CIRCA 7000
ARMIES OF ARMAGEDDON
Copyright (c) 1995 Michael Cooney

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION
II. OVERVIEW
III. STARTING THE GAME
     A. NEW AND SAVED GAMES
     B. E-MAIL GAMES
     C. FINISHED
     D. SPECIFYING GAME FILES
     E. FURTHER EXPLANATION
IV. PLAYING THE GAME
     A. THE GAME SCREEN
     B. NEW RECRUITS AND VETERANS
     C. LOOKING AT THE BATTLEFIELD
     D. FACING DIRECTIONS
     E. BATTLEFIELD INFORMATION
     F. ENEMY INFORMATION
     G. YOUR ARMY'S INFORMATION
     H. THE BATTLEFIELD OBSCURED
V. PHASE I:  THE MOVEMENT PHASE
     A. FIELD OF VIEW
     B. VEHICLES VS NON-VEHICLES
     C. MOVEMENT POINTS
     D. TERRAIN MOVEMENT MODIFIERS
     E. MOVING YOUR FORCES
     F. NON-VEHICLE TURNING
     G. HOVERERS
     H. MOVEMENT ORDERS
     I. VEHICLE RULES
     J. SPEED AND ACCELERATION
     K. DECELERATION
     L. DRIVING BACKWARDS
     M. TURNING VEHICLES
     N. COLLISIONS
     O. COLLISION DAMAGE
     P. COLLISION SPEED
     Q. JUMPING OUT OF THE WAY
     R. RAMMERS
VI. PHASE II:  TARGET PHASE
     A. TROOP'S SECONDARY WEAPON
     B. FIRING ARCS
     C. WEAPON RANGES
     D. FURTHER EXPLANATION
     E. FRIENDLY FIRE
     F. FIRING ORDERS
     G. SURVEY AND TARGET MODES
VII. PHASE III:  FIRING THE WEAPONS
     A. FURTHER EXPLANATION
     B. E-MAIL GAMES
VIII. REPLAYS:  THE UNOFFICIAL PHASE
     A. HIDDEN EVENTS
IX. END OF THE GAME
     A. CAMPAIGNS AND RECOVERING CASUALTIES
     B. BATTLE REPORT
     C. BECOMING A VETERAN
     D. VIEWING ALL YOUR FORCES
     E. IF ONLY...
X. THE MENU BAR
     A. GAME
          1. Save Game
          2. Quit
          3. Retreat
     B. ORDERS
          1. No Orders
          2. Wait
     C. REPORTS
          1. Damage
               a. VEHICLE SPECIAL DAMAGE
          2. Objective
          3. Scenario
XI. THE GAME MAKER
     A. SUPPORT FILES
XII. THE CHECKLIST
     A. ENTERING FILE NAMES DIRECTLY
     B. ONE WAY TO SET UP AN E-MAIL GAME
XIII. DRAW BOARD
     A. DRAW BOARD SCREEN
     B. CHOOSING A TERRAIN
     C. PUTTING TERRAIN ON THE BATTLEFIELD
     D. BUILDINGS
     E. COLLAPSING CEILINGS
          1. Load Board
          2. Save Board
          3. Fill All
          4. Finished
XIV. GAME STORY
     A. New Story
     B. Load Story
     C. Save Story
     D. Finished
XV. END GAME
     A. CASUALTY ENDING
     B. OCCUPY AN AREA ENDING
     C. RESIZING THE AREA
     D. DESTROY AN AREA ENDING
XVI. PICK ARMY (A or B)
     A. PICK ARMY SCREEN
     B. ADDING FORCES TO YOUR ARMY
     C. REMOVING FORCES FROM YOUR ARMY
     D. ARMY POINTS
     E. MENU BAR
          1. COLOR
          2. ACTIVE/RESERVE
          3. ORDERING
          4. ADD/SUBTRACT
          5. CHANGE NAME
          6. NEW ARMY
          7. LOAD ARMY
          8. SAVE ARMY
          9. FINISHED
XVII. PLACE ARMY (A or B)
     A. NEXT
     B. RANDOM
     C. FINISHED
XVIII. FINISHED
XIX. THE CUSTOMIZER
     A. OVERVIEW
     B. OPENING SCREEN
XX. CUSTOMIZE FORCES
     A. DRAWING YOUR FORCES
     B. STATS
     C. WORKING OUT DAMAGE
XXI. CUSTOMIZE TERRAIN
XXII. CUSTOMIZE WEAPONS
XXIII. LAST FEW, RANDOM NOTES


I. INTRODUCTION
Circa 7000 is a miniatures-based, strategy game with the emphasis on strategy.
Through deceivingly simple game play, players must coordinate individual
troops, machines and vehicles into a formidable assault while being wary of
falling ceilings, rough terrain, leaving trails, surprise attacks and a
barrage of weapons from the enemy.

