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* Warring States README.TXT *
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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Design and idea: Max Tillberg
Programming: Max Tillberg
Game art: Max Tillberg
Title art: I-Hong Chou. This image was used with the kind permission of China Art. You can visit them at http://www.artasiaart.com, where you can order this and many other great images.
Event art: The event art was made by various known and unknown old masters, all of them more than 100 years old. If you know of any copyright violations please let me know.
Sounds: The sounds were found at various free sources. If you know of any copyright violations please let me know.
Pomerium, a great solo game written by Steven Cranmer, inspired this game.

LOCATION:
http://boardgame.hypermart.net/

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Version 0.91 2002/07/xx
The discovery of Life Elixir don't close up the game anymore (thanks Simon).
Maximum number of soldiers are selected as default.
The back button is not visible during battles.
Corrected some spelling errors.
Fixed bug that sometimes killed too many soldiers during disasters.

Version 0.9 2002/07/10
The first release.

PRICE AND AVAILABILITY:
This game is free to use (see the file licence.txt for more information) but I would be glad if you sent me a line to tell me what you think about it or if you have any ideas for further improvements. Address and the latest version can be found at http://boardgame.hypermart.net/.

DESCRIPTION:
This game takes place in the Warring states period (464-222 BC) in China. During this period a multitude of independent states were almost constantly at war with each other to achieve supremacy and hopefully build an empire. As ruler of one of these states, your ultimate goal is to conquer all states in order to unite them into one empire with one ruler, the Emperor of China.

REQUIREMENTS:
This program runs under Windows CE3 (I have only tried it on iPAQ) and requires some Visual Basic Run-Time Files that are included in the installation file.

USAGE:
Installation
Unzip warringstates.zip and place the files in any folder. Run setup.exe and follow the instructions. You may remove warringstates.zip when the game is installed.

Start the game
Start Warring States.exe.

Goal
The goal is to unite independent states and become the first emperor of China. To do this you must defeat all the other rulers and control at least three states.

Start a new game
When you first start a game you must choose a ruler, difficulty level, number of opponents and length of game (in game years).

Choose a ruler
There are 8 rulers to choose from, each with different abilities. Some are better at fighting (attack and defense bonus), some are better at recruiting new soldiers (economy bonus) and some are better at encouraging research (science bonus). Please note that the ability to lead your men into battle is not everything. The economy bonus can be just as important. 

Set the difficulty level
There are three difficulty levels to choose between, easy, medium and hard. The levels affect the number of soldiers, scholars and gold you and the other rulers start with. It also affects moral and number of soldiers in the free states and the way the other rulers play. The difficulty level does not directly affect the score.

Set the number of opponents 
The opponents are randomly chosen among the remaining rulers. The other rulers follow the same rules as you do and treat you as any other ruler. During the game new rulers may appear from free states.

Length of game
The length of game determines how long your ruler can try to unite China before he or she dies of old age. Each round in the game represents one year in your ruler's life.

Map
The main area of this game is map of China with 18 states. States can be free or controlled by rulers or invading peoples. At the beginning of the game you and your opponents choose a state to start in and every year you are allowed to attack one adjacent state each.

States
States are considered adjacent if they touch on all or part of a border, or are connected by a sea route, marked by a dotted line. States touching corners are not adjacent. 

Buttons at the top of the screen
Up to the left is a button that will take you back to the main screen. This button is only visible during your turn. Next to this button is the current year. The game always starts in 230 BC. Next to the year are statistics that show your current moral (next to a heart), number of scholars (next to a wheel) and number of soldiers (next to a sword).

Buttons at the bottom of the screen
At the bottom of the screen is a button with two swords that allows you to attack an adjacent state. There are also buttons that let you recruit new soldiers and scholars, improve the moral of your army, view detailed information about the rulers and a button that will end your turn. They will also let you set research goals and view your scholar's progress.

Buttons on the map
If you click on a state you get a short description of the owner of the state. For a more detailed description, first click on the information button (the one with a chart/grid??) and then on the ruler you want to know more about.

Choose your starting state
You are free to start in any of the 18 states, but some of them give better protection, more taxes and help your scholars.

The Turn
Warring States is played in turns where every turn represent one year. Due to this time scale the soldiers are considered "instantly movable" and are not located to any state. You can move your soldiers freely between all your states, even those without any connection to each other.

During a turn the following things happens:
-Every ruler and free state gets the soldiers, scholars and moral increases they ordered the year before.
-You are allowed to recruit soldiers and scholars, throw parties to improve moral, set research goals for your scholars and/or attack one adjacent state. 
-All the other rulers are allowed to recruit soldiers and scholars, throw parties to improve moral, set research goals for their scholars and/or attack one adjacent state. 
-A random event may occur.
-Tax is collected.
-Research progress.

