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The last map chosen by the player, locally. This is the map which will be used for a quick-start game, a local game, or a game started as a server.
How many steps a bot move will take. This means, once the bot has chosen a direction, in how many rounds it will go there. Probably a temporary parameter until clever bot behavior is implemented.
How many rounds a bot will wait before chosing a different destination. Probably a temporary parameter until clever bot behavior is implemented.
Defines the cursor potential at startup. Not really any reason to change it. Theorically, there could be maps where the default value doesn't fit, but none has been seen yet.
Defines how hard fighters will attack others, that is, in one attack, how many life-points the attacked fighter will loose. Increasing this will cause your opponents to melt faster when you attack them. With a low value, it will take ages to take on your opponents. Different styles of game. Can radically change the gameplay.
Defines how fast fighters will regenerate after an attack. When this parameter is set low, an attacked fighter, which is very dark and almost dead will take a very long time to regain energy. If the parameter is set high, it can almost instantaneously regain energy.
Defines how healthy fighters will be when they appear on the map. This can be either at the beginning of the game of when a fighter changes team. Setting this low will allow battefields to switch from one side to another very fast, for freshly gained fighters will be feeble and very likely to return to their original camp.
Defines the maximum cursor potential. Not really any reason to change it. Any high value should produce the same results. Low values might reveal algorithm bugs and inconsistencies.
Defines the maximum cursor potential offset. The idea is that in some cases, the potential of a cursor can increase in burst mode, for instance to make this cursor more important than others, so that fighters rally to it, neglecting other cursors (talking about a multi-cursor controlled team). This parameter is here to limit this burst effect and avoid bugs.
Allows you to give a maximum map height. When designing a map you might wonder: this is dumb I'm conceiving this map I know its height, why should I limit it? Now think of the play who plays on a old slowish computer with a tiny screen. He might redefine this himself, and does not necessarly wishes to fire Gimp to rescale the map.
Allows you to give a maximum map surface. Map surface is simply (width * height). This parameter is just here to save you the hassle of defining both 'max-map-width' and 'max-map-height' in a consistent manner.
Allows you to give a maximum map width. When designing a map you might wonder: this is dumb I'm conceiving this map I know its width, why should I limit it? Now think of the play who plays on a old slowish computer with a tiny screen. He might redefine this himself, and does not necessarly wishes to fire Gimp to rescale the map.
Defines the maximum number of teams who can enter the game. Really makes sense in network games. Default value should fit for most cases.
This is the companion value of 'round-delta'. Will put an absolute limit to the delta, which (what did you think?) is of course incremented in some cases by the core algorithm. If in doubt, don't touch.
Defines the maximum zone size, which is an internal and rather technical parameter. The idea is that to optimize things, Liquid War 6 divides the battlefield in squares, where it can, and tries to make these squares as big as possible, the idea being that everywhere in this square, fighters follow the same intructions. Just a technical optimization. The problem is that setting it too high will reveal the optimization and its tradeoffs to the player, who will see the fighter behave strangely, following invisible paths. Plus, it's ugly. Depending on your tastes (speed, look'n'feel) you'll prefer something nice or something fast. Note that anyways passed a certain value, this does not optimize anything anymore. In doubt, don't touch it.
Allows you to give a minimum map height. When designing a map you might wonder: this is dumb I'm conceiving this map I know its height, why should I limit it? Now think of the player who decided to play with highly-defined maps because he has a super calculator and a hudge screen. He might redefine this himself, and does not necessarly wishes to fire Gimp to rescale the map.
Allows you to give a minimum map surface. Map surface is simply (width * height). This parameter is just here to save you the hassle of defining both 'min-map-width' and 'min-map-height' in a consistent manner.
Allows you to give a minimum map width. When designing a map you might wonder: this is dumb I'm conceiving this map I know its width, why should I limit it? Now think of the player who decided to play with highly-defined maps because he has a super calculator and a hudge screen. He might redefine this himself, and does not necessarly wishes to fire Gimp to rescale the map.