II. OVERVIEW
Circa 7000 uses a Three Phase approach to war gaming.  In Phase 1, all your
troops move, with separate rules for foot troops and vehicles.  During Phase
2, all your forces choose their targets.  Phase 3, they fire.

III. STARTING THE GAME
To start the game, type "7000".  A title screen will appear.  Press the
left mouse button to begin.  

You are presented with three options for playing a battle - Play New Game,
Play Saved Game and Play E-mail Game.  

A. NEW AND SAVED GAMES
Playing a New Game or Saved Game is pretty straight forward.  Click on the box
to the left of the option. An "X" will appear in it and the selection will be
highlighted.  If you want the players to be controlled by the computer, click
on COMPUTER by the appropriate player to highlight it.

NOTE:  At this point, the AI is little more than token - if you can't find
anyone to play against, it'll move and shoot in a relatively intelligent way. 
But it's not going to win all the battles.

B. E-MAIL GAMES
E-mail games are handled a little differently.  If you are starting an E-mail
game, i.e. running from an .scn file as opposed to an E-mail, then choose 
EMAIL GAME and below that START NEW GAME.  If you are running from an E-mail,
then choose TAKE NEXT TURN.  

C. FINISHED
When you have chosen the correct setup, click on the FINISHED bar at the
bottom of the screen.  

D. SPECIFYING GAME FILES
A new screen will appear, this time asking for four files.  Click on any of
the boxes to change the file name.  (These can't be changed if you're
continuing an E-mail game.)

The Game File should be entered first.  Once this has been entered, the
computer will read the file header and set the remaining three accordingly.

(See The Customizer for information on how to build your own support files.)  

If your file names have changed or you want to use different support files,
you can change the Terrain, Weapons and Forces file names.  Otherwise, they
should be set properly.

Once the files are declared, click on the FINISHED bar.  To exit the game at
this point, clear the Game File box and click on the FINISHED bar.

E. FURTHER EXPLANATION:  All files have a fixed extension.  Scenarios have
".scn", saved games have ".gam", terrain files have ".trr", etc.  Anytime you
are asked for a file name to load, you can enter "*".  This will give you a
directory of files with the appropriate extension.  Click on the file name you
want to load.


IV. PLAYING THE GAME
The screen is split into three main areas.  Across the top is the menu bar. 
To use these, simply click on it.  A list of options will drop for you to
choose from.  A menu can only be chosen if it isn't dimmed.

A. THE GAME SCREEN
The left side of the screen holds all the information you're going to need. 
The active force - the one whose turn it is to act - will appear in a green
box facing the same direction that the troop is facing on the battlefield. 
If you ever "lose" the active troop (recognized because it blinks), you can
click on the green box and the troop will be centered on the battlefield
screen.  

B. NEW RECRUITS AND VETERANS
Your guys will be listed as either New Recruit or Veterans with a number after
it.  New Recruit means they're in their first battle.  The number after
Veteran shows how many battles they've fought in.

C. LOOKING AT THE BATTLEFIELD
The largest area of the screen is the battlefield.  To move around the
battlefield, click on any part of it with your right mouse button.  The square
that the mouse was pointing at will be centered as best it can.  

All the forces on the battlefield are shown from a bird's eye view, that is,
straight down from above.  Therefore, foot troops will usually consist of head
and shoulders with arms and guns sticking out.  When you look at vehicles,
you're looking down at the top of the vehicle.  

D. FACING DIRECTIONS
Forces (your troops, machines and vehicles) can face 8 directions: up, down,
left, right and to each corner.  This allows you to see the exact direction
your forces are facing.  If you turn a troop around in a circle, he will face
each of the eight directions.

E. BATTLEFIELD INFORMATION
To find information about anything on the board, click the left mouse button
on it.  This will cause a box to appear giving a picture of what you clicked
on and some general information about it.  It will also give a status of it's
condition.  For example, clicking  on terrain will give descriptions such as
"Destroyed" or "Undamaged".  

F. ENEMY INFORMATION
General information is also given about enemy forces.  This information is the
best estimate your troops can give you under the circumstances and is relative
to that particular type of force.  

