Game description

Fortunes of War is a strategic wargame based on the time period of approximately 1000 B.C. to 400 A.D. Players must marshall their armies and spies, manage their economy, keep an eye on their generals, and attempt to manipulate other players through diplomacy. Do not underestimate diplomacy. A good player can accomplish more with a message than he could with ten armies.

There are currently five nation types within the game -- Romans, Carthaginians, German Tribes, Parthia, and Macedon. Celtic tribes will be added shortly. Each nation type has a unique roster of units. Details on units can be found in the manual under "Nations and Units".

Macedonian phalanx

There are several dozen heroes and legends who wander the world offering their services to rulers. Good leaders will make your armies much more dangerous. Leaders have a loyalty rating which fluctuates according to their pay, experience, and innate trustworthiness. They may betray you at a critical moment, so watch them carefully and treat them well.

Each turn, you will get two reports. One report informs you of events within your empire while the other lists any messages you may have received from heroes, mercenaries, or other players. Reports are composed in HTML. The client program has a web browser built in to read these files. We use IE4 components, which is why you need IE 4 on your system even if you don't use it for regular browsing.

Roman legion

Having a built-in browser allows us to supplement the client program with functions on our servers. For example, each player has a persona record, which is a personal web page, and you may look up the status of any games being played. There are also message boards and a chat room to help with technical support.

When you install the client, you will need to apply to us for a persona. This persona is how you will be known in the Webwars world. Each persona is unique and has a signature image associated with it. All communications with our servers are encrypted and signed with your persona's key.

Fortunes is designed to be quick and easy to play. While we desire as accurate a simulation as possible, when faced with a design choice between realism and playability, we always go with playability.

There is no AI for this game. Fortunes may only be played against human players, up to 32 per game. This is probably the most difficult part for new players to adjust to. You can't count on your enemy being stupid and predictable anymore.

Features

• Autonomous leaders: Your generals have their own agendas and sometimes take matters into their own hands. They also have the capability to send their own messages to other players.
  
  
• Autonomous armies: armies follow your commands to the best of their abilities, but they are, after all, human. You'll lose control of them temporarily if they're suffering especially heavy casualties or if the thrill of bloodlust overcomes them.
  
  
• Encrypted transport and strong authentication: Installing Fortunes of War will give you a persona on the Webwars Continuum, which uses the Social Geometries transport system (more on this later). This has three ramifications. One, your messages and game turns are encrypted (and Bill Clinton will never hold a copy of your key). Two, your game name is unique and you are the only one who can use it. Three, your real name and email address are protected. We know who you are, but none of the other players do.
  
  
• Time axis: The results, animations, and messages for each turn are stored and may be easily accessed through our time bar. At the end of a game, the entire war can be viewed from any player's viewpoint at any point in time.
  
  
• A turn-based game: Real-time games are fun, but they really should bill themselves as action games rather than strategic ones. Strategy can't be very deep when the entire game experience consists of melting down your mouse with frantic clicks as the enemy forces march in straight lines towards you. In Fortunes of War you play on your own time, and take as long as you want to enter your commands. You may devise a much more devious and ultimately satisfying strategy than a real-time game allows. It also allows you to play a game with your friends without the annoyance of arranging a time for everyone to connect simultaneously.
  
  
• Global ratings: Each registered player has a rating. After a game, your performance is evaluated and your rating adjusted. In addition to establishing bragging rights, this also allows us to set up games for a certain range of skill. Each player also has an honour rating. Honour points are lost for particularly sleazy acts on the part of players. They do not affect any game algorithms, but they will reflect the general trustworthiness of players. It will be interesting to see if a high rating generally correlates to high honour, or vice versa. I'm betting on the vice versa, myself.
  
  
• A quick and intuitive interface: You should be able to start immediately without reading the docs, and if it takes you more than 10 minutes to enter commands for all of your armies and spies, we've failed. It may take you longer if you're heavily into diplomacy, which is highly recommended.
  

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