Defines how many times fighters move per round. Increasing this will just make fighters move faster, but won't change anything for the rest, that is keyboard and mouse responsivity, and network traffic will stay the same. Multiplying the number of moves per round by the number of rounds per second will give the number of moves per second, which is, in fact, how fast fighters move on the screen.
Defines how many tries a fighter will do before giving-up attacking and choosing another behvior (defense). By tries we mean: how many directions it will try. Going North? Going North-West? Setting this to a low value will make fighters somewhat less aggressive. This idea is that they'll prefer to switch to the next option, that is, defense/regeneration, if there's no opponent right in front of them.
Defines how many tries a fighter will do before giving-up attacking and choosing another behavior (do nothing). By tries we mean: how many directions it will try. Going North? Going North-West? Setting this to a low value, you'll need a very compact pack of fighters for regeneration to operate, else fighters will hang arround unhealthy.
Defines how many tries a fighter will do before giving-up moving and choosing another behvior (attack or defense). By tries we mean: how many directions it will try. Going North? Going North-West? Setting this to a low value, your fighters will look very stubborn and always try to move in one direction, neglecting the fact that they could dodge. This can lead to queues of fighters and other strange behaviors. On the other hand, setting it too high will cause fighter to always avoid the enemy, and groups of fighters will just pass each other without any fight. Matter of taste.
Defines what to do when a team dies. If set to 0, team disappears forever, if set to 1, team reappears automatically with fresh fighters. It's a deathmatch mode, where the winner is not the one who stays alive the longest time, since it makes no real sens in this case, but the one who has died less often than others.
Conditions by how much the cursor potential will be incremented each time gradient is spreaded. Sounds cryptic? It is. The idea is that at each time you move your cursor of 1 pixel, theorically, you'll need in the worst case to move of 1 more pixel to reach any point on the map. Of course this is not true but this is the default asumption, and gradient spread will fix that. Only in Liquid War 6 this is not even the worst case, for you can control your cursor with the mouse and cross walls. Whenever you cross a wall, you might have done a great distance from the fighters' point of view, if the map is a maze. Thus this parameter, which corrects things, experience shows it does give acceptable results to increase the cursor potential by more than one at each turn. Toy arround with this if you find fighters take wrong paths on some given map. If in doubt, don't touch.
Defines the overall speed of the game. All other settings being equal, raising this value will cause the game to behave faster. Everything will be faster, except probably the display since your computer will calculate more game positions in a given time and spend more CPU time. It will also increase network traffic. Values between 10 and 50 really make sense.
Defines how hard fighters will attack sideways. It's an algorithm trick, fighters attack by default the opponent right in front, but if there's no fighter there, they will still try to attack someone else, maybe sideways. But doing this their attack is not as strong. This parameter enables you to tune this. This is a percentage.
Defines how fast fighters will regenerate, when being side by side instead of being right in front of the other. This is a percentage.
Defines the proportion of the whole available space, which will be occupied by an army at the beginning of the game. You can either imagine playing with almost empty maps, or play very crowded with almost no space left. This is not a percentage, it's in a per-thousand unit. 1000 means full packed, but since it makes no sense, it's forbidden.
Defines how many times the gradient is spread per round. Gradient spread is a very Liquid War 6 specific feature, just remember that the more often you do it, the more accurately fighters will move. That is, you will be sure they really take the shortest path. Usually this does not have much effect, the default value should fit in most cases, but you might want to decrease it on very simple maps where the gradient is obvious, or increase it on complex maps where you want fighters to be real smart.
Defines the proportion of the whole available space, which can be occupied by all the armies present together. Setting this low, whenever a new team arrives on the map, fighters might be stolen to other teams, otherwise the ame would get too crowded. This allows you to play with reasonnably enough fighters with 2 players, while still allowing interesting gameplay with many players. This is not a percentage, it's in a per-thousand unit. 1000 means full packed, but since it makes no sense, it's forbidden.
