****************************************************************************** S T R A T E Q © JIPsoft 25. 03. 1995 ====================== Bi... Tri... Multilingual Documentation File! --------------------------------------------- English Documentation Suomenkielinen Dokumentaatio Polska dokumentacja ****************************************************************************** Strateq was written in AMOS by me, JIPsoft in 28. February to 25. March 1995 AD. =============================================================================== Please choose a topic: Overall - What kind of game is Strateq? Rules - How does one play Strateq? The Pieces - Just look at those Units! Functions - Auxiliary functions to aid you Requirements - On what will the game work? To programmers! - *** Strateq + AI compo!! *** Send me money! - Yes, you heard me. BUGFIXES - New! The Bugs that have been fixed! eng_overall The game Strateq is a two-player strategy game played on a square grid. It is similar to Chess and Tactrix!, but is more complex than either of those. In the game, two players have a set of pieces, with which they must kill each other's Emperor and Empress. The first to do so wins the game. Strateq is not a real-time game, but hey! Neither was Chess. Instead, both players take turns to play the game. The two players are distinguished by colours. Player 1 starts at the bottom, and is cyan. Player 2 starts at the top, and is purple. More specific information is available in the other topics. eng_rules Strateq is played on a 12 * 12 square board. The squares are either dark grey or light grey, but their colour doesn't make any difference. The object of the game is to kill the other player's Emperor and Empress. There is no such rules as a check or check-mate in Strateq, so the Imperials are free game. Player one always starts the game. In each turn, a player can opt to move a piece or to buy a new piece. Most of the time in Strateq is spent by moving the pieces. To do so, click on a piece and then click where it should move. If the destination square is available, the piece will move there and the turn will be over. To cancel your selection, just click on the piece again. If there is an enemy piece in the square, the piece will attack it. Since the pieces in Strateq have a fully-functional hit-point system, an attack does not necessarily kill an enemy piece. If the attacker's power is not sufficient to remove all of the victim's armour, the victim will survive and the attacker will stay in its place. If the victim dies, however, the attacker will move in its place. There are initially a number of Chips on the board. They can be acquired by the players. To acquire a Chip, simply move onto it. The Chips do not regenerate at any time. Moving a Soldier to the opposite edge of the board awards a 20 Chip bonus. In Strateq, a player can also buy new pieces. This was also possible in Tactrix!, though not in Chess. Only Construction Docks and Main Factories have the skill of creating new pieces. If a player has not got any of those pieces, he/she/it cannot buy any new pieces. To buy a piece, select your Dock or Factory, and click on the Buy button. A panel will open, allowing you to select a piece to buy. After selection, click on Buy or Cancel. If you choose Buy, you will be allowed to place the piece on the board adjacent to your Dock or Factory. You can also chicken out by pressing Cancel. The overall rules are this simple. eng_pieces There are 14 different pieces in Strateq. This is an overview of them. Take note that some pieces take up more than one square. A. Soldier Price: 3 Strength: 1 Armour: 1 Bounty: 1 Starting Quantity: 12 A Soldier can move up to two squares forward, that is up or down depending on its side. The Soldiers cannot jump over pieces. The Soldier can attack pieces diagonally left or right and forward of it, just like the Pawns in Chess. B. Warrior Price: 5 Strength: 1 Armour: 2 Bounty: 2 Starting Quantity: 6 A Warrior is like a Soldier, but it can move backwards, too. It can attack pieces diagonally one square away from it. C. Priest of YIN Price: 10 Strength: 2 Armour: 3 Bounty: 3 Starting Quantity: 2 The Priests of YIN move just like the Rooks in Chess. There is no castling rule in Strateq. D. Priest of YANG Price: 10 Strength: 2 Armour: 3 Bounty: 3 Starting Quantity: 2 The Priests of YANG move just like the Bishops in Chess. E. Equestrian Price: 12 Strength: 3 Armour: 3 Bounty: 4 Starting Quantity: 4 The Equestrians move just like the Knights in Chess, but are unable to jump over pieces. They move at first one square, and then two squares in another direction. F. Pegasus Price: 15 Strength: 3 Armour: 4 Bounty: 5 Starting Quantity: 0 The Pegasi move just like the Knights in Chess. G. Emperor / Empress Irreplaceable Strength: 2 Armour: 5 Bounty: 10 Starting Quantity: 2 The Emperor and the Empress are identical to each other. They move just like the King in chess. If a player loses both of his Imperials, he/she/it has lost the game. H. Wraith Price: 20 Strength: 5 Armour: 3 Bounty: 6 Starting Quantity: 0 A Wraith can move into any square in a 3 * 3 area surrounding it. I. Warlord Price: 25 Strength: 8 Armour: 10 Bounty: 6 Starting Quantity: 0 Warlords move just like the Queen in Chess. J. Battleship (Two-square piece) Price: 40 Strength: 10 Armour: 14 Bounty: 8 Starting Quantity: 2 A Battleship can move up to two squares horizontally, vertically or diagonally. K. Dreadnought (Two-square piece) Price: 55 Strength: 15 Armour: 20 Bounty: 10 Starting Quantity: 0 Dreadnoughts move just like the King in Chess, except for their two-squared nature, of course. L. Leviathan (Two-square piece) Price: 70 Strength: 