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Text File | 1992-07-31 | 32KB | 726 lines

Welcome to Hostile Takeover; the game of discovery and conquest. It is easy to learn, easy to play, and a lot of fun. This game is being distributed as a shareware product so if you like the game, please be sure and register it. I am presently working on Hostile Takeover II and those that register this game will get the second one at a reduced price. I will also need play testers for the new game and I would like to use the people that have played and liked this game. The registration information is at the end of the manual. The outline for the manual is listed below. Starting the game Object of the game Elements of the game 1. The map 2. Castles and playing pieces 3. Gold 4. Visibility Screen layout 1. Realview window 2. Overview window 3. Text window Commands 1. (H)elp 2. (?) information 3. (P)roduce 4. (M)ove 5. (A)ttack 6. (D)efense 7. (S)ave 8. (L)oad 9. (C)enter 10. (R)eport 11. end (T)urn 12. (G)ive up 13. ESC Tips, Hints, and Comments Start up Demo Registration information Starting the game: To start playing, put this disk into the A: drive and type HOSTILE. Once the introduction has finished, press any key to continue. You will then be asked if you want to (1) start a new game or (2) load a saved game. If you want to load a game press '2' and then type in the name of the previously saved game. The game will be restored and you can start playing were you left off. If you wish to start a new game then press '1'. You will then be asked if you want to (1) play against the computer or (2) play against a human opponent. If you want to play against a human opponent press '2' and the game will start at the beginning of player one's turn. The game is designed so that only one player should be able to see the screen at a time. When a player has finished his turn, the screen will blank. A message will be displayed telling the other player it is his turn. When the second player is ready he can press 'c' to continue and his map will be displayed. If you want to play against the computer press '1' and the game will then ask you what difficulty level you wish to play. Once you have selected a difficulty level, play will start at the beginning of your turn. When you are finished with your turn a message will be displayed telling you the computer is taking it's turn. When the computer is finished your map will be redrawn and you can take your next turn. Object of the game: The object of the game is divided into two parts. The first objective is to explore the map and take over neutral castles. The second objective is to find your opponent and take over all of his castles. When one player has taken over all of his opponent's castles then he has won the game. Elements of the game: 1. The Map The map is composed of six basic types of terrain: grass, brush, forest, swamp, low mountains, and high mountains. Each type of terrain affects how easy it is for pieces to move from one place to another. Each piece starts out with a certain number of movement points at the beginning of each turn. As the piece is moved across the map, the terrain movement cost is subtracted from the number of movement points the piece has left. When the number of movement points a piece has left is less than the movement cost it takes to move across a terrain, then that piece can no longer move. For example, a soldier starts out with 12 movement points. If the soldier moves through a square with grass in it, then the soldier will only have 12 -2 = 10 movement points left. Table of Terrain: Type Movement Cost Grass 2 Brush 3 Forest 4 Swamp 4 Low Mountains 5 High Mountains Impassable At the beginning of the game the map is randomly created. This means that the map will be different with each game. When the player starts out he can only see about one percent of the map. He has to produce pieces in his castle and go out exploring in order to see more of the map. Once a player has discovered an area it will always be visible on his map. The map will always contain thirty castles that are randomly placed. Each player only starts with one castle and he has to go out and find the rest. 2. Castles and Playing Pieces The next element of the game is the castles and the pieces they can produce. Each castle has a selection of three possible pieces to produce. It can only produce one piece at a time and it often takes multiple turns in order to do so. The three pieces that the castle can produce are randomly selected at the beginning of each game. The only castle that has fixed pieces is the first castle each player starts out with. It can always produce a soldier, wolf and pegasus. There are nine different pieces in the game: soldier, archer, knight, wolf, pegasus, assassin, war beast, war wizard, and phoenix. Each piece has it's own weaknesses and strengths. The main attributes that distinguish between the pieces are movement, turns to produce, cost, range, strength, and special abilities. A chart of the pieces and their attributes is shown below. The first column lists the movements points for each piece. The movement points have already been explained above in the section titled The Map. The next column shows how many turns a player will have to wait before a piece is produced. The Cost column shows how many gold pieces it will cost a player to produce a piece. This will be explained further in the next section. The Range column displays how many squares away a piece can attack. The last column shows the relative strength of each of the pieces. The special abilities of some of the pieces will be explained here. The pegasus and the phoenix can both fly. This means that it only costs them two movement points to fly around the map regardless of what type of terrain they are flying over. The assassin has the ability to be invisible. The opponent