PC World Komputer 1996 February

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The following is a copy of the online HELP menu. It's included on this disk for those who wnt to print it. QUICK START Beginners should just read this QUICK START section before playing the game. Capture the Flag is based on the popular out-door game by the same name. The goal of the game is to find and grab the other side's flag before they grab yours. It is played on a large field divided into two equal zones, one for each side. The zones contain a variety of terrains that impact the visibility and movement of the team members. At the start of each game your opponent's zone is black, concealing his terrain, players, and flag. The details are revealed as your team explores his zone. Capture the Flag is a "turn based" game. During each turn you can move some or all of your team up to their movement point allowances. Unused movement points are not carried over to the next turn. You can end your turn whenever you want by pressing the END TURN button. Then your opponent begins his turn and moves his players. When he is done, it becomes your turn again. A good starting strategy is to keep 50% of your (blue) team on your side to defend your flag. Send the rest to explore your opponent's (red) side to find and grab his flag. To find your opponent's flag, explore his side of the field. When black squares are uncovered they will reveal the terrain and whether or not the flag is there. To capture your opponent's flag, move your person onto it's square. Defend your flag by trying to find and capture your opponent's persons that are on your side of the field before they find and grab your flag. To make a capture attempt, move your person onto the opponent's person. You can capture your opponent only on your side of the field. You have now finished Quick Start. We recommend that you either start playing now (help screens will popup during the game) or watch the demo (very helpful to learn the game fast). We recommend that you read the rest of the instructions AFTER you have played for awhile. MOVEMENT During each turn you may move as many of your people as you desire. At the beginning of each turn each member of your team is allocated their MOVEMENT POINTS. It costs one movement point each time you change your player's STANCE. Whenever you move a player, you use up movement points. The movement cost per unit move varies with the STANCE and the character of the local terrain. THE FOUR STANCES A person can either be standing, crawling, walking, or running. Each STANCE effects how far a person can move in one turn (the movement point cost per square), how well they can see, and how well they can be seen. Here is how the four STANCES rank by three categories. Stand Crawl Walk Run How far they can move -- 3rd 2nd 1st How far they can see 1st 4th 2nd 3rd How well they can hide 2nd 1st 3rd 4th MOUSE COMMANDS RIGHT BUTTON (anytime) Pressing the right button once will bring up the GLOBAL MAP that represents the whole playing field. Moving the mouse causes the SELECTION FRAME to move, and pressing the right mouse button again will cause that portion of the map covered by the rectangle box to be displayed in the PLAYING AREA, and the GLOBAL MAP to be removed. THIS IS THE MOST CONVENIENT WAY TO NAVIGATE. LEFT BUTTON: ON THE PLAYING AREA SELECTING A PERSON: Place the cursor over a person and click it, and a white square will appear around the person signifying this person is SELECTED. MOVING A PERSON: Place the cursor at the desired destination and hold down the left button until the selected person arrives (or depletes movement points). The person and the desired destination have to both be on the PLAYING AREA. SELECTING STANCE: Press the left mouse button when the cursor is on the selected person and the STANCE bar will appear. Then press the desired STANCE icon. LEFT BUTTON: ON CONTROL PANEL SELECTING A PERSON: Place cursor over the person you want to become the SELECTED person. Then press left mouse button. SELECTING STANCE: Place cursor over desired STANCE icon and press left mouse button. LEFT BUTTON: ON GLOBAL MAP DISPLAYING STATUS: Toggles displaying the remaining movement points with each person's first letter. A background of grey signifies that person has no more movement points. Every other time this information is displayed, the display order is reversed so that those that are covered up are visible. This is a quick way to check on the status of your team members and plan your tactics. MODEM There are two ways of two people playing each other. LOCAL - SAME COMPUTER The first way is for them to share the same computer. While one is moving his team the other person is in another room. When the first person is done, he ends his turn and then trades places with the other person. MODEM/NETWORK - DIFFERENT COMPUTERS The first player starts playing the game as the BLUE team. At the end of his turn the game will be saved in a special format. The first player then sends this little saved game file to his opponent. The four most common ways are: 1) Call up the person with your modem and upload the saved game. 2) Call up a BBS (computer bulletin board) and upload the saved game to it. On most BBS's you can send an E-MAIL message to your opponent and include (attach) the saved game as a binary file. That way when he reads your message he gets your file also. 3) If you are both on the same network, send him a E-MAIL message with the saved game included as a binary file. 4) Give or mail, a disk, with your saved game to your opponent. HOW TO START A MODEM GAME To start a modem game, you select NEW GAME from the FILE menu. At the first popup choose HUMAN VS HUMAN. At the second popup select MODEM/NETWORK and then enter your name and password. Play your turn, and when finished, press the END TURN