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INTRODUCTION You have just inherited the reign of a small domain somewhere in the boundless tracts of Central Asia. This immense landmass rolls on end- lessly from horizon to horizon, shaped, though not bound, by the scat- tered ramparts of its treacherous mountain ranges. The steppes are a vast sea of tough grass and gravel. It's an arid, windswept part of the world, a fit setting for some of the most desolate deserts on the planet -- they range from the Dasht-E-Kavir and the Kara-Kum in eastern Persia, to the Gobi Desert on the northern flank of the Chin Empire. In between those, the dreaded Takla Makan: its hellish dunes, shrouded in perpetual yellow dust, was the final vision of many a luckless caravan-driver along the old Silk Road; the very name Takla Makan means "you go in, you don't come out." For centuries now, Central Asian peoples have wandered back and forth over these enormous distances, sometimes on foot, sometimes on hardy Mongol ponies. They drive their herds before them, and often drive their neighbors out of homelands that were themselves stolen from even earlier settlers. Now and then, some of the more fortunate among these bands find a spot that they can keep for a few generations, and perhaps get a taste of prosperity from farming or, if they settle near enough to the great Silk Road, take part in some of the trade that flows back and forth between that decaying empire to the West and the mysterious one behind the Great Wall. And flow it does, a river of wealth and goods: there is fine leather from Samarkand, beryl and rock-wool from Balkh, jade from Khotan, Hami melons and Kashgar blades; there are horses from Ferghana and the Vokhan valley, much prized by the Tang emperors -- the "heavenly horses" that sweat blood and are said to be descended from Alexander's steed Bucephalus; there are spices from Delhi and Kashmir; furs and Muscovy glass from the frozen lands of the Samoyeds; and, of course, there is silk, and more silk, in every weave, texture and color. Away from the trade routes, though, the concerns are much more basic. For a band on the move, the unvaried diet of mutton and mare's milk can only be supplemented by charity or warfare. Even for a group that chooses to follow the sedentary ways of their farming neighbors, there remains the challenge of building and running the irrigation systems that are so vital in this thirsty land. These are the economic realities that face your people. All the while, there are the wars, the migrations, the displacements and conquests, the shifting alliances and the constant movement -- a massive human tide washing to and fro across a vast continent. At the moment, it is a noisy background above which no single voice is strong enough to be heard. Where Alexander with his armies once prevailed, there are only songs and stories; and here the Mongol juggernaut has yet to roll, for those who will be known as Genghis Khan's ancestors are as yet but upstart Kitai clansmen raiding each other's herds in the forests of Man- churia. For you, the young new ruler of your people, the vision of a better future consists of mustering the strength and wisdom to balance a hard 1 struggle winning the blessings of civilization, against a hard fight keeping rapacious neighbors at bay. That future is yours to build, but foundations have been laid by your father and his father before him. Your grandfather was a tough and canny Turk who rose to rank in a minor clan of the Kirghiz tribe. He came first into this region years ago with a troop of war-weary cavalry and their camp-followers, hoping to find some respite from the rampaging Hsiung-Nu. In this they were successful, and in time your grandfather established a settled community whose people began to learn the ways of farming. He formed strong alliances with several of the neighboring khagans, who themselves were relative newcomers: in the time of their fathers, their people had been forced to migrate from Sogdiana, a civil- ized provice near the Aral Sea, lately come under Persian rule. Always the instinctive politician, your grandfather soon cemented the alliance: he took the daughter of the strongest local leader as his head wife. As the years and his abilities unfolded, he eventually united the surrounding khaganates under his own rule. He consolidated a small but disciplined standing army, established a council of ministers to help govern smoothly. He also made plans to build a permanent irrigation system to make farming more reliable, so that it could continue as the source of prosperity that it was proving to be. However, he was never to bring this about. One summer morning, with a brigade of eager horsemen behind him and a twinkle in his eye, he rode away, bound for Kashgar. He'd often spoken of it: the City of the Stone Tower, junction of the two Silk Roads and sentinel of the Paimir Mount- ains. Your