22 Armour: 28 Bounty: 12 Starting Quantity: 0 A Leviathan can move one square horizontally or vertically. M. Construction Dock (Two-square piece) Price: 90 Strength: 3 Armour: 18 Bounty: 14 Starting Quantity: 0 Construction Docks move just like Dreadnoughts. They can also create new pieces, but only one-square pieces. N. Main Factory (Four-square piece) Irreplaceable Strength: 0 Armour: 40 Bounty: 16 Starting Quantity: 1 The Main Factory does not move or attack at all. It can, however, create new pieces, even two-square ones. eng_functions There is a function to view pieces. Just click on the Help button, and it will operate. If you have not chosen a piece, you will be asked to. In this situation you can also view your opponent's pieces. The function will show the piece's type, armour, strength, price and @bounty. It also shows where the piece can move. To exit Help, just click on the OK button. Games can also be saved to disk or loaded from disk. Just click on the Save or Load button. These functions are only available at the start of a move, when you have not chosen any piece yet. You can also load a game directly from the front end panel. From here you can also delete game files from disk. The front end allows you to give the players names, start a game or quit the game. Also, you can use the About button to view some text. eng_require The game requires the following: - A Commodore Amiga computer (any model >=500) - A mouse - At least 1 Megabyte of total memory - Amigaguide compatibility to view this documentation That wasn't so bad, after all. eng_sendme Now I've grown sick and tired of the fact that absolutely NOBODY has ever even written to me about my games. What's the matter with you, can't you write? If you want me to have an E-Mail address, please use Snail Mail first and tell me so. And, if you do write me, I will even consider writing a new version of this game called Strateq +, which will hopefully have the following features: - Computer players with AI (see To programmers!) - Move logging to a text file - Enchanced "About" function Anyway, if you want new games, or just want to chat with me, write to me at this address: Joona Palaste Toppeludintie 3B 19 02170 Espoo Finland If you want games, be sure to include a donation of about £3 / 30.- FIM, a formatted, empty Amiga disk and some stamps. eng_pronounce (Pronounced "Struh-Tek".) eng_amos AMOS, by Europress and François Lionet, is not a bad language at all. Even Ville Helin has written some programs on it, although he won't admit it. But listen, Europress! I want AMOS AGA, and I want it bad. Click'n'Play has been complete for months now, so concentrate on the AGA update to AMOS now. You have been warned... eng_jip JIPsoft equals yours truly, Joona Palaste. Here are his current statistics: Age: 18 1/2 years Nationality: Finnish School: Lukio II class at the Helsinki Norssi Computer: A1200 with 2 MB memory & 80 MB HD Girlfriend to be: Miina Järvinen (although don't tell her that) I have also released other games, such as: - Self Defense, a text adventure - Lactose Intolerance, an arcade game - Super Daleks, another arcade game - The Secret of Arcturus, a semi-RPG I am also a part-time member of the RRR team. See any RRR production for details. eng_units This manual calls them pieces, the game calls them Units. So what? This game doesn't have to have a fixed terminology, does it? eng_chess Well, everybody knows something about Chess. Basically it was invented centuries ago by some Indian bloke, whose name is not known. Chess (the current version) includes a 8 * 8 board, and some pieces, which can not even be bought! What an ancient game it is, indeed. eng_tactrix Tactrix! © 1994 Hard Core Game Design A division of Almo Enterprises Tactrix! is Shareware. A $5 fee is requested, and may be mailed to: Ethan Larson 2143 Garfield #7 Laramie, WY 82070 or, after June 1995 Ethan Larson 1506 Phillips Brownwood, TX 76801 The program is © HCGD, except the stuff in the l directory, which is © Absoft. The l directory contains the run-time libraries for the Absoft AC/BASIC Compiler. The archive is freely distributable, so long as all files remain intact. That was a direct quotation of the Tactrix game manual. Tactrix is, in fact, the game between Chess and Strateq. It has a 10 * 10 board, some pieces which can be bought, and not much else. But at least it shows that people have the courage to enchance Chess and not just marvel at its holiness. eng_chips A Chip is a small greyish-white dot. There are four varieties. The lighter the Chip is in colour, the more valuable it is. Don't ask me why the money is in "Chips". That was Tactrix!'s invention, not mine. eng_commodore Yeah, Commodore is in a bogus situation just now. It has gone bankrupt. I just hope that some big firm buys what is left of Commodore and continues to support the Amiga. Maybe it would help if Commodore gave other companies the right to develop Amiga clones. Investigations continue. eng_bugfixes It seems that I was a little bit hasty when releasing Strateq. The very amiable Ville Helin, however, pointed out a few bugs about the game which I had delivered him personally. I hunted them down and fixed them. The bugs were: - Characters appeared in the wrong place when typing names. (I had forgotten to add "XC=X Curs" in the procedure NICEPUT.) - You could attack pieces that were out of your piece's reach. (I had forgotten to add "and FLAG=True" to a certain If clause.) - Save files with no extension didn't turn out with the extension ".Stq". (I had to move the "FILE$=FILE$+".Stq"" command outside another If clause.) Thanks to uncle Ville, and may you all be happy with this version. See ya!