THE BROKEN SEAL - DESKTOP PLAYER MANUAL (LINUX AND WINDOWS) Version 0.6.1 - Created by Heisenberg 1. QUICK START AND CONTROLS ========================== Starting a campaign The title screen offers: 1 New campaign, 2 Continue (the latest autosave), 3 Load, 4 How to play, 5 Settings and 6 Quit. Press the number or click the line. When a campaign is already running, 0 returns to it. A new campaign takes five short steps: Scenario 1 Seal Broken (year 211): four houses and two outlaw bands stand even. 2 The Usurper (year 219): House Lin holds the capital and four more provinces. 3 Last Houses (year 241): Lin and Feng hold six provinces each, Qiao and Shen one each. House pick your house by its ruler's portrait. The houses are Lin, Qiao, Shen and Feng, and the landless Black Reed Sect and Grey Wolf Clan (section 10). The computer leads the other five. Abilities the ruler's Command, War, Administration and Intrigue roll one at a time, each within 8 points of the house's usual figure. Press Space to set the one rolling; the next then starts. Escape rolls the last one again (from Command, it picks another house). Level 1 Easy, 2 Fair, 3 Normal, 4 Hard, 5 Hardest (see below). Confirm Y begins; N goes back to change something. Every new campaign draws a new map: 32 provinces of plains, hills, forest, mountains and marsh, with the sea on one side, a wild range on the other and rivers between. Provinces that share a border are neighbours: armies, officers and grain cross any shared border. Province names change from map to map, except the imperial capital, Yujing, which lies near the middle. Each house starts in its own part of the realm. The level sets how well the computer houses play: Easy they sometimes let a month pass, misjudge the odds, attack only with overwhelming numbers, one army at a time, and start with a fifth less in store. Fair fewer mistakes than Easy. Normal no deliberate mistakes; stores as written. Hard more recruits, better trained, better supplied, and readier to attack at closer odds. Hardest they join up to four armies for an attack, carry six months of grain into the field and start with 30% more in store. At every level the computer houses fight each other as readily as they fight you, and they avoid piling on to a house that others are already attacking. A new human player gets some grace before they attack: a year and a half on Easy, falling to two months on Hardest. On Easy and Fair they would rather attack another house than you. The main screen Top left the selected province: its number, name, land, the month and season, its owner, and its gold, grain, men, support, farmland, trade, forts and governor. For a foreign province you see the last report your spies brought, with its date. Middle left your ruler: portrait, title, provinces held, men, gold, grain and legitimacy. Right the map. House colours show who holds each province; pale land belongs to no house. A crown marks the capital, small flags mark armies and a tent marks an outlaw camp. The selected province has a gold edge. Bottom left the governor of the selected province, or its land, or the key to the current map view. Bottom right the last message and the orders. The orders 1 Govern the selected province: assign its officers, set the tax, appoint a governor, raise an army, ship grain or gold. 2 Officers your officers in the province selected on the map (for an outlaw company, at the camp); select another province to see the officers there. An officer's card offers assign, governor, reward, candidates and story. 3 Military your armies and their orders; raise an army; ship grain; move an outlaw camp. 4 Supply standing and one-off shipments of grain and gold. 5 Diplomacy treaties, coalitions, gifts, captives and private messages. 6 Reports what happened last month, and the chronicle. 7 Review every order you have given and what it will cost. 8 Campaign 1 Save, 2 Save as, 3 Load, 4 Quicksave, 5 Quickload, 6 Settings, 7 Guide, 8 Controls, 9 Title screen. 0 returns. 9 End month review once more and let the month pass. Map views Press V (or click "V View" under the orders) to step through four views of the map; Shift+V steps back. The key appears at the bottom left. Houses who holds each province (the normal view). Diplomacy your land in gold, coalition partners green, houses with a peace pact (non-aggression or defence) blue, trade or access only teal, houses with no treaty red, unclaimed land grey. Supply how many months your provinces' grain will feed their garrisons: green a year or more, yellow 6 to 11 months, orange 3 to 5, red under 3, purple under siege. Intelligence how old your news of each foreign province is: blue this season, teal this year, dark blue older, grey none. A view changes only the picture; it never gives an order. Mouse and keyboard on the main screen Click a province to select it; double-click to govern it. Click an order, or press its number, to give it. Arrow keys move to the neighbouring province in that direction. Enter governs the selected province. Escape or 8 opens the campaign menu; 0 or Escape closes it. F1 guide, F5 quicksave, F9 quickload (asks first), F10 menu bar, F11 full screen, Ctrl+S save, Ctrl+O load, Ctrl+Enter review and end the month. The letter keys P (govern), O (officers), M (military), D (diplomacy), R (reports) and T (review) also work. They can be changed in Settings; W, A, S, F and V are reserved. The Controls page lists the current keys. Windows Every window has a title band and an "Esc: back" note. Inside: Numbered buttons press the number, or click. 