Fortunes of War: interface

Military: orders for your armies and leaders, along with purchasing information for the next turn.

Diplomacy: public and private messages to other players, as well as offers from enemy leaders. Also includes treaties.

Economics: recruiting armies and leaders, adjusting your tax rate, and transfering gold to other players.

Carthage lives

After your commands are complete, they will be compressed into a small file which is then uploaded to the host machine. The host will then interpret every player's commands, execute them simultaneously, and compile the results into another small file. This file is then sent back to the player. The program takes this result file and uses it to update the game files. Then the process repeats.

The main views

Normally the main window contains the game map, but there are five large brown buttons which change this view.

Webwars: The Webwars button gives you the page that appears when you first boot the program. It contains news and updates. It also contains the Social Geometries Active X control, which allows you to send commands to our server and receive results in return. You may use it to modify your persona record, as well. Persona records are web pages stored on our server keyed to your persona name. You also access server records from the Webwars screen, such as looking up the status of games you are in or browsing another player's persona record.

Reports: The reports button brings up a detailed report from your advisor on the events of the last turn. This document covers treaties, battles, finances, leader activity, and espionage results. It also includes a summary of domestic and global events and lists each player's score and relative rank. It is tied to the time bar so that you can quickly read the reports on any given turn.

Diplomacy: This document contains all of the last day's forum messages as well as your private mail. It is also tied to the time bar. From here you may adjust your diplomatic stance towards other nations.

Espionage: This button brings up the espionage screen, where you can hire agents and assign them to missions. Note that you can declare a mission for multiple turns. This means the mission will be automatically entered for you each turn if you have sufficient agents.

Economics: From this screen you may change your tax rate and examine your projected income for the next turn. You may also enter gold transfers here. Similar to espionage missions, you can declare gold transfers for multiple turns. As long as you have the gold, you will automatically send the amount to the target nation each turn. This is a good option for propping up an ally. Nasty players may also use it to exact tributes from weaker nations.

A typical turn

Commands may be entered in any order, but for the purpose of instruction I'll list the way I play a turn. This section assumes that you've already joined a game and have received your first game result. For info about joining games, read the Quickstart section of the manual introduction. Command options will be discussed in more detail in the next three sections of the manual.

Loading a game

Load a game by hitting the games button. It will give you a window with several tabs, defaulting to the tab "player".

You will see a list of the games you're currently playing, which includes the scenario name, the nation you're playing in that game, and the current turn of the game.

The first space in each row is reserved for a graphic. If no graphic appears, it means you haven't yet received any results for that turn and may ignore that game for now.

	This game has results and requires you to enter games.
	In this game you have been eliminated. It is now safe to erase this game.
	This game is over because you have defeated all other players. This game is also safe to erase.
	You have end turned this game but have not sent in your move. Hit send and receive from the Social Geometries control on the Webwars page in order to send your move. You may avoid this problem by toggling the "Send on end turn" option accessible from the Games menu (on the menu bar, not the games button).

You will notice the text on the games button changes colour. It will be red when you have games which have received results and require attention. Once you have end-turned for all your current games, the text will turn black. This way you always know if you have to play a turn or not.

Map navigation

Other map functions

The map may be zoomed in and out with the magnifying glass icons. There are three levels of zoom available. You may also zoom in and out with the + and - keys.

Movement vectors of armies and leaders may be toggled with the vector button. Vectors are automatically turned off when viewing the past. It's already happened and is beyond your control, so why worry about it?

The hex grid is toggled with the hex button. Hexes are turned off in the past, and snap back on when the time bar has reached the present. It's one easy way to tell if you're viewing the present or the past. Unit commands may only be entered in the present, so this is important.

The time bar is the most powerful component of the map interface. It renders the view for each game turn that has taken place so far. The fast forward and rewind buttons respectively advance and regress the view by one full day. The play button causes time to flow continously forward from the current point of the time bar.

The time bar's slider may also be grabbed at any point and moved to exactly the point in time the player desires.