can never see the assassin. He can only discover it by running into it. The phoenix has the unique ability to attack everything around it at the same time. The phoenix can not be killed while it is attacking. This means that the only way to kill a phoenix is for the other player to attack it during his turn. The archer, assassin, and war wizard are the only pieces that can attack at a distance. Table of Pieces: Name Movement Turns to produce Cost Range Strength Soldier 14 1 4 1 3 Archer 12 2 4 4 3 Knight 8 2 4 1 6 Wolf 28 2 6 1 4 Pegasus 30 3 8 1 5 Assassin 18 7 20 2 5 War Beast 14 5 16 1 8 War Wizard 14 7 26 6 6 Phoenix 30 6 22 1 7 3. Gold The third element of the game is the gold. Each castle gives a player a certain number of gold pieces in taxes each turn. The amount of the taxes for a castle depends upon what that castle is capable of producing. When a piece is produced by a castle it costs the player a certain amount of gold. It also costs the player to maintain the pieces he presently owns. The amount of gold it takes to maintain a piece is half of what it cost to produce it. For example: If it cost six gold pieces to produce a wolf then it will cost a player three gold pieces each turn for upkeep. Another way that a player can use his gold is to increase the defenses of the castles he owns. The first castle a player owns has a defense of seven. The neutral castles in the game have a defense rating ranging from two to four. The better the defense rating, the better the pieces the castle can produce. Every time a castle is successfully attacked the defense rating goes down. To increase the defenses of a castle use the (D)efense command. The higher you want to increase a castle's defense value the more it cost. It costs 25 gold to increase a castle's defense from one to two. It costs 350 gold to increase a castle's defense from eight to nine. 4. Visibility The last element of the game is visibility. A player can only see an opponent's piece if it is within attacking range of one of his own pieces. This means that an opponents piece can be just a few squares away and you may never see it. It is essential that a good network of archers or other ranged pieces be set up so that you know where the opponents pieces are. Screen layout The screen is divided up into three windows. The windows are realview, overview, and text. Their functions are listed below. 1. Realview window The realview window is located in the upper right hand part of the screen. This window shows a close up of the pieces and the landscape. It can be scrolled around the map by using the arrow keys. 2. Overview window The overview window is located in the upper left hand part of the screen. This window contains the entire map, although only the part of the map that you have explored is shown. The brown rectangle shows what part of the map the realview is displaying. The four brown dots show where the pointer is located. Every type of terrain on the map is represented by square set of nine colored pixels. If a pointer is on a type of terrain and you don't know what it is then use the information key (?). It is very easy to recognize the types of terrain on the overview window. Both players are assigned an active and passive color on the overview window. For player one the active color is a light purple and the passive color is a dark purple. For player two the active color is a light orange and the passive color is a dark orange. Each of the pieces is also displayed on the overview. To display a piece, a pattern of the nine pixels is highlighted in the players colors over the normal terrain pattern. The patterns for each of the pieces is shown below. If a piece is highlighted in your active color then that piece has at least two movement points left. If the piece is highlighted in your passive color then that piece has less than two movement points left and it can not move. * * * * * * Soldier * * Archer * * Knight * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Wolf * * * Pegasus * War Beast * * * * * * * * * * * * Assassin * * * Phoenix * * * War Wizard * * * * * The castles are also represented on the map. The castles take up the full 3 x 3 set of pixels. Neutral castles are gray and player castles are represented in the passive colors. If a castle is producing a piece, then the pattern of that piece is highlighted in the active color over the top of the castle. This set up of the overview window allows a player to determine at a glance where his pieces are, whether or not they are capable of movement, where his castles are, and what each castle is producing. 3. Text window The text window is located in the bottom half of the screen. It displays all of the written information for each of the commands. A command line will usually be displayed along the bottom of the window. The command line shows the options that are available from the present command. Any letter that is capitalized and in parentheses can be used to access a command. For example, if the command line shows "(E)xit" then a player can press E and exit out of whatever command is active at the moment. Commands 1. (H)elp To access the help screen press H. The help screen displays the names of all the commands and the letter needed to access it. 2. (?) information To get information about any of squares, put the pointer on that square and press '?'. This will display information about the name of the terrain as well as the movement cost for that terrain. If the pointer is on a castle, then the information command will display the name of the owner of that castle and it's defense rating. If the pointer is on a piece, then information about that piece will also be displayed. The information command is also useful in finding assassins. If an assassin is within range of one of your pieces and the pointer is on the square containing the assassin, then the information command will tell you that an assassin is there. 