button, then enter the filename that you wish to use for this particular game. Since there will be a number of game turns occurring, and since both the blue and red players will be saving files, you might use a logical way of naming the saved files. The program automatically adds the .md1 (.md2 for commercial version) extension and then stores it in the directory where you have Capture the Flag. The player then can quit the game and then send this .md1 file to his opponent. When the red player receives the file, he places it into the FLAG directory, and then starts CTF. He then chooses LOAD PBEM GAME from the FILE menu and begins his turn. When he has finished his turn, he presses the END TURN button, names his file, quits the game, and then sends his turn file to the blue player. ADVANTAGES OF PBEM Capture the Flag is a "turn based" game. One person moves and then the second person moves. For "turn based" games PBEM (Play by E-MAIL) has two main advantages over the direct connect modem method. First, you can make your move whenever you want. You don't have to wait until your opponent can play. For example, one person could move and upload his saved game to a BBS by 7 PM. His opponent, at his leisure, could download it at any time and upload it by midnight. That way you can complete one turn per day without the hassle of trying to match up your free time with his. Second, it frees up your phone. Instead of tieing up your phone for the duration of the game you use your phone only to send and receive the saved games. By keeping your phone bills to a minimum you can now play your friends who live far away. I enjoy playing several games at the same time with a friend. This reduces the time I spend on the modem. After making my move in each game I then zip them together in one file (using a data compression program like PKZIP) and then send the single file to my friend. INTERNET Since INTERNET runs on UNIX you MAY need to "uuencoded" and "uudecoded" to successfully transfer files across the Internet. Look at the INTERNET.TXT file on how to do this. KEYBOARD COMMANDS (Needed only if you don't have a mouse) KEYBOARD NORMAL MODE RETURN: Toggles the GLOBAL MAP on and off. This is the EASIEST way to move around the screen. ARROW KEYS: Moves selected person in chosen direction Home,PgUp,End,PgDn keys: Moves selected person diagonally CTRL ARROW KEYS: Moves screen 8 squares in the desired direction ALT KEY: First step in pulling down menus (2nd step is to press the first letter of the desired menu) 1: Change selected person to the walking position 2: Change selected person to the crawling position 3: Change selected person to the standing position 4: Change selected person to the running position 9: Increase movement points to 99 (commercial games only) C: Center PLAYING AREA on selected person E: End current turn G: Toggle grid on/off H: Help I: Gives name of person (either side) under mouse cursor L: Select person by typing the first letter of name N: Select next person O: Option popup menu P: Select previous person S: Save game V: Turn Vision mode on KEYBOARD GLOBAL MAP MODE ARROW KEYS: Moves SELECTION FRAME in that direction CTRL ARROW KEYS: Moves SELECTION FRAME 8 squares in that direction RETURN: Toggles the GLOBAL MAP on and off. SPACE BAR: Toggles display info of your team. When the GLOBAL MAP is closed, the PLAYING AREA will be at the SELECTION FRAME location. MAPS The large playing field is represented by two maps and the full detail PLAYING AREA. The LOCAL MAP is always shown in the top right corner of the screen, and the GLOBAL MAP appears in a superimposed window whenever you push the right mouse button. The LOCAL MAP (71 x 71 squares) is a portion of the GLOBAL MAP (200 x 100 squares) centered on the selected person (white dot in middle). The GLOBAL MAP represents the complete playing field. The blue on the edges represents the out of bounds area. The yellow dots represent the visible flags. The white dot represents your selected person. The blue and red dots represent visible blue and red team people. The blue and red hollow squares represent question marks. Question marks are placed in the last square you saw an opponent during either their last turn or your current turn. The GLOBAL MAP SELECTION FRAME is 20 squares wide (horizontal) and 19 squares tall (vertical), and is used to select the portion of the GLOBAL MAP to be shown in the PLAYING AREA. MISC When you play against the computer, you are playing against an artificial intelligence program (it took months to develop) that plays the game under the same ground rules as you do. It cannot see your people or flag unless it searches just like you have to do. It has no access to any data that you don't have, and it DOES NOT CHEAT. In normal difficulty mode, you face 8 people with the identical attributes of your 8. In easy mode you face 6 people with the same identical attributes of the first 6 people on your side. The computer's names are randomized each game. PLAYBACK MODE The members of the opposition team are normally not visible to you, and are only displayed when they are seen by one or more of your players. Your players may observe them during your turn (when they are not moving), or during your opponent's turn (when you are not moving). After your opponent moves, the game enters the PLAYBACK mode. PLAYBACK mode is like playing a VCR tape of all the moves your opponent made during his last turn that were visible to one or more of your people. If the playback shows only a few or no moves, it either means your opponent didn't move much or that his moves were out of your sight. If a person seems to skip a square, that means you were able to see him in the previous and current square, but not in the square that he seemed to skip. THE FOUR ATTRIBUTES Each person has four ATTRIBUTES. The attribute