0 or Escape goes back. Enter gives the main action (OK, Apply, Yes). Lettered tiles the Govern window's actions are lettered A, B, C...; press the letter or click. Yes/no questions Y or N. Lists click a line, or use the arrow keys. Choices shown as < Normal >. Click the arrows, use the wheel or the arrow keys, or click the middle (or press Space) for a list. Numbers type the figure, or use the wheel, the arrow keys or the - and + ends. Shift moves ten steps at a time. Long text scrolls with the wheel, the arrow keys and Page Up/Down. While you type into a name or a number, letters and digits go to the text, not to the buttons. Time There is no time limit. End month advances one month; opening windows, reading reports and saving never advance time. Twelve months make a year. When you end the month, the computer houses plan and all orders resolve together. A first month: select your home province and press 1 (Govern). Give each officer an assignment: one develops commerce or farmland (one governance order per province a month), the others train troops or gather intelligence. Send one to town (Govern, I) to recruit soldiers, buy grain or hire a traveller at the inn; watch stamina, and rest tired officers. Raise an army from a garrison when you are ready to march; its commander then leads the army instead of taking an assignment. Press 7 to review, then 9 to end the month. Read the reports (6) when it is done. Saving Campaign > Save as creates a named .bseal file. Save stores pending orders, reports, private messages and random state in one file. A previous version is kept as .bak. Quicksave is separate from named saves. The game also autosaves when you change orders, before the month resolves and after. Continue opens the latest good autosave; Save then asks for a name, so the autosave is never overwritten by your save. A campaign saved by an older version with more than one house led by a person opens with you leading the house whose turn it was; the computer takes the others, and a notice says so. Saves from version 0.3 load and play on their old 24-province map. Default data location: ~/.local/share/brokenseal/ on Linux (or the XDG_DATA_HOME location), %APPDATA%\BrokenSeal on Windows. A BROKENSEAL_DATA_DIR environment variable can select a different data directory. Only one copy of the game can write to a data directory at once. Load an autosave-before file to replay a month. Identical orders and random state give identical results. Damaged saves are refused; load their .bak or an autosave instead. Campaign files are never silently reset. Quitting offers to save unsaved orders. A finished campaign stays open for reports, the map and saving. Choose New campaign when you want a fresh world; old named saves remain. Music and settings Background music plays from the title screen on: an original tune on the five-note scale, in the style of an old sound chip, that loops. Settings (title screen 5, or Campaign 8 then 6) turns the music on or off, sets its volume from 1 to 10, turns the month's news on or off, chooses what happens when your armies fight (ask each time, always fight them on the field, or leave them to the commanders), switches full screen and changes the letter keys. Your choices are kept in options.ini in the data folder. On Linux the music plays through pw-play, paplay or aplay, whichever is installed (any desktop has one); on Windows through Windows' own sound. 2. YOUR FACTION --------------- Gold kept in each province, where it is collected (see below) Legitimacy 0 to 100: how widely your claim to rule is recognised. It is public. See section 9. Tax policy Light (60%), Normal (100%) or Heavy (150%). It stands until you change it (Govern window). Ruler your leader, an officer who never defects or dies naturally. Provinces the land you hold. An outlaw company holds none (section 10). Gold and grain are not held by the faction as a whole. Each province keeps the gold its taxes bring in and the grain its harvest brings in; an outlaw company keeps a purse and a store at its camp; an army carries grain and a war chest of gold. Each province pays its own garrison and the officers who are there, and an officer's assignment is paid from the treasury of the province the officer is in. Gold and grain move between your provinces by shipment, one border a month (section 6). The province panel shows the local treasury and store; the ruler panel totals your provinces and camp, not what armies carry. 3. PROVINCES ------------ The realm has 32 provinces, drawn afresh for each campaign (campaigns saved by version 0.3 keep their 24 provinces on a 6 x 4 grid). Two provinces are neighbours when they share a border. Each has a terrain: plains, hills, forest, mountains or marsh. Yujing, near the middle, is the imperial capital. Rivers and the wild range are scenery: they do not slow armies. Every province records: Population people. It grows each turn by population/400 x (support - 40)/40 (so it shrinks when support is below 40), up to twice its starting size. Recruiting takes people. Support 0 to 100: how much the people back you. Farmland drives the harvest. Each province has a ceiling. Commerce drives tax. Each province has a ceiling. Forts 0 to 100: the walls. They protect the garrison (section 7). Garrison infantry, archers and cavalry, with a training (0-100) and a morale (0-100). Training is one level for the whole garrison: men who join it (recruits, a disbanded army) share it by numbers, so 1,000 green recruits added to 1,000 men at training 60 leave 2,000 at training 30. Train them back up with the Train troops assignment. Grain the province's store. Governor an officer you appoint (Governor button). Tax, every