people mourned him for seven years before your father accept- ed the yak-tail banner -- even now, when the rumbles of autumn thunder gallop across the steppe and make even the steeliest warrior tense with dread, the old folks whisper that it's the Ghost Cavalry, finally re- turning from Kashgar. Where your grandfather brought your people the stability of farming, your father understood the power of gold. While he was a boy, his Persian mother entranced him with stories of her homeland, like that other princess, Scheherezade. These were tales replete with the riches of Samarkand and Tashkent, the splendors of Bukhara, the dangers of the deserts and chill beauty of the mountains; there were the wily traders, the noisy bazaars, the caravans of shaggy Bactrian camels that brought merchants their riches and customers their exotic goods and news of exotic places. And at the heart of these tales your father saw the pecu- liar magic wrought by that peculiar breed, the trader: simply buy low here and sell high there, and a certain amount of that magical yellow metal is yours to spend or keep. With enough of it, a man needs neither land, nor herd, nor prayers against drought and storm. Though he was bred to be a warrior and not a trader, still your father brought some of that merchant magic to your people during his rule, and in time there was many a shrewd trader among them; they grew adept at buying and selling, and finding people with whom to buy and sell. In this harsh locale, demand is low for luxuries, compared to that for grain; grain and gold are what changes hands, and this provides a way to allay the uncertainties of drought and famine. A more lasting way, of 2 course, is to build permanent irrigation works, and such a plan your father often spoke of grandly; but when he died, he had never put down bow and sword for long enough to make the idea real. It falls to you, then, as you assume your rule, to realize all these ways of making your domain grow strong and prosper; effort and resources must be diligently applied, and in the proper balance. Each year you will meet with your Royal Council and decide how many acres of land must be cultivated, and how much grain to reserve in your storehouses. If your taxation is too high, your people may go hungry, some even starve or grow rebellious; if it's too low, there may not be enough next year for sufficient planting, or to feed the people while the crops are growing. As a wise and just ruler, you must make sure that there is enough grain left to provide each person with ten bushels; more, if possible, for a better-fed populace grows more quickly and becomes healthier, too, better able to survive the unpredictable ravages of disease. Above all, you must build up the irrigation system, for not only is it the surest guard against drought, it enhances the gifts of the earth and makes the crops bigger. In council, you will also decide whether you must buy additional grain through your traders in order to meet your people's needs, or whether there is enough surplus to sell, for the wealth of gold is just as vital as the wealth of the land. And it is gold that allows you to maintain your loyal troops, who have been so effective at turning away would-be conquerers, and when the occasion demands, at conquering new territory to accommodate an expanding populace. It is also in council that you must decide whether to send expeditions of conquest against your neighbors, or whether to send scouting parties to gather intelligence about their strength and potential threat. All of the information brought back is carefully kept by your scribes, so that you may refer to it while making your decisions. During the year, your country may be invaded at any time, so you must be careful to keep a portion of your troops at home for an adequate defense. Any time there is an invasion, your officers will keep you informed of developments. At the end of the year, your ministers will report to you with a summary of the year's important events, such as harvest yields, balance in the treasury, population count, effects of drought or plague, territory captured, and so forth. The future of your people is in your hands, and you have all that you need to rule wisely -- may you do so and prosper! 3 II. PLAY Note: most of the information detailed in this documentation is sum- marized in the Help facility, which is available online during the game. See section on using Help below. START From DOS, type PRINCE to start the game. The program will ask if you want to start a new game; if not, it will ask the file name of the previously-saved game that you wish to resume. Then it asks you to select a skill level ranging from 1 to 5. This value sets the difficulty of play, from easiest to hardest. It affects the armed strength and aggressiveness of your hostile neighbors; no other aspect of play (farming, trading, etc.) is affected. There are optional command-line parameters, however, that make other aspects of play easier: 'H' - Current Health factor included in Year-End summary. Appears as a percentage. This factor largely determines the fertility and mort- ality rates of your population. It also affects susceptibility to plague, as well as emigration and immigration. 