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- - - IMPERIUM - - - THE WARGAME OF THE MILLENNIA Door-Terminal Interface Version 3.50 8 February 1992 Copyright (C) 1988, 1992, Search IV. All rights Reserved ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ Registration The software in this package is a shareware version of ImpTerm. The Door- Terminal Interface (DTI) is completely functional. No time bombs, warning sirens, or deleted files, if ImpTerm works well for you, saves you time, and provides a tool for developing your strategies, then please register it. Registration is only $10 and it gets you the current version of ImpTerm; support and assistance (beyond basic installation help) is an additional $5/yr and gives you access to all updates and beta-codes as they become available, as well as access to the Imperium Support Conference on the Castle of the Four Winds BBS. If this sounds like a great deal to you, please fill out the attached order form (Appendix D) and make your check or money order (in US Funds only, please) payable to: Christopher King 2215-1 Dublin Lane Diamond Bar, Ca 91765 It generally takes us about 2-3 weeks to process an order and get a disk out in the US Mail (Unless otherwise requested all disks mailed out will be 360k 5¼" media). You can, however, download your Imperium key file from the Castle of the Four Winds. We recommend that you call when you mail the registration and let us know to post your key file. Your key file will then be made available as soon as we receive the registration fee. If you have a VNet, FIDO, or RBBS Net address, please notify us of it and if you have no objections we'll file-send the key file to you directly. Disclaimer IMPTERM is distributed in an as-is condition. There are no warranties either expressed or implied. By setting up and running IMPTERM, you are acknowledging that any damage that may occur by the operation of this program (physical or monetary) does not make Search IV, Christopher King, Michael Bandoian, The Castle of the Four Winds, or The Archivist's Scroll liable for anything more than replacing the ImpTerm software. - 2 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ Installation De-arc the IMPTERM archive into the sub-directory that you plan to have it run out of; the program does not require any special naming conventions with regard to drive or path names. There are several hardware recommendations for running IMPTERM: [*] 400k of memory...at a minimum. Depending on whether ImpTerm is run directly or shelled to from a com program this memory requirement will vary. At present ImpTerm will only use EMS to support it's overlay files. [*] 500k - 5Mb of disk space. This factor depends on a number of things; such as the number of games that you participate in and how large the maps for those games are. A 100x100 game map will use up 30k of disk space, a 250x250 map will consume 187k, and a 650x650 map would use up over 1.2Meg. IMPTERM makes no checks for free disk space. This would also seem to be the appropriate place to mention that ImpTerm will not (at present) make use of fossil communications drivers and must rely on it's own internal routines for communications support. The internal I/O routines should be fine for most baud rates of 9600 or less. ImpTerm does provide support for baud rates up to 115k baud but at present does not have flow control support. Getting back to the more pressing matters at hand, running IMPTERM. IMPTERM takes two command line parameters. The first is the baud rate to open the ComPort at and the second is the ComPort number. If no parameters are specified then IMPTERM comes up in "Local" mode. The general form for the command line is: ImpTerm <Baud> <Port Number> Where Baud is one of the following: 300, 1200, 2400, or 9600. Port Number is 1,2,3, or 4. ImpTerm's comport addresses & interupts are as follows: Port Address Interrupt 1 03f8 IRQ4 2 02f8 IRQ3 3 03e8 IRQ5 4 02e8 IRQ2 For example: C> IMPTERM 2400 1 <-- Open comport 1 at 2400 baud The following is a copy of the batch file that we at the Castle of the Four Winds use to run IMPTERM as a download protocol from QModem: cd \ImpTerm ImpTerm %1 %2 cd \comm - 3 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ Known Bugs & Anomalies [*] The communication routines do not properly handle locked baud rates. ImpTerm also does not presently fossil communications drivers. [*] ImpTerm can under various circumstances get "out-of-sync" with Imperium such that ImpTerm locks up on the local machine. If a ^C doesn't abort the program, reboot the machine, if carrier hasn't been lost then ImpTerm should be able to re-sync with Imperium just by rerunning it. [*] Moving units on Direction, Path, or Land function can be slow. [*] Some screen displays will appear messed up from 43/50 line mode. [*] Despite the appearance of a mouse cursor, ImpTerm doesn't use the mouse at present. [*] Alliance functions cannot be accessed from ImpTerm. [*] If Imperium is played both with and without ImpTerm, the map that ImpTerm has can become