3. (P)roduce The produce command is used to display what a castle can produce and to start the castle producing a piece. To use this command make sure that the pointer is on a castle you own and press 'p'. The production screen displays a lot of information about the piece and the castle. On the far left hand part of the screen is a picture of what the piece looks like. Next to the picture is the name of the piece. If that piece is being produced then "NTL" and a number will appear below the name. "NTL" stands for Number of Turns Left and the number shows how many more turns it will take to produce that piece. The middle and right hand part of the text window shows information about the piece and the castle. The abbreviations and what they stand for are listed below. MO = Movement This shows how many movement points the pieces has. RA = Range This shows how many squares away a piece can attack. ST = Strength This is a measure of how strong the piece is. Strength values will range from 3 to 8. TU = Turns This is how many turns it will take to produce the piece. CO = Cost This shows how much it will cost to produce the piece. TA = Taxes This displays how much taxes the castle will give the player each turn. PG = Player Gold This shows how much gold the player presently has. UP = Upkeep This shows how much it costs the player each turn to support his armies DF = Defense This shows the present defense of the castle. The command bar is displayed along the bottom of the screen. This is what it shows: (N)ext (P)roduce (E)xit (S)top prod. Press N to look at the next piece. A castle has a selection of three pieces that it can produce. When it reaches the last piece then it will start over again with the first piece. Press P to start producing the piece that is presently displayed. NTL and a number will appear below the name of the piece. Press E to exit from the production command. You must exit from the production command before you can move the pointer and continue with the game. Press S to stop all production at that castle. 4. (M)ove The movement command allows a player to move his pieces once they are produced. To move a piece, place the pointer on the piece you want to produce and press 'M'. The text window will display the number of movement points remaining for that piece and the command bar will show "(E)xit". To move the piece use the numeric keypad. If you attempt to move a piece into a square containing a castle, another piece, or high mountains, then an error message will be displayed. If an error message is displayed and it looks like you should be able to move into a square, then you should use the information key to check for an assassin. If you run out of movement then you will automatically exit from the movement command. If you wish to exit from the movement command before you have used up all the movement of a piece then press 'E'. You must exit from the movement command before you can attack another piece. Any movement points that are left can not be carried over to the next turn. 5. (A)ttack The attack command allows one piece to attack another piece. To attack with a piece, put the pointer on the piece you wish to attack with and press 'A'. If you are attacking with a range one piece then the screen will display: Direction Movement XX (E)xit The XX stands for the number of movement points the piece has left. It takes two movement points to attack with a range one piece. Once you have pressed 'A', then use the numeric keypad to show which direction you want the piece to attack. If you are successful then the enemy piece will disappear. If you loose, then your piece will disappear. If you attack a castle and win, then two flags in your color will be displayed with your castle. If your piece has a range greater than one and you are attacking a piece that is farther than one square away then only the enemy piece has a chance of getting hit. If your piece has a range greater than one but it is only attacking one square away, then the rules are the same as a range one piece. If a ranged piece is attacking a castle and it wins then the defense of that castle is decreased by one. This means that you can set up a siege on the higher defense castles to bring their defenses down. A ranged piece can only take over a castle if it is one square away. To attack with a ranged piece, put the pointer on the piece you want to attack with and press A. The screen will display: Space bar to attack Movement XX Range Y (E)xit The XX stands for the amount of movement the piece has left and the Y stands for the range of the piece. It takes three movement points instead of two to attack with a ranged piece. Once you have pressed 'A', move the pointer to the piece you wish to attack and press the space bar. If you forget to move the pointer and press the space bar right away, then that is considered an attack on your own piece and your ranged piece will disappear. If you are successful with your attack then the enemy piece will disappear. If you are not successful and if you have enough movement left then you will be asked if you want to attack the enemy piece again. This will continue until the piece runs out of movement or you indicate that you do not want to attack the piece again. The most unusual of all the pieces to attack with is the phoenix. When the phoenix attacks, it attacks everything around it regardless of whether or not it belongs to you or your opponent. The phoenix will not die while it is attacking. The only way to kill a phoenix is for your opponent to attack it during his turn. To attack with a phoenix just press 'A'. It takes three movement points to attack with a phoenix. When two pieces with different strengths attack each other, the piece with the higher strength does not always win. Here is how the winner is