'S' - Scouting parties return with exact information. 'N' - Printout of state of all neighbors at every turn. PLAY PROCEDURE You win by: Accumulating 100,000 talents of gold. Conquering all 15 neighboring domains in the region. You lose by: Conceding with the "Q" command. Managing to lose all your land, or people, or wealth (grain & gold). Each year, in your Royal Council (Main Screen), you decide: How many acres to plant -- enter value in PLANT CROPS field How many acres to irrigate -- BUILD CANALS field Irrigation improves crop yield and protects against drought How many bushels to store for next year -- STORE GRAIN field How many bushels to sell or buy -- TRADE GRAIN field Positive value means buy (at PRICE/BU. shown) Negative value means sell (at PRICE/BU. shown) How many troops to recruit for next year -- RECRUIT field This number will not be added to the SOLDIERS field until the following year How many troops to send out either to scout or attack -- MOBILIZE field See MAIN SCREEN section below for Cursor Movement and Editing. Press RETURN after each time you enter a value, to calculate the results of 4 these decisions (shown in the fields below the bar); make sure that your grain expenditures will leave a PER CAP of ten bushels or more, as this is what you are feeding your people. When you're satisfied with the values, move cursor to COMMAND field and press RETURN. If MOBILIZE is nonzero, you will need to give the order to SCOUT or ATTACK a neighboring country. Decisions shown on the screen are put into effect at this point. You may be attacked by a neighbor; if you are attacking or defending, there will appear a screen telling you of the results of battle. At year-end, results of the harvest will be reported to you, along with population changes, military activity, and so forth. INPUT FIELDS PLANT (Crops): Acres to cultivate. Each acre requires three bushels of grain for seed. One farmer can plant two acres. BUILD (Canals): Acres to build irrigation facilities on. Construction for each acre requires four men. STORE (Grain): Bushels to save for next year. TRADE (Grain): Bushels to buy or sell. Positive number is a purchase; negative, a sale Every 1000 bushels requires two men to transport it. RECRUIT: Number of men to train for next year's army. It costs three talents to train each recruit. MOBILIZE: Number of troops sent for war or reconnaisance. It costs two talents per soldier mobilized. These troops will not be available to fight invaders. (See COMMANDS section below for giving them their orders). RESULT FIELDS SUBJECTS: Total population for the current year. FARMERS: Manpower available for planting and building. SOLDIERS: Number of troops available to fight invasion. LAND: Total land for the current year. TO PLANT: Maximum acreage that can be cultivated. IRRIGATED: Acres for which irrigation canals have been built. GRAIN: Bushels of grain left for feeding the populace. SEED: Bushels of grain used for seed. PER CAP: Size of an individual's allocation of grain to eat. GOLD: Balance of gold in treasury after expenses and trade. EXPENSES: Costs of military recruiting and campaigning. PRICE: Trading price of grain for current year. This as well as other information appears in the online Help facility. The text appears in file PRINCE.HLP, which you may want to print out for reference. 5 MAIN SCREEN The opening screen informs you of your coronation and full title. Next you'll see the main screen, that of the Royal Council, with the follow- ing layout: ABOVE THE BAR These fields are for entering "what-if" data with which you will develop decisions about how to apportion and direct your country's resources for the current year. Each field is labelled, and as you move the cursor from one to another, a prompt also appears at the bottom of the screen elaborating a bit more on the purpose of the particular field (see below for mechanics of editing and cursor movement). Into each field, enter the approximate amount desired; when you enter or change a data-item and want to see the consequences, just press RETURN: all the other items dependent on that one will recalculate, just like a miniature spreadsheet program. The results are displayed in the fields below the bar. Whenever an excessive amount is entered, or one that causes an illegal result (such as trying to plant more grain than you have on hand, for example), an error message will appear at the bottom of the screen, and you may then go back and enter an appropriate quantity. Many of the items are very interdependent, so it will probably take several trial approximations, changing this