‘The Republic’. © 1992 Ralph S. Sutherland Game #1 from the Card Shell. v1.0.1 Contents: Apocryphal background The Aim The Deck The Layout and Deal Moves Special moves Sequences Endgame/Redeals Scoring Strategies Cool features of the Card Shell games Artwork Legal Bits Credits Apocryphal background Napoleon Bonaparte, one-time French Emperor has had more solitaire games attributed to him than any other person in history. +˛ever it appears that he was in fact unlikely to have been a very patient card player, one perso*Runt of a case where Napoleon miss-dealt in a social game goes: "...I could not have conceived that so trifling an accident could have affected any human creature so seriously - his whole countenance was lighted up with fury, and he made a violent contortion of his features, and drew down his mouth on one side, like one suffering an inward pang." ‘The Republic’ is based on one of the Bonaparte games called 'The Emperor', which may have been devised by one of Napoleon’s men, Las Cases. The computer version allows variations in the sequence matching rules and changes the way the Talon pile is used in the endgame. A scoring system has been devised to allow comparison of games, and games may be saved and then played by other played so a competition could be formed. The Aim The aim is to simply build up the eight foundations from Aces to Kings, each in strict suit order. The Deck A deck of 104 cards is used, comprising of two normal 52 card decks. Solitaire decks like this often have complementary but distinctive back patterns. The user can choose card back patterns using the Special menu. The background pattern may also be selected from a list of patterns. The Layout and Deal •Ten columns of three cards are dealt face down, these are the 'packets'. beneath these, ten columns of one card are dealt face up, these are the beginnings of the 'columns' of the tableau. •The remaining cards for the 'stock' and are placed face down in a single pile in the upper left corner. Immediately adjacent to the stock is the space for the waste cards or 'talon'. There are eight 'foundation' spaces that are built on with Aces up to Kings (in suit) as the cards become available during the game. •All this is achieved using the New Game item (⌘N) on the File menu. Moves •Only one card may be moved at a time. However, any card may be placed in an empty column once the packet above has also been cleared, this forms a 'vacancy'. By using vacancies whole sequences may be moved. The length of sequence that may be move is limited by the number of vacancies and whether the sequence is being moved to another column or into a vacancy. i.e.: Moving onto another column: 1 vacancy - can move 2 cards at a time. 2 vacancies - can move 4 cards at a time. 3 vacancies - can move 8 cards at a time. and so on for more vacancies... ( for the math inclined you can move 2^n cards where n is the number of vacancies) Moving into a vacancy: 1 vacancy - can move 1 card at a time. 2 vacancies - can move 2 cards at a time. 3 vacancies - can move 4 cards at a time. and so on for more vacancies... ( for the math inclined you can move 2^(n-1) cards) •Cards may be moved between columns according to the sequence matching rules in force.(see below) •Cards may be built up on the foundations at any time. The foundations are built from Aces up to Kings in strict suit. •Cards from the foundations may be played back onto the tableau if desired. •Cards are turned up one at a time from the stock at any time. The exposed card may be played onto the tableau or foundations. If no move is possible for the card the card is played onto the talon. This will be evaluated automatically by the computer so that if no move is possible with the exposed card it will move to the talon automatically. The converse implies that if the exposed card does not immed- iately move then some play is possible with the card. The player may manually move the card to the talon and not play it. •The top card of the talon is playable, and it may be dragged at any time to reveal next card underneath. •When a column has been cleared then the top card in the associated packet is exposed. This is then available for play to other columns or foundations. •A cleared column only becomes a vacancy (see above) once the packet above it has also been cleared. The last card exposed in a packet will be moved into the cleared column below. Special moves •Each move made is recorded by the computer. Using the Moves menu the player can step back through previous steps and forward again to the most recent move. This means that an erroneous move can be undone. In fact the entire game can be replayed. Since 'The Republic' has hidden cards this has the potential to permit cheating peeks at hidden cards. While non-revealing use of the Forward (⌘F) and Backward (⌘B) is permitted under the rules, it left to the conscience of the player whether to use it to peek at unexposed cards or not. I think this kind of restraint is an essential feature of 'real' Solitaire games, so, you can cheat, but you have serious problems if you persist in cheating yourself like this. •An automatic layoff option (⌘L) can be used to check for all possible layoffs from exposed packets and columns. It doesn't check the stock or talon. It may be used at any time and can save a lot of mousing around at the end of the game. •Holding down the shift key while clicking on a card will test it for layoff onto a foundation. •Clicking on the empty stock will redeal the talon if the redeal is allowed under the matching rules in force. Sequences •Sequences in columns may be built up according to the rule currently in force. The rules may be selected using the Moves menu with the Sequences… item. •The standard rule says that sequences are built in descending rank sequences of alternating colour. This may be changed to be simple descending rank, regardless of suit, or descending sequence in the some suit only. The choice of matching rule affects the way the talon is handled in the endgame.