Megahits 3/Megahits 3 (1994)(GTI - Rhein-Main-Soft)(DE)[!].iso/strategie/celest/celest.text

Text File | 1994-10-14 | 15KB | 373 lines

                         The Game of Celestial Caesars

                      Amiga Version 1.11 by Tony L Belding


     INSTALLATION

       Put the game program wherever you like, be it floppy, hard drive, or
     whatever.  You can run the game from CLI or Workbench.


     BACKGROUND

       For zillions of years the galaxy has been at peace, ruled by the
     all-powerful Empire.  Suddenly, the Empire has collapsed for No
     Apparent Reason.  Unfortunately, the Emperor had an official monopoly
     on all star-maps and navigational charts.  The charts have all been
     destroyed by Vandals, in protest against the Great Proclamation of
     Fried Eggs (which, some suggest, may have triggered the empire's
     collapse; others say the Empire fell because the Emperor was nutty as
     a fruitcake...).

       You, as leader of your planet, must send ships to explore the
     galaxy, conquer other worlds, rebuild the Empire, and secure your own
     monopoly on star-maps and navigational charts.

       Of course, the other players will be trying to do the same!


     GAME TURN SUMMARY

       Each player in turn moves his ships on the map screen.  Commands are
     given in secret, so make sure your opponent isn't peeking over your
     shoulder.  When all the players have given their orders, they gather
     to observe the movement and battle phase of the game, where combat
     takes place.  After combat, the next round begins at the command phase
     again.


     STARTING A GAME

       When you select `New Game' from the main menu, a requestor appears
     with options for you to choose.  The options selected here will remain
     in effect for the course of the game.  They are:

       Play by file-mail?  When this option is selected, the game is
     automatically saved after each player makes his move.  Then you send
     the file on to the next player, by whatever means is convenient.  The
     file will have an AmigaDOS filenote attached to remind you who is up
     next.

       Show enemy ships?  When this is selected, hostile ships will appear
     on your map display in red.  Otherwise they will not be visible.  This
     option will give the earlier players a subtle advantage over later






     ones, since they can see ships before they are moved into warp.  For a
     completely fair game, leave this option off.  It is mainly useful for
     beginners.

       Use hidden movement?  When selected, the movement and battle report
     will show only ships arriving where there is combat.  If it is not
     selected, the report will show all ship arrivals.

       Use planetary defense shields?  This gives you the option of turning
     on shields to protect your planets.  Unfortunately, your planets will
     not produce any ships when the shields are running.  You must only use
     them where you strongly feel you will be attacked.

       Limit neutral planet ship production?  When set, neutral planets
     will halt production after building 30 ships.  Otherwise, they will
     keep building ships until the end of the game.

       Wrap around edges of map?  Normally, there is no way for ships to
     cross the boundaries of the galaxy map.  With this option they can do
     so, passing from one edge to the opposite.  But this option also
     reduces ships' range to only two sectors per turn, down from the
     normal three.

       Allow planets to be destroyed?  With this option, planets can take
     damage from battles fought over them.  If the planet's industry or
     technology is reduced to zero, the planet will be utterly destroyed;
     only an asteroid field is left to mark its passing.

       How many players this game?  The game can can support up to nine
     players.  They can be any combination of human or computer controlled.

       How many turns will the game last?  The minimum is five, the maximum
     99.  Fifteen or twenty turns generally make for a good game.

       After setting these options to your whim, you will be presented with
     several smaller requestors, one at a time.  Each of these wants
     information for a single player.  You must enter each player's name
     and select the `HUMAN' or `COMPUTER' gadget.


     SECURITY CHECKS

       When playing by file-mail, your map will be protected by a password.
     On the first turn the game will ask you for a four-character password.
     At the beginning of every turn from there on out, you will have to re-
     enter the password.  This will prevent other players from loading in
     your battle map and examining it.  Do not lose or forget your
     password!  You can't continue the game without it.


     ENTERING YOUR MOVE

       Each player in turn will be called to his command post.  At this
     time the other players must turn away while you enter your orders.






