                         R O R K E ' S    D R I F T 
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         THE FULL DOCS: - TYPED BY SCOTT AND ACTION MAN OF ORACLE 



Historical Background

Just after noon on January 27th 1879, the British Amy undertook the first
engagement of the zulu empire. Wrongly, they assumed they were fighting ignorant
savages. Yet ready they ruled an impressive empire which covered a large area of
Southeren Africa. An army of over 50,000 men had trained hard, and led by their
king Cetshwaio, had become a highly disaplined fighting machine. The British
encampment at Isandhalwana was unprepared for the cordinated assualt directed
against them, and the coloumn was anniliated. An army of 40,000 warriors then
pressed on to the British outpost at Rorke's Drift. Here stood a church and a
hospital in which there were 36 wounded and six soldiers. There were just 101 
abled bodied men. Led by their highest ranking officer a lietenant of royal
engineers called Chard, the Red Coats built a perimeter of baricaded from mealie
bags and wooden crates. The battle that followed was full of bravery and devotion
to dutie on both sides and eleven Victoria crosses were won by the British
defenders.
The reaction of this incredible chater in history took many months to work by an
experianced war games designer and countless hours of research went in to making
sure it feels and plays like the original encounter. Each character is represented
individually on the battle field. A pose has been drawn for every order, 80 in
all, allowing him to face any one of the 8 directions whilst standing, kneeling,
firing etc. Attention has been paid to ease of use. As a result this simulation
is fully mouse driven. You control each of the 137 men (inc. the wounded, who
played and play an active part of the battle). You will decide when they advance,
retreat, rest, aim, fight and fire. Each man has his own skill level for shooting
and fighting hand to hand. He also has an individual level for his self and his
ammunition.

Loading

Place the disk in to your drive and switch on your computer. We would recommend
formatting a spare disk before starting to enable you to save a game.

Getting Started

On the title screen, first select the language you would like the test to be
displayed in by using the mouse and clicking on the appropriate flag. Then click on
either the plato logo to start the game where the zulu's will follow the attack
pattern that actually occured, or the immpressions logo where each time you play
the Zulu's will vary their strategy.

Order of Play

The game has 2 distint phases : Command and battle. In the command phase, no
movement or fighting takes place - The game is paused. In this phase you give
orders to as many of your men as you wish. In the battle phase this simulation
runs, the zulu's move and attack, your orders are carried out the battle takes
place !

Victory Conditions

For you, commanding the British force, vitory is out of question - Survival is your
goal. The battle starts at 5:30 pm on 22nd January and finnishes when either youre
wiped out or at 7 am on 23rd of January .

The Command Screen

Disk icon : This enables you to save ( and load ) game positions . You can save up
to 3 games on a diskette. Note : If you wish to exit this screen without saving
click yellow arrows to exit.
Throughout the game the yellow arrows signifies exit.

Clock icon : The simulation starts at 4:30pm on the 22nd of January . You have
completed the construcion of you're defences. You have an hour to deploy your men.
Once you have deployed you can move the clock forward to 5:30pm (When the Zulus
first attack) by clicking on it. During the battle if you click on the clock, you
will go into "Fast Battle" phase - where a summary of events is displayed while the
action continues in the background. This option allows you to accelerate the game.

Man icon : From this icon the order screen can be accessed.

Map Icon : A map of Rorke's Drift is displayed; clicking on any part of it takes
you to that part of the area, and a new set of icons appears at the bottom of the
screen. Clicking on the icons then shows statistics about all soldiers/Zulus on the
screen. From left to right, the icons show; defence strength, marksmanship,
ammunition and health status. The numbers are out of 100, with 100 being the
best/highest. 

Red Cross Icon : Shows the number of alive, injured and dead for each side.

Exit Icon : Switches to Battle Phase.


Order Screen

To turn the man to face in the direction you want, click on either of the curved
yellow arrows.
The top left gets the man to stand easy.
The one to the right gets him to use his specialised skills:
Private-fights
Sergeant-fights
Officer-fights
Medic-attempts to heal the wounded around him.
Quartermaster/Storeman-will fight ammo-bags of the soldiers near him with bullets
(70 bullets per man).
The next 3 commands only apply to the soldiers. They allow to get him to aim and
reload while kneeling, aim and reload while standing or fire!
The final icon on the left hand side gets the soldier to move.
There are 3 speeds: Walk (signified by 1 soldier), Run (shown by 2) and Charge
(shown by 3). Walk also allows the soldier to climb over certain parts of the
terrain, like the barricades. If you charge, your strength will decrease until you
become worn out. At the end of the charge, your soldier will immediately switch to
fight mode.
Having given your order, click on the Exit Icon to confirm you have finished. You
can come back and change the order if you wish.

Move command : Having clicked on the speed, the mouse pointer will turn yellow and
th eorder icon disappear to reveal the battlefield. Click the pointer over the area
you want the man to go. When you switch to battle phase he'll go! Note : A yellow
cross sometimes appears to denote where a soldier is currnently travelling to. Also
`Soldiers' cannot climb over one another or through brick walls! 

Fire command : Having clicked on the fire icon, assuming you have a loaded gun, the
order menu will disappear to reveal the battlefield. Using the yellow mouse
pointer click on the target you wish to hit. Th eresult will appear. You will haver
to reload your gun, b4 you can fire again. Reloading only takes place during the
battlephase - only 1 shot per soldier per turn is allowed. 

When the shot hits the target depends on the direction the soldier is facing (don't
try and fire behind your back), whether he is aiming and for how long, the
distance between the gun and the target, the soldiers firing ability, and whether
there any obstructions in the line of fire (don't try firing through brick walls!).
Soldiers kneeling are unable to fire over sand bags. 

Repeat order : Having issued a command, you can get that order carried out by other
soldiers. This is very useful for keeping soldiers in formation while they move.
Just click on the soldiers number and rank at the bottom of the screen. The pointer
will turn yellow to indicate you are in repeat order mode. Just point at and click
on the soldiers and they will carry out the order. This feature significantly
decreases the time you need to spend on giving out `individual' orders. To finish
just click on the soldiers number and rank to return to the normal command phase.
Note: Repeat order does not work for firing. 

Next soldier : Having finished giving orders to a soldier, you can select the next
man in a number of ways; if you can see the man you want just click on him, you can
use the up and down arrows in the bottom corners to move through the ranks or by
displaying the map, bring up the part of the battlefield that you are interested in
and then clicking on your man.

Hand to hand fighting : During the battle phase, should a Zulu or a soldier meet,
they will engage in hand to hand combat. The outcome will depend on theie
individual abilities (attack/defense), current strength and the ammout of cover
(if any). The results of the fighting will be displayed to you after each round.

Map co-ordinates : The X (left/right) and Y (up/down) co-ordinates showing the
location of the window are displayed at the top left hand side of the screen. 
(0.0 is the top left of the map).

Battle Phase : The battle will continue until the left mouse button is held down
and released. You will then go back into command phase. To move around the battle
field, move the pointer to the edge of the screen. The battlefield will the scroll.
When you leave the battle Phase, on entering the command panel, if there are any
unreported fight results, they will appear. if you click on the reoprts exit icon,
no more will be displayed. Click off the report and the next report will be
displayed. Continue clicking until no more appear. 
Note: If you click on the report card itself, the screen will switch to the battle
area so you can see exactly where the action took place.


			      ---The End---