(see below) •In general the simple rank rule is easiest and the strict suit rule is hardest. Endgame/Redeals •With the simple descending rank rule in force, no redeals of the talon are allowed. once the stock is exhausted, play may only continue using the talon, foundations and movement within the tableau. •With the alternating colour descending rank rule in force, the talon may be reused once. Once the stock is exhausted, the talon may be redealt using the Re-Deal item on the Moves menu (⌘D). After the redeals the menu item remains disabled. •With the strict suit descending rank rule in force, the talon may be redealt as often as desired. •The talon can also be redealt by clicking in the empty stock. •The game is lost if no further foundation layoffs are possible. Scoring is done after choosing New Game (⌘N)from the File menu, before the new game is dealt. Scoring The scoring is a points system that depends on the rules in use for a given game according to the following table: Rule Win Loss Match any suit 1pt -4pt Match alternating colour 2pt -2pt Match same suit only 4pt -1pt The scores are recorded along with some other statistics such as winning/losing streaks and game move counts. Overall points and winning percentages as well as a breakdown by rule type is given at the end of each game and at any other time using Scores… from the Special menu. •Bonus points may be scored if no redeals are used with the alternating colour rule or less than two redeals are used with the same suit rule. Strategies •Don't build up columns indiscriminately, vacancies are the key to the successful completion of a game. This is particularly true with the two harder rule sets. •Beginners may like to use the simple descending rank matching rule. •In the simple game, try not to let low ranking cards go into the talon. On the other hand, a few vacancies can allow mass layoffs and the talon can be emptied quite quickly. Cool features of the Card Shell games •Automatic saving means that you can quit at any time and when you restart the game is restored as it was left off. •All the games from the card shell can simultaneously share the same 'Cards' file. This contains the sounds and cards pictures. This saves duplicating ~400k of common data for each new game. The games themselves come out about 50k each. •The very first time a Card Shell game is started, it looks for the Cards file in the same folder as the game. If it cannot find it the user is prompted to find it. Once found its location is recorded along with identification and search info. so that the 'Cards' file can subsequently be moved anywhere else on the disk and still be found. •The card graphics have be optimised to work equally well on B&W monitor settings as well as 4,16,256,thousands and millions of colours. The layout will fit (just) on the small 9" monitor of an SE/30, and on larger screens the window can be moved anywhere on a multiple monitor set-up. Artwork •The court cards are quite symbolic. I have included motifs of the original card suits: Staffs, Cups, Swords and Coins on their modern counterparts:Spades Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs. This means that I have moved the characteristic 'oops I've just stuck a sword though my head!' from the King of Hearts to the King of Diamonds, and given the King of Hearts a nice drink (cup) instead. •The other common convention in the court cards is the identities of the one eyed cards: Jack Hearts, Jack Diamonds and King of Diamonds. This will permit the playing of some obscure Poker variants that actually depend on this. •The cards are in the form of colour icons in the 'Cards' file. The cicns also contain modified B&W versions that will look better in mono than just letting quickdraw do it's stuff. Legal Bits ©1992 Ralph S. Sutherland. Written with THINK Pascal, ResEdit and MPW Pascal & Asm. Portions © Symantec Corp. This software is freeware, it may not be sold or resold. If you enjoy it send a postcard from your home town, or drop an email note to let me know what you think! Source code for THINK Pascal 4.0 and MPW Pascal/Asm is available for US $50 which includes licence to use the code to make and distribute freeware and/or shareware applications that depend in essence on this code as long as suitable credit is given for the origins of the code. For commercial usage please contact me for negotiations. Please make postal orders and Bank Drafts payable to: Ralph S. Sutherland #9 Mt. Stromlo Observatory Private Bag Weston P.O. A.C.T. 2611 AUSTRALIA. Personal cheques and credit cards NOT accepted. Email address: ralph@merlin.anu.edu.au Voice: (06) 2880492 (Australia AEST after hours) Credits Special thanks to Neville Smythe for brave and dedicated Alpha testing and Kim Holburn through the turbulent Beta stages as well. Artwork with Colour MacCheese, thanks to Baseline and the MacCheese gang. Help Text with Imaj from the Data Suite.