Otherware/Otherware_1_SB_Development.iso/amiga/games/empire22.lzh/Doc/War

Text File | 1990-08-26 | 10.2 KB | 178 lines

                    Amiga Empire by Chris Gray - War


War is a major portion of Amiga Empire. The game can be played on an
entirely peaceful level, with, for example, a given power level as the
victory condition. Most players will not treat the game this way, however,
and there are no means within the game program for enforcing peace (other
than perhaps a deity who comes down hard on violators). The time setting
for Empire is roughly that of the second world war. There are no
satellites, no nuclear weapons, no bacteriological warfare, and no
chemical warfare. (Lots of people have argued strongly for nuclear weapons
in Amiga Empire, but they aren't here yet. We've got some ideas about
bacteriological warfare, however.) Most aspects of that type of war are
present to some extent: diplomacy, economics, land war, naval war, and air
war. Air war is probably the weakest (we've had some ideas there, too.)

War in the game can be a lot of fun, but it is hard to conduct, hard on
your country, and can be stressfull. It takes a lot of BTUs to manage a
war, and attacks and defenses can wreak havoc on even a well set up
country. The best way to win a war is to plan all aspects of it carefully,
and to prepare for it as well as you can. Few people manage to do that,
however, and therein lies most of the fun! As in real life, surprise is a
powerful advantage, as is terrain. The complexity of the game is such that
there will always be new strategies to try out.


Land Defense

The military in a sector will automatically defend the sector if it is
attacked. The effectiveness of soldiers defending a fort, capital or bank
is greater than that of other defending soldiers. Unless modified by a
deity, the numbers are 4, 2, and 2 respectively. The increase above 1 is
scaled by the efficiency of the sector, so just turning something into a
fort doesn't automatically make it fight better. A similar advantage (2) is
given to soldiers attacking from a fort. An efficient fort with a gun crew,
guns and shells will fire on any attacking force, possibly doing
significant damage before the actual battle commences.

Forts are also able to defend other sectors. The 'defend' command allows
the defending fort to be specified for a single sector or a rectangle of
sectors. A single fort can defend several sectors, but only one fort can
defend any given sector. The defense consists of attempting to fire on the
attacker. The defending fort must of course be efficient enough to fire,
and must have a gun crew, guns and shells. The defender's technology level
must also be high enough to make the target in range of the defending fort.
A country with a significantly higher technology factor can have a distinct
advantage over those with lower ones. Attacking a fully efficient and
stocked fort can be quite difficult - consider "softening it up" a bit with
bombs and/or gunfire. The 'spy' and 'lookout' commands are handy for seeing
what lies on your borders.


Land Offense

A simple solder attack of an enemy sector is done with the 'attack'
command. The command will report an approximation of the forces on the
target sector, and then will look for soldiers able to attack. The soldiers
can come from all orthogonally adjacent sectors which have sufficient
mobility. For each eligible attacking sector, you will be asked how many
soldiers from that sector to attack with. Hitting a return for any of them
will abort the attack, but the victim will still be informed of your
aborted attack. The odds of winning an attack are related to the strengths
of the attacking and defending forces. Overwhelming forces are the best.
When the attack starts, Empire will first check to see if the target sector
is a fort that can fire on your attacking force. After any such firing, it
will check to see if the sector is defended by a fort that can fire on your
attack force within the target sector. Your forces and the defenders will
then square off. The battle will be represented by the slow output of '!'s
and '@'s, with possibly some '*'s. Each '!' represents a defending soldier
who is killed. Each '@' represents an attacking solder who is killed, and
each '*' represents the fact that an entire attacking sector's force has
been killed off. The odds of an attacker or defender being killed are based
on the strengths of the two forces at that time, thus defeats tend to be
quick at the end. As originally set up, each attacking soldier who is
killed costs 0.15 BTUs to the attacker. An attack will be aborted if the
attacker runs out of BTUs. If an attack is successful, up to 127 military
will occupy the victim sector. Any excess will go back to the sectors they
attacked from, in proportion to the numbers that came from those sectors.
Any attack, whether successful or not, is reported to the victim country
and in the news. Attacks cannot be aborted - your military are committed.

The second land attack form is that of firing guns. Guns can be fired from
forts at sectors or ships. The range of a fort is proportional to the
number of guns in the fort (up to a maximum of 7), and the technology
factor of the attacking country. With a good technology factor you can
shoot over small mountain ranges and across arms of the sea. You cannot
shoot at sanctuary sectors - they are inviolate. The damage done by the
firing is governed by the number of guns used and the efficiency of the
firing fort. Each shot from the fort uses up one shell. As with 'attack',
if the target can shoot back after your shot, it will do so, and a target
sector can be defended by another fort which can try to shoot back. All
firings are reported to the victim and in the news.