turn: (commerce x 2 + population/1000 x 5) x tax rate x (50 + support) / 125 then +1% for every 10 points of the governor's Administration (if the governor is in the province), halved under siege, halved while the province is newly occupied. Harvest, once a year in Leaffall (month 10): farmland x population/1000 x (50 + support)/100 x weather (85-115%) x 2 halved under siege. Grain eaten by a garrison each turn: 10 per 100 infantry, 10 per 100 archers, 20 per 100 cavalry. A province whose store runs out loses 10 garrison morale and 3 support; from the second turn running out, a tenth of the garrison deserts each turn. Support changes each turn: Light tax +1 (up to 80); heavy tax -2. A governor with Administration 60 or more, in the province: +1 (up to 75). Newly occupied (6 turns after it was taken): -2 a turn. Under siege: -2. Out of grain: -3. Relief (an assignment): see section 5. Unrest and revolt: when support is below 20 the province gets a warning, then a second warning the next turn, and on the third turn it revolts. It becomes independent with half its garrison, and you lose 5 legitimacy. Support of 25 or more clears the warnings. Independent provinces are run by their local lords. Their garrisons grow by 1% (+2 men) a turn up to population/15, their support drifts back to 50-55 and their forts mend slowly. They never attack. 4. OFFICERS ----------- About sixty named officers live in the world: serving a faction, at an independent court, travelling in search of a patron, or held prisoner. Ratings, 1 to 100: Command troop morale and organisation; how many men an officer can raise on a trip to town (100 + 8 x Command) Warfare fighting in battle Administration development, relief and governing Intrigue intelligence Also: loyalty (0-100), health (0-100), stamina (0-100), a trait (honourable, ambitious, cautious, greedy, brave, steadfast), up to two friends and one rival, a location and a short biography. Pay. Every officer except the ruler draws 10 + (sum of ratings)/40 gold a turn, paid where the officer is: a commander from his army's war chest, anyone else from the treasury of the province they are in. Loyalty moves one point a turn toward a target: 40 + legitimacy/4 +5 for each friend serving you, -5 for each rival serving you +10 if steadfast ambitious: +5 with a post (governor or commander), -10 without greedy: -5 while unpaid An officer who goes unpaid loses 5 loyalty (greedy ones 10). The Reward button spends 100 gold, from the province where the officer is, to add 8 loyalty, once per officer per turn. An army that loses more than half its men costs its commander 5 loyalty. A betrayal costs every officer 5 loyalty (honourable ones 15). Below 35 loyalty an officer is reported discontented. Below 20, each turn there is a (20 - loyalty) x 3 percent chance they leave and become a traveller. Honourable officers do not leave while loyalty is 10 or more. Wounds. Battles cost commanders health. Officers heal 3 health a turn; Rest heals 25. Stamina. Work tires an officer. Each month's assignment (anything but Rest) costs 25 stamina, and an officer with less than 25 cannot take one: they must rest. Each trip to town costs 10, and a trip may not leave too little for an assignment already given. A month of Rest gives back 50 (and 25 health); a month with nothing to do gives back 10. A repeating assignment stops by itself, with a report, when the officer is worn out. A fresh officer can work about three months in a row before needing a rest. Officers on the officer card and in every list show their stamina. Natural ageing, retirement and death are disabled in this desktop edition. The roster therefore remains available for campaigns of indefinite length. Birth dates remain part of character biographies. Combat wounds and captures still apply. If a ruler is lost through exceptional state changes, the engine selects a loyal successor, preserving the faction rather than removing it. Prisoners. Captured officers are held by the captor and cannot act. You can release one (Diplomacy > Captives), or offer a ransom or a prisoner exchange (Diplomacy). Releasing a prisoner gives 1 legitimacy, once per prisoner in 12 turns. Ordinary prisoners may escape: after three turns, Intrigue/25 percent a turn (1% to 5%). A captured ruler escapes after 6 turns; both sides see the date. 5. ASSIGNMENTS -------------- Each serving officer takes at most one assignment a turn. A commander commands and takes none. Information screens, reports and diplomacy never use an assignment. One governance order a province. Develop farmland, Develop commerce, Repair forts and Relief are governance orders, and a province takes only one of them a month, however many officers are there: you cannot develop farmland and commerce in the same province in the same month. The Govern window shows this month's order; choosing another offers to cancel it first. The other officers there can still train, gather intelligence, rest or travel, and go to town. (A save holding two from an older version keeps the one funded first and cancels the other, at no cost.) Assignment Cost Effect Develop farmland 100 gold farmland +(3 + Adm/10), less near the ceiling (see below) Develop commerce 100 gold commerce +(3 + Adm/10), the same way Repair forts 150 gold forts +(4 + Adm/12), up to 100 Train troops 20 gold garrison training +(4 + Command/10), up to 100 (outlaws: the men at the camp) Relief 120 gold, or support +(4 + Adm/10), less as support 400 grain nears 100. Relief where support was under 50 also gives 1 legitimacy (once a turn per faction). Intelligence 30 gold news of a neighbouring province: chance 40 + Intrigue/2 - (the best Intrigue of its officers)/4, between 10% and 95%. The estimate is off by up to (100 - Intrigue)/4 percent. A failure has a 1 in 10 chance of 20 lost health. Rest free health +25, stamina +50 Travel free go to any other province you hold (outlaws: to the camp); see below Development near the ceiling: the gain is the full amount while the province is under half its ceiling, then gain x (ceiling - current) x 2 / ceiling, at least 1. Soldiers and new officers are no longer assignments: they are found in town (below). Travel. An officer can travel to any province you hold, however far and whoever holds the land between. The road crosses two borders a month: one or two borders take one month (he arrives at the end of this month, as before), three or four take two months, five or six three, and so on. The list of destinations shows each one's distance, the months on the road and the month he arrives. He sets out after this month's battles. For every month after the first he is on the road: he is in no province, takes no orders, governs nothing, commands no army, is not listed among any province's officers and cannot be caught when a province falls. He is still paid, from the treasury of the province he is going to, and his loyalty changes as usual. A governor who travels keeps the title but, like any absent governor, gives his province nothing until he is back. The Review shows "travelling to X, arrives at the end of ", and the officer's card says "On the road to X". If the province he is going to is lost on the way, he goes on to the nearest province you still hold (fewest borders; on a tie, the first in the province list), and the report says so. If your house loses its last province, everyone on the road joins the outlaw camp. Repeat. Most assignments can be set to repeat every turn until you change them. Travel never repeats. Priority and gold. Each assignment has a priority, 1 to 9 (5 unless you change it). During resolution, gold is set aside for assignments in priority order (1 first, then down the officer list), each from the treasury of the province where the officer is. An assignment there is no gold for in that province is cancelled with a report saying why. Income comes later in the turn and cannot pay for this turn's orders. If the assignment then cannot be carried out after all (the officer was captured, the province lost), the gold comes back. Review (7) shows in advance which orders would be short. The town. Every province has a town. Send an officer there from the Govern window (Go to town) or the officer card. The trip happens at once, while you plan, costs the officer 10 stamina and is not the month's order: the same officer can still take an assignment, and you can go to town as often as stamina allows. In town: Recruiting a share of the people will enlist each month: population/30, more where support is high (x (50 + support)/100). One officer raises at most 100 + 8 x Command men a trip. Per 100 men: infantry 60, archers 90, cavalry 150 gold, from the province's treasury. The men join the garrison at once, untrained (training 0), and pull the garrison's training down in proportion; population falls by the men raised and support by men/300. The garrison may hold 20,000. Market buy grain from what the market has this month (commerce x 20) or sell grain to it. The price per 100 grain is about 30 gold, dearest before the harvest (Goldmonth and Harvest, about 40) and cheapest just after it (Leaffall, about 21); a busy market (high commerce) is a little cheaper. The market pays 3/5 of its selling price. Grain you sell is added to what it offers. Inn travellers looking for a patron stay at the inn of the town they are in, and each month about a third of them move on to another town, so who is there changes. Hire one for a fee of 100 + 2 x (sum of ratings) gold (half as much again for the greedy); they join at once with loyalty 50 (65 if honourable). Honourable travellers will not serve outlaws. The town's recruits and market are renewed at the start of every month. Winter roads. In Darkmonth, Thawmonth and Rainmonth snow can close the roads to town for the month: about half the time in the mountains, a third in the hills, a fifth in forest, a sixth in marsh and a tenth on the plains. The province panel says "Snowed in" and nobody can go to that town until the next month. Outlaws use the town of the province where their camp is. The computer houses use the town in the same way: one trip a province a month, for soldiers on a threatened border, grain for a hungry store, gold from a full one, or a traveller worth hiring. 6. ARMIES, MOVEMENT AND SUPPLY ------------------------------ An army is formed from a garrison (or the outlaw camp) under one commander (Raise Army). It carries grain and a war chest of gold. It has an order, a battle plan, a retreat threshold, a fallback province, and a defence standing order. Orders: Stay do nothing Drill in your own province: training +(3 + Command/12), up to 90; 20 gold, from the war chest (or the province) Move to a neighbouring province you may enter: your own, a coalition partner's, or one opened to you by a military access treaty Attack a neighbouring province (or the one the army stands in) that is independent or belongs to a faction you have no pact with An army moves one province a turn, across a shared border. Terrain does not slow it, but mountains and marsh make it eat 10% more. Supply. Each turn an army eats 10 grain per 100 infantry or archers and 20 per 100 cavalry - a quarter more in winter on ground that is not yours. It eats what it carries