Frozen Fish 1: Amiga/FrozenFish-Apr94.iso/bbs/alib/d5xx/d523/conquest.lha/Conquest/Conquest.doc

Text File | 1991-08-05 | 23KB | 511 lines

                Lore of Conquest
                ----------------

COPYRIGHT NOTICE:     (required legalese)
  Conquest is Copyright © 1988-1991 by W. Michael Bryant
  All rights reserved.

  This software is provided AS IS.  No warranties or guarantees
  are expressed or implied.  Michael Bryant cannot be held
  responsible for ANY problems arising from the use of this
  software; use at your own risk.

QUICK START:
  For those of you who don't want to wade through this text file,
  here's the basics of the game.  To start, just type CONQUEST.

  The object of the game is to conquer planets.  The more planets you
  own, the income you receive.  With this income you can build a variety
  of ships with which you can conquer more planets.

  The catch?  You opponent is doing exactly the same thing on the other
  end of the galaxy.

=======================================================================
 *** Please see the end of this file for the latest update notes   ***
=======================================================================


BACKGROUND:
  This program has been in the works for quite some time now.  It was
  originally inspired by a program on the Radio Shack CoCo.  My first
  version of this program was called Conquest and was written in BASIC.
  Next came a version that ran on a PDP 11/45, then finally this
  version on the Amiga.  The program has grown quite a bit since its
  first conception.  Unforunately, it has taken so long to get this
  program done for the Amiga that other games called CONQUEST have
  sprung up.  For a while, this game was renamed to "Dominion", but that
  still didn't feel quite right.  For now the game is called
  "Lore of Conquest", if there are any suggestions for names, let me know.

  Special thanks to John Nowak who created the original version of the
  combat system for Conquest.

INTRODUCTION:
  Conquest is a war game similiar in concept to the board game Risk.
  You are the lord of an entire world, destined to rule the galaxy.
  Some worlds are virgin fruits, ready for you to colonize.  Some
  worlds have natives who do not wish to accept your rule, these you
  must conquer for they will yield more valuable resources.  As you
  claim the galaxy you will find that you are not the only one extending
  your dominion.  This is a two-player game.  Be prepared to defend
  yourself and take what is yours!

            ----------------

  The following instructions give only a brief description of game
  play.  Experiment with the program and find out how the program
  runs and what strategies will lead you to victory!

PLAYING THE GAME:
  Lore of Conquest is a two player game where each player secretly enters
  their moves for each turn.  When it is started, you are asked for
  each player's name and the number of turns you wish to play.

  Next, the galaxy map will be displayed and each player will be asked
  to select their homeworld.  Available worlds will be outlined.  Select
  your homeworld by clicking on the letter of the world.

  The game has now started.  At the beginning of each turn you will be
  displayed your income for the turn.  You earn income for each world
  that you control.  Each world has a class value assigned to it.  The
  higher the class, the more income the world generates.  A homeworld
  is a minimum of class 7.

  After closing the income window you will see the galaxy map and command
  window.  On the galaxy map you will see the first letter of each
  planet's name, and a number or a question mark next  to it.  The
  number indicates the class of the world.  A question mark indicates
  that the world has yet to be explored.

  You need ships in order to explore and conquer other worlds.  Select
  "Buy Ships" from the command window.  The following are the types
  of ships available:

    Scout        - Fastest ship.  Non-combative.  Flies past one
                  or more worlds, to gather information on each.

    Cruiser     - Fast ship.  Average fighter, but cheap.

    MissileShip    - Average speed.  Excellent fighter but must
                      wait to reload so can only attack every other turn.

  Dreadnought    - Big, slow, awesome battleship.  Best fighter,
                      best defender.

    Railship    - Slowest.  A High-Tech piece of hardware.
                    A huge flying cannon that will automatically
                    destroy one other ship in reverse order.
                    ** More on this later.

