Conquest instructions V 1.0 Introduction In this game, you control an interstellar empire. You will decide which star systems to explore, which planets to colonize, whether to spend resources on technology, industrial development, or more combat ships. The relative success of your empire depends upon your decisions. The computer will be directing its own empire and will be competing with you for the best planets. Whichever of you has the greatest population at the end of the game, will be the winner. Also, if at any point you or the computer has colony population more than eight times the other the game is considered won and terminated. At any prompt, an 'H' command will list all possibilities for that context. Starting out To begin the game simply type 'conquest' to execute the object code. Make sure the CLI window you run conquest in fills the entire screen, otherwise messages at the bottom will be cut off. NOTE: APDC has provided an icon for this game. Make sure the disk you start the game from is named APDC # 008. If it is not, then you can start from the CLI. Make sure CLI window fills the whole screen and then enter conquest at the CLI prompt. NOTE ON EXITING: You cannot exit the game (except by reboot) at the first prompt. If you just want to quit enter the letter S five times to leave ship purchase prompt (five S buys you five scouts) and then enter Q at the new prompt. To verify hit the Y key. The following is displayed at the start: -- a map. This map shows all the star systems as indicated by capital letters. The question mark (?) indicates it has not yet been explored. The map is bounded by two axes, locations are refered to by coordinates. Ex. TFa:A( 3, 7) Task force a located at star A, coor. (3,7) -- prompt and info. You will be asked to select a starting star system. Strategy begins here as you must consider which locations will favor colonization of other star systems. -- line interpreter box. This is the little box in the lower right hand corner, and it should always be selected during the game (as it is at the very start). This small window accepts all your keyboard input and interprets it for the game prompt below the map. Its most noticeable effect is to convert letters to upper case. You start out with 30 transports (full of population) and 35 industrial units to spend. You initially can only buy ships or invest in technology. Ships There are four types of ships in this game. They are listed below along with their cost in industrial units (IU): Name Cost Special characteristics ---------------------------------------------------------------- Battlestar 75 Weapon factor 40 Cruiser 16 Weapon factor 7 Scout 6 Has unlimited range. Transport 1 Transport 1 unit of population. Technology You can also invest in improving your technology. There are three different areas which can be improved : Name Description ----------------------------------------------------------------- Velocity This determines the number of units any ship can move in a turn. Range This determines the number of units a ship may traverse without stopping at a star system. Weapon This determines the effectiveness of weapons on ships or missile bases. The total weapon factor of a taskforce or planetary defense system is added up and multiplied by this level. The amount of IU's necessary to advance to the next level varies and is displayed in the research summary. To display the research summary enter > first, then enter R. You must also enter > before entering M to redraw map, which is good thing to do from time to time. To spend your IU's simply enter the letter corresponding to what you want to buy. For example C gets you a cruiser. As you buy notice that the number at the prompt decreases from an original amount of 30-- this is how many IU's you have left to spend. You cannot save any IU's, nor can you have more than 35 transports at the start. After you have spent all your initial IU's the game leaves the initialization mode and enters the play mode. Info on the star you chose to start at is displayed in the upper right. Enter H displays the available commands. Mainly you will be manipulating your task forces in this game, so it is a good idea to become familiar with all the commands that deal with them. Here is a brief summary of task force related commands: T this gives a task force summary. You are prompted for those task forces you would like summarized, hit return for all. Examples: TFa:N( 1, 4) 20t 1c Task force a, location star system N, coordinate (1, 4), contains twenty transports and one crusier. TFb: ( 1, 5) 1s R7 Task force b, coordinate (1, 5), contains one scout, destination star system R, arrives in 7 turns. N make a new task force. You are prompted for the task force you want to split, and then for what ships you want to split off. As you will start off only with one task force (TFa) you will need to issue this command if you wish to explore and colonize more than one star system. J join task forces. Opposite command of N. D give a task force a destination. A destination is always a star system. Some star systems will be out of range of your task force, unless it contains just scouts, which have unlimited range. To increase your range you must invest in Range Technology. Once given a destination the task force has an estimated time of arrival (eta) which is determined by its velocity -- this too may be improved by investing in Velocity Technology. Task forces are indicated on the map by their letter. If there is more than one task force present at a coordinate then this is indicated by an asterisk (*). Other essential commands you need to know to to gather information in order to decide what to do with your task force(s): S Star Summary You are prompted for the star or stars you want info on, enter return for all. The star summary prints in the upper right, nothing is displayed if you have not explored that star system. Ex. ----- star N ----- Star system TFa 1c Task force a - 1 crusier 1:10 No colony Planet 1 - no colony 4:60(46/49) 1amb Planet 4 60 population limit 46 population units 49 industrial units 1 advanced missile base L Land Transports. This establishes a colony on the planet. If there