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- ---------------------------
- BULLRUN: Civil War Game
- By DAVID TOWNSEND
- ---------------------------
-
- BULL RUN is a simple wargame that recreates the battle of First Bull Run,
- the first major battle of the American Civil War. You can take the side of
- either the Confederacy or the Union, and the computer will direct the
- opposing forces.
-
- STARTING THE GAME
- Double click the BullRun Drawer, and then double-click the BullRun icon.
- The program will start and you will see the game's title screen.
-
- CHOOSING A SIDE
- Decide which side you want to play, and then click on the appropriately
- labeled flag.
-
- UNDERSTANDING THE DISPLAY
- The screen shows a map of the battlefield divided into squares. The green
- patches represent woods, blue lines are rivers, and black dots are towns.
- Bull Run is the large river that divides the map in half. It is only
- crossable at fords, denoted by black lines crossing the river.
-
- Your playing pieces are the red (Confederate) or blue (Union) squares, each
- marked with a two-letter identity code. Enemy units are the unmarked flags.
-
- The current game time is displayed at the top of the screen. Each turn
- represents half an hour of real time.
-
- HOW TO WIN
- The object of the game is to capture an enemy town. The town must be
- occupied throughout a turn to win. The Union player has only one town to
- defend -- Centreville, in the northeast corner of the map. The Confederates
- have two towns -- Manassas to the south and New Market to the west.
-
- If neither player wins by the 7:00 PM turn, the game ends and the computer
- decides who wins, based on relative casualties and how close each side came
- to their objective.
-
- PLAYING THE GAME
- To get more information on your units, move the pointer over a unit and
- click the left mouse button. The title bar will show the full name of the
- unit's commander, the unit's "mode" and the current/original number of men
- in the unit.
-
- If you hold the button down, you will notice that the pointer changes to a
- "target." To give a unit orders to move, you
-
- - move the pointer to the unit
- - hold down the left mouse button (the pointer will change to a target)
- - move the target to the square that you want to set as the destination for
- the unit
- - release the left mouse button.
-
- You can give movement orders to each of your units every turn. Orders stay
- in effect until the unit reaches its destination or it is given other
- orders. You can always cancel a unit's orders by clicking on the unit and
- then choosing "Cancel Move" from the ORDERS menu (or, equivalently,
- pressing function key F6).
-
- In addition to movement orders, you can also set the "mode" of the unit by
- clicking on the unit and then using the MODES menu. There are five
- different modes: Charge, Attack, Skirmish, Defend, and Withdraw, with
- Charge being the most aggressive and Withdraw being the least. The mode of
- a unit affects how it will perform in combat: units with more aggressive
- modes will have a better chance of forcing the enemy to retreat, but will
- take more casualties than units with less aggressive modes.
-
- When you are finished giving orders to your units, choose Execute Turn from
- the ORDERS menu. The computer will then begin moving the armies based on
- your orders. Notice that enemy units may move also; the computer is
- directing the enemy forces and is giving orders to the enemy at the same
- time as you.
-
- ZONES OF CONTROL
- No unit may move from one square adjacent to an enemy unit directly to
- another square adjacent to the SAME enemy unit. For experienced wargamers,
- note that this is a variation on the usual ZOC rule.
-
- SIGHTING
- Not all of enemy units will be visible at all times -- they must be
- "sighted" by friendly forces. Units on ford squares, or units on the enemy
- side of the river, are ALWAYS sighted. Otherwise, to sight the enemy you
- must have a unit on the same side of the river (or on a ford) and within
- three squares of the enemy. Unsighted units do not appear on the map, but
- sighting is checked whenever a unit moves, not just at the end of a turn.
-
- COMBAT
- Combat is caused by a unit trying to move into an enemy-occupied square. A
- window will appear, telling you which units are involved and what
- casualties are sustained. A blinking arrow on the map will appear, showing
- exactly which unit is attacking and the direction of the attack. The size
- of the arrow shows the aggressiveness of the attack. When you are done
- seeing the combat results, hit any key or click the left mouse button to
- continue.
-
- SHATTERED UNITS
- Units which take too many casualties can become "shattered." A shattered
- unit is marked with an asterisk in the title bar when you click on it.
- Shattered units cannot be in any mode other than Defend or Withdraw.
-
- ROUTED UNITS
- If a unit takes excessive casualties, it may be "routed." Routed units are
- removed from the map and take no further part in the game.
-
- REINFORCEMENTS
- At the beginning of the 11:00 AM turn, the Confederate player receives the
- "Smith" unit at the town of Manassas, unless the town is enemy occupied.
- Once the Smith unit appears on the map, it is treated as any other unit and
- may immediately be put to use by the Confederate player. -----
-
-
- BULL RUN is a "freeware" or "shareware" program -- please feel free to
- distribute it to your friends. If you enjoy this program, please send a
- contribution of $20 to:
-
- David Townsend
- 12111 Galena Rd.
- Rockville, MD 20852
-
- In return, I will send you a complete User's Manual, a keyboard template
- for the function keys, and a disk containing the complete source code for
- the program.
-
- Have fun!
-
- END OF TEXT