  TRAVEL

  Send ships to other planets using the "Launch Fleet" command.  Fleets
  of ships will only move as fast as the slowest ship.  If you wish
  to launch a scout use the menu command "Launch Scout".  Scouts can
  scan multiple planets before finally landing on one.  They can be
  invaluable for keeping track of enemy fleets.

  If you are fortunate enough to own two planets with a stargate you
  may send ships between these planets quickly.  A stargate is a
  transportation device.  A ship that enters it will come out at the
  other end three turns later.  This is true regardless of the distance
  or type of ship.  Note that in order to use a stargate, both source
  AND destination planets must have a stargate, and you must own both.

  COMBAT

  When more than one enemy fleet is present on a planet, combat occurs.
  The offensive capabilities for the entire enemy fleet are compared to
  the defensive capabilities of your fleet.  This determines how many
  casualities you will sustain.  Casualties will be first removed from
  ships in the following order:
      Cruisers, MissileShips, Dreadnoughts, Railships

  This means that all casualties will be taken from cruisers until none
  are left, then from missileships, and so forth.

  Railships are a special case.  These ships can attack from long range
  and destroy a ship with a single shot from their massive cannon.  These
  ships can only fire once a turn but destroy ships in the reverse order
  of normal casualties:
      Railships, Dreadnoughts, MissileShips, Cruisers

  This means that after one turn of combat only one side will still have
  any railships in combat.  These ships can be an extreme strategic
  advantage.

  Planets of class 4, 5, or 6 will have natives.  These natives when left
  alone will slowly build ships of their own.  A player discovering a
  class 6 planet late in the game might find a mighty native fleet to
  contend with!

  All planets generate income each turn.  If you own the planet, you get
  all the income stored for the planet.  It is therefore a stategic
  advantage to conquer the natives before your opponent does.  The
  income generate by a planet is directly related to the class of the
  planet.  The higher the class, the more income generated.  There is
  a larger increase in income between 3 to 4, and 6 to 7.

  Note that a class six planet sitting in the corner of the map may
  have over 100 credits stored up after several turns.  Note that
  natives may use some of these funds to build up their own fleets...

  REBELLIONS

  Planets with a class of 4, 5, or 6 will rebel against your forces from
  time to time.  You can lessen the frequency of the rebellions by
  keeping a large force on the planet to intimidate the populous.

  (Strategy note:  If you are having trouble keeping a Class 4 planet,
                   scrap it down to a class 3 so it won't rebel.

                   With a Class six, upgrade it to a class 7.)

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  There are many stategies and finer points to this game.  If you can't
  seem to figure out the game, or have questions about it, send me a
  letter at the address below or contact me on BIX as mikebryant.

  If you like this program and would to show your appreciation, send
  me a letter.  If you REALLY like the program, send me money!  I can
  be reached at:
            Mike Bryant
      37 Adna Road
      Bristol, CT  06010

  This program has been evolving for a number of years now.  Please feel
  free to send any comments or wishes for enhancements for future
  versions.

========================================================================
5-21-90  Release of version 1.0 of Lore of Conquest

Lots of changes with this release.  Special thanks to Doug Walker
(DJWalker on BIX) for the suggestions.  New with this version of Conquest
are:
  Ability to scrap planets.  If you are going to lose a planet, you have
  the ability to lower the planet a class level.  You get 15 credits
  per class of the planet for scrapping the planet.  It can also be used
  when you REALLY need some extra cash.  Since it costs 25 credits to
  raise the planet up one level, this is not a recommended option with
  the exception of dire emergencies.

  Distance command.  You can now get the time it will take a fleet to
  travel from one planet to another.  This was (and is) built into the
  launch ship requester but you had to have bought the ship in order to
  see how long it took to get somewhere.  The distance command doesn't
  have this problem.

  Intelligence History.  Intelligence on past battle reports now goes
  back to the last three events.  This will allow you to get a better
  grasp on what is happening to a specific planet than the old 1 level
  intelligence report.

