Four wins

Four wins is a game for two player. Each player is represented by a colour (yellow and red). The goal of the game is to get four connected pieces of your colour into a row, column or any diagonal. This is done by placing one of your pieces into any of the seven columns. A piece will begin to fill a column from the bottom, i.e. it will fall down until it reaches the ground level or another stone. After a move is done it is the turn of the other player. This is repeated until the game is over, i.e. one of the players has four pieces in a row, column or diagonal or no more moves are possbile because the board is filled.

The board

The board is separated into three regions.

• The game board:
  It is constructed out of 7x6 fields which will be filled from bottom to top. The fields are marked in the colour of the player who made the current move.
  On top of each column a coloured arrow shows were the last piece had been put.
  
• The status display:
  The status display shows which player colour starts and which colour is played by whom (player,computer,remote connection). It further shows the level of the computer opponent, the number of moves done as well as the computer calculated chance of winning. This chance is calculated only if the computer opponent makes a move. A positive number means that the player has an advantage, a negative number means that the computer thinks he is better.
  
• The table display:
  Here the number of won, lost and drawn games is noted for both player. Also the number of aborted games (Brk) and the sum of games is shown.
  

The File menu

• New game
  Start a new game.
  
• End Game
  Immediately end a game. This will raise the break counter in the statistics by one.
  
• Statistics
  Show the all time statistic of all games. This will be saved, but can be cleared in this menu as well.
  
• Send remote message...:
  Opens a dialog window which lets you send a message to a remote player.
  
• Hint
  The computer will calculate the best possible move and mark it with a small circle on the board. How good the move is depends on the level of the computer.
  
• Exit
  Exit the program and save all statistical data
  

The Edit menu

• Undo move
  Undo the last move. If the previous player is played by the computer two moves are taken back so that it is the player's turn again.
  
• Redo move
  Replay a move which had been undone.
  

The View menu

• Show statusbar
  Displays the status bar
  

The Options menu

• Startcolour
  Determines which colour has the first move.
  
• Yellow played by
  Choose here who shall play for the yellow side. This can either be the local player, the computer or a remote player. Connecting to a remote host will pop up a conenction dialog which is explained later.
  During game only the player who is not moving can be changed.
  
• Red played by
  This is analogous to the yellow side. It is possible that there are two local players just as the computer can take both local players. Only one remote player is possible though. If the client does not choose one remote player they will be asked as soon as a connection is built. It does not matter what colour the remote side chooses. If both remote parties choose to play the same colour the computer will handle this and transform the other players colour appropriately!
  
• Level
  The level determines who well the computr plays. A higher level makes the computer play better but think longer. For levels larger than 5 or 6 you need a fast computer!
  
• Change Names
  Change the names of the two players. The names will be saved and reloaded in the next game!
  
• Network server
  If this menu item is selected your computer tries to behave as game network server. This is of course only of any importance if you are doing a network game. Only the computer acting as server will be able to start a new game or transfer a started game to the client's side.
  If both computers want to be server or none of them it is randomly selected.
  

The Help menu

This menu displays the help text as well as information about the program and the operation system.

Remote connections

It is possible to play the game over a network connection with another computer. To do so both player on both computers have to select one colour played by a human player and the other by the remote player. Who chooses which colour does not matter. It even does not matter if both choose to play the same colour as this will transparentely be interchanged by the game.

One of the computers will act as game server. Only this one can start a nbew network game. Also all its game data will be transfered to the client computer. This includes games already in play - this means a remote player can join a game already begun. Who will be server can be selected by the network server menu item in the options menu. If both choose to be server or client the game randomly selects one.

When a network connection is build you are ask to enter a remote host and a port. The port can usually just been left untouched. But if you now what you do replace it by another number, which has to be the same in both player games of course. The hostname should be the name of the remote host to which you are connecting. Only one of the two players has to supply a hostname, the other one need not to, but can.

© 1995-2000 Martin Heni (martin@heni-online.de)