Appendix A Glossary Some of the concepts below are only relevant to certain interfaces, but are sufficiently frequent to warrant inclusion; they are identified as interface-specific. accident: 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. agreement: 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: 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. border: A special type of terrain that occurs between two cells. border slide: A special kind of unit move that traverses a border. cell: A single location in the world, typically a hex or square. 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. completeness points (cp): The degree to which a unit is ready to do things. Newly-created units usually fall short of completeness. completion: A type of 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. country: The initial region of a side’s units. coverage: A set of numbers representing the quality of a side’s general or specialized vision at each point in the world. cp: See completeness 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. detonation: An action that results in hits on every unit near the detonation. 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, in the absence of explicit orders from the player. elevation: The height of a cell. emblem: An iconic image used by interfaces to display a side. event: a historical occurrence. 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. grammar: hex: A cell in a world where each cell is adjacent to exactly six others. history: The record of 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. independent unit: A unit that does not belong to any side. interface: The software that manages interaction between a player and the kernel. kernel: The part of Xconq that manages the action of a the game itself. list: A linear list of units or sides (interface). map: A visual display of part or all of a world (interface). material: A quantity of a material type. material type: movement: A type of 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. 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 individuals. plan: The information that a unit uses to decide what to do next. player: A participant in a game. Can be a human or a computer. production: The process by which units and terrain make materials appear. region: A set of cells in the world. It can be any size or shape. 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. specialized vision: A kind of vision with different characteristics than normal vision. speed: The number of movement points that a unit gets each turn. spying: stack: A group of units at the same location, none of which are inside another. supply: The materials being carried by a unit. supply line: A path by which a unit can get supplies automatically from another unit. 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. 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. 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 badly-damaged unit is removed entirely from the game. variant: A predefined option for players to alter a game before starting it. 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 badly-damaged unit changes into another type of unit. zone of control (ZOC): A region around which a unit can affect the behavior of other units.

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