GALACTIC CONQUEST 68024.095FALC v5.10 by Jason Sinclair & Joshua Shelton Jý Computing, Inc. ****************** ***SHAREWARE VERSION!!!*** ========================================================= To run this game, type "STARTSW" at the drive prompt. ---REQUIREMENTS TO PLAY--- þ Color display (VGA minimum) þ Moderately-Fast processor recommended (at least 386...WILL work on slower machines) þ Following files: STARTSW.BAT GALCONSW.TXT GALCONSW.EXE GCTTLSW.EXE GCINITSW.EXE GCFONT.COM REGISTER.FRM GCENDSW.EXE <--(NEW PROGRAM!) þ Plenty of caffeinated drinks and high-sugar content snacks (OPTIONAL but recommended) þ Lots of luck... Welcome to Galactic Conquest. If you've ever wanted to be what every super-villain worth his salt has wanted for millenia, then you've hit the right button. This program gives you the chance to conquer the entire galaxy, without leaving your chair. It is up to you to out-smart the opponent, whether computer or human. Send forth immense armadas to squash the enemy like the bugs they are, or do nothing and hope to God that mother nature hates them worse then she hates you (Face it, weathermen normally couldn't predict a 100% chance of photon-storms...). You start out with one planet, some production (# ships made per each year), and a one-year head-start against the computer. Program Specs, Info, and Useless Trivia: # Players: 1 to 2 Graphics: Text (for now...) Language : Turbo Pascal v7.0 Sound : Speaker only Length : Over **4000** lines Colors : 16 Number of Computer Strategies as of v5.10à : 09 Number of orders (Max) to any one planet : 150 (includes you & comp) Types of games/scenarios: : 01 (2 in REGISTERED) AVERAGE Playing Time: 3 to 6 hours Load/Save Games? : Yes (infinite) Sound Toggle? : Yes Change options during game? : Yes -------INSTRUCTIONS-------- This game is simple, but not so simple. It is easy to play, but harder to master. To install, copy all zipped up files (see listing above) to the same subdirectory, and run STARTSW.BAT When you start, you are asked for a name, preferably your LAST name. However, fictional names are also good, such as "DARKLORD" and "DEATHBRINGER". You are then asked for a rank, which suggests military rank. Make up one, or use a true military rank (i.e. General, Admiral, Ensign, Commander, Rogue, and Super-God are good ones...). You will then meet your computer opponent and then tell the computer how many years long the war will last. Instead of asking how much production you wanted in your galaxy, the creation of a galaxy has gotten easier. Now, difficulty levels have been established for the game. There are 3 in the shareware version, and 5 in the registered... the chart below represents the shareware levels of difficulty. The term "Galaxy Production", refers to the total production of ALL the planets in the galaxy. The lower the number, the easier the game in some respects, but also the more boring (personal opinion). The higher, the harder but the more interesting the war. Some estimations of playing times and difficulty ranges are as follows: Lvl Galaxy Production Skill Level Est'd Time to Finish ------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 50 to 74 Thumb-sucker 1 to 2 hours 2 75 to 99 Easy 2 to 4 hours 3 100 to 125 Normal 3 to 7 hours As you can see, there is variety... If you had a galaxy with 115 total production (Galaxy Production), then you'd be playing a pretty typical game. If your galaxy had a total of 51 Galaxy Production, then you're in for quite a snoozer... The above times are just to conquer all 26 planets from the computer!! They do NOT take into account the time spent battling the other players, novas, or power outages... The computer will then generate a random map of the galaxy, color- coding your home planet (you start with one). The computer as of v4.99 now puts all the homeworlds in random quadrants of the screen (previously, each player's homeplanet was stuck in a specific area of the screen to assure that they were far enough apart from each other). However, one drawback to this, ESPECIALLY TO COMPUTERS UNDER 486's, is that the speed of map generation drops TREMEMDOUSLY with each additional player. I've found that most maps and computers handle 1 and 2 players fine. Choose the map you want and continue. The war will then begin... You are shown the status screen, which shows rows of information: PLNT OWNR PROD SHPS ÍAÍ 1 10 207 