_types", "npcs", and any file that starts with "mag_".
    If you change "dominion.h" or "costs.h", re-compile.  If you
    have modified the other files, just run "make lib-files".

11. To make a hardcopy of the manual dominion.tex, you must run LaTeX
    with the LaTeXinfo document style.  If you do not have this, you
    can get a copy of the two files "latexinfo.sty" and "tabular.sty"
    by anonymous ftp from
        max.physics.sunysb.edu [129.49.21.100]
    in the directory pub/dominion.  If you don't want to bother running
    LaTeX, you can find (in the same ftp directory) the files
    dominion.dvi.Z and dominion.PS.Z, and if you need it we can provide
    files ready for other laser printers.

12. We also supply a Game Master manual in the file "gm.tex".  This is
    formatted with ordinary LaTeX, and you can just use latex to format
    it and print it out.  This manual is just an initial sketch.

WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?
---------------------

This is a world simulation game developed by students at SUNY at Stony
Brook.  The intention is to write a game which offers the role playing
potential and complexity of relations found in conquer (written by Ed
Barlow, then picked up by Adam Bryant).  The plan is to extend the
game by offering general descriptions of many features (such as races,
magic spells, armies, spirits and technology powers).  For example,
the races of the world are not limited to 4 hard-coded races, but are
described in a file which can be modified at any point in the game by
the Game Master.  The same goes for army and spirit types.

Dominion is *not* another version of conquer; things work quite
differently, and we have *never* looked at the conquer source.  Still,
we acknowledge this most creative game which gave us our inspiration.
In September 1990, the author of conquer version 5 has heard of many
of the features of dominion, and has included them in conquer version
5.  He has acknowledged that these ideas come from Dominion.

The Game Master is given a nation, but this nation is sort of
"fragile", since it has no sectors, and such stuff.  We will make it
more solid, but meanwhile it is to be used mostly for its [E] command,
which allows the Game Master (who logs into the game as "Gamemaster")
to change the properties of a sector or of a nation.

Dominion development started in the spring of 1990, when we were
running a game of conquer at Stony Brook.  After the data file kept
crashing, and a whole lot of inconsistencies were discovered, and we
found that the source was too complex to be fixed, we decided to write
our own replacement.  Ed Barlow did a great job with conquer, and it
is a great game, but it was his first C program, and people who added
to it kept the endless case statements, and the special cases, and
worked on new features rather than re-writing.  The original name of
Dominion was Stony Brook World (sbw), but it has been named Dominion
since version 1.02.

One goal of dominion is that the ruler of a nation should always have
many choices available on how to invest resources, each one presenting
strong but distinct advantages.  Conquer contains both a good and a
bad example of this: you can invest metal in cities, ships or armies.
Either way you get advantages, and you have to choose.  On the other
hand, jewels are really not used for much else than getting magic
powers.  You can also use them to support monsters, but that is a
different order of magnitude, and few players get the monsters.  In
dominion, there should be several decisions you can make to invest all
your resources.

Kevin Hart has been working on the NPC code which allows the computer
to play various nations.  Starting with version 1.05, the
computer-played NPCs have begun posing a real challenge in the game.


ABOUT THE DEVELOPERS
--------------------

People who have written code or documentation so far are:

Mark Galassi ([e-mail])
Mike Fischer ([e-mail])
Doug Novellano ([e-mail])
Keith Messing ([e-mail])
Alan Saporta ([e-mail])
Joanne Rosenshein ([e-mail])
Stephen Bae ([e-mail])
Chris Coligado ([e-mail])
Stephen Underwood ([e-mail])
Kevin Hart ([e-mail])
C. Titus Brown ([e-mail])
Charles Ofria ([e-mail])

We keep in touch electronically and meeting in the Stony Brook
Institute for Theoretical Physics.  We also meet once a week for 1
hour, and some times have parties on Saturdays.  The tuesday meetings
are strictly for discussing code, the saturday parties are for
fantasizing about what we would like to do.

There is also a creative team of D&D and war-game players who are
giving suggestions on how magic, technology and battle should work.
We also hope to use some simple econometric models to calculate
parameters of the economy.


ABOUT THE CODE
--------------

There are 5 programs: dom_make, dom_add, dominion dom_update and
dom_print.  These all share some files, such as misc.c, nation.c and
file.c.

It would be nice to get, some day, some real graphical interfaces for
widely available personal computers (Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh, IBM
PC) and windowing systems such as X and NeWS.  But for now we only
have the curses interface, and this is supported as the common
denominator.  There exist, of course, curses implementations for all
sorts of personal computers.


ABOUT SUPPORT AND MAINTAINANCE
------------------------------

We will definitely try to fix any bugs that are reported.  When
reporting a bug you should mention on which version of UNIX you found
it, and be precise.  A fix would be nice.

As for new ideas, we intend to move slowly in that area because
accepting innovations indiscriminately can be harmful in the long run.
Any idea which does not make the game more complicated is welcome, and
will be considered.  If you make your own modifications to the game,
remember to do so in accordance with the GNU General Public Licence
(see the file COPYING).


WHAT HAS BEEN DONE SO FAR?
--------------------------

We feel that the game is complete as it is, though lots of things
could be improved.  There is a file called TASKS with a list of
jobs for the enterprising hacker who wants to help with Dominion.