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Text File | 1986-02-12 | 10.5 KB | 217 lines

WAR ON THE SEA was developed using TURBO PASCAL by Borland International and TURBO PLUS by Nostradamus.Inc. Copyright 1986 H.David Jackson .page "ATTENTION TO QUARTERS" "MAN YOU BATTLE STATIONS" The action is about to commence. War On The Sea is a high level strategic and tactical simulation of typical World War II naval campaigns. It is not designed to be an accurate historical representation of those campaigns. That is, some ships are limited to battles in which they actually took part. Others, having unlimited access, may also take part without having actually taken part in the battle. An attempt has been made to balance the scenarios by allowing wins on both sides. This is done by adjusting an initative factor that determines who fires first most of the time. For you to win over the computer requires careful selection and application of resources. .page You will be required to select your navy from a large stockpile. Ships types have different characteristics and cost that must be considered when making the selection. The navy will then be divided into different fleets that will be attached to the theaters that are involved in the selected campaign. Finally. you will be asked to select targets for your ships. At this time you must decide to attack the deadly submarines, or the destroyers that can knock out your subs in a single blow, or the heavily armed cruisers and battleships which must be eliminated in order to gain victory points. .page A standard PC or equilivent can be used. Graphics adapters, mouse or joy stick are not used. This is not a hand/eye coordination game, and there is no time limit on making moves. Neither is it a giant simulation requiring several sessions to complete. Instead, several campaigns can be fought in each session. For this reason, no save options are given. The intent is to provide the player with a short and exciting game that proceeds at the players discretion. CAMPAIGN SELECTION You will first be asked to select the campaign you wish to fight. Several will be listed on a menu that is displayed on the screen. Enter the number of the campaign desired. The default will be the first ALTANTIC campaign shown. That is, an entry of anything else other than what is shown will cause the first campaign to be selected. .page NAVY SELECTION A screen will then be displayed listing the theaters that are associated with this campaign and the size of the fleet that can be assigned to that theater. This is followed by a list of the enemy ships that you will be fighting. Their name, theater limitations, attack and defense factors are given. Limited theater availability indicates that the ship may only be put into the fleet of a specific theater. Other ships may be used in any theater. A menu of the stockpile of ships from which you can choose your navy is then displayed. Use the cursor movement keys to position the arrow at a ship to be selected. The arrow position will wrap in all directions. That is, for instance, it will go from the right hand column to the left hand column when the right arrow cursor key is pressed. .page Pressing the ENTER key will cause the selected ship to be added to the navy. The ship name will be highlighted to show that it has been selected. Pressing the ENTER key at a ship that has been selected will cause it to be removed from the navy. A limited number of ships may be added to the navy. The number of ships that can still be selected is shown at the bottom the screen. Likewise, the number of purchase points remaining is shown. The number in front of the ship identification is the purchase price to add the ship to the navy. Additional information about the ship is shown near the bottom of the screen. The type, attack and defense factors, and theater limitations are shown. The attack factor is the number of shots the ship has in each attack round. The defense factor is the number of hits the ship can take before being sunk. When your navy has been selected, press END. This will display a list of your navy after which you will proceed to the combat phase. .page Following is combat and probability information about the ship and plane types. Probability to Ship Type Damage/hit Disable Hit Comments Battleship 1-4 1 in 6 1 in 6 Cannot hit subs - only disable. Crusier 1-4 1 in 6 1 in 6 Cannot hit subs - only disable. MTB 1-4 1 in 6 1 in 6 Cannot hit subs - only disable. Planes 1-4 1 in 6 1 in 6 Cannot hit subs - only disable. Destroyer 1-4 1 in 6 1 in 6 Always SINKS targeted subs. Carrier 1-4 1 in 6 1 in 3 Submarine 1-4 1 in 6 1 in 6 See note 1 next panel Convoy 1-4 1 in 6 1 in 6 See note 2 next panel Kamikazi 1-9 1 in 6 1 in 2 Removed after Disable or Hit. .page Note 1: Subs receive one shot for each surface ship in the enemy fleet. But they only shoot in the first round. Sub attacks against subs are ignored at the cost