Dream 44/Amiga_Dream_44.iso/Amiga/jeux/plateau/Jeopard.lha/Jeopard.doc

Text File | 1996-08-16 | 23KB | 484 lines

                           T H E   G A M E   O F

             J    EEEEE     OOO     PPPPP     AAA     RRRRR    DDDD
             J    E        O   O    P   P    A   A    R   R    D   D
             J    EEE      O   O    PPPPP    AAAAA    RRRRR    D   D
             J    E        O   O    P        A   A    R  R     D   D
         JJJJJ    EEEEE     OOO     P        A   A    R   R    DDDD
                                 Version 1.3

              Robert A. Casper               So THRILLING that
              915 Sacandaga Road             the screen VIBRATES
              Scotia, NY   12302             with EXCITEMENT!!
              [e-mail]


DESCRIPTION:

     Jeopard is a strategy game for 2 to 8 players.  The object is to
conquer "the world" by occupying every territory on the screen.

     Version 1.3 is the second release of this game.  The first version,
1.2, should no longer be considered an up-to-date description of this game
or my shareware policy.  The only differences between this version and the
last one are the new ATTACK MENU, minor bug fixes, and new text files.


OFFICIAL ITEMS

     Jeopard is freely redistributable, so long as my files are not altered
in any way.  If you have a suggestion for improvement, please contact me.

     Jeopard is Copyright 1991 by Robert A. Casper.  PLEASE NOTE: I am not
taking credit for the development of the board game Risk, or the tremendous
effort that was exerted over the years by Parker Brothers to bring their
game to market and keep it profitable.  I believe that playing Jeopard and
playing Risk are different experiences due to certain improvements to the
game that my implementation employs.  Therefore, the copyright refers only
to this specific implementation.

     Absoft would like you to know that the linked runtime module that is
necessary for Jeopard to run slowly is Copyright (c) Absoft Corp 1987

     Jeopard's status is Shareware.  This means that if you use it
regularly, you may reimburse me (the author) for the weeks of applied
effort that went into development of this game.  I took a "dime-a-dozen"
idea and worked to elevate its value to that of a marketable software
product.  Approximately 200 hours of my life are stored on your disk.


THE DEAL

     Feel free to play this game by yourself and/or with friends.  The
shareware concept gives you a unique trial period not offered in most other
methods of marketing.  However, when you are familiar enough with the game
to make an informed decision of whether or not you will keep it, please make
that decision.  I request that anyone who keeps Jeopard and intends to play
it on a regular basis send me fifteen ($15.00) U.S. dollars to reimburse me
for the time I spent to make this software a reality.  Thank you.

     Please give Jeopard to every Amiga game player that you know.


MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

     Amiga computer (keyboard, mouse, one drive)
     1 megabyte RAM (at least)
     AmigaDOS 1.2 (or better)
     a few hours


THE SCREEN:

     The text window appears at the top of the screen.  This window will
contain information, instructions, and menus.  You can drag this window down
to access the front/back gadgets of the Jeopard screen.
     The map window contains the playing board.  The world is divided up
into 42 territories and 6 continents.  Each territory contains a colored box
and a number.  The box (called the "hotspot") is the place where you click
the mouse when you wish to select that territory.  The hotspot box will be
the color of the player who owns it.  The number tells you how many armies
are on that territory.  When more than 99 armies are on a single territory,
two asterisks (**) will appear instead of a number.  There must be at least
one army on each territory during the game.
     There are three command boxes on the righthand side of the window.  The
first one, labelled "END TURN AND PASS THE DICE", should be clicked when you
are finished with your turn.  The second, "CANCEL ATTACK", is used if you
change your mind about which territory to attack from.  This only works if
you have NOT selected a target territory.  The third box, called "REPEAT
LAST ATTACK", saves you the trouble of selecting a source and target if they
are the same as last time.  The "last attack" is reset at the beginning of
each turn.  This command box is especially useful when you are using manual
dice rolling.
     A requester window will occasionally appear between the text and map
windows.  When this happens, you MUST type something in to continue with the
game.  If you accidentally click the mouse in another part of the screen
when a requester is present, you will have to click in the requester before
you can type into it.  The requester will contain a question and a default
answer in brackets.  If you want to choose the default answer, just hit
RETURN without entering anything.
     A small window also appears on the workbench screen with my name and
address.  This is not used during gameplay.


