Colonial Conquest V1.0 Colonial Conquest has been written in 1993 by Christian Mumenthaler. This program is giftware, which means that you can make a donation to the author if you like it. All rights remain by Christian Mumenthaler, but everybody is allowed to copy it for other people as long as he/she includes the "Copyright"-file and doesn't ask more than the nominal fee of 4$ (5 Sfr/5 DM) for the disk. Please read the "Copyright"-file for more details and all exceptions! System requirements: Colonial Conquest runs on all Amigas (tested on A4000, A2000 & A500) with 1 Meg of memory. (Should also run on machines with 500 KB!). 1. Introduction Colonial Conquest is a space-strategy game for one or two persons. The basic idea and concept have been heavily influenced by the shareware game "Conquest" and the Microprose game "Civilization". The aim of the game is to spread your civilization through the 26 earth-like planets of the universe map and to defend it from other civilizations by building weapons and war ships. Unfortunately - like all half-realistic simulations and strategy games - Colonial Conquest will reward primitive destructive behavior and colonial instincts without leaving much room for cooperative actions and peaceful living. Take it as a game! As Colonial Conquest is quite easy to handle, I suggest you first have a look at the program before returning to this long (and boring) manual with a lot of fresh motivation... 2. Getting started After having shown the title screen, three options will appear on the screen: - Start a new game. - Load saved game. (Only if you have a saved game on the disk!) - Create new universe. This menu allows you to change the aspect of the planets as the program will choose all the 26 planet surfaces among the pre-designed ones in the "planets"-directory. If you start a new game, the program will ask you if you wish to play alone or with another player. Unnecessary to say that it will be much more fun to play with a friend, but as these are not always present, you may wish to play anyway. In this case, the game will generate enemy troops and simulate a very stupid but more or less strong enemy. This enemy will however not really play like a human and not colonialize other planets as you will do. It will simply own one planet populated by machines and robots that will constantly produce space ships for combat! This planet will be guarded by the powerful Mothership (see below!). At the beginning, you will have about 100 to 120 turns for developing your civilization and spread it among the planets. After this, the Alien invasion will begin and extremely powerful troops will attack your colonies! Be prepared! After this, the main screen will appear for player one. From now on, there will be game turns during which first player one and then player two can order some actions that will then be evaluated by the program. At the beginning of each turn, the players will get a report of everything that has happened. 3. Main screen On the main screen you will see all earth-like planets of the universe. A green circle around a planet means that you have a colony there. A red circle means that a battle is taking place there. A yellow circle means that a conflict may be imminent. (Owner of planet is not the same as owner of the space ships orbiting the planet, but the planet has not yet been attacked.) At the left side of the planet is a yellow point or line that signals the presence of space ships that belong to you. A similar line in red will appear just next to it as soon as enemy troops are orbiting the planet too. The length of this line is proportional to the strength of your fleet until it reaches the maximal height of 15 pixels. Above this line, a tiny hammer-symbol will be drawn if the planet is currently producing something. Every planet has a number and name, but you will only see the name of the planets that you can actually look at (colony or space ships present!). At the bottom of the screen, you will find some menus that will be explained in the following: MOVE SHIPS: ("m" on keyboard). You have to select a planet from where you want to send a space ship and also the destination planet. After this, all available space ships will be listed and you can click on those you wish to send away. Once you have chosen, you can click on the "OK" button to get out of this menu. TRAVEL ROUTES: ("t" on keyboard). All travel routes of the ships actually in flight will be drawn on the screen with red lines. A tiny yellow circle will show the actual position of the ships on this route. FLIGHT STATUS: ("f" on keyboard). All ships in flight will be listed together with their source and destination planet. At the right, the remaining turns needed to reach the destination will be shown. The ships are automatically listed in order of arrival. PLANET LIST: All colonialized planets are listed. You will see your real population, the last turn population growth (in %), the Food/Material/Energy production and the object that the planet is actually constructing. REPORTS: The report that you get at the beginning of each turn will be printed again. This is useful if you have forgotten its content. STATUS: Will show you your actual Tech-Level and the Research Status along with all the ships you own. SPECIAL COMMANDS: Here comes the menu all action freaks have waited for! If you have hi-tech machines on one of your planets, you will be able to give up to three commands that will be executed at the end of the turn. (The result will however only be shown at the beginning of the next turn!). You can do the following: - Short Range Scan: (Needs Planet scanner). The space around your planet will be scanned in a range of 60 pixels and all discovered spaceships