determined. The first thing the computer does is create two random numbers. The first random number is for the defender and the second random number is for the attacker. If the random number rolled is less than or equal to the strength of the piece then it is considered a win for that piece. If the random number is greater than the strength of the piece then it is considered a loss for that piece. If a random number is created for the attacker and defender and both pieces have a lose then that round is cancelled. If both pieces have a win then the round is also cancelled. Only if one piece wins and one piece looses is the round counted. The piece that wins the best two out of three rounds wins. Suppose a pegasus of strength 5 is attacking a wolf of strength 4 and the computer generates a 6 for the attacker and a 9 for the defender. The 6 is compared with the 5 and pegasus has a loss. The 9 is compared with the 4 and the wolf also has a loss. Since both players lost the round is cancelled and the computer generates another set of numbers. The pegasus gets a 2 and the wolf gets a 4. The 2 is compared with the 5 and the pegasus has a win. The 4 is compared with the 4 and the wolf also has a win. Since both players won, the round is cancelled and the computer again generates another set of numbers. The pegasus gets an 8 and the wolf gets a 1. The pegasus looses and the wolf wins. Since there is a difference between the two pieces this round counts. The computer then generates a 6 for the pegasus and a 7 for the wolf. The pegasus wins and the wolf looses. Since this round also counts the pegasus and the wolf both have one win and one loss. The computer now generates a 2 for the pegasus and a 5 for the wolf. The pegasus has now won two out of three and is considered the winner. 6. (D)efense The defense command allows a player to increase the defenses of his castles. To use the defense command, put the pointer on a castle you own and press 'D'. The screen will look like this: Castle Defense x Cost yy Player Gold zzz Increase castle defense (y/n)? The 'x' stands for the present castle defense value. The 'yy' stands for how much it will cost to increase the defense of the castle to the next higher value. The 'zzz' stands for how much gold the player has. To increase the defense, press 'y'. If you do not have enough gold, an error message will be displayed. The defense command will only raise the defense of a city by one. If you want to raise the defense by more than one then you will have to use the defense command multiple times. 7. (S)ave The save command will save a game that is presently being played. To save the game press 's'. You will be asked if you are sure you wish to save the game. To continue press 'y'. You will then be asked to provide the name of the file to save it under. The name can only be eight characters long with a three character extension. It is not necessary that you end the name with '.gam' but it is recommended. Once you have said that you wish to save the game you MUST enter a name for it to be saved under. Do not hit ESC or try to exit from this screen. If you hit ESC it will cause the entire screen to scroll. 8. (L)oad The load command is used to restore a game that was previously saved. To load a game press 'l'. You will then be asked if you are sure that you wish to load an old game. If you want to continue, then press 'y'. You will then be asked to provide the name of the file with the saved game. If the name can not be found in the present directory, then an error message will be displayed and the present game will continue. Once you have said that you wish to load a game you MUST enter the name of a game. If you want to cancel the command just enter a dummy name. DO NOT hit ESC because it will cause the screen to scroll. 9. (C)enter The center command will center the realview window around the pointer. To center the window, press 'c'. This command is especially useful on slower computers. It is a lot faster to move the pointer and then center the realview window than it is to move the realview window with the arrow keys. 10. (R)eport The report command provides different information about both players. This allows you to see how well your opponent is doing. The abbreviations are explained below. Pg = Player gold This shows how much gold the player presently owns. Tx = Taxes This shows how much taxes the player receives each turn. Up = Upkeep This shows how much it costs a player to maintain his armies. Ma = Map This shows how much percent of the map a player has discovered. #A = Number of Armies #C = Number of Cities 11. End (T)urn The end turn command will allow a player to end his turn. If a player is playing against the computer then the message 'The computer is taking it's turn' will be displayed. After the computer has finished, the player's map will be redrawn and his next turn will begin. In the beginning of a game the computer's turn will be so short that the message will barely blink on the screen. If two players are playing against each other then only one person should be able to see the screen at a time. When a player finishes his turn the screen will blank. When the next player is ready to play then he can press 'c' and start his turn. 12. (G)ive up The give up command will allow a player to surrender the game. The player will be asked if he is sure he want to give up. If the player wishes to continue then he will be asked again if he is sure he wants to give up. If the player really wants to give up then a message will be displayed proclaiming the winner. Player one's map will then be displayed. The realview screen can be scrolled using the arrow keys but none of the other keys will work. To continue the end game sequence press 'c'. Player two's map will then be displayed. After 'c' is pressed again then the full map will be displayed. When 'c' is pressed again then the ending credits are shown. Press any key from here to exit to DOS. 13. ESC The ESC key will exit a player to DOS. It should only be used when no other commands are active. DO NOT hit ESC while saving or loading a game. Once a player presses the ESC key from the main menu, he will then be asked if he wants to exit to DOS. To exit to DOS press 'y'. Tips, Hints, Comments 1. The only thing you can do when the game first starts is to select a piece to produce and end your turn. If the piece you select takes more than one turn to produce then you may need to end your turn one or two times before you have a piece to work with. 2. The more castles you can get at the beginning of the game, the faster you win. In order to do this you need to develop a search pattern that will let you discover a large area of the map very quickly. 