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|Space Empire, Created by Jon Radoff|
|Space Empire II, By Mystical One   |
|      Version 3.05 documentation   |
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I.   Introduction
II.  Running Your Empire
III. Battle


I. Introduction

  The object of Space Empire is simple.  You are the absolute
ruler of a set of worlds.  Your goal is to be the most powerful empire
through diplomacy, economic ploys, and most of all, war.  The first
person to be "Space Lord" for seven days in a row ascends the iridium
throne of the galaxy and becomes Lord of the Universe and is but into the
"Space Lords Hall of Fame".  To be Space Lord, you must have at least
100,000 points and be the highest scorer if there is more than one empire
with 100,000 points.


II. Running Your Empire

   Space Empire (hereafter referred to as SE) is a simple, yet
intricate game.  The actual "play" of the game is quite easy - everything
follows a natural, logical rhythm and the choices are virtually identical
on every turn.  What you decide to do at each prompt, however, can greatly
affect your Empire, the Empires of others, and other game options that you
will be faced with.  SE is almost entirely pure strategy - indeed, it can
be compared with Checkers or Chess, where the moves are logical and
physically simple, but WHAT YOU DO with each game piece determines the
outcome as a whole.  Here are your "game pieces" in SE:

PLANETS - There are three types of planets:  FOOD, ORE, and DEFENSE.  Food
planets are absolutely essential to the functioning of your Empire - after
all, you have to feed your hungry population and your fighting forces!  ORE
planets are your income-producers.  You will undoubtedly have many more ORE
planets than any other type when you play the game; indeed, if you don't,
your Empire will collapse in poverty.  DEFENSE planets, quite obviously,
produce soldiers, which add in automatically at the commencement of each
turn.
   When it comes to Planets, you have to keep one important thought in mind:
Planets costs money - money to buy, and money to maintain. If you have too
many DEFENSE planets and not enough FOOD or ORE Planets, you may be
overwhelmed with starving soldiers that will eventually overthrow your
Empire.  If you have too many FOOD Planets and not enough ORE Planets, the
cost of maintaining the FOOD Planets alone (beyond any food they produce)
may be too much to bear.  Remember, too, that food and soldiers can be
individually purchased within the game as a commodity.  However, food in
the Food Common Market (more on that soon) can run out, and you'll need to
rely on your own resources to feed your Empire.  You'll just have to find
your best strategy when it comes to Planets.

SOLDIERS - the "backbone" of your fighting equipment, Soldiers are essential
to a successful Empire.  Too many at once, however, and you may not be able
to feed or pay them all.  Too few, and you'll be a weak target for other
players. (Used for Offense and Defense)

FIGHTERS - Fighters are useful when attacking other players, and can only
be used if you have CARRIERS (another game piece). (Offensive weapon only)

CARRIERS - Used to transport Fighters to the battle front, 100 Fighters per
Carrier only.

DEFENSE STATIONS - Help protect you from enemy attacks.  They're relatively
inexpensive, and you can't have too many. (Defensive Weapon Only)

GENERALS - One General commands 50 soldiers.  In order to use your soldiers,
you MUST have enough Generals.

COMMAND SHIP - Your Command Ship is VITAL to your success as an Empire.
Without it, your attacks are weakened.  Consider an Empire without a Command
Ship as like a naval battle force without a flagship.  You CAN attack without
a Command Ship, but you won't be as effective.  The Command ship also helps
protect you when you are attacked.  To get your Command Ship, you have to
build it.  You pay a one-time fee, and then the ship is built automatically
in 5% increments with each turn you take.  For example, it will take you 5
days to build a Command Ship up to 100% status if you are permitted 4 turns
a day.  When you are attacked, 5% is SUBTRACTED from your Command Ship
status.  A 100% Command Ship will cause your army to be 20% more effective.

COVERT AGENTS - Spying and Covert Operations are a fun and exciting part of
playing SE.  In fact, an entire menu is devoted to just Covert Ops!  In
order to partake of these activities, you must own Covert Agents.  Like
Soldiers, Fighters, Defense Stations, etc., Covert Agents are purchased in
the market.  The more you have, the better off you are, generally speaking.

CRUISERS - Yet another fighting piece.  These are the "battleships" of your
fighting forces.  You need them for effective battles, and they help protect
you in times of attack.  Buy, buy, buy!! (Used for Offense and Defense)

   The above 8 "playing pieces" are the basic building blocks of your Empire.
How wisely you use them and the proportions you have of each will determine
your fate in the game.  At this point, I would urge you to review the playing
pieces again, and make sure you are completely familiar with each.

  At the beginning of each turn, you collect money in the form of
taxes from your people and ore mined from planets.  You also get a stock
of food from agricultural worlds and a flow of weaponry from defense
planets.  Your governing planets, which are purely administrative worlds,
don't do you any good and just sap your funds -- but you need one of them
for every 50 other planets.

MESSAGES:  You will receive messages sent to you by other players, and
notification of actions taken against you at the first of your logon.  You
can read, but not respond at this time.