out-of-sync with the one that Imperium has. This can result in units disappearing or appearing to die for no reason. If this does happen, go into the Utility mode in ImpTerm and request a map update. [*] The "?" query function won't return 'stack' data for enemy units. [*] When playing on large map games, be patient when requesting map updates. Both Imperium and ImpTerm need to checksum the entire map to determine which blocks need to be updated. Depending on the disk speed this can take a little while. [*] Units boarding transports don't immediately disappear. [*] Incomplete Online documentation. [*] This is a very rough beta release. Here be Tygers.... - 4 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ Credits The IMPTERM program was written in Turbo Pascal 6.0 by Christopher King and Mike Bandoian under the auspices of Search IV. The program has been alpha & beta tested on the Castle of the Four Winds BBS in Diamond Bar, Ca and all requests for support and registration of this program should be directed to: Search IV attn: Christopher King 2215-1 Dublin Lane Diamond Bar, Ca 91765 or electronic mail can be left on Castle of the Four Winds The Archivist's Scroll (714) 860-3213 (714) 996-0805 8:911/202 RBBS Net 8:911/203 1:103/315 Fido Net 1:103/338 45:512/102 V-Net 45:512/101 or on CompuServe to ID: 74017, 1665 Expect a 1-2 week delay on Compuserve Communications. The online costs have driven us down to about two to three times online a month. - 5 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ Closing Kudos Many thanks to the following people: Mike Bandoian, for putting in half the thought, effort, and programming time to make this new code into a reality. Tom Hazel, for allowing me to use his sorting algorithm to greatly improve the speed of the unit sorts. Eric Hubbard, for saying that the graphics map display code was way to slow and then writing code to prove it. Jonathan Roberson and Brendan King for the suffering through the pains of alpha testing all the horrible incarnations that ImpTerm went through. It wouldn't have made it without them. Rob Teoh, Wayne Shaw, Shelby & Tracy Noonan, Scott Roth and Gary Bush for all the suggestions on ways to improve the game, the user interface, and just about everything else. And most especially, extreme thanks are due to Sheila King for all the help, support, constructive criticisms, and Mountain Dew that it took to put this all together. - 6 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ Appendix A ImpTerm Modes & Commands In most ways and shapes, playing Imperium via ImpTerm is the same as playing locally but a whole lot faster. There are, however, several additional features and commands that you need to be aware of. In this section the additional as well as the more recognizable commands will be documented. Command Modes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Order - This is the mode that the player finds himself in immediately upon starting the Imperium game. This is the top level mode from which the player can view a summary of his empire; review all that's occurred since the last time on; communicate with the other empires; et al. Move - This is the mode that allows the player to command the movement, activity, and function of each awake unit. Edit - In this mode a player can move across the map; investigating the identity of enemy units; altering the production of his own cities; checking and setting the functions of his own units. Util - This mode allows the user to select the screen size (24/43/50 line mode for Ega/Vga displays); view the map of the world in graphics mode; set the colors that the other players' units are to be displayed in; request map updates; et al. - 7 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ Orders Mode Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ C - Communicate with other empires. The inter-empire communicator allows you to send and recieve messages from other empires whether they have been encountered in the game or not. Message length is currently limited to 15 lines. D - Request a dump of as much of the world map as you knows. The map can be dumped out to a file or to a device (such as LPT1). The map width/page can be specified to between widths of 25 and 250 characters. E - Puts ImpTerm into Editing Mode, where you can examine and/or change the functions associated with units and cities. H - Display the Help screen. Contains a brief description of all the order mode commands. M - Puts ImpTerm into Move Mode, where you can move, assign functions to, and fight with your units. Q - Quit the game and return to DOS or your communication program. R - Display the results that have occurred to you since the last time you purged them. New results are always displayed when ImpTerm is first activated. This command allows you to view the results in more detail. All results will be saved until you decide to purge them. S - Display a summary report for your empire. This command will display a summary of all units and cities, including functions being performed