The PLNT is the planet name (letters A-Z). The OWNR is the owner of the planet, in which you will only see YOUR planets. PROD is the production of the planet. Generally, the number is between 0 and 9 but every now and then you will see numbers as high as 30 in the registered version. SHPS are the total amount of ships you have on the planet at the start of the year. THEY DO NOT CHANGE AS YOU GIVE ORDERS, you must look at your Ship Logs (explained later) to watch the decrease in your fleet, or press F2 and view your current inventory. Underneath, you will see the TOTALS of your fleets. The total # of planets, production, average production per planet, and total ships of all planets (NOT including ones in transit). You then see the main menu. You have 10 commands that are generally used throughout the war. These are described in detail below: f1 (ATTACK) - Use to send ships from a planet you own to any planet in the galaxy. If the destination is an enemy planet then the ships will be treated as fighters. If you send them to another one of your planets, they are considered reinforcements to that planet. YOU DO NOT NEED TO PRESS ENTER AFTER THE NAME OF THE PLANET THAT YOU ENTER! Type the # of ships you wish to send OR type A or ALL to send ALL of that planets ships to another planet. You may also hit ESC without typing anything to abort attack mode at the first planet name's prompt. As of v4.99, you can now see the amount of ships you are sending. This was origin- ally put as secretive due to the strategic nature of the game. f2 (FUNCTION MENU) - All other commands on the main screen have been set up in this seperate menu, for orginizational reasons... The following commands are in the function menu: * * * * * * * * * * * > TACTICAL DISPLAY - REGISTERED VERSION ONLY!! > STARSCAN DISPLAY - The most important command aside from attacking. This brings up a report of your planets and if they are being attacked any time soon. If so, you will see something like: PLT FLTS SHPS ÍKÍ 4 37 The K is the name of the planet. The 4 is the number of fleets attacking that planet... The 37 is the TOTAL # of ships attacking. The fleets normally do not attack all at the same time, but the possibility exists. These readings are color-coded with the legend at the top of the readout. Below is a listing of the approximate chance (per color) that your fleet (your planet) will be lost... COLOR % CHANCE of DEFEAT Green 0% - 5% Yellow 6% - 30% Brown 31% - 70% Dark Red 71% - 95% Light Red 96% - 99% White **100!%** If it blinks, you're in DEEP trouble, and should consider major reinforcements...CHECK OFTEN! If it's WHITE, this means there are not only enemy attacks coming, but there are no ships AND no production on that planet! > COMMAND SUMMARY - Brings up a log of all fleets sent out, what their destinations are, how many ships in each fleet, and how long until they reach their destination. In this mode, you may also change the destinations of fleets by entering the number of the order you wish to change at the prompt. When changing order destinations, time is added to the flight plan of the fleet, so in essence, the fleet flies to the old planet, then the new destination. IF YOU CHANGE AN ATTACKING FLEET'S ORDERS, THE ATTACKING FLEET WILL *NOT* ATTACK THE ORIGINAL PLANET, AND IT WILL NOT BE ATTACKED BY THE ORIGINAL PLANET! > LATEST SHIP LOGS- Brings up a log of all the planets in the galaxy. If explored or contacted (other than probe), will tell last reading of number of ships on the surface of the planet. If it novaed, it will say so. This log also keeps track and automatically adds on any and all enemy reinforcements to planets. The color coding is explained at the bottom of that screen. > PROBE HISTORY - REGISTERED VERSION ONLY!! > CURR. INVENTORY - Prints an updated list of the number of ships you have REMAINING on each planet AFTER the orders you have made for the current year. > LAUNCH PROBE - REGISTERED VERSION ONLY!! > DISTANCES/RANGES- REGISTERED VERSION ONLY!! >CHANGE NAME/RANK - Allows you to enter a new name, rank, and/or color. Hit without typing anything at the NEW NAME prompt to skip to the colors. Hit at the NEW RANK prompt to keep the rank the same. >CHANGE TIME LIMIT- REGISTERED VERSION ONLY!! >SOUND TOGGLE - Toggles sound effects on or off. Great for Libraries, late-night games, or Computer teachers that don't like sound effects... :) >SURRENDER