Next we have the Alliance routines which you enter into now.


Alliance round
-------- -----


[D]issolve alliance
[E]xpell empire from alliance
[I]nfo on your alliance
[J]oin an alliance
[L]ist existing alliances
[R]eview defense forces
[S]tart a new alliance
[T]eam members
[W]ithdraw from alliance
[Q]uit

DISSOLVE: This option will be displayed if you are a leader of a team.  At
which point you have the option to break off the team.  Every soldier,
cruisers and defense stations will be put back into the team members empire.

EXPELL:  This option is only displayed if you are the leader of an alliance.  This option lets you kick out certain members which you don't want in your alliance anymore.

INFO:  This option will list out all the soldiers, defense stations and
cruisers which are in the allaince.  Also, will show how many of those are
yours.

JOIN:  If you don't want to be a leader of a team this option is for you.
This will let you try to join another alliance team.  The next time the
leader of that team plays the game will get an option that you wish to join
his alliance.  The next time you get a messages back saying that the leader
accepted your application or rejected it.   If excepted into the alliance
then you have the option to put soldiers and such into the alliance to help
out your team members vers attackers.

LIST:  This will list out every alliance and show how many players are in each alliance at that time.

REVIEW:  This is where you are allowed to put soldiers and such into the
alliace if you belong to one.  If so, it will show how manys is in there
right now and asks how many soldiers, defense stations and cruisers you wish
to put into it.   If you have already had some soldiers in the alliance
everything is taken out and put back into you empire.  So if you want to put
50 more soldiers into the alliance and already had 25 soldiers.  You would
have to put 75 soldiers into the alliance to add the 50 soldiers you wish to
put into it.

START:  This is where you are allowed to start a new alliance if you are not
already in alliance of that time.  If your not in another alliance it will
ask for your alliance name and then from then on will be the leader of the
alliance.  Then from that day one, if someone wishs to join your alliance you
will be prompt the next time your play if you wish to let them join your
alliance or not.

MEMBERS:  This will show you everyone that is in your alliance.  It will show
them your players name, total planets and score.  This is handy if you forget
who is in your alliance.

WITHDRAW:  If you wish not to be part of alliance you already are joined in,
this option will let you get out of the alliance and give you back all your
soldiers, cruisers and defense stations you have in the alliance at that
time.  If you are a leader of a alliance you will not see this, you will have
to use option DISSOLVE to get out of an alliance.

Next stop is the empire status.

Almost everything which is displayed for you empire is easy to know what they mean.  But here is a couple of things which might help

EFFECTIVENESS.  The Effectiveness rating is a percentage rating of your
soldier's, fighter's and defense station's ability to function in battle.
Effectiveness is  lowered by either another player performing a Covert
Operation called  "Demoralize Troops" (prostitutes and liquor are sent in to
corrupt your forces), or by you fighting too many losing battles.  You can
raise your military effectiveness by paying a fee in the question-and-answer
session that immediately follows the Status Screen.  If your effectiveness is
100%, your troops, fighters and defense stations will be 20% stronger than if
your effectiveness was 0%.

PROTECTION.  When a new players begins, they are afforded 20 turns of
protection.  This is to help keep the larger, more vicious Empires from
hungrily swallowing up the smaller Empires before they have a real chance to
build up a reasonable level of protection.  This feature means that, for 20
turns, you can not be attacked or molested with Covert Operations by ANY
player.  Once you gain over 100 planets and you have any protection turns
left you will loss the remaining protection turns you had left. You will loss
your protection by attacking other players if you so choose.  Otherwise your
protection will expire at 20 turns no matter how many planets you have.  You
will then be treated as a player who has exceeded 100 planets.  While under
protection, you are allowed to make treaties.

COMMAND SHIP PERCENTAGE.  A tough command ship is important to any fleet.
A 100% Command Ship rating will increase the strength of your army by 20%.

  After collecting your money from your ORE planets, you are allowed to
budget your money as you see fit.  Certain amounts will be requested which
you are advised to stay close to.  Next in the line of questions is Food
which you go to the Market to buy or sell food.  The Common Market works
very simply:  you can buy or sell food, or just bypass it if you desire.
Note, however, that the Food Market comes JUST BEFORE you have to feed your
military and your population.  MAKE SURE you either have enough food on hand,
or that you purchase enough to feed everyone.  Prices in the Common Market
will fluctuate with supply and demand, and at times food may even run out
entirely.  In that case, you will have to rely on your own food stores to
feed your Empire.  Your people will also require food -- make sure you either
buy enough food each round or have enough agricultural worlds to support your
people!

  You must keep your populace happy!  Abusing them by not giving
them enough food and not allocating enough money to your planets will
stir up unrest.  There are many factors which modify how happy your
people are.  Make sure you learn these and keep them that way.  Internal
unrest is worse then the most powerful of enemy armies!