field and that one until you get a satisfactory picture. Let the recalculation facility work for you -- you have more important concerns than bookkeeping! BELOW THE BAR These fields display the results of the data entered, calculated accord- ing to the rules of the game. For example, it requires three bushels of grain to seed an acre of land, so if you specify (in the "Plant Crops" field) that a certain number of acres are to be cultivated, then three times that number will appear in the "For Seed" display-field. INSIDE THE BAR Appearing inside the bar are the current year and the 'Command' field. When you are satisfied with the other fields, move the cursor to this one, at which point you have several options. If you press RETURN here, the decisions you have made for this year will be enacted, and the subsequent screen(s) will show the consequences of those decisions. If you enter a "/", a dialog box labelled "Orders: " will open up for the purpose of various military activities (see section on Commands below). The dialog box also opens by default if the MOBILIZE field is non-zero. The fields are grouped so that each row of fields deals with the same units (e.g., acres of land, bushels of grain, etc.). The status-line at the bottom of the screen shows not only the various prompts and error- messages, but also the current field-number, current column within the field, editing mode (Overwrite or Insert), CAPS lock and NUMS lock. The 6 rectangle below the bar also serves as a window for the online Help facility, and for the REVIEW command (see below). CURSOR MOVEMENT AND EDITING MOVING BETWEEN FIELDS TAB Key : Moves to next field in sequence. BACKTAB : (Shift-TAB) moves to previous field. U & D Arr: Moves to field just above or below. HOME Key : Moves to the upper left-hand field. EDITING WITHIN A FIELD R Arrow: Moves the cursor right one space at a time. At right end of field, cursor will tab to next field. L Arrow: Moves left one space if cursor is not in Col 1; Otherwise, it will tab to the previous field. ESC Key: Moves cursor back to Col 1. BACKSP : "Destructive." Deletes character to the left. DEL Key: Deletes character under the cursor. ^Y : Deletes all to the right of cursor position. INS Key: Toggles between Insert and Overwrite modes. EQUIVALENT KEYS Arrows : "Wordstar diamond." L,R,U,D = ^S,^D,^E,^X TABS : TAB,BACKTAB = ^R Arrow,^L Arrow INS Key: ^V DEL Key: ^G COMMANDS 'Command: ' (Field for Single-character commands) RET: Closes current Royal Council and enacts its decisions. / : Opens dialog box for orders to MOBILIZEd troops. Also opens if troops are MOBILIZEd when Council closes. ? : Calls up the Help facility. Q : Quits the game. Will double-check with you, then ask whether you want to save the game, and, if so, to what file. 'Orders: ' (Dialog box) ATTACK and SCOUT must be given with a direction, i.e., NORTH,SOUTH,EAST and WEST. N,S,E,W may also be used. ATTACK: Number of troops entered in MOBILIZE will fight the country lying in the specified direction. Gains, losses and other info will be reported. SCOUT: (also RECON) Reconnaissance by soldiers MOBILIZEd in given direction. They will report estimated troop strengths, approximate size and wealth of the domain, and apparent hostility (i.e., likelihood of attack). Accuracy of report goes according to the number of soldiers who are sent and live to tell the tale -- up to about fifty; more than that usually brings dimin- ishing returns, since chances of getting caught go up with the size of the scouting party. Results of reconnaisance are stored and can be called up by the REVIEW command. 7 REVIEW: (also REV) Will show a table summarizing reconnaisance done so far. Your armies out on campaign (ATTACK command) will update this information the same way. Enemy invasions modify some of the information: enemy troop estimate is reduced by the number killed in your defense of their invasion, and enemy territory estimate is increased by the number of acres they win from you, if any. Also shows the year a reconnaisance item was acquired. OTHER SCREENS The year-end report screen is shown every year, with a summary of farm productivity, births, deaths, plague, population, wealth, etc. In between, there are screens that report results of campaigns and in- vasions, as appropriate. 