Act Of War V1.4
                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                       (c) Dave Smith, March 1993
                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


1. System requirements
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Act Of War works under Workbench 1.2, 1.3, 2.0 and 3.0 in both NTSC and PAL,
and requires 1 meg of memory as a minimum. The game may need more than a
meg to run it from a hard drive.

If you have a meg and the game refuses to run, try disconnecting or turning
off any external drives or hard drives. This frees up more memory.

It should work fine on accelerated systems, and is fully A1200 compatible.
The A4000 should be no problem.

As Act Of War was written with AMOS, it multitasks - use Left-Amiga A to
switch between the game and Workbench.


2. Introduction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Act of War, or AoW as I've just decided to call it as it involves less
typing, is a strategy game in the tradition of Laser Squad, Breach 2 (or so
I'm told) and, if anyone can remember that far back, Rebelstar.

If you've never played any of those games, think of a childish fascination
for big guns married to a fair amount of strategy and you won't be far
wrong.

So what makes AoW different?

The game is played over a series of missions, five of which are included
with the program. More missions are being worked on as you read this, by
myself and others. And if you don't like these missions, there's no reason
for you not to create your own!

On payment of a small shareware fee (more information later on) you'll get
the mission designer that I use, which makes mission creation very simple.
Everything from the map, to the weapons, to the sound effects can be
changed.

Noteable game features include:

         * 1 or 2 players
         * Sampled sound
         * Completely extendable!
         * 3 difficulty levels
         * Optional line-of-sight feature
         * Squad arming sequence
         * Explosive scenery
         * Keyboard and / or mouse controlled
         * Halfway-decent user interface
         * Revolutionary new ICASS AI system (see later)

New features:

         * Fire (as in flames)
         * Units can return fire even if it's not their turn, under
           certain conditions
         * Character/cursor movement can now be carried out using
           the mouse
         * Weapons now have a range
         * Four new types of weapons:
               Scatter
               Shrapnel
               Incendiary
               Multihit
         * Landmines (and scanners to find them)
         * Reinforcements

The new features are described in detail later in this document. If
you've played an earlier version of AoW and don't want to plough through
this whole file again, the file "Update.doc" also contains the new
descriptions.

The five missions included in this release are as follows:

   * Informant - An ex-director of your shady corporation is ready to
         spill your industrial secrets to a rival company. There's only one
         way to stop him - break into his sprawling mansion and take him
         out! (Obviously, negotiation comes a long way down the list with
         these people).

   * Escape - Taken prisoner by a corrupt Planetary Security Force for your
         part in the above escapade, you and two companions have been
         jailed in an orbital maximum-security prison. Initially armed with
         only a little smuggled-in plastic explosive, you must break out of
         your cell, somehow obtain a weapon, free your comrades and escape
         to a passing PSF shuttle to secure your freedom.

   * Terminator! - Soon after you make it back to your base after escaping
         captivity, a Terminator droid from a rival corporation stages
         an assault! Backed up by a squad of combat droids, it will attempt
         to kill you all...

-- Two new missions are included with this release:

   * Confrontation - In an abandoned warehouse is stored a superweapon.
         Two identically-equipped sides fight to get to it, then to get
         out again.

   * Firestorm - The ubiquitous PSF have created a deadly new chemical,
         Mutranol, allegedly for research purposes. However, they are
         converting humans into hideous mutants! Your mission is to
         break into the stronghold and destroy the (conveniently highly
         explosive) chem dump located in the centre of three defensive
         rings.

---
Dave Smith                 email: csc361@uk.ac.lancs.cent1 (UK only)
8.45pm                            csc361@cent1.lancs.ac.uk (Internet)
March 3rd, 1993