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U S E R D O C U M E N T A T I O N
Version 3.00
Copyright (c) 1989, 1990 by R.A.W. Software
Written by Richard A. Wilkes
Welcome to Barons! This is a fairly simple game in which you become a Baron
and, with the help of your castle and its army, try to become the most
powerful and rich Baron in the land. Most of the menu choices in Barons are
self explanatory, so I'm not going to go over them -- I will, however, go over
the way certain things work and give out a couple of hints here and there.
The menus themselves can be used in two separate ways. The first is to just
press the letter of the menu choice you wish to invoke. The second is to use
the keypad to move the cursor up and down (the number 8 moves up, 2 moves
down, 7 moves to the top, 1 moves to the bottom) and use the spacebar or
return key to make a selection. Either method works well, although the first
is probably faster. There is also an "Expert Mode" which can be toggled by
hitting CTRL-X. This mode just shows the menu letter choices and is useful
for those of you running at slow baud rates.
PERSONAL COMBAT
Personal combat happens whenever you attack another Baron or a monster. First
of all, if you attack a Baron because you saw that he was hurt pretty badly
(via your spy network), forget an easy kill -- he gets fully healed before
fighting anyone (although this does not benefit the player of that Baron since
his health is put back to what it was if he survives the combat). This was
put in so that someone cannot fight a Baron, run away, get healed, and come
back to fight him again. Even someone that is quite superior to you could be
killed this way, so I removed the option.
How does the combat work? The first attack is determined by comparing
quickness and adding in a random number. The one with the highest result goes
first (in case of a tie, you go first). Hits are determined by a formula
which includes your armor & weapon ratings, accuracy, and level differences.
Damage is determined by a random number between 1 and the weapon rating minus
the armor rating plus strength. The person (or monster) that reaches 0 health
first, dies. If this happens to be you -- don't worry, the gods in the lands
of the Barons are gracious -- the next time you log on, you'll be
reincarnated. This "reincarnation" does cost, however. You will lose 1 level.
This entails losing any strength, accuracy, quickness, and health you may have
gained previously. NOTE: You can never be reduced beyond first level.
You should be very careful with combat because, if you lose, there is the
potential that your armor, weapon, and/or gold may all be stolen/swapped by
the person/monster that defeated you. This can work in reverse, however, so
if you kill that Baron over there that is maxed out and he has a better sword
than you, you get his sword and he gets yours.
If you do kill another Baron, he will be sent a message listing who killed
him and what was taken as a result.
If you win a combat against a monster, there are a few things that the monster
may have that you will get to take. The most common is gold and the amount
varies with the level of the monster. On some monsters, you have a chance of
finding a potion that will raise your strength, accuracy, or quickness by one
point, a sword of sharpness, or a vorpal sword. The swords are usually very
hard to find and cannot be bought, although they can be sold.
KINGDOM MANAGEMENT (specifically, what to do with your armies?)
The way to gain the most gold and power in Barons is to build up your armies
and conquer everything you can. The more you own, the faster you can build
armies and the more gold you can collect as taxes.
As a first level Baron, you will be limited to two commands to your armies per
day. This goes up by two per level, so it behooves you to go out and gain a
few levels. The only command you can give to your armies is to move them from
one town or castle to another. The place they move to can only be one square
away. If you own the town (or castle) they are moved to, it merely reinforces
the place. If, however, someone else owns it, your troops will attack it. If
they fail, they will attempt to return to where they came from -- be very
careful here! -- if the town they came from was attacked and taken while your
troops were away, your troops will have to fight when they return. Unlike a
normal attack, here they will fight until they either win or are completely
wiped out.
OK, so how does the attack work? An attack is based on the fortification
level of the town/castle as well as the number of troops attacking and
defending it. The fortification level makes it tougher to kill troops within
the town/castle. If it takes one hit from your troops to kill one man in a
town with a fortification level of 0, it will take 3 hits to kill one man in a
town with a fortification level of 2. The actual attack is made by giving the
attacker a chance to "hit" with each man he is attacking with. The number of
attackers and defenders is made into a ratio and, depending on the results of
a random number, a "hit" is scored against one side or the other. The ratio
is then re-calculated (one side may have lost a man) and repeated for the next
man the attacker has until either the attacker has attacked with every man
once or one side is reduced to 0 men.
Why don't I see results once I send troops off to attack? Attacks are
resolved once a game month -- the equivalent of every two hours of the day
(real time) -- right after the first person for that time period logs in to
play (but before he can do anything). Once results are posted, you will see
how many troops you and your enemy lost, how much damage was done to the
civilian population (if any), and whether or not the attack caused damage to
the fortifications.
Once you take a town, you can set the tax rate for it as well as the draft
rate. Be careful with these! If you set them too high you may start to lose
population -- and if your population is ever reduced to 0, you might as well
throw the town away since it will never attract any more people. The lower
you set both the draft rate and the tax rate, the faster new people will come
to your town. Also, the higher the fortifications, the faster they will come
in as well. Drafting and taxing are done once per game year (one day real
time). One more note -- the draft tends to scare people away more than the
taxes, so if you want a large population, you'll keep the drafting down.
Oh, yes, there is also the possibility of contracting the plague in a town
that is overcrowded -- this will happen if your population is over a magic
number, or if some bum wanders into town with it (lucky for you, the chance of
a bum doing this to you is only about 2%).
GAINING LEVELS
Hmmm... almost forgot this. Here is a chart to help you with figuring out how
many experience points you need per level:
Level Experience Level Experience
----- ---------- ----- ----------
1 0 12 33000
2 500 13 39000
3 1500 14 45500
4 3000 15 52500
5 5000 16 60000
6 7500 17 68000
7 10500 18 76500
8 14000 19 85500
9 18000 20 95000
10 22500 +1 previous amount needed
11 27500 plus (level - 1) * 500
HOW DO I WIN?
The game will go on until all of the towns within the game have been taken by
players. At that time, you will have 15 days (actually, the Sysop can change
this to whatever he wants) until the game ends. The Baron with the highest
score at the end of this time is the winner.
CONCLUSION
If you find any bugs or have a suggestion for an improvement, I can be reached
at (408) 974-9678 during the day. You can also try to contact me
electronically through:
Portal: richw@cup.portal.com
Mycroft BBS: Richard Wilkes
Internet: richw@apple.com
or you can send me mail at:
R.A.W. Software
P.O. Box 51744
San Jose, CA 95151-5744
Please do NOT send requests for Barons to this address. I have no way to make
IBM disks for the distribution of Barons (I do everything on a Macintosh).
The way to obtain the latest version of Barons is to call the Mycroft BBS at
(408) 927-0105 and download it.
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