8 CONSTRAINTS & CONDITIONS PER CAPita grain should be 10 or more (prevents starvation and riots). Occurrences of starvation increase chance of riots and starvation. Health index below .75 increases chance of plague. Higher PER CAPS increase population and disease-resistance (up to 40). Grain price fluctuates around .05 talents per bushel, but not very far Neighbors are "live:" resources of their countries fluctuate, too: their wealth depends on population, land and current grain-price; population growth or decline depends on wealth; land depends on their military successes & failures; hostility level (i.e., how likely they are to invade) varies; their number of new troops depends on population and hostility level. Size of enemy mobilizations depend on their hostility and wealth. An enemy's hostility-factor can change: Decreases when enemy is defeated severely enough (more than about 15% casualties). Increases when you are defeated severely enough. Accuracy of scouts' troop-counts goes up with size of patrol, unless the 'S' parameter was included in the command-line at the start of the game. When MOBILIZing, forces left at home face possible raids the same year. STRATEGIES The only way to acquire more land is by force of arms. The surest way to wealth is to buy low and sell high. Make sure that all those not farming are BUILDing or RECRUITing. When MOBILIZing, leave enough troops at home to defend against raids that may come the same year; i.e., before campaigning forces return. Successful campaigns bring gold & land; also sudden jumps in population. Overpopulation can sometimes be a problem -- deal with it promptly: if you can't make a quick conquest of territory, starve the population for a year or two - the survivors will be better off, and you can avoid a downward cycle of poverty. (To rule well, as Kublai Khan once said, "You must be as good as you can be, and as evil as you have to be.") Of course, if you do this too many times, the people will start rioting and looting the granaries. 9 A conquered neighbor just may be followed by a much more threatening one. Increase troops quickly at first, while enemy strength is still unknown. Increasing troops slowly but steadily thereafter is the most painless. Larger troop-buildups just before a campaign will cover its casualties. Keep reconnaisance info up to date - items are marked with year acquired. Stability can be gained by consistently applying a simple formula: try to buy at least a few thousand bushels when price is below .05 likewise, always try to sell a few thousand when price is above .05 BUILD at least some canals every year; the long-term benefit is great. 10 III. HELP FACILITY When you type "?" in the Command field, the dialog box opens up with the prompt "Topic: ," while displaying instructions and main topic-heading in a window that opens up in the Result-Fields area of the screen. In response to the prompt, you may either specify one of the topic-headings by number, or type in a keyword that you believe is associated with the material you're looking for (distinction between upper-case and lower- case is ignored). In the first case, Help will display the first few lines of the topic specified; in the second case, it will stop at the first occurrence of the keyword that you specify. If you think it has stopped near the material you want to see, you may scroll through the text a single line at a time: RETURN advances the scrolling forward a line, and BACKSPACE scrolls back up a line. Alterna- tively, you can press the TAB key to keep searching for the next occur- rence of the keyword; if the search reaches the end of the Help file without another "hit," you'll get a beep and a message to that effect. At any time during scrolling or tabbing, you can break it off by hitting ESC, which will put the cursor back into the dialog box, waiting for another keyword from you to search for. At this point, you may opt to quit Help altogether, in which case you just press RETURN, and the game resumes. During scrolling or searching, the display shows the current line-number and the most recent topic-heading read. The intent of this is to help you stay oriented while peering through this diminutive window. The text of Help is just a text-file on the disk called PRINCE.HLP. If you wish, you can add to the Help text or customize it to your taste, but before doing so, you should know about a couple of relevant particulars. First, there is a 200-line limit on what the program reads from the .HLP file; any more than that is simply ignored. As distributed, the file is 149 lines long, which leaves a bit of room for notes or whatever of your own choosing. The first 7 lines of the file are what is displayed when Help is first called; it considers the 8th line as line #1 of the Help text proper. Topic headings are single digits in column 1, followed by a right paren in column 2, for instance: "4)". When the search or scroll routine sees this configuration, it will display whatever else is on that line as the current topic heading. If you decide to modify the Help file, it's probably a good idea to save a copy of it somewhere; make sure you name the modified version PRINCE.HLP -- that portion of the program is not overly smart, and won't know what to do otherwise. 