* Version 0.55 (October 6 2001)

  Mike Ciul's <mike@seul.org> changes:

  - rocks don't slow weapons down anymore
  - changed rock icons. Now the rocks change shape
    slightly and passable rocks are broken in pieces. 
    This is a bit of a hack because all rocks have the same bitmask for collision tests. 
  - made animated power points flicker more subtly
  - got rid of archon_theme.c (Rob's compiled-in xpms)
  - big changes to field AI:
    slowed down reaction time at low difficulty using Ronen's algorithm
    Creatures always move relative to some target (the enemy or its weapon).
       Movement is calculated on two axes: chase/flee and dodge/shoot
       All directions are scored based on how they compare with the axes
       The highest-scoring unblocked movement is chosen
  - If a creature collides with a rock, it will be 'pushed' away from the 
    rock's center instead of simply appearing on an adjacent cell.
	
  Rob Rendell's <rendell@cs.monash.edu.au> 'Done' list:
	
  Note that many of Rob's changes affected the rules of field play.
  Ronen's original field rules were based on the PC version of the game, while
  Rob's were based on the C64 version.
	
  - implement mouse support

  - bug in imprison - if last enemy piece on board is not
    wizard/sorceress, it didn't target the correct square.

  - take out nasty hack in field.c for weapon_data, give weapons their own
    structs in the field struct.

  - fights should start with creatures offset by 1 in the y direction

  - simplify field_collision to 4 comparisons.

  - make iface_revive go straight to the target, rather than up to the top
    and then down to the target.

  - take out hard-coded OS timer resolution in main.c, calculate
    dynamically.  Account for the time executing code, as well as the
    time spent sleeping.

  - add double-kills and stalemates

  - immediately abort cloud weapons if their wielder dies

  - undefined keys for human control were automatically hit every frame!

  - Shapeshifter should take the health of an *undamaged* member of the
    enemy's type, but with the dark side's luminance bonus.

  - Elementals should be unaffected by the luminance cycle.

  - From screenshots of the original Archon running on the C64 emulator,
    measure creatures' health and weapon damage inflicted.

  - From screenshots of the original Archon running on the C64 emulator,
    the luminance cycle gives health bonuses of +0, +1, +3, +4, +6, +7
    as the cell goes from the opposite colour to the piece's own.

  - use emu to time recharging, bullet and movement speed.  Also, damage
    rate of phoenix and banshee.

  - move all the hard-coded duration and switch()-ed upon stuff into the
    ACTOR struct.  Things like the per-frame damage of cloud weapons,
    the fire delay, the duration of cloud and hand weapons, the speed
    in pixels per frame of creatures and attacks

  - make phoenix explosion build up in stages.

  - remove whole-square rounding in field mode

  - make diagonal-moving-of-ground-units a general property of diagonals
    on the board, and remove from mouse-specific code.

  - In original game, combatants could overlap.

  - collision detection is too coarse.  Bitmasks

  - if an image has no mask, it means it's rectangular.  Can still do
    mask testing on the other image.

  - make actor invisible if firing a ACTOR_IMMUNE_USER weapon

  - ensure that field actors don't start on rocks

  - have a lookup table with values multiplied by sqrt(2), used to slow
    diagonal movement down to the same as axial.

  - clouds should really be circular, rather than oval (oval in the
    original was from the distortion of vertical distances)

  - erase clouds that fall outside the field

  - change layout of human configure dialog - all directions & fire at once.

  - if a chosen key mapping in human configure dialog is already used,
    clear the old mapping to null.

  - wizard/sorceress teleport

  - unselect unit if it finishes in its starting location

  - change facing on light/dark to a separate bit

  - animated board cells: have some bits that can be set which give the #
    to & with frame_time to determine stepping

* Version 0.50 (December 3, 1999)

  - Fixed a small problem that would cause compilation errors for
    systems without a joystick.

  - If an imprisoned creature was defeated by another creature,
    the winning creature would become imprisoned itself.  Fixed.

