Contents
Mother Of All Battles!

Copyright Sean O'Connor, December 1993

Introduction

The pieces

Starting a game

Building new pieces

Selecting and waking a piece

Moving a piece

Special moves

Attacking enemy pieces and repairing

The dialog boxes

Saving and exiting a game

Options

Credits

Version history

Thank you for playing this game. We hope you enjoy it!


Introduction

Mother Of All Battles! is a game for 1 to 6 human or computer players. The object of the game is to destroy all the opposition's pieces by exploring new territory and capturing as many neutral and enemy cities as you can in order to build more of your own pieces.

 Open land

 Neutral city

 City owned by red

 Mountain

 Sea

 Unexplored area


The Pieces

 Army. The most common piece used. Armies are quick to build but are very slow moving. Use them to defend your own islands or load them onto your transports to capture new islands.

 Para. Paras move quickly but take much longer to build than armies. They are very useful for doing quick raids on poorly defended enemy islands.

 Fighter. Fighters take a long time to build but are the fastest moving pieces in the game. They are excellent for exploring new areas, reconnoitring and destroying enemy pieces, especially bombers, paras, submarines and transports.

 Bomber. Bombers take a long time to build but are devastating if exploded on densely packed enemy forces.

 Transport. Very quick to build. Transports can carry up to 6 armies, but are very vulnerable to attack from enemy pieces.

 Destroyer. The fastest moving ship in the game and very effective at dealing with enemy submarines and transports.

 Submarine. Submarines are very effective against enemy transports and battleships but are vulnerable to destroyers and fighters.

 Aircraft Carrier. Aircraft carriers can carry up to 6 fighters and can refuel them.

 Battleship. Probably the most powerful piece you can build. Devastating against enemy tanks on the coast, destroyers, aircraft carriers, transports and any aircraft, but watch out for enemy submarines!


Starting A Game

To start a game, click on the File menu. You can then click on either:

New	start a brand new game.

Open	open an old one that you have saved earlier.

Demo	watch a demo game.

If you start a new game you can choose whether the players will be out of the game or human or computer controlled. You can also choose how large you want the world to be and how well the computer players play.


Building New Pieces

When you begin a new game a 'City Information' dialog box will appear asking you what you wish to build at your first city. This dialog box can be called up at any time during a game by clicking the right hand mouse button while the mouse is over one of your cities, and will also be automatically displayed when you capture a new city.

The time taken to build a piece at a city is as follows:

 Army	4  days

 Para	8 days

 Fighter	8 days

 Bomber	12 days

 Transport	2 days

 Destroyer	8 days

 Submarine	8 days

 Aircraft Carrier	10 days

 Battleship	16 days

Ships can only be built in ports (cities which are adjacent to a blue, sea square).


Selecting and waking a piece

To select a piece, click on it with the right hand mouse button - this will also wake it up if it was asleep. If that piece still has movement points left for the day, the line from the mouse pointer will jump to that piece. If the piece does not respond, it is because it has already moved this day.

If there are several pieces stacked on top of one another you can rotate through them by continually clicking the right hand button on the stack.

To select a piece which is in a city, click the right hand mouse button on the city and then in the 'City Information' dialog box that appears, check the 'wake all pieces in city' box. One of the pieces in the city will become the currently selected piece. If this is not the one that you wanted, you can press 'L' until the required piece is selected.


Moving a piece

To move the currently selected piece, click the left hand button on the square that you want the piece to move to. The movement points (and the fuel for aeroplanes) that a piece gets at the beginning of a day are:

Movement	Fuel

 Army	1	unlimited

 Para	7	28

 Fighter	14	14

 Bomber	7	28

 Destroyer	6	unlimited

 Battleship	4	unlimited

 Carrier	4	unlimited

 Transport	4	unlimited

 Submarine	4	unlimited

When a plane realises that it must return to refuel it will do so automatically. Fighters can refuel on aircraft carriers as well as in cities.

Armies cannot move out to sea except for moving on to transports. When an army moves on to a transport it is automatically 'slept'. To wake it up to disembark, click on it with the right hand mouse button. Only up to six armies will fit on each transport.

Armies cannot be put on top of one another except for in cities and on transports.


