ST-Computer Leser 1998 October

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db 00 00000000 000000 00000b 00000b db d00b 00 00 00 00 90b 00 90b d00b d0P90b 00 00 00 00 d0P 00 d0P d0P90b d0P 90b 00 00 00000 00000K 00000K d0P 90b d0P 90b 00 00 00 00 90b 00 90b d00000000b d0000000000b 000000 00 000000 00 00 00 00 d0P 90b d0P 90b d0P 90b d0P 90b Created 1994-1996 by: dXXXXXXb dXXP 9XXb Spectacle Software dXP d00000Xb XP d000P 9X Niels Roest (program) X000P d000X Xb d000P dX Erich Scherer (graphics & manual) 9X00000P dXP 9XXb dXXP XX.XX.1996 Version 1.0 9XXXXXXP SHORT INSTRUCTIONS This text can be accessed in-game by choosing 'About Alterra' in the 'Game'-menu. (Not yet in this version) 'Lmb' and 'rmb' are abbreviations for the left and right mouse buttons. * Goal Conquer all cities with your armies. * Screenlayout OVERVIEW MAP (left), DETAIL VIEW (right) INFO AREA (down-left), BUTTONS (down-right). * How to scroll the DETAIL VIEW 1) Click the rmb on the DETAIL VIEW (to center around the mouse); 2) Use the arrow buttons at the center of the screen; 3) Use the arrow keys on the keyboard; 4) Click on the OVERVIEW MAP. * The BUTTONS, from left to right 1) 'center around army' 2) 'move army along path' 3) 'no (further) orders for army' 4) 'defend army' 5) 'create path for army' 6) 'delete path' 7) 'deselect army' 8) 'next army' * Armies An army consists of up to eight units on the same square. The contents of the selected army are shown in the INFO AREA. By clicking on a unit in the INFO AREA, you can switch it between 'active' and 'inactive'. During movement, only the active units move, the inactive units are left behind. * How to select an army 1) Click on any of your armies with the rmb to select it; 2) Use the 'next army'-button (the right-most BUTTON); 3) If currently no army is selected: click on an army with the lmb to select it. * Movement and battles Click on the destination square, or use the numeric keypad to move the selected army. Armies can move until one or more units run out of movement points. * How to deselect an army Click on the selected army with the lmb, or use the 'deselect army'-button. * The city sheet Access this sheet by selecting the 'Cities'-entry in the 'View'- menu, or by clicking on a city with shift + lmb. On this sheet, you can manage your city's production. COMPLETE MANUAL CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Installation 3. Shareware 4. Starting the game 4.1. Player selection 4.2. Map selection 4.3. Game options 5. Controls 5.1. The mouse 5.2. Buttons 5.3. Other parts of the screen 5.4. Keyboard shortcuts 6. Movement 6.1. Selecting/ deselecting 6.2. Stacks, groups and units 6.3. Movement: general 6.4. Mouse movement 6.5. Keyboard movement 6.6. Movement bonuses 6.7. Roads 6.8. Boats 6.9. Flying 7. Cities 7.1. The citysheet 7.2. The designsheet 8. Battles 8.1. Combat mechanics 8.2. Strength bonuses 8.3. Sieges 8.4. Sea battles 9. Armies 9.1. The stackinfosheet 9.2. Special units 10. Money 10.1. Income 10.2. ExpenXcses 10.3. Shortage 11. Buildings 11.1. Tempels 11.2. Oracles 11.3. Ruins 11.4. Towers 11.5. The buildingsheet 12. Heroes 12.1. Costs 12.2. Characteristics 12.3. The herosheet 12.4. Missions 12.5. Magic items 13. Diplomacy 14. Menubar 14.1. The 'game'-menu 14.2. The 'order'-menu 14.3. The 'view'-menu 15. Map editor 16. Development of the game 17. Appendices 17.1. Keyboard shortcuts 17.2. Army units 17.3. Magic items 1. INTRODUCTION Alterra is a strategic wargame in a medieval setting. The goal is to conquer all cities. This classic game concept has been modified by adding several elements from fantasy-/ roleplayinggames: for instance the presence of fantastic army units like dragons and demons. Contrary to many strategy games, much effort has been spent to keep the game as easy as possible to play. It will therefore be sufficient for most players to read the short instructions (see above). If these leave to many questions unanswered for you, it is advisable to read chapter 5 (the game controls) as well. The rest of the manual provides very detailed and specific information, and may be consulted as problems arise. 2. SHAREWARE To be filled in. 3. INSTALLATION Hardware requirements: an Atari ST/ STE with colour display and at least 1 MB of RAM. Alterra can be played from floppydisk or harddisk. Alterra consists of the following files: X Simply copy the entire Alterra-folder to your harddrive to play from harddisk. 4. BEGINNING Your first choice is between loading a saved game and beginning a new game. If you wish to commence a new game, the following screen will allow you to select the players. From this screen you can access two more screens where you are able to select another map and change the game options. If you leave these two screens unchanged, the game will be played with default map and default options. The default map is the first map from the 'maps'-folder. This folder must consequently contain at least one map. 4.1. SELECTING PLAYERS Alterra can be played by up to four players. These can be human or computer controlled players. Click on the computer/ face icons to swap between human and computer players. Computer intelligence is not yet implemented. By clicking on the appropriate spots, you can select a name for yourself and your empire, as well as a flag. Finally it is possible to allocate a number of extra cities to each player at the beginning of the game. This makes it possible to give inexperienced players an advantage over battlehardened players (not yet implemented). 4.2. SELECT MAP Not yet implemented. 