GALACTIC EMPIRE Version 2.41 Game Play Instructions (C)1988-1992 By Bill Mountney & Bill Coffman SO, YOU WANT TO RULE A GALACTIC EMPIRE? ======================================= Well, you have a very big job ahead of you. It's the year 3092 and humankind (not to mention non-humankind) has finally risen above the dark ages of senseless warfare and violence between rival countries, and moved on to a golden new age of senseless warfare and violence between rival Galactic Empires. As the ruler of one of these Empires, you will be right in the thick of it, so there are a few things you'll have to know. WHAT'S THE DEAL? ================ You will be the leader of an Empire in space. In the beginning, your Empire will consist of just a few planets and a small army, but with luck and experience, you may eventually build an interstellar superpower. First, however, you'll have to learn the basics... CREDITS ======= Credits are the standardized monetary exchange unit of most of the known Universe. You will, of course, want as many of them as possible. One source of income for your Empire is the taxes collected from your people. Others will be discussed below. PLANETS & PRODUCTION ==================== Planets are really what it's all about. Your goal is to acquire as many as possible in order to expand your Empire. Planets come in four varieties, each of which produces a different type of product: Energy: Energy planets produce energy, which is the most important commodity of all, because without it you cannot produce anything else. Producing Energy, through solar power, is relatively cheap. A small amount of energy is used in the process by the control equipment and the people who work there. Food: Food planets produce the food that is needed for your Population, Troops, Generals, and therefore your whole Empire, to survive. Food planets require more credits and energy to maintain than do energy planets, due to the farm machinery required. Ore: Neutrinium Ore is the primary metal used in construction of all types of space craft and weapons, due to its superior strength. The mining operations required to get at the ore are costly and use much more energy than food or energy planets. Galactite: Galactite, the rarest of all known elements, has only recently been discovered to exist on a limited number of planets. Although its properties are not yet fully explored or understood, it has already been found to be of extreme value as a source of power for the newly developed Planetary Defense System. It is mined from the core of the planet, and this is a very expensive and energy hungry process. All four types of planets require roughly the same amount of people there to do the work. You must have an average population of at least 20 million per planet in order to achieve normal production levels. EMPIRE STATUS REPORT ==================== The first thing you will want to check out when maintaining the Empire is your up to date Empire Status Report. This will tell you most of the important information on your Empire, including the amounts of various items that you currently own, number of planets you have, alliance status, etc. Take your time reading this, because as soon as you're done it's time for the drudgery of: PAYING THE BILLS ================ These are the costs you will face in running your Empire. Planetary Maintenance: Your planets need to be properly funded in order for them to produce. If you neglect this payment, you may wind up in a production slump that will be very difficult to survive. You may also wish to pay a bit more to achieve even greater production, but this will only work up to a point. Energy For Production: Planets require adequate amounts of energy to produce their goods. This is as just as important as the maintenance fee, and the same points mentioned above apply here. Crime Prevention Agency: You can't expect to have an Empire of billions and billions of people without some crime. The less you pay here the more you'll have. Intelligence Agency: Your Intelligence Agency performs the dual role of spying and covert operations in other Empires, and protecting your own Empire from such actions. You may hire up to five Covert Operation Groups. This fee will come up only once per day and will cost 10000 credits for each group that is assigned to internal counterintelligence duty and 20000 credits for each group on foreign intelligence duty. Neglecting to pay the fee will result in poor performance in both areas. Military Maintenance: There are plenty of other Empires out there who all want what the others have. Whether or not you will be an aggressor or defender, you will want to keep your military well paid. Paying them a bit more than required can improve performance. Feeding Your People and Troops: Basically, hungry people don't work, and hungry soldiers don't fight. They also kind of tend to get rather angry. If they get too angry, the stability of your Empire may be in trouble. Ore For Command Ship: A Command Ship is an important part of your military arsenal. If you begin constructing one, it will require large amounts of Ore for its construction and maintenance. If it gets the amount of Ore that is required, its power will increase up to the maximum of 100%. If neglected or damaged in battle, it will decrease. If you allow it fall to 0% it will be beyond repair and you must build a new one. Galactite For Satellite Defense Shield: A Satellite Defense Shield will protect your Empire from attack by Interplanetary Ballistic Missiles. If you have any satellites, they require Galactite for charging. If you give them the required amount of Galactite, the charge will gradually increase to 100%. If neglected, or damaged by missile attacks, it will decrease. A Galactite reaction is very unstable, and if you allow the charge to remain at 0% for very long, some of your satellites may explode when their charge reverses polarity. INTERIOR STATUS REPORT ====================== The Interior Status Report actually consists of several different reports which contain various information about changes and problems in your Empire. Population Report: You will be given statistics on the number of people who have been born, died, immigrated to, or defected from the Empire. This will be followed by the new total population count and the average population per planet. The average population per