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- - - IMPERIUM - - -
THE WARGAME OF THE MILLENNIA
Multi-Player Version 3.52
A door game designed to run under PCBoard v12 & 14
24 July 1992
Copyright (C) 1988, 1992, Search IV. All rights Reserved
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Registration
The software in this package is a demonstration version of Imperium. The
game is completely functional but it will only allow games to run for four
weeks. No time bombs, warning sirens, or deleted files, any games over 30
days old will simply cease to cycle. If the game works well on your BBS and
your callers enjoy playing Imperium, then please register it. Any games that
were held up by the registration timeout can be resumed by placing the key
file in the directory that the game is running from.
Registration is only $20 and it gets you the current version of Imperium;
support and assistance (beyond basic installation help) is an additional
$10/year and gives you access to all updates and beta-codes as they become
available, as well as access to the Imperium Support Conference and second
node on the Castle of the Four Winds BBS.
If this sounds like a great deal to you, please fill out the attached order
form (Appendix D) and make your check or money order (in US Funds only,
please) payable to:
Search IV
2215-1 Dublin Lane
Diamond Bar, Ca 91765
It generally takes us about 2-3 weeks to process an order and get a disk
out in the US Mail (Unless otherwise requested all disks mailed out will be
360k 5¼" media). You can, however, download your Imperium key file from the
Castle of the Four Winds. We recommend that you call when you mail the
registration and let us know to post your key file. Your key file will then
be made available as soon as we receive the registration fee. If you have a
VNet, FIDO, or RBBS Net address, please notify us of it and if you have no
objections we'll file-send the key file to you directly.
Disclaimer
IMPERIUM is distributed in an as-is condition. There are no warranties
either expressed or implied. By setting up and running IMPERIUM, you are
acknowledging that any damage that may occur by the operation of this program
(physical or monetary) does not make Search IV, Christopher King, Michael
Bandoian, The Castle of the Four Winds, or The Archivist's Scroll liable for
anything more than replacing the Imperium software.
- 2 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Installation
De-arc the IMPERIUM archive into the sub-directory that you plan to have
the game run out of; the program does not require any special naming
conventions with regard to drive or path names. The most basic setup for
the game simply involves typing IMPINIT, from the DOS prompt. This will
cause all data/map/communication/result files associated with previous
games to be deleted and a new map and data files will be generated. When
this process has completed (3-5 minutes) the game will be ready to run.
ImpInit requires the file CITYNAME.DAT in order function properly and
will create the following files:
Imperium.Sys - Imperium configuration and system data [binary]
ImpCity.Dat - Imperium City data [binary]
ImpPlay.Dat - Imperium Player data [binary]
ImpMap.000 - Imperium master map file [binary]
City.Out - List of cities created [text]
Map.Out - Text file version of Map file. [text]
The Sysop has several ways of controlling the way the setup and play of
the game; the Imperium configuration can be altered to affect the
characteristics of the units, the vulnerability of cities and forces, and
the reports that are generated; the type of map that is created by the
program can be controlled via command line parameters to ImpInit; and
custom maps can be created and used. Each of these ways is discussed in
greater detail in the following sections.
The most basic way for the Sysop to control the setup of the game, is by
altering the Imperium configuration file (IMPERIUM.CFG). The format of this
file is given in Appendix A. It is a ascii text file that can be edited with
any simple line editor, by changing the values in this file the Sysop can
control the probability of successful attacks against enemy units, enemy
cities, and uncontrolled cities; the score file format and content can be
specified; the warhead types and power can also be specified; as can the name
of the game world. By using ImpUtil the sysop can also fully configure the
unit set (unit names, symbols, costs, movement, special functions, et al) and
specify each player's starting forces, however, it is recommended that
players only start with ships in customized gamemaps, while players are (more
or less) guaranteed to start out with port cities on a randomly initialized
map there is no way determining if the ports are really viable for ship
traffic.
New with the 3.49+ releases is the ability for the sysop to actually vary
the size of the playing map from as small as 25x25 up to 650x650, depending
on the available RAM. To calculate the memory needed for a given map size,
just multiply the x size by the y size (for a 450x900 map this work out to
405k). ImpInit consumes about 130k so if there is 560k free before ImpInit
runs that would leave 430k free for generating the map.
In this release the ImpInit program has been completely redone (again),
Rivers are now created as shallow water, the percentage of land is specified
instead of the number of land masses, the land that is created tends to look
quite a bit more realistic, and the sysop can specify how close the starting
players can be to each other. A substantial speed increase is also present.
- 3 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
A much improved error checking routine has been added to better space the
starting players cities and the program will only abort if the program is
unable to place the player cities, aborting the run after fifty tries. A
MAP.OUT file however will always be written, therefore you can edit map.out
adding cities and run it through again using the /E parameter. Starting
Player cities in Graphics mode are now displayed very prominently for easier
map checking.
ImpInit Command Line Options:
/G - Graphics on.
ImpInit will display the map as it is created.
Very useful for examining the playability of a
map. EGA & VGA systems only. [Default Off]
/L - Land percentage.
Determines the percentage of the map that ImpInit
will make into land. Values less than 30 will
produce maps that consist of a large ocean with
islands. Values greater than 65 will create maps
with large continents and several potentially
separate seas and lakes. Values less than 10 may
not initialize properly and are not recommended.
[Default 50]
/R - Rivers
Determines the number of river branches that
will be created. Rivers are started only on
land and continue towards a large water mass
or the edge of the world whereupon they stop.
If a river intersects another river already
in place it stops forming an upstream branch.
There is a slight chance of a river looping
and connecting itself.
