                        IMPERIUM ROMANUM

By ROLAND RICHTER - Edited by PARASITE.


INTRODUCTION
IMPERIUM ROMANUM is a little strategic game for up to four persons.
The computer cannot take part.

The program itself is 99% mouse-controled. Exeption: You can tell
the program your name ony via using the keyboard. You can call the
functions by clicking their gadgets on the screen. To quit one
function you have to click another gadget once or twice. If you
do not, the funcion will be on till you have no moves anymore.
Yes, there is only a limited number of moves every turn.

THE GAME
In ancient times, there were four cities, who struggeled for the
power in the mediterranian sea: Rome, Carthago, Athens and Alexandria.
Every player takes part of one of the cities and has to eleminate
the others. Of cause you can play with one, two or three players, too.

At first you are asked how many people will play the game. You can
choose one power by clicking its icon. The color will change from
grey to the color of the players. You can also change the name of the
rulers.

You can leave the program by clicking on "QUIT". Loading an old game
does not work, yet. "START" starts the game, of cause.

Now You see a map. Yellow is Rome, red Carthago, green Athens and
blue Alexandria. If you click the country, you'll see it's name
and status on the informations-window.

Above the map you see three gadgets. With QUIT you can leave the
game. PD-INFO tells you something about the situation of public
domain software in Germany, and finally COPYRIGHT tells you something
about this important matter (read it, KARSTADT !!!).

On the right is the status-window. Here you can see the power, the
season and the powers money.

Under this window are two rows of numbers (10 50 100 1000 10000 and
1 5 10 100 1000). The upper row stands for the number of soldiers
you can move, the lower row for the number of ships. The actual
number is marked yellow.

The window under that is the informations-window. If the game asks
or tells you something, you'll find it here most of the times.

Under that are some gadgets. Using them, the player can control his
actions.

With the "Info" options you can get informations about the provinces.
Informations about your own provinces are free of charge (HOME). If
you want to know something about an foreign province (ABROAD), you'll
have to pay 500000 Sest. for spying it out.

Using the attacking-options you can subdue foreign provinces.

If you want to attack with the army, you have to click on the gadget
ARMY. The you choose the country, from which you want to attack. After
this you have to click on the destination province. To adjust the number
of attacking soldiers, you have to click on the first province again.
Warning: You cannot march back. Your campaign army will start the battle
for the province when you click on the destination province again.

NAVY starts an naval attack. In addition to ARMY you have also to
adjust the number of attacking ships. With one ship you can transport
500 soldiers.

Be careful! You can only move ships from an province with harbour to
an other province with harbour.

Without having a harbour in your home-province, you cannot have navy.

If you attack a province, you should have very much more soldiers than
the attacked province (twice as much are necessary).

With the two gadgets under that you can buy new SOLDIERS or new SHIPS.
Note: You'll always buy, sell or move the number of ships an soldiers
you ajusted above.

Using the MOVE-options you can move either ARMY or NAVY. It works like
attacking.

If you click on END MOVE, it's the next players turn. Every player has
only a limited number of moves.

With GOVERNMENT you can govern one of your provinces. There are some
complicated rules in this option.

Schilda is a city in Germany. Once upon a time the citizens decided to
build a big house. After finishing the building, they noticed that
there were no window. Inside the house it was absolutely dark. They
tried to catch the sunlight in some baskets and bring it in, but that
didn't work. So they removed the roof to have light inside. This worked.
They could walk into the building and see something. It made them very
happy and proud about this light-bringing invention. But the pride
faded away, when it started to rain.

If you don't pay attention, you will act like them. Most of such errors
are prevented by the program (it does not make sense to build public
conveniences without having water in the city). But not all.

Of cause all theese things like thermal bathes, aqueducts, harbours,
squad on guards an so on are quite expensive. But some are really
worth their money.

Having many squad on guards, your city is hard to conquer. But you need
slaves to make weapons for them, and you need houses where they can be.
This is only one example of the very complex way to govern a city.

A city with many buildings will of cause bring much more taxes than one
with none. At the beginning of every new year the provinces are paying
their taxes.

HINT
The number of moves are limited. Governing a province has also an
internal limit of moves, but in general it counts as one move.