of the shot. Note 2: An additional victory point is given if the convoy survives and it's side wins the battle. When the point is given the convoy is removed from the game. There is also a 1 in 15 probability of 10 damage points on a hit. This is enough to sink any ship. .page COMBAT The first part of each turn of combat will display a screen showing a theater map, a window for the first theater and the ships remaining in your navy to the right. The up and down cursor keys can be used to select a ship and ENTER will move it to the displayed theater. The left and right cursor keys move the selection arrow between the theater and port. Pressing ENTER while in a theater causes the selected ship to be returned to port. Pressing the space bar causes the next theater to be selected. Pressing the S key will cause the status of the selected ship to be displayed. This will aid you in selecting ships for a theater or determining if a ship should be left in port. Ships that remain in port during a combat turn recover one damage point that was applied during previous combat turns. Entering a ? will display a help window listing these options. When all your fleets have been dispatched to their assigned theaters, press END. This will cause all combatants to be displayed and the game will proceed to the battle and victory determination phase. .page BATTLES Battles will automatically start at the first theater and proceed to the next when a battle is won or declared a draw. To win a battle, all surface ships of the other side must be removed either by sinking or disabling them. Disabled ships are not permenantly lost. They are removed from the theater and returned to port. If any subs remain after surface ships are removed the battle is declared a draw. No victory points are assigned for a draw. Likewise. if there are no assigned ships on either side, the battle is a draw.One victory point is awarded for a won battle if the winning side has a surface ship remaining. One victory point is also awarded for any convoys in that fleet. The results of a battle and current victory points will be displayed to the right of the screen. The initative for starting the battle by firing first is determined randomly. An initative factor is used in each campaign to determine who has the edge, thus balancing the campaigns. Ships are hit or disabled by firing upon them. Results are determined randomly as per probabilities previously described. .page ATTACKS Enemy attack targets will be determined randomly. The results of each attack (one for each shot or attack factor) will be displayed at the right of the screen. The result of the attack or shot can be a MISS where no damage is done; DISABLED where the target recieves no damage but is removed from the theater fleet and returned to port; or HIT. In the latter case the number of damage points is randomly determined and is added to any damage points previously sustained. If this value is equal to or greater than the defense factor (cost to purchase) the ship is sunk and will be so specified in the attack results. When it is your turn to attack, the currently selected attacker (chosen sequentially) and target will be highlighted. The cursor keys can be used to change the target. Pressing ENTER will cause you to fire on that target and display the results. .page Pressing the S key will display the status of the attacker to determine if you wish to continue or withdraw the ship from the fleet because it's damage is such that it might be sunk. You may also wish to withdraw if you are facing losing odds and do not wish to lose your ship(s). For instance, a destroyer does not have much chance against BISMARK and TRIPITZ. A ship can be withdrawn by pressing the W key. Pressing END will complete the firing sequence of that ship, but why would anyone want to do that except to make the challange harder. A help window is available for display by pressing ?. After all ships on each side have fired, statistics are interogated to see if there is a winner or draw. If neither, the battle continues into the next round with the remaining ships. Remember that subs can only fire during the first round. As such you will not be able to withdraw them. However, as long as they are in the theater, the enemy cannot receive an outright win - only a draw is possible. .page WINNING After the battles in all theaters have been completed, a check is made to see if the number of victory points needed to win the campaign has been achieved. If it has the winner will be displayed. Otherwise, the theater selection and battle process will be reinvoked. Note that it is possible to have enough victory points to win in an early battle but still not win at the completion of that turn. You must have enough victory points to win after the last battle of the turn has been fought. In addition, you only have 10 turns in which to achieve the victory. Otherwise, the campaign is declared a draw.