GNU motti

• License: Motti is under GNU GPL.
• Invocation: Starting the game.
• Gameplay: How to play.
• Rules: Game rules.
• Problems: Reporting bugs.

1 License

GNU motti is distributed under the GNU General Public License http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html.

Copyright © 2005, 2006,2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.

2 Invocation

Motti provides flexible means to open game displays over network to remote X displays, and to generate maps.

• Map selection: Loading or selecting a map.
• Player selection: Setting local and remote players.

2.1 Map selection

Motti reads the name of the map file from as its first non-option argument. If no map name is given, motti lists maps availabe in its system-wide map directory. If a map name is given, motti searches for it first from the current directory, then from $(prefix)/share/games/motti/.

-o FILE

--output=FILE

Save the game map to file FILE. Useful for saving generated maps or maps with a reduced number of players. This is not a save game option, since this option takes effect only before the actual game start.

If the string `generate' is given as the map name, motti generates a map instead of loading one. The map generation can be controlled with the following options:

-d FLOAT

--distance-min=FLOAT

The minimun distance of capitals from each other. Default: 8.0.

-g FLOAT

--granularity=FLOAT

Plasma granularity. Larger values create a more scattered terrain. Default: 0.3.

-h ROWS

--heigth ROWS

Map heigth. Default: 15.

-m FLOAT

--plasma-min=FLOAT

Minimum value of plasma template value range. Default: 0.0.

-M FLOAT

--plasma-max=FLOAT

Maximum value of plasma template value range. Default: 0.3.

-r FLOAT

--randomness=FLOAT

Amount of randomness added to each cell. Default: 0.2.

-t FLOAT

--threshold=FLOAT

Each cell is calculated a value for it, roughly the inverse of the distance from all capitals summed minus the value of plasma cloud at this location plus a random number between 0 and the amount of randomness. Any cells having a greater value than this threshold are made land. Default: 0.15.

-w COLS

--width=COLS

Map width. Default: 20.

2.2 Player selection

The non-option arguments after the map are player strings, which define host names to open X windows to. The string is of form `1,2,...n:display'. That is, a comma-separated list of players associated with this display, a colon, and the display name. As a special case player number 0 opens a connection without players, for observing. Any players left unspecified with player strings will be associated with the default X display (usually local host).

-c

--curses

Use the console interface for any unspecified players, instead of the X interface.

-p PLAYERS

--players=PLAYERS

The number of players used for map generation. Can also be used to reduce the number of players for other maps. The disabled players are taken from the remaining local players.

3 Gameplay

X interface

The game window has four windows on top. The leftmost one is the attack button, which also keeps count of the amount of remaining attacks. Next to that are the defend and guerilla buttons. They are inversed whenever that action is impossible. The rightmost window is combined turn and cross amount indicator. It shows the amount of crosses left to place to the map, and the background color indicates whose turn it is.

With default mouse settings, left mouse button marks crosses at the map area to dark (unoccupied) cells of the current player, and dark other players' cells, which are adjacent to a bright (occupied) cells of the current player. Middle button changes the default action (marked by a bold border around the selected button) and right mouse button performs that action.

Closing the game window defeats automatically all the players associated with this connection.

Curses console interface

The screen is divided to two parts, a statusline on top and the game map on below. The cursor is moved with the cursor keys, or vi's `hjkl' keys. Actions are done with keys <z>, <x> and <c>, for attack, defend and guerilla, respectively.

Key <q> quits.

4 Rules

Motti is a game for two or more players. Each player has a capital and other areas. All areas are square. An area can be either occupied or unoccupied.

The gameplay is turn-based.

Each player does on a turn one of three things:

Attack

The player in turn marks six areas which to conquer. The areas have to be unconquered and either be on player's own area, or squarely adjacent a square, which is owned by the player in turn and is occupied. The game picks one area randomly, and it becomes occupied, and owned by the player in turn. The player can make six attacks per turn. If there are less than six areas marked for attack, an attack can fail.

Defend

The player in turn marks three unoccupied squares which are on an own territory and are unoccupied. These squares become occupied.

Guerilla Attack

The player marks one square. The square must be unoccupied, on the player's own territory or squarely or diagonally adjacent to a square, which is owned by the player in turn and is occupied. The selected square becomes occupied and owned by the player in turn.

If an area becomes encircled, so that there's no connection through the player's areas and other players' unoccupied areas to the player's capital, becomes the area unoccupied, and controlled by the encircling player/players.

If the capital of a player is conquered by another player, all the areas of the defeated player are considered to be encircled and are divided as if they were encircled.

When there are no such areas left, that can be conquered by other players, all areas become unoccupied again.

The game ends when there's only one player left.

5 Problems

E-mail about any bugs, suggestions, comments, etc. about motti to address bug-motti@gnu.org.

If you have problems initiating a net game, make sure you are authenticated to access the remote display, for example with xhost.

Motti's author is Kari Pahula kari@lyseo.kotka.fi. Motti's maintainer is Sebastien DIAZ sebastien.diaz@gmail.com