planet is of particular interest, because if your people become spread out too thinly, there will not be enough of them to get the work done, and production will drop off. It is necessary to have at least 20 million people per planet for normal production. Production Report: You will be told the number of planets you have producing each product, their current production efficiency, how much of each product was produced and the new total of each product that you have on hand. Military Status: This will give you the current Military Strength rating, and any changes in the Command Ship or Defense Shield status. Important Notices: Following these two reports, you may get a report on any special or adverse conditions in your Empire. This includes energy or food shortages, over-expansion, crime reports, etc. THE INTERGALACTIC COMMODITIES MARKET ==================================== The Intergalactic Commodities Market has for decades been the one stable thing in the otherwise unpredictable Universe. Empires from all over come here when the have excess products to sell, or when they need to buy some of the various products to survive. They can either buy or sell to other Empires, or to the Market itself as long as it has something in stock to sell, or room left in which to store what it would buy. Usually, the best deals are gotten through dealing with other Empires. The problem that arises with dealing with other Empires is that they never tend to be at the Market at the same time, but the Market has developed a solution. The Market maintains a list of any products an Empire wishes to buy or sell and the prices at which to do it. Even though another Empire may not be at the Market while you are there, the Market can carry out the transaction he wishes to make. When you wish to buy or sell something you will get a list of all the other Empires who wish to buy or sell that product. You can then chose to deal with any one of them, the Market itself, or add your own name to the list so other Empires can deal with you while you're away. PLANETARY OPERATIONS ==================== Colonizing Planets: You must colonize planets in order to set up production facilities on them. The price for colonization varies with the type of product being produced. Abandonment: You may at times find that you have bit off more than you can chew when it comes to colonizing planets. It requires 20 million people per planet to do the work required for normal production. If your population is spread out more thinly than this, production levels will begin to drop off. One solution to this over- expansion is to wait until your population grows enough to fill the available planets. If the situation is too urgent to wait it out, your only option is to abandon enough planets to keep the other ones running smoothly. Unfortunately, the money you put into colonizing them will be lost. Dead Planet Options: Dead planets are planets which have been rendered lifeless by a Gas Warhead attack. You have the choice to restore them to operation or abandon them. Restoration costs approximately 3/4 the price of colonizing a new planet of the same type. Priority For Production: You may assign a priority level to each type of planet that determines its importance during production. This level ranges from 1 to 4 with 1 being the most important. In the event that there is not enough Energy or Maintenance Funds to cover all of your planets, the type with the highest priority will get it's share first, assuring that you get the best possible production of the products you need most. You may have multiple planet types assigned to the same priority level, in which case they will all get equal shares before any lower priority types. How Big Is The Universe? People tend to think of Planets as being an unlimited resource that will never run out. Of course, they always think that about every unlimited resource until it finally does run out. And, as with every other "unlimited" resource through history, they are beginning to find planets to be a little harder to come by. With some of the new destructive weaponry mentioned above, the problem will no doubt be intensified. Remember: Trees may grow on Planets, but Planets don't grow on Trees. BLACK MARKET PURCHASES ====================== From time to time, you will be approached by various shady characters offering to sell you items which most likely cannot be obtained from any other source. Several of these are discussed below in the section on Interplanetary Missiles. There is also rumored be a new biological warfare weapon, which although it has not been successfully placed in a missile warhead yet, may be able to be used as a weapon by other means. It is most likely very dangerous to handle, and it is unsure whether a successful cure has been developed yet. You would probably be best advised to avoid it like the plague. GOVERNMENT SPENDING =================== You'll need a strong military to survive, either for offense or defense. These are the items you'll need to consider: Troops and Generals: Troops are, as they have always been, the primary strength of any army. They are needed for both offense and defense. Without Generals to lead them, however, they will not be very useful. A single General can control about 5000 Soldiers. Fighters and Defense Stations: Fighters could be considered the tanks or planes of modern space warfare, depending on your point of view. On the other hand, Defense Stations are designed to destroy them. Unless you have enough fighters to penetrate your enemies Defense Station network, you will be unable to land your Troops, and the battle will not go very well for you. Keep in mind that a single Defense Station is a bit more powerful than a single Fighter. In addition to the cost of building Fighters or Defense Stations, you must have enough Ore available for their construction. Command Ship: A Command Ship is a powerful addition to your military arsenal. It will add considerable offensive or defensive firepower to any military operation. When you first begin construction it will still be very weak, and it will take a while for it to be built up to maximum power. If it is damaged during an attack it will also take time to be rebuilt. The construction and maintenance of a Command Ship both require Neutrinium Ore. Inter-Planetary Ballistic Missiles: IPBM's, developed during