## Frequently Asked Questions for Colossus

- Why does the game sometimes prompt me twice for recruits?

  Look closer. It's asking for the recruit and then for the recruiter(s). Do you want to recruit that cyclops with your other cyclops, or with your two gargoyles? If like most people you don't care, then turn on Auto pick recruiters and the computer will just pick one for you.

- Why is the angel X'd out in the summon dialog? I have one.

  Because you haven't selected the donor stack with the angel. When the Summon Angel dialog pops up, all of your unengaged legions with summonable creatures will be highlighted. Pick one, then click on the Summon button.

- How come I can see enemy units, but some have question marks over them?

  This is a demonstration of the AI's stack prediction algorithm. Using memory of creatures that it's seen, process of elimination, and some guesses about reasonable splits, it tries to figure out what's in enemy stacks. We'll add the ability to turn this off later, for those who want the extra challenge of doing it yourself.

- How to I make a legion spin around in a circle back to the original hex when I roll a 6?

  Just click on the chit twice.

- What does the Antialias option do?

  It makes the graphics a bit smoother (look closely at the hexside edges while you turn it on and off), but this takes some CPU cycles. I recommend turning it on if you have a fast computer and leaving it off if you have a slow computer.

- Why is the AI so dumb?

  Titan has a huge branching complexity. So brute force searching through all possible moves several turns ahead isn't possible.

- What's the difference between SimpleAI and CowardSimpleAI and A Random AI ?

  SimpleAI does a straightforward one-ply lookahead for MasterBoard moves. It works fairly well. CowardSimpleAI is the same code with some constants changed to make it less aggressive. A Random AI just chooses one of the available AIs at random -- this will be a more interesting option when there are more viable alternatives.

- What does the Load External Variant button do?

  It lets you load a variant that's somewhere else in the filesystem, not included in the game's jar file.

- Why, in the Caretaker's Stack, do some creatures have -- instead of a number ? Why, in the Caretaker's Stack, are some creatures not red-crossed when there are 0 left?

  Same reason: those creatures are "immortal", i.e. when they're killed on the batllefields, they're put back in the Caretaker's Stack and not in the Graveyard (for instance, in traditional Titan, they're Angel, Archangel, Warlock, Guardian and Titan).

- What's the option "Slowing is cumulative" ?

  In regular Titan, there's never two slowing reasons together (you don't find a bramble up a slope, for instance). In Variants this is possible, so we must decide what to do: do you need 2 (only one slow) or 3 (count them both) movement points to go to an up-slope bramble (assuming you're non-native) ? Without this option, 2. With this option, 3. We don't decide, you do :-)

- What's the option Always allows one hex ?

  This is necessary after introducing the aforementioned option Slowing is cumulative . What if a 2-skill creature wants to enter an up-slope bramble ? Without this option, it's impossible. With this option, any creature can enter any non-impassible hex as its first move (it will only move one hex), so our 2-skill creature can enter our up-slope bramble if it hasn't moved yet.

- How do I make Java Web Start stop upgrading my game to buggy new versions?

- Java Web Start is designed to auto-update without user intervention. This means that the only way to keep it from updating your game is to make sure you're not connected to the Internet when running the game.

  Another option is not using JWS at all. See the README for other ways to run the game.

  Someday when we have an actual stable released version, we'll make separate JWS links for the stable and bleeding-edge versions. We're not there yet.

- How can I help?

  Good bug reports are great.

  If you want to contribute code, make sure that you're starting from the latest source (so pull from CVS). Please read and follow the coding standards so your code is easier to merge. Join and send mail to the dev mailing list at SF so we know what you're up to. Beyond that, just code whatever you want and send patches when it works.