Las Vegas Classics/LASVEGAS.BIN/LASVEGAS/GREEN/GREEN.DOC

Text File | 1992-05-27 | 16.1 KB | 379 lines

GREEN.DOC                       Rev: 17 May 1992

Contents:
   SUMMARY
   STARTING THE GAME
   PLANTERS
   PAVERS
   SETTING MODES
   SCORING
   MAP CONTROLS
   STRATEGY HINTS
   DETAILS
   CUSTOM MAPS
   SHAREWARE & THE ASP

---------

SUMMARY:
---------
GREEN is a strategy game in which you support your planters as they work to
prevent the pavers from turning farms into parking lots.  You don't control
anyone directly -- rather, you change the map itself by building walls and
hedges, or turning pavement to rubble.  You can also raise a flag and have
planters gather there. Your goal is to cause all the pavers to retire.  You
do this by building walls around them, making their job too difficult to
continue.

There are several different maps, of varying difficulty. You have the
ability to plant hedges, add walls, and to destroy pavement.

GREEN requires a MS compatible mouse and EGA or better graphics.

Credits:      Design & programming: Steve Estvanik
              Graphics programming: Ken Birdwell
              Additional graphics:  Bea Sodero
              Betatesters:      Tom & Chris Vozella
                                Lauren & Nicole Estvanik
                                Gus Smestad
                                Herb Rowder
                                Matthew Stibbe
                                Mark Betz

STARTING THE GAME:
------------------
To start the game, choose Play from the main menu.   (Later use the Map
command to select alternate maps).  When prompted, select Difficulty 1 and
startup in clumps.  This will give you the simplest setup and let you become
acquainted with the commands while playing the first game.

The map initially shows the pavers, who start all in one place because you
chose 'clump'.  Press F4 to get the global map, and you'll see the pavers
position on the overall map.  You'll also see the clump of planters (A-D).
Move the mouse to the planters, and left click. The new map will show you
the planters.  This is the fastest way of jumping from one area to another.
You can also scroll the map.

Left click on any clear area and the current terrain will be placed there.
Each type of terrain has a cost, and some restrictions on where it can be
placed (details below).

Right click near a map edge (cursor keys work, too) scrolls the map in any
direction (including diagonally.

Centered under the map are icons showing the types of terrain you can
select:
      * Hedge
      * Window
      * Wall
      * Rubble
      * Flag

Left click on the terrain you want to use.  Then move the mouse to the map
and left click on the area to place it.  There are some restrictions to
where terrain can be placed.  See details below, or experiment.

Function keys:

      F1: Help
      F3: Unit map
      F4: Global map
      F5: Set individual modes
      F6: Set all planter modes
      F10: Quit the game

      Alt-S toggle sound
      Alt-K Turn entire map 90 deg clockwise
      Alt-L Turn entire map 90 deg counterclockwise

You get income from all greens, more for trees and hedgerows than for
hedges, bushes or clear.  You pay maintenance for walls and windows. You
also lose income for land taken out of production to form paved areas, and
for rubble left behind by the pavers.  Income is calculated about every 10
seconds.  The numbers are updated at that time and the new results are
shown as colored bars in the corners of the screen.

Costs:
    75 to plant a hedge
   100 to move the marker
   150 to build a wall
   200 to turn a wall into a window
   400 to turn an area into rubble

Building & Planting restrictions:

      Nothing can be built on water.
      Window can be placed only on existing walls.
      Hedges cannot be planted on walls or floors.
      Walls can't be built on pavement.

      Pavement, walls, windows can be turned to rubble.

      The flag can be placed in any green area.  Any planter with 'Move'
orders will make their way to that marker.  You can move the marker whenever
you like, at a cost of 100 per move.

Winning:
There are several ways to win:
      * Achieve your savings goal.  You need to accumulate 48000 in funds,
        plus 2000 for each degree of difficulty. (Press F7 to see goal)

      * Force all pavers to retire.

There are several ways to lose, too:
      * Let total funds go negative.

      * Lose all planters and let maintenance & development costs
        exceed income.

Your score can increase or decrease tremendously at the end. Various bonuses
are calculated, depending on the difficulty and ending conditions.
Difficulty determines both number & activity of pavers, and relative payoff
for a win.  That is, you will score much higher if you win a more difficult
game.