CARDS

     There is a card for every territory on the screen, plus two wild cards.
Each card (except the wilds) has a symbol attached to it.  The symbols are
CANNON, SOLDIER, and HORSE.  A wild card represents all three symbols.
     You receive one card after every turn during which you attack and
occupy attack a territory.  At the start of your turn, you may "turn in" a
set of three cards to gain bonus armies.  The number of armies that you get
starts at 4 and goes up to 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, 25, etc.  The number
increases every time someone turns in cards.
     A set of cards is 3 soldiers, 3 cannons, 3 horses, one of each, or any
two and a wild.  You MUST turn in a set of cards when you have five cards at
the start of your turn.  There is always a set in any five cards.
     If you eliminate one of your opponents during the game, you will get
all the cards he was holding.  If you have more than 4 cards when this
happens, you will be able to turn in a set, place the bonus armies wherever
you want, and continue attacking.  HINT! -- When you have a weak position on
the board, you should turn in cards as soon as possible so that people won't
wipe you out to get your cards.


RUNNING THE PROGRAM

     Make sure all the files from Jeopard archive are in the same directory.  The ones you need to run the game are:

         Jeopard
         Jeopard.map
         graphics.bmap
         dos.bmap

     You may either double click the Jeopard icon OR type the following:

     1> stack 5400
     1> Jeopard


SETTING UP THE BOARD

     The first requester asks if you want to play a saved game.  The program
doesn't tell you which games have been saved, so you should know which game
you want to load before you start Jeopard.  If you wish to start a NEW
game, just push RETURN.
     Next you choose the number of players and their colors.  The first
player is randomly chosen, but the order in which you select colors is the
order that you will take turns playing.  This is analogous to choosing where
you will sit around the table.  For example: if you select RED, BROWN, and
GREEN in that order, RED isn't automatically the first player.  If BROWN is
chosen to go first, the turns will progress like this: BROWN, GREEN, RED,
BROWN, GREEN, RED, etc.
     You are now given the choice of Random or Strategic placement of
armies.  Random placement (the default) lets Jeopard divide the world
between all the players.  Strategic placement lets you pick which
territories you want.  Each player in turn will select the hotspot of an
unclaimed territory until none are left.  Note that there is no need to
click in the last territory because Jeopard will automatically give it to
the next player in line.
     Now you place your remaining armies on your territories.  If you want
to change your mind later, before the game begins, you may.


PLAYING THE GAME

     A player's turn consists of four steps:
          1. Adding new armies
          2. Attacking
          3. Fortifying your position
          4. Viewing your cards

1. Adding new armies
     The number of armies you receive is determined using three factors:
number of territories owned, continents occupied, and cards turned in.
If you only own one territory, your armies are automatically put there.

     A. The number of territories owned is divided by three, fractions
        dropped.  This gives you the basic number of new armies (minimum 3)

     B. If you occupy every territory of a continent at the beginning of
        your turn, you will get bonus armies.  The bonus depends on the
        continent:

               Australia           2 armies
               South America       2 armies
               Africa              3 armies
               North America       5 armies
               Europe              5 armies
               Asia                7 armies

     C. You will get more armies for turning in a set of cards.  If you own
        a territory represented by a card that you turn in, there is an
        additional bonus of two armies that goes in that territory.
        Whenever a card is displayed on the screen, it is the color of the
        owner to make it easier to pick out the ones you own.

2. Attacking
     After you place the new armies, you may attack your opponents.  Do this
by clicking on the place you want to attack from, then the target territory.
These two territories must be adjacent.  Adjacent territories are either
physically touching or connected by a line.  Alaska is adjacent to
Kamchatka.  You must have at least two armies in the place you are attacking
from, because you have to move armies into a captured territory.
     An ATTACK MENU will be displayed with various default values that are
most often used.  You may change somthing for your attack by selecting that
item and entering a new value.
     The number of dice the attacker may roll on a single attack depends on
how many armies are on the territory he is attacking from.  This table
shows the exact number allowed:

     Number of Armies     Minimum dice allowed     Maximum dice allowed
         2                          1                        1
         3                          1                        2
         4 (or more)                1                        3