Battles
Each year you are allowed to attach one adjacent state. To attack, simply click on the battle button, on the button of the state that you want to attack from and then on the button of the state you want to attack. If you only have one state, you don't have to click on the state you want to attack from. You are then asked to choose how many soldiers you want use for the attack. You must at least choose one soldier and not more than 10. One soldier represent about 10 000 soldiers. The battles during this time were huge.

After this the defending ruler or state chooses it's defense and a window with battle statistics appears. Here you can see the attack and defense values together with the army moral for both sides. The attack value depends on the ruler's attack bonus, some events and discoveries. The defense bonus also depends on the border. Mountains, rivers, walls and water all make a state easier to protect. The walls have no owner, so they work in both directions. If there is a combination of wall/river or mountains/river the defense bonuses are added.

If you or any other ruler capture a ruler (takes that ruler's last state) the invading ruler gets all the captured ruler's remaining gold and scholars. Any remaining soldiers and discoveries are lost.

Army moral
One of the most important aspects in a battle is the army moral. If the moral is below 50% it's possible that the soldiers run away (you can still use them in future battles if it not was your last state), desert and are never seen again or even changes side (they does not take part in the current battle, though). If the moral is between 50 and 100% there is always a chance that the soldiers refuse to take orders. In short, always have a high army moral and never let it drop below 50%. During the battles the army moral will change depending on the outcome. 

Cities and mines
Some states have gold mines and cities. The states with gold mines will give 3 times as much tax as other states and the ones with cities will give twice as much tax. Cities will also improve the abilities for your scholars.

Research and scholars
Your scholars can discover wonderful things. They can improve your abilities in battles, tax collection and improve their own skills. They can also discover things that will protect your people against various disasters. The more scholars you recruit, the more they will discover. The research goals must be discovered in a certain order. Free states and invading peoples do not have any scholars.

Increase moral with money
You can spend money to increase your army moral. One gold will rise your army's moral by 2%. If you spend money to increase your army moral when you don't have any army, the money will go to waste. The moral can't be higher then 999%.

Random events
Each year a random event can occur. These events can be disasters, various good events, local rebellions, invaders and so on. Some discoveries will protect you from the disasters.

Invaders
One of the many problems during this time is the risk for invading people. There is a reason why the Great Wall was built. The invading peoples can appear anytime during the game. The can be driven away, but can never become totally extinct. The invading people do not collect any taxes and can't recruit any soldiers. They can receive troops from home and if they capture any gold they send it back home. They do not have any scholars.

Local rebellions 
Local rebellions can affect all states. Walls, rivers and mountains do not give any defense bonus and if the rebels win the battle, the state becomes free and keeps the remaining soldiers.

Taxes
Each year every ruler that controls a state has a chance to collect taxes from this state. The free states can also collect taxes but the chance is about half of a ruler. States affected by disaster does not generate taxes. You can't change the tax rate and the tax does not affect the risk of local rebellions.

End of game
The game ends if you lose your last state or if you die of old age or if all rulers and invaders are captured and you control at least three states. In the last case, you have united the country and become the first Emperor of China!

Score
The score is calculated after the game and depends on how many soldiers, scholars, states and gold you have. The total score also depends on how the game ended (unification of China, died of old age or captured by other ruler, invader or local rebellion).

High score
The 15 best results are saved in a high score list together with the settings you chose in the beginning of the game.

Settings
In the settings window you can turn the sounds on and off, set the speed of the game, decide how much messages you want to receive during events and battles and turn the automatic research on and off. If the automatic research is on, you don't have to choose any new research goals, the are selected automatically. You can only turn the automatic research on when the game is not in play, but you can always turn the function off.

Uninstall the game
Due to a bug in Visual Basic, all programs written in eVB must be registered again if you uninstall a VB program. I hope Microsoft will fix this bug soon (but I'm rather sure they won't). If you want to uninstall this game: choose Setting-Remove Program on your Windows CE device and then Warring States. 


FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
None yet.

PLANS FOR FUTURE RELEASES
In future releases I plan to add more random events, relations between the different rulers, the ability to trade and declare war. I would also like to see different kind of units (infantry, archers, cavalry and chariots) and the possibility to use single army units instead of the collective army used today. It will also be possible to save the current game.

KNOWN BUGS:
None yet.

SPECIAL THANKS:
Anna-Lena Tillberg for letting me do this game and the good people at DevBuzz that helped me with a few technical problems.
Daniel Caspersen and Jerker Edén who tested the game.
