Xconq - Glossary

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# Glossary

accident: A random event that damages or destroys a unit.

acp: See "action points".

action: A single thing that a unit can do. Examples include movement to an adjacent cell, detonation, and repair.

action points (acp): The basic number of actions available to a unit during the turn.

advance: A scientific or social improvement achieved by a side.

agreement: A treaty or deal made between players, consisting of a number of terms defining each player's part in the agreeement.

AI: See "Artificial Intelligence".

Artificial Intelligence (AI): A player that is run by code internal to Xconq.

altitude: the z-coordinate of a unit, relative to its cell's elevation.

area: A section of the world that you play on. An area may be a polygon, or a cylinder if it is large enough to go all the way around the world.

attack: An action where a unit attempts to damage another unit.

attrition: A gradual loss of a unit's hp, usually due to a harmful environment.

backdrop: The set of activities that proceeds independently of units and sides. Backdrop activities include material production, revolts, and attrition.

border: A special type of terrain that occurs between two cells.

border slide: A special kind of unit move that traverses a border rather than crossing it.

capture: An action in which a unit attempts to bring another unit over to its own side.

cell: A single location in an area, typically a hex or square shape.

class: See "side class".

closeup: A part of an interface that displays detailed information about a side or unit.

coating: A layer that temporarily modifies terrain, such as snow.

combat experience points (cxp): A property of a unit that indicates how much combat the unit has engaged in previously.

completeness points (cp): The degree to which a unit is ready to do things. Newly-created units usually fall short of completeness.

completion: An action that brings a given unit closer to being complete.

connection: A special type of terrain that negates the effects of cell and border terrain between two adjacent cells. Examples would be roads and canals.

construction: A general term referring to the combination of creation and completion actions that result in a usable unit.

consumption: The process by which units and terrain use up materials.

control: a) the ability of a side to direct a unit's activities, or b) a layer in the world indicating which side is in charge of each cell.

country: The initial region of a side's units.

coverage: A set of numbers representing the quality of a side's vision at each point in the world.

cp: See "completeness points".

cxp: See "combat experience points".

creation: An action by which a unit creates another unit. Creation actions can specify that the newly-created unit is to be at a given location or inside a given unit.

designer: A special kind of side/player that is permitted to examine and alter the entire state of the game directly, typically for the purpose of designing new games.

detach: An action by which a variable-size units splits into two units.

detonation: An action that results in hits on every unit near the detonation.

development: The process of acquiring sufficient technology to build or use a type of unit.

disband: An action that results in the orderly destruction of a unit.

doctrine: A set of flags and parameters that individual units of a side use to help decide what to do, typically to fill in details that are not specified explicitly by the units' orders.

economy: General term for the backdrop activities of material production, distribution, and consumption.

elevation: The height of a cell above some arbitrary point.

emblem: An iconic image used by interfaces to represent a side.

event: See "historical event".

extraction: A type of action, by which a unit gets a material from the terrain at a specific location.

feature: see "geographical feature".

game design: The set of type definitions and rules of a game, usually composed from several game modules.

Game Design Language (GDL): The language used to define Xconq games.

game module: A group of game-related definitions and information, not necessarily a complete game design.

geographical feature: A named region in the world.

goal: A state or situation that units and/or sides can plan to achieve.

grammar: A set of rules that define how a name or phrase will be constructed from letters and/or syllables.

hex: A cell in a world where each cell is adjacent to exactly six others.

historical event: A single occurrence of a unit action or other state change.

history: The record of historical events in a game.

hit points (hp): The amount of damage that a unit can sustain before it dies or is otherwise destroyed.

hp: See "hit points".

image: A visual icon or pattern used by interfaces to display units and terrain.

image family: A collection of images, of various sizes, orientations, colors, etc, all of which represent a single visual concept.

independent unit: A unit that does not belong to any side.

interface: The part of Xconq that manages interaction between players and the kernel. Interfaces draw maps, report action results, interpret mouse clicks, and so forth.

kernel: The part of Xconq that manages the action of the game itself.