4.3. OPTIONS On this sheet you can adapt the following aspects of the game to your wishes. a) 'Preset empires' When you choose this option, the cities will be distributed among the players exactly as they are on the original map. b) 'Set empires' Not yet implemented. - 'Center' - 'Startcities' - 'Form' c) 'Neutral cities' All cities that are not given to the players will be neutral cities. They play no active role in the game, but will only defend themselves. The strength of the defence is set here. Weak nautral cities are occupied by one armyunit of the type the city can produce; strong neutral cities have two units. What's more, strong neutral cities will produce an extra unit after each failed attack on the city (not yet implemented). This option of course only has a function if not all cities have been allocated to the players. d) 'Influence of luck' This option determines whether the outcome of battles will depend mainly on luck or rather on the strength of the armies. The more important the element of luck is, the less certain you can be that a strong army will beat a weak army (not yet implemented). See chapter 8 on battles. f) 'Limited casualties' The computer will determine randomly when a battle ends when this option is on. That means that the battle will not necessarily be fought until one of the two armies is completely defeated, which is otherwise the case (not yet implemented). g) 'Production of specials' Not yet implemented. Normally, special units like dragons cannot be produced, they can only be found, for instance in ruins. Tis option though will give a few cities the possibility to produce special units (see also section 9.2). h) 'Diplomacy' Not yet implemented. i) 'Missions' Not yet implemented. j) 'Show computer move' Not yet implemented. Apart from these startup options, some features can be changed in-game for each player seperately by accessing the 'settings'-sheet from the 'game'-menu (not yet implemented). See section 14.1. 5. GAME CONTROLS 5.1. THE MOUSE The game is almost entirely mouse-operated. The form of your mouse cursor indicates the function of the left mouse button (lmb): a) Pointing hand The standard mouse cursor. It appears over menus, sheets, buttons, etcetera. b) Aiming sight (the selection cursor) Can be used to select/ deselect armies. This cursor appears in the detail view on your own armies, to indicate that you can now select the army, or (if the army in question is already selected) deselect it. c) Walking legs/ ship/ wings (the movement cursors) If an army is currently selected, these cursors indicate possible destinations for movement: the legs appear over land, the ship over water, and the wings if the army is a flying army. A click with the lmb will let the computer calculate a path to the destination in question; the army will immediately start to move along this path. See chapter 6 on movement. d) Sword (the battlecursor) Same as the movement cursors, only will the sword only appear over enemy armies and cities. The sword indicates that movement will result in a battle: your army will fight the enemy army or city as soon as it reaches it. e) Arrow with broken line (the 'create path'-cursor) If you click with this cursor, the computer will calculate a path to the given destination, but the army will not immediately move along this path. You wull get this cursor by holding down the shift-key. f) Castle This cursor appears over your own cities. A click will access the citysheet. If an army is currently selected, you will have to press the shift-key to get this cursor (see also section 7.1). g) Tower Same as the castle-cursor, only this cursor will access the buildingssheet instead of the citysheet (see section 11.5). The functions of the lmb in the detailview have now roughly been outlined. Outside the detailview, the mousecontrols are self- explanatory. It may only be necessary to point out that the detailview can be scrolled by holding down the lmb and moving the mouse on the overview map. The right mouse button (rmb) can only be used in the detail view. It ceters the detailview around the mouse position. There is one exception to this rule: over a NOT-SELECTED army of your own, the rmb doesn't center, but SELECTS this army; at the same time any other army that might have been selected will be deselected. This function allows it to switch easily from one army to another. Note: over a selected army, the rmb will have its old function of centering the detail view. Holding the SHIFT-key while clicking the lmb will allow you to access several functions that can't (always) be reached by clicking just the lmb. Following functions are concerned: a) Accessing the citysheet If no army is selected, the citysheet may be called upon by simply clicking the lmb on the city; as soon as any army is selected, it is necessary to hold the shift+lmb to execute this action. b) Accessing the buildingssheet What has just been said on citysheets also goes for the buildingssheet: access the buildingssheet by clicking on a tower, temple, oracle or ruin with shift+lmb. c) Creating a path without letting the army execute it Shift+lmb on any possible destination except cities and buildings will create a path to that destination for the current army. Like this, you can see whether you like the path before you allow the army to execute it. The mousecontrols can be summed up as follows: rmb to center and select; lmb to move; shift+lmb to create paths and to access sheets. 5.2. BUTTONS Functions of the buttons at the bottom-right corner of the screen, from left to right: a) 'Center' Click here to center the detailview around the currently selected army. b) 'Move army along path' If the army has a path, you can instruct it to move along this path as far as it can. This button acts as counterpart of the 'create path'-function: firstly you create a path using shift+lmb or the 'create path'- button (see below), then you let the army execute the path with this button. The other possibility is that the army had a path left from the previous turn which it was unable to complete then due to lack of movement points. Then too this button is used to instruct the army to move on. c) 'No (further) orders' If the army has movement points left (movement points are discussed in the next chapter), but it is already where you want it to be, or if you do not wish to give the army any further reason for whichever other reason, use this button. It will set the movement points of the active group of the army to zero. As will be discussed in section 6.2, armies can have active and inactive units. Most orders, including this one, only apply to active units. The inactive units of the army keep their movement points when you use this function. d) 'Defend' If the selected army is on land, and not in a city, this button wil instruct the army to build a defensive encampment. This order uses up all remaining movement points from the army for that turn. The encampment will be ready at the beginning of the next turn; this will be shown by a small tower on the position of the army. This tower also means that any units on this position will receive a battlebonus (see also section 8.2). The encampment will remain uphold as long as there is at least one unit present in it. Units may freely move to