     The defender may roll one die for every army on his territory, with a
maximum of two.  The defender always wins in the case of a tie.  Generally,
if you roll more dice, you have a greater chance of winning, but you risk
losing more armies.  The defaults for the number of dice are always the
maximum available to you.  When I play Jeopard, I always use the defaults.
     There are two ways of rolling dice: Manual and Autoroll.  The default
is Autoroll, because I use it all the time.  If you prefer Manual, just
choose it once and it will be the new default for that game.  Manual rolling
will display the attacker's dice "tumbling".  Hit any key to freeze them.
The numbers will be sorted and displayed in the text window.  Now the
defender's dice will "tumble".  He should hit a key to freeze them.  The
armies lost will be removed from both attacking and defending territories.
You can attack again if you wish.  This is where the "REPEAT LAST ATTACK"
command box comes in handy.
     The Autoroll technique is a real advantage over physically rolling
dice.  You can conduct a major battle between hundreds of armies in a matter
of seconds!  When you choose Autoroll, you decide at what point you will
stop attacking, so you can prevent losing all your armies.  The computer
will fight both sides.  For example, suppose you have 35 armies in Brazil
and you want to take over North Africa, which has 20 armies in it, but you
don't want to lose all your armies doing it.  Just select Autoroll and
attack until you have 15 armies left.  The combat will continue until you
have 15 armies OR you have won.
     Autoroll uses sequential numbers in the random number list, so the
results can be kind of strange.  It is not unusual to win the battle
mentioned above with 20 armies left, or to lose 20 armies trying to defeat 8
defenders.  However, the player with the most armies will usually win.
I would recommend having 1.5 times your opponent's armies before engaging
in an Autoroll battle.  I like Autoroll because it makes the game go faster
and the dice less predictable.  Perhaps you could use Manual rolling for
sundry attacks and Autoroll only for large battles.  The players should
agree on this before playing.
     When you defeat a group of armies, you must move some of your armies
into the captured territory.  You have to leave at least one behind.  The
default number to move is all of them, so be careful that you don't fight
you way into a corner by hitting RETURN too many times during combat and
accepting this default number by accident.
     You may attack any number of times as long as you have armies in
territories adjacent to opponents.  You can choose not to attack at all.
Click in the "END TURN" command box when you are done.  If you attack down
to the last man and have no spare armies left, your turn automatically ends.

3. Fortifying your position
     Now you can move armies around in your territories.  Jeopard does not
restrict movement between territories, so YOU will have to decide on these
rules.  Here are some popular ways of doing this:

     A. Move as many of your armies as you like from ONE of your
        territories into ONE of your adjacent territories.
     B. Armies can be moved into adjacent territories only.  No limit
        on the number of territories.
     C. Any amount of armies may be moved among your territories,
        so long as the source and destination are connected by a path
        of your territories.  (I use this method)
     D. No restrictions.  Move anything anywhere.

4. Viewing your cards
     If you captured a territory during your turn, you can view your cards.
There is a "Hit RETURN to see cards" prompt so your opponents can avert
their eyes if you wish to play that way.  The cards will be displayed in
the color of the player who owns the corresponding territory.


THE MENUS

     There is only one pull-down menu selection, QUIT.  This does NOT have a
"are you sure" question, so don't use it.  I used keyboard menus instead.
     The main options menu has these choices: Save Game, Restore Game,
View Cards, Status, Edit, and Quit.  This is what they do:

1. Save Game
     This lets you save the current game as a small disk file.  You can
     store up to nine games on a disk.  If you save your game as game#1 and
     there is a game#1 stored on the disk, the old game will be lost.

2. Restore Game
     This function will load a saved game.  You would normally do this from
     the first Y or N prompt, but you can load an old game at any time if
     you wish.  The current game will be lost if you restore an old game.

3. View Cards
     This will display any player's cards.  This should be done with the
     player's permission.  An extra prompt was added so that the other
     players can avert their eyes.

4. Status of Player
     This will print some information on how well a player is doing.  It is
     not very useful, but it's there if you want it.

5. Edit menu
     Goes to a menu that lets you edit the game board.  See below for
     details of the Edit options.

6. Quit Game
     This DOES have an "are you sure" prompt.  You may leave Jeopard using
     this option.

     The Edit menu lets you substantially alter the game.  This should only
be used in the following situations:

     A. There is a dispute over something, and both parties agree to return
        the game to the way it was before the something happened.
     B. A key is accidentally pressed and everyone agrees that the result
        should be changed.
     C. You wish to set up a situation to see what would happen.
     D. You wish to enter a board game into Jeopard.
     E. Use this as part of the set up procedure to make the game more
        interesting.

1. Change Current Player
     This lets you alter whose turn it is.

2. Ownership of a Territory
     Gives a territory (and any armies on it) to another player.

3. # Armies on a Territory
     Lets you change the number of armies on a territory.  This doesn't
     add armies, it sets a new value.

4. Re-Draw the Map
     Re-draws everything in the map window.  This was useful during
     development, but there's no real reason to use it now.

5. # Card Sets Turned In
     Lets you change the next card value up or down.  Initially setting
     this to 10 or 15 armies will make the cards much more valuable.

6. Return to Options Menu
     Go back to main options menu.  This is the default for the Edit menu.

     These functions let you change any aspect of the game except the number
of players, player colors, and cards owned by the players.


KNOWN BUGS AND QUIRKS

     If you are stuck in the Fortifying section and it keeps repeatedly
asking you how many armies you want to move, and you only have one army in
the source territory, enter a -1 to continue.

     Once in a great while, you may put your armies on the board and your
turn will start over before you can attack.  In the thousands of times I
have played Jeopard, this has only happened to me THREE times.  I don't
think it's important enough to trace down at this point.  If this happens
to you; just put the extra armies somewhere, end the turn, go to edit menu,
change player's turn to your color, and use "# armies on territory"
function to fix the mistake.

