Empire: Wargame of the Century manual
- Empire: Wargame of the Century
- manual
EMPIRE
THE WARGAME OF THE CENTURY
Version 5.0
EMPIRE is a simulation of a full-scale war between two emperors, the
computer and you. Naturally, there is only room for one, so the object of
the game is to destroy the other. The computer plays by the same rules
that you do.
There are several changes from earlier versions. A differences section
is included at the end of these instructions for those who have played
before under versions 3.xx or 4.xx.
The map is a rectangle 600*1000 miles on a side. The resolution is 10,
so the map you see is 60*100. The map consists of sea='.', land='+',
Uncontrolled cities='*', Computer-controlled cities='X', and Your dominated
cities='O'. Each emperor gets 1 move per round (1 round=1 day), moves are
done sequentially.
The map is displayed on the player's screen during movement. Each piece
is represented by a unique character on the map. With a few exceptions,
you can only have ONE piece on a given location. On the map, you are shown
only the 8 squares adjacent to your units. This information is updated
before and after every move. The map displays the most recent information
known.
The game starts by assigning you one city and the computer one city.
Cities can produce new units. Every city that you own produces more pieces
for you according to the cost of the desired unit. The typical play of the
game is to issue the Automove command until you decide to do something
special. During movement in each round, the player is prompted to move
each piece that does not otherwise have an assigned function. If you want
to start a new game, any earlier EMSAVE.DAT files must be deleted to avoid
continuing the earlier game. Experienced players will find difficulty
level 8 and 9 games the most challenging. Difficulty level 10 games are
not reliablably challenging.
Map coordinates are 4-digit numbers. the first two digits are the row,
the second two digits are the column.
The pieces are as follows:
Piece Yours Enemy Moves Hits Cost
ARMY A a 1 1 5(6)
FIGHTER F f 4 1 10(12)
DESTROYER D d 2 3 20(24)
SUBMARINE S s 2 2 25(30)
TROOP TRANSPORT T t 2 3 30(36)
CRUISER R r 2 8 50(60)
AIRCRAFT CARRIER C c 2 8 60(72)
BATTLESHIP B b 2 12 75(90)
EMPIRE Playing Instructions Page 2
The second column shows the map representation for your units.
The third shows the representations of enemy units.
Moves is the number of squares that unit can move in a single round.
Hits is the amount of damage a unit can take before it is destroyed.
Cost is the number of rounds needed to produce another of the same unit.
The number in parenthesis is the cost for a city to produce the 1st unit.
EMPIRE Playing Instructions Page 3
1.0
DESCRIPTION OF THE PIECES
Army: Armies move only on land. ONLY ARMIES CAN CAPTURE CITIES. They
have a 50% probability of doing so. Attacking one's own cities
results in the army's destruction. Armies can be carried by
troop transports. Just move the army on the transport and when
the transport moves the army moves with it. You cannot attack
any ships with armies while on board a transport. YOU CANNOT
MOVE BACK INTO YOUR OWN CITIES WITH AN ARMY unless there is a
transport in that city.
Fighter: Fighters move over sea or land. They move 4 times per round.
They are refueled at controlled cities and carriers. They are
shot down over uncontrolled cities. They have a max range of 20
spaces.
Ships, general: All ships can move only on the sea. They move two times
per round. Ships can also dock in a controlled city. Docked
ships have damage repaired at rate of 1 hit per day. If a ship
is hit badly, it will slow to 1 move per round.
Destroyer: Typical ship, quickest to produce.
Submarine: When a submarine scores a hit, 3 hits are exacted instead of
the usual 1 from the enemy unit. This is the only unit having
this property.
Troop Transport: Troop Transports are the only units that can carry
armies. They can carry a maximum of 2 * (the number of hits
left) of armies. Armies that cannot be carried will drown when
the ship tries to move.
Cruisers: Typical large ship.
Aircraft Carriers: Carriers are the only ships that can carry fighters.
Carriers carry a maximum of the number of hits left of fighters.