and from the encampment, but if all units leave it, the tower dissappears. If the selected army is not on land, but in a city or on the water, the situation is somewhat different. No defencebonus is applicable then. After all, an army on water can;t build a tower, and an army in a city already receives a defencebonus from the city. As said before, an encampment is visible as a little tower; for a boat, the defensive status is shown by hoisted sails. For armies in castles there is no visible representation of the defensive status. For armies on land as well as armies on water or in castles, the 'defend'-order will result in the army not reporting back to you for new orders in forthcoming turns. As will be explained with the 'next army'-button, normally every army asks for new orders every turn. You can use the 'defend'-order to put an army offside. This way you can for instance prevent city garrisons from bothering you every turn. Should you at a given time want to give new orders to a defended army, you will have to select it 'manually'. As said, an army will become undefended again as soon as it is moved. Defending army in cities will become undefended as well as soon as any unit is ADDED to the defended army. This will come in handy if the city produces a new army: even if it is placed in the defended city garrison, it will report to you because the city garrison becomes undefended as the unit is placed in it. This way you can always keep track of your city's production. There is one categorie of armies the 'defend'-order does not apply to: flying armies over water. It is not desirable that flying armies should be put on guard over water for long times. A flying army will therefore report back to you each turn even if it has been given the 'defend'-order. A defencebonus is not applicable either; in this situation the 'defend'-button has only and exclu- sively the function of setting all movement points of the army to zero. A flying army over land can of course normally defend as any other army. e) 'Create path' This button has the same function as pressing shift+lmb in the detailview. Clicking on the detailview after clicking on this button will create a path. To execute this path press the 'move army'-button. f) 'Delete path' Deletes the path of the currently selected army. g) 'Deselect army' Deselects the currently selected army. Result: no army will be selected. The info area (bottom-left of the screen) will now show some general status information instead of the contents of the army. h) 'Next army' With this button you may cycle through all of your armies. This is useful for instance if you do not wish to give orders to the currently selected army just now. This button will take you to other armies you can give orders to. The army you skipped will come by again sooner or later if you use the 'next army'-button. Optionally, the program will automatically select the next army if no unit of the currently selected army has any movement points (mp) left. You can turn this option on and off in the settingssheet. See also section 14.1. Neither with the 'next army'-button nor with the optional automatic selection you can reach armies that are defended or that do not have any mp left. After all, you don't really want to give defended armies new orders, that's why you defended them, and you it would't be any use to give armies orders they can't execute for lack of mp. Should you wanl to give such armies orders, you will have to select them manually (by clicking on them). Apart from the 'next army'-button, all of these buttons only work if an army is selected. The 'next army'-button stops working if there are no more undefended armies with mp. 5.3. OTHER PARTS OF THE SCREEN a) The overview map It is located on the left of the screen, and shows the entire map. The white square indicates the part of the map visible in the detail view. It can be moved holding the lmb on the map. Small shields filled in with the player's colours represent the cities. The colours on the map: light green: plains green: hills dark green: woods brown: swamps grey: mountains blue: sea and rivers red/ brown: roads black dot: tower or ruin white dot: temple or oracle b) The scrollbuttons Positioned next to the map, they scroll the detail view. c) The info area Located on the bottom-left part of the screen. While no army is selected, the following infomation is provided: number of cities you currently own, your cash, your income and expenditure per turn. If an army is selected, the display changes to show you the contents of the army. The units are arranged from left to right from strong to weak. Exception: since heroes are very important units, they are always positioned completely to the left, regardless of their strength. By clicking on a uit here it is made active/ inactive. Click on the question mark to access the stackinfosheet (see section 9.1). See for more information on active and inactive units section 6.2. The mp of each unit as well as the netto number of mp the army as a whole has are visible below the units in the info area. It also shows any movement bonuses the active group might have, or whether it can fly. See on movement bonuses: section 6.6; on flying: section 6.9. d) The menubar The menu entries will be explained in chapter 14. On the right, the menubar displays the turn number and the on turn. 5.4. KEYBOARD COMMANDS Most functions can be accessed not only using the mouse but also via the keyboard. You can set the keyboard commands to suit your preferences on the settingssheet (not yet implemented). For the default keyboard settings refer to section 17.1. 6. MOVEMENT Many aspects of army movement have already been discussed above. This chapter will concern itself with army selection and the definition of the terms stack, group and army to begin with; a detailed description of army movement will then follow. 