  Stargates have been improved!  The old version of stargates were not
  even documented in this file.  (Sorry.)  Stargates allow you to travel
  from gate to another in just 3 turns!  It doesn't matter what type of
  ship you send through the gate, three turns later it comes out the
  other end.  To use a gate you must own both ends of it.  To build a
  gate you must have a class 9 planet as your homeworld.  Each gate
  costs 100 credits.

  Battle report has been revised.  I've changed the format of the
  report to better display important information.  Battles will have
  Start Fleet, Casualties, and Survivors listed so you don't have to
  do any math in your head.  The Next and Prev gadgets also enable
  or disable depending on the available information.

  The command screen has a new look.  Hopefully it is more attractive
  that the previous version.

  Mail has been fixed so that messages don't get lost from turn to turn.
  Note that Mail is NOT saved with a save game command.

  There is now a tally command to compare two players at the end of the
  game.  When you quit the game you will be asked if you want to see
  the final tally.  Traditionally when I end a game of Conquest, we agree
  to watch each others screen for the last move to see what lands.  The
  tally command is a quick display to see who has more territory and ships.

  Well, that's about all for now.  If you have any suggestions for the
  game, send me a letter or leave me E-Mail on BIX to MikeBryant.

                             ----------------

  In the future...  I plan on adding a two player feature to Conquest
  that allows you hook two Amigas up via DNET and play Conquest
  head-to-head.  This mean that while you are entering your moves, your
  opponent can do the same thing.  No more waiting!!!  Considering that
  I only have 1 Amiga at the present, this feature may be a while.

  Anyone interested in computer opponents?  I'm considering splitting the
  current Conquest screen into 4 quadrants.  You could play 1 to 4 people
  with computer opponents filling in the empty slots.

========================================================================
9-30-90 Release of Lore of Conquest 1.1

Thanks to Mark Burton on BIX for his many suggestions to enhance this
version!

With this version I upgraded to SAS/C 5.10.  This was a rather painful
process because it reveals several shortcomming of the software design.
(Bad habits from Microsoft Windows programming... ;( )  Anyways, the
new system promises to be much more robust and consistent.

Scraping planets has been revised.  You now get 15 credits per level that
you scrap.  You can only scrap your own planets.  You can only scrap your
home down to class 7.  Scraping now takes time.  You get the money right
away, but the planet will be unavailable to be scrapped again for
(class / 2) + 1 turns.  This is to prevent the wholesale scraping of
the entire universe just to buy a stargate or other such nonsense.

You can now save the status of Conquest at any time.  This means that
you are able to make a move, save the game, and post the file on a BBS.
Your friend can download the file, make his move, save the game, and
post it back.  This might make for some long games, but should allow almost
anyone with a modem to play.  (I considered direct modem support for
Conquest but considering that most of my games take 4-6 hours to play...)
Save files are 46448 bytes long.  LHARC, however will compress them
97% to 1619 bytes!!!  The size of the save file will not change as you
play the game.  The data within it, though will change.  You mileage may
vary.

  Other quick notes:

Stargates will only be used if they shorten distance.
Scouts now show up to 10 destinations in the hyperspace list.
Scounts also show destination list as you select planets to scan.
Current home planet, and bank balance are on the main screen.

I've included some short cut keys for main menu commands:
  T   Tally
  S   Launch Scouts
  D   Distance
  I   Intelligence

The "Confirm" requester can also be answered with "Y" or "N".

The default names for the game are pseudonyms for a friend and myself.
(I'm Alexis.)  If you really find this annoying, I can change the default
names to something else...

            ** REMEMBER : SEND ME YOUR COMMENTS ON THIS GAME **


========================================================================
11-5-90 Release of Lore of Conquest 1.1a

Minor bug fixes and a few enhancements.

Although you were able to save a game of Conquest at the end of either
player's turn, there was no way to select home planets without both
players being present.  Ooops!  Now you can select SAVE GAME from the
menu after the first player selects his home planet.  (The first player
will still have to enter the names for both the players.)