layer: General name for a property that can have a distinct value for each cell in the world, such as terrain, elevation, and ambient temperature.

list: A linear list of units or sides displayed by an interface. (Not available in all interfaces.)

map: An interface's visual display of part or all of a world.

material: A quantity of a material type.

material type: A type of mass stuff, such as food or fuel.

meridians: Lines of latitude and longitude drawn on a map by an interface.

morale: How a unit feels about itself and its abilities.

move mode: An interaction mode in which keystrokes and mouse clicks direct units to do things, and the interface selects the next unit to which these commands will apply.

movement: An action in which a unit changes its location. The destination of movement may be either a cell or another unit.

movement points (mp): The basic amount of mobility available to a unit during a turn. This is basically `(speed * acp)`.

mp: See "movement points".

namer: An object that generates names using a naming method.

naming method: An algorithm for generating names.

occupant: A unit that is contained in another unit. See "transport".

pattern: A special kind of image that can be repeated many times in a regular fashion. Usually used to display terrain.

people: Special "material types" that are actually considered to represent groups of individuals.

plan: The information that a unit uses to decide what to do next. Both human-run and AI-run units have plans.

player: A participant in a game. Can be a human or a computer.

production: The process by which units and terrain make amounts of materials appear.

property: An attribute or value associated with a type or object, such as a unit type's speed or a side's name.

region: A set of cells in the world. It can be any size or shape.

repair: An action by which a unit adds to the hp of another unit.

research: The process by a side achieves an advance.

reserve: A unit's state, in which it does nothing for the remainder of the current turn, but acts normally during the next turn.

revolt: A random backdrop event in which a unit spontaneously changes to another side.

savefile: A special game module that contains an exact replica of a game in progress.

scorekeeper: An object that manages (part of) the standings of players in a game, and also handles recording of final scores.

self-unit: A unit that represents the whole side.

side: The representation of a single player within the game.

side class: A group of sides with common characteristics, often used to restrict the sides to which units can belong.

sleep: A unit's state, in which it does nothing at all.

speed: The ratio of movement points to action points.

spying: A backdrop process where units collect information about units on other sides.

stack: A group of units at the same location, none of which are inside another.

standing orders: A task that is attached to a set of conditions, such as location and/or unit type, and which is given to any unit satisfying the conditions.

supply: The materials being carried by a unit.

supply line: A path by which a unit can get supplies automatically from another unit.

surrender: A random backdrop event in which a unit spontaneously changes to the side of units that are nearby.

survey mode: An interaction mode in which keystrokes and mouse clicks change the focus or scrolling of a map, and the player selects which unit to move next.

synthesis method: An algorithm that can build part of the initial game setup, usually randomly.

table: A two-dimensional array of numbers that define some interaction between pairs of types. Tables may be indexed by unit types, material types, and terrain types, in various combinations.

task: A single element of a unit's plan. A task usually results in one or a few unit actions.

task agenda: A list of tasks that a unit plans to do.

tech level: An abstract number representing a side's ability to use and/or construct a type of unit.

terrain type: One of a set of possible terrains.

terrain subtype: The specific role played by a terrain type. Subtypes currently include open terrain, borders, connections, and coatings.

tooling points (tp): A unit's amount of preparation towards the construction of a particular unit type.

toolup: The action by which a unit increases its tooling points for some type.

tp: See "tooling points".

transfer: The process by which supplies/materials are moved from one unit or cell to another.

transport: A unit that may contain other units. See "occupant".

turn: A single cycle of unit actions and backdrop operation.

unit: A single distinct object, like a playing piece.

unit type: One of a set of possible types for the units in a game.

vanish: The process whereby a unit is removed entirely from the game.

variant: A predefined option by which players can alter a game before starting it.

view: A record of what a side has seen in the world.

vision: The mechanism by which a side's units collect and report information about the world and about other units.

world: The entire space within which units move around.

wreck: The process whereby a unit that loses all of its hp changes into another type of unit instead of disappearing.

zoc: See "zone of control".

zone of control (zoc): A region around which a unit can affect the behavior of other units.

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