EMPEROR OF THE FADING SUNS Tutorial / Walkthrough -------------------------- Welcome to the Known Worlds of the Fading Suns! The purpose of this Tutorial is to walk you through some of the basic procedures of gameplay that you will need to learn in order to control the EFS environment. Throughout this walkthrough, mouse clicks are represented in the following ways: Lclick: Click the left mouse button once Rclick: Click the right mouse button once Dclick: Double-click the left mouse button rapidly START A NEW GAME ---------------- At the first options window select "Start New". On the next screen, select "Historical" then select "Play" on the lower right corner and the game will begin with all defaults. In a future game, once you understand the basics, you can select a different house to play, increase the difficulty and customize the play environment. All these options are covered outside of the Tutorial. The default house is Li Halan and the default difficulty is "Beginner". PLAYER TURN ANNOUNCEMENT ------------------------ When it's a "human" player's turn, the Announcement screen will appear with the current date and House whose turn it is. Since you are currently the only "human" controlled house in the game, simply Lclick the OK button to begin your first turn. ADVISOR MESSAGE --------------- The Advisor will give valuable information throughout the game. When you are finished reading the messages, Lclick on the OK button. CHOOSE PORTRAIT --------------- Lclick on the portrait of the character that you would like to represent your house. EDIT NAME --------- Put the mouse cursor over the box that contains your character's name. Leave the mouse cursor in the box while you type what you want your name to be. When finished, Lclick on the OK button. TRAITS SCREEN ------------- View your House's default Traits by passing your mouse over the selection buttons; a description appears in the box on the lower right. For purposes of the Tutorial, accept the defaults by clicking on the OK button. TECHNOLOGY SCREEN ----------------- The next screen is a Research Screen. Use it to tell your lab what to research next. Since your House had all three "Documentarium" traits (see TRAITS SCREEN) you begin the game with many technologies to choose from. Names in blue are category headers; names in red have been declared illegal by the Church but you could research them anyway. Click on the "Database" button to see the technologies that you already possess. Click on "Exit" to return to the Technology Screen. Click once on Electron Microscope. The text box in the lower right corner tells you what researching Electron Microscope will let you research next. Click on the "Archive Button" to read what Bishop Holst has to say about Electron Microscopes. Click on the "Close" bookmark on the lower right corner to get back to the Research Screen. For the purposes of the Tutorial, research Electron Microscope. Click on "Research Tech" to begin researching it. When the confirmation dialogue box appears, click on "Yes" to accept. Note: Each House begins the game with one Lab, the maps in the upper left corner tell you where this one is. Each Lab has its own Research Screen and each can be given a different technology to research. UNITS ----- The first units you are asked to move are on the planet Byzanthium II. We can ignore these units for now. Lclick on the starmap button (the starmap button is located just to the right of the planetmap in the upper left corner of your screen). You will now be on the starmap screen. Rclick on the miniature starmap (upper left) and you will get the full view of the Known Worlds. Your current homeplanet is Kish. To view your starships orbiting Kish, Lclick on the planet Kish. Now Rclick on the magenta icons (representing your ships above the planet).. All of your (Li Halan's) units appear with a magenta background color. The entire stack is represented by one blinking unit on the star or planet map but each member of the stack is shown on the sidebar on the left side of the screen. On the starmap, the counter has the number six in the lower left showing that there is a total of six units in the stack. On the sidebar, there are six counters. Each has a number on the upper right corner that represents the number of move points that it has. Anywhere that the unit is shown, it has a green bar across the bottom of its counter that represents the unit's health. Rclick on the stack on the blinking unit on the starmap to view the Stack Screen. Rclick on each unit to see details about it at the top of the screen. There you will see what the unit looks like, what its name is, as well as many other unit statistics that are covered in more detail outside of the Tutorial. Remember what the Frigate looks like. Return to play by clicking on the Exit button. EXPLORE KISH ------------ Rclick on the spinning planet below the word "Kish". This is your homeworld. Kish is drying up slowly but surely, food is scarce. You control most of the cities on it but several are held by Rebels. Also there is a trading post, called an Agora, owned by the Merchant League, as well as a Fort which is an outpost of the Imperial Eye, the secret service of the Regency. In the chaos after Vladimir's assassination, you have lost track of detailed reports of the regions outside of your cities. All you know is where the cities and roads are but not what the cities do. You have no knowledge of the location of any ruins or resource bonuses. Scroll around by Rclicking on empty hexes or by clicking on different parts of the map in the upper left corner (cornermap). To view the functions of all the buttons, Rclick on any button. Return to the