and the next date a unit will be delivered. A list of all cities, their location, and production status is also given. U - Put ImpTerm into Utility mode, where you can alter the screen size, graphically display maps, and affect other 'local' aspects of the game. V - Display the version history of the game. All fixes and improvements are noted with this command. - 8 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ Movement Mode Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Moving a Unit is best accomplished by using the keypad. NumLock On or Off. The unit will move in the direction of the key pressed as follows: 7 8 9 \ | / 4 - * - 6 / | \ 1 2 3 Other Move Mode commmands... A - Activate unit. Arm Missiles, Launch Satellites, activate Anti-Missile Systems, set Engineers to clearing ground or building a city, or start Dredging shallow water. D - tell a unit to start moving in a direction until it runs into something or someone, whereupon the unit will wakeup. E - Puts ImpTerm into Editing Mode, where you can examine and/or change the functions associated with units and cities. F - Tell a transport (or carrier) type unit to go to sleep until it is filled with whatever it can carry, then wake it up. If the unit has taken damage, then it will wake up when it has all it can take. When looking at the 'load' value for a transport, the value refers to the number of "Hit-Points" that the unit can carry, NOT the number of individual units. H - Display the Help screen. Contains a brief description of all the move mode commands. L - Puts airborne units on a flight path to land at the closest carrier or city. Useful to return fighters to bases when half the fuel is left. Note if a carrier that has been targeted for landing moves, the airborne unit will follow it so long as it doesn't move out of range. O - return to Orders Mode. When all pieces have been moved the program will automatically return to orders mode. P - Sets a unit moving towards a specific position. Units will avoid ele- mentary obstacles. To set the destination use the keypad to place cur- sor over destination for the current unit and press return. R - Puts the current unit to moving completely at random. Units will stop and awaken when they run across something they can't move through, but will otherwise attack unfriendly units & cities while trekking about. S - Puts the current unit on sentry duty. You will no longer be queried to move this unit until it is manually awakened or an enemy unit approaches it. U - Put ImpTerm into Utility mode, where you can alter the screen size, graphically display maps, and affect other 'local' aspects of the game. - 9 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ Movement Mode Commands (continued) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ W - Wakes up unit. If unit is a transport or carrier, you will be asked whether or not to wake up all onboard units. If the unit is an engineer or dredge in the midst of some construction, you will also be asked to confirm wakeup...all construction work will be lost if engineers or dredges are awakened before completing their tasks. ^W - Master Wakeup. All forces performing some function (sentry/sleeping/ path following/random) wake up. Warning: This will wake up units on transports and carriers, as well as all engineers and dredges. ? - Display information about the current unit. Shows the function, hits left, range, number of armies or fighters aboard, and armed status as applicable. 5 - Fire Artillery. If there are artillery type units in the game, this command will put the unit into 'Targetting' mode; use the cursor keys to target the artillery; hit [Return] to Fire. + - This command applies to only two unit types: Cruise Missiles and Subs. For missiles it means DETONATE right here...right now. For submarines it means come up to the surface. See also '-' command. - - Submerge. If the unit is a submarine then it submerges, otherwise ignored. [RET]- Move Later. Pressing this key moves a unit to the bottom of the movement stack, in other words it's skipped for now. [SPC]- Skip Unit. Pressing this key causes a unit to be skipped completely. Combat is engaged by moving your unit onto the square of the enemy unit you you wish to attack. Hits are traded off at with a sysop defined probability of a hit landing on one or the other units until one unit is TOTALLY destroyed. There is only 1 possible winner. Note that the probabilities of successfully attacking a free city, an enemy city, or another unit can be and most likely will be different. Movement rate is also governed not just by the type of unit but also the terrain that it moves through, Sysops can configure this to vary wildly but expect that armies will move through forests/jungles/swamps slower than through clear terrain. There is also the possibility now for units to take damage moving through certain terrains (i.e. ships in shallow water, armies on the desert, etc) Make certain to check the help menus for each game to see the movement rates. Terrains listed with negative