11 IV. PROGRAM NOTES "PRINCE" AND ITS PREDECESSORS by Terry Dyke "Prince" is a variation on a type of game program that has a long tradition among microcomputer enthusiasts. The first one I remember seeing was a BASIC listing in "Dr. Dobbs Journal of Computer Calis- thenics and Orthodontia" in early 1976, when that publication was a skinny newsprint affair, and you had to know somebody, it seemed, to get your hands on a copy. That game was called "Kingdom," and I took the listing over to a friend of mine who had built an Altair micro with a whopping 32K of memory; he'd also recently acquired a "TV Type- writer" -- CRT terminal -- so he was no longer confined to tiny machine-lang- uage programs entered via the front-panel switches. I was anxious to exploit this glamorous new boon to hobby computing, as well as to make use of a "high-level" computer language, even if it was BASIC. I'd been reading that Tiny Basic was starting to be used on a lot of home micros, and that Altair Basic was even pretty close to a full- blown one. So, we hurriedly entered the source code for "Kingdom," cleaned up a couple of syntax errors, and we were off and ruling. Many bleary-eyed hours later, we saved the program onto yet another new marvel, the cassette recorder. Since then, the game has turned up in various incarnations on bulletin boards and in computer-club libraries. It seems that the most ubiqui- tous of the lot was "Hammurabi," which, unlike "Kingdom," had a spe- cific setting, ancient Mesopotamia. That, I thought, was a nice touch; it aided the willing suspension of disbelief, just like a play or a movie or a story. As a childhood fan of those Avalon-Hill board games in which faithful simulation is so important, I definitely appreciated the similarity between a good game and a good yarn. Still, "Hammurabi" was recognizably just "Kingdom" dressed up in Baby- lonian robes; it added little to the basic structure of the game. More recently, the game has appeared on a ten-dollar games disk from an outfit that distributes through a nationwide bookstore chain. This time, it was called "Ruler." Even though it did have the improvement of being implemented in compiled BASIC, it was put back into a generic setting, and some aspects of the quality of play are uneven and frustrating. For example, I found it impossible ever to profit solely by farming, but since land prices varied all the way from 1 to 10, sometimes from one turn to the next, it quickly became obvious that one could make out quite handsomely by becoming a real-estate speculator instead. But I always wondered: From whom, exactly, is this monarch buying territory for his realm? Of course, in fairness, that question is a legacy that goes all the way back to "Kingdom." Perhaps the best variant of the game was an offering from Instant Software called "Santa Paravia and Fiumaccio" for the venerable Apple II. The setting was two fictitious city-states in Renaissance Italy, and the game even had a great little graphics sequence during each turn that would paint the present picture of your domain, with palaces and churches in their current stage of construction, a number of stalls in 12 the marketplace for your merchants, and little plows and furrows over the area of land under cultivation. There were many additional elements in the structure of the game, such as money, construction of these buildings, accommodating trade, raising an army, etc. You could also have several players going in parallel, each with their own country, although there was hardly any controllable interaction among them; basically, whoever achieved the games's goal first was the winner. Another good innovation that "Santa Paravia" included was an input- screen that you could call up from time to time and change various parameters affecting your governing policies. You could set such things as how high your taxes were, whether your justice was lenient or harsh, and quite a few other things of that sort. All of these would have some effect on the success of your reign and the outcome of the game. The input-screen was a step in the right direction, I thought, but still, in the main sequence of play, "Santa Paravia" shared with its predecessors a very avoidable liability: data was input via the traditional line-by- line, prompt-and-response dialog, and that makes it impossible to go back and change your mind about a particular value once you're past that point in the dialog sequence. Such a state of affairs is most awkward, considering that the focus of play is in creating an overall balance, an optimum among a number of interrelated variables. That, and the fact that there's usually a fair amount of arithmetic in the way that the variables are related, usually meant a lot of bookkeeping and "what-if" calculation on the side when playing one of these games. Surely, one of the most bewildering spect- acles imaginable is somebody who is obliged to keep a dime-store calcu- lator in front of his multi-kilobuck computer! So with an enduring enthusiasm for this type of game, I still had a bagful of dissatisfactions with the slips and flaws of earlier versions of it; there were none of them that I completely enjoyed playing, since even th