levels for each person is shown by the four color bar graphs on the right hand side of the screen. A tall bar is an excellent rating, a medium height bar is an average rating, and a short bar is a poor rating. The four attributes determine how skilled a person is at: AGILITY: Determines how well the person is at capturing and escaping capture. First bar (color is red). MOVEMENT: How far a person can move in one turn. Second bar (color is yellow). STEALTH: How well the person is at being hard to see. Third bar (color is dark brown). VISION: How well the person is at being able to see others. Fourth bar (color is tan) QUESTION MARKS Question marks are place holders. They mark the last square where you saw an opponent. They come either from playback mode or from your current turn. A question mark from playback most likely means your opponent isn't there now. It's just where you lost track of him. A question mark that appeared during your turn means there IS an opponent in the square but you can no longer see him because you moved away or changed to a STANCE with a poorer vision capability. CAPTURED PEOPLE The shareware version of Capture the Flag has no prison. The person who is captured is sent back to his own side. During the few turns it takes for him to reach his side he is temporarily removed from the game (he is shown behind bars on the CONTROL PANEL). The number of turns he is out of the game is computed by how long it would take for him to run back to his side. CONTROL PANEL The control panel is the right most quarter of the screen. It is comprised of the following four sections. LOCAL MAP In the top right corner is the LOCAL MAP. It is centered around your selected player. It displays a large portion (71 x 71 squares) of the GLOBAL MAP. SELECTED PERSON SECTION Right below the LOCAL MAP. Only one person at a time can be selected, and all the information about the selected person is shown in this section. It shows the name of the person, their current stance, amount of movement points left for this turn, and a bar chart showing their four attribute ratings (A = Agility, M = Movement points, S = Stealth, V = Vision). For each attribute they can either be excellent, average, or poor. To the right of the bar chart is eight numbers surrounding the square that shows what terrain the selected person is on. These eight numbers show the cost, in movement points, to move in the eight possible directions in the current STANCE (crawling, walking, or running). ICON MOVEMENT BAR Right below the Selected Person section. Press the desired icon to choose the STANCE for the selected person. (Note: most of the time it'll be quicker just to press the left button when the mouse cursor is on top of the selected person on the PLAYING AREA.) This will bring up a special STANCE icon selection popup. TEAM SECTION Right below the Icon Bar. All members of your team is shown here. Their icon depicts the player's STANCE, and the small bar charts displays their four attribute ratings. The number below displays how many movement points they have left for this turn. You can select any person by clicking the left mouse button on them. HINTS Watching the demo to learn strategy and tactics is one of the quickest ways to improve your score. It is crucial to take into account each person's strengths and weaknesses because there is such a GREAT difference between an excellent rating and a poor rating. You must prevent your opponent from moving his people within one turn's movement of your flag. If Aaron, for example, gets 30 movement points a turn and starts out his turn within 30 movement points of your flag, then you'll lose. That's because he'll be able to bypass all your people and grab your flag before you can do anything about it. Therefore, you must make sure that you capture Aaron during your turn before he gets to make his winning move. In other words, you have to prevent your opponent from starting his turn within 30 movement points of your flag (if the terrain is clear, that means 30 squares). One helpful fact is that each unsuccessful capture attempt reduces your opponent's next turn movement points by 10% to 25%. Use the vision mode (v key) to learn how far people (in different stances and terrain) can see and be seen. Moving diagonally takes less movement points than first moving horizontally and then vertically. In most cases it's best to end a person's movement standing up. That way he has the best view during the other side's movement. Also, he is somewhat harder to see. Using the 'I' key will help you keep track of your opponent's movement by allowing you to identify who is who. Read the entire help section, especially studying detail information section. VISION MODE The purpose of vision mode is to allow you an opportunity to see how far away you can see your opponent's men. This is especially helpful in deciding where to place your defensive men. For example, if you want to make sure no opponent's men who are running can slip by a defensive line then select the stance of running and stealth ability of excellent. Vision mode will then show you the field of sight for all of your team. This shows you how far you can see your opponent's men who are running and have excellent stealth. You can then try positioning your men to close the gaps and then use vision mode again to make sure there are no gaps. Hint, after moving make sure all your men are standing. This gives them the best vision. To add uncertainty, vision mode is slightly optimistic on who can be seen at the max distance. DETAIL INFORMATION VISION DETAIL Capture the Flag uses realistic line of sight rules. Black (undiscovered) squares change to colored terrain squares as you move or change to a movement position with a better vision ability. Even though you can see what terrain is in a square, that doesn't mean you