       First you must select an origin sector.  Simply click your mouse
     pointer on any sector controlled by you: any sector with a green icon.
     That sector will be highlighted in white.  Now you must select a
     destination sector, which may or may not be one that you control.  The
     destination will be highlighted in violet.

       If you have selected the very same sector as both origin and
     destination, the game will present you with a dialog box full of
     useful information about that sector.  It will show the tech level,
     industry rating, and so forth (more on these things later).  You can
     also use the gadgets to turn the sector's defensive shields on or off,
     if it has any.

       When you select two different sectors, the same dialog box will
     appear, but it will allow extra functions.  The information it shows
     pertains to the origin sector only.  You can still turn shields on or
     off, and now you can also send ships.  Whatever value is in the number
     gadget when the box is closed is the number of ships that will be
     sent.  You can type a value into the gadget directly, or use the two
     arrow gadgets to adjust it.  The requestor will not send more ships
     than are available in the sector.

       Ships sent do not arrive immediately!  They must go through warp.
     Whenever you send ships, the box will show an ETA number.  This is how
     many turns the ships will take to reach their destination.

       After sending ships, the destination sector will remain highlighted,
     just as a reminder of what you did there.  Attacks will be marked in
     red, fleet movements in yellow.

       Whenever you have moved as many ships as you wish (or all you've
     got), you should end your turn by selecting `End Turn' from the other
     menu.


     LOADING AND SAVING GAMES

       The menu items are available to load or save games.  If you are
     running the game under Workbench 2, an ASL file selector will appear
     for these functions.  Otherwise the game will automatically use the
     name "CELEST.GAME" for all file operations.  When you are playing in
     file-mail mode, the game will always save automatically at the end of
     your command turn.


     MOVEMENT & BATTLE

       After all the players have entered their moves, they are called
     together for the movement and battle report.  When playing by file-
     mail, the report will appear for each player before he enters his
     move, showing the results of the previous turn.

       During this phase of the game, the fleets arrive at their
     destinations.  As each one arrives, the location is shown and the






     results posted in the message area at the top of the screen.  Sectors
     will be highlighted in different colors depending on the nature of the
     encounter:

       VIOLET - A single ship arrived, meeting no resistance.  This will
     not appear if the `hidden movement' option is selected.

       ORANGE - A single ship arrived, meeting some resistance.

       YELLOW - A fleet arrived, meeting no resistance.  This will not
     appear if `hidden movement' is selected.

       RED - A fleet arrived, meeting some resistance.

       GREEN - A fleet arrived to reinforce a friendly sector.  This will
     not appear if `hidden movement' is selected.


     COMBAT RATING

       Ships are produced by planets, and the quality of the ships will
     naturally depend on the Technology Level (TL) of the planet.  The
     effectiveness of a ship in combat is expressed as a Combat Rating
     (CR).  Each point of TL on a planet is worth 10 percentage points of
     CR for ships produced there.  Thus, a planet with a TL of 4 will
     produce ships that have a CR of 40%.

       Whenever two fleets of ships are combined into one, the CR of the
     resulting fleet is a weighted average of the two values.


     THE NATURE OF COMBAT

       Whenever fleets engage in combat, certain rules determine the
     outcome.  A battle is fought in rounds.  During a round, each ship
     fires one shot.  Each shot has a chance to hit equalling the CR of the
     ship firing it.  Thus, a fleet of 20 ships with a CR of 50% should be
     expected to achieve 10 hits, on the average.

       At the end of the round, the hits are totalled and that number of
     ships are removed from the opposing side.  Then, if ships still remain
     in both fleets, another round begins.  This continues until one side
     is eradicated.

       A shielded position gives the defender a special advantage,
     depending on the TL of the sector.  Each point of TL will deflect 10%
     of the attackers shots.  Thus, a planet with a TL of 6 will deflect
     60% of the attacker's shots, provided the shield is turned on.

       Asteroids do not have shields, but they are naturally easy to
     defend.  For game purposes, they are considered to have a shield
     strength of 20%.  Note that this will apply even when `defensive
     shields' was not selected as an option.  In such a game, asteroid
     fields are the only sectors with any defensive strength.