Next stop is the Market:


      Government spending

#  Item               Price    Owned
------------------------------------
1) Soldier Troop.......1000      312
2) Fighter craft.......1800      122
3) Defense station.....2000        0
4) Heavy cruiser.......4000       23
5) Intelligence Agent..5000       14
6) Carrier.............8000        3
7) Generic planet.....20000        3
8) Governing planet...32000        1
9) Generals............8000        4
A) Command Ship.......60000      10%
------------------------------------

You have 321321 Credits.

Which would you like to buy? (?=Reshow,Q=Quit)


At this time you will be allowed to buy what ever you wish to buy.  Most of
what is up there is easy to understand.  When buying Generic Planets be
carefull because there are only 1000 planets in the galaxy to buy.

Next Stop if you have Spys is the Spy routine:


               Mission types:
------------------------------------------
#            Spy's Action             Cost
------------------------------------------
1) Spy on Military....................7500
2) Spy on Government..................7500
3) Spy on Military and Government....10000
4) Insurgent Aid....................100000
5) Set Up...........................100000
6) Support Dissension...............200000
7) Demoralize Troops................200000
8) Bomb Military/Civil targets......250000

You have 14 agents and 143243 credits

Choice:

Covert Operations are some of the most exciting and interesting features of
SE.  Done at the right moment, they can paralyze an otherwise formidable
opponent, at least for a while:

1,2,3.  SEND SPY:  The cheapest and most widely used Covert Op.  If
successful, you receive a report on your opponent's Empire Status.  If
unsuccessful, your spy is publicly tried and executed.  This is the only
covert action you can choose that will not break your protection.

All other spy routines following will break off the remaining turns of
protection you have left.

4.  INSURGENT AID:  If successful, raises your opponenet's Insurgency Level
a notch.  The effects are immediate and the action can be repeated over and
over again to try to raise the insurgency level to the highest (UNDER COUP).

5.  SET UP:  This is a fancy Covert Op, to say the least.  You can set up two
players (other than yourself) against each other.  If successful, Player A
thinks he was attacked by Player B, and a battle may start between them.
Cheap shot, huh?  Results will not be known until the next day.

6.  SUPPORT DISSENSION:  If successful, causes 15 - 25% of your opponent's
soldiers to go AWOL.

7.  DEMORALIZE TROOPS:  If successful, you send liquor and tawdry women into
your opponent's military camps and reduce his Army's Effectiveness rating by
a substantial amount.

8.  BOMB MIL/CIVIL TARGET:  Selecting this option gives you the following
choices:


1) Military Headquarters
2) Logistics Center
3) Intelligence Headquarters
4) Imperial foodstores
5) Civilian targets

Which do you wish to bomb ?

1.  MILITARY HEADQUARTERS:  If successful, you kill off a very large
percentage of your opponent's Generals.

2.  LOGISTICS CENTER:  If successful, your opponent cannot distribute
materials and is prevented from feeding his military (or doing much of
anything, really) for a turn.

3.  INTELLIGENCE HEADQUARTERS:  If successful, you kill off a large portion
of your opponent's Spies.

4.  IMPERIAL FOOD STORES:  If successful, you destroy a large percentage of
your opponent's food supply.

5.  CIVILIAN TARGETS:  If successful, your terrorists blow up an airliner
(or some other despicable act) that causes riots and other nasty events in
your opponent's Empire.


III. Battle

  Battle is an integral part of the game -- this is how you weaken your
enemies and sieze planets from them.  The victor in battle depends on many
factors.

  Each unit of battle force works a little differently.  Soldiers are the
base unit of your military -- they have the weakest firepower in battle, but
you need them to back up all your other forces.  If you don't back up your
other weaponry with troops of soldiers, you are surely doomed.  Fighter craft
are offense only weapons, and are about twice as effective as soldiers when
attacking.  The cost a little more, and for every 100 fighters you have, you
need a carrier to transport them.  Defense stations cost about the same as
fighters, and are defense only.  Cruisers are both offensive and defensive,
have more firepower than either fighters or cruisers, but cost about twice as
much.

  The morale of your military is a very important factor.  If you
continuously lose battles, their morale will go down.  It will go up if
you win battles and allocate them extra money.  It is also changed by various
other factors.  For instance, domestic unrest tends to demoralize your army.

  There is always an element of chance.  A lesser enemy always has a slight
chance of winning a battle if the two battle forces are close enough in size.

  If the attacking battle force emerges the victor, he will gain 10% of his
enemy's planets (rounded up).  His enemy will be wiped out of the game if you
take all of his planets.  This is one of the greatest moral boosters your
army can get.

  New players are protected from being attacked for a period of 20 turns,
unless they attack someone else first.

  When attacking a player you are given an option of doing a Conventional attack or a Nuclear Attack.  Doing a nuclear attack is as normal as any attack can be.  If you win the battle you will get the 10% of his planets.
If you attack doing a nuclear attack, then you will not get the 10% of planets but the player will lose the 10%.  Doing a nuclear attack is 30% easier to get through then a normal conventional attack.  This is a good option is you are trying to beat someone done so you can get through.  But if you win a nuclear attack,  the player which you did this to has the ability to rebuild those planets at half the cost of a normal planet.