drawn as little arrows pointing toward their aim. Enemy ships will appear in a flashing color and your own ships will be drawn in red. - Long Range Scan: Same as above excepted that the range is 120 pixels which allows a wide view into the flight-activities of your enemy. - Energy Cannon Shot: (Needs Energy-Cannon). Three focussed high-energy-beams will be fired toward a selected planet. The impact will completely destroy one surface-unit together with the machine that has been built on it (if there is any!). As I didn't want to make this game too bloody, the colonists that worked on that surface-unit will always be able to escape from the catastrophe! - Destroy Planet: (Needs Planet Destroyer). The "Planet Destroyer" belongs to the class of hi-tech gravity-disruption-weapons and is a result of the advanced quantum-gravity-theory founded by Prof. Von Hirt. This high energy weapon can cause the gravitational collapse of any very large object (like planets!) by sending focussed disturbing gravity-waves that interfere positively on a calculated point and cause such irregularities into the gravitational field that the object is torn apart and explodes. This command is therefore the ultimate immoral command of the game as you simply blow away a whole world, possibly populated by thousands of innocent human beings! So, if you play together with a friend, just don't use it if you still want to be his friend after the game! (I can take no warranty for lost friendships!) SAVE GAME: Allows you to save the game and to continue later by using the "Load game" menu at the beginning. END OF TURN: ("e" on keyboard). You end your turn and give the game control to your friend. If you are player two, the game will first make the end of turn evaluation. EXIT GAME: There is no button to exit the game for security reasons. You may however quit the program with "CTRL-C" and return to the Workbench. (If you started Colonial Conquest from there!). 4. Planet surface If you click on a planet from the main map, you will see the planet surface together with three windows. On the planet surface, you will see your colony with everything that you have built there. Over every object, you will see the number of food, material or energy (yellow lightnings) it produces and/or how much energy it needs (red lightnings). Some objects (as granaries) do not produce at all, but have other purposes. Some objects are automatic and need no human help to work (it is therefore impossible to place a human on them!) while others like food-robots and greenhouses need assistance. By clicking on a surface-square, you can place a colonist on it. You will see at once how much food and material this colonist will produce at this place. If no helping object (as robots) is on this place, the production will usually be quite low, as the colonist will only have simple instruments for his work. Of course, the production strongly depends upon the terrain type. If you click on a colonist, he will disappear from the surface window and appear in the window below as a "free" colonist (red and white cloths) at the right of the working colonists (blue cloths). "Free" colonists work in the city complex or in the colony station for the science research. Normally, each free colonist produces one "science unit" that will make progress research at each turn and rise your TECH-LEVEL after a certain amount of time. The Tech-Level is important for the performance of your fleet (see "Space battles") and also to build Hi-Tech equipment (Battlestars, Stargates etc). It is important to note that each colonist represents 1000 real people (a planet with 6300 people will therefore have 6 colonist units!). Below this, you will find the food production (yellow symbols). Each colonist unit needs one unit of food per turn. If you produce more, the surplus will be seen at the right. If you produce less, you will see green symbols for each missing unit. BE WARNED: If the food production is not sufficient and no food reserves present, a colonist unit will die at the end of the turn! Besides this, you will see the (raw) material production, the energy production (= energy of all power plants - all energy needed for machines and other stuff) and the science "production". The reserves of the planet are listed at the bottom. Note that there is always enough room to deposit raw material, but if you want to make food reserves or energy reserves, you will need special equipment (granary and energy storage unit). At the right side of the screen, all space ships orbiting the planet are listed above. The attack and defence values of the planet will also be printed here. In the window below, you will see what the planet is producing actually and also find all accessible commands ("Install stargate" etc). This window will be called "command window". 4.1. Planet production The first button in the command window is the "Producing" button. By clicking on it, you will get a list of all objects, machines and space ships you can build on the planet. At the right, you will see how many material units will be needed to finish the work, how much energy unit it will cost at each turn once it is built and if a colonist is needed to make it work (you will have to place a colonist on this machine!). Once you have selected an object and no error message has appeared, the production will begin. A white bar will be drawn under the object name and from now on the whole material production of the planet will be put into the construction of the object. Once the bar is full with material symbols, the production will be finished. If you have some raw material left in your reserves, you can use them to accelerate the production of the object. To do this, you have to click into the white bar. As the raw material in the reserves has to be re-worked to be used, you will need two units of material reserves to get one unit for the production! (It is therefore recommended always to build something with the material that is produced and not to stock it in the reserves!). 