6.1. SELECTING/ DESELECTING Before an army can be moved or given any other command, it must be selected. The first method for selection is clicking on an army with the lmb. Let's assume that an army (A) is selected. You wish to select another army (B). Now you CANNOT do this by clicking on army B with the lmb, because this way you would only instruct army A to walk to the position of army B. Solution: EITHER you deselect army A first (by clicking on it with the lmb or using the 'deselect'-button) and then select army B with the lmb; OR, easier, you click immediately with the rmb on army B. As said before, you can always select an army with the rmb. The most common way for army selection is using the 'next army'-button (rightmost button). Deselection is achieved by pressing the 'deselect'-button or clicking on the army. 6.2. STACKS, GROUPS AND UNITS The characteristics of the different types of units are listed in section 17.2. A maximum of eight units can be present in the same square. All UNITS on the same square are called a STACK (or army). The info area (bottom- left) shows which units make up the selected stack. Each unit can be active or inactive; inactive units are grey in the info area. Like this, the stack is split into an active and an inactive GROUP. The detail view shows the strongest unit of the active group of each stack. If there is a hero in the active group, the hero is shown regardless of strength. A bar to the left and above the army indicates the number of units the stack contains. Most orders you can give only apply to the active group. If you give a movement order, only the active units move; if you order an attack, only the active units attack. Practically the only order that applies to the entire army is the 'defend'-order. Example: you wish to split up an army consisting of several units. Do this by making some units active and others inactive, then click somewhere nect to the stack in the detail view. The active group will now move, leaving the inactive group behind. The next question is how to make units active/ inactive. This is done by clicking on the units in question in the info area. Use the round button with the bracket to make all units active ('group'). The button right next to it makes the active group inactive and vice versa ('swap'). At least one unit must always be active. If all units could be inactive, you could give orders that apply to no-one. One army can be split into two; two armies can be merged into one as well. This happens when you order one army to move to a square already occupied by another stack. Merging two stacks is only possible if the combined stack contains no more than eight units. The army already present on the square becomes the inactive group of the new stack, and the stack that merges with it by moving on to it becomes the active group of the new stack. 6.3. MOVEMENT: GENERAL There are two methods to move your army: with the numeric keypad, or with the mouse. Before these methods will be discussed seperately, first some general rules on movement. Every unit has a number of movement points (mp) per turn. Each step costs a number of these mp. As soon as there are not enough mp left for the next step, the unit can't move anymore. The mp are refreshed at the beginning of the next turn. If several units move together as one stack, the units with the fewest mp determines how far the stack can move: if one unit runs out of mp, the entire stack stops. If you wish the other units to move on, you will have to leave the slower unit behind. Note: if a hero is flying on the back of a flying unit over sea, it would be unwise to leave it behind for any reason, as the hero would drown as a consequence of such an action (unless there is a ship present under the hero). If a unit has any mp left at the end of a turn, it can 'carry' up to two mp with it to the next turn. Different types of landscape cost different amounts of mp to move over. Each unit must pay the number of mp of the landscape square it is MOVING TO (as opposed to paying the mp of landscape square it is COMING FROM). It also makes a difference whether the movement is straight or diagonal. The following lists landscape versus movement cost. For the number of mp each unit has, see section 17.2. mp-cost: straight diagonal Plains 2 3 Hills 4 6 Woods 4 6 Swamp 4 6 Roads 1 2 City 1 1 Building 2 3 Water 2 3 Harbor 2 3 Flying units do not use this figure; flying armies pay 1 mp for each square (straight and diagonal). On flying see section 6.9. Certain movement is not possible: a) Armies may not move over mountains, with the exception of flying armies b) There are only limited possibilities for movement from land to water and vice versa. Embarking and disembarking is only allowed in harbors (represented by an anchor) and cities. Refer to section 6.8. Rivers may be crossed at bridges as well. c) Bridges are the only squares that may be occupied by sailing as well as walking armies. Sailing and walking armies are not allowed on bridges SIMULTANEOUSLY though. Consequently you may not move a sailing army on to a bridge that is already occupied by a walking army of your own (and vice versa). d) You cannot merge armies if this results in the total number of units being higher than eight. This limitation is not effective though if ony army MOVES THROUGH another army. Example: An army of three units moves along a path of six squares. An army of eight units is standing on the third square. Nevertheless the army of three units can move on. Should the army of eight units have been standing on the sixth square, the army of three units would have stopped upon reaching the fifth square. 6.4. MOUSE MOVEMENT You can move the selected army by clicking the lmb on the destination square. The computer will then calculate a path to reach this destina- tion. Nearly always this will be the ideal path. The following factors determine the calculation: a) The landscape. For instance the path will try to avoid obstructions like hills or swamps. b) Time lost by (dis)embarking. Often movement by sea is faster than by land; not for short distances though, as comparatively much time is lost embarking and disembarking. c) Enemy armies and cities. These will be avoided. This means that a short cut blocked by an enemy army will not be taken. d) Movement bonuses. Some units (for instance scouts) make the army they are stacked with move quicker through hills and/or woods. The path routine accounts for this. e) Flying. If the entire group of units is able to fly, the path will take it linea recta to its destination, as obstructions other than enemy cities and armies don't matter anymore. The path will be shown as a line of circles and crosses. The circles mark the squares that can be reached by the army the very same turn. Crosses mean that insuffincient mp are available to reach those squares this turn. As has already been pointed out in the previous section, if you merge two armies, only the army