rates have an X*10% chance of damaging units...cumulatively. So a terrain with a -2 has a 20% chance of causing 1 point of damage, a 4% chance of causing 2 points, etc. - 10 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ Edit Mode Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Moving the cursor is done by using the keypad. Numlock on or off. The cursor will move in the direction of the key pressed as follows: 7 8 9 \ | / 4 - * - 6 / | \ 1 2 3 Other Edit Mode commmands... C - change the name of the city. Hitting return alone leaves the name unchanged. D - change the map sector being displayed. The map is divided into numeric sectors vertically (1,2,3...), and alphabetic sectors horizontally (A,B,C...) as is diagrammed in the online help section on the map. Enter return alone to leave the map display unchanged. H - Display the Help screen. Contains a brief description of all the edit mode commands. J - Tries to put ImpTerm into Move mode. If all units have been moved, this won't do anything. O - Puts ImpTerm into Orders mode. P - Change what a city is producing. There is a 20% penalty for changing the production, the time necessary to retool the factories. Press return to leave the production unchanged (and unpenaltied). R - Starts the unit(s) under the cursor to moving completely at random. Units will stop and awaken when they run across something they can't move through, but will otherwise attack unfriendly units & cities while trekking about. S - Puts all units under the cursor on sentry duty. U - Put ImpTerm into Utility mode, where you can alter the screen size, graphically display maps, and affect other 'local' aspects of the game. W - Wakeup a unit. If there are a number of units co-occupying a given space, then all units in that stack wake up. ? - Displays information about the units, city, or land formation at the cursor location. Shows the function, hits left, range and number of armies or fighters aboard for friendly units and the name of the owning empire if they are enemy units. - 11 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ Utility Mode Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ C - Change the colors that the other empires' units are displayed in. A color matrix will be displayed across the top of the screen, the name of the empire to be colored will be on the bottom. Use the cursor keys to select the color, press enter to finalize the choice. Page Up and Page Down will allow you to scroll through the empires. E - Puts ImpTerm into Editing Mode, where you can examine and/or change the functions associated with units and cities. H - Display the Help screen. Contains a brief description of all the utility mode commands. M - Tries to put ImpTerm into Move mode. If all units have been moved, this won't do anything. O - Puts ImpTerm into Orders mode. P - Change the password for this game. Since ImpTerm allows you to access your game information and conduct communications whether you are online or not it was felt that for competing players sharing the use of ImpTerm the ability to 'protect' your game from unauthorized viewing was in order. Passwords will only be checked when ImpTerm is run in local mode. If no password is defined then none will be queried for. S - Screen Size. If you are running on an EGA or VGA display this command allows you to switch into 43/50 line mode and see a whole lot more of the map on one screen than before. V - View Map. This allows you to graphically view your world map in one of four different ways. 'Master' view which shows you all the terrain and cities that you know about; 'Forces' view whichs shows you where all your units are; 'Production' view which colors all your cities according to what they produce; and 'ABM' view which displays your ABM Coverage regions. - 12 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ Appendix B On Cruise Missiles ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Each cruise missile can be configured with one of four types of warheads; these warheads are of eight possible classes that are configured for strength and lethality by the sysop when the game is started. The eight warhead classes are: Class Description ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ Conventional Cities and terrain are unaffected, units are damaged/destroyed according to the strength of the cruise missile unit. Only units at the impact location are affected. Neutron Bomb Cities revert to unowned. Terrain is unchanged. All units within the radius are destroyed. Nerve Gas Cities revert to unowned. Terrain is contaminated. All units in area are killed. Units entering the area are damaged. Simple Bio Cities revert to unowned. Terrain is contaminated. All units in area die. Units entering the area are damaged, units that leave the area spread the contamination. Clean Fission Cities are destroyed. Territory remains unchanged. All units in area annihilated. Toxic Waste Cities are destroyed. Territory is more heavily contaminated. Units in area are are destroyed. Units entering area are damaged. Complex