the last few decades, have become a very powerful and frightening force throughout the Universe. They are available with several different types of warheads, each of which will produce different results. They are launched and travel through space at high speed seeking to impact on the planets of the target Empire. The types of missiles which are currently available are as follows: Regular Missiles: These carry large payloads of conventional explosives and can inflict mass damage on the population, military facilities, and production facilities of the planets they impact. They may occasionally destroy a planet altogether. Neutron Missiles: These frightening weapons destroy all life on a planet, but leave its production facilities intact. This will result in the victimized Empire having to spread its population out more thinly, which could reduce it's production substantially. Gas Missiles: These Missiles are only available though Black Market sources. They can utterly destroy all life and equipment on a planet. The gas will eat through and dissolve all organic or metallic material it comes in contact with, and turn the planet into a vast wasteland. These "dead" planets will have to be recolonized before they can ever produce again. Planx Missiles: These devastating weapons are currently being sold only through Black Market sources. The place of their origin and the process used to manufacture them is still unknown. It is suspected that they may be product of the evil Andromeda Empire which will be discussed later. What do they do? Well, they blow any planet they hit into cosmic dust. They tend to be a bit less accurate than the other types of Warheads, but the effect more than makes up for it. The Planetary Defense System: This new technology, based on a idea originally proposed a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, has just recently been perfected. It is the only defense against attack by IPBM's. It uses a system of satellites, orbiting the planets which are to be defended, which will attempt to track and destroy incoming missiles using high energy particle beams. Until the discovery of Galactite, there was no power source capable of sustaining the type of beam required. But Galactite is rare and expensive, and it's use as a power source is still unstable at best, so this system may still be a bit ahead of it's time. Also, in order for it to be truly effective, you must purchase at least one satellite for each of your planets, and the more you have, the more Galactite you will need to charge the system. Having more than one satellite per planet will increase the system's overall effectiveness. FOREIGN AFFAIRS =============== You will eventually be interacting with other Empires in various ways. These are the options you have: Attacking: Here is where you get to put all that expensive military hardware to work. You can mount a conventional attack, in which you will deploy Fighters, Troops and Generals, along with your Command Ship if you have one, or you can launch an IPBM attack with any various types of Missiles you have in your arsenal. Alliances: Attacking is not the only way to interact with other Empires. You may form an alliance with another Empire which will provide each of you with military help from the other during an offensive or defensive action. If you propose an alliance to another Empire, they will have the option of accepting your proposal, after which you will go through a series of negotiations to decide how much support each of you will provide during an attack, or during defense from one. During an alliance, the two Empires will be able to freely view each others status reports, and will be prevented from attacking or performing covert operations on each other. There is nothing to prevent one of them from breaking the alliance at any time and then attacking, however, news of this back-stabbing behavior will likely spread to other Empires who would probably think twice about ever accepting another alliance with such a two faced Empire. Espionage: Covert Operations Groups can be hired and implanted in other Empires, providing you with intelligence reports on the their internal affairs, and information on an enemy's military before an attack. They may also carry out covert terrorist operations. Amongst their possible missions are such diverse elements as stealing Credits, Food and other products, sabotaging Production Facilities, blowing up Fighters or Defense Stations, damaging or destroying the Command Ship or Planetary Defense System, assassinating Generals, and other more devious actions. Cargo Shipments: You may build Cargo Ships which can be used to transport goods to other Empires. The most common use for this is to give support to your Ally or other Empires with whom you have good relations. The shipments may either be provided to the other Empire for no charge, or have a COD fee attached to them. The products that the Cargo Ships are currently equipped to transport are Credits, Food, Energy, Troops, Generals, Fighters, and Defense Stations. Communications: Empires may communicate with each other through the Galactic E-Mail System. This allows the private transmission of messages to a single Empire or group of Empires. There is also a feature to allow mass mailings to all Empires, which could be useful if an Empire has something it wishes to "advertise". You may also send messages anonymously if required. List of Empires: You may also access the List of Known Empires of the Universe, which will show the name of each Empire, and it's current total number of planets. SO WHAT AREN'T YOU TELLING ME HERE? =================================== There are some things which are best learned through experience, but here are some hints that may help: - You must keep an average population per planet of at least 20 million in order to achieve normal production. - A new Empire will usually have a limited number of turns of protection from attack by other Empires to allow time to build up adequate defenses. However, this protection will be forfeited upon the first aggressive move, which includes conventional attacks, missile attacks, and covert missions (but not merely spying.) - You should beware the evil Andromeda Empire. They will stop at nothing to try to take over the Universe and all that is in it, and should not be trusted under any circumstances.