G. YOUR ARMY'S INFORMATION
Your troops can only give you specific information about themselves.  It
includes exact numbers detailing the number of hits they have left and how
fast they are moving.

H. THE BATTLEFIELD OBSCURED
Lastly, part of the battlefield may be obscured with static fuzz.  The
information box is right in telling you it's "Incomplete Data".  If your
army isn't familiar with the battlefield, then the terrain only becomes known
as your troops are able to draw a line of sight (LoS) to it.  For example,
you're in a building and the next room is all fuzz. Moving one of your forces
into the doorway will cause the room terrain to appear because now one of your
troops has an LoS to it.  Once terrain appears, it doesn't fuzz over again.  

V. PHASE I:  THE MOVEMENT PHASE
A. FIELD OF VIEW
In the information area on the left of the screen, an array of arrows is
shown. These are the arrows that you use to move your forces.  The highlighted
arrows present your option for moving.

Each of your forces has a field of view (FoV) of either 90 or 180 degrees.  A
force cannot have an LoS on anything outside the FoV.  Troops mostly have an
FoV of 180 degrees meaning they can see directly their left or right.  If the
troops want to see what's behind them, they have to physically turn around and
let their FoV sweep the area.  Scorch marks, trails and enemy forces won't be
shown on the battlefield unless one of your forces has an LoS to it.

B. VEHICLES VS NON-VEHICLES
Forces come in two distinct categories:  Vehicles and Non-vehicles.  What is
or isn't a vehicle can become cloudy as you start designing your own forces,
but here are some characteristics:  Non-vehicles have a flat movement rate
that they can move each turn, turning as they wish.  Vehicles have to
accelerate, make wider turns and declare their speed at the beginning of their
turn.  Vehicles can also mow over anything in their path.

C. MOVEMENT POINTS
In general, moving your forces one square forward costs one movement point
and moving to a diagonal square cost 1.25 movement points.  To move to a
square, you must have at least half the movement points that it requires to
move to that square.  

D. TERRAIN MOVEMENT MODIFIERS
To slow you down, different terrains, such as woods and water, have movement
modifiers.  These are x1, x2, x4 and x8 (impassable).  If a terrain has a x2 
movement modifier, then it takes twice as many movement points to move into
that square, respectively.  x8 means that the terrain is impassable - i.e.
nothing can move into that square.  This would cover such things as walls and
boulders.

E. MOVING YOUR FORCES
In Circa 7000, troops can only move forwards, move backwards, turn left and
turn right.  (These last two are handled differently for vehicles and
non-vehicles.  See below).   To move left, a force must turn left then walk
forward.  Forces cannot slide left or right.

For example, a troop (facing North) wants to move three squares to the right
and then face North again. The sequence to do this is: turn right, turn right,
forward, forward, forward, turn left, turn left.  Once you get the hang of
this, it's a snap.

In addition to clicking on the arrows with the mouse, the keypad correlates to
the arrows matrix: '8' forward, '9' turn right, etc.

F. NON-VEHICLE TURNING
Turning 45 degrees costs 0.25 movement points.  The first two turns are free. 
So in the previous example, the troop would have used 3.50 movement points
(ignoring terrain modifiers).  Terrain modifiers increase the movement points
for turns the same as moving square to square.  

G. HOVERERS
The only exception to the movement point rules are those forces called
Hoverers. Hoverers can be floating vehicles or troops with jet packs.  The
terrain modifiers have half the effect and trails aren't left behind. 
Hoverers still cannot enter impassable terrain.

H. MOVEMENT ORDERS
Non-vehicles don't have to use their full movement rate.  To end their move,
choose NO ORDERS from the Orders menu, or hit the space bar (see No Orders,
below).  If you want to move other troops first, choose WAIT from the Orders
menu (or press 'w') and that particular force will wait until everyone else
has moved before becoming active again. 

I. VEHICLE RULES
Vehicles have a few additional rules that make them more powerful, but also a
little harder to control.  

J. SPEED AND ACCELERATION
At the beginning of the vehicle's turn, you must
declare how fast the vehicle is going to move.  The speed window is
determined by the vehicle's acceleration rate (ACC) (this is listed in the
information box when you click on one of your vehicles.)  Each turn, your
vehicle can accelerate over it's present speed by this amount.  So if your
dunebuggy's speed was 15 squares last turn and it has an ACC of 6 squares,
then it can go 21 squares this turn.