you add keeps its path (if any). A path can be up to 126 squares long. If you try to make longer path, an error message will appear. The mechanics of this movement method have already been detailed in the previous chapter. Just for reminders: after clicking on the detination the computer calculates a path, and immediately moves the army along this path; clicking with the shift-button pressed will make the computer calculate the path WITHOUT moving the army. You can then move the army by pressing the 'move army'-button. Although the path routine works very reliably, occasionally errors may occur, resulting in constant error messages when you try to create a path. 6.5. KEYBOARD MOVEMENT The second way to move armies: with the numeric keypad you can move the active group one square at the time. This method works without paths. This method only works for movement that can be executed immediately. Thus a step for which unsufficient mp are available is not possible. Embarking and disembarking is not possible either, as this requires one turn. 6.6. MOVEMENT BONUSES Certain army units have a natural familiarity with certain types of landscape. The presence of such units in an army therefore gives the army in question a movement bonus for woods or hills. This bonus is indicated in the info area by a tree or hill icon. The bonus enables the army to move through woods or hills as fast as through plains. The following units grant movement bonuses: Scout woods and hills Orcs woods and hills Elves woods Dwarves hills Giants hills 6.7. ROADS Apart from flying, walking along roads is the fastest way to move your armies. Most maps contain some roads. 6.8. BOATS Armies can easily move from land to sea. Simply click on a sea square as the destination for the selected army, and the army will move to a suitable harbor. As soon as the army has arrived at the harbor, it will automatically build ships. This will use up all remaining mp for that army. At the beginning of the next turn all active units of the army have embarked: they are moved to the adjecent seasquare, and are now shown as a ship in the detail view. The same goes For disembarkment: the units lose their remaining mp when they arrive on the last seasquare before the harbor; at the beginning of the next turn the group is placed on the harbor. Your own cities count as harbors, and may thus be used for embarking and disembarking. As has been noted before, flying units use 1 mp per step. The only exception to this rule is (dis)embarking. If an army that contains walking as well as flying units receives an embarkment order, ALL units, non-flying and flying, use up their mp in the process, not only the walking ones. The flying units actually do NOT embark though, they remain flying. The same goes for disembarking. On flying see the next section. Sailing armies are represented as ships on the detail view. Each unit in a sailing army has a boat of its own, so you may freely split up or merge a sailing army just as an ordinary landarmy. Note that flying units always fly, also when they are with sailing units. 6.9. FLYING Every square of flying costs 1 mp, straight or diagonal. If all active units of the selected army can fly, a wing symbol appears in the info area. The army can now, firstly, fly freely across mountains, and, secondly, move from land to sea and vice versa anywhere without delay. In short, flying armies are not bothered by obstacles in the landscape. The only non-flying unit that can fly along with a flying army is the hero. Such a 'flying' hero uses only one mp per square as well. Note: a hero can only fly if the entire army he is stacked with can fly, it is not sufficient that together with the hero there are one or more flying units in an otherwise walking or sailing army. As has already been said, a hero cannot swim. So if a hero flies along with a flying army, and is left behind above water, you will lose him! This also occurs in the following situation: a hero is sailing; a bat reaches him. At the moment the bat arrives at the boat, the hero will mount the bat and abandon the boat. The boat DISSAPPEARS. If you let the bat fly on without the hero now, he is doomed... 7. CITIES Conquering all cities is your goal, and at the same this is the only way to achieve this goal, as the army units necessary to achieve this goal can only be produced in cities. The cities are represented on the detail view as castles of two times two squares in the colour of the respective players. 7.1. THE CITYSHEET On the citysheet you manage the army production of a city. Furthermore it shows you all relevant information on the city in question. You open the citysheet by clicking on one of your own cities with the castle-mousecursor. Alternatively you can select the opties 'cities' from the 'view'-menu. You can only access citysheets of your own cities. the citysheet contains an overview map on the left. Cities are shown as small shields on this map. The city you are currently inspecting is flickering. By clicking on the shield of one of your own cities you can directly switch to the citysheet of this city. The buttons 'previous' and 'next city' enable you to switch to other citysheets as well. By clicking on these buttons you can circle through all of your cities (similar to the 'next army'-button). Onformation on the city itself is visible above the overview map, namely the amount of gold pieces (gp) the city produces per turn, and the defence bonus the city gives to its defenders. This bonus is +1 for a city that can can hold one or two army designs, and +2 for a city that can hold three or four designs. The other parts of the sheet have to do with army production. To begin with, near the top of the sheet there are a few circles. These circles should be seen as slots for different army designs. You know already that a lot of different units exist in ALterra. To be able to produce a unit, a city must have the appropriate design first. The number of circles indicates how many different designs the city can hold; circles filled with unit icons indicate that the designs for these units are available in the city, and therefore that these units may be produced in this city. Each city contains one randomly selected design at the beginning of the game. Other designs may be bought on the Designsheet (see next section). It may be important to note that the presence of several designs in a city does not mean that more than one unit can be produced simultanously. Each city can produce just one unit at a time. You can set the production by clicking on the circle with the design of your choice. This design will then appear in the circle on the right of the 'design circles'. Below the unit currently being produced a list of its characteristics is given. Herein is contained: name, strength, amount of mp per turn, turns to go till production is complete, and total time and money required to build a unit of this type. Finally, the sheet contains some buttons. With the 'rename'-button you can rename the city (obviously). The city name on the top of the sheet will change into a cursor. Type a name and press return. The 'raze'-button enables you to destroy your own city. Like this you can prevent the city from falling into enemy hands if you are certain that you cannot hold it. With the 'buy design'-button you access the designsheet. 