Battleship: Typical mongo ship.
EMPIRE Playing Instructions Page 4
2.0
FUNCTIONS TO WHICH YOU CAN ASSIGN YOUR PIECES
Other than just moving your pieces you can assign them the following
automatic functions:
awake: cancel current automatic function and return to manual moves. You
will be prompted for the piece movement.
sentry: stay put, do not ask the player to move the piece, wake up if an
enemy piece comes within sensor range.
direction: move in specified direction, wake up if an enemy piece, enemy
city, or unoccupied city is encountered. Temporary wake up if an
obstacle is in path of movement, after getting a manual move from
you, THE UNIT IS STILL ASSIGNED A DIRECTION. A direction
assignment is represented by the key which sets that direction
(e.g.: D means east).
move: move towards location assigned to the piece (in editing mode). Wake
up if enemy piece is encountered. Wake up temporarily if
obstacle is in path of movement. Represented by the coordinate
the piece is moving toward.
fill: (troop transports and aircraft carriers only) go on sentry duty
until full to capacity of armies or fighters.
random: (for armies only) move at random subject to the following
conditions: If an uncontrolled city is adjacent, attack it. If
an enemy unit is adjacent, attack it (even if it is a ship). If
an unfilled troop transport of yours is adjacent, get on it and
wake up. Move if possible without attacking any of your own
units. It will not destroy itself unless it is in a city
surrounded by your units.
EMPIRE Playing Instructions Page 5
3.0
ORDERS MODE
The top level prompt is: Your Orders?
This is asked between each round (if you are not in Auto move mode).
The following commands are valid at this time:
A: Auto move. Begin movement, stay there until 'O' in move mode cancels
the auto move.
C: Give the computer a free move.
G: Toggle REGIS color graphics display mode. Issuing this command without
REGIS and a graphics card produces useless output.
H: Display the Help screen. Contains a brief description of all the
commands.
J: Puts you into Editing Mode (explained later), where you can examine
and/or change the functions associated with your pieces and cities.
M: Move. Cause a round to be played by you and the computer.
N: Give the computer the number of free moves you specify. If you are
playing a difficulty 8 or 9 game, you will probably not want to use
this command.
P: Re-display current sector on screen.
Q: Quit current session. Respond with a 'Y' if you really want to quit.
The game file is saved in the file EMSAVE.DAT and can be restarted at
a later time.
R: Display the round number.
S: Clears the screen.
T: Request a printout of the entire map. You must supply a file spec for
where you want the map put.
EMPIRE Playing Instructions Page 6
4.0
MOVEMENT MODE
To simply move a piece, type one of the following keys;
QWE
A D
ZXC
These keys move in the direction of the key from S. The characters are
not echoed and only 1 character is accepted, so no need for a .
Hit the SPACE BAR if you want the piece to stay put.
Other commands are:
G: fill: put the troop transport (or aircraft carrier) to sleep until it
accumulates 6 armies (or 8 fighters), then wake it up. If the ship is
damaged, the ship will wake up when it has all it can take.
H: display Help text (hit any character to continue moving)
I: set unit to moving in a direction specified by the next character
typed in, i.e. QWE
A D
ZXC
J: enter Editing Mode
K: wake up piece. If piece is a troop transport or carrier, all armies
or fighters on board are also woken up.
L: set fighter path for city to be the direction following the 'L'.
O: cancel auto move. At the end of the round, Orders Mode will prompt.
Doesn't affect current piece.
P: refresh the screen
R: if it's an army, set it to moving at random.
S: put on sentry duty.
U: set a fighter to land at the closest carier or city. Useful to return
fighters to bases when half the fuel is left.
?: display information about the piece or city. Shows the function, hits left,
range and number of armies or fighters aboard.
ATTACKING something is accomplished by moving onto the square of the unit
you wish to attack. Hits are traded off at 50% probability of a hit
landing on one or the other units until one unit is TOTALLY destroyed.
There is only 1 possible winner.