       Because of the way combat is handled, large fleets do much more
     damage than small ones.  Massing your ships for an attack is
     important.  If you send several small fleets against an enemy
     position, they will likely be cut up piecemeal.


     WHY SHIPS SOMETIMES RETREAT

       A morale rating is stored for each player.  At the beginning of the
     game, morale is set to 40%.  During the course of the game, it can
     climb as high as 80% or fall to zero.  Morale affects the chance that
     ships will retreat.

       Successfully attacking a planet increases your morale by 10 points.
     Failing to take a planet results in a 10-pt loss of morale.  When
     attacking a neutral planet, your morale will not change by more than 5
     points.  Whenever a fleet retreats, there is a 15 point morale
     penalty.  A fleet of only a single ship is considered a scout, and
     suffers no penalty for retreating.

       An attacking fleet will never retreat unless outnumbered.  Even
     then, the base chance is only 25%.  That will double if the fleet is
     outnumbered two-to-one or more.  It will double again if the sector is
     protected by a shield.  The game program will `roll' against the base
     value, but even if the roll fails, the ships might not retreat.  They
     must still roll against the attacker's current morale value.  If both
     rolls fail, the fleet will retreat.

       The exeception is scout ships.  These will always retreat if
     outnumbered, but incur no morale penalty for doing so.

       A fleet that retreats will return to the sector it originally came
     from.  It will usually take an extra turn to arrive, beyond the normal
     ETA for that distance.

       You have no way to directly determine your morale value.  You must
     estimate it from your own performance in the game.  Keep in mind that
     ships never retreat if they are not outnumbered.  So, when you are
     doing badly, it is more important than ever to mass your forces.


     SCORE & WINNING

       Each player's score is calculated as follows:

           500 pts for each planet owned
           150 pts for each asteroid field owned
            50 pts for each sector explored
             5 pts for each ship owned

       The winner is the player with the highest score at the end of the
     game.








     STRATEGY HINTS

       Try to scarf up neutral planets as quickly as possible in the first
     few turns of the game, while they are sitting ducks.

       The options selected at the beginning of the game have a great
     impact on game play.  When production is limited on neutral worlds,
     they will make easy targets.  Capture all the neutral worlds you can
     find before attacking your enemies.  But when production is not
     limited, neutral worlds eventually become hard targets to crack.
     Under these conditions attacking your enemies is more profitable.

       When shields are available, use them sparingly.  Typically, you will
     not use them often, but they can be a life saver on special
     occaisions.

       You can easily rack up big points for area explored.  Sometimes this
     factor decides the game.

       The computer is a fairly good player, but has two weaknesses.
     Unlike many aggressive humans, it will never strip its defenses to
     assemble an attack fleet.  Furthermore, it usually does not
     counterattack aggressively when invaded, especially when its empire is
     small.  Rather it tends to reinforce its new front line and dig in.

       When the computer DOES go on the offensive, it uses overwhelming
     force.  Try to strike first and keep it on the defense.

       Big fleets win.  Mass your ships.


     HISTORY

       The game of Celestial Caesars was originally written by Jack Hardy,
     and originated in the early days of the Atari ST computer.  Along with
     Megaroids, it was one of the first freeware games for the ST.

       The Amiga version has some significant improvements over the ST
     version.  The biggest addition is the file-mail mode.  The computer
     now plays a stronger game than before, and can run multiple opponents.
     Also new are: asteroids, morale checks, tech levels, combat ratings,
     the wrap-around map option, destroy planets option, and shields that
     can be switched on and off.

       Only Amiga makes it possible!

       This is where I usually give my address and ask other Amiga users to
     write to me.  Nobody ever does, so what's the point?  Oh, well, here
     it is anyway:

             Tony L Belding
             PO Box 512
             Hamilton, TX 76531







     PS: My apologies to those who tried running earlier versions under
     AmigaDOS 1.2.  When I wrote the program, I was under the mistaken
     impression that 1.2 was obsolete, so I told the game to abort when run
     on a 1.2 system!  Version 1.11 works on AmigaDOS 1.2 through 2.04 (and
     presumably beyond).