is more than one planet then you are prompted for the planet as well the number of transports to land, this not to exceed the planet's population limit. Establishing colonies is critical to garnering control of the various star systems as well as expanding your conquest throughout the galaxy. A colony you have established is indicated on the map by an at sign (@) next to the star system of the colony. Once you have established a colony on a planet its population will busy itself producing industrial units as well as reproducing itself. A planet may not accept more transports than the number following the planet number (e.g. 2:60 means the second planet is inhabitable by a population of up to 60 population units), though occasionally a population will naturally reproduce over this formal limit. A colony's industrial output can be improved by investing in the planet or by increasing its population, though it may never exceed twice the current population. Production turn Every four game turns, each planet delivers its industrial production. This production can be spent on a number of different things. The command line for this mode has the following format. Example Description 63? 63 IU's remain to be spent for this planet G4:60(60,/63) 1amb Star system G, planet 4, population limit 60, current population 60, industrial production 63, one advanced missile base present. As you spend IU's, the amount remaining will be reduced. If you buy missile bases or invest in industrial production, the colony line will reflect the change. If you purchase ships, a task force will be created and displayed below the colony line. If you spend IU's on research, those research categories will be updated. If you build transports they will be filled from the planet's population, reducing its industrial output. Spending Industrial Units There are several ways you may spend a planet's industrial output: --build ships. See Ships section above. --invest in planet. It costs 3 IU to improve a planet's industrial output by one unit. --build missle bases. Missle bases protect a planet and its population from enemy attack. There are two types of missle bases, regular (8 IU) and advanced (35 IU). --develop research. See Technology section above. Exploration If any task forces arrive at a star system not previously explored by the player, it must be explored. Exploration involves some risk. Some ships may be destroyed during the exploration. The chance of this happening depends on the type of ships in the task force. The "best" ship will determine the exploration risk. (i.e. a task force with a crusier and transports is at lower risk than a task force with just transports). Combat All combat takes place in star systems. There are two modes of combat, B for task force battle, and P for planetary conflict. B mode is invoked when one of your task forces meets and does battle with one of the enemies task forces. These forces fight till one or the other withdraws or is destroyed. While doing battle the strengths of the task forces are displayed. The relative chances of each task force is determined by adding the weapons factor of all ships in the task force multiplied by the current level of weapons research. If any task force arrives at a star system where the computer has a colony, the task force may elect to try to conquer the colony. This is a planetary conflict, mode P. If the planet attacked has missile bases, the battle will be resolved in the same manner as task force combat. Note that B mode and P mode have different commands available to them. Enter H to list commands. Blasting planets (enter B when command is available) If a planet is in your control (either uninhabited, captured, or colonized) you may have the warships in the taskforce fire at the planet. This will eliminate some or all of the population of the planet and permanently reduce the population the planet can support. Colony summary (enter C when command is available) This will display a summary of the colonies currently under your control. The display has the following format. Example Description G4:60(46,/49) 1amb Star system G, planet 4, population limit 60, current population 46, current industrial production 49, one advanced missile base present. Ending the game There are 3 different ways to end the game. Quitting You can quit at any orders prompt. If you do, the current total populations will be displayed and the computer will declare itself the winner no matter which of you is ahead. (after all, it didn't quit). Overwhelm the opponent If at any point during the game, you or the computer has greater than eight times the population that the other has, the game is ended and the larger population is declared as the winner. 100 turns At the end of 100 game turns, the larger population is declared the winner. Strategy and Notes There are several other commands available in the various modes of play, but after you have become familiar with the above these should be easy to figure out. The best way to learn is to start the game and play! Use this manual as a reference. Note that though the computer starts out with the same task force strength as the player it has the experience and wisdom of the programmer and it will probably be a while before you give it a hard time. The computer follows several excellent techniques that any hopeful conqueror of the galaxy should take note of. These include finding the best planets as soon as possible (ie., those where it will be possible to build Battlestars), colonizing and fortifying these, seeking out enemy establishments and continually harrassing them with task force combat, and not ignoring lesser planets that allow smaller populations, as they can provide a valuable source of IU's to spend on technology research. Good luck and may the force be with you! Credits Amiga port by Bob Shimbo, orginal author unknown. This game started life on a UNIX system at Bell Labs. It was ported to CP/M 80 by a Scott Kamin. The manual was thrown together in an afternoon. (Typos and corrections welcome). Manual enhancements and corrections made by APDC. You can reach me through Compuserve (UID 70260,231) or TBBS of colorado (303)-693-4735.