[Default 0]
/M - Mountains.
Determines the number of mountain ranges that
will be created. Mountains are created only on
land, and there is no checking to make certain
that cities are not locked in. The value for
this option should be about equal to the Land
mass value.
[Default 0]
/S - Swamps.
Determines the number of swamps and marshes that
will be created. Swamps are created only on land
and only near water or rivers. The value for
this option can be fairly high (up to double the
land value) but not too high or ImpInit may have
difficulty placing the cities on the map.
[Default 0]
- 4 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
/F - Forests.
Determines the number of forests and wooded areas that
will be created. Forests are created only on land
and will tend to follow along mountain ranges and
rivers. The value for this option can also be set high
relative to the land value, depending on how large you
want the forests to be.
[Default 0]
/D - Deserts.
Determines the number of deserts that will be created.
Deserts are created only on land and will tend to avoid
swamps, forests, and deep water.
[Default 0]
/J - Jungles.
Determines the number of jungles and rain forests that
will be created. Jungles are created only on land
and only in the region surrounding 'equator' of the map.
They will tend to follow along swamps and rivers and other
bodies of water.
[Default 0]
/I - Ice cap percentage.
Determines the percentage of the map that ImpInit
will turn into polar regions. Values around 25% will
produce maps with 'earthlike' poles, values around
50% will create maps will create a global ice age, which
may or may not have contiguous seas and oceans.
Values greater than 60 may not leave enough room to place
cities and aren't generally recommended.
[Default 0]
/X - Change Maximum Land mass radius.
This parameter allows you to change the maximum size
of each individual land mass created. Values
over 50 equal 50, and values less than minimum
radius = minimum radius.
[Default 20]
/Y - Change Minimum Land mass radius.
This parameter allows you to change the minimum size
of each individual land mass created. Values
less than 3 equal 3 and values greater than maximum
radius = maximum radius.
[Default 5]
/E - External Map.
Determines whether or not the game map should be
created by ImpInit or read in from an external
file. The format of the input file is discussed
in the next section. The form of the option is
/E<file name>. (i.e. /EInput.Map).
[Default None]
- 5 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
/C - External Cities.
Determines whether or not ImpInit random generates
the city locations & names or if they are read in
from an external file. The format of the input file
is "CityName X Y" where the city name can be up
to 20 characters long. The form of the option is
/C<file name> (i.e. /CInput.Cty).
[Default None]
/U - External Unit Type Definitions.
Determines whether or not ImpInit uses the default
unit types & characteristics or if they are read in
from an external file. The format of the input file
is probably more complicated than the average person
wants to deal with; fortunately, this file can be
generated by using the unit editor in ImpUtil to create
the desired unit set and then pressing F10 to create
UnitInfo.Txt. The form of the option is /U<filename>
(i.e. /UInput.Unt).
[Default None]
/T - External Unit Terrain Data.
Determines whether or not ImpInit uses the default
unit terrain movement values or if they are read in
from an external file. The format of this input file
is also something best left for ImpUtil to generate
by pressing F10 while editting the terrain table. The
form of the option is /T<filename> (i.e. /TInput.Ter).
[Default None]
Samples:
Impinit /G /L60 /R20 /M20 /S20
Fairly standard land campaign may or may not have
a continuous ocean.
Impinit /G /L20 /R20 /M20 /S25 /V10 /X7 /Y3
A definite Island campaign.
Impinit /EDune.Map /CDune.Cty
Note that only the /C, /U, and /T options can be used
with /E.
- 6 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
External Map Files
The sysop also has the power to create custom maps for IMPERIUM. The map
file dimensions must agree with the map dimensions specified in the
Imperium.Cfg file; depending on the amount of free RAM availible when ImpInit
runs it is possible to create maps as large as 650x650. The characters that
can be used in the making the map are:
[.] - Deep Water [~] - Low Hills
[+] - Land [?] - Forests
[^] - Mountains [)] - Desert
[=] - Swamps [#] - Tundra
[:] - Ice [&] - Jungles
[@] - Sand Dunes [V] - Volcano
[,] - Rivers/Coastal Water [-] - Lava Flows
In this current version of IMPERIUM, the Sysop can choose to place all,
some, or none of the cities in the map file. It is important to note however
that if any cities are specified, the starting cities for the players MUST be
specified using the characters '1'..'0' and 'A' through 'V' (Depending on the
maximum number of players specified in the Imperium.Cfg file). Any other
cities can be placed using any of the following characters [*,O,o,X,x].
- 7 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Running Imperium
Included in the IMPERIUM archive is an example batch file for bringing up
IMPERIUM under PCBoard. There are several requirements for running
IMPERIUM:
[*] A PC-AT or clone. The door could probably be run
from an XT if the clock speed was turbo'd to at least
10 Mhz. Anything slower than 10 Mhz and your callers
are going to die of boredom during the screen updates.
[*] 640k of memory...for a full 30 player setup. The number
of players that can participate in the game is a direct
function of the amount of available machine memory. At
this time Imperium does not support EMS.
[*] 500k - 35M of disk space. This factor depends on a number
of things; such as the number of players and how 'inter-
active' they are...the major factor in the amount of disk
space necessary is the size of the map. A 100x100 game map
will use up 30k per player, a 250x250 map will consume 187k
per player, and a 650x650 map would use up over 1.2M per
player. IMPERIUM makes no checks for disk space.