K. DECELERATION
A vehicle can decelerate at twice its ACC.  The dunebuggy can accelerate 6
squares and can, therefore, decelerate 12 squares.  If it went 15 squares last
turn it can slow down to 3 squares this turn.  At the beginning of the
vehicle's turn, you will be shown the current speed of your vehicle, its ACC
and the range of speed you can choose.  Each vehicle has a top speed that it
can't exceed.

L. DRIVING BACKWARDS
Vehicles can also go backwards provided it has come to a stop.  To go
backwards, enter a negative speed. (You can also enter partial speeds, such as
3.50 and 4.75.)  The ACC is halved for going backwards.

M. TURNING VEHICLES
While non-vehicles can pivot on the spot,  vehicles move during turns.  The
faster it's moving, the wider the turn will be.  This is determined by the
vehicles Turn Ratio.  If a vehicle has a turn ratio of 4, then it can make 4
evenly spaced turns.  The space between turns is determined by the speed.  If
a vehicle has a speed of 20, then it must move (20/4)5 squares before it can
turn again.  

When your vehicle turns, it moves forward one square in the turn, it doesn't
simply rotate.  

Unlike non-vehicles, vehicles MUST move their full speed each turn.  If you
choose 20 squares for the dunebuggy, it must move 20 squares before the
Movement Phase will end.  You can choose the WAIT option from the Orders
menu if you need to move someone out of your vehicle's way, but you don't have
the NO ORDERS option.

N. COLLISIONS
This brings us to collisions.  Collisions can be very detrimental your
vehicle's health.  At the same time, it can be very detrimental to your
enemy's health.  When you're about to collide, a warning box will come up.  If
you can actually do something to avoid the collision - and want to - click on
CANCEL and change your vehicles direction.  Otherwise, you're going to see
your vehicle plow into something solid - impassable terrain, enemy forces or
your own.

O. COLLISION DAMAGE
How much damage occurs depends on several factors: the toughness and speed of
the object you run into (all terrain has a toughness of 7,  see STATS under
CUSTOMIZER), the toughness of your vehicle and the speed you were traveling. 
If your toughness is higher than what you run into, chances are strong you're
going to inflict more damage than you take.

P. COLLISION SPEED
Non-vehicles and terrain are considered to be standing still.  If you run into
another vehicle, that vehicle's speed is taken into consideration.  If you hit
another vehicle head on, your speeds are added together to figure out damage. 
The higher the speed, the more damage spread around.  If you hit someone from
behind, that vehicle's speed is subtracted from yours, resulting in relatively
low damage.  When you hit a vehicle from the side only your speed is taken
into consideration.  Lastly, hitting vehicles at an angle is a compromise 
between a head-on (rear-end) and a side hit.   

Q. JUMPING OUT OF THE WAY
Troops are agile enough to see someone is going to run over them and jump out
of the way - hopefully.  The slower a vehicle is moving, the better the chance
of jumping out of the way, provided there is somewhere to jump.  Once a
vehicle attains a speed above 6, the chances of avoiding it are slim.

When a vehicle does collide, most of the time it comes to a stop.  The
exception is when the vehicle destroys what it runs into.  Depending on the
strength differences of the colliders, how much damage a vehicle takes, the
angle of collision and current speeds, your vehicle can still have movement
left.  Tanks won't be slowed down much after running down a few troops.

R. RAMMERS
Of course, some Generals like running into the enemy as an offensive
tactic.  Entire squads have been obliterated by a rampaging war machine. 
These vehicles are a special subgroup called Rammers and are specially
equipped with enemy munching apparati.  When these vehicles collide with
something, they inflict twice the damage as a normal vehicle.


VI. PHASE II:  TARGET PHASE
The active force and all its weapons are listed are shown in the info bar at
the left of the screen.

A. TROOP'S SECONDARY WEAPON
Each of your forces has up to three weapons.  A special case is troops.  If
troops have grenades as their second weapon, then you have the option of using
either their first (primary) weapon, or the grenades.  Troops are defined as
small size, non-vehicle forces.

Other than that, targeting is very straight forward.  The active force will
blink, the weapon that is firing will be highlighted in the info bar on the
left of the screen and all you have to do is point your cross-hair, mouse
cursor at what you want to shoot and click the left button.  A small red dot
will appear and then fade.

B. FIRING ARCS
A few things to consider:  Each weapon has a firing arc that defines the sweep
the weapon can cover.  This is different from a forces FoV.  A firing arc is
often only 90 degrees for troops but can extend to 180, 270 or even a full 360
degrees in the case of the tank and it's rotating, rocket-launching turret.

