LORDS OF THE REALM DEMO -- INSTRUCTIONS --------------------------------------- Welcome to Lords of the Realm! In this playable demo, you'll be able to try many of the features of Impressions' new medieval simulation. But before we go into what you can do, let's start with a list of what the demo CAN'T do: * You can only play for a limited number of turns; the game will automatically end after several YEARS of play. * In this demo, you can only control TWO counties (of the thirty-two on the map); if you try to capture a third, a message will appear claiming that it is "too far away" for you to rule. * Games cannot be saved or loaded in this demo. * Castles cannot be designed or built in this demo. In the full game, unique castles can be designed and built using over a dozen types of castle-components, and historical castles can be constructed in your counties. * The Siege screens are not present in this demo (as there are no castles to siege!). The full game includes a turn- based siege simulation. * For space reasons, some of the battle graphics have been removed, so the colors of the two armies in a battle will NOT match the colors of two opposing sides. * This demo only supports Sound Blaster-compatible cards that are set to the default settings (Address=220, IRQ=7). If your sound card is set differently or is not Sound Blaster-compatible, the demo will run but no sounds will play. (The full version of the game supports other sound cards and settings.) INSTALLING AND RUNNING THIS DEMO -------------------------------- If you're reading this, then you should have already decompressed this demo and are ready to play. To start the demo, simply type LORDS. Lords of the Realm requires 640K conventional memory; it requires between 580K-590K of it to run. The game can also use XMS memory to make it run faster. BRIEF TUTORIAL -------------- The rest of this document is a brief tutorial for trying out the game, it will take you step-by-step through the most important aspects of gameplay. The best way to use this tutorial is to print it out, and read it as you first play the game. SET UP YOUR GAME When you begin a new game, a series of setup panels will appear. Set them as follows: * Select START A NEW CONQUEST. * Set ECONOMY LEVEL and WARFARE LEVEL to Novice and LIMITED VISIBILITY to Full. * Set the number of human players to One. * The next screen shows six shields, each a different color, and a rectangular box. Type a name for yourself in the box, then pick the color that you want to represent you in the game. * The computer will display a roster of the six players, showing the color of each and the order in which they will play. The five computer opponents you will face each have different attitudes and personality which will affect their actions. When you are done reading the player roster, right click to end the set up and begin playing. YOUR FIRST TURN Lords of the Realm begins at the end of the spring season in the year 1268 A.D. Each turn represents a season of the year (three months of time); during each turn, you will view the events that happened in your lands in the season just past and make plans for the season which will follow. The first screen you will see after you complete the game set up will be the MAP OF THE REALM, which is an overview of the entire game map. Find the county with your own flag in it (your flag will be the same color as the shield you chose during setup.), place the scepter over it and click. This will take you down to the first of the two action levels of the game: the Kingdom level. THE KINGDOM MAP When you first move to this screen, you will see a banner appear telling you which season has just passed. If you are not the first player on the turn roster, you may have to wait a few moments while the nobles who are ahead of you make their moves. You can tell who is acting by watching the box in the lower right corner of the screen, which will change to display the name of the current player. The shield icon just to the left of that box will also change to show the current player's shield. On the Kingdom Map, you should be able to see your county, with its borders marked in gold and one or more tan roads running through it. Somewhere on one of the roads should be the town cross, shown as a small building with a cross on top and your flag flying beside it. (A town cross without a colored flag shows a neutral county, uncontrolled by any of the nobles.) This is the point which must be reached and conquered in order to seize control of the lands. As soon as possible, you need to raise an army to defend your town cross and keep one of the other nobles from taking your county, but you can't do that right now because your county is too poor. (However, it is unlikely that your enemies will reach you before the demo ends, so you are fairly safe.) Much of your county will be covered with wild grass and possibly forest, but near the town cross will be sixteen fields, the tilled lands that support the people living in that county. You can also see a small house somewhere in the county, which represents the people living there. As the population of the county grows, more houses will appear. By moving the scepter to an edge of the screen, you can cause the Kingdom Map to scroll in that direction to reveal more of the Realm. ON THE COUNTY LEVEL To get to the County Level, place the scepter anywhere within the borders of your county on the Kingdom map, and click. First, the Event panel will appear, to tell you what unusual event happened in your county last season (if any) and let you know what the weather was like. Click any