This would also seem to be the appropriate place to mention that Imperium
handles ComPort I/O in one of two manners; either through the use of internal
asynchronous communications routines or through calls to a fossil
communications driver. As of this release there is only one integrated
version of Imperium; it will detect the presence of a fossil driver and
utilize it if found, otherwise it will revert back to it's internal i/o
code. The internal I/O routines should be fine for most BBS's that run at
baud rates of 9600 or less. If your system runs at a higher speed or utilizes
locked baud rates to improve your users' data throughput then you need to use
an external fossil driver along with Imperium (Imperium has been successfully
tested with X00, BNU, and OpusComm).
Getting back to the more pressing matters at hand, running IMPERIUM.
IMPERIUM takes two command line parameters. The first is the path to the
BBS control file and the second is the type of control file that is being
used. The general form for the command line is:
Imperium <Path> <BBS Type> <Node Number>
Where BBS Type is one of the following:
14 - PCBoard.Sys v14.xx file
12 - PCBoard.Sys v12.xx file
WC - WildCat CallInfo.BBS file
CT - WWIV Chain.Txt file
DS - Door.Sys file
DD - DorInfo#.Def file (RBBS format)
For example:
C> IMPERIUM D:\PCB14\ 14 <-- Get PCBoard.Sys version 14 from D:\PCB14\
C> IMPERIUM .\ DS <-- Get Door.Sys from the current directory
C> IMPERIUM F:\RBBS\ DD 2 <-- Get DorInfo2.Def from F:\RBBS\ directory
- 8 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
IMPERIUM can be run in local mode, by entering either:
C> IMPERIUM - or - C> IMPERIUM LOCAL
The program will then prompt the user for his/her name.
The following is a copy of the batch file that we at the Castle of the
Four Winds use to run IMPERIUM:
c:
cd \doors\Imperium
Imperium D:\Pcb14\ 14
d:
cd \pcb14
board
Midnight Event
IMPERIUM must be cycled every night, in order for movement counters to be
reset, new units constructed, revolts enacted, bulletins generated, etc.
The program that does this is called IMPCYCLE. No command line parameters
are necessary. If the configuration file specifies that bulletins are to be
generated then the files IMPRIUM.RPT and IMPRIUMG.RPT will be created. The
following is an example of what to include in the EVENT.SYS file.
CD \Doors\Imperium
ImpCycle
Copy Imprium.Rpt D:\PCB14\Games\GBLT8
Copy ImpriumG.Rpt D:\PCB14\Games\BLT8G
Sysop Functions
Function Activating Key Description
Snoop F-key 8 Pressing this key toggles the Sysop
Snoop on & off. When the snoop
is off, a screen displaying who is
playing and how long they've been on is
shown.
Eject F-key 9 Pressing this key immediately causes
Imperium to shut down, save off all
player files and return the user to
the BBS.
Chat F-key 10 Pressing F10 causes Imperium to enter
a full screen sysop chat mode. The sysop
and user can type back and forth inter-
actively. The screen does not scroll but
rather returns to the top after the screen
fills. To exit chat mode, press the ESC
key, this causes Imperium to restore the
users screen (monochromatically), and re-
turn to whatever it was performing.
- 9 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Sysop Utilities
Distributed with the Imperium door program is a sysop utility program
called, ImpUtil. This program is a much reworked and rewritten
version of the original ImpUtil; there are still some functions that need
implementation but for the most part the program is complete. The user
interface has been redone into a pulldown menu format (sorry, mouse support
is spasmodic). Anyway, just about all the game data and parameters are
modifiable through this program.
The ImpUtil opening screen looks like the following:
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| System Players Cities Units Maps |
| |
| |
| |
| Imperium Sysop Utility Program |
| |
| Version 3.52 |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Select Highlighted Letter Alt-X to Exit |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
ImpUtil Functions
1. System - All the game level system parameters are modifiable through
this function; the submenu looks like:
+---------------+
|Bulletin |
|Info |
|MaxPlayers |
|pK Values |
|Strat Forces |
|Game Toggles |
|Starting Forces|
+---------------+
... Bulletin brings up another submenu that allows all of
the bulletin functions to be altered.
... Info displays all the basic system level game parameters:
Current day; Number of Players; Number of free cities,
etc.
... MaxPlayers allows the maximum number of players allowed in
the game to be altered.
... pK Values allows editing of the probability of kill
values.
- 10 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
... Strat Forces allows the sysop to define the four warhead
types that will be used by cruise missiles in the game.
The parameters that are edited are:
a) Radius of effect. Fairly obvious, this value
specified how much territory a warhead will damage.
This region is 'rounded' on the map, rather than
square.
b) Damage class. This value is the specifies the
'type' of warhead. There are eight classes (0..7)
which are explicitly defined in appendix B. The
damage gets worse from 0 (conventional) to 7
(dirty fusion).
c) Probability of dissipation/expansion. Only
applicable for chemical and biological warheads.
Chemical effects will dissipate over time.
Biological effects will spread. This parameter
governs how quickly.
... Game Toggles allow various switches that affect the
type of game being played to be toggled. The switches
are as follows:
a) Sysop Snoop. This switch toggles the sysop's
ability to see the games being played. If the
snoop is off then the sysop sees the same thing
that the players do; if it is on then all the
sysop sees is a screen that identifies the player
and the time that the opened the door. Currently
there are some conflicts between the sysop snoop
and the inter-player communications, for the time
being it is recommended that the snoop be set on.
b) Advanced Game. This switch toggles whether or not
the game will use just the basic terrain set
(water, land, mountain, swamp) and basic units
(armies, fighters, tanks, destroyers, subs,
transports, cruisers, carriers, and battleships)
or the advance terrain and units.
c) Virtual World. This switch toggles on and off the
'edges' of the map. If the Virtual World switch
is on then all the map edges will wrap around to
the other side, essentially turning the world
into a torus. If the switch is off the world will
be rectangular plane and the players will not be
able to move off the map edges.
d) Active Weather. Not currently implemented.
e) Seismic Activity. Not currently implemented.