EMPIRE Playing Instructions Page 7
NOTES:
If you give a piece a direction or move function, they will wake
TEMPORARILY if they run into an obstacle (or enemy). You must explicitly
wake the piece to regain complete control or assign it a new function.
Fighters moving under the command of a function will wake up when they
have 10 rounds of fuel left. This is to enable you to decide whether you
want to make it kamikaze or send it back to a city for refueling.
You are "allowed" to do FATAL things like, attack your own cities or
other pieces. If you try to do fatal move that involve terrain
restrictions, like, drive armys into the sea and ships into land, you are
given a chance to reconsider. Answer with an 'Y' if you want to commit
suicide. You cannot move onto the edge of the world.
EMPIRE Playing Instructions Page 8
5.0
EDITING MODE
Editing mode allows you to move around the 'world' and check on things.
You can assign and deassign movements and inquire on the production of
cities.
To move the cursor around, use the standard direction keys.
QWE
A D
ZXC
Other commands are:
H: Display Help text (hit any character to continue editing).
I: Give piece (or city) the function 'direction', enter the key
specifying the direction following the 'I'.
K: Wake up piece (or cancel city fighter path).
M: Put piece (or city) in 'move' function. Type M over piece (or city),
then move the cursor to where you want it to go, and type 'N'.
You may select an end point on another portion of the map by using
the 'P' command before typing N.
Assigning a 'move' to a city, effects any fighters that land there.
N: Specify the end point of a move (see M command).
O: Exit from editing mode.
P: Display new sector. Each sector represents a 20*70 area of the map,
arranged as follows:
0 5
1 6
2 7
3 8
4 9
the sectors overlap by 10 vertically, and 40 horizontally.
R: Put army in 'random'.
S: Put piece in Sentry mode.
Y: Change phase of city that cursor is on top of. When program asks for
production demands, key in the letter corresponding to what you want
produced. You are reprompted if you enter an illegal type.
?: Display information about piece or city. For pieces, displays
function, range, hits left, any pieces aboard. Cities display
production, fighter paths, and any pieces in the city.
EMPIRE Playing Instructions Page 9
NOTES:
You can give cities functions. This doesn't affect the city any, but any
fighter landing in that city will pick up the specified function. This is
useful for setting up automatic fighter movements.
Note that you cannot assign movement to a piece inside a city with the
editor.
After the exploration stage use of automatic piece movement will make
your play easier. When being prompted for piece movement the command
sequence 'JMNO' is very useful.
DIFFERENCES In Version 5.00 from earlier versions.
There is no save game command (once 'V'). This is now automatically
done.
The data file EMSAVE.DAT is a different format, old games cannot be
continued.
There is REGIS support for fancy map output.
You can select the difficulty level at the start of the game.
Armies will automatically wake up if a troop transport that can carry
them becomes adjacent.
Transports can load armies within cities and can carry armies into
cities.
Map output now uses forward/reverse scrolling on appropriate terminals.
The computer strategy is significantly improved.
Several bugs have been fixed.
EMPIRE Playing Instructions Page 10
Microcomputer Information:
This is a full blown EMPIRE v5.00. No features have been removed unless
they did not make sense (For example, GIGI mode is no longer useful)
The VAX version automatically saved the game every 20 moves in case
something went wrong. This proved too slow on the Rainbow, and the
game is now saved only when you do a quit.
You no longer have to hit from orders mode after each command.
This program is not limited to the Rainbow. It should run without
modification on just about any MS-DOS machine.
IBM Users:
You MUST install ANSI.SYS to get everything working. To do this,
create a file called "CONFIG.SYS" that contains the line:
DEVICE=ANSI.SYS
Beyond that, EMPIRE will reconfigure itself.
Anybody else:
EMPIRE assumes that you are either working with a system that has a
full featured ANSI device driver (the one supplied with the IBM is not)
or that you are working with an IBM compatible. If your system meets
either of these qualifications, EMPIRE should run fine.