Starmap (again, by clicking on the Starmap button) upper left corner of the Planetmap. EXPLORE THE PLANET RAMPART -------------------------- Rclick on the planet Rampart. It is to the lower right of Kish and is connected to it by a jump route. You are told that you have lost all knowledge of the planet. You must move a ship to orbit above the planet or trade for the map information. For now, move a ship to explore Rampart from space. Rclick on your ship stack above Kish. All are currently selected as shown by their brightened background color and by the blue pulsing line around them. Select a frigate by using the short cut of Dclicking on one of the frigates. Move the frigate to Rampart by clicking on the planet icon. The jumproute will become bright green. Click a second time to cause the ship to enter the jumpgate above Kish and exit the one above Rampart. Jumping will exhaust all of a ships move points so the other ships will automatically become the current group. However, now that a ship is in orbit above Rampart you may rclick on it to view the map. You can only tell where roads and active cities are. To know more about the surface, you must land troops on the planet. That will be covered in turn two of the tutorial. Return to space by clicking on the jumpgate symbol. SCOUT ----- You would do well to find out who your neighbors on Kish are. Rclick on Kish. Rclick on the Factory. Select one militia soldier. Move him 2 hexes North on the road next to the Eye Fort and the League Agora. To move, click once at the destination. Dots and x's will show the moveto route. Click again on the destination to confirm it. He will spot units inside of the Agora, signalled by a audibal "unit spotted" message. Whenever a unit doing a moveto spots a new unit it stop and await orders in case the new information changes your plans. Restart the move by clicking on the destination hex again. Rclick on the Agora, twice to view the stack. There are a lot of valuable resources (cargo) in there. They are there for you to buy. Exit the stack screen. PURCHASE CARGO -------------- The Agora should still be the active hex. The Agora should appear on the sidebar. A button next to it says "Trade". Click on it and a menu appears. Select foods to buy by using the slider bar, notice the affect on your bank account. Select a second one, slide it to the right, notice that the food is also sliding to the right. This represents how you are now able to buy less food. However, purchases do not take affect until you click on the "Purchase" button and exit the screen. Slide the second choice back to zero. Click on the purchase button. A cargo pod will now be adjacent to the Agora; it may be under the militia. Rclick on it. Move it back to your factory to protect it. SELL CARGO ---------- You may also sell the League excess cargo. Select the Metal cargo pod in your Shield generator complex. Move it up to the Agora by clicking on the it twice. Click on it to move into the Agora. You are prompted to Attack or Sell. Choose Sell. A screen will appear to tell you how much the League will give you for the contents of each cargo pod. If you like the price select the check box next to the cargo type. Click on the "Sell" button to exit the screen and accept the price. RAISE TAXES ----------- After spending money, you'll want to make sure you have enough funds for the next turn. Click on the "House" pulldown from the menubar. Please notice the budget area located in the lower right corner. The first row is how much your house is making from taxes (per turn). The second is how much you skim (steal) from the Tithe that you are responsible for collecting for the church. The third row is how much your unit pay is per turn. The fourth row (debt) is how much you owe the League for any loans (none at this point). The fifth row (bank) is how much was in the bank when you first entered the house status screen.. The last row is what will be in the bank at the end of this turn. Move the slider bar on the first row (tax). Drag it to the right to increase your revenues next turn. The red heart indicates that the people in the cities will not like this, they may rebel. Exit the screen. ATTACK ------ You may attack the Agora, seizing the cargo by force with high casualties, causing the League to declare war on you and cease trading with you. Lets try that: First, bombard the Agora from space. If the ships are not the active group, return to space by clicking on the jumpgate symbol in the upper left corner; rclick on the space ship stack. Select the cruiser by dclicking on it. Click on Kish. You are prompted to Attack or Land. Choose Attack. You will get a red target icon. Rclick to scroll around until the Agora is on the screen. Click on the Agora. Confirm that you wish to attack. Combat will occur between your cruiser and the Agora garrison, which includes a Planet to Space missile launcher (PTS Missile). Combat only last one round, your cruiser should survive, possibly taking out an infantry. Click on "Combat Done". Bombardment takes one movement so you could attack again but you don't have to. Rclick on Kish. Rclick on the Li Halan Fort to the north of your Palace. Create a group with only tanks in (all with 8 or more move points). Move onto the Agora to attack it. Choose "Attack". Choose the "Normal" attack mode. If you capture the cargo, move it to your factory to protect it. DIPLOMACY --------- You are now at war with the League. To see that, click on the Diplomacy pulldown, then click on the League banner. The treaty status chart is on the lower left corner. There are crossed swords between you and the League and a thumbs down to show that they are not trading