... Starting Forces allows the sysop to alter the number of
each type of unit that the players get at the start
of the game.
- 11 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
2. Players - Use the arrow keys to select the empire to edit. The page
up/down keys will also move you through each Empire after
you have made the initial selection; the home/end keys will
go to the first and last empires. Pressing the [E] key will
put the program into edit mode. The Empire Name field will
be highlighted initially; use the up/down arrows to move
between this field and the Player Name. Press Enter to change
the names. To edit the units press the [Tab] key after
entering edit mode, use the up & down arrows to select the
unit to edit and press [E] again to change characteristics of
the unit or press [A] to add a new unit to the players forces.
3. Cities - The city editor submenu looks like the following:
+----------+
|Empire |
|Goto |
|Name |
|Production|
+----------+
... Empire allows the sysop to selectively edit only the
cities of a given Empire.
... Goto a specific city (number) and start editing from
there.
... Name will ask and search for a specified city name.
... Production allows the sysop to selectively edit only the
cities that are producing the specified unit.
4. Units - The unit type editor submenu looks like this:
+--------------------+
|Unit Characteristics|
|Terrain Table |
+--------------------+
... Unit Charactertics: All of the characteristics of each
unit class are editable through this function. Use the
arrow keys to move from unit type to unit type and from
field to field. Use page up and page down to go between
pages of unit types (two types are displayed per page).
For more info see appendix C on editting unit types.
... Terrain Table: This function allows the sysop to control
what types of terrain each unit type can enter, in future
versions it will reflect the 'number of moves' crossing
each terrain type will take. At the moment a non-zero
value means that a unit can enter the terrain only if it
has at least that many movement points remaining, a zero
means that the terrain is not enterable. In this way tanks
can be restricted from entering forests or jungles, armies
could be made to walk on water, and all sorts of fun
things. New with this release, if the values entered in
the table are negative then units entering that terrain
have an X*10% chance of taking damage every time they
cross that terrain type (eg. tanks potentially taking
damage moving through swamps, armies fording rivers, ships
sailing into shallow water, etc).
- 12 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
5. Maps - This menu combines the graphics map view function with the
map editor and dump to text file option.
+------+
| View | >>-----> +------------+
| Edit | | Master |
| Dump | | Starting |
+------+ | Empire |
| Production |
| Forces |
| Territory |
| ABM |
+------------+
... The view function brings up a really sharp high-res
graphics view (EGA/VGA) of the map type selected. All the
functions display the master map, with the lower three
overlaying a view of either the empire's map, what the
cities are producing, the forces currently out there, the
territory "owned" by all the players, or the active ABM
defenses.
... The edit function brings up a full screen map editor that
works very much like the normal Imperium edit function.
All the terrain is editable, nuke/chem/bio effects & their
strengths can be added, cities can be added & moved.
... The dump map option, takes the current map and writes it
out to a text file named Map.Out.
- 13 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Known Bugs & Anomalies
[*] The non-fossil communication routines do not properly handle locked baud
rates. Always make certain that a fossil driver is loaded before running
Imperium with a locked baud.
[*] Typing ahead on systems using fossils, can potentially cause Imperium to
lock up. This has only been noted with the X00 & BNU drivers to date.
[*] Satellites can't be steered.
[*] ImpUtil Player Add/Delete functions not implemented.
[*] ImpUtil map displays don't preserve the aspect ratio properly anymore.
[*] Conventional cruise missile warheads don't function.
[*] Mouse support in ImpUtil only partially working.
[*] Results will sometimes display the incorrect cities when reporting new
builds.
[*] AA type units will give report odd results when in auto-defense mode.
[*] Player documentation doesn't reflect editable unit types
- 14 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Credits
The IMPERIUM program was written in Turbo Pascal 6.0 by Christopher King
and Mike Bandoian under the auspices of Search IV. The program has been alpha
& beta tested on the Castle of the Four Winds BBS in Diamond Bar, Ca and all
requests for support and registration of this program should be directed to:
Search IV
attn: Christopher King
2215-1 Dublin Lane
Diamond Bar, Ca 91765
or electronic mail can be left on
Castle of the Four Winds The Archivist's Scroll
(714) 860-3213 (714) 996-0805
8:911/202 RBBS Net 8:911/203
1:103/315 Fido Net 1:103/338
45:512/102 V-Net 45:512/101
or on CompuServe to ID:
74017, 1665
Expect a 1-2 week delay on Compuserve Communications.
The online costs have driven us down to about
two to three times online a month.
- 15 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Closing Kudos
Many thanks to the following people:
Mike Bandoian, for putting in half the thought, effort, and programming
time to make this new version into a reality.
Carl Evans, Sysop of the Warboard, for his feedback and tolerance of a
novice door writer.
Frank Koenig, for giving me the push to actually write the program.
Jim Beveridge, for giving me a lot of valuable feedback and background
info on the original game of Empire.
Kevin Porter, for writing the fossil interface and supplying suggestions
and improvements for higher performance machines. And for providing me with
a lot of help in tracking down the vicious memory mites and range worms.
Tom Hazel, for allowing me to use his sorting algorithm to greatly improve
the speed of the unit sorts.
Eric Hubbard, for saying that the graphics map display code was way to slow
and then writing code to prove it.