Defines the maximum time of the game, in seconds. Note that in some cases, the game can end much earlier if some player has managed to win before the bell rings. Also, technically, this value will be translated into rounds and moves, and the game engine will wait until enough rounds and moves have been played. So if the computer is too slow and the desired speed is not reached, then the game will last for a longer time.
Defines how the map will be wrapped on the X (horizontal) axis. If set to 0, nothing is wrapped. If set to 1, the right and left borders are connected, any fighter can disappear on the right border and reappear on the left border, for instance. If set to -1, it will be wrapped but also inversed, that is on a 320x240 map, a fighter disappearing on the left border at position (0,60) will reapper on the right border at position (319,180). You can combine it with 'y-polarity'.
Defines how the map will be wrapped on the Y (vertical) axis. If set to 0, nothing is wrapped. If set to 1, the top and bottom borders are connected, any fighter can disappear on the top border and reappear on the bottom border, for instance. If set to -1, it will be wrapped but also inversed, that is on a 320x240 map, a fighter disappearing on the bottom border at position (40,239) will reapper on the top border at position (280,0). You can combine it with 'x-polarity'.
Defines a color which will be used together with background-color-alternate-fg to draw things (animations, sprites, text, whatever) in the background. It should be different enough from background-color-alternate-fg so that one can really distinguish these colors. Will be automatically guessed from the map texture if background-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines a color which will be used to draw things (animations, sprites, text, whatever) in the background. It should be different enough from background-color-alternate-bg so that one can really distinguish these colors. Think of this as the sprite, the text, the whatever-needs-to-be-seen-uses-this color. Will be automatically guessed from the map texture if background-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines wether background colors should be set automatically from texture colors. If set to true, then the program will try to pick up colors automatically from the texture, and will override the values of the background-color-base-bg, background-color-base-fg, background-color-alternate-bg and background-color-alternate-fg parameters. How these colors are picked up can't be garanteed, so if the map does not have strong contrast or if there can be any form of ambiguity, it's safe to set this to false and define one's own colors.
Defines the main background color. This is, for instance, the color which will be used to clear the screen before drawing thing. Will be automatically guessed from the map texture if background-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines a color which will be used together with background-color-base-bg to compose the background. It can be wise to have a minimum contrast between this color and background-color-base-bg, but it is not mandatory, especially if other colors are manually redefined. Will be automatically guessed from the map texture if background-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Density of the background animation, that is, for instance, if the background animation is about displaying bubbles, using a high value will display many bubbles. A value of 1.0 corresponds to the default setting.
Speed of the background animation, that is, for instance, if the background animation is about displaying bubbles, using a high value will cause bubbles to move very fast. A value of 1.0 corresponds to the default setting.
The background defines, of course, what is displayed at the background, but it also conditions the colors used for other items, such as the menus for instance. Possible values include 'bubbles', 'air', 'fire', 'earth' and 'void'.
Defines how wide (in pixels) fighters must be. This parameter is very important and will largely condition the number of fighters on the map. It is used when loading the map. If it is, for instance, set to 1, there will be exactly a fighter per pixel on the screen. That is, if you play 640x480 on an empty map, the maximum fighters you could have is about 300000. The idea is that by changing the resolution, you also define the density of the map. In pratice, this is done in the hope that someone with a slow computer will pick up a low resolution and therefore play small levels. Conversely, someone with a brand new computer with powerfull CPU & GPU will use great resolutions and be happy with many fighters on the map. Still, changing the resolution after loading the map will not affet the number of fighters. Same for network games, the first player, who loads the map, defines its properties according to its own settings.
Defines wether hud colors will be set automatically from background colors. This is a time saver to keep map designers from requiring to redefined every single color in the game. You only need to set background-color-base-bg, background-color-base-fg, background-color-alternate-bg and background-color-alternate-fg. Then hud_color_frame_bg, hud_color_frame_fg, hud_color_text_bg and hud_color_text_fg will be automatically set.