FRM WAR- This allows players that want to leave in the middle of the game to do so without destroying EVERYONE'S hard work. When a player surrenders, there is no reversal process...thus the player had better be sure that they wish to surrender. If verified that the player DOES wish to surrender, then their PLANETS AND ORDERS are *ALL* reassigned to other players! * * * * * * * * * * * (continued commands from MAIN menu...) f10(END TURN) - Ends your turn for that year of the war. altS(SAVE GAME)- Type in the NAME of the game ONLY, NO EXTENSION. If you wish to use the name of a game already in existance (or save the current game over itself), you may. ***WARNING, IT WILL _NOT_ PROMPT YOU TO CONFIRM OVERWRITES!*** altQ(QUIT GAME)- Completely ends the game. A "safety" has been added to this command, so that you must verify that you wish to end the game. The ENTIRE game quits, regardless of which player chooses the command. After verification you will be asked if you wish to see the scores of all players. "Y" will show all planets, production, planet- ary fleets, averages, and player tallies for the war up to that point. A "N" will clear the screen and end the game. There is no set strategy for winning the game, for there are endless possibilities for winning....OR losing... ---MOTHER NATURE'S WEAPONS--- As I mentioned earlier, mother nature is fighting as well. There are 4 types of phenomenons that can hurt, or help, your side of the war: 1.) PHOTON STORM - Destroys 1-100% (at least one ship unless planet is barren) of ships on ground. Normally Mother Nature is considerate to wipe out only a third to one-half the ships on the planet, but you know Mother Nature's sense of humor... If it destroys ZERO ships, then you know that the planet is completely barren. The reason it still reports these is to alert you where photon storms are during that particular year. There is a 1.0% chance per planet per year that a Photon Storm will develop. 2.) BLACK HOLE - Destroys some of your fleet while in transit to a planet. Most of the time it only takes a few of 'em, but every now and then...SLURP!! These have a reputation of being quite cruel at times you REALLY don't need them. There is a 1.0% chance per order that a black hole will munch it up for lunch. 3.) NOVA - Not exactly a nice way to end your existance, this is mother nature's way of saying "I don't like you." This destroys ALL ships AND PRODUCTION on the planet, as well as the planet itself. Like I said, not nice... The only good things about them are that they help immensely if the enemy gets hit by one, and that they rarely occur, averaging about 4 per 100 years. But, sometimes there aren't ANY during a war, and I've seen 10 during a 200 year war... most unpredictable... If you have any orders to a planet that novas, you are given a chance to reroute them, so if more than 1 person is playing, tell the other players to turn around before you re-route them... There is a 0.2% chance per planet per year of a nova frying your planet to a miserable cinder. --- FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS/PROBLEMS --- Q: The computer won't accept my input sometimes. A: There are certain areas that, when a key that isn't recognized as a valid input is hit, the computer will move the cursor down a line and stay there. Just retype your answer and the question or whatnot will be repeated. A drawback to Pascal...but, hey! There are SOOOOO many advantages... :) Q: Why does the game lock up? (Versions v4.9 and below) A: In all versions prior to v4.90, there was a bug in the distance finder where distances would come out as staggeringly high numbers. The computer would then try to accept that distance (somewhere over 15 billion years...like it was measuring the REAL distance to another planet in another galaxy) and lock up. The only suggeston I can give is to try a newer version, even though that bug rarely occurred... As of version 4.91 the bug seemed to have been eliminated, and in the last 100 tests the bug has not shown up. Q: I just can't seem to get anywhere on this game...do you have any tips? A: See the next section... Q: Sometimes, some of my ships in orders just disappears!! A: This pain-in-the-@$! bug has caused more trouble than you could imagine. I hope to have finally killed, maimed, squashed, buried, trampled, discumbobulated, and otherwise destroyed it. If not, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!!! Q: I have a monochrome monitor and when your program runs, it scrambles my screen up or locks my system. What's wrong? A: Monochrome screens (and I believe any system < VGA) will do this because of the font. The font requires VGA or above. Q: Does the computer cheat?? A: No. Some people may have the idea that it looks at your planets while you play. It does not. It keeps track of human player statistics much the same way you keep track of the computer's. And, no...it doesn't throw battles OR keep you from winning. Q: Why in the heck did you put novas into this game? A: If you can't orbit with the big dogs, you're gonna burn, burn, burn... Q: How much memory do I need to play Galactic Conquest? A: The beauty of this game is that, in all it's complexity and with all of it's features and bells and whistles, it only takes conventional memory. Q: Are there any cheats for Galactic Conquest? A: Yes there is...you have to type in a certain name and rank. It gives your homeworld 100 production... Let's just say the name and rank are important to jet designers... Q: Have you tried using memory nodes with this program? A: Next question PLEASE!! Q: Are there any ways to tell which AI's the computer is thinking of using? A: See below. (Winning Tips From The Programmers) Q: Are you going to convert this to graphics? A: Josh and I have been trying to do so for some time, but Pascal and Graphics just don't get along too well. I might try it in C++ when I learn it. Until then, the new font, and any of it's upgrades, will be the best we can do for now... Q: How do I get the registered version of this program? A: Contact me at any of the below addresses, or if you have a CompuServe address, you can now register it online. I will send you a copy A.S.A.P. Q: Can I be a Beta Tester for your company? (Jý Computing) A: YES! We are always searching for more beta testers... If interested, or you have any questions, contact me at any of the below addresses. --- WINNING TIPS FROM THE PROGRAMMERS --- Most TO-FROM galactic domination games basically pit you against a computer foe that is doomed from the first turn. Not so in this game... I've personally added new Computer Strategies to make the game not only more challenging, but more realistic. Face it, most computers aren't gonna let you walk all over them. These strategies allow the computer to fight just like you! They can send scouts, they can reroute orders, and they can also form armadas to send out after YOUR planets. These strategies make the computer ruthless and cold, so don't think for one minute this game is child's play. Even the debugging teams have trouble beating the computer!! If you get a LOT of attacks to the same planet in a SHORT amount of time, watch for an armada coming your way... It's up to you to keep the computer fooled, and fooling it's intelligence operatives and scouts will keep you on your toes at the VERY least. ALWAYS check your orders and your starscan. When playing against another player, you may wish to keep an eye on your tactical display. If you REALLY wanna be scrutinous, use your probes on enemy planets often. Use the ship logs to keep track of ship tallies on enemy planets. These ship logs automatically keep track of computer reinforcements, and are now color coded so you can keep track of suspicious numbers... HOWEVER, once you attack a planet, the number it prints will always reflect the latest ship tally on your latest attack, and will add reinforcements to that number. Send a scout to any suspicious planets to make certain... Remember to keep an eye on your starscan, and may the best side cream the other one!! ---CHANGES SINCE LAST VERSION--- The last public release of Galactic Conquest was v5.00à. The last Beta Release was v5.10à, Beta Release 8 (T062596H). Added dedication to one of our own...Specialist John E. Shaffer, Ohio Army National Guard (OHARNG), who is fighting over in Bosnia...keep him in your prayers... Made the ending of the game its own seperate program, so there's some more tidbits at the end. However, this will change soon once Josh and I decide a better ending sequence for the game. The difficulty levels are a DEFINITE newby, and much improved over the original way... check the Instructions Section for more info. When the computer sent out armadas, it never subtracted the ships it sent from its planetary