Michael Williams for a lot of help with improving the code logic to improve
the execution speed and keep down the executable size.
Jonathan Roberson and Brendan King for the suffering through the pains of
alpha testing all the horrible incarnations that ImpTerm went through. It
wouldn't have made it without them.
Rob Teoh, Wayne Shaw, Shelby & Tracy Noonan, Scott Roth and Gary Bush for all
the suggestions on ways to improve the game, the user interface, and just
about everything else.
The residents of the Castle of the Four Winds for their extreme
tolerance during the alpha & beta testing of the door; for putting
up with all those unfinished games.
And most especially, extreme thanks are due to Sheila King for all
the help, support, and Mountain Dew that it took to put this all
together.
- 16 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Appendix A
Imperium Configuration File
The sysop has the power to alter the IMPERIUM configuration file,
Imperium.Cfg. This file controls a large number of key factors to the
game, including:
[*] Maximum number of players. How many people can
participate in the game at any given time. Defaults to 15,
but for sysops with more memory constrained systems the
number of players can be set lower.
[*] Bulletin report generation. How much information is displayed
by the report, how it is to be ranked, and whether or not a
color report is to be generated.
[*] Probability of Kill (pK) values. What percent chance of
failure does an army have when attacking an unowned city, an
enemy city, or do units have when attacking enemy units.
The configuration file is a sequential ascii text file that can be
modified with any standard text editor. The format of the file is of
critical importance. It is recommended that any changes be made to a
copy of the file that comes with the IMPERIUM archive. In the event
that this file is not in the archive or that is somehow was damaged or
destroyed. The IMPERIUM.CFG file format is as follows.
Lines 1- 5 : Header information, non-critical.
Line 6 : Width of the Map (Must be a multiple of 25)
Line 7 : Height of the Map (Must also be a multiple of 25)
Line 8 : Minimum distance between starting players
Line 9 : Maximum number of players allowed in the game
Line 10 : Initial number of cities on the map
Line 11 : Sysop Snoop Default
Line 12 : blank delimiter line
Lines 13-19 : Bulletin generator controls
Line 13 : Bulletin On (1) / Off (0)
Line 14 : Bulletin Ranking by Cities (1) by Forces (2) by Score (3)
Line 15 : Display users name: Yes (1) / No (0)
Line 16 : Display total cities : Yes (1) / No (0)
Line 17 : Display total forces : Specific (2) / General (1) / No (0)
Line 18 : Display score : Yes (1) / No (0)
Line 19 : Generate color report: Yes (1) / No (0)
Lines 20-22 : pK information
Line 20 : percent chance of failure of an attack on an enemy city
Line 21 : percent chance of failure of an attack on a free city
Line 22 : percent chance of failure of a force on force attack
Line 23 : Number of days (and units) it takes to build a city.
Line 24 : blank delimiter line
- 17 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Lines 25-29 : Game Toggles
Line 25 : Basic/Advanced Terrain type toggle (0=Basic, 1=Advanced)
Line 26 : Virtual Map Edges (0=No wrap 1=Virtual)
Line 27 : Weather Effects (not implemented)
Line 28 : Seismic Effects (not implemented)
Line 29 : Seismic Strength (not implemented)
Line 30 : blank delimiter line
Lines 31-45 : Warhead Definitions
Lines 31-33 : Class I Warhead Configuration
Line 31 : Radius of Effect
Line 32 : Type of warhead
Line 33 : Expansion/Dissipation Rate
Line 34 : blank delimiter line
Lines 35-37 : Class II Warhead Configuration
Line 35 : Radius of Effect
Line 36 : Type of warhead
Line 37 : Expansion/Dissipation Rate
Line 38 : blank delimiter line
Lines 39-41 : Class III Warhead Configuration
Line 39 : Radius of Effect
Line 40 : Type of warhead
Line 41 : Expansion/Dissipation Rate
Line 42 : blank delimiter line
Lines 43-45 : Class IV Warhead Configuration
Line 43 : Radius of Effect
Line 44 : Type of warhead
Line 45 : Expansion/Dissipation Rate
Line 46 : blank delimiter line
Line 47 : World name (less than 20 characters)
Line 48 : blank delimiter line
- 18 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Appendix B
Warhead Types:
Damage Class Type Description
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~
0 Conventional Cities and terrain are unaffected, units
are damaged/destroyed according to the
strength of the cruise missile unit.
Only units at the impact location are
affected
1 Neutron Bomb Cities revert to unowned. Terrain is un-
changed. All units within the radius are
destroyed.
2 Nerve Gas Cities revert to unowned. Terrain is
contaminated. All units in area are
killed. Units entering the area are
damaged.
3 Simple Bio Cities revert to unowned. Terrain is
contaminated. All units in area die.
Units entering the area are damaged,
units that leave the area spread the
contamination.
4 Clean Fusion Cities are destroyed. Territory remains
unchanged. All units in area annihi-
lated.
5 Toxic Waste Cities are destroyed. Territory is more
heavily contaminated. Units in area are
destroyed. Units entering area are
damaged.
6 Complex Bio Cities are destroyed. Territory is con-
taminated. All units in area die. Units
entering the area are damaged, units
that leave the area spread the
contamination.
7 Dirty Fission Cities are destroyed. Territory is laid
to waste. All units in area die. Units
entering area die. The effects are perm-
anent.