Now the Tally command will display a SCORE!  For those games that are
close, you can now declare a true winner.  (For those whose game ends
before utterly exterminating their opponent.)  Scoring works as follows:

  Each planet you own adds to your score:  Class * Class * 10
  All the ships you own:  Cost * Number of Each Ship Type / 10

As you can see, it really pays to hold high class planets.  Ships don't
count very much in your score but do add a little bit.  Scrapping planets
will hurt a bit more now...

Please feel free to post this file to any local BBS's you wish.  I'd
be happy to see it spread around!  Thanks.

--Mike B.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
11-7-90 Release of Lore of Conquest 1.1b

Ooops.  A minor fix to this version to allow players to start the
game correctly.  Now the second player selects a home world first.
When the first player is asked to pick his world, you can save
the game to disk.  When the other player starts the game he can
choose his homeworld and then begin his first turn.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
12-22-90 Release of Lore of Conquest 1.2

Discovered a bug in the SAS/C compiler that was generating wild
memory writes.  If you found that Lore of Conquest crashes your system
or caused bizarre behavior, this bug was probably the cause.  Fortunately
the nice people at SAS fixed the compiler as soon as I reported the
problem.

I enhanced the hyperspace listing so that the list is sorted by turn
number automatically.  Ships that arrive next turn are highlighted
even if you use Turn or Destination listing options.  You also should
not ever see a blank page.  (I now count the number of entries before
displaying the page so if the page is full but there are no entries for
the next page, the window closes when you click on More.)

Stargates are not revealed on hyperspace listings,
or planet listings unless you own the planet.  (Previously, you could
simply send a ship to a planet to find out if it had a stargate or not.)
Battle reports will now correctly report if a stargate is on a planet
or not.  Careful use of Intelligence can help you determine when a
stargate appeared on a planet.  (Scouts can detect a stargate on a scan.)

Just for flavor, I've added a signature to all mail messages.  Mail messages
are saved to disk so you can send messages via saved games.

In addition to drawing a border around planets that have battle reports
for the current turn, I've color coded those borders so you can
easily recognize what is going on around the entire screen.
    White     = Victory / Re-enforcements / Colonization
    Blue      = Rebellion
    Green     = Scouting Report
    Cyan      = Battle Loss
    Yellow    = Battle in progress

For anyone who desires a "secure" game, you can specify the use of
passwords for each player.  On the startup screen where you specify the
player names and game length, there is a button called "Password:".  Next
to it is the text "Don't Use" or "Do Use".  Clicking on the button will
toggle this text.  If passwords are in use, the user has to enter in a
password at the start of each turn.  I imagine that this will never be used
in a "live" game, however if you want to play via E-Mail it makes sure
that your opponent isn't tempted to peek at your screen.

Menus have been cleaned up a bit.

There are other misc cosemetic bug fixes...

I hope I've wrung the bugs out of this version.  Sorry if the SAS bug
caused any grief.  I've also included a version number in the save
game files so that the program can recognize what files it can or can't
load due to revision changes.  This version is incompatible with previously
saved games.  (Hopefully I'll run out of things to add to the data structure
and the save format won't change again.)

--Mike B.


2-10-91  Release of version 1.3 of Conquest

This release adds a few features and fixes a few minor bugs in the
system.  You are now able to save or quit the game at each player's
"Ready" screen.  This means that in case you really meant to save the
game but hit End Turn out of habit, all is not lost.  It also allows you
a graceful way to exit if you are playing a game and forget the password.

A minor bug where scouts did not use stargates if they were the first
destination has been fixed.

Menus are now approriately enabled and disabled when starting the game.
(It's amazing that the Amiga Rom kernal manual doesn't tell you how
to use the OnMenu()/OffMenu() functions!  Lucky I found a sample program.)