7.2. THE DESIGNSHEET Here you can buy new designs for the city. The circles at the bottom of the sheet hold the designs the city already has. A large square marks the circle a newly bought design will be placed in. Check whether the square is on the correct circle (preferably an empty circle), then click on the design you wish to buy. Naturally you can only buy designs you can afford. Certain special units like wizards, devils, dragons etcetera do not appear on this sheet. Designs for these units cannot be bought. In principle, the only way to find such units is to search ruins or towers (see sections 11.3 and 11.4). Furthermore at the game you can set that some randomly selected cities can produce specials. On specials, also refer to section 9.2. 8. COMBAT If an army moves onto a square occupied by an enemy army or city, a battle starts. The battlesheet appears for this purpose. Here, both army are lined up opposite eachother. Only now you can see exactly of which units the enemy army is composed. Tip: it may be useful to attack a large enemy army with a scout or a similarly weak army, just to know how strong this army is. 8.1. COMBAT MECHANICS Each unit has a base strength. As will be discussed in the next section, this base strength can be increased by numerous bonuses. Bonuses added to base strength give the total strength of a unit. During battles, the units are lined up according to increasing or decreasing TOTAL strength (increasing or decreasing depending on your personal settings, see section 14.1). Note that, contrary to this, units are lined up in the info area according to decreasing BASE strength. Exceptions to the fight order exist, again, because of heroes. As these should be regarded as the most important units, they are always positioned last in the battle order. An exception to this exception is the case that the hero is flying with a flying army above water. In this case a flying unit will be placed behind the hero to prevent the hero from drowning by the death of his mount. Should the hero however have a magic item that enables him to fly, the flying unit will not be placed behind, since the hero doesn't need that unit to fly then. The battle is resolved by letting the leftmost units of each army fight eachother. The procedure is as follows: Both units roll a die. Depending on the settings at the beginning of the game ('influence of luck') this is a 20-, 24-, or 28-sided die. The higher the number, the more the outcome of the battle is a matter of luck. If the attacker's roll is higher than the defender's total strength AND if furthermore the defender's roll is equal to or lower than the attacker's total strength, the defender incurs one damage point. If the defender's roll is higher than the attacker's total strength AND if furthermore the attacker's roll is equal to or lower than the defender's total strength, the attacker is damaged for one point. If both rolls are higher than the opponent's total strength, or if both rolls are lower than the opponent's total strength, nothing happens. This procedure is repeated until one of the two units has two damage points; this unit is then beaten. If the surviving unit received a damage point, it will still have this damage point fighting the following enemy units, and can thus be beaten more easily by these. If a damaged unit survives the entire battle, it is then completely healed. Damage points count only for one and the same confrontation between armies. A battle uses up all remaining mp of the attacking units involved. 8.2. COMBAT BONUSES The following types of combat bonuses exist: a) Individual land bonus Some units fight better when they are in certain terrain. For example dwarves receive a +1 bonus when fighting in hills. Section 17.2. lists these bonuses. Note: battles always take place on the defenders square, so only the landbonuses of the defender's terrain are applicable. b) Army bonus Some units are so impressive that other units within the same armies fight better because of the presence of such units. An elephant for example gives a +1 bonus to all other units he is stacked with. The bonus is not applied to the type of unit it comes from however. Furthermore each type of unit can give only one bonus. Example: two elephants in an army don't grant a +2 bonus, just a +1 bonus, and only to all other units, not to themselves. d) Blessing bonus All units can receive blessings at oracles and temples. Each blessing counts for +1. Each unit can be blessed up to three times, but not twice at the same temple or oracle. See also chapter 11. d) Defence bonus Armies in defensive positions (marked by a small tower) have a +1 bonus. Defensive positions may be built on land, except in cities. Armies in cities receive a +1 bonus (if the city can hold one or two designs) or a +2 bonus (if the city can hold up to four designs). e) Hero bonus Like the army bonus (see above), the hero bonus counts towards all other units that are in the same army as the hero. A hero with a base strength of 5 or 6 will give a +1 bonus, a base strength of 7 or 8 will produce a +2 bonus, and a base strength of 9 grants a +3 bonus. As with the zrmy bonus the herobonus of one hero does not count towards other heroes in the same army. A difference though is that the hero bonuses of several heroes are added up towards other units. Example: if an army contains a hero of strength 5 and a hero of strength 7, all other units receive a +3 bonus (1+2), the heroes themselves get no bonus