**************************************************************************** Galactic Empires version 1.5.1 by Mark Anthony Tierno **************************************************************************** First, for all of the READ-ME stuff. This program, DOCS, and all files accompanying this program are hereby copyrighted DEC 1990 - NOV 1996. This program is being released as ANYWARE and may be freely distributed as such as long as this file, the DOCS, and all parts of the program and files are distributed along with it as a whole. So, if you get hooked on this game (a strong possibility I assure you), then please send MONEY (green stuff, moola, US currency (no foreign bills please), etc.), about $7.50, or ANYTHING worth about $7.50 or more (registered programs of your own, the world's cheapest '060 accelerator, an old XT I can use as a door-stop, etc.). Registration gets you any future updates, or notices about anything else that I may come out with). Please send your ANYWHERE to the address of the POOR beleaguered programer given down below. Oh, yeah, almost forgot (well, not really), if you find any bugs that I should know about, or, better yet, have any praise, compliments, medals, awards, or whatever that you want to give me (not to mention the above stated ANYWHERE fee, hint, hint, hint), then please write to: Mark A. Tierno 1718 Encino Ave. Monrovia, CA, 91016 and I'll see what I can do. For now, enjoy the game. See 'Ya. All pictures I hereby copyright FEB 1991 by Joe Deats and ME. Version Copyright history: Version 1.1 is copyrighted Feb 1995 (I hope it was worth the wait). Version 1.2 is copyrighted May 1995 (you'll like this one!). Version 1.3 is copyrighted about June or so 1995 Version 1.4 is copyrighted late 1995 (now uses a button-bar interface) Version 1.5 is copyrighted April 1996 (requesters, requesters everywhere) Version 1.5.1 is copywritted Nov 1996 (bug fixes, no longer crashes after loading a game) The program needs the Mathtrans library (for some reason), but if it isn't around, the system requestor might start asking for the "xec.library". After much trial and error, I found out that it needed the mathtrans.library (don't ask me why it insists on calling it the xec.library). In any case, said library hould be included on this disk. It also needs the narrator.device, speak-handler, and translator.library (all of which are included on the distribution disk). This distribution is now on two disks named Galactic.Empires.A and Galactic.Empires.B Complete distribution contents: Galactic.Empires.A: c (dir) AddBuffers BindDrivers Copy Echo EndCLI FastMemFirst LoadWB Mount SetPatch devs (dir) MountList narrator.device system-configuration l (dir) aux-handler Disk-Validator port-handler queue-handler speak-handler libs (dir) iffparse.library mathtrans.library translator.library s (dir) Startup-Sequence Disk.info Galactic.Empires (v1.5.1) Galactic.Empires.info GE.1.5.1.guide GE.1.5.1.guide.info GE.READ.ME.1.5.1 GE.READ.ME.1.5.1.info Galactic.Empires.B: GE.Pics (dir) (a directory that contains all of the pictures) Anti.Pirates.Res Espionage.Res Espionage.Res.2 GE.Title.Page InterS.Enquire MA.Battle.Fleet MA.Ice.Cruiser MA.Plasma Mines.Res Missiles.Res Nat.Disast New.Planet.Probe Pirates.Res Pop.Updates.Res GE.Sound (dir) (a directory that contins all of the sound and music files) AntiPirate.Snd Attack.Alert Attack.Snd Com.Pipe Espionage.snd ISBM.Snd Mines.Snd NatDis.Snd OpenCredits.Snd Pirate.Snd PopUpdate.Snd Sensors Turn.Snd 1.3.Icons (dir) disk.info galactic.empires.info Disk.info ***-From version 1.0: This program, DOCS, and all files accompanying this program are hereby copyrighted DEC 1990 - JAN 1991 (so it took me about a good month to debug the darn thing, it isn't exactly a short program ya' know). Next, what IS this game. Well, as the title may suggest, you get to go out and conquer space. The difference is that, this game can take up to two to EIGHT PLAYERS, each battling against each other and, quite possibly, other native aliens. Because, you see, space being three-dimensional, so is this game. Thus, there is a star map, divided up into parsecs (yes, I actually use real units like parsecs and months instead of arbitrary things such as turns and sectors), some containing star systems, some not, each player having a star system of his own, with quite a few extra stars left over to explore and use (the more players, the bigger the star map generated, and hence the more stars there'll be and the more memory used for this game). You get to move fleets, trade, perform a variety of espionage options, launch missiles, interdict someone else's trade fleets, even lay space mines. Such a LARGE variety of options to use and yet, because the turns are menu driven (what else on an Amiga?!) and clearly presented (I hope), the game is very SIMPLE to play, most of it being self- explanatory (don't worry, I'll explain it all anyway). After the first turn, you'll be an expert (well, at least very good), but watch out for the Natural Disasters and reports from the Interstellar Enquirer (some of what it says is actually true!). All in all, I tried to put everything in it that I could think of to make it as realistic as possible (SF reality that is) and still keep it as simple and as fun as possible. Enough of that, if you want details on game play, then read the accompanying DOCS file, me, it's lunch-time and I'm getting hungry for a grilled-cheese sandwich, so - One last note: This program displays 2 windows. The bottom one usually is the input one, with the top one being display and output. This isn't always so though. So, make sure that you have the correct window highlighted before entering any data. ***-Version 1.2 update: Version 1.2 now has AI! You can now set the computer to take the turns for any number of the players. It will then play each player independent of any of the others, attack and trade with any other computer opponents about as often as it will with the human players (even on the hardest setting, it doesn't arbitrarily single out the poor humans), and have the full capability to do everything that the people-players could do. It can engage in trade, decide on it's own orders for attacking, keeps track of who it like and who it doesn't (so be nice to it), adjust it's decision-making based on on-going circumstances, and even send and recieve messages and react to their contents (with a fair ampount of freedom on how they can even be worded)! It plays a reasonably intelligent game, adjusting what it builds as needed, making alliances (including the ability to engage in multi-player attacks on a single opponent), even back-stabbing allies from time to time. Every option the players can do, the computer can do also (except for