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Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Appendix B (continued)
How to Set the Expansion/Dissipation Rates
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For the gas & bio warhead classes another field in the configuration
file comes into play, the Expansion/Dissipation rate. This value which
can range from 0 to 100 will control how quickly gas clouds will dissipate
and how quickly plagues will spread. Generally, a value of 0 will cause
the secondary effects to clear up by the next day, while a value of 100
would cause the effects to either not dissipate at all or expand very
rapidly. The following list will give a feel for how various rates will
work:
Rate Gas Warhead Bio Warhead
~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~
0 Dissipates completely Dissipates completely
by next day. within two days.
25 Dissipates at about 2 Dissipates at about 1
radii units per day. radius unit per day.
50 Dissipates at about 1 Doesn't dissipate or
radius unit per day. grow at all.
75 Dissipates at about 1 Grows at about 1
radius unit per 2 days. radius unit per 2 days
100 Doesn't dissipate at Grows at about 1
all. radius unit per day.
- 20 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Appendix C
Editting Unit types
+---------------------[Unit Characteristics Editor]----------------------+
| |
| (a) Name : Army Fighter Artillery Submarine Heavy APC |
| (b) Friend Symbol: A F A S H |
| (c) Foe Symbol : a f a s h |
| (d) Class : Ground Air Ground Sea Ground |
| (e) Transports : None None None None Ground |
| (f) Take Cities : True False False False False |
| (g) Submergable : False False False True False |
| (h) Sonar Capable: False False True True False |
| (i) Fueled : False True False False False |
| (j) Special : None None Artillery None None |
| (k) Sp Range : n/a n/a 5 n/a n/a |
| (l) Sp Strike : n/a n/a 8 n/a n/a |
| (m) Movement : 5 25 15 12 10 |
| (n) Hit Points : 3 2 6 4 10 |
| (o) Range : 0 50 0 0 0 |
| (p) Load : 0 0 10 0 9 |
| (q) Cost : 4 6 8 10 8 |
| (r) Scan Radius : 2 5 2 1 2 |
| (s) Strength : 2 2 4 8 3 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
What we see above is more or less a sample of what the unit editor screen
looks like (in actuality there are only two units displayed per screen). In
this section of the documentation we'll describe what all the labels mean,
what the possible values are, and what they affect in terms of game play.
(Note: Imperium takes the unit stacking from the way that the units are
entered in this table. Numbering the units from left to right, first page to
last. The lowest numbered unit in a stack is always the one visible to a
scan (submerged units aside), and the highest numbered unit is always the
first unit in the stack to be attacked). Using the editor is simplistic, to
move from field to field use the keypad arrow keys. To change text data, just
type the new info over the old. For the other fields just use the + & - keys
to change the values and flag settings.
(a) Name. What do you want Imperium to call the unit. The name can be up to
twenty characters long, though we recomend that you keep it as short as
practical.
(b) Friend Symbol. This is the character that Imperium will display, in non-
graphics mode, for your units and allied units. Convention has generally
held that this is an uppercase character while the foe symbol is a lower-
case character, you can choose whatever characters suit your fancy though
it is good to remember that not all the player's computers will support
the PC character set and that non-graphics players need to be able to
distinguish between friends and foes.
(c) Foe Symbol. This is the character that Imperium will display for
unfriendly units. In graphics mode this is the character that will always
be displayed for this unit type (the friend/ally/foe distinction coming
from the color of the symbol).
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Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Appendix C (continued)
(d) Class. In general, what kind of terrain does this unit type operate in.
There are four possibilites: Ground, Naval, Air, and Space. This may seem
like an unnecessary distinction to make since you can define where each
unit type can move via the terrain table, but in actuality it does affect
more than simply 'where' a unit can move. It affects how the scan algo-
rithms determine what terrain the unit can see through/across as follows:
Ground Units: Scans are blocked by swamps, mountains, cities, dunes,
hills, forests, jungles, and volcanoes.
Naval Units : Are blocked as above, unless they can submerge. In
which case their scans are blocked by everything but
deep and shallow water.
Air Units : Scans are blocked by mountains and volcanoes.
Space Units : Scans aren't blocked at by anything.
The unit class also allows makes it easier to classify units when it
comes time to load them on transports, as we'll mention below.
(e) Transports. This defines what type of unit, if any, this unit type can
carry. Something to note, this does work recursively. If you define that
a ground unit can carry other ground units (like the Heavy Armored
Personel Carrier (APC) above) this implies that it can carry other units
like itself, unless you've specified that the max hit points for this
unit are more than it can carry. The possible values for this field are:
None, Ground, Naval, Air, and Space. If this field is set to anything
other than None then the Load field defines how many hit points this type
of unit can carry.
(f) Take Cities. This flag determines whether or not this unit type can
conquer cities. Possible values are either True or False. It is important
to note that no matter what the strength or hit points of the unit type,
there is no distinction made when it comes to conquering a city. The
conquer free/enemy city percentage specified in the Imperium.Cfg file is
what is used to determine whether the city is conquered or not. [Expect
this to change in future releases]
(g) Submergable. This flag controls whether or not the unit type can submerge
(and thereby become invisible) in deep water. The unit type's movement
rate is halved while moving submerged and regardless of their scan radius
they can't see through anything but shallow or deep water.
(h) Sonar Capable. This flag determines if the unit type can see submerged
units. Units that aren't sonar capable will pass right over submerged
units without sighting or attacking them.
(i) Fueled. This controls whether or not the unit needs to periodically
refuel. The logic is currently biased towards airborne class units, and
units that run out of fuel crash & burn. If this flag is set then the
Range field determines what the maximum range without refueling is.
(j) Special Characteristics. This field identifies what special character-
istic, if any, this unit type has. The possible special characteristics
are: Engineer, Dredge, Cruise Missile, ABM, Artillery, Satellite,
Regenerate, Teleport, Heal/Repair, and Anti-Aircraft. A description of
each special characteristic follows in the next section.