The list control

To the left of the main map you will see a vertical list of buttons we refer to as the list control. It contains several lists which are accessed with the large arrow buttons at its top.

Each button contains stats on a particular unit, leader, or city, as seen in the image to the right. If you click once on an entry in the list, the map will centre on the object listed. If you click twice, you will get the full stats on the object in question.

The stats are self-explanatory except for the small icons which show the current orders of the unit. These are as follows:

Move, Intercept, Sentry, Stay, and Guard are commands you may give to leaders and armies. They are described in the Military section.

Routs and berserks apply to out of control units. This will be discussed in detail in the combat section.

Types of Lists

Battles: The Battles list shows all of your units which were involved in combat last turn. Clicking on the unit will move the time line back one day, centre the main map on the battling unit, and begin playback. This will allow you to watch the progress of the unit throughout the last turn so you can see exactly how his fight turned out. "Battles" is the default list for any turn in which combat has occurred.

Offers: Sometimes foreign heroes will offer you various nefarious services. The Offers list contains all offers you have received in the current turn. Ransom demands and employment contracts from mercenaries will also appear here. Clicking on the offer will give you a yes/no dialogue box. Offers for which replies are not given are assumed to be answered "no".

Armies: The armies list shows all of your current armies. Clicking on a army will centre the map on that army. Double clicking on an army will show you its statistics in detail. "Armies" is the default list for any turn in which combat has not occurred.

Cities: Lists the cities in your empire, their population, and whether or not they are besieged, idle, or producing armies this turn.

Graveyard: The graveyard is a list of all of your units which have fallen in battle. Clicking on a unit will regress time to the beginning of the day of the unit's death and centre the map on the late army or leader. Playback will begin. Fallen warriors deserve to be remembered, whether for stupidity or valour.

List control formatting

The buttons on the list control come in two sizes. To toggle them, right-click on any button on the control and select "Format". The large buttons are the default.

You may resize the list control by dragging its border. This will also resize the mini-map.

Saving a game

Sometimes you may have to leave a game halfway through the process of entering commands. Hit the "save" button and all of your commands for the current turn will be saved. You may then return to finish the move later.

Note that the save function is not the same as the End Turn function. "End Turn" saves the game, compiles your orders into a command file, and places the file in the Social Geometries send buffer. When you "End Turn", you do not need to "save" -- it saves the game automatically. The "save" function is only for when you have to leave midway through giving orders for a turn.

The text of the save button changes colour similarly to the games button. If you load a game and enter any commands, the text of the button turns red. It will stay red until you either save game or end turn, at which point it turns black. If you give any further commands, the button will turn red again.

Ending a turn

The "End Turn" button will compile all of your commands and messages into a small file and put it in the Social Geometries send buffer. Your commands will be sent to our server the next time you send and receive. You may instruct Fortunes to send your move to our server every time you hit "End Turn" by selecting the "Send on end turn" option available from the games menu (on the menu bar, not the games button). This is highly recommended for those of you that play while connected to the net.

If you typically play offline, you will have to first connect to the internet and then hit the send and receive button on the Webwars screen to send in your move manually after you "End Turn".

If you "End Turn" but don't send in your move, your game's listing in the game window will have a

next to it. If you see this, take action immediately. It's annoying as hell if you end a turn but forget to send it to our server, in which case you in effect miss a turn and all the commands you entered are lost. That's why we recommend you use the "Send on end turn" option discussed above if you play while connected to the net. We didn't make this the default behaviour because we realize there's still many of you, particularly across the sea, that still have to count your hours online.

You will see that the colour of the text of the End Turn button changes. When you load a turn and start entering commands, the text will turn red. It will turn to black when you end turn. This should make it easy to avoid the catastrophe of entering all your moves and forgetting to hit end turn.

If you make any further moves after you've End Turned, the text will turn amber.

Move		Rout
Intercept		Berserk
Sentry		Guard
Stay		Dead

I. Interface

Overview

Carthage lives