4.1.1. Planet surface objects For reasons of pollution it is not allowed to build more than 30 objects on one planet! Here is the list of all surface objects: Food-robot: Simple but very efficient help (irrigation etc.) for food production on fertile ground. Needs a colonist. The effect is dependant on the ground it is built on. Greenhouse: Complicated but efficient, very important on planets with no fertile ground. Needs a colonist to work, but it will produce the same amount of food on every ground. Granary: Helps to store 200 units of food. Mining-robot: Helps colonist to get raw material. Effect depends upon ground. Energy collector: Transforms radiation energy from the sun into electric power. Efficiency depends on the ground. (Efficient in deserts, not efficient in forests!). Coal power-plant: Produces much energy. Nuclear power-plant: Produces much, much energy. Energy Storage Unit: Stores up to 300 units of energy. Colony Station: Basic unit carried by each colony ship. The integrated greenhouse produces enough food for two colonist units (only if one colonist stays there!). The colony station produces its own energy and provides room enough for 4000 people. City Complex: Provides room for 8000 people. Needs energy. Ground Defence Unit: Automatic ground defence. Not very strong, but quite resistant. (Attack: 2, Defence: 12). Will allow you to win some time if a very strong enemy attacks your planet. Planets without ground defence automatically fall into the hands of the enemy once you have no space ships in orbit anymore! Planet Scanner: Will allow you to scan the space around your planet. Requires Tech-Level 6! (See "Special Commands"!) Energy Cannon: This heavy energy gun will give you the possibility to shoot from one planet to another, making craters on the planet surface where nothing can be built on. If the energy beams hits any machine or object, this will be completely destroyed! Requires Tech-Level 7! (See "Special Commands"!) Planet Destroyer: Can destroy a whole planet of your choice if you have 1000 energy units left. Requires Tech-Level 8! (See "Special Commands"!) Medical Center: If the population of a planet grows beyond 8000 people, chances for a plague to arise will grow rapidly. A medical center will prevent all sorts of plagues. University: Increases the science production for up to 5 free people. (If you have no free colonists, a university will not help anything!) Space Port: A space port is necessary for building space ships and sending them into orbit! 4.1.2 Space ships If your planet has a space port, you will be able to construct different kinds of space ships: Colony ship: Allows you to send up to 4 colonist units (4000 people) to another planet where you will be able to establish a colony. It can also be used to transport people from one planet to another. Stargate ship: Allows you to install a stargate on any planet. Requires Tech-Level 5! Transport ship: Allows you to transport food, material and energy to another planet. Cruiser: Small warship. Fighter: Larger warship. 4 times stronger than Cruiser. Dreadnought: Huge warship. 4 times stronger than Fighters. Battlestar: Incredibly powerful combat station. 4 times stronger than Dreadnoughts and therefore 64 times stronger than Cruisers! Requires Tech-Level 4! Mothership: When you play against a computer-simulated enemy, you will once encounter the most powerful and terrifying of all space ships ever built: The Mothership! Ten times stronger than one of your mighty Battlestars, this enormous space station has been designed to cause fear to human minds. As it will stay orbiting around its planet-colony, you will have to face and destroy it one day, to be able to conquer the planet and win the game! 4.2. Commands If some actions are possible on the planet, the command menus will appear right under the production button. Here is a list of the possible commands: Establish Colony: If you have a Colony ship in orbit and no colony is presently installed on the planet, you can do so. The ship will land on the chosen place and be transformed into a colony station unit that will provide room for up to four colonist units. The internal sun-energy collectors will provide enough energy for the internal greenhouse that produces 2 units of food if one of the colonists is put on it. This way, you will have at least one of the colonist free to do some mining or research. Install stargate: If you have a Stargate ship in orbit, you will be able to transform it into a stargate. The high-energy singularity will be taken out of the Möbius-box and placed into a hexagonal Von-Hirt-field. Thanks to the principle of singularity convergence, it will automatically be connected to all other singularities of the universe and therefore to all other stargates which will allow all ships to travel at zero-time from one Stargate to another. Load Transporter/Unload Transporter: If you have a Transport ship in orbit, you will be able to transfer your planet reserves to the ship or unload the content of the ship to the planet reserves. Show Transporter: Allows you to have a look at the content of the Transport ships that are actually in orbit. Load Colony Ship/Unload Colony Ship: Allows you to evacuate up to four people from a planet to the colony ship and the contrary. Attack Planet/Stop Attack: Once you have your own ships orbiting a planet that has been colonialized by your enemy, your ships will not automatically attack the planet