  - Healing an empty cell no longer crashes the game.

  - Robert Paige Rendell <rendell@cs.monash.edu.au> brought to
    my attention the fact that the manpage is missing the
    information regarding how to win the game.  It's there now.

  - He also fixed a bug in the computer's spell selection logic
    regarding the imprisonment of the very last opposing creature
    (in order to win the game).

  - And last but not least, he is responsible for the mouse
    support, new in this version.

* Version 0.45 (October 12, 1999)

  - Fixed the bug that would occasionally cause a projectile weapon
    to miss its target player.

  - Added a new window with tips about getting started with the game.

* Version 0.44 (October 6, 1999)

  - Incorporated some joystick code, which was sent to me by
    Eric Sharkey <sharkey@ale.physics.sunysb.edu>.

* Version 0.43 (October 25, 1999)

  - Replaced the usage of "find -printf" with that of "ls -l | cut".
    Should be a lot more portable.

  - Shai updated the scores for the board computer, so it now
    plays better on the board (field play is the same as before).

* Version 0.42 (October 11, 1999)

  - New banshee graphics by Joerg, and he also scaled down the
    size of the basilisk a little bit.

  - With the intention of getting rid of the last few pieces of
    the old graphics, I copied the unicorn and golem into the
    manticore and troll, respectively (though I changed the
    colors a bit).

* Version 0.41 (October 9, 1999)

  - Fixed a bug in the way rocks were handled.

  - Dan sent me a fix for the sound code, which should make the
    segfault that some people were experiencing go away.

  - Shai sent me some improved AI code.

  - Daniel Burrows <Daniel_Burrows@brown.edu> sent me a patch,
    fixing the C++ compilation problems some people were having.

* Version 0.40 (October 5, 1999)

  - Made the logo screen reappear when the game is paused or has ended.

  - Shai Roitman <shairoi@ibm.net> sent me AI code for the board.
    This makes the computer play a lot better on the board.

  - Now keeping a little bit more statistics (for the AI board logic).

  - Dan Hursh <hursh@sparc.isl.net> sent me some sound stuff
    (code and data).

  - In networked games, the server sends the random number seed to
    the client, instead of both of them initializing it to 0.

  - Also fixed a bug in the client-side networking code, which caused
    the error "sendto: invalid argument" on some systems.

  - If pthreads is missing then game will still compile, only without
    networking support.  There is also a --disable-network
    configuration option to force exclusion of networking code.

  - Added some more rules to the computer field player, so now the
    hard skill level is harder, and the medium skill level is like
    the hard skill level of previous versions.

  - Changed the rate at which the phoenix and banshee cause damage to
    their opponent, and also improved the collision detection logic
    for their cloud weapon.  Hopefully, these two creatures will be
    a bit more useful.

  - Fine-grained the collision detection logic for the phoenix/banshee
    cloud weapon, making it somewhat more useful.

  - Deleting players in the Define Players window could mess up
    your ~/.xarchon, and then the game would die, and you wouldn't
    be able to restart it unless you deleted ~/.xarchon.  Fixed
    this evil bug.

  - With everything being slowed down, the troll and golem were moving
    at the same speed as everybody else.  Now they're slower again.

  - The slower speed could also cause some fast missiles to "pass
    through" creatures every now and then, without hitting them.
    This has also been fixed.

  - If you stopped the game (using F12 for instance) while the field
    epilog ("the x side wins") was displayed, and then start another
    game, then the first battle of the new game would end before it
    even begins.  Fixed this bug.

  - Like in the original ARCHON, now when the game changes from
    strategy to battle, the two opposing creatures slide into
    position.  At the end of the battle, the winner slides back
    to its position on the board.

  - New basilisk graphics by Joerg Osarek <joerg@osarek.de>.

* Version 0.31 (September 15, 1999)

  - Fixed a few typos in the manual page.

  - Fixed a bug that would allow the banshee to return to the board,
    as the winner, even after it actually lost in battle.