mouse button on this panel to make it disappear and bring up the General county screen. The General county screen is the first of six screens available on this level. At the right edge of the screen are seven icons, one for each of the screens, plus the last one, which is the Doorway icon that will take you back up to the Kingdom level. On many of these screens there is a colored border that indicates the season which is ending: light green for spring, green and gold for summer, gold and red for autumn, and blue and white for winter. On the General screen, notice the name of your county, plus the season and the year, shown at the top. Just underneath that are three very important statistics: the Population of the county, the Happiness of the county, and the Health of the county. YOUR FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT OBJECTIVE IS TO GET ALL THREE OF THOSE STATISTICS TO AS HIGH A LEVEL AS IS REASONABLY POSSIBLE. Population is shown as two numbers; the first is the current number of people in the county, and the second the change in population since last season (in black if the population increased, in red if it decreased.). Current Happiness in the county is shown in hearts, on a scale from zero to forty, with forty being the best. As with population, the change from last season is shown after the current rating. Current Health is shown just below Happiness, and is rated on a scale from Diseased to Perfect Health. FEAST OR FAMINE? First, you need to set the ration level for your population. If you set a lower than normal ration, your population will grow more slowly (or possibly even shrink), your people will become less healthy over time, and their happiness will drop. If you set a higher than normal ration level, all these things will increase, but your food stocks will drop more quickly. Your ration level should already be set at Normal; if not, find the pair of up and down arrows in the lower middle section of the General screen and click through the selections until you find the right one. For this tutorial, your people are going to farm some cows and grow some grain. Your county will probably begin with some of each type of food: a few head of cattle, some sacks of grain, and a small flock of sheep. Since you don't plan to raise sheep, you will want to eat the sheep and save as many cows and sacks of grain as you can. In the middle of the General screen is a tricolor sliding bar you can use to determine what kind of food (grain, sheep, or cattle) your people will eat during the next season. Click and drag the borders between the colored sections to adjust their sizes until as much of the bar is blue as possible. If there are enough sheep, you may be able to fill the entire bar with blue. If not, make the blue section as large as you can, and then fill the rest of the bar with green, for grain. Below the slide bar is a small table which will show you exactly how your food stocks will be used in the next season. The third column, Eat, tells how many cows, sheep, or sacks of grain your people will eat at the current ration level and food bar setting. The first column is how many of each you have available, and the second column is how many you will have left over after the next season ends. Check and see whether or not there will be any sheep left, and remember this. (You'll want to know for the next section.) Notice that under this table is a display showing how many people can be fed solely on the dairy produce from your cattle herd; this food is always automatically eaten first, and does not appear on the bar. FIELDS AND FLOCKS Go to the Fields screen by clicking on the Fields icon in the column at the right of the screen (second icon from the top.) You will see all the county's fields displayed with the various crops (sheep, cattle, or grain) pictured. Fields appear in one of four states: farmed, fallow, barren, and weather-damaged. * FARMED fields are those which are producing food for your peasants, either sheep, cattle, or grain. * FALLOW fields show wild grass in the field square. These fields are being left unplanted to rest and regain nutrients to keep the field fertility high. * BARREN fields are shown as rocky bare ground. These fields are not good for farming and nothing can be grown on them. A barren field can be made fertile again over time by assigning serfs to fertilize them and dig up rocks. * WEATHER-DAMAGED fields will appear either flooded or drought-stricken. If you have the game's economy setting on the lowest difficulty level, you will not see these often, if at all. A damaged field is temporarily barren until the weather changes. Underneath the fields squares, to the left, is a display showing you the current fertility level of your fields. The number of animals displayed in each field box will change as the number of total animals in the herd changes. For the first year, you are going to farm one field of cows and two or three of grain. TO REASSIGN A FIELD TO A NEW CROP, click on the field you want to change and a panel will pop up offering you a choice of grass (fallow), cows, sheep, or grain. Click on the new type of field that you want. Under the fields, at the left side of the screen, is a table you can use to allocate labor to your fields. The Now column shows how many men are assigned to each of four tasks: farming sheep, farming cattle, working the land (Serfs), or growing grain. If the number in this column is shown in red, more men are needed to get the most benefit from those fields. The number in the Need column shows how many men are optimal for each task. If there are enough men Idle (shown at the bottom of the table), you can make the Now column match the Need column by clicking on the Need number in each row. Use the arrows to set the Now value for each row equal to the Need value, if you have enough men. If there are men left over, and you have one or more barren fields, assign all the extras to Serf duty. They will begin to work on reclaiming the barren fields (this will probably take more than one season.) If you have no barren fields, leave the men idle for the time being. The demand for labor in your fields will change from season to season, so you will need to return to this screen every season for the first few turns to make sure everything is being tended to properly. Note that it is possible to have the optimal number of men assigned to tend the cattle and still have a net loss of cattle for the season. If you decide to put more fields into grain, change them after the winter, as the grain is sown in spring. Remember that if the current season is winter, you are making decisions for the NEXT season, spring. CHECK SUPPLIES Next, click on the icon for the Trade screen, which is fourth from the top of the icon column and shows two men shaking hands. From this screen, you will be able to trade goods with merchants when they come into your county. There will not be any merchants in any of the counties during the first turn -- they will gradually arrive from overseas until all twelve of them are in the realm. Even without a merchant around, however, you can use this screen as an inventory. Under the boxes picturing each type of goods (cattle, sheep, grain, wool, ale, iron, stone, timber, and weaponry/armor) is a small number saying how many units of that commodity you have available. END YOUR FIRST TURN AND START YOUR SECOND From any one of the county screens, you can click on the Exit icon (last in the column, the Doorway) to return to the Kingdom Level. Once there, click on the shield icon to end your turn. You will see the shield change as each of the other players completes his or her turn. When the end of the roster is reached, the season will change, and the playing will continue until it is your turn once again. You may get a message from one of your rivals at the start of your turn. When it's your turn, return to the county level in your county. You will want to play through several turns at this point while simply keeping an eye on your population and food stores. Check the trade screen again each turn to see if a merchant has arrived in the county. BARTER AND BANTER You can tell when a merchant arrives in your county by watching for the little peddler's wagon which will appear at the town cross on the Kingdom level or on the Map of the Realm. When a merchant finally arrives, buy as much grain from him as you can afford; click on the price in the Buy row under the picture of the grain sheaves, then use the up and down arrows in the pop-up panel that appears, then press the "thumbs-up" icon. You can also click on the button marked Gossip? to see if the merchant has any interesting news from other counties. THE TREASURY To check on your current funds and adjust tax rates, you need to visit your Treasury. From the Kingdom level, click on the icon at the bottom of the screen which shows a group of gold coins (third icon from the left.) The Treasury Screen will appear. In the top right corner of the screen is the phrase Seasonal Tithe and a set of up and down arrows; this allows you to set the tax rate for all your peasants. It is set at the start of the game at a reasonable rate, but you may want to experiment with it. When you are finished, right click to exit the screen and go back to the Kingdom map. DEFEND YOUR LANDS When all your fields are fertile, your people are well-fed and fairly happy, and your population is above 800, you can risk raising a 50-man peasant army to defend your county's town cross. To create an army, go to the Create Armies screen on the county level by clicking on the Knight icon (fifth from the top of the icon column). If there are mercenaries available in the county for you to hire, a panel will pop up telling you about them; click past this as you probably won't have enough money for them. Use the arrow buttons next to the different fighter-types to build your army (until you buy or build arms, you will only be able to select peasants), and select "Raise this Army" to confirm your selections. When you return to the kingdom map, you will see a small figure of a knight standing next to the town cross, representing that army. Move him on top of the cross so he can defend it if trouble comes; click on the Move Army icon (pictured as a knight and an arrow), select the army, then move the pointer over the town cross and click. CONTINUING THE GAME In further turns, you will want to continue as you have been, tending to your county and trying to keep it healthy and growing. If, while you are on the Kingdom level, you see the pointer change to an animated gold lion on a brown shield, it means that an army is marching somewhere on the map; click the right mouse button, and the map display will jump to show you the army that is moving. Another noble's army will appear as a knight marked with the noble's color; an army of outlaws peasants will appear as a peasant carrying a torch. (When peasant armies are moving, the shield icon at the bottom of the screen will display a brown shield with a pitchfork instead of a noble's shield.) After you create an army, if you still have extra men available who aren't needed to farm, you can put them to work producing iron (for making armor), or stone and