     This isn't really a bug, but it will affect whether or not you can
play the game.  The Jeopard screen uses a large section of the CHIP RAM in
your Amiga.  If you can't seem to get the game to run (and you keep getting
ERROR #7), just close some windows and don't multitask as much to make
this memory free for Jeopard's use.


ERROR CODES

     Once in a while, Jeopard may crash.  I have tried to weed out all the
bugs, but I may have missed one in a section that hardly ever gets used.
If Jeopard does crash, it probably won't crash the system as well.  If you
find a bug, please write me a note describing what you were doing when
it happened so I can fix it.  If you are playing a hot game, you should
save it once in a while just in case.

   ERROR #7 -- OUT OF MEMORY  (Don't multitask if you have 1 Meg.)

   ERROR #9 -- SUBSCRIPT OUT OF RANGE  (This means I messed up somewhere.
               These are usually easy to fix if I know where they are.)

   ERROR #53 -- FILE NOT FOUND  (a "-.bmap" file is missing)

   ERROR #61 -- DISK FULL  (You tried to save a game on a full disk.)

   ERROR #70 -- PERMISSION DENIED  (The save disk is write protected.)


TREATIES

     There is a good reason why I didn't make "treaties" and "non-
aggression pacts" part of the game.  I am convinced that they absolutely
ruin the fun.  You win this game by employing a superior strategy,
intelligently allocating resources, and attacking your opponents.  If two
players agree not to attack each other at a common border, they have an
unfair advantage.  The other players are forced to gang up to compete.  You
will eventually get to a point where the last five players sit in their
continents, piling up armies at their borders until one bored player gives
up and breaks a treaty.  This player often depletes his armies and is the
first one off the board.  "Political Jeopard" and Jeopard are not the same
game.  "Political Jeopard" is usually won by the first person to fortify a
continent and make a couple treaties.  In such a game, it is to your
advantage NOT to attack.
     I have nothing against peace in the real world, but it makes a war game
very boring.  I recommend that everyone play according to the rules and his
own strategy.  Do not look to your opponents for help, and please don't gang
up on anyone.


PLAYING VARIATIONS

     If you have 2 to 4 players, you can have two or three colors per
player.  All the colors commanded by one player act like allies.  A player
is out of the game when all his colors are defeated.

     You can make the game more competitive by increasing the initial value
of turned in cards to 10 or 15 armies.  The cards become MUCH more valuable
early in the game.  Using all your resources to eliminate a player with
cards can be a wise move in this scenario.  Anyone who doesn't take over a
territory each turn is at a disadvantage.  This game is usually shorter.

     Reset the card value back to 4 cards at the beginning of each turn so
that cards are worth much less.  Now the emphasis is on continental
strategy.

     Instead of playing for the whole board, play for half of it.  In this
game, a player must occupy 21 territories (50% of board) to win.  The player
status option can be used to check percentage of board owned.  You can only
do this with four or more players.

     Start the game with one player in each continent, with the rest of the
board (if any) divided equally.  Give everyone the same total number of
armies.  The object is to occupy at least one territory in each continent
at the end of your turn.


WHAT IS SHAREWARE?

     Shareware is "user-supported" or "try before you buy" software
available from electronic information systems, public domain sources, user
groups, and bulletin boards.  It costs less than commercial software and
allows you to examine it on your computer before you decide to pay for it.
     If you actually use the software, you are requested to send a donation
or registration fee to the author.  Whether or not you send money, you are
encouraged to give the software to others who may have a use for it.
     Some authors distribute their product with a few key features missing
so you can try it out, but can't do anything with it.  I DON'T do this
because you can't fully test the program on your computer without using
every feature.  The fact that you can try the software is an important part
of the shareware concept.
     Shareware authors don't have the overhead costs inherent in a
commercial business, so the price is less.  You are directly supporting the
person who created the software.  On the down side, these authors can't
support their customers as well as a corporation.  However, some companies
don't have great support departments, and they often aren't as knowledgeable
about the product as the person who actually constructed it.
     It is important to note that paying for a disk with shareware on it and
paying for the shareware are two different transactions.  When you buy a
public domain disk, you are paying for the cost of the disk, the handling,
and an administrative fee.  When you download a program from an electronic
information service such as Compuserve or GEnie, you are paying for the use
of their computer system.  In both of these cases you must first pay for the
medium necessary to receive the software before you can try it out and
decide whether or not you wish to pay for it.
     When you send money to a shareware author, he or she will be receiving
a clear signal that he or she is doing a good job, and will be motivated
to produce more and better software.




          Robert A. Casper
          915 Sacandaga Road
          Scotia, NY   12302
          USA

          [e-mail]
          http://www.albany.net/~racasper/index.html