Amiga Collections: The Best of Public Domain/Best of Public Domain, The Nr.37 (19xx)(Garfield, Andi)(DE).zip/Best of Public Domain, The Nr.37 (19xx)(Garfield, Andi)(DE).adf/docg

Text File | 1989-11-20 | 23KB | 445 lines

        Playing Balance of Power...............

        If you are using either a mouse or a joystick as a pointing device you
     will only need the leftmost button. To click the button, press the button
     and release it.


                               Selecting a Country.

     You select a country you want to focus on by opening one of the menus on
     the bottom menu bar (N. America, S. America, Africa, Mid East, Far East,
     Or Pacific). Each of these menus contains several countries. The Balance
     of Power World Map on this card shows which countries are under each
     menue title.


                                Opening a Menu

     Move the pointer on the screen to the menu title you want the press the
     button. Keyboard: Press the Alt key and the Initial letter of the menu
     title.


     Lets say you're playing the game from the keyboard and want to make
     policies relating to Nicaragua by pressing the down arrow key and press
     enter. Then open the Make Policies menu from the keyboard by pressing Alt
     and M at the same time. The list of options in the Make Policies menu
     will appear.


     Once a menu is open, press the left and right arrow keys to open the
     other menus. Note: From the keyboard, the USSR and Europe menus can only
     be opened with the left or right arrow keys. (Alt U oens the USA menu:
     Alt E opens the Events menu.) To open the USSR or Europe menus, first
     press Alt and the Initial letter of any other menu title: that menu will
     open. To open the Games menu, for example, press Alt and G. Then press
     the right arrow key until the USSR or Europe menu open.


     Closing a menu: From the keyborad press Esc. Press the button on your
     pointing device.

     Highlighting items on a Menu: Keyboard press Alt and the Initial letter
     of item or up/down arrow keys.



     A Quick Walk-Through

        When the title screen appears, start a new game by selecting. The
     other button is used if you wish to resume a previous game. Choose the
     New Game button and you will see the Options screen. For now, just select
     and after a short wait, the game will be ready to play.


        The world map is playing ground. Each counry is shaded to reflect the
     occurrence of major events within that country. Since you are playing as
     the President of the U.S., "pull down" or open the menu labeled USA. If
     you are unsure how to pull down menus and select items from a menu, see
     the Reference Card.


        The first item is Diplomatic Relationships. Choose this item;. the
     computer will shade each of the worlds countries to show their diplomatic
     relationships with the United States. If you look at Nicaragua (the mid-
     dle country of the tree Central American countries) you will note that
     the shading indicates a cool, or hostile, relationship with the USA.


        You'll show them! Select Nicaragua from the North America menu. The
     country will turn black and its name will appear at the top of the
     screen. You have selected Nicaragua for further consideration. "Pull
     down" the menu labeled Make Policies.


                This menu is used to make decisions about the world. Select
     Aid to Insurgents. A policy options window will appear with selections
     ranging from no aid to a very high level of aid.









        Select the highest possible level of aid and then choose the Enact
     button. You have just issued a presidential order-you are shipping lots
     of weapons to the Contras. (Note that not all options may be available in
     a given situation. Any invalid choices will be "grayed out" and thus, in-
     active. The reasons will be explained later on.)


        Say that this is all you want to do for this turn. "Pull down" the
     Game menu and select Next Turn. The computer will calculate the state of
     the world for one year (this may take as long as a minute). The computer
     now takes on the role of your adversary. If the Soviet Union takes excep-
     tion to your arms shipment, it may start a crisis over it. In a you al-
     ways have two options: escalate or back down. Each time you escalate you
     bring the world closer to the brink of war. If either side escalates
     beyond DefCon 4, an accidental nuclear war may start. If either side goes
     to DefCon 1, a nuclear war is certain. (DefCon is short for Defense Con-
     dition, a term which is used to indicate a state of millitary prepared-
     ness. The lower the DefCon number, the closer a country is to actually
     activating its forces. ) In either case, both sides lose. On the other
     hand, each time youback down, you lose international prestige, without
     which you cannot win the game. Your task is to find a balance of power
     between the two extremes; a task requiring strategy and foresight.


        When all crises are resolved and the computer has calculated the
     events of the year, the calendar will be advanced one year and the scores
     will be updated. If you have done well, your geopolitical prestige will
     have risen. If your prestige has fallen, you are losing. The game con-
     tinues for eight years. If, at the end of that term, you and your op-
     ponent have managed to avoid a neclear confrontation, the side with the
     highest prestige score wins.