with you. Exit the screen by clicking "Done". SEND CONTRACT ------------- You might want to make friends with someone now. On the Diplomacy menu click on the Hazat banner. Notice that you do not know their budget condition. You would be able to look at the budget for house Hazat if you were Allied with them; but you are currently at the default status, Peace. Try to form an Alliance (which, in the future, will be represented by a green wreath) with the Hazat. Diplomacy proposals are constructed in the Contract area on the upper right of the Diplomacy screen. Click on the top line, just beneath the "Give me.."; a menu will appear. Select "...an Alliance with you." Return to the Diplomacy screen. Click on the first line beneath the "AND I'll..." . A menu will appear; select "give you technology." Select the "Hospitals" technology then click on "Choose". The "AND" button can be toggled to "OR" which brings up a threat menu, but you really dont have the muscle to threaten anyone yet. To send the contract, click on the done button on the lower right of the screen. If you made a mistake on the contract and wish to change it, click on the "Clear" button and start over. Exit the Diplomacy screen. LOAD SPACE TRANSPORT -------------------- To explore another planet you will have to put a unit on the ground. Space travel takes a while so go ahead and get a unit into space this turn. Use the Jumpgate symbol to bring up the Starmap. Rclick on the ships. Rclick on them again to bring up the stack screen. Rclick on units until you select one called a "Lander"; exit out of the stack screen. Dclick on one of the two Landers. Click on the planet Kish. Choose "Land". Land on the farming city to the lower left of your territory. Rclick on the farm to bring up the stack screen. Click and drag a militia into the Lander. Do not let up on the mouse button until the unit is above the Lander icon. Drop the militia into the Lander; he will appear to the landers right, connected by a coupling. The militia will have a plus marker on it now to show that it is cargo. Exit the stack screen. Dclick on the lander to select it, and its cargo. A ship icon will appear on a button on the upper left corner of the screen. It is called the Launch button, Lclick on it to make the ship goto space. BUILD A UNIT ------------ After losing those units attacking the Agora you will definitely want to produce some more. To produce a unit in any city, rclick on a city. The city will appear on the sidebar and a "Build" button will appear next to it. All cities produce basic "garrison" units and engineers. Advanced units are built in Factories, Forts, Spaceports and Palaces. Rclick on your factory. Click on "Build" on the sidebar. Scroll through the list of options. Notice that each cost a different number of turns and resources to build. Each unit also has a maintenance cost. You must pay that every turn. Select a medium tank to build. Click on the Build button on the upper left of the build screen. Confirm your choice. BUILD CITY ---------- Select the Engineer in the Palace. Move him to an empty hex, preferably the desert one that is surrounded by the pulsing blue light. The blue lines represent areas covered by the shield generator. Shields make it impossible for a space ship to bombard it. Click on "Build City" under the Orders pulldown. Click on the Lab (becomes highlited with a white box). Click on Build, then Confirm. The Engineer will be consumed, and a Lab will be produced. SENTRY UNITS ------------ That is all you will want to do this turn. Click on the double red arrows on the lower left corner to cycle through your remaining units. As each stack comes up, click on the double red arrows button on the lower left. This is the Skip command. This causes the unit to not ask to be moved again this turn. Eventually, a stack on Byzantium II will appear. You must keep at least one Noble on Byzantium II to participate in the politics of the game not to mention to become Regent. Keep skipping units until a message states that you have moved all of your units. Select OK to end your turn. TURN #2 ------- MOVE TRANSPORT TO RAMPART ------------------------- Select the Lander with the militia in it. This is shown by a C:1 on the transport, meaning it has one cargo and a plus symbol on the militia on the sidebar. Move the Lander to Rampart by clicking on the planet icon twice. Click on the "End Turn" button on the lower left of the screen. It will warn you that you have not moved all of your units. End your turn anyway. TURN 3 ------ SET NEW PRODUCTION ------------------ The tank you started producing on turn one should be done now. You will be prompted to select another unit to build. You could choose to produce "nothing". LAND TRANSPORT -------------- Land the Lander Transport above Rampart. Rclick on the Lander stack. Then click on the planet icon. Choose "Land". Land on the polar ice caps in the southern hemisphere. Unload militia by Rclicking on the stack, accessing the stack screen. Click and drag the milia out of the Lander and onto a blank rectangle on the stack screen. Exit the stack screen. Select the militia and deselect the Lander. Move the militia away from the Lander, exploring a small area. Ideally you would move a Scout tank to a new planet because it has better speed. SEGASOFT, INC 150 Shoreline Drive Redwood City, CA 94065 HOLISTIC DESIGN, INC. 5002 N. Royal Atlanta Road Suite "H" Tucker, GA 30084 EMPEROR OF THE FADING SUNS, FADING SUNS UNIVERSE AND ITS DISTINCT CHARACTERS, LOGOS, AND MARKS ARE TRADEMARKS OF HOLISTIC DESIGN, INC. SEGASOFT AND THE SEGASOFT LOGO ARE TRADEMARKS OF SEGASOFT, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.