  - Modified the ground-unit distance-counting on the board.  Now
    it's different than how the original ARCHON has it, but it is
    more "correct."

  - Dan has finished replacing the entire light side (original)
    graphics with his own graphics.  Yay!

  - The configure process now verifies that the find command accepts
    the "-printf" option.  (Without it, "make install" fails.)

  - Now that there are some animations (in the elementals), I found
    that creatures would keep animating while blinkling (after
    getting hit).  Fixed this.

  - Previous version changed the format of the configuration file,
    and if you had an ~./xarchon from an earlier version, it would
    die.  Now I inserted a version check.

  - Slightly changed the way exchange behaves, so both creatures
    erase (row-by-row) the other creature beneath them.

* Version 0.30 (September 12, 1999)

  - X ARCHON has a new home page, located at http://xarchon.seul.org.
    It is hosted by the SEUL project (http://www.seul.org), whose
    goal is making Linux more user-friendly, and thus a better
    competitor in the desktop market, which is now dominated by
    The Evil One.

  - New graphics for the air- and fire-elemental by
    Mark Shoulson <mark@kli.org>.

  - Changed (again) the way the shapeshifter is cloned.  The cloned
    creature is now dimmer than its light-side opponent, and the
    blue flashes are gone.

  - Fixed a bug that would cause the game to crash if a new game
    was started when an elemental was fighting in the field.

  - Introduced short pauses while the computer is selecting a
    spell, so the other player can tell what's going on.

  - If any two adjacent non-diagonal direction keys are held down,
    the game now interprets this as their equivalent diagonal
    direction.  For instance, pressing 4+8 on the numeric keypad
    is the same as pressing 7.

  - In my never-ending quest for The Right Speed, this time I slowed
    down the cursor movement on the board, and creature movement in
    the field.

  - Fixed a bug that would not let you define new human players
    without also configuring them as computer players.

  - It is now possible to immediately terminate a game in progress,
    by pressing the F12 key.

  - Added network support.  It's isn't 100% perfect, but it works.
    The biggest flaw is that you cannot press Escape at all.
    If you need to get back to the menu--at the cost of ending
    the game--press F12.  Also, I only got to test the networking
    code against "localhost", so it might fail when a real
    network is involved.  ;-)

  - Finished the man page.  Yippie!  A nice side effect is that
    the "stuff" subdirectory is now gone.

  - Finally added the about box.

* Version 0.22 (August 31, 1999)

  - New graphics for the dark dragon (and its fiery breath) and
    the Shapeshifter by Matt.

  - Made the computer player realize it can't cast spells if its
    mage is imprisoned.

  - Fixed numerous bugs in the computer's spell decision code.

  - If the game would be over as a result of a field battle, the
    window would turn into a gray rectangle, and you couldn't see
    the board in its final state.  Fixed.

  - It is now possible to configure a human player to use the keys
    Return, Space and Right Control.

  - Slowed down the "fast" weapons a little bit, hopefully now the
    computer will kick everybody's ass a little less.  (It rhymes!)

  - Slightly changed the way teleport behaves when you teleport one
    creature on top of another, to make the defending creature
    visible throughout the entire teleport.

* Version 0.21 (August 29, 1999)

  - Added some titles to the Settings|Select Players window, and--
    more importantly--the ability to choose which side goes first.

  - Fixed the bug that kept the window icon from being set correctly.

  - Added a new module, theme.c, which handles all the theme stuff,
    and, in particular, the GUI parts.  This code was previously in
    actors.c, and has been moved in the hope of making actors.c more
    platform independant.

  - Fixed a typo in the description file of the `archon' theme
    (data/archon/NAMES) which made the game die if you tried to
    fight with the light wizard.

* Version 0.2 (August 28, 1999)

  - New graphics for the light wizard and light phoenix by Dan.

  - Easier computers (ie, higher values for skill level) will now
    play slower slower in the field.  In fact, the higher the skill
    value, the slower the computer will be.

  - Implemented a "configure" using autoconf and automake.  Also added
    a "make install" target.