though. On heroes see chapter 12. f) Magic items bonus Heroes can carry magic items Some of these give a strength bonus to the bearer (individual magic item bonus), others give a bonus to the other units in the same army (army magic item bonus). An army magic item bonus does not count for other heroes in the same army. The effects of several magic items are added up. Example: an army contains two heroes and some other units. One heroe has three items, two giving an individual magic item bonus of +1 each, and the third item giving a +2 army magic item bonus. Result: This heroe gets a +2 bonus (1+1), the other heroe has no bonus, and the remaining units receive a +4 bonus (1+1+2). Information on an army's bonuses is available on the stackinfosheet (section 9.1). The MAXIMUM bonus allowed per unit is +5. Certain bonuses can be cancelled by certain enemy units: An attacking army containing a catapult negates the defence bonus of enemy cities. A devil cancels all individual land bonuses and army bonuses of the enemy army. Exception: army bonuses donated by special units (wizard, worm, undead, demon, element, devil, angel, dragon) cannot be cancelled. An angel cancels all hero bonuses and magic item bonuses of the enemy army. Of course the cancelled bonuses are directly applicable again, should the cancelling catapult, devil or angel in question be beaten during the battle. Concluding: there are no units that can negate the bonuses of blessings, special units or defensive positions. 8.3. SIEGES Sieges work the same as other battles. You should only bear in mind that in a battle for a city ALL defending units will fight. A city consists of four squares, it can therefore contain up to 32 defending units. If you succeed in conquering a city, you can then decide whether you want to sack the city. this means that all designs in the city will be lost. For this you receive half of the amount it costs to buy the designs in question. For designs of special units you receive 1000 gp (for a devil, an angel or a dragon) or 750 gp (for other specials). In view of the fact that in most cases at this moment you will not know which designs are present in the city, this is a risky option. You might lose very strong designs! It is therefore only advisable to use this option if you are in need of money or if you are convinced you will not be able to hold the city for very long. After the decision on sacking you will be presented with the citysheet. An undefended city can naturally be occupied without battle. 8.4. SEA BATTLES Units in ships have a base strength of 3, regardless of their actueal base strength. This works to the advantage of weak units, and to the disadvantage of strong units. Flying units are never in boats, so they always keep their own base strength. A hero within a sailing army always counts as a sailing unit, even if there are flying units present in the army, so he will pay the movement cost for sailing, not for flying. What's more, the hero uses the ship's base strength of 3 as well, regardless of his actual strength. The rule is that a hero can only fly if the entire army (the active group, that is) he is stacked with can fly. The base strength of 3 will be modified by bonuses. If a ship attacks a city, or if a ship attacks an army on a harbor, or if an army in a city or harbor attacks a ship, the attack cannot be executed immediately, because embarking/ disembarking must be resolved first. The battle will take place at the beginning of the attacker's next turn; that is, if the army being attacked is still on the same square then. Following this line of thought, it is possible as well that a 'peaceful' (dis)embarking action will result in a battle. This is the case when an enemy army occupies the square, to which the (dis)embarking action is directed, before the beginning of the next turn. A boat attacking a city or harbor will act as an ordinary land army in this battle, as disembarkment is complete then. Similarly, a land army attacking a boat will act as a boat in the fight. 9. ARMIES The most important points with regard to armies and units have already been explained before: army movement in chapter 6, army production in chapter 7, combat in chapter 8. This chapter can therefore be limited to a few remarks. 9.1. THE STACKINFOSHEET The info area contains a round button with a question mark. With this you access an infosheet on the selected army. The stackinfosheet gives information about composition and strength of the army. Vertically the units of which the army is composed are listed; horizontally relevant information is given for each unit. From left to right this concerns: a) Name Unit names. Heroes have personal names. b) Strength This is the base strength. Sailing units have a boat icon in this column, meaning they use the ship's base strength of 3. Remember that a sailing army will fight as a normal land army when attacking a city. the normal base strength of the units will then be in effect again. c) Bonus The next three columns list all bonuses except defence bonuses (+1 or +2 in cities, +1 in defensive positions) and individual land bonuses. - Blessing: the blessing bonus is +1, +2 or +3. This bonus cannot be cancelled. - Army: for each active unit is noted which army bonus the unit receives from the other active units. Except for the army bonus given by special units, these bonuses can be negated by a devil. - Hero: this column contains herobonus and magic item bonuses. These are all cancelled by an angel. d) Total This is the sum of base strength and bonuses. The bonus columns are not affected by the bonus maximum of +5, the total column does contain this maximum. So the total figure is never more than 5 higher than the base strength, even if the bonus columns list higher figures. The total count does not contain defense bonuses and individual land bonuses. Remember that these may only be added towards this total figure as long as the total bonus doesn't exceed +5. The results of negating units being present in the enemy army are not presented either. Nevertheless the bonus columns have been split up to allow you to see at a glance just which bonuses would be cancelled by the presence of a devil or an angel in the enemy army. e) Other bonus This column shows which individual land bonuses units have. This is marked regardless of the type of landscape the army occupies currently. To use this information you must therefore ask yourself which type of terrain will be used for battle. The bonuses are only shown within the ACTIVE group of the army. You can survey how the strength of the units changes as you alter the composition of the army, by clicking on units to make them active/ inactive. You can also use the 'swap' and 'group'-buttons at the bottom of the sheet. With the 'heroes'-button you can switch to the herosheet. If there are one or more heroes in the army, this brings you to the herosheet of the uppermost of these heroes. 