Defines the background color for the hud frame. Ignored if hud-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines the foreground color for the hud frame. Ignored if hud-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines the background color for hud text. Ignored if hud-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines the foreground color for hud text. Ignored if hud-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
The hud is where informations about the game are displayed. This means, who is winning, are other status-like informations. Possible values include 'floating' and 'tactical'.
Defines wether the map should keep its ratio, or if it should be stretched to fill the shape of your screen.
Defines wether menu colors will be set automatically from background colors. This is a time saver to keep map designers from requiring to redefined every single color in the game. You only need to set background-color-base-bg, background-color-base-fg, background-color-alternate-bg and background-color-alternate-fg. Then menu_color_default_bg, menu_color_default_fg, menu_color_selected_bg, menu_color_selected_fg, menu_color_disabled_bg and menu_color_disabled_fg will be automatically set.
Defines the default background color for menus. Ignored if menu-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines the default foreground color for menus. In fact, this is the main color for menu text, the color used to draw letters in menus. Ignored if menu-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines the background color for a disabled menu item. Ignored if menu-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines the foreground color for a disabled menu item. Ignored if menu-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines the background color for a selected menu item. Ignored if menu-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines the foreground color for a selected menu item. Ignored if menu-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
The menu style is simply the name of the engine used to power the menu system. The only possible value, for now, is 'cylinder'.
Defines wether system colors will be set automatically from background colors. This is a time saver to keep map designers from requiring to redefined every single color in the game. You only need to set background-color-base-bg, background-color-base-fg, background-color-alternate-bg and background-color-alternate-fg. Then system_color_bg and system_color_fg will be automatically set.
Defines the system background color, used when displaying system info, such as the number of frames per second. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines the system foreground color, used when displaying system info, such as the number of frames per second. This will typically be text color. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines the color for the blue team. Syntax is HTML-like, #RGB or #RRGGBB.
Defines the color for the cyan team. Syntax is HTML-like, #RGB or #RRGGBB.
Defines the color for the green team. Syntax is HTML-like, #RGB or #RRGGBB.
Defines the color for the light blue team. Syntax is HTML-like, #RGB or #RRGGBB.
Defines the color for the magenta team. Syntax is HTML-like, #RGB or #RRGGBB.
Defines the color for the orange team. Syntax is HTML-like, #RGB or #RRGGBB.
Defines the color for the pink team. Syntax is HTML-like, #RGB or #RRGGBB.
Defines the color for the purple team. Syntax is HTML-like, #RGB or #RRGGBB.
Defines the color for the red team. Syntax is HTML-like, #RGB or #RRGGBB.
Defines the color for the yellow team. Syntax is HTML-like, #RGB or #RRGGBB.
Defines wether the map texture should be used. Of course if there's no map texture, the texture... won't be used. But if there is one, this parameter will force the game to ignore it and play with solid colors. This probably won't look as nice as the textured map in most cases, but some players might find it more readable and confortable to play when throwing eye candy away.
Defines wether view colors will be set automatically from background colors. This is a time saver to keep map designers from requiring to redefined every single color in the game. You only need to set background-color-base-bg, background-color-base-fg, background-color-alternate-bg and background-color-alternate-fg. Then view_color_cursor_bg, view_color_cursor_fg, view_color_map_bg and view_color_map_fg will be automatically set.
Defines the background cursor color. Will typically be used to draw the shape of the cursor. Ignored if view-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines the foreground cursor color. Will typically be used to draw text in the cursor. Ignored if view-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines the background map color. If there's no map texture defined or if use-texture is false, this is the color of the places where armies will go. Ignored if view-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
Defines the foreground map color. If there's no map texture defined or if use-texture is false, this is the color of walls, what armies can't go through. Ignored if view-color-auto is set. Can be #RGB, #RGBA, #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA.
The view style conditions which renderer is used for the map, the area where fighters are displayed. This is not the graphics backend. Indeed, the graphics backend defines which technical tool one uses (which library) one runs, wether this parameter says what kind of rendering one wants.