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Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Appendix C (continued)
(k) Special Range. If the above special characteristic has a range limit-
ation, for example teleport, this is where it is specified.
(l) Special Strike. If the special characteristic does damage or repairs,
this field specifies how much damage/repair can be done per special
'action'.
(m) Movement. This field defines the maximum movement/day for the unit type.
The unit can move less depending on the terrain being crossed, the mode
of travel (i.e. submerged), and the whim of the player.
(n) Hit Points. This field defines how much damage this unit type can take
before being destroyed.
(o) Range. For fueled unit types this field defines how far they can go
before needing to refuel. For some special characteristics this field
defines the 'range' of the characteristic.
(p) Load. For transport-type units this field defines how many hit points
worth of units they can carry (important distinction: total number of hit
points not total number of units). For units with ranged attacks, this
field defines the amount of ammo that the unit carries. (NOTE: As of this
current release it is NOT possible for a transport unit to have Artillery
or AA capabilities as well being able to carry units).
(q) Cost. How many days will it cost to build this type of unit. There is a
10% cost penalty (rounded down) every time a city changes production.
Thus for a unit that normally costs 10 days, the first one would cost 11
days.
(r) Scan Radius. This field defines how far a unit type can potentially
'see', subject to terrain constraints. See notes on Class field for more
info on terrain scan blocking.
(s) Strength. This field determines how much damage this unit will inflict
when it hits another unit (ranged attacks excluded). Units with 0
strength will automatically die when they attack or are attacked, unless
the other unit also has 0 strength in which case both units are assumed
to have a strength of 1.
Special Characteristic Descriptions:
Engineer: Units with the engineer function will be able to level
mountains & hills, drain swamps, fill in bodies of water, and
build cities.
Dredge: Units with the dredge function will be able to cut shallow
channels through most "basic" land (i.e. land, tundra, ice, desert,
and swamps) and make deep water channels out of shallow water.
Cruise Missile: Units with this function can be armed with a variety
of chemical, biological, or nuclear warheads. Units with a cruise
missile function have no scan capabilities and are essentially
"blind" units.
- 23 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Appendix C (continued)
ABM: Units with this function automatically defend against units with
the above function. When a unit with an ABM function is activated,
it protects a given radius against missiles flying into it. The
larger the radius the less effective the protection. The formula
for the effectiveness is: (1-0.9*(DefRadius/MaxRadius))*100% thus
the effictiveness at max radius is always just 10%. When this
function is selected the load & range fields reflect the number of
shots the ABM can take before reloading and the maximum range that
it can defend.
Artillery: Units with this function have the ability to fire 'ranged'
attacks against other units. The max range for this attack is spec-
ified in the Sp Range field and the strength of the attack is spec-
ified in the Sp Strike field. Artillery attacks are resolved as
follows:
An artillery unit with a strike strength of 12 fires
into a stack of four units (friendly or enemy). Each
point of damage is rolled as a separate attack, the
initial attack goes against the top unit of the stack.
If this attack succeeds, then that unit takes a point
of damage and the next attack is also rolled against
him. This continues on until there is a miss. If there
is a miss, the artillery attack moves on to the next
unit in the stack and rolls the next point of damage
against that unit; repeating until the next miss. If
the attack against the fourth unit misses then any
remaining damage is lost. In this case the damage
distribution may have looked like:
Unit A - 3 points damage
Unit B - 5 points damage
Unit C - 0 points damage
Unit D - 2 points damage
------------------------
10 points damage done
2 points damage lost
12 point strike value
Satellite: Units with this function must be space classed. This function
controls what happens to the unit's scan radius as a function of orbit
height. The base scan radius (r) is only availible at the highest
orbit (Synchronous), at a high orbit the unit has a scan radius of
(base scan)/2, while at a low orbit it only has a scan radius of
(base scan)/4. The difference is scan radius is generally countered
by the distance that the unit moves in a day (i.e. low orbit space
units travel twice as far as high orbit space units and synchronous
space units don't move at all).
Regenerative: This function causes units to 'regenerate' hit points
each night. The number of points that the unit can restore is
specified by the Sp Strike field. An important thing to note about
units that regenerate, they can get 'better' than new. In other words
even if the unit isn't damaged it will still 'regenerate' hit points.
So it's possible to get an older unit that is up to twice as good as
a new one.
- 24 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Appendix C (continued)
Teleport: This function allows the unit to 'teleport' from one location
to another. The maximum distance that the unit can teleport is de-
fined in the Sp Range field. The movement cost to teleport is speci-
fied in the Sp Strike field. If a unit teleports into unexplored
terrain, there is a 60% chance that it will teleport someplace at
random and only have 1 hit point left.
Heal/Repair: Units with this function not only can repair themselves,
but they also can repair damage to any other units that are in the
same location. Damage repairs are conducted when ImpCycle is run.
Heal/Repair units won't restore undamaged units. The maximum damage
that an H/R unit can repair is specified in the Sp Strike field.
Anti-Aircraft: Units with an anti-aircraft capability can be configured
to automatically defend against any airborne class unit in the same
manner as the ABM defends against missile attacks, or they can be
fired manually like an Artillery type weapon. In the latter case only
airborne class units in a given location will be subject to damage.
The max range that the AA can defend is specified in the Sp Range
field, the strike damage is specified in the Sp Strike field.
- 25 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Appendix D
Error Log File (and what the numbers mean):
Error No. Error
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~
1 - 99 Turbo Pascal DOS Error. Please report error & address.