first; in your own province it may then draw on the store. Access to an ally's land never lets you take their grain. An army without grain loses 15 morale and is reported; from the second turn without grain a tenth of its men desert each turn. The army page shows how many turns its grain lasts. Pay. Each turn an army pays its men 4 gold per 100 infantry, 6 per 100 archers and 10 per 100 cavalry from its war chest; in your own province the treasury there pays what the chest lacks. An army that cannot be paid loses 10 morale and a twentieth of its men. An army marching into enemy land should take grain and gold for the whole campaign. Supplies (army page) loads grain and gold from the store and treasury where the army stands, or unloads them with a negative amount. Disband returns troops, grain and gold to the local store; the men join the garrison (or camp) and share its training by numbers. A new army takes the training of the garrison or camp it is raised from. Morale rises 2 a turn toward 50 + Command/4; if it is more than 10 above that, it falls 1 a turn. It falls 3 a turn in winter on foreign ground. Defence standing order. An army with no other order can be told what to do when a neighbouring province is attacked: none it stays put own it marches in to defend your own province (the default) own and allies it also marches in to defend a coalition partner's or a defensive-pact partner's province Allies never command each other's armies. Shipments (Military > Ship grain, or Ship grain or gold on a province's Govern page) move grain, gold or both from one of your provinces to a province of yours that borders it, in one turn. Further away takes several turns: ship it on from there, or set up a chain of repeating shipments. A shipment fails - and everything stays where it was - if the province does not have it at the turn. Besieged provinces send and receive nothing. A garrison its province cannot pay loses 10 morale and a twentieth of its men each turn, so keep gold where your soldiers are. When a province is taken, half its gold is lost and the rest passes to the victor. Outlaw camps cannot be attacked. The camp can move to a bordering province each turn (Military > Move camp). 7. BATTLES AND SIEGES --------------------- Battles are fought when End month advances the month. When one of your armies or garrisons is in a battle, the game asks whether you want to fight it yourself on the hex field (see "Fighting on the field" below) or leave it to your commanders, who fight it by the rules in this section. Settings can make it always fight or never ask. Battles between computer houses, raids and clashes at a border are always settled by the rules. Results appear in Reports either way. Plans (chosen with each attack order): Hold siege only: no assault. The army sits outside the walls and wears them down. If the defenders' armies sortie with Assault, there is a battle. Assault attack hard: +15% power, the walls count half, but 30% more of the army's own men are lost Ambush in hills, forest, mountains or marsh: if it works, +50% power for the first two rounds; if it fails, -20% for the first round Raid one round only, then home. If the raiders lose no more men than the defenders, a quarter of the province's grain is burnt and half of that carried off, and farmland and commerce fall by 5. Withdraw (a defending army only) leave for the fallback province before the battle; if it cannot, it fights at -30%. Defending garrisons always Hold (+10%). No plan is best everywhere. Ambush chance: 30 + (the best Intrigue among its commanders)/2 - (the enemy's best Intrigue)/4, -25 on plains, kept between 5% and 90%. A defending army can ambush too; if it works, the attackers also fight at -20% for the first two rounds. Power of each army or garrison: men x arm strength (infantry 10, archers 10, cavalry 14) x terrain for that arm, in percent: infantry archers cavalry plains 100 100 130 hills 100 115 90 forest 110 110 70 mountains 110 120 60 marsh 90 90 60 x (100 + match-up bonus)/100: cavalry against archers, infantry (spears) against cavalry, archers against infantry - up to +15% for a side made entirely of the arm that beats the other side's x (50 + training)/100 x (50 + morale)/100 x (90 + Warfare/5)/100 of its commander (+5 if brave; a garrison uses its governor, or 40) x the plan, and x 80% if it is out of grain. A battle has up to four rounds. Each round, the men the defenders lose are the attackers' power x a roll of 85-115% / 100, times (100 - walls/2)% - the walls being the province's forts, halved by an Assault. The men the attackers lose are the defenders' power x the same kind of roll / 100 (x130% under Assault). Losses are shared out by numbers. Each army's morale falls by half the percentage it lost, plus 2. An army leaves the fight when it is down to its retreat threshold (10% to 90% of the men it started with; cautious commanders retreat 10 points sooner), its morale falls below 15, or it has fewer than 20 men. It falls back to its fallback province if it can reach it and stay there, else to where it came from, else to any neighbour it may stay in; if none, it surrenders - the men are lost and the commander may be taken. An army wiped out loses its commander with a chance of 50 - Command/4 percent; otherwise the commander is wounded and gets home. The attackers take the province when no defender is left standing. When they do not: - an army ordered to besiege stays at the walls (it keeps its attack order for the next turn); - otherwise it goes back where it came from. Each turn a besieged province's forts fall by 5 + the besieger's Command/10 + besieging men/2000, and its garrison loses 3 morale. A siege also stops shipments, halves tax and harvest, and costs 2 support a turn. Fighting on the field. The battle takes the place of the automatic one and the month goes on from its result exactly as it would have. The Assault and Ambush plans do not apply on the field - you are the plan - and neither does your army's retreat threshold; the computer's units still keep to theirs. The field: 15 x 11 hexes drawn from the province: open plain, with hills, forest, marsh or rocks according to its terrain, and a river with fords if a river runs through it. The town stands in the east. With forts of 30 or more it has walls and one gate facing west; without, its houses give a little cover. Units: each army or garrison splits into one unit per arm - infantry, archers and cavalry - with its men, training and morale. The commander (for a garrison, the governor) rides with the largest one, marked with a gold pennant. The attackers start on the west edge; the defenders stand in the town and to the east of it. Turns: the attackers move first, then the defenders; up to 20 turns each. Every unit has one order a turn: Move infantry and archers 3 points, cavalry 5. Plain and town cost 1, hills, forest, marsh and fords 2 (forest and marsh 3 for cavalry). River, rocks and walls cannot be crossed. A unit that comes next to an enemy must stop there. Attack strike an enemy unit next to it. Infantry and cavalry may move first and attack in the same order (cavalry that rode two hexes or more charge at +30% on open plain). The enemy strikes back. Shoot archers only: an enemy up to two hexes away, with no answer; half as hard with an enemy beside them. Hold stand ready: blows taken -20% and stronger blows back, until the unit's next turn. Rally a unit with no enemy beside it that has not moved: morale +8 + Command/10 (half if its commander has fallen). Withdraw from its own edge of the field: it leaves with its men. The match-ups of the automatic battle hold here unit against unit: cavalry ride down archers, infantry stop cavalry, archers in a melee are weak. Hills, forest and the town give cover; marsh is bad ground to be caught on. A unit attacked by two or more enemies at once is flanked and takes 20% more. Walls: defenders inside the walls take only (100 - forts/2)% of every blow from outside. Only the defenders may use the gate until infantry standing beside it batter it down (its strength is the forts); the walls answer each blow with stones and arrows. Morale: every loss costs a unit half the percentage of men it lost, plus 1. Below 15 it breaks and flees; with fewer than 10 men it is cut to pieces. When the commander's unit breaks, the rest of that command loses 15 morale; any unit seeing a neighbour break loses 5. Each turn eats a tenth of the army's monthly grain; an army out of grain loses 3 morale a turn. The end: a side with no unit left on the field has lost. After 20 turns the defenders keep the field (as if neither side broke). Men who fled or withdrew go back to their army; a garrison driven out is gone as usual. Keys: arrows move the cursor, Enter (or a click) selects your unit, then moves it to the hex or strikes the enemy there - the hexes it can reach are speckled and the enemies it can strike ringed in red. Tab: next unit ready. H hold, R rally, W withdraw, E end the turn (it also ends once every unit has had its order), A leave the rest of the battle to the commanders, X sound the retreat for your whole side (each unit loses a tenth of its men as the rear guard). While the enemy moves, Space speeds it up. Closing the window leaves the rest of the battle to the commanders. Occupation. When a province falls: its support falls by 20 (to no less than 5), farmland and commerce by 10%, half its grain is lost, its garrison is gone, and for 6 turns its tax is halved and its support falls 2 a turn; each of the old owner's officers there escapes to a neighbouring province of theirs with a chance of 40 + Intrigue/3 percent, or is captured; prisoners the old owner held there go free; the lord of an independent province is captured; its other courtiers become travellers. A governor makes it yours. A province taken by force is held, but it is not part of your realm until you name a governor: until then it pays no taxes, takes no assignments, has no trips to town and does not count toward victory (the province panel says "Held: no governor yet"). As soon as the month's news has been shown, the game asks you to choose one for each province you took, the army's commander first. A commander who governs gives up the army: its men, grain and gold join the new garrison, and their training mixes with it. Any other officer of yours in the province may govern instead, leaving the army as it is. Choose Back to decide later; the Govern window's Appoint governor asks again. Elsewhere a governor may not command an army. The computer houses name governors the same way, preferring an officer without an army. Several armies attacking one province. All the attackers that name the same occupier fight as one side. Sides naming different occupiers attack one after another, in an order drawn from the turn's random numbers (never by faction number); each faces whoever holds the province by then. A side whose occupier is allied to the holder by then simply arrives. Interception. Two hostile armies crossing the same border from opposite ends meet at the border and fight up to three rounds on open ground; both then turn back. 8. DIPLOMACY ------------ Every treaty is a proposal and an answer. The proposal screen and the answer screen