  - Noticed that the computer scoring code did not pay attention to the
    luminance of the square when it was considering a battle.  Fixed.

  - Implemented a GTK-based GUI, using the excellent GUI builder,
    GLADE. No more recompilation to change simple game play options!

  - The game has been "theme"-ified.  (Although presently there is only
    a single theme.)

  - Introduced concept of "players."  Using the GUI, players and
    defined as human or computer, and then configured accordingly.
    Before starting a game, select a player for each side, and there
    you go.

  - Easier computers don't know how to shoot diagonlly anymore.  This
    is supposed to make them easier to beat.

  - Convert the computer statistics file into a text file, making it
    machine-independant.

* Version 0.1 (August 12, 1999)

  - I think that GUI matters aside (and assuming there are no bugs),
    the game is now complete.  It has all the stuff the original
    game has, with a fully functional computer player, which kicks
    serious butt when you play at a low enough skill level (try 2).

  - Changed the format of the statistics file.  In the *really*
    off chance that anyone has bothered to play a thousand games
    just to the computer, well...  :-)  But on the other hand,
    a new-format statistics file is provided.  See the README
    about installing it.

  - Changed the dark side's fire control from space to enter.

  - Improved board computer logic to know about power points.

  - Changed field computer logic to be a little less random.

  - Teleport and exchange could be cast on imprisoned creatures;
    this has been fixed.

  - Fixed a bug in shift-time that delayed recovery of imprisoned
    creatures in certain situations.

  - Noticed that when the phoenix/banshee activate their cloud,
    the game becomes somewhat slowed down (at least on my
    Pentium 60 system).  To fix this I need to re-write most of
    the stuff in canvas.c, something I don't want to do now
    (but maybe in the future).

  - Combined rock images into field background images to reduce
    the time it takes to display a frame.

  - Changed the way the shapeshifter is cloned.  Both creatures
    are now intended to look the same, except that blue color
    flashes periodically to remind you which one is the shapeshifter.

  - Implemented spell logic in the board computer.  It isn't
    extraordinary smart, but it gets the job done.

  - Changed names for elementals.  For instance, what was previously
    known as the "elem-air" is now known as the "air-elemental".

  - With all the changes in the field play call, the range of values
    the COMPUTER_FIELD_SKILL has grown.  The default setting is now
    30, for a not-so-challenging computer opponent.

* Version 0.08 (August 5, 1999)

  - New graphics by Dan:  everything on the light side, and the goblin
    on the dark side.
  
  - Swapped the keyboard controls for the light and dark sides.

  - Changed the computer's field movement logic to reduce the chance
    that it will run right into the other player's missile.

  - Fixed a few bugs in the computer's board logic, and now it seems
    to play a little less randomly.  (But you might need to play
    against it for a while before you notice that, because it bases
    its decisions on statistical data.)

* Version 0.07 (August 3, 1999)

  - Fixed all the "reply too short" situations.  (Hopefully...)

  - Incorporated some board logic into the computer player, in place
    of the old totally random behavior.  The new logic tries to make
    moves that begin a battle, but only if the computer will win that
    battle.  It guesses who wins by consulting statistics which are
    gathered when any battle is over.  Thus, after enough battles take
    place, the computer should make reasonable guesses.
    
    Actually, this is all in theory:  in practice, the computer still
    seems to play in a pretty random fashion.  This will be fixed
    in a later version.
    
  - Used Matt's new floor tiles.  These new tiles use far less colors
    than his previous ones (suitable for those of us who have a
    256-color display).

  - Removed some really useless stuff from the old/ directory.

* Version 0.06 (July 31, 1999)

  - Fixed a bug which caused an "Alarm clock" signal to prevent the
    game from starting.

  - Introduced a system for keeping track of the average damage
    creature [x] causes creature [y] (and vice versa) when playing
    at skill level [n] against opponent [o].  The idea is to have
    board computer consult this data when making a decision.
    
    These statistics are kept in a file called .xarchon.data which
    lives in the user's home directory.