9.2. SPECIAL UNITS Much has been said about specials already. The units concerned are wizard, worm, undead, demon, elemental, devil, angel and dragon. The characteristics are summed up in section 17.2. All of these units give a +1 bonus to the other units in the army, except for the dragon which grants a +2 bonus. These bonuses can't be cancelled. A devil cancels individual land bonuses and army bonuses (except those of specials) in the enemy army. An angel cancels hero bonuses and magic item bonuses. Special units can only be produced (in some cities) if this option was selected in the options sheet at beginning of the game. Designs for special units can never be bought. Special units can be obtained by searching ruins or towers with heroes. Units found this way are free and have no maintainance costs. 10. MONEY 10.1. INCOME Each city generates a certain amount of gp per turn as income. Certain magic items can increase this income. Searching ruins or temples occasionally gets you some money. The figure in the info area only indicates how much income your cities produce per turn. Extraordinary income is not shown. 10.2. EXPENCES Each unit costs a certain amount of money to produce (see section 17.2). This amount must be paid on the moment the production of the unit is finished. Each unit costs you maintainance. Maintainance costs per turn are half of the amount it cost to produce the unit (rounded down). Extraordinary expenditure consists of buying new designs on the design sheet (apart from production costs); furthermore each hero you employ, except the first hero, requires a comparatively large one-time payment to be made. As with income the expences figure in the info area only shows regular costs, that is maintainance costs. 10.3. SHORTAGE Regular expenditure (maintainance and production costs) are subtracted from regular income (from cities) at the beginning of each turn. Should income be unsufficient to cover expences, and the money in treasury be unsufficient to cover the deficit, the computer will disband as many units as necessary to prevent a negative treasury balance (not yet implemented). 11. BUILDINGS 11.1. TEMPLES The most important function of temples is blessing units. An army on a temple will be blessed if you select the option 'search' from the 'order'-menu. A blessing counts as a +1 combat bonus. Each unit can only be blessed once at the same temple. Three blessings per unit is maximum. 11.2. ORACLES These look like round temples. Their function is the same as that of temples. 11.3. RUINS Not yet implemented. 11.4. TOWERS Not yet implemented. 11.5. THE BUILDINGSHEET Not yet implemented. 12. HEROES Not yet implemented. 12.1. COSTS 12.2. CHARACTERISTICS 12.3. THE HEROSHEET 12.4. MISSIONS 12.5. MAGIC ITEMS 13. DIPLOMACY Not yet implemented. 14. MENUBAR 14.1. THE 'GAME'-MENU a) 'About ALterra' This sheet contains version number and -date, information on shareware (if it is the shareware version of Alterra), and the short instructions that also appear at the beginning of this manual. b) 'Settings' Not yet implemented. c) 'Load game' By loading a saved game you abandon the current game. d) 'Save game' Saves the current game situation. Not yet implemented. What exactly is saved? The map as well? e) 'New game' This option ends the current game and brings you back to the player selection screen for a new game. f) 'Surrender' Not yet implemented. g) 'Quit' Order to end the game and return to the desktop. 14.2. THE 'OPTIONS'-MENU a) 'Move all' Not yet implemented. b) 'Build road' Not yet implemented. c) 'Remove road' Not yet implemented. d) 'Search' With this, units can get blessings in temples and oracles. e) 'Disband' After a safety check you can disband the selected army with this option. f) 'End turn' Ends your turn and proceeds to the next player. 14.3. THE 'VIEW'-MENU a) 'Cities' See chapter 7. b) 'Buildings' See chapter 11. c) 'Heroes' See chapter 12. d) 'Diplomacy' See chapter 13. e) 'Graphs' Not yet implemented. f) 'History' Not yet implemented. 15. MAP EDITOR To be filled in. 16. DEVELOPMENT OF THE GAME To be filled in. 17. APPENDICES 17.1. KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS a) Movement of the selected army Numeric keypad b) Scrolling Arrow keys c) Menus Not yet implemented. d) Info area Not yet implemented. e) Buttons Not yet implemented. 17.2. ARMY UNITS Abbreviations: P = plains; R = roads; H = hills; W = woods; C = city. i = individual bonus; a = army bonus. NAME BASE MP BUILD- BUILD- DESIGN- BONUSES STRENGTH COSTS TIME COSTS Scout 1 16 2 1 10 Move H and W Giant bat 1 16 5 1 30 Fly Light infantry 2 12 3 1 50 - Orc 2 12 4 2 100 Move H and W Light cavalry 2 20 6 2 300 Combat +1(i) P and R Catapult 2 16 16 4 500 (Note 1) Heavy infantry 3 8 5 2 300 - Elf 3 12 7 2 400 Move W; comb. +1(i) W Dwarf 3 8 7 2 400 Move H; comb. +1(i) H Pikeman 4 8 5 3 400 Combat +1(i) P and R Haevy cavalry 4 16 8 3 500 Combat +2(i) P and R Wolfrider 4 16 8 2 500 Combat +2(i) H Giant 5 16 10 2 800 Move H Minotaur 5 12 10 2 800 Combat +1(i) C Giant spider 5 12 12 2 1000 Combat +2(i) C Pegasus 5 20 12 3 1000 Fly; combat +1(a) Griffin 6 20 15 3 1500 Fly; combat +2(i) C Unicorn 7 16 15 4 1500 Combat +1(a) Elephant 8 16 15 4 1500 Combat +1(a) Ship 3 20 - 1 - - Wizard 6 50 12 4 - Combat +1(a) Worm 7 12 12 4 - Combat +1(a) Undead 7 16 12 4 - Combat +1(a) Demon 7 20 15 4 - Fly; combat +1(a) Elemental 8 12 15 4 - Combat +1(a) Devil 8 16 15 4 - Comb. +1(a); (note 2) Angel 8 16 20 4 - Fly; comb.+1(a); (n.3) Dragon 9 22 20 4 - Fly; comb. +2(l) Hero 5-9 14-22 - - (note 4) Note 1: a catapult negates enemy city defence bonuses. Note 2: a devil negates enemy army bonuses and individual land bonuses, except bonuses from special units. Note 3: an angel negates enemy hero bonuses and magic item bonuses. Note 4: a hero gives an army bonus of +1, +2 or +3, depending on his experience level. 17.3. MAGIC ITEMS Not yet implemented.