3. The only advantage that the computer has is that it knows where almost everything is. This includes all the castles and all the pieces except the assassin. Aside from this the computer does not cheat. It has to move the same way you do and attack with the same chances that you have. 4. A strength five pegasus will occasionally loose to a defense two city. It is very rare that an archer will kill a war beast but it can happen. 5. Novice level is very easy. Good level has a more aggressive search pattern and the computer starts out with two cities. Expert level has a very aggressive search pattern and the computer starts off with three cities. 6. Use your archers to find out where the enemy pieces are and then use your heavy pieces to take them out. 7. If you try to load a game and then you change your mind when it asks you for a file name, DO NOT hit the ESC key. This will cause the screen to scroll. The only time you need to use the ESC key is when you want to exit to DOS. 8. Don't forget the NumLock key must be on to move the pointer. If NumLock is off then all the keys will do is move the realview window. START UP DEMO This is a demo of what a possible game would be like. I will tell you all the keys needed to start the game and capture a castle. First put the HOSTILE TAKEOVER disk in the drive and type HOSTILE at the prompt. When the screen displays HOSTILE TAKEOVER in red, press any key to continue. This demo assumes you are playing against the computer player so press (1) when you are asked if you want to play against the computer or another person. Since you are just starting out, this demo will select the novice level. Press (1) when you are asked what skill level you wish to play. The computer will then think for a little bit and then part of the map will be displayed on the screen. The first thing to do is to start your first and only castle producing a piece. The game starts out with the pointer on the castle. To get into the castle's production menu press (P). You can look at the pieces the castle can produce by pressing (N) for next. For now, start out by producing the soldier. Make sure the soldier is being displayed on the production screen and press (P) for produce. Now that you have selected what you want your castle to produce, press (E) to exit. This is all you can do on your first turn so press (T) to end your turn. The screen will blink and then your map will be displayed again. At the start of a game the computer player's turn is so short it almost looks like it hasn't taken it's turn at all. Since this is your second turn and it only takes one turn to produce a soldier, there should be a soldier one square north of your starting castle. The pointer starts out on the castle so use the numeric keypad to move it one square north. Now that the pointer is on the soldier press (M) to move it. Move the soldier around using the numeric keypad. When it runs out of movement press (E) to exit the movement menu. Continue producing more soldiers and exploring the area until you find another castle. This demo assumes the second castle is directly north of a soldier and the soldier has more than two movement points left. First press (E) to exit the movement menu for the soldier and then press (A) to attack the castle. You will be asked which direction to attack so press (8) to attack northward. If you are successful the castle will display your flag. If not, then your soldier dies. If you are successful then move the pointer northward and set the production for your new castle. If the soldier has any movement left then move him around to explore more territory. Now that you have two castles, continue to explore the territory and find more castles and your opponent. Good luck. REGISTRATION INFORMATION I have just graduated from the University of Evansville as an Electrical Engineer. About half way through college I decided that I liked software a lot more than hardware. All of the graduating engineers have to do a senior project. Since I liked software and I want to make a career of gaming I decided to create a game for my senior project. It has taken me about a year to create and it is composed of over 14,000 lines of code. I would like to spend the rest of my life creating exciting, high quality games and I hope you will help my dream come true by registering with me. If you liked this game please send $10 to Michael Taggart 606 Roma Ave Jeffersonville, IN 47130 Please include your name, address, and telephone number. I would also appreciate any comments about Hostile Takeover and any ideas you would like to see implemented in Hostile Takeover II. If you would like to play test HTII please tell me that too. In the future I would like to create a role playing game but the amount of time needed to create good graphics and a good plot line is tremendous. If you would be interested in helping create a game and you have skills in art, writing, music, or programming please let me know. Thank you for playing Hostile Takeover and I hope you enjoyed it.