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1990-05-09
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The Game Map
============
The game is played on a stylized map of Europe, as it existed at the turn of
the century. This map is divided into territories, each of which is referred
to on the map and in the territory listings by a name and a symbol. The symbol
consists of one or two letters, such as f which represents Gascony, a region in
France, C which represents London (the capital of England), or % which repre-
sents St. Petersburg (a city in Russia). The case of the symbol is important;
while capital C represents London, small c is the symbol for Wales. Symbols
starting with w and then another lower-case letter are used to represent bodies
of water, such as wa for the North Atlantic Ocean, or ws for the Adriatic Sea.
While only the symbols appear on the map (due to the constraints of the screen
size), territories are always referred to by both symbol and name in all text
lists, to give the game a bit more geographical realism.
In Empire 1901, you do not truly own territories, as you might in the game
Risk. Rather, you own units, which can be either armies or fleets. These
units can travel from territory to territory, much like chess pieces travel
from square to square on the board. When a unit moves from one territory to
another, it does not leave a part of itself guarding the territory it started
from. The different moves which units can make will be described in depth in
sections E through J. Units are shown on the map by coloured symbols, Ω for
armies and for fleets. The colour shows which empire controls each unit.
Unit location is also shown by the List Territories command in a text format,
as discussed in section C, on the Game Menu.
Armies can travel on any land territory (i.e. the territories with single
letter symbols). Fleets, on the other hand, can travel in any water territory
(i.e. symbols starting with w), as well as any land territory which has a
coastline (i.e. a land territory that borders on a water territory). Units can
only move from one territory to another when they border each other. General-
ly, only one unit may occupy a given territory at a time.
The map has many interesting areas, which may seem confusing to the novice
player. They are described as follows:
Double Coast-
lines: The territories of Spain (E), St. Petersburg (%) and Bulgaria
(W) are of note, because they have not one, but two separate
coastlines. When a fleet is occupying one of these coasts
(distinguished by calling them the North and South coasts), it
is only considered to border those territories adjacent to the
coastline it is on.
Canals: There are three canals on the map, through Constantinople (X),
connecting the Aegean Sea (wl) to the Black Sea (wm), and two
through Holland, connecting the Baltic Sea (wq) to both the
Helgoland Bight (wo) and the Skagerrak (wp). These canals allow
fleets to pass from one body of water to another, through any
land barrier, without restricting passage of armies over said
land barriers.
Supply
Centers: The supply centers, shown on the map as the 34 territories with
either Capital Letters, or typographic symbols (!, @, #, $, %,
^, =, &). These territories are special, in that they can be
owned by a player, even if (s)he doesn't have any unit in the
territory at a time. The number of supply centers you control
determines the number of units you have at your disposal. Each
Empire starts the game with three supply centers, known as their
home supply centers, and thus three units, one stationed in each
of these home supply centers. Note that Russia actually starts
the game with 4 supply centers and units, to compensate for its
weak strategic position on the map. Ownership of supply centers
is shown by the background colour of the center's symbol; a
supply center which is unowned is shown with a white on black
symbol. Supply center ownership is also listed in text format
in the Supply Center List, as discussed in section C, on the
Game Menu. Capturing new supply centers, and building new
units, will be described in sections I and J respectively.