lgc-pg — LGeneral Converter for Panzer General

Synopsis

lgc-pg -s <PG DATA DIR> -d <LGENERAL DIR> [--defpal] [--custom -n <NAME> [-i <ID>] [-t <TACICONS>]]"

Description

This manual page documents briefly the lgc-pg command. It was written for the Debian distribution and is based on an original documentation written by Michael Speck. The original program does not have a manual page.

lgc-pg is a program that converts data files from DOS-based game, Panzer General, to the LGeneral format.

Options

These programs follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (`-'). A summary of options is included below.
-s <SOURCE PATH>
You always need to specify the source directory (which contains the original data or a custom scenario).
-d <LGENERAL DIR>
Also the destination path that contains the LGeneral data struct is required. This will usually be /usr/share/games/lgeneral.
--defpal
This one is optional and forces all PG graphics to use the default palette. Usually you won't need this but if a custom scenario you converted offers some strange graphics it might be due to a corrupted palette and the default one may provide better results.
--custom
Add this option if you want to convert a custom scenario. If you do so you must also provide the next option:
-n <NAME>
This is the scenario's file name and default title.
-i <ID>
This is the XXX in the source gameXXX.scn. If you do not specify this option it defaults to 0.
-t <TACICONS>
If custom tactical icons are involved (scenario offers a TACICONS.SHP) this is the name of the graphical file. If this option is not provided it defaults to <NAME>.bmp.

Note that the conversion of a single scenario might be incomplete. You'll have to modify the title, description, authors, victory conditions (default: attacker must capture all victory hexes) and reinforcements (default: none). This single scenario file does also include the map and modified units.

Examples

1) Converts all data from CD-ROM
> lgc-pg -s /mnt/windows/DAT -d /usr/share/games/lgeneral

2) Converts a custom scenario
> lgc-pg -s /home/michael/newstuff/dunk -d /usr/share/games/lgeneral --custom -n Dunkirk -i 44

Troubleshooting

Lars Ekman discovered that you'll have to mount the cdrom with option 'check=r' so if you're distro uses another option as default and 'lgc-pg' doesn't work just try:
  > mount -o check=r /mnt/cdrom

NOTE: I read various notes in the iNet that this format explicitly requires Panzer General _DOS_ version so I guess the Win32 version won't work.

If anything works fine the converted data is immediately available on start of LGeneral. If not, one of us has made a mistake. Please blame the right person ;)

Author

This manual page was written by Lukasz Jachowicz <honey@debian.org>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others). It is based on the README file available with the LGC-PG.