are close enough to see if an opposing player is located there. The ability to see your opponent's people is determined by six factors: 1) Distance from your person to his person 2) Vision level of your person 3) Stealth level of your opponent's person 4) STANCE of your person 5) STANCE position of your opponent's person 6) Amount of medium & heavy terrain in the line of sight The terrain in the square the person occupies does not affect how he can see, but it does affect how he can be seen. The following table illustrates how far (in squares) a standing person of average vision ability can see an opponent of average stealth ability: Opponent's stance position Standing Crawling Walking Running 18 9 21 35 Multiply the above figures by 70%, 40%, or 30% to obtain the numbers on how far you can see your opponents when your person is in the walking, running, and crawling positions. This assumes there is no terrain between the two people. Otherwise reduce the distances by 7 (except for cabbages and rough dirt) for each medium terrain in the way and by 12 for each heavy terrain (except for streams and canals) in the way. ABILITIES DETAIL An average rating is twice as good/powerful as a poor rating. An excellent rating is three times as good as a poor rating. For example, an excellent stealth person would be three times more difficult to see than a poor stealth person. The only exception is that the maximum vision distance is 35. CAPTURE DETAIL The initial probability is determined by the movement points remaining for the person who is trying to make the capture: Movement Points 1-3 4-6 7-9 10-12 13-15 16-18 19-21 22-24 25+ Probability 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% The agility probability is added to movement probability and then the result is divided by 2. The agility probability is 25% if the defender is two agility levels better, 33% if defender is one agility level better, 50% if defender has same agility level, 66% if defender is one agility level below, and 75% if defender is two agility levels below. For example, if attacker has 10 movement points left and has excellent agility and the defender has average agility then the odds would be (40 + 66) / 2 = 53%. Finally, the probability is increased by 40% for each capture attempt already made this turn on the same person. MOVEMENT DETAIL Movement points used to move into a square in the following STANCES: Crawling Walking Running Light terrain 3 2 1 Medium terrain 6 4 2 Heavy terrain 9 6 3 SCORING DETAIL 1) 20 points for each clear square on opponent's side, ie., each square you uncovered. 2) Add 20 points for each black square on your side, ie., each square you prevent your opponent from uncovering. 3) Add 400,000 if you found your opponent's flag. 4) Add 400,000 if your opponent did not find your flag. 5) If you won: a) add 200,000 points. b) If it took less than 40 turns, then add (40 - number of turns) * 10,000 points 6) Reduce score by 40% if easy mode is used. COMMERCIAL GAME OPTIONS DARKNESS At the beginning of each turn, your opponent's side becomes solid black except for what you can currently see. Therefore you will need to remember the areas that your team has already explored. DUSK Vision is 40%, 60%, or 80% of normal. NIGHT Only 20% of normal vision! Takes forever to explore. MAKE OPPONENT'S FLAG VISIBLE The opponent's flag will show up on the global and local maps, so you do not have to search for it. MAKE OPPONENT'S PEOPLE VISIBLE The opponent's people will show up on the global and local maps. PRISON When a person is caught they go to their opponent's prison, with a delay corresponding to the time it would normally take to travel there. They can only return to their side after they have been rescued, which is done whenever one of their team mates successfully dashes into the prison and stops on top of any prisoner. At this point, all of the prisoners (and the person who rescued them) are returned back to their side, delayed by as many turns as it takes to run back. Prisons are represented as yellow rectangles on the GLOBAL MAP. You can always see your own prison. You can see your opponent's prison when the first person from your side arrives as a prisoner. Also, you'll be able to see your captured people in your opponent's prison if they are not on black squares. PRISONLESS When a person is caught, they are returned to their own side after a delay corresponding to the number of turns it takes for them to run back (same as shareware version). MULTIPLE FLAG CAPTURES How many times a team's flag must be captured before they lose. CHEAT By pressing the 9 key, the current selected person will be given 99 movement points. This can be done as often as one wishes, even after a failed captured attempt. This is very useful for experimenting! CUSTOMIZER Each side can modify their probability of a successful capture from 20% to 200%. They can also modify the amount of movement points they receive each turn from 20% to 200%. MAPS Permits one to select, load, and commence playing on any of the 30 maps provided in the directory (or any maps that you create using the great MAPBUILDER program provided with this commercial version!) OPPONENTS Select one of the eight computer opponents provided. Each one has a different playing strategy. PLACEMENT Allows one to place their own flag and people. However, only in this mode, the flag not permitted to be placed near (a 20 by 20 square) to the corners. When the computer places the flag, (automatic placement) there is a small chance it will place it in a corner. SCENARIOS This permits you to select any of the 50 different scenarios provided. Each scenario varies the number of people on each team and their skill levels. The averages shown are the averages for the whole team and are based on 100% for excellent, 70% for average, and 40% for poor.