C. WEAPON RANGES
Another consideration is the range of the weapon.  They can't cover the entire
field and some have quite a short range, such as the flame thrower.  When
you're declaring all your targets in Phase II, these factors aren't
represented anywhere.  

You can target behind your troop all the way across the board, but where the
shot actually goes will be worked out on its own.  This represents troops
having a general feel for their weapons capability,  but not a pinpoint
accuracy.  In addition to the enemy, you can also target terrain.  This allows
you to knock down walls or place an area effect weapon in a better position.

D. FURTHER EXPLANATION:  The way targeting works is useful to know.  The
chance of your force actually hitting what it aims at is quite slim.  Instead,
when targeting, you're declaring a general area that your force is firing at. 
This general area grows in size the further away you aim your weapon.  (If
your force is right up close to where it's aiming, then the "general area"
will be the one square you aimed at.)  If your shot is inaccurate, then it
will pick one of the forces (in either army) within the general area and hit
it.  

This mimics the general feel of spraying an area with fire as opposed
to picking out one piece in the middle of the battle and firing only at it. 
It also keeps the enemy from picking out your strong pieces and winking them
out in the midst of weaker guys, allowing you to set up screens.  Of course,
if your guy is standing all by himself, then he's the only target.

E. FRIENDLY FIRE
It's in here.  

F. FIRING ORDERS
Normally, you can just aim all your weapons as they are presented.  In a few
instances you may want to not fire some.  To not fire a weapon, choose NO
ORDERS in the Orders menu (or press 'n').  To cycle one of your forces to the
end, choose the WAIT command out of the Orders menu (or press 'w').  To use
the grenades of the troops (or if you want to aim the weapons out of order of
one force) click the left mouse button on the picture of that weapon.  It will
be highlighted and is now the active weapon that you are aiming.

G. SURVEY AND TARGET MODES
Finally, if you want information about the board, click on the box with
SURVEY MODE written in it at the bottom of the information bar.  This will
give you an arrow to use on the screen.  The left button will now give
information instead of targeting an area. Click on TARGET MODE to return to
targeting.  In both modes, the right mouse button will move you around the
battlefield.


VII. PHASE III:  FIRING THE WEAPONS
At this point, everything has moved and aimed its weapons,leaving you with
very little control through the rest of the turn.  The information bar is the
same as for Phase II in that the active force along with its weapons are
listed.  The active weapon is highlighted.  However, the mode buttons have
been replace with a firing button.  When you're ready to watch the highlighted
weapon fire, press that button.


The only control you have is WAIT from the Orders menu. By the end of Phase
III, every weapon that you aimed will have fired.  There is no cancelling or
changing a weapons aim.  The reasons for this are pretty clear:  it doesn't
allow a micro-managed volley of fire where a squad can continually aim at one
enemy force until it's gone and then move on to the next.

A. FURTHER EXPLANATION:  A target square isn't chosen until the weapon fires. 
Then the deviation, if any, is worked out and a line of sight is traced from
the weapon square to the target square.  If anything or (except for a few
weapons such as rockets and grenades) anyone gets in the way, then that
becomes the new target square.  So one may consider firing repeating weapons
well past a squad (in order to spread out the area it can deviate) and allow
the enemy to "get in the way" of the shots.

One last consideration:  Forces bigger than troops have weapons that shoot
from different parts of its body.  Run the forces through the Customizer to
see the details, but this can make a big difference when your mech is half
behind a building and decides to shoot both guns.

B. E-MAIL GAMES
After completing Phase III of an E-mail game, you will be prompted for a
filename in which to save the turn.  Type in a file name and press ENTER.  Two
things will happen.  First, your file will be encoded into a text file that
can be copied and E-mailed just like any other text file.  This file will have
a ".eml" extension.  Second, a backup copy will be made having the same name
but ".bak" extension.  The encoded E-mail file can then be given to your
opponent either by E-mail, modem, file transfer, disk, etc...

VIII. REPLAYS:  THE UNOFFICIAL PHASE
At the beginning of the movement phase(except the first), you are given the
option of watching the other side's turn.  This is the only time that you'll
be given the chance and you'll only get to see it once.

You can move around the battlefield before the Replay if you wish, looking at
information on everything.  This shows the field as it currently is.  Once you
acknowledge that you want to see the Replay, the forces of both sides are put
back to where they were before the enemy's turn started.  After you finish
looking around the board again, click on START.  The forces on the board
will start moving and shooting, replaying your opponent's moves.