surface. This allows you a larger number of different strategies when you are playing together with a friend. If you wish to attack it (or to stop a current attack!), you will have to click on this menu. 5. End of turn Once both players have given their commands, the program will calculate the effects of these commands. Here are the main points of this procedure: 5.1. Space ships & Space battles All space ships are moved by one unit. If they arrive to their destination planet, the program tests if enemy troops are there. If so, a space battle will take place. This battle is invisible for the player and only the result will be shown, but here is how the battles are simulated: Each ship type has an attack value and a defence value. For simplicity, these values are equal in Colonial Conquest. The attack value represents the number of shots that this ship can fire toward the enemy, the defence value represents the number of shots that the ship can absorb before being destroyed. This value is therefore decreased at each hit and once it is zero, the ship will explode. In the battle, each side can shoot once until all ships of both sides have fired all their guns. Each shot hits with a chance of 15% plus the Technology-Level of the owner of the ships! (In other words: if you have a Tech-Level of 10, the chances of your ships to hit an enemy ship are 25%!) If the planet where the battle is taking place is colonialized, the enemy side will have the possibility to attack it (see "Attack planet" menu of the command window!). The attack and defence values of the planet will then be added to the total fleet force. Once the defence of the planet has dropped to zero, the planet will be without defence and automatically surrender to the enemy! It is therefore possible to continue to play even if you have lost all planets as long as you have enough war ships left to attack and conquer a planet of your opponent. The player will see the result of all battles in the battle report that will be shown at the beginning of every new turn. 5.2. Population growth & Production On the planets, the population will grow depending upon the food surplus that is produced at each turn. In addition to this, the food reserves of the planet will have a negative influence if there are not at least 4 units left for every colonist. The growth rate will never be higher than 5%. At the beginning of the game, you will have 5000 people on your planet represented by five colonists. For all next 1000 people you will get one colonist more. As people need room to live, you will have to build city complexes (8000 people each) to enlarge the initial colony station (4000 people). If there is no room left, the population will not grow anymore! Once your population has reached 8000 people, chances for a plague will rise. It is therefore useful to build a medical center at this time. At every turn, all material will be used to build the active object. If no object is chosen, all material will go into the reserves. Once the object is built, you will see it in the planet window. 5.3. Game End Once one side has lost all its planets and all its spaceships, the game will end. A normal message will appear at the end of your monthly report informing you that you have won/lost. You will then have time to look at all your planets and space ships (if you are the winner) or to switch off the Amiga before the final screen appears (if you are the (bad!) looser). Once both players have seen the results and ended their turn, a final graphic screen will appear to celebrate the winner. After a few seconds you will be able to click on your mouse and the game will return to the Workbench. 6. Last Word Wow! I admit that this manual is quite long! Sorry! It's just because the game rules got more and more complicated during the programing, and I couldn't resist the temptation to implement all new ideas I got during the hours of boring game-testing. Fortunately, I think that Colonial Conquest is very easy to handle and the rules are quite intuitive. If you are used to play this kind of strategy games, you will probably not have to read the whole manual - just start the game and have a look! (That's the way impatient people like me do it usually!) For all of you who would like to know a little bit more about the making of Colonial Conquest, I have written the following few lines: This program has been written in about one month with the fantastic AMOS Basic (v1.36) and compiled with the AMOS Compiler, both from Europress Software. It contains more than 3000 program lines. The title picture was created with Imagine v2.0 and all icons were painted with DPaint IV. It has been designed on a A4000 and was therefore always very fast. I hope that it will not be too slow on smaller machines. Colonial Conquest has been written to be a nice-looking, easy to use immoral strategy game to be played with a friend. I hope you will enjoy it! At this point I would like to thank Armand Hirt for his incredible Icon-Map-Editor and Michael Unternährer for game testing. I would also like to make an advertising for a huge role-playing game that Armand Hirt and I are programing for more than a year now. It will probably be called THE MISSION and be for sure one of the most complex role playing games ever created. (I'm very excited about it, as you see!). We will release it as shareware or giftware sometime in 1994. Watch out for it! Comments, donations, postcards, bug reports etc. to: Christian Mumenthaler Langgrütstr. 178 CH-8047 Zürich SWITZERLAND E-mail: mumi@stud.phys.ethz.ch (As I am just finishing my studies, I may not be able to keep this e-mail address for a long time!) PS: Please read the "Copyright"-file too! It is very important! Zürich, 25. October 1993