both say exactly what the treaty does, how long it lasts and how it can be ended. An unanswered proposal lapses after three turns. An accepted treaty starts at the next turn resolution. Non-aggression neither side may attack the other or approach the other's officers Military access one or both sides open their provinces to the other's armies, to pass and to stay. It gives no right to grain. Defensive pact includes non-aggression; armies told to defend allies may march in to defend the partner's provinces Trade each turn each side gives an agreed amount of gold and/or grain (grain between two named provinces). Both halves go together: if either side cannot pay, or the grain route is shut, nothing changes hands that turn, and both are told why. A trade is never paid into debt. Ransom a prisoner goes free for gold, once Exchange two prisoners, one from each side, go free, once Gifts (Diplomacy > Gift) are one-way transfers of gold and grain, sent at the next turn resolution if the gold and grain are still there. Gold for gifts, trades and ransoms leaves from the named province if it has enough, otherwise from your richest provinces, and arrives at the receiver's seat (the ruler's province) or the province named. Messages (Diplomacy > Messages) are private: only the two factions see them. A faction can send five a turn, of up to 200 characters. Treaty announcements are public but never include a message. Duration. A treaty lasts a number of turns from the turn it starts, or until cancelled. A treaty of 6 turns or more kept to its end gives both sides 1 legitimacy. Ending a treaty early, with notice (Treaties > Give notice). Notice given during turn T is recorded at T's resolution. The treaty's protections still hold through the fighting of turn T+1, and it ends after it. The side that gave notice can attack its former partner from turn T+2. An attack cannot be ordered while a pact is in force or under notice, so notice cannot be dodged by attacking first. Routine notice costs nothing. Betrayal (Diplomacy > Treaties > Betray). The treaty ends at the start of the next turn resolution, before that turn's fighting, so the attack goes in. It costs 15 legitimacy, every officer's loyalty (5; honourable officers 15), any claim to the throne in progress, and it is written in the chronicle. The victim reads of it in the turn report. When access ends, armies inside get one turn in which they may only withdraw across a border into land they may enter; an army still there after that surrenders. If there is no way out, negotiate access again, or lose the army. 9. LEGITIMACY ------------- Legitimacy rises: +1 every second turn of stable government - every province at support 50 or more, no grain shortage and no revolt that turn - up to 60 +1 a turn for holding the capital with support 50 or more +1 for relief where support was under 50 (once a turn) +1 when a treaty of 6 turns or more is kept to its end +1 for releasing a prisoner (once per prisoner in 12 turns) It can rise by at most 3 in one turn, and above 70 every point takes two. Legitimacy falls: -15 for a betrayal -5 for a revolt, -5 on succession -1 a turn with heavy tax while average support is under 40 Legitimacy feeds your officers' loyalty and your claim to the throne. 10. OUTLAWS AND DEFEAT ---------------------- A faction that loses its last province is not removed: it becomes an outlaw company, camped in a neighbouring province. It gets no free troops, grain or officers for losing. An outlaw company: earns 100 + 30 gold per officer a turn into its purse, forages 300 grain a turn, and pays half upkeep for the men at its camp from the purse; when it takes a province, the purse goes into that province's treasury; can hold at most 4,000 men at the camp, and recruits at most 400 a trip (at the normal cost) in the town where the camp is; cannot be attacked at its camp, and moves the camp one province a turn; forms armies at the camp to raid or attack; when it takes a province it settles there, and the camp's men and grain move in. Two of the six factions start as outlaw companies; both can reach the throne. 11. VICTORY ----------- Alone. A faction qualifies when it holds the capital and 22 of the 32 provinces (16 of 24 on an old map) with legitimacy 70 or more. It wins when it qualifies at the end of three turns in a row. Together. A coalition (Diplomacy > Coalition) qualifies when: one member holds the capital; its members hold 22 provinces between them (16 on an old map); every member endorses the same member's ruler as emperor; that member's legitimacy is 70 or more, and every member's 40 or more; and no membership change is pending (an invitation, a notice to leave, an expulsion vote). It wins when the same members and the same nominee qualify at the end of three turns in a row. Every member shares the victory; the chronicle names the emperor and every member. Any change - a member, the nominee, an endorsement, the capital, a threshold - resets the count. Claims and their progress are public (Coalition council). When the war is won the world is kept for inspection and no further orders resolve. Save the finished campaign and start another when you choose. Coalitions. A faction can be in one coalition. Members have non-aggression, passage through each other's land and each other's intelligence (with the date it was gathered - joining reveals nothing nobody has seen). Each member commands its own forces, approves its own attacks and keeps its own treasury. The leader invites; an invitation needs the invited faction's acceptance and every member's approval, one invitation at a time. Leaving works like treaty notice (it takes effect after the next turn's fighting). A member can be expelled only by the vote of every other member, with the same notice. Betraying the coalition ends membership at once, with the penalties of a betrayal. An attack by coalition members names the faction that will hold the province if it falls - named in each army order - and an attack whose named occupier is no longer able to take it is cancelled rather than handed to someone else. 12. END TURN RESOLUTION ----------------------- 1 A pre-turn .bseal autosave preserves the world and committed orders. Computer factions give their orders; gameplay input is suspended. 