========================= B A T T L E O F R O M E ========================== (c) by Dreadnought of POW! 1995 Yo, what's this ? Another brilliant Basic program ? Yes, you're completely right, but this time it's from Dreadnought, and you sure know, that this means something... Battle of Rome was a little strategy game on C64 I knew a couple of years ago (also coded in basic), and I don't hardly remember any of the rules in there... But a few days ago I wanted to code something small, easy and short, but with much fun in it, and I did successfully. It grew out to a quite nice thing, and I and Juggler found out, that the basic game-idea is a great one, and we tuned it up, with a bit of sound and a small intro-duction, you're just reading. Please excuse all lacks in programming and speed, 'cause it's only a small funny program ( and it's not so slow to complain about ). Enough of that, now: -- HOW TO PLAY Battle of Rome (trademark) -------------------------------------- Two players compete each other on a free choosen map out of twenty delivered with the basic version. One player's colour is green, the other one owns all what's red on the screen (on colour monitor, of coz, on greenys there are competing a dark green one against a light green one, also very funny). You've got a cursor, flashing around, which can be moved anywhere over the chart on the left side of the screen. To do so use cursor keys and copy or alternative a joystick and fire 1 (you play with keys, and your competitor can use the joy, for instance). When you're at move,your name appears on the top of the rights side, and is written in your colour. Pick up one of your armys, and a question mark will appear there. Now move the cursor to one empty - non watered - field on the left, right side, above or below it ( not diagonal ). Your army will move and change its look, to show that it has been moved, what is once possible a round. When you're ready with your armys ( you don't have to move all of them ), press Q to 'Quit' your turn. When you are Player 2, fighting starts, otherwise the other player's got to move. You can also press <TAB> to show the remaining strength of the army the cursor is placed on (not available in tournament mode). -- STATISTICS ------------------------------------------------------------------ On the right beside the battlefield, you can see different values: 'ARMY' shows you how much armys a player have got left, 'DEAD' shows you how much died till now. 'STRG' means strength and is the strength of all remaining armys of this player added. 'AVST' is the value of STRG/ARMY, means average strength per army of this player (very practical to find out, how strong your opponent is). All these nice options are NOT available in tournament mode. -- HOW IT WORKS ---------------------------------------------------------------- Armys are fighting against each other, when they are in direct contact. (Notice: Also diagonal). Fighting results in lowering the strength of an army. Each army has got strength 10.0 when the battle starts (Notice: floating-point-values, although there is an integer value showed, when pressing TAB ). Lets say, one army of each player is standing in direct contact, they both got strength ten. After Player 2 moved, battle will rage there, and both have got strength nine left (Logical, isn't it ?). Same situation, but now player 2's army is in direct contact with two armys of player 1 at once. Each army of pl1 will lose 1 strength item, but the single army of pl2 will lose 2 items. Now a bit more complicated: When one of your armys is fighting, it can be covered (protected) by other of your armys in direct contact with it. Now not 1 strength point will be substracted for each attacking enemy, but only 0.8 (number of covering armys) Let's show it: 1=army of pl1 1.. 2=army of pl2 +------> 12. ç .1. +-----------------------+ ç Let's look at this army of player 1. It is attacked by one enemy. It would lose 1 strength point, when it would stand alone there. But it is covered by two own armys, from above and down right. Because of this it loses only 0.64 (.0.2) strength points. The army of player 2 isn't in a such good situation: it's attacked by three enemys and not covered by anyone, what should lead to an lack of 3 strength points after each round. After a few round's it will have a remaining strength of <1.0 and will explode and be blown away from the chart. Notice: When an army isn't moved, it will win 0.35 strength points each round. Yes, believe it or not, but that was it, quite easy, but there are many tactical tricks and a hell-of-a-lot of fun resulting out of this simple rules. -- TACTICAL PLAY --------------------------------------------------------------- These are only a few recommondations from me, you soon will discover a few more things: * When you're player 1, notice: Disadvantage: When you try to run away of one of the enemy armys, you need two fields space, because player 2 comes straight after your move, and it will be fighted after his. Advantage: When an army disappears from the battlefield, you're the first to react and to fill-in-the-hole (when you want to). * When you're player 2, notice: You can always run away from your enemy as long there is space there, because fighting is calculated always after your move and not after his. * When you've got a big army together: Try to battle on empty field without any barriers. Your army is working best, when it's close together. Don't go into small passages, where its narrow, and you've got only one or two fields width to pass through. It will sure kill you. * When you've got a few single army units: Try to bring them together. * When you've got less armys than your enemy: Use small passages, try to hide on corners, on islands, behind seas, and try to avoid to be attacked from various directions. * Offensive play: Try to surround your enemy, go towards him, try to drive him against the border or against barriers. * Defensive play: Run away, don't move (your armys will restore strength) * VERY IMPORTANT: When you're standing with a lot of units on a frontier, change sometimes the armys on the strong attacked places and put them away only to cover the fighting ones. When you don't move them, they will recover strength. And remember: An army with a strength of 1 or 2, that can only cover, but not fight itself, is better than a killed one. * Always watch the 'AVSTR' average strength of your opponent ! (only in training mode) * In each fighting round, look at both of your 'STRG' total strength, and the change of them will show you, if it is all going right, of if you've got to change something. (only in training mode) -- Level constructing: --------------------------------------------------------- Use the program 'BORgen.bas' to generate levels. Use the 'LIST' command, and you'll find some explanations. Alternative you can also use any kind of texteditor, when you just follow these simple rules: line1 : Name of level, maximum 14 chars line2 : Comment (scrolls at beginning), max. 255 chars line3 : Author, level creator line4..25: Level (22 chars each line) chars: 'ù'=land, ' '=water,'1'=army player 1,'2'=army player2 If something's not clear, just look at one of the basic levels... -- How to compete with 'Battle of Rome' ---------------------------------------- Choose 'tournament play'. In this mode all statistics and informations about strength and so on won't be showed. Look with your opponent at the title screen and come to an agreement 'bout the level to play. Use four pieces of paper, two labeled as 'player 1' and two as 'player 2'. Give two various to each player and let each one of them lay the one, which his wanted playernumber is written on, on the table with the top down, and compare them when both opponents are ready. If the two competitors do not agree on different players, repeat this procedure again and again, 'til there is a decision made. -- Credits: -------------------------------------------------------------------- Game Idea, Code, Gfx (which gfx?): Dreadnought of POW! Testing, inspiration : Juggler of POW! Greets fly to: Batman, Antoine, Juggler, the Wizcat's (learn to play this game like hell, on the next meeting I will get my revenge for this damned 'Four wins' competition !), the FRANKENTEAM, BOLLAWARE, Cherry-T, and to all readers of TRIBAL MAG & MAGNETIC MESSENGER ! -- Finally: -------------------------------------------------------------------- I hope, you will have a lot of fun with Battle of Rome, like I had, and when you like it and it's idea, let me know, using the scene-type information ways (Overkill, C-F, Tribal Mag). Perhaps I will write an sequel, coded in a 'serious' way... =======================> DREADNOUGHT OF POW! 1995 <======================= Latest News (4.4.1995): BATTLE OF ROME is right now being converted on Archi (hehe, only joking - on PC !), in a big fat multimedial brainblasting fascinating coool way.... Using Digitized sounds, in 640*480 resolution, scrolling, modem, serial links, and networks, (perhaps, perhaps not, you sure know this from Tribal Mag),... Anyway, I'm coding it by myself, need I say more ? Look out for another piece of fantastic software ! ================================================================================