Bio Cities are destroyed. Territory is contaminated. All units in area die. Units entering the area are damaged, units that leave the area spread the contamination. Dirty Fission Cities are destroyed. Territory is laid to waste. All units in area die. Units entering area die. The effects are permanent. - 13 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ More on Cruise Missiles ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For the gas & bio warhead classes another field comes into play, the Expansion/Dissipation rate. This value which can range from 0 to 100 will control how quickly gas clouds will dissipate and how quickly plagues will spread. Generally, a value of 0 will cause the secondary effects to clear up by the next day, while a value of 100 would cause the effects to either not dissipate at all or expand very rapidly. The following list will give a feel for how various rates will work: Rate Gas Warhead Bio Warhead ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ 0 Dissipates completely Dissipates completely by next day. within two days. 25 Dissipates at about 2 Dissipates at about 1 radii units per day. radius unit per day. 50 Dissipates at about 1 Doesn't dissipate or radius unit per day. grow at all. 75 Dissipates at about 1 Grows at about 1 radius unit per 2 days. radius unit per 2 days 100 Doesn't dissipate at Grows at about 1 all. radius unit per day. - 14 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ Appendix C Error Log File (and what the numbers mean): Error No. Error ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ 1 - 99 Turbo Pascal DOS Error. Please report error & address. 100 - 149 Turbo Pascal I/O Error. Please report error & address. 150 - 199 Turbo Pascal Critical Error. Please report... 200 - 255 Turbo Pascal Fatal Error. Please report... 700 - 799 ImpTerm Communication Errors/Aborts 700 - No carrier 750 - No carrier (fossil) 701 - Unable to open port 751 - Unable to init (fossil) 702 - Invalid port no. 752 - Invalid port # (fossil) 703 - Invalid baud rate 753 - Invalid baud (fossil) 704 - Invalid parity 754 - Invalid parity (fossil) 800 - 899 ImpTerm File Errors 800 - No Key file 850 - No Extern map (init) 801 - No Sys file 851 - Insuff cities on map 802 - No Player file 899 - Incompatible data file 803 - No Master map versions. Run Update. 804 - No PCBoard.Sys file 900 - 999 ImpTerm General Aborts 999 - Leave without entering game 998 - Game full 997 - Sysop eject 996 - KB timeout 995 - Max Time exceeded 994 - Player suicide 993 - Illegally modified key file - 15 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ Appendix D ImpTerm Order Form __________________ Name:_____________________________________________________________________ Mailing Address Street :___________________________________________________________ City :___________________________________________________________ State/Zip Code:___________________________________________________________ Country :___________________________________________________________ Voice Number (optional):__________________________________________________ (If you are a Sysop, please include the following info) BBS Name:_________________________________________________________________ BBS Number (optional):____________________________________________________ Are you a member of a BBS Network (FIDO,Hyperlink,Internet,etc)?__________ If so, what network and what is your BBS Address:_________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ System Info: (this is to aid us in supporting you, should problems arise) CPU Type (XT/286/386/486):______________________________________________ System Speed (12Mhz,etc) :______________________________________________ Total System RAM :______________________________________________ RAM available for Doors :______________________________________________ Max Baud Rate (2400,etc) :______________________________________________ Do you "Lock" the baud rate higher?________ (if so, at what?)___________ Hard Disk Size (20MB,40MB) :____________________________________________ Monitor Type (Mono,CGA,etc):____________________________________________ Imperium Door-Terminal Interface ($10.00 US) $________ One year full support & beta test privileges: ($5.00 US) $________ Total: $________ - 16 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 User Documentation _____________ __________________________ - 17 - ImpTerm v3.50 8 February 1992 Documentation Index _____________ _____________________________ Combat 10 Command Modes 7 Edit Mode 11 Movement Mode 9 Orders Mode 8 Utility Mode 12 Credits 5 Cruise Missiles 13 Disclaimer 2 Distribution media 2 EMail Addresses CompuServe 5 Fido Net 5 RBBS Net 5 V-Net 5 Error Log File (ImpTerm.Err) 15 Fossils 3 Installation 3 Hardware Requirements 3 Known Bugs & Anomalies 4 Kudos 6 Modes 7 Order Form 16 Registration 2 Key File Downloading 2 File Request/Send 2 US Mail 2 Running ImpTerm Batch File 3 Baud Rates 3 Command Line Parameters 3 ComPort Interrupts 3 Local Mode 3 Support 2 Updates 2 Warranties 2 - 18 -