2 Diplomacy: betrayals first, then accepted proposals start (ransoms and exchanges happen), notices are recorded, coalition joins and expulsions. 3 Every assignment and army order is checked again against the world as it now is, and gold is set aside in priority order. What cannot be done or paid for is cancelled, with the reason, as is a second governance order in one province. 4 Trades, gifts and shipments of grain and gold. 5 Outlaw camps move; armies move; interceptions; defence standing orders; battles, province by province in a random order; sieges; occupation. 6 Assignments of the officers still able to carry them out. Work costs stamina; rest and idleness restore it. 7 Tax, harvest, upkeep, grain, support, unrest and revolt, morale, loyalty, legitimacy. 8 Prisoners and escapes, exceptional succession, roster replenishment, defection, a chance of one small event (bandits, floods or sickness). 9 Treaties under notice end; coalition departures; stranded armies; intelligence; claims to the throne; victory. 10 The new world, reports and chronicle are saved; control returns to you. News of the month. When the month has passed, every attack a computer house made is shown in turn under the map: the province is picked out, the attacking ruler appears on the left and the result is told on the right ("1 of 3"). Each stays for a few seconds; Space, Enter or a click moves on, Escape skips the rest. Battles, raids, new sieges and provinces taken unopposed are shown. Turn it off in Settings. The Reports window follows. A crash leaves either the old world or the new one, never half a turn, and running the turn again from the old world gives exactly the same result. 13. WHAT YOU KNOW ----------------- Public: the map and its borders, who holds every province, factions' legitimacy, coalitions, treaties as they are signed and ended, and claims to the throne. You see exact data for your own provinces and armies. Coalition partners share dated intelligence rather than unrestricted live private statistics. Foreign garrisons, stores and forts you know only from Intelligence, shown with the date and as estimates. Your scouts also report any foreign army next to one of your provinces, rounded to the nearest 500. Reports (R) show the latest completed turn with categories for government, officers, diplomacy and military. The chronicle keeps major events throughout the campaign. Older turn reports are retained in your saved checkpoints, not as a browsable twelve-turn archive. Private messages keep the latest 100 entries per faction; computer factions do not interpret their free text. 14. WORKED EXAMPLES ------------------- These examples use province names from the old fixed map; on your map the names and figures will differ, but the sums work the same way. A first turn. You lead House Lin: Anling and Zhulin, with about 1,080 and 1,050 gold in their treasuries, and five officers. Anling has commerce 110, population 30,000 and support 55; its governor has Administration 80. Its tax is (110 x 2 + 30 x 5) x 100% x 105/125 = 310, +8% for the governor = 334. Your upkeep is about 460 (two garrisons of 3,800 men, 200 gold each, plus four officers' pay). So: - The ruler (Administration 66) develops commerce in Anling: 100 gold, commerce +9 (3 + 66/10), about +15 tax a turn from then on. - An officer with Intrigue 76 gathers news of Baifeng, the independent province next door: 30 gold, a chance of 40 + 38 - (the lord's Intrigue)/4, about 65%. - A commander with Command 78 trains Zhulin's garrison: 20 gold, +11 training. - The others develop farmland (100 each). Review (7) shows 350 gold wanted and 2,130 across your treasuries; each order is paid in the province where its officer is. End the month. During resolution the 350 is set aside first; income arrives after. An attack between allies. House Lin and House Qiao are in a coalition. Both want Taohe (independent, 300 men, no forts). Lin's army of 3,000 attacks from Zhulin and Qiao's of 3,000 from Baifeng; both orders name Qiao as the occupier, and both factions see that on the Coalition page. During resolution the two armies fight as one side. Taohe falls and passes to Qiao; Lin's army stands in Taohe, which as a coalition partner it may. Had Qiao left the coalition before the turn, both attacks would have been checked again at phase 3 and cancelled, not handed to Lin. A supply shortage. An army of 1,500 infantry, 500 archers and 300 cavalry eats 150 + 50 + 60 = 260 grain a turn. It leaves with 1,000 grain to besiege a province in winter: on foreign ground it eats a quarter more, 325 a turn. After three turns it has 25 left; on the fourth it is short. In enemy land it cannot draw on any store, so it loses 15 morale and fights at 80%; on the fifth turn a tenth of its men desert, and so on each turn. Ship grain to a province of yours next to it and have the army come back to load it (army page > Supplies), or plan for it: check the army's monthly consumption before setting out.