upgrade AS and gradle and with luck travis will work

.travis.yml

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ android:
   components:
   - tools
   - platform-tools
-  - build-tools-23.0.3
+  - build-tools-27.0.3
   - android-23
 before_script:
 - export TERM=dumb

xwords4/android/app/build.gradle

@@ -27,7 +27,9 @@ repositories {
 }
 
 android {
-    buildToolsVersion '23.0.3'
+    // Specify buildToolsVersion so gradle will inform when the
+    // default changes and .travis.yml can be kept in sync
+    buildToolsVersion '27.0.3'
     defaultConfig {
         minSdkVersion 8
         targetSdkVersion 23
@@ -190,20 +192,20 @@ android {
             def newName = output.outputFile.name
             newName = newName.replace(".apk","-${GITREV}.apk")
             newName = newName.replace("app-","")
-            output.outputFile = new File(output.outputFile.parent, newName)
+            output.outputFileName = newName
         }
     }
 }
 
 dependencies {
     // Look into replacing this with a fetch too PENDING
-    xw4Compile files('../libs/gcm.jar')
+    xw4Implementation files('../libs/gcm.jar')
 
-    compile 'com.android.support:support-v4:23.4.0'
+    implementation 'com.android.support:support-v4:23.4.0'
 
     // 2.6.8 is probably as far forward as I can go without upping my
     // min-supported SDK version
-    xw4dCompile('com.crashlytics.sdk.android:crashlytics:2.6.8@aar') {
+    xw4dImplementation('com.crashlytics.sdk.android:crashlytics:2.6.8@aar') {
         transitive = true;
     }
 }

xwords4/android/build.gradle

@@ -4,9 +4,10 @@ buildscript {
     repositories {
         jcenter()
         maven { url 'https://maven.fabric.io/public' }
+        google()
     }
     dependencies {
-        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.2.3'
+        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.1.2'
         classpath 'io.fabric.tools:gradle:1.+'
 
         // NOTE: Do not place your application dependencies here; they belong
@@ -29,7 +30,6 @@ subprojects {
         if (project.hasProperty("android")) {
             android {
                 compileSdkVersion 23
-                buildToolsVersion "23.0.3"
             }
         }
     }

xwords4/android/gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-#Tue Sep 13 19:49:09 PDT 2016
+#Sun May 06 14:11:02 PDT 2018
 distributionBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
 distributionPath=wrapper/dists
 zipStoreBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
 zipStorePath=wrapper/dists
-distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-2.14.1-all.zip
+distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-4.4-all.zip