SIMPER = Solium Infernum MultiPlayer hellpER
============================================

Is a little python console script intended to minimize drudgery 
of playing multiplayer "play by email" games of Solium Infernum 
(http://www.crypticcomet.com/games/SI/Solium_Infernum.html),
a game of war and intrigue in the underworld.  Buy that game!

I'm not in any way related to Cryptic Comet etc.. and if this
is somehow infringing on them, I'm super-sorry and will take 
this down.

A. What does SIMPER do?
=======================
SIMPER helps with multiplayer games which are hosted on dropbox
and depends on using the current community-standard folder setup:

\dropbox\GameName
                 \Turn 55              # or whatever the 
                                       # current turn 
                                       # happens to be
                           \GameNameMain.sav
                 \Old turns            # can also be 
                                       # named "Archive"
                           \Turn 1
                           \Turn 2     # etc.
            
1.  Alerts you when a new turn is available
2.  Alerts you when a player submitted their turn
3.  Copies your turn to the dropbox folder, archiving your 
    save in case you want to replay the turn.    
4.  Copies new turn to your SI multiplayer saves folder
5.  Get a list of the turns taken and outputs a report of 
    who has gone on the current turn
6.  Copies old turns and archives your turns with orders intact


B. What DOESN'T SIMPER do?
==============================
1. Absolutely everything except what appears in list A.  Maybe even more!
2. Handle invitation and setup of a new game
3. Manage things for the game host
4. Understand any of the files being moved around
5. Install or contain spyware/malware. 
   Don't take my word for it, please do review/fix my code

I'm thinking it would be nice to add 2 and 3.
Please don't attempt 4, that is sleazy; not to mention 5.


D. Requirements
===============

python 2.7.X (www.python.org)


E. How to use SIMPER
====================

Help:
> simper.py -h 

The way I am using this at the moment is to create a shortcut
to SIMPER with the proper command-line for each of my games:

eg. 
C:\Users\PURPORC\simper.py "C:\Users\PURPORC\dropbox\Dropbox" "C:\Users\PURPORC\Documents\SoliumInfernumGame\MultiPlayerSaves" "Game Dropbox Name" GameNameMain.sav "Old turns" PURPORC.trn

Once started, there are five commands:
's' statistics shows facts about the game turns (order of turns submitted, length of turns etc.)
'u' update (default action) copies the latest save to the SI save directory
'c' commit (copies) your latest turn file to the current turn's dropbox folder
'r' replay copies the save from a specified turn (prompted).  
    If there are archived saves locally, created by SIMPER when committing, 
    it brings those back instead because they also contain your orders.
'q' to quit


D. Helping
==========

This is on GitHub for a reason.

E. Licence
==========

Copyright (C) 2011  PURPORC

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.