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Text File | 1991-05-09 | 32.2 KB | 646 lines

┌───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┐ Imperium │++...+^++.+++++..+^++.+++++^+++│ │++...+^^++.++++..+^^++.++++*^+^│ The WarGame of the Millenia.... │+≈++..++++..++++..++++..+++^+^+│ │+*+....++...+++....++...++++^++│ │..............+...........+^≈..│ May 9, 1991 │.+^++++++.+..+++++.++++..++≈...│ │+.+^+*++.+++..+^+*+.++++..+....│ Version 3.49 │+.^.+++..≈++≈...+++..≈++≈...+++│ │*+...+.≈≈++++++..+.≈≈.+++++^+*+│ │++...+.++++++++..+.+++.+++++^+^│ │+≈++..++++++++++..++++..+++^+^+│ │+++....+++.++++....++...+++*^++│ │++............+...........+^≈..│ │++^.++....+..++.++....+..++≈...│ │+..^+++.+*++..+^+++.+*++..+....│ Copyright 1991, Search IV, Diamond Bar, Ca. │++^*+++..≈++≈..*+++..≈++≈......│ └───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┘ - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Story... ~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the late 21st century humankind was finally starting to make a serious push towards interstellar colonization, the dwindling of Earth's resources and the fiscally inept attempts of the regional governments to exploit the near space resources had caused the global economy to go into a near terminal spiral. The multinational corporations, in economic self defense, moved into the gap and effectively eliminated most governments. For the most part, life under corporate rule stayed much the same as it was before, boundaries became more blurred, budgets were done with a bit more foresight, and the bottom line was always the top priority; but the more things change the more they stay the same...wars were still fought, and the Corporate Wars over resources were more often violent than not. Two historic discoveries neatly coincided to open up the galaxy to coloniz- ation. The first discovery was of several earth-like worlds in orbit around neighboring stars and was made by Daedulus series star probes sent out decades earlier. The second discovery was that all bodies of near stellar mass or greater were linked together by n-space singularities known as hyperstrings. It took a major cooperative investment of capital and test pilots, but no single megacorp wanted any of the others to have sole access to the vast resources that these discoveries hinted at. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Story...continues ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The resources were in fact quite a bit more accessible than anyone had real- ized. The each of the probes contained a nanotech seed package to make each planetary biosphere more hospitable to human life and to build some basic measurement and telemetry outposts. A basic flaw in the probe software let the nanotechs evolve quite a bit more than the designers had wanted and in ways that they had never dreamed of. The first reconnaisance team to survive the trip discovered not only ex- tremely earth-like worlds but also worlds that came complete with fully developed cities. Cities that came complete with factories, ports, mining and resource extraction facilites, power plants, and distribution systems. Cities that were almost completely automated and capable of being programmed to pro- duce almost anything, given enough time and resources. When reports of this bonanza got back to Earth, the corporate alliance that built the hyperstring transport system collapsed amid the rush was to colonize all the worlds that could be reached across the star strings.... You have been placed in charge of securing one of these worlds from your rival corps, hostile governments, and freelance anarchists. Best of Luck! - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Game ~~~~~~~~ Imperium is a multi-player strategic wargame. Each player starts out with one city, a variety of units (which will vary from world to world and game to game), and no knowledge of the world in general. Since there is only room for one World Emperor, the ultimate object of the game is for each player to eliminate or come to terms with all the other would-be emperors. The final victory conditions will undoubtably vary from game to game, but as a general rule the first player to conquer more than two-thirds of the cities is the de-facto winner. Another curious piece of new technology has allowed us to transform the normally spherical world surfaces into distorted rectangular surfaces. The rectangular map is then divided into a X by Y grid with each unit square covering an area roughly equivalent to 250 square miles. All play will take place on this grid. The actual values of X & Y will depend on the planet size. Each player gets one set of moves per day with moves being executed on a first come first moved basis. In essense this means that each player can move every one of his units once a day for it's full movement allotment. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Map ~~~~~~~ As was noted above, the map is divided into a rectangular grid. Map coor- dinates are always displayed as an x,y number pair. The first coordinate (X) always corresponds to the column, while the second coordinate (Y) always represent the row. Thus for a 150x100 map, the point (1,1) is at the top left corner of the map, while the point (150,100) is in the lower right corner. Since it isn't generally possible to view the entire map on the screen at one time, the map is divided into overlapping sectors 70x20 units in size. Each sector is represented by a multi-digit number-character pair. The number represents the vertical sector, while the character represents the horizontal sector. The next page shows how the sectors are laid out over the map. Each different terrain and unit type is represented by a unique character on the map. It is important to note that as units are moved across the map, only the 8 squares adjacent to the unit being moved are updated, all other terri- tory on the map is only as current as the last time the player walked/sailed/ flew a unit past it. The map always displays only the most recent information known. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Map A C ~~~~~~~ (1,1) /~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\(150,1) +--------------------------------------------------------+ | : : : | 1 | 1A : : ---:---------------| |_____________:___ : : 2C | 2 | : : : | 3 | 3A : : ---:---------------| |_____________:___ : : 4C | 4 | : : : | 5 | 5A : : ---:---------------| |_____________:___ : : 6C | 6 | : : : | 7 | 7A : : ---:---------------| |_____________:___ : : 8C | 8 | : : : | 9 | 9A : : ---:---------------| | : : : | +--------------------------------------------------------+ (1,100) \__________________________/ (150,100) B - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ More about the Map ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The characters that make the map are broken down into four categories: Terrain, Cities, Advanced Terrain and Units. The characters are interpreted as follows: Basic Terrain: Character Color (if applicable) Unexplored Territory - [ ] (blank) - black Deep Water (River, Lake, Ocean) - [.] - blue Land (Terra Firma) - [+] - green Swamps (Terra Squishy) - [≈] or [=] - light green Mountains - [^] - gray Cities: Character Color Unowned/Free Cities - [■] or [*] - magenta Enemy cities - [■] or [X] - red Your Cities - [■] or [O] - light cyan - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Still More about the Map ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These terrain types are only found in games that have been setup as advanced. In advanced games terrain will cost movement points to cross rather than simply being cross or non-crossable. Advanced Terrain: Character Color Ice - [¡] or [:] - white Dune - [ⁿ] or [@] - light red Shallow Water - [,] or [,] - light blue Hills - [~] or [~] - brown Forest - [ƒ] or [?] - yellow Desert - [°] or [)] - red Tundra - [#] or [#] - grey Jungle - [⌡] or [&] - light green Volcano - [¥] or [V] - light magenta Lava Flow - [≡] or [-] - light magenta - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yet Still More about the Map ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Units: (Your units will generally be displayed in cyan while the enemies units will be in red. In non-color modes, your units are are always upper- case and the enemy's are in lower case). Unit Type Class Char | Unit Type Class Char ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ | ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ Armies Light Land [a/A] | Cruise Missiles Special Air [m/M] Tanks Heavy Land [w/W] | Corp of Engineers Special Land [e/E] Fighter Planes Air [f/F] | Dredge Special Sea [g/G] Destroyers Naval [d/D] | Anti-Missile Special Land [!/!] Submarines Naval [s/S] | Satellite Space [%/%] Troop Transports Naval [t/T] | Zeppelin Air [z/Z] Cruisers Naval [r/R] | Aircraft Carriers Naval [c/C] | Battleships Naval [b/B] | - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About the Units ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Unit Class ~~~~~~~~~~ Light Land - Units of this class can travel over normal land and swamps, but are not equipped to travel over mountains. Heavy Land - Units of this class can only travel over normal land. Swamp bogs them down and mountainous territory is too restrictive. Air - This class of unit can travel over any type of terrain, land, swamp, mountain, or water. Naval - This unit class is restricted to travel solely on water. Space - This unit class is restricted solely to space travel. Space travelling units cannot attack or be attacked by non-space units. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ More about the Units ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Armies - Typical light infantry troops. Only armies can capture and garrison cities and they are essential to the con- struction of new cities. One army unit is of about legion strength (5000 troops). Tanks - Armored calvary brigade. As a general rule faster, tougher, and heavier than the light infantry. Fighters - Combat/Reconnaisance aircraft wing. Aircraft have a finite range and must be periodically refueled in an occuppied city. Destroyers - Small fast warship. Well equipped for Patrol/Recon/ASW work. Destroyers are the only surface ships that can detect submerged submarines. Submarines - An attack sub, not to be confused with missile boats. A submarine can operate in one of two modes: surfaced where it is visible to all other units or submerged where it can only move at half speed but is invisible to everything but destroyers and other subs. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Troop Transports - Transports are the only ships that can carry armies or tanks. Troopships can carry a fixed number of hits worth of units, which generally means that a ship can carry more armies than tanks and more damaged units than healthy ones. If a transport is attacked and sunk, all units onboard will drown. Cruisers - Heavy warship. Generally stronger and more powerful than destroyers, cruisers make good convoy escorts. Aircraft Carriers - As the name implies, these are the only ships that can carry fighters. The number of aircraft that can be carried will decrease as the Carrier takes damage. Battleships - The biggest largest nastiest ship. Typically this is the sort of ship that eats destroyers for breakfast. Cruise Missiles - Low-flying missiles that can be armed with a variety of conventional/gas/bio/nuclear warheads. Cruise missiles can be shuttled from one city to another and refueled but once armed they are committed to fly until they detonate. See warhead classes for more information on warhead effects. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Engineers - Army corp of engineers. If something needs to be built up/torn down/filled in/excavated this is the unit to do it. Engineers can carve passes through mountain ranges, fill in swamps, level hills, clear forests, make fords across rivers, and build new cities. Dredges - The naval equivalent to an engineer. Dredges can cut channels and canals through land and flood swamps to allow other ships passage. Anti-Missiles - Anti-Missile Systems are the automated defense against cruise missiles. Once a given system is 'A'ctivated it watches a given area for incoming missiles; if a missile enters then the Anti-Missile will attempt to shoot it down. The smaller the defense radius the better the chance that the Anti-Missile will have at shooting down Cruise Missiles. Zeppelins - Really big, hydrogen filled, lighter than air vehicles. No offensive or defensive capabilities. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Unit Functions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sentry - A unit on sentry duty will not move, but simply stand watch and wake up when approached by an enemy unit. Sleeping - Units onboard transports and aircraft carriers are considered to be asleep. As are armies & engineers & dredges involved in construction. Landing - A airborne unit that is landing will fly to the nearest airfield or aircraft carrying ship. If a landing unit is trying to land on a ship it will follow the ship even if it moves. On Path - A unit that is moving directly to a specific point. The unit will attempt to circumvent simple obstacles and will wake up when presented with impassable terrain...though there is a chance that it might get lost and wander around in a circle. Direction - A unit that is moving in a given direction until it runs into something interesting. Random - A unit that is moving completely at random. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Command Modes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Order - This is the mode that the player finds himself in immediately upon starting the Imperium game. This is the top level mode from which the player can view a summary of his empire; review all that's occurred since the last time on; communicate with the other empires; et al. Move - This is the mode that allows the player to command the movement and activity and function of each awake unit. Edit - In this mode a player can move across the map; investigating the identity of enemy units; altering the production of his own cities; checking and setting the functions of his own units. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Orders Mode Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ C - Communicate with other empires. The inter-empire communicator allows players to send and recieve messages from other empires whether they have been encountered in the game or not. Message length is currently lim- ited to 15 lines. D - Request a screen dump of as much of the world map as the player has currently mapped. E - Puts Imperium into Editing Mode, where the players can examine and/or change the functions associated with units and cities. G - Toggle ANSI color graphics display mode. Issuing this command without ANSI support and a graphics adapter produces useless output. Many com- munications programs will support VT100 terminal emulation, this will in most instances accomplish the same thing. H - Display the Help screen. Contains a brief description of all the order mode commands. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Orders Mode (continued) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ M - Puts Imperium into Move Mode, where the player can move, assign functions to, and fight with his/her units. Q - Quit the game and return to the BBS. R - Display the results that have occurred to the player since the last time purged. New results are always displayed when the door is opened. This command allows the player to view the results in more detail. Results will be saved until the player decides to purge them. S - Display a summary report for this empire. This command will display a summary of all units and cities, including functions being performed and the next date a unit will be delivered. A list of all cities, their location, and production status is also given. V - Display the version history of the game. All fixes and improvements are noted with this command. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Movement Mode Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Moving a Unit is best accomplished by using the keypad with NumLock on. The unit will move in the direction of the key pressed as follows: 7 8 9 \ | / 4 - * - 6 / | \ 1 2 3 Other Move Mode commmands... A - Activate unit. Arm Missiles, activate Anti-Missile Systems, set Engineers to clearing ground or building a city, or start dredging shallow water. D - tell a unit to start moving in a direction until it runs into something or someone, whereupon the unit will wakeup. E - Puts Imperium into Editing Mode, where the player can examine and/or change the functions associated with units and cities. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Movement Mode (continued) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ F - Tell a troop transport (or aircraft carrier) to go to sleep until it is filled with armies (or fighters), then wake it up. If the ship has taken damage, then the ship will wake up when it has all it can take. H - Display the Help screen. Contains a brief description of all the move mode commands. L - Puts a fighter on a flight path to land at the closest carrier or city. Useful to return fighters to bases when half the fuel is left. Note if an aircraft carrier that has been targeted for landing moves, the fighter will follow it so long as it doesn't move out of range. O - return to Orders Mode. When all pieces have been moved the program will automatically return to orders mode. P - Sets a unit moving towards a specific position. Units will avoid ele- mentary obstacles. To set the destination use the keypad to place cur- sor over destination for the current unit and press return. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Movement Mode (continued) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ R - Puts the current unit to moving completely at random. Units will stop and awaken when they run across something they can't move through, but will otherwise attack unfriendly units & cities while trekking about. S - Puts the current unit on sentry duty. The player will no longer be queried to move this unit until it is manually awakened or an enemy unit approaches it. W - Wakes up unit. If unit is a troop transport or carrier, the player will be asked whether or not to wake up all armies or fighters on board. If the unit is an engineer or dredge in the midst of some construction, the player will also be asked to confirm wakeup...all construction work will be lost if engineers or dredges are awakened before completing their tasks. ^W - Master Wakeup. All forces performing some function (sentry/sleeping/ path following/random) wake up. Warning: This will wake up units on transports and carriers, as well as all engineers and dredges. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Movement Mode (continued) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ? - Display information about the current unit. Shows the function, hits left, range, number of armies or fighters aboard, and armed status as applicable. + - This command applies to only two unit types: Cruise Missiles and Subs. For missiles it means DETONATE right here...right now. For submarines it means come up to the surface. See also '-' command. - - Submerge. If the unit is a submarine then it submerges, otherwise ignored. [RET]- Move Later. Pressing this key moves a unit to the bottom of the move- ment stack, in other words it's skipped for now. [SPC]- Skip Unit. Pressing this key causes a unit to be skipped completely. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Movement Mode (continued) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Combat is engaged by moving your unit onto the square of the enemy unit you you wish to attack. Hits are traded off at with a sysop defined proba- bility of a hit landing on one or the other units until one unit is TOTALLY destroyed. There is only 1 possible winner. Note that the probabilities of successfully attacking a free city, an enemy city, or another unit can be and most likely will be different. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Edit Mode Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Moving the cursor is done by using the keypad with NumLock on. The cursor will move in the direction of the key pressed as follows: 7 8 9 \ | / 4 - * - 6 / | \ 1 2 3 Other Edit Mode commmands... C - change the name of the city. Hitting return alone leaves the name unchanged. D - change the map sector being displayed. The map is divided into 9 sectors vertically (1..9), and 2 horizontally (A&B) as was diagrammed in the section on the map. Enter return alone to leave the map display unchanged. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Edit Mode (continued) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ H - Display the Help screen. Contains a brief description of all the move mode commands. J - Tries to put Imperium into Move mode. If all units have been moved, this won't do anything. O - Puts Imperium into Orders mode. P - Change what a city is producing. There is a 20% penalty for changing the production, the time necessary to retool the factories. Press return to leave the production unchanged (and unpenaltied). R - Starts the unit(s) under the cursor to moving completely at random. Units will stop and awaken when they run across something they can't move through, but will otherwise attack unfriendly units & cities while trekking about. S - Puts all units under the cursor on sentry duty. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Edit Mode (continued) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ W - Wakeup a unit. If there are a number of units co-occupying a given space, then all units in that stack wake up. ? - Displays information about the units, city, or land formation at the cursor location. Shows the function, hits left, range and number of armies or fighters aboard for friendly units and the name of the owning empire if they are enemy units. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Cruise Missile Warheads ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Each cruise missile can be configured with one of four types of warheads; these warheads are of eight possible classes that are configured for strength and lethality by the sysop when the game is started. The eight warhead classes are: Class Description ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ Conventional Cities and terrain are unaffected, units are damaged/destroyed according to the strength of the cruise missile unit. Only units at the impact location are affected. Neutron Bomb Cities revert to unowned. Terrain is unchanged. All units within the radius are destroyed. Nerve Gas Cities revert to unowned. Terrain is contaminated. All units in area are killed. Units entering the area are damaged. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Warhead Classes: (continued) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Class Description ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ Simple Bio Cities revert to unowned. Terrain is contaminated. All units in area die. Units entering the area are damaged, units that leave the area spread the contamination. Clean Fission Cities are destroyed. Territory remains unchanged. All units in area annihilated. Toxic Waste Cities are destroyed. Territory is more heavily contaminated. Units in area are are destroyed. Units entering area are damaged. Complex Bio Cities are destroyed. Territory is contaminated. All units in area die. Units entering the area are damaged, units that leave the area spread the contamination. - - - - - Imperium v3.49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Warhead Classes: (continued) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Class Description ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ Dirty Fission Cities are destroyed. Territory is laid to waste. All units in area die. Units entering area die. The effects are permanent. Known bugs and anomalies: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [*] Troop Transports can't be boarded while in cities. [*] Units don't spread plague. [*] Occasionally Imperium will not update the screen to the correct sector. If a unit that is to be moved isn't on the screen, use edit mode to change to another sector and then go back to move mode. [*] Documentation needs some work. [*] This is a rough beta release. Here be Tygers.... - - - End of Documentation