100 - 149 Turbo Pascal I/O Error. Please report error & address.
150 - 199 Turbo Pascal Critical Error. Please report...
200 - 255 Turbo Pascal Fatal Error. Please report...
500 - 599 Miscellaneous Imperium errors.
500 - Lost City
501 - No name in PCBoard.Sys
502 - Unrecognized PCBoard version
503 - Problem with build city routine
700 - 799 Imperium Communication Errors/Aborts
700 - No carrier 750 - No carrier (fossil)
701 - Unable to open port 751 - Unable to init (fossil)
702 - Invalid port no. 752 - Invalid port # (fossil)
703 - Invalid baud rate 753 - Invalid baud (fossil)
704 - Invalid parity 754 - Invalid parity (fossil)
800 - 899 Imperium File Errors
800 - No Key file 850 - No Extern map (init)
801 - No Sys file 851 - Insuff cities on map
802 - No Player file 899 - Incompatible data file
803 - No Master map versions. Run Update.
804 - No PCBoard.Sys file
825 - No Player file (cycle)
900 - 999 Imperium General Aborts
999 - Leave without entering game
998 - Game full
997 - Sysop eject
996 - KB timeout
995 - Max Time exceeded
994 - Player suicide
993 - Illegally modified key file
992 - Demonstration period expiration
- 26 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Sysop Documentation ______________ ___________________
Appendix E
Imperium Order Form ___________________
Name:_____________________________________________________________________
Mailing Address
Street :_________________________________________________________
City :_________________________________________________________
State/Zip Code:_________________________________________________________
Country :_________________________________________________________
Voice Number (optional):__________________________________________________
BBS Name:_________________________________________________________________
BBS Number (optional):____________________________________________________
Are you a member of a BBS Network (FIDO,Hyperlink,Internet,etc)?__________
If so, what network and what is your BBS Address:_________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
System Info: (this is to aid us in supporting you, should problems arise)
CPU Type (XT/286/386/486):______________________________________________
System Speed (12Mhz,etc) :______________________________________________
Total System RAM :______________________________________________
RAM available for Doors :______________________________________________
Max Baud Rate (2400,etc) :______________________________________________
Do you "Lock" the baud rate higher?________ (if so, at what?)___________
Hard Disk Size (20MB,40MB) :____________________________________________
Monitor Type (Mono,CGA,etc):____________________________________________
Imperium Door Game: ($20.00 US) $________
One year full support & beta test privileges: ($10.00 US) $________
Total: $________
Method of Payment:
Check [ ] Visa [ ] MasterCard [ ]
Make checks payable to "Search IV"
Card Member Name:_____________________________________________
Credit Card No :___________________________ Exp Date:________
Signature :_____________________________________________
- 27 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Documentation Index ______________ ___________________
Baud Rates 8 Known Bugs & Anomalies 14
Bulletin Files 9,10,17 Kudos 16
Credits 15 Map editor 13
Cycling Imperium 9 MaxPlayers 10
Disclaimer 2 Order Form 27
Distribution media 2 PK information 17
Editting Unit types 21 PK Values 10
EMail Addresses Registration 2
CompuServe 15 Key File
Fido Net 15 Downloading 2
RBBS Net 15 File Request/Send 2
V-Net 15 US Mail 2
Error Log File (Imp-Err.Log) 26 Running Imperium 8
Fossils 8 Batch File 9
Game Initialization 3 BBS Control Files
Game Toggles 11, 18 CallInfo.BBS 8
Active Weather 11 Chain.Txt 8
Advanced Game 11 Door.Sys 8
Seismic Activity 11 DorInfo#.Def 8
Sysop Snoop 11 PCBoard.Sys v12.xx 8
Virtual World 11 PCBoard.Sys v14.xx 8
ImpCycle 9 Command Line Parameters 8
Imperium.Cfg 3, 17 Hardware Requirements 8
ImpInit 3 Local Mode 9
Command Line Options 4 Midnight Event 9
/C (External City File) 6 Special Characteristics
/D (Deserts) 5 ABM 24
/E (External Map File) 5 Anti-Aircraft 25
/F (Forests) 5 Artillery 24
/G (Graphics On) 4 Cruise Missile 23
/I (Ice cap percentage) 5 Dredge 23
/J (Jungles) 5 Engineer 23
/L (Land Percentage) 4 Heal/Repair 25
/M (Mountains) 4 Regenerative 24
/R (Rivers) 4 Satellite 24
/S (Swamps) 4 Teleport 25
/T (External Terrain Table Data) 6 Starting Forces 11
/U (External Unit Definition) 6 Strategic Forces 11
/X (Max Land Radius) 5 Damage class 11
/Y (Min Land Radius) 5 Probability of disp/exp 11
Samples 6 Radius of effect 11
External Map Files 7 Support 2
Files created 3 Sysop Functions 9
Required files 3 Chat 9
ImpUtil 10 Player Eject 9
Cities Functions 12 Snoop (on/off) 9
Maps Functions 13 Sysop Utilities 10
Players Functions 12 Unit Stacking 21
System Functions 10 Updates 2
Terrain Table 12 Warhead Configuration 18
Unit Charactertics 12 Warhead Definitions 18
Units Functions 12 Warhead Types 19
IMPvvv 8 Clean Fusion 19
Installation 3 Complex Bio 19
- 28 -
Imperium v3.52 24 July 1992 Documentation Index ______________ ___________________
Conventional 19
Dirty Fission 19
Nerve Gas 19
Neutron Bomb 19
Simple Bio 19
Toxic Waste 19
Warranties 2
- 29 -