A. HIDDEN EVENTS
If your opponent is hidden in the undiscovered fuzz, then none of their
movement will be shown.  The same goes for shooting.  However, when weapons
are fired - even if you cannot see them - the screen will shift to that
general area.  This gives an inkling to where the enemy is as your troops hear
the shots being fired.

Clicking on the PAUSE button will freeze the Replay.  You may need to hold
down the left mouse button briefly in order to get the Replay to
pause.Pressing CONTINUE will start it up again.  While it's paused, you can
scroll around the battlefield.  

The Replay will continue until it's complete.  Then your turn will start at
Phase I.

IX. END OF THE GAME
Once the objectives of the battle have been met (See Objectives in the Menu
section), the battle comes to an end.  A screen appears at the end of the turn
declaring who won and how.  When you're finished with this, click on BATTLE
REPORT.  

A. CAMPAIGNS AND RECOVERING CASUALTIES
An interesting feature of Circa 7000,is that it can be used to play campaigns.
Just because your forces are knocked out of action, doesn't mean they're gone
for good.  The winner - assumed to have control of the battlefield - gets 75%
(on average) of their forces back.  This is due to medical supplies, friendly
hands, etc.  The losing army gets 25% of their casualties back  - mainly due
to escapees. Everyone lost in the losing army is simply listed as Missing in
Action. 

B. BATTLE REPORT
The Battle Report at the end shows the final status of all your forces.  In
addition to simply surviving, another benefit of seeing the end of a battle is
that your forces have a chance of improving.  Any benefits will be listed in
this report.  Skill Increase means +5% on the Shooting Skill.  Bigger, Tougher
is an increase of hit points.  Better Armour is +1 to Toughness.  Don't
expect anyone to become huge.

C. BECOMING A VETERAN
Another interesting (but useless) feature is that your New Recruits become
Veterans. Each battle that your guys survive is tallied and noted in the ()'s
after "Veteran" wherever you see the description.  

D. VIEWING ALL YOUR FORCES
To scroll through the pages of your army, click on the "+" at the bottom right
of the Battle Report.  To go to the previous page, click on the "-".  When
you're finished, click on the "X".  At this point, the armies are saved to
disk.  You can add New Recruits using the Game Maker to bring your army up to
strength and ready it for the next battle.


E. IF ONLY...
Some people (wrong most of the time) think that if they just had "one more
turn" they could have polished off the winner.  For that reason, at the end of
the battle you're given the chance to play until one team is completely wiped
out.  Just for the fun of it.  The armies aren't saved at the end and no score
is kept.  It's just there as a chance to put to rest any "if only" questions.


X. THE MENU BAR

A. GAME
1. Save Game
You can save the game during Phases I and II.  Enter the name of the file when
prompted.  Saved games have a ".gam" extension.  In case you don't think of
it, there is an Autosave feature that saves your game at the end of the first
and second Phase in a file named "7000bckp.gam".   This feature is always
activated.

2. Quit
To leave the game completely and return to DOS, use this command.

3. Retreat
When the battle is hopeless, you can use this option to save a little face and
a few forces.  This is treated the same as losing a battle.

B. ORDERS
1. No Orders
This is an option during Phase I and II.  Use it when you're finished moving a
force or you don't want a weapon to fire.  The following hot keys can be used:
Phase I - spacebar or '0' on the keypad will give the active force No Orders. 
During Phase II, 'n' will give No Orders.  

To end the Phase I and II, you can give a 'Group No Orders' by hitting 'f' for
Finish.  During Phase I this works for everyone except vehicles since you
still need to enter speeds or finish movement.

2. Wait
This is available at all times.  It puts the current force at the end of the
rotation.


C. REPORTS
1. Damage
The Damage Report lists all your forces and gives general health and status
for them. At the top of the list is your casualty percent showing the
number of your forces left in the battle.  Below that is a strength rating. 
This doesn't count towards anything, but shows what percent of the army is
left based on the points they cost.

On the other side of the page is your opponents army.  This gives general
descriptions of their health and status.  The only forces shown are those 
your army is aware of.  If one of your opponents forces is knocked out of
action before you ever draw a LoS on it, then it will never appear in this
list.  Casualty and Strength ratings are only given for yourself.