wood (for building castles). You do this by selecting the Labor icon on the County Screen (third from the top -- shows a man hoeing). For this tutorial, use the slider bars on this screen to put any extra men on duty mining iron -- you can't build castles anyway. The small bar to the right of the labor bars will fill in slowly with red; when it is filled, a unit of goods has been completed. When you have iron, you can assign armorers to convert it into weapons. As the game progresses, your treasury should increase and your peasants should start producing useful goods. At some point, you will want to send your armies out to take over other counties and expand your power base. If you are managing your county well, other counties may offer themselves up to your rule the moment your army crosses their border. In other cases, you may have to march your army to the town cross and take it (see below). MARCHING TO BATTLE, AND THE BATTLE SCREEN Whenever two armed forces meet, or you attempt to capture a neutral county's town cross, a ground battle may take place. Any time a ground battle begins, you can have the game automatically compute the battle results, or you can direct the battle yourself in detail. When you choose to take charge, you will be taken to the Ground Battle screen. Most of this screen is filled by the battlefield display itself. The terrain is mostly grass, but there are marshes which can slow your army's progress and hamper their fighting ability if you march into them. The battlefield is a scrolling display which is twice the length and width of the area you can see, so either set of troops may not be visible when the screen first comes up. To scroll the field, move the mouse pointer to the edge of the screen in the direction you want to move. Both sets of troops are marked with different colors. Each army is organized into groups, and each group is represented by a number of small human figures armed with the appropriate weapons (peasants are armed with pitchforks). Each group can be directed individually during the combat. Each single figure represents a number of men. At the left edge of the screen is the information column. The box at the top of the column shows you how many men each figure represents, displays the shields of the two combatants (unallied peasants or outlaws have a brown shield with a pitchfork), and shows the total army size of each side under each shield. Under the shields are eight icons which allow you to control your army: * RANK/COLUMN: Changes the formation of the selected group from a horizontal line to a vertical one and back again. * HOURGLASS: Starts and stops the battle. (See below.) * MOVE ARMY: Lets you direct a group's movement. (See below.) * ARCHER: Lets you designate targets for any group with missile weapons. (See below.) * BATTLEFIELD: This changes the scrolling battlefield display to an overview. Click on a part of this screen to zoom to that location on the battlefield. * FACE: This four-way toggle can be set to show the following things for each unit: troop type, morale, number of men, or nothing. * SOLDIER WITH FLAG: Orders your army to retreat and ends the battle. * HANDS WITH FLAG: Allows you to offer quarter (mercy) to the enemy. When a battle first begins, no troops are moving. You can move around and survey the field at your leisure, then issue your orders. When you are ready, you can click on the hourglass icon and time will progress, and your men will begin to follow your orders. Whenever you wish to change your orders, you can either click on the hourglass again and stop time passing while you act, or simply issue them while the battle is raging. To give orders to your troops, you must first select a group by clicking on it, which will cause your flag to appear as a marker on that group. To direct that group to move in a certain direction, click on the Move Army icon, and the mouse pointer will change to a dagger. Click again on the position where you want your soldiers to go. Soldiers wielding hand weapons can be targeted at an enemy group by simply moving them up to the group you want them to attack. Soldiers with missile weapons (crossbows or longbows) are moved in the same way, but to assign them a target you need to select a group and then click on the Archer icon. The mouse pointer will change to the dagger; select a target group of the enemy as above and click. Your archers will then fire their weapons at the target group, as long as that group is in range. You can select more than one unit at a time to move or to aim, and can deselect any chosen unit by clicking on it a second time. If you select multiple units, they will all try to go to or attack the same place (be sure that there is an army there for them to attack). You can order a retreat or offer quarter to the enemy at any time by clicking on the appropriate icon, although you may suffer some casualties during a retreat. If the size of your army becomes too small before a retreat is called, the casualties taken during the retreat may wipe the army out entirely and cause it to disappear from the map. If the retreat causes your army's morale to drop to zero, the entire army may rout, which will also cause it to disappear. Mercenaries always leave an army after a retreat. When the battle is over, a summary screen will appear telling you who won and what casualties were suffered. Right click to exit this screen and go back to the kingdom map. ENDING THE GAME If you wish to leave the game, you can exit from the scrolling map by pressing ALT-X. --------------------------------------- Copyright (c) 1994 Impressions Software