A ship which is orthogonally adjacent to a land sector can 'assault' that
sector using the military it has on board. This works just like an 'attack'
from neighboring sectors, except that the assaulters have a 2 to 1
disadvantage.


Naval Warfare

Some aspects of naval warfare are also covered in the file 'Ships'.
Naval warfare is the most developed form of warfare in Amiga Empire. Each
ship is capable of firing on other ships or on land sectors, just like
forts are able to. The range of a ship's guns is determined by the
technology level of the ship and the type of the ship (see the table in
'Ships.doc'). Ships with multiple guns can choose how many of the guns to
fire at once - a shell is required for each one. The damage done is
determined by the number of guns fired and the efficiency of the firing
ship. To make things a bit more realistic, the damage from a battleship's
guns is multiplied by 4, and that from a destroyer or carrier by 2. One
shot by 4 guns from a battleship can badly damage a sector, and can sink a
PT boat outright. When a ship is fired on, each ship in its fleet will
attempt to fire back at the attacker. Shooting at a ship in a large enemy
fleet is generally not a good idea, unless your goal is to sink your own
ship or use up the enemy's shells. A fleet-to-fleet attack can work, but it
is costly.

Ships can also attempt to 'board' enemy ships. This is a lot like attacking
sectors. You cannot 'board' from a freighter, and the victim ship must be
in the same sector as that doing the boarding. You cannot 'board' a
freighter that is in the same fleet (other than the '*' fleet) as a
non-freighter that is in the same sector as the freighter - you must first
get rid of the defenders. If you successfully board a ship, the ship
becomes yours.

You cannot successfully fire on submarines. Instead, you must have a
destroyer attempt to depth charge the submarine using the 'drop' command.
The destroyer must be in the same sector as the submarine. Each depth
charge consumes 1 shell, and requires the presence of a gun (depth charge
rack). If set so by a deity, dropping a depth charge can zero or make
negative the mobility of the destroyer. This is to make the attack more
"real-time". Also, if the target submarine is still able, it will fire a
torpedo at the attacking destroyer. If you sink the submarine, the wreakage
will identify the country who owned it - a radar scan just show submarines
as unidentified snorkels.

Submarines can fire torpedoes at surface ships and other submarines. This
is done with the 'torpedo' command. Torpedos can do a lot of damage, but
they don't always hit. They are most accurate if the submarine is in the
same sector as the victim ship, but hits from further away can work. The
damage done by the torpedo depends on the type of the victim ship - smaller
ships suffer more damage. Torpedo attacks are also subject to retaliation -
if the victim is a surface ship, all destroyers in the victim's fleet that
are in the same sector will attempt to depth charge the submarine. If the
victim is another submarine, it can try to torpedo back.

Destroyers can drop mines into the sea via the 'mine' command. Up to 127
mines can be dropped into a given sector. When ships sail into the sector,
they have a chance (proportional to the number of mines) of hitting one of
the mines. Mines do quite a bit of damage. Damage done by a mine is again
determined by the type of ship. If the ship moving into a mined sector is a
minesweeper, it will remove up to 5 mines from the sector instead of
possibly running into one of them.


Aerial Warfare

Aerial warfare is covered in file 'Aircraft'. Planes can carry bombs
taken from the airport or aircraft carrier they 'fly' from. Dropping one
bomb from each plane in the group is one of the options of the flying
movement options. The more planes drop bombs, the more damage is done.
Bombs can be dropped on sectors or on ships at sea or in harbors. Carrying
bombs greatly reduces the distance that planes can fly on a given amount of
fuel. Planes can attempt to land on any type of sector, but their chances
of success are quite small for some sector types. A plane that fails its
landing attempt crashes, and will do damage to the sector.

When a plane flies over a sector, the sector is checked for access rights.
If the sector is owned by a country which is at war with you, it might try
to fire anti-aircraft guns at your planes. If the sector is checkpointed,
you will be asked for the checkpoint code, and if you know it you will be
granted access. If you don't know it, and the sector is a fort, capital,
bank or airport, it will try to fire at you (it must have shells and guns
and a gun crew and be at least 60% efficient). Such firing will be reported
to the owning country and in the news.