        This is just the briefest of introductions to Balance of Power. There
     are many other options available from the menus that will give you more
     information on the state of the world. Weaken your enemies and strenghten
     your friends-that's all it takes. You may want to play around for a while
     and then read the Beginner Level section this manual before attempting
     your first real game.


        Your First Real Game

     You have played around with the game for a while and now you are ready to
     give it a go. Let's begin. Start up the game; in the Options screen,
     leave everything as it is: Beginner Level, Single Player, with you as the
     American President.


        Goal

     Your goal in this game is to increase your geopolitical prestige and
     weaken the geopolitical prestige of the Soviet Union. The concept of
     geopolitcal pretige is no difficult to understand. It's much like
     popularity. You want to be popular with the other nations of the world.
     The twist is, you want to be popular with the countries that count the
     most. In the world of Balance of Power geopolitics, countries that count
     are the countries that are militarly powerful. Thus, your goal is to ac-
     cumulate lots of powerful friends, and insure that your enemies are few
     and weak.


        Although prestige is akin to "geopolitical popularity," there is much
     more at stake here than a simple beauty contest. The nations of the world
     are sovereign states; they do whatever they choose to do. Your country's
     abillity to influence the course of events is directly related to its
     prestige. Short of direct conquest or the exercise of raw millitary
     power, prestige is the closest a country can get to true international
     power.


        Of course, you must avoid a nuclear war while pursuing prestige. If
     nuclear war breaks out, you lose, no matter how well you were doing be-
     fore everything was reduced to ashes.


        Overall Approach

     How do you get a country to like you? There are two ways; you can do nice
     things for it in an effort to convince it to like you, or you can try to
     overthrow its current government. The strategy you pursue depends on your
     relationship with the country. If relations are relatively good, you
     should try to buy their sympathies; if the government seems unalterable
     opposed to you, you should (with great regret ) seek to eliminate it.


        Every nation of the world is blessed with its very own insurgency.
     From the African Natioonal Congress in South Africa to Zapu in Zimbabwe,
     From the Canary Islands Liberation Front to the Sendero Luminoso
     ("Shining Path"), the wonderful world of insurgency spans the spectrum of
     political causes. If matters not what the cause is; the primary sig-
     nificance of a local insurgency is that it is an excellent vehicle for
     pursuing larger and more important superpower goals. By supporting a
     local insurgency, a superpower can destroy an unfriendly government and
     replace it with a grateful, friendly (and presumable malleable ) gov-
     ernment. This is the primary stategy of the Beginner Level game.


        Complicating this are the nuclear arsenals of the two superpowers. The
     fact that we can annihilate each other means that every action we take
     requires the tacit approval, or at least the acquiescence, of the USSR.
     If either side does something that angers the other, a crisis can start
     that can lead straight into nuclear war.



        Offensive Strategy

     Your strategy in this game has two faces: offensive and defensive. On the
     offensive side, you must identify and topple those regimes unfriendly to
     your country. There are two constraints on your actions. First, some
     countries are much too strong to be overthrown by insurgents. China, for
     instance: China is far too strong to be overthrown by insurgency; funding
     insurgency there is a waste of money. Second, you dar not attempt to top-
     ple regimes closely tied to the opposing superpower. For example, Poland
     may be vulnerable becasue of the problems between Solidarity and the gov-
     ernment. Yet you dare not foment trouble in Poland, for Poland is a mem-
     ber of the Warsaw Pact and a close ally of the Soviet Union. Any attemp
     to overthrow the government of Poland would undoubtedly generate an en-
     raged response from the USSR.


        Identifying Insurgencies

     There are three types of insurgent: terrorists, guerrillas, and rebels. A
     powerful adn stable government has none of these. Terrorists are the
     weakest form of insurgents. If terrorists are successful and grow in
     power, they start a civil war. Then they are called rebels.


        These seemingly semantic issues are crucial to the game. A special map
     (Insurgency-the fourth entry on the Countries menu) presents the level of
     Insurgency for each country of the world.


        By consulting this map, you can identify those insurgencies that are
     in the crucial stage of civil war. These insurgencies are the ones most
     deserving of your attention. Guerrilla wars may also deserve some at-
     tentin, especially if the country in question is strategically important.