PLANTERS:
---------
Planters represent farmers, foresters, environmentalists and others whose
primary goals are the preservation of the earth and the renewable resources
they can extract from it.  Planters clear rubble, plant bushes in clear
terrain, and raise bushes to trees.  They also raise the low hedges you
plant into taller, stronger, hedgerows.

You can plant hedges in any green area except green rubble (grubble).  You
can put walls in any non-pavement, non-rubble, non-water area.  You can also
put windows in walls, to ease movement.  You may even want to provide
occasional windows for pavers, in order to guide them into some unprofitable
areas or devious traps.  Finally, you can change walls and pavement into
rubble.  This hurts your income, and is costly to do, but is sometimes
useful, since your planters may be able to return paved areas to more
beneficial uses. See Table 2 for planting costs.

Planters need energy to plant, and lose energy when they traverse pavement
or get blocked by walls.  They are re-invigorated when they move thru their
lush plantings, especially hedgerows and trees.  The energy display (upper
right hand part of screen) shows planter and paver status by color:  green
or blue planters are vigorous and energetic.   Magenta and brown show a loss
of interest.  Finally, red planters are in danger of being co-opted by the
pavers.  (Rest is the best mode to try to rescue these overworked people.)
If a planter becomes a paver, they'll show up in the opposing column and
will begin to act like a paver.

PAVERS:
---------
Pavers include mall developers, real estate agents, clear-cut loggers and
others whose primary view of the environment is as a source of resources to
exploit. (Obviously, this is just a game.  There may indeed be a non-
exploitative developer somewhere.)  Pavers turn your well tended farms and
greenswards into parking lots.  When water is present, they also delight in
flooding the area to make deep water playgrounds.  Walls slow them down, as
do hedgerows.  A paver who retires disappears and has no further influence
on the game.

Pavers are frustrated (lose energy) when they move to green areas and fail
to destroy them.  They also lose if they get blocked by injunctions (legal
walls) and other impediments placed there by you or your planter allies.
Pavers gain energy when they visit their wide expanses of parking lot, or go
through water.  Paver colors are shown in the reverse order from planters:
Red pavers are the most energetic.  Next come brown, then magenta and blue.
When a paver turns green, it means s/he is about to retire.

SETTING MODES:
------------------
Setting modes is an advanced feature that you can invoke when you are
comfortable with the rest of the game functions.  It lets you assign a
specific function to each of your planters.  You may set them to Plant,
Grow, Clear, Rest or Move.  The advantages of each mode are outlined below.
While the change mode selection screen is displayed, the game is suspended.
The selection screen also shows the current status of the pavers, but you
can't affect them.  The default mode for all planters is Plant.

Plant -- seek out clear areas and plant bushes

Grow  -- seek out bushes and hedges and help them grow

Clear -- seek out rubble and clear it

Rest  -- avoid expending energy

Move  -- move to the waypoint.


SCORING:
---------
Each planter and paver has an energy rating.  This changes during the game,
as they move and terraform.  In general, when they move on friendly terrain,
they gain points, when they plant or destroy, they burn points.  You can't
control any of the workers directly, but you can give them general
directions (See 'Setting Modes').

If paver energy goes to zero, that worker retires.  If it goes over 100,
half that energy is given to a new worker who appears to assist that side.
Maximum number of both factions of workers is 26.

MAP CONTROLS
============
Scrolling
---------
Use the right mouse button to scroll the map in any direction.  Use the
global map function to quickly jump to any area on the map, or just to see
the overall view.

Rotate map
----------
You can turn the entire map by 90 degrees in either direction, using the
Alt-K and Alt-L keys.  This sometimes is helpful to see behind taller
terrain types.  The global map is always shown with a northern orientation,
though.

Show grid
--------
The F2 key or Grid button displays a grid on the map.  This helps in
placement of terrain, since it shows the base of a wall or hedge segment.
The grid remains in place until you scroll off, or call the global map.

STRATEGY HINTS
================
There are many ways to win the game, and you can set various goals for
yourself (high score, lowest amount of pavement, etc.)  The following are
some general hints to get you started.  If you send me your suggestions and
I add them, I'll also add your name in the next edition.

* At first, it's important to stop the pavers from spreading too widely.
So, concentrate on building walls that keep them in a small area.

* After you've isolated or concentrated the pavers, start to attack any
pavers who become blue or green.  Put rubble under them and in front of
them.  Eventually they will retire.

* If your planters go from purple to red, it's time to rest.  Often in the
early stages, it's handy to rest all planters -- they'll recruit more
planters quicker.