To move from page to page, click on the '-' and '+' buttons at the bottom
right of the screen.  When you're finished, click on the 'X'.

a. VEHICLE SPECIAL DAMAGE
An area that hasn't been touched on yet is Special Vehicle Damage.  If a
vehicle takes a beating during a turn, chances are things will go wrong with
it: lose a weapon, steering failure, cracked hulls, loss of power and the
like.  This is represented by special vehicle damage.  

It can occur in turns where you take more than six hit points of damage.  The
more damage absorbed, the higher the chance of taking this extra damage.  To
see if your vehicle has any, click on any of your vehicle profiles in this
report and hold the button down.  A small report will be shown.


2. Objective
The Objective Reports tells you the information needed to end the battle.  The
battle can be won in one of three ways.  The first is casualties - once the
percent of casualties exceeds that army's tolerance level, the army loses. 
The second and third entails destroying or occupying a certain area on the
board.  Casualties, though, is always a fall back ending to a battle.  If the
objective is occupying an area or destroying an area, this report will tell
you what percent mst be occupied (destroyed) and what percent is now.  It also
tells you the casualty level tolerances.

Once you are finished reading this, click a button.  If the objective is to
occupy or destroy an area, that area is now lit up with a red pattern
(providing you can see that part of the field).  You can move around the area
with the right mouse button as usual.  The left button will return the field
to normal and allow you to continue with the game.

3. Scenario
The scenario is the story that goes along with the battle.  A good scenario
story should say who is fighting and why, along with a little background.  A
good story makes the battle that much more interesting.

When you're finished reading it, click the mouse button.

4. Weapons
All the weapons used are shown here.  Click on the NEXT and PREV buttons to
cycle through them.  All information relevant to the battle is in here.  For
more details, see The Customizer.  When you're finished, click outside the
description box.

That's Circa 7000!  After playing a few scenarios, you'll most likely want to
start designing your own - drawing the battlefield, setting up the objective
and picking the armies.  For that there's the Game Maker.



XI. THE GAME MAKER

The Game Maker is a utility program that allows you to design your own
complete battles - ready to played using Circa 7000.  To build a battle a
number of things must be done: drawing the battlefield, designing an
ending, picking the armies, placing the armies on the battlefield and finally
writing up a story to go with it.  (But not necessarily in that order.)

A. SUPPORT FILES
To run the Game Maker, type "GMAKER" at the DOS prompt and press ENTER.  The
first screen that appears asks for the files that will be used to make the
scenario.  The defaults are those files that come packaged with the game.  For
the first couple scenarios, the defaults will be fine.  (See the Customizer
description when you're ready to start modifying the basics.) 

You can pick different Forces, Terrain and Weapons files by clicking on the
box holding the file name.  If you know the name of the file, type it in.  If
you don't, type '*' and a directory will appear.  Click on the file you want. 
When the files are set, click on the FINISHED box at the bottom of the screen.

XII. THE CHECKLIST
The next screen is the official checklist of the Game Maker.  It is a list of
things you must do in order to make a scenario.  As you do each one, a check
appears in the appropriate box and the file name is listed.  There are a few
obvious orders that need to be considered.  For instance, you can't place an
army before you pick it.  To choose an item on the list, click on the box with
the left mouse button.  To get out of any of these choices without making any
changes, press ESC.  

A. ENTERING FILE NAMES DIRECTLY
It's recommended that you use the left mouse button and go through each of
these options while making your scenario.  However, as a short cut, click on
your choice with the right mouse button.  This will allow you to type in the
file name which will appear to the right of the option.

You have to be careful because the program does not check to ensure it makes
sense.  It also allows you to specify the files in any order, i.e. you can
specify the Place Army options before picking your army.  If you do specify a
file this way that doesn't exist, the Game Maker will catch it while compiling
your scenario.

B. ONE WAY TO SET UP AN E-MAIL GAME
Here's a method for designing a scenario with an E-mail when you want the
setup and army choices to be a surprise.  Player A (the one who goes first) is
in charge of putting the scenario together.  Both players are given the
battlefield file (*.btt) and a description of the ending.  Both players can
then pick their army and place them on the field.  

If you look at Army files (*.arm) and compare them with Placement files
(*.pla/b) you'll notice they are very similiar.  The only difference is that
the Placement file contains more details.  Therefore, Player B only needs to
send their Placement file (*.plb).  Player A can incorporate this into
the scenario by clicking on Place Army B with the right button and typing in
the name of the file.  Any name can be specified for Pick Army B. (This name
is just used to save the army at the end.)

Using this method, Player A does not see Player B's setup or army at any time
until the battle begins.