Special Moves

The following moves can be performed on the currently selected piece by selecting the move from the Moves menu, or by pressing the first letter of the move on the keyboard.

Drop	Can only be done to paras while over open land. The para will be converted to an army.

Later	Another piece with movement points left is automatically selected. You can come back and move the old piece later in the day.

Finished	Another piece is automatically selected but the current piece loses all its movement points for this day.

Return	The piece moves back to the nearest city.

Sleep	The piece cannot be moved again until either it is attacked by the enemy or it is woken by clicking on it with the right hand mouse button.


Attacking Enemy Pieces and Repairing

To attack an enemy piece simply move your currently selected piece on to the square the enemy piece is on. Damage will be inflicted on the enemy, and if its strength falls below zero it will be destroyed.

When you attack an enemy piece with a bomber, the enemy piece and everything within two squares of it will be destroyed, including any of your own pieces caught in the blast!

Different types of pieces have varying strengths of attack on enemy pieces. For example, a fighter will easily shoot down a bomber or para, a submarine will severely damage a battleship, transport or aircraft carrier, whereas a destroyer will have little effect against an army.

A piece which has been damaged by an enemy attack can be repaired by moving it to a friendly city. To heal a ship it must be left next to a friendly port, all other pieces must be left in any friendly city. Pieces left there are repaired at the beginning of every day.


The Dialog Boxes

City Information	Shows you what the city is building, how long it has left until completing it and which pieces are in the city. You can change what it is building by clicking on one of the buttons and you can also wake up all of the pieces in the city, or on the whole island. This window can be displayed by clicking the right hand mouse button on one of your cities on the screen or in the Production window and is also displayed automatically for your first city and whenever you capture a new city.

The following status windows can be switched on and off by selecting them from the View menu, or by pressing the underlined letter in the window's name:

Game Info	Shows you whose turn it is, what day it is, what the difficulty level is and how large the world is.

Rankings	Shows you which player has the most cities and the largest army, navy and airforce. The further your colour is to the left, the better you are doing.

Piece Info	Shows you what the currently selected piece is, how many moves and how much fuel it has.

Production	Shows you what your cities are building and how long they have left until completing it. Clicking the left hand button on an entry will centre that city on the screen. Clicking the right hand button will bring up a 'City Information' dialog box allowing you to change what the city is building (equivalent to clicking the right hand button on the actual city itself).

World Map	Shows you a view of the whole world. Clicking on any part of the map will centre the main screen on where you clicked.


Saving And Exiting A Game

You can save your game at any time by clicking on File and then Save. Your game is also automatically saved after every 7 days of play.

To exit a game, click on File and then Exit. Your game will automatically be saved and the application will close down.


Options

Sound	Select whether you want the sound on or off.

Colour Monitor	Unchecking this option will invert the colour of all enemy pieces to make it easier to distinguish your own.

Prompt On New Player	This option is only useful when several humans are playing. Checking it will bring up a warning window at the beginning of each human's turn, preventing other humans from accidentally seeing each others pieces.

Auto Play	Checking this option will make the computer control your pieces.  This is useful when you have nearly won the game but can't be bothered to kill every last enemy piece yourself. You can regain control at any time by unchecking the option.

Surrender	If your position has become unwinnable you can resign from the game. All of your pieces will be destroyed and the other players will continue.


Credits

Written by:

Sean O'Connor

Cade Roux

Thanks to:

Jon Williams

Patrick Welche

Guido Barzini

Chris Dawson

Iona Hosking

Raj Jena

Kieran O'Connor

Will O'Brien


Version History

1.1

- 3D style islands.

- Modeless windows used for 'Rankings', 'Piece Info', 'Production' and 'World Map'.

- 'Game Info' window added.

- Cities have names.

- Humans are prompted before their turns so they can't see other humans moving.

- Other players continue when one human player surrenders.

- Support for monochrome monitors.

- Auto play.

- 4 world sizes and 4 difficulty levels.

- Proper HyperText help file.

1.0

- Up to 6 human or computer players.

- 3 world sizes and 3 difficulty levels.

- Windows used for 'City Information', 'Rankings', 'Piece Info', 'Production' and 'World Map'.

- Simple help file.

If you have any comments or ideas for improving this game please e-mail SPTO1@cus.cam.ac.uk