* If you eliminate pavers from an area, open it up with rubble and move in
planters to clear it up.  This will reduce debits for maintenance.


DETAILS:
========
These sections are furnished for players who wish to know a little more
about the innards of the program.  You don't need to read any of this to
play the game.

Starting positions: (in order of relative difficulty and increasing bonus).

      Clumps     -- both sides start in tight clusters
      Edges      -- both sides start along the border areas
      Random     -- both sides distributed randomly

The starting position determines the bonus factor applied at the end of the
game.  This varies from 25% for clumps to 75% for random.

You also get a bonus based on the time it takes you to rid the world of
pavers.  This bonus is added to your base score, and then the starting
position bonus is applied:

      final score =   ( basic score + time bonus) * starting bonus

Income, Maintenance & developed area costs:
Most funds are calculated as a function of the difficulty level chosen.  Once
built, it costs income to maintain both your walls and floors, and the
structures built by the pavers.

Income is produced in the following relative order:
      hedgerows > trees > floors > hedges > bushes > clear > deep water

Walls require maintenance, and windows about twice that of walls.

Pavement and rubble account for development costs.  Rubble is approximately
10 times as expensive as pavement.  Thus, while you can use rubble to attack
the pavers, it will cost you if you do not have planters nearby to turn it
into flooring.

The bars in the lower left corner of the screen show the relative
proportions of the various kinds of terrain.  Use this as a general guide to
what types of terrain are being created or destroyed.


Terrain and movement:
------------------
Planters and pavers are controlled by probability, modified based on their
current mode.  They are most likely to move straight ahead, slightly less
likely to move to either side.  There is also a slight chance they will turn
around.   When they move to new terrain, the chances that they can modify it
are based on their energy and the difficulty level.  Thus a paver is quite
likely to change a clear area to rubble, but less likely to change a hedge
or tree.  They have a reasonable chance to destroy walls, but only a small
chance of reducing hedgerows.

The movement algorithm looks at 5 squares -- forward & 2 on each side.  Each
is given an evaluation number.  This number then has a random number added
to it, based on direction.  Thus if you're going forward it will be a random
number between 1 and 20, if 2 to the left, a random number between 1 & 5.
If all the evaluations are equal, then you will usually go straight, but
there's still a chance to turn.  The actual evaluations are variable too --
Eg, a paver at 30 or less, will try not to attack walls, looking
preferentially for pavement.  A paver at 60 and above will ignore pavement
and attack walls and forests.  The modes let you influence some of these
evaluations for your planters.

CUSTOM MAPS:
You can modify any of the maps, using an ascii editor.  Each map must
consist of 40 rows of 60 characters each.  Each map must have a border of
o's.  Other symbols used are:
      - = window
      # = wall
      n = hedge
      h = large hedgerow
      @ = bush
      & = tree
      ~ = water
      = = deep water
      % = rubble
      b = pavement
      ' = planter floor

You can also make new maps from scratch, and substitute them for existing
maps by copying the old map to a temp file and renaming your new map.

***************************************************************************
*                    REGISTERING SHAREWARE                                *
***************************************************************************

Shareware is a means of distributing software.  Under the shareware concept,
software may be freely copied and passed along to others, or distributed
through bulletin board systems or national networks.

As a recipient of a shareware program, you may use the software for a short
trial period to determine if it meets your needs.  If the software is not
suitable, then you can discard it. If you decide to use it, you must pay by
registering.  When you register a Cascoly shareware program, you receive:

      * A copy of the latest version of the program
      * A bonus of any other Cascoly program of equal or lesser value
            (see REGISTER.FRM for details)
      * A free introductory account on CompuServe including a private User
        ID number and password, $15 introductory usage credit, and a
        complimentary subscription to CompuServe Magazine, - a $30 value!
      * A minimum of 90 days online support via CompuServe or by
        telephone.  Support by mail is also available, if accompanied
        by a SASE.
      * You will also receive bonus maps

To register a program, enter the following command:

      COPY REGISTER.FRM LPT1:

and the order form will be copied to your printer.  Check off the program
you wish to register, and check the program you wish to receive as a bonus.

Cascoly Software is a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals
(ASP).  ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you.
If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member
by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP
Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but
does not provide technical support for members' products. You can contact
the ASP Ombudsman at P.O. Box 5786, Bellevue, WA 98006 or send a Compuserve
message via easyplex to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536