XIII. DRAW BOARD
This choice allows you to design the basic field the battle will take place on
- this includes all the terrain and buildings.

A. DRAW BOARD SCREEN
When the Draw Board screen appears, there will be a Menu bar in the upper left
hand corner of the screen.  To the right of that will be all the different
terrain types that you may use.  The rest of the screen displays the part of
the battlefield that you can currently work on.  Initially it is all
grassland.

B. CHOOSING A TERRAIN
To choose a terrain, simply click the left button on the terrain square.  A
box will appear around it, showing that it is the currently chosen terrain. 
If you click the right mouse button on it, an information box will appear
describing the terrain.

C. PUTTING TERRAIN ON THE BATTLEFIELD
If you are in the game board section of the screen and you press the left
mouse button, the chosen terrain will appear on the board.  If you drag the
mouse around the board a trail of the terrain will follow. To move around the
game board, click your right button on any square of the board and it will be
centered on the screen. 

The menu bar presents several choices.  Click with the left button to pull it
down and to make choices.  Clicking elsewhere on the screen will cause the
menu to go back up. 

D. BUILDINGS
Circa 7000 has a healthy support of buildings.  Buildings consist mainly of
floors and walls (you can also throw in windows and doorways).  They all have
one level in them and are drawn with the roofs removed.  Looking down on them,
you actually see in them as if the roof were invisible.  

E. COLLAPSING CEILINGS
I designed the floors so that when they are destroyed, a load of rubble
appears - the same load as when a wall falls.  This represents the ceiling
falling in (i.e. it suddenly becomes visible.)  It represents it so well, in
matter of fact, that terrain with the phrase "floor" in it is also assumed to
have a ceiling.  If you have a force standing on a square when the ceiling
collapses, it will take extra damage automatically. (On a side note, any
terrain with the phrase "window" in it will only allow troops to enter it.)

1. Load Board
This allows you to load previous boards.  Once they are loaded you can edit
them as you wish.  You will be warned if you are loading in a board over
one that has been edited but not saved.

2. Save Board
It is important to save the board often to avoid losing any information.  It
is also necessary to save the board in order to be finished with it.  When
this selection has been made, you will be prompted for a name. This name will
then be associated with this particular board and will appear in the
checklist.  Battlefield files have a ".btt" extension.

3. Fill All
When this is clicked on, the current terrain will fill the entire board.  For
example, to fill the entire board with forest, click the left mouse button on
the forest terrain.  A box will appear around it.  Then go the menu bar, click
on it. Then click on FILL ALL.  Your board will then become all forest.

4. Finished
Once everything is done to you satisfaction, and the game board has been
saved, press on FINISH to take you back to the main menu.  Once you get there,
you will notice the name of your game board to the right of Draw Board and a
check to the left showing it has been completed.

XIV. GAME STORY
Every good game needs a good story to set it up.  When this choice is made
from the checklist, you are taken to a text editor.  Here you write the entire
scenario behind your battle -who is in it and why, what brought them here and
the objectives of the battle.  Everything the players need to know to play
each game should be included in this story.

To start typing in the scenario, click your mouse within the big text box in
the center of the screen.  Doing so will cause the cursor to appear.  When you
are finished typing, hit the 'ESC' button to bring the mouse cursor back
again.

In the upper left corner, there is a menu bar.  By clicking on it, the menu
will pull down, giving 4 choices. 

A. New Story
To clear out the current story and start a new one, use this option.  You will
be warned if you are erasing anything that has not been saved.

B. Load Story
This allows you to load in previous stories.  For this and all choices,
loading a file will cause that file to appear in the checklist - unless you
save it again under a different name.  So, to associate a file with your
scenario, go to that choice, load the file and then you can leave without
saving.

C. Save Story
When choosing this, you will be prompted for a name to the story.  This is the
only other way to associate a file with a scenario in the checklist.  Story
files have a ".sty" extension.

D. Finished
After you have saved your scenario and wish to leave the editor, you may make
this selection to return to the main menu, where the Game Story will be
checked off.


XV. END GAME
When making this choice a menu with three choices will appear in the middle of
the screen.  These are the ways to end a game: percentage of casualties,
occupying an area of the battlefield, and destroying an area of the
battlefield.  Click on how you wish to determine when the game ends.  This
should correlate somewhat to your scenario as described in the game story. 

A. CASUALTY ENDING
This is the most common game ending.  It simply means that once a certain
percentage of your army is knocked out of action