Thanks to Mark Burton for his help in testing the play-by-mail feature
of Conquest.  Hopefully we'll even finish a game on BIX someday.

Keep those shareware donations rolling in!  To date I have received
a whopping total of THREE!  ;^)


2-25-91 Release of version 1.4 of Conquest

This release fixes yet a few more bugs and adds a single new feature.
When you scrap a planet, if the planet has a stargate, you can scrap
the gate as well.  If you choose to do so, you get 75 credits for it.

I added the nice menu functions in version 1.3 but didn't realise that
I never enabled the Extend Game, or About... menu items.  Ooops!

The logic of 3-way battles was severely warped and now is fixed.  If you
had any battle with the other opponent and natives at the same time
and tried to figure out what happened, don't worry; it wasn't you.  The
current scheme now splits the offensive among the various opponents based
on the offensive force present.  (If natives present 75% of the offensive
strength, and Player 2 25%, you will split your offense 75%, and 25%.)

I noticed that I occasionally got GURUs when the system asked for final
tally.  It seems I wasn't handling the message loop properly.  Hopefully
it is fixed now.  (Hey, I followed the RKM examples, it MUST be right!)

Some color has been added to various dialog boxes.  I've also increased
the field width on several ones to accomodate mega-fleets.  (The previous
limitation was 999 ships.)  (Gosh, would 1000 ships be a KILO-Fleet? ;^)

Finally!  I have added a file requester to the save & Load game.  Those
of you who wanted to save the game to particular locations may now do
so.  Much thanks to the people who created REQ.Library!

I keep on thinking that this is the last version of Conquest for a while.
Unfortunately, I keep finding things to tweak.  So, rest assured that
this is the last version for a while... ;^)


5-6-91   Conquest 1.5

I guess a "while" is up.  Here is the next version, 1.5.  This version
adds a few new features:
  Income Generation
    You can now step through and view the income of each planet or
    skip through to the end.  This is for those of you who want to
    see where you income is actually coming from.

    The entire income structure has been changed to make income
    generation more consistent.  All income for planets will vary
    plus or minus 20% from an average amount.  The cost of
    upgrading/scraping planets has also been revised.  For class 1-6
    planets, you will have about 10 turns before the cost of your
    upgrade is paid back by additional income.  For class 7,8,9 planets
    this is about 20.  There are other advantages to these planets,
    besides income.

  Galaxy Map
    There is now a galaxy map blanking routine that prevents your opponent
    from peeking at your map with a utility that gives you the ability to
    do a WindowToFront without gadgets.

    There is now a menu option that allows you to view the galaxy map
    either by ship strenght (the default), or by Flight Arrival.  Planets
    where ships will land in the next turn will be displayed in Red.
    Two turns Yellow, Three turns Orange, and everything else, brown.
    The Flight Arrival map mode is either menu selectable or you can
    press the 'F' key.  The Normal map mode can be activated by menu
    or the 'N' key.

  Battle Report
    The battle report now sports a list of all planets that have
    a battle report this turn.

  Symmetric vs. Random universe generation
    This feature allows you to play "Fair" games.  The universe is
    generated so that all planets and classes are symmetrical.  This
    is for those games where you don't want to hear "But you had
    a stronger starting position than I did..."

  SafeGuard features
    I now flush the gadget buffer before reading the next command.
    If you accidently hit End Turn instead of More, you should be safe.

    Have you ever bought a dozen scouts thinking that they were
    cruisers?  There is now a warning if you buy more than 5 scouts
    at once, making sure that you really want to do this.

  Obliteration Determination
    For those of you who don't know when to quit, Conquest will now
    end the game if it detects that a player owns no planets and has
    no ships in flight.

Well, this has been much bigger release that I originally planned.
Congratulations to Adam Forster, who completed the first "Play by Mail"
game via BIX.  Hey, this could even get popular.  I'm currently playing
three game simultaneously on BIX...

As always, this is definitely the last version of Conquest until
I release another one!  ;^)
--Mike B.