accessing the cheat mode... although I was rather tempted; hmmm, a computer that cheats... :) ). What's more, the code is written as efficiently as I could, so it doesn't take it all that long to take the turns for a given computer-player, so you won't have to wait for the computer. As a matter of fact, when I put a little timer routine in the program to find out just how long, it averaged out to 0.9 sec for a given player (on my stock A4000/040). The only reason why it seems to take about a half a second longer is because I put in an intentional pause of 0.6 sec so that it's actually possible for one to read the message that indicates when the computer is taking it's turns (otherwise it would flash by to quickly). All this was done without my ever having seen so much as a flow-chart of how others write routines for their games to allow the computer to take the turns for a given player- I had to figure everything from scratch, using a little logic. With that handicap I think that I did pretty good. If you want to see how I did it then just send in your shareware fee and I'll send you the source code. **** If you want a quick start to the AI (w/out having to read the DOCS file), to have the computer take the turns for a given player, the first four letters of that player's name must be COMP (capitalized or not), the rest of the name being open to one's whim. Also, I've added a new option at the end of all the turns. When it asks if you wish to continue the game (after asking if you want to save it), it will also now give you the choice of changing the names of any of the players. This is a good way to toggle a player from computer-played to human-played and back again (by just changing the first 4 letters of the name). Since the computer keeps track of all information relevant to the AI part whether it's computer-played or not, then it makes no difference to the program if a player was ever played by the computer before or not. Also in this new version, you'll notice that I managed to find a couple more sound files (for the opening screen and espionage screen), although I still need to find some more. These new files are actually miniature tracker modules insteaed of being completely digitized, so it saves a bit of space. SEVERAL bug fixes were found and fixed, most of them found by the computer when it was taking it's turns! Bugs that would only pop up under rare circumstances (and some that had never happened at all) were found rather quickly by the computer. It was like having over half a dozen beta-testers doing everything they could for a month to break the program, with bugs popping up by the hour. So, thanks to the new AI part of the program, it's now more bug proof than before. One NOTE: Any games saved under version 1.1 won't load properly under version 1.2. This is because v1.2 has three extra arrays (used by the new AI routines) and one of the attack arrays was increasaed in size by one element; as such, the computer will be looking for these new additions when loading any saved game. Since these additions won't be present in a verion 1.1 game, you're likely to get EOF error messages if you try. This shouldn't be too much of a problem though, since I don't think that V1.1 ever got all that much distribution anyhow. NOTE: THIS GAME IS NOW A TWO-DISK SET. I had to put the distribution onto two disks because the additional code for the new AI features added an additional 84K to the program, and I had two new sound files. Since the original distribution disk only had about 22K left, I had to put the sound and graphics files onto a second disk (which also leaves more room for any future expansion). The disks are called GALACTIC.EMPIRES.A and GALACTIC.EMPIRES.B. If you want a copy of the source code, then just send in your Sharware fee, along with you name and address (an S.A.S.E. would be nice), and I'll be glad to send it to you Any comments aare also appreciated, I like to get mail just so long as it doesn't involve threats, letter bombs, or strange packages from Brazil. I don't have an E-mail address, so you'll just have to use normal postal services. *** The Docs are now in AmigaGuide format!!! (Hey, Neat!). *** ***-Version 1.3 update: I finally took out the time to work around the color-cycling problem. Any pictures needing color cycling are now cycled from within the program itself, with no need for any external viewers (Yeah!). The actual programing part wasn't the problem, it just was a pain to hunt up which color registers were the one's being cycled, and then having to do that for for EACH individual picture, and some of them had up to 4 different cycles (BLEGH!). , tedium. Well, at least it's done. I also cleaned out a few out-dated pieces of code that I'd found while I was at it. ***-Version 1.4 update: Switched from a menu-driven interface to a GUI-like button bar interface. Easy to use, same menu and menu-item names, just with buttons instead. Also, several minor cosmetic changes ***-Version 1.5 update: Finished adding all the needed sound files, added several cosmetic fixes, and added a LOT of requesters. ***-Version 1.5.1 update: Tracked down a couple of bugs. One was needing to put quotes around the file name when saving and loading a game (to account for names like "RAM DISK:" with a space in there). The other was that it crashed 2 turns after loading up saved game (thanks James Tam for pointing that one out- enjoy the cheat code)- turns out to have been due to an array that wasn't being saved (because it didn't NEED to be) but that also wouldn't get properly initilized after loading up an old game- a silly oversight but it took me two days to track down. Anyway, you can now Save games and re-load them and not have to worry. ***Future Plans*** -backdrop screens for each of the various menu options when taking one's turns, providing something other than your basic black to look at while playing the gamne. -someone mentioned to put in animation, but darn if I can think of a place where it would do any good to have some (other than just gratuitis satisfaction). -on-line help was suggested (although I can't picture anyone actually needing it, especially on a multitasking computer with such a simple to play game as this one, but, I'll consider it). -suggestions that I've been handed include: serial support (which I don't know how to do), the ability to increase the starting Tech levels later in the game by buying research and such (I'll think on that one), and graphical interface to replace the menu bar. Since, with the finish of the AI coding, I now conider the main operating guts of the program finished, I'll now consider adding such bells and whistles in future versions. -I finally got a C (SAS/C) compiler! Now all I have to do is learn C.