To address the above problems, we have defined an auxiliary command file format. In addition to PHost commands, this file can also contain any other auxiliary command data you want to write. On the downside, you need a modified Maketurn to actually send the commands to the host.

The auxiliary command file is called cmdX.txt, where X is the player number. It is a text file. Every line can be one of the following:

  • blank. Blank lines are ignored.
  • a comment. Lines whose first non-blank character is a # are ignored.
  • a command. These are sent to the host as command messages, unchanged.
  • a special command. These are commands which start with a $, which do something special.

The following special commands are defined so far:

  • $timestamp MM-DD-YYYYhh:mm:ss
    Timestamp marker. The file is stale and should be ignored if the parameter is not equal to the timestamp of the current turn. This command must be the first in the file if it is used. Supported by PCC 1.0.17, VPA 3.61 and Portable Maketurn.
  • $send-file NAME
    Generates a SendBack command containing a File Transfer record for the specified file. Supported by PCC 1.1.2 and VPA 3.61.
  • $thost-allies ee1ff2
    Generates a sequence of alliance commands for HOST. Supported by PCC 1.0.17 and Portable Maketurn.
  • $include NAME
    Include specified file. So far not supported by any implementation.

Every command shows what Maketurn supports the command as of March 2003. Feel free to support it in your client, and feel free to add more special commands if you wish. To avoid confusion, we recommend you to use this file format instead of inventing another incompatible one.

Example:

# Additional Commands
$time 04-14-199921:34:42
allies add 9
allies config 9 +c ~m

The first line is a comment. The second one tells us the turn this file belongs to. The third and forth line generate two allies commands.