reserves, resulting in HUGE amounts of ships. That has been fixed. Sorry for the unnecessary frustration... As usual, I've tweaked and played with the colors. Now almost every function in the game is fleet-color-coordinated... During battles, ships do not go down by 1 per hit, but are taken out in massive groups accompanied by a new explosion sound. The Starscan Report does a nifty pre-scan sequence now, just before it prints its report. During the production modifications, the total changes for the year and game are now printed at the bottom of the screen. There was a stupid bug in that too, now fixed . The total galaxy production is no longer displayed. ---UPCOMING HOPEFUL CHANGES--- Josh and I are always finding SOMETHING to toy around with...that's what makes this game so fun...get your mind out of the gutter... Still working on a way to make it possible to change orders WITHOUT adding time onto the ETA. Josh continues to test out possible new AI algorithms (Man is this guy ever CRUEL!! ). New Meteorological Mayhem is in the works...any ideas you all have would be appreciated. I've got 3 or 4 ideas on the board for that area. Also on the boards is an option to destroy the planet you are on, a Planetary Self-Destruct Button, so to speak. Also, a possible (but still in it's baby stages) idea is to add a Morale to each planetary fleet and to the overall fleet. This would, in essence, take over the production changes. Sitting on your duff could cost you plenty!!!! --- SPECIAL NOTE --- This program was created out of a love for my favorite hobby (need you ask what?). The only way I know what needs fixing is by testing it either myself and with the debugging team, or from comments from others playing it around the country. I've already received many comments and even some praises from individuals that have tried this game. It can only get better if YOU tell me how and what to do!! If you find a bug in the LATEST RELEASED VERSION of a SHAREWARE RELEASE of Galactic Conquest, and you inform me (by mail, or whatnot) of the bug, and it is corrected, I will send you a FREE copy of the Registered Version (latest available), and add your name to the secondary group of Beta Testers. (Your name will be in lights... ). All the more incentive, eh? ---IDEAS OR SUGGESTIONS--- I am continuing to revise this game, adding things here and there, changing colors, etc. If you encounter an error (prints it on the screen something like "Runtime Error 141 at 0000:2A36"...WRITE IT DOWN AND LET ME KNOW!!! Also, if you have any constructive comments, ideas for changing or adding to the program, or ideas about a NEW program, send me a note and I'll get in touch with you ASAP. My address for mail is: Jason Sinclair (Jý Computing, Inc.) 612 West 8th Street Marysville, Ohio 43040-1427 or E-Mail me at the following: Monolith BBS (preferably in conference Jý Computing , but any conference will do) (online 24 hours...call (513)-644-1219...2400 to 28.8) Oakwood BBS (any conference) (online 24 hours, 6 nodes: (513)-642-4449...2400 to 28.8) CompuServe Address : 103036,2550 Internet Address: JASON.SINCLAIR@OAKPHOTO.COM Atheneum BBS (any conference) (online 24 hours...call (513)-642-1995...2400 to 28.8) You may also contact Joshua Shelton in the same conferences or at the following addresses: (Not on CompuServe...) Joshua Shelton 18020 Bear Swamp Road Marysville, Oh 43040 Internet Address: JOSH.SHELTON@OAKPHOTO.COM ***SPECIAL THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING*** þ Beta Testers- William C. Bard Jack Carpenter Derek Dehart Eric Doebert Brian N. Hankey Wayne Honaker Jon Humble Matt Morrow "Agent" Rausch John Shaffer Joshua Shelton Jamey Sinclair Jason Sinclair Eric K. Smith Kelli Smith Steven Smith Chris Widman þ Monolith BBS þ Oakwood BBS þ CompuServe þ Borland International (makers of Turbo Pascal) þ My parents for putting up with me being up until 5am every morning to test this... þ YOU for playing this game and sampling all this hard work and effort. þ Anyone else I forgot (Feel free to add your name here) If you haven't already registered this game...PLEASE DO SO!! Any contributions are welcome and VERY much appreciated!!. Thank you for your time, and I hope to keep up the good work! *YOU* make this the game that it is!! ** ** ** Enuf sentimental stuff....go kick some butt!! ** ** ** Jý Computing: Redefining the Boundaries of Imagination!!