*MACBETH*
                                       ver 1.0, 1995

                                     This manual:  2000

INTRODUCTION

It is the year 1031.  Macbeth has succeeded his father, Finlay, as moarmaer 
(provincial governor) of Moray...

Later...
   It is the year 1040.  You have recently become Thane of the Highlands under 
King
Duncan I.
   A messenger enters, "I have terrible news, mi lord."  The messenger pulls out 
a scroll with the seal of Macduff upon it.  He reads, "Macbeth hath slain our 
noble King Duncan in battle near Elgin.  He makes a direct claim to the crown by 
his marriage to the granddaughter of King Kenneth III.  You hereby are urged to 
aid us in cleansing Scotland of this murderous tyrant."

   As Thane of the Highlands you realize the neccessity for your involvement.  
If you do not choose a side, you will surely be taken after the conflict. The 
High King of Scotland is Macbeth, but you fear his rule may be at an end.

The choice is up to you...


PLAYING THE GAME

This game is very simple.  It is completely menu driven.  As Thane of the 
Highlands you make the choices that affect your rule and your survival.  Your 
actions either affect your people or how the other leaders view you, but often 
affect both.  The other leaders are Macduff, Malcolm, and of course Macbeth.  
Here is an outline of different actions you may take.

1)  Send a messenger
     a)  request a peace treaty (40 pounds)
     b)  make a threat (1 pound)
     c)  request military aid (10 pounds)
     d)  send gifts (100 pounds)
2)  Visit a castle
     a)  Macduff (42 pounds)
     b)  Malcolm (84 pounds)
     c)  Macbeth (56 pounds)
3)  Make an attack
     a)  an army of 100 men (400 pounds)
     b)  a band of 10 men (50 pounds)
     c)  knight and legion (120 pounds)
     d)  hire an assassin (80 pounds)
4)  Deploy a spy
     a)  Macduff (23 pounds)
     b)  Malcolm (28 pounds)
     c)  Macbeth (42 pounds)
5)  Make an alliance
     a)  Macduff (60 pounds)
     b)  Malcolm (75 pounds)
     c)  Macbeth (120 pounds)
6)  Collect more taxes
7)  Declare a holiday
8)  Wait, do nothing
9)  Quit Game

On the Main Menu, you may press <space> to view your own stats, such as your 
money, the morale of your people, and how much military power you have.

MESSAGES
     You communicate with the other leaders by sending messages.  This can hurt 
their view of you, or make you more attractive.  If leaders get mad enough at 
you, they will certainly attack.  You can also request military aid which will 
increase your power rating should the leader like you enough to send help.

VISITING LEADERS
     Visiting another leader may lead to a good or bad outcome.  But as a 
general rule, visiting another house is a sign of an alliance, and will not only 
build good relationships but will raise the morale of your people.  Be warned 
though, visiting the castle of another leader's enemy may make that leader 
distrust you.

ATTACKING
     You may make an attack, sending different number of troops.  In general, a 
Knight will increase the morale of the troops and make them fight better.  But 
sending a full army brings back more spoils.  If you win a battle, your power 
rating increases and your enemy's power rating decreases even more (you aren't 
able to seize ALL the spoils and power your enemy had unless you think you can 
raise the dead).  Be very cautious when hiring an assassin.  They often get 
caught by the King's personal guard, and if word gets out that you are hiring 
assassins, all the other leaders will begin to view you with disgust.

SPYING
     You may send a spy to any one of the other leaders.  The spy infiltrates 
their country, and brings back vital information about them.  They find out how 
rich they are, how much power they have, and how much their people care for 
them.

COLLECT TAXES
     Though this is the traditional way to get more money, it isn't recommended 
that you let the morale of your people go below 20%

DECLARE A HOLIDAY
     By declaring a holiday, people are not obliged to go to work, and may have 
many festivals instead.  Or they may just stay at home and do nothing.  Either 
way, this takes away from your budget, and you must work it in.  Your spending 
cash is effectively reduced.


GAME MECHANICS (How it's done.)

     Unfortunately in my early days I always thought it was a good idea to 
destroy all source code so it could never be tampered with by the wrong person.  
So I can only give you a general idea of how the game actually works.
     The game mechanics were actually one of my inspirations for writing this 
game.  I wanted a system in which different computer players had different 
feelings about each other.  I call this "loyalty."  There's a certain % of 
loyalty that each computer player has to another, and each computer player has 
to the human player.  Now these start out at certain values that I had chosen, 
but the idea was the human player would be interacting with computer players who 
were already against each other.  So all the computers have an average loyalty 
(depending on their attitude) toward whoever's playing the game, but low loyalty 
to each other.  As loyalty goes down, the chance of an attack increases.  
Needless to say, for anyone who has read Macbeth, the loyalties between Macbeth 
and Malcolm/Macduff are the lowest, whereas Malcolm and Macduff have high 
loyalties to each other.  There is definitely some randomness to what actions 
they take, but it's not completely arbitrary.  For example, even though Malcolm 
may hate Macbeth, if he doesn't have very much power, there is a strong chance 
he will wait before attacking.  But if he waits too long and his power doesn't 
go up, he might just get tired of waiting and attack unwisely anyway.
     But the interesting part is the human aspect.  Your actions also affect the 
way other leaders view you, and how they will react.  Not only that, but your 
actions also affect the morale of your people.  Your power rating gradually 
increases over time even if you do nothing.


RANDOMNESS

     There are TONS of random things that can happen when you perform different 
actions.  They all have a certain percentage of happening.  You can get an idea 
of how many things that can happen by the sheer number of text files that come 
with the game.  The text files are everything that can be put up on the screen.  
If you get bored one day, you can browse through them.  I always hated the idea 
of people going in, changing the text files, and making an entirely different 
game by figuring out which one goes where.  So I had created my own encryption 
method.  I thought it was cumbersome and who would really go through all that 
trouble anyway?  But now I think that would be kind of a cool idea to see if 
someone did it.


CHEATS

mbsetup.exe :  This allows you to set up the game, giving any of the leaders 
including yourself, whatever beginning stats you wish them to have.  For example 
you can give yourself 2000 pounds, and Macbeth only 1 to start out with.

Joe's Technique:  Joe Doran III has a technique which is based more on brute 
force rather than intrique or intellectual force.  Basically wait while other 
leaders attack each other, build up your forces, and when the time is right, 
just keep trying to assassinate.

Josh's Technique:  Josh C. Matthews developed an almost sure way to become rich.  
He discovered a loophole in the monetary system.  What you do is you make good 
with Malcolm, maybe by sending gifts first, etc.  Then you make an alliance with 
him.  Each time you make an alliance, your morale goes up, and it doesn't cost 
that much.  When your morale gets high, just raise taxes until you have to make 
alliances again.




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This game was programmed by Angelo Bertolli in 1995.
It took about 500 lines of code and 2 weeks.
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