        Helping Insurgents

     Once you have identified a likely candidate for subversion, you have two
     weapons: Aid to Insurgents and Intervene for Rebels. These can be found
     on the Make Policies menu. You can ship aid to insurgents only if there
     are insurgents to receive that aid: terrorists, guerrillas, or rebels.
     The amount of aid you can ship depends on the level of insurgency. Ter-
     rorists cant use much money-a few guns, a little dynamite is all they are
     in a position to use. Guerrillas need more elaborate accouterments-more
     guns, lots of ammunitions, rockets, mines, and so forth. Rebels are the
     most advanced insurgents and demand the most expensive equipment-the same
     tanks, artillery, and other weapons that the superpowers use.


        A second constraint is even more severe. A superpower can only ship
     weapons to a country through contiguous allies in which it has stationed
     troops. For Example, you must have troops in Honduras or Panama to ship
     weapons to the contras in Nicaragua. The quantily of weapons that can be
     shipped is dependent on the number of troops so stationed. After all, why
     should a small country risk all the trouble associated with weapons ship-
     ments if it doesn't have guarantees of protection? However, a superpower
     can always leak a small amount of weaponry into any country in the world;
     borders aren't airtight.


        The most sincere form of assistance is direct intervention. This means
     that you send part of your own army into that country to help the rebels
     overthrow the government. You are limited in much the same way as with
     millitary aid to insurgencies. A superpower must have troops in a con-
     tiguous country before it can send troops to intervene in a civil war;
     the number of troops that can intervene is always less than or equal to
     the number of troops stationed in the contiguous country. However, both
     the USA and the USSR have the equivalent of 5,000 marines that can be
     sent anywhere in the globe in violation of the contiguity requirement.


        When you do send troops, you must realize that your American soldiers
     will end up fighting anyboady else there. If there are Soviet troops
     fighting on the side of the government and American troops fighting on th
     eside of the rebels, then you're going to get Americans shipped home with
     Russian bullets in them, and vice versa. Such a direct confrontation is
     not conducive to world peace. The world diplomatic climate will dis-
     integrate very quickly if this happens, so be careful about where you
     send in the Marines.


        Once you enter a policy, it remains in place until it is revoked.
     Thus, if you send milliary aid, it will be automatically renewed each
     year. Thus, if you choose to send $10 million in aid, and additional $10
     million will be sent every year until you change the policy.


        Defensive Strategy

     The defensive side of your game requires you to protect your friends from
     insurgency. There are tow direct ways to do this: Aid to Government and
     Intervene for Government. These directly correspond to the options avail-
     able for insurgencies, except, of course, that the action is taken in
     favor of the government. The restrictions on this action are somewhat
     different. For example, insurgents are eager to take all the weaponry
     they can handle. Not so a government. Every government in the world knows
     that help from superpowers always seems to come with sticky strings at-
     tached. Most governments are understandable reluctant to accept an un-
     seemly amount of aid from a superpower. This reluctance is directly re-
     lated to the degree of enmity between the two nations. Thus, Colonel
     Khaddafy of Libya would not accept your generous offer of millitary
     assistance-he would undoubtedly suspect some fiendish subterfuge. On the
     other hand, West Germany has already cast its lot with the United States
     and would have no resevations about accepting military aid from the USA.
     Nations are even more sensitive about allowing you to send troops onto
     their soil. This reluctance will express itself in the graying out of the
     more ambitious policy options in the policy window. When an item is
     grayed out, you cannot select it.


        Therefore, although you may want to give 400 million dollars to the
     government, if the option is grayed out, you can't do it.


        By the way, there is another restriction on your spending habits: lack
     of money. You do not have an infinite supply of troops or money to strew
     all over the world. As you start using us your resources, your options
     will progressively narrow. If you really want to send some troops to one
     country, you may be forced to pull some out of another. The total amount
     of money or troops remaining for your use is displayed at the bottom of
     the policy-making window.


        Defensive Crisis

     Another defensive strategy that can be used is a crisis that you initate.
     If, for example, the Soviet Union sends massive aid to support the Red
     Army terrorists in West Germany, you had better put a stop to it fast.
     You do this by starting a crisis and standing firm, demonstrating a will-
     ingness to escalate right up to (but not including!) DefCon 1-Nuclear
     war.


        The mechanics of all this are simple enough. The first thing you need
     to do at the beginning of each turn is consult the USSR actions item in
     the Events menu. This will give you a quick summary of all your adver-
     sary'y actions that demand your attention.


        If you find any action unacceptable, simple select the Question button
     at the bottom of the window. This sends a polite diplomatic note to the
     Soviets, notifying them that you question the wisdom of their action.
     They will reconsider their action and respond, either by backing down or
     by challenging you.


        You may either back down or escalate to the next stage. If you proceed
     to the next stage, then a diplomatic crisis is initated; one side or the
     other will lose prestige by only two possible outcomes: Nuclear War at
     DefCon1 or a major diplomatic defeat (with consequent loss of prestige)
     for one side. A military crisis can start an accidental nuclear war. Dont
     start a crisis unless you are determined to stop the Soviets. Remember,
     backing down in a crisis will cost you prestige, and escalating can start
     a war.


        The Soviets are also free to start a crisis over any of your actions
     that particularly displease them. If this happens, you must reconsider
     your policy. If you wish to keep the policy in force, you must stand up
     to the Soviets and escalate, even if this means risking a war. Of course,
     if the Soviets are angry enough about the matter, they will escalate
     right up to DefCon 1 and start a nuclear war, in which event you both
     lose. So choose your fights carefully.

        You aren't completely on your own during a crisis. Advisories from th
     e State Department (or its Soviet counterpart, The institute of USA
     Studies) are displayed at the bottom of the Crisis Window once a crisis
     has been initiated. The experts will decide the level of importance of
     the issue in question and will advise you accordingly. If they decide
     that your legitmate interest in the question is greater than that of your
     opponent's then it is likely that the other side will eventually back
     down. If they are equal, then it's anybody's guess.


        The catch is that the experts aren't always right. The estimates are
     close, but will always involve some uncertainty. The advice might be bad;
     sometimes you will want to overrule them. In fact, at the Expert and
     Nightmare levels of play, they are not much use at all. If you carefully
     study the world situation prior to entering a crisis, your estimate will
     probably be more accurate than theirs. Just how accurate are the experts?
     Well, in the Beginner Level game, they seldom make mistakes. In the Ex-
     pert Level game, they are very unreliable. In the Nightmare Level game,
     they are almost entirely useless. Of course, if you have absolutely no
     idea of what to do, you can use their advice as a basis for a decision.
     Remember, though, that history and the public have little sympathy for
     leaders who blame their mistakes on their advisors.


        Other Menu Options

     There are a great many menu items available to you that have not been
     discussed. These provide supplemental information, not central to the
     play of the game, but very handy for assessing your situation. The coun-
     tries menu contains items that allow you to quickly determine trouble
     spots around the world.


        You cna find where revolutions have taken place with the Major Events
     item, and the state of insurgency for every country in the world with the
     Insurgency item. The Spheres of Influence chart will give you a brief
     idea of how the world is divided between the two superpowers. As a gener-
     al rule, don't mess with countries that are within the Soviet sphere of
     influence and don't let the Soviets mess with countries that are in your
     own sphere of influence.


        The USA and USSR menus contain items that show the global policies of
     both superpowers. Want to know where the Soviets are sending military
     aid? How about the status of Soviet interventions? It's all there. The
     items in the Events menu present an organized view of events around the
     world.


        If you want to know what provocative actions the Soviets have taken,
     consult the USSR Actions item. Unprovocative items are presented in USSR
     Other. Events in minor countries are reported in the Minor Country news
     items. Lastly, you can see the policy actions of the previous year in the
     USSR Last and USA Last items.

        The Briefing menu contains three items of intererest.:

     The Closeup option gives a detailed rundown on a selected country. It
     shows your and your opponent's toward the country, and also provides
     other useful information. Especially useful is the assessment of the
     strength of the insurgency and how quickly it is gaining or losing
     strength. The Background option is not necessary to the playing of the
     game. It is exactly what you would expect: background information on the
     countries of the world. When you select Background, the menu bar will
     change to show a list of available information. These menu items are dis-
     cussed in detail in th eReference section. It is provided for your
     curiousity only. You are free to browse around in the background mode at
     any time without affecting the game; when your curioosity is satisfied,
     select Resume game to resume the play of the game. The History item dis-
     plays a chart showing the development of the situation within a selected
     country as a function of time. It is most interesting late in the game,
     after you have created a little history. An example history screen with
     analysis is presented in the appendix "Understanding the History Display"
     in the Reference Section.


        End Of Game

     The game ends if either side goes to DefCon 1 in a crisis (thus initating
     a nuclear exchange). It can also end in a accidental nuclear war during a
     military crisis. If you manage to avoid both fates, then the game ends in
     the year 1994. Your score is your increase in prestige. If your prestige
     has increased and that of your opponent has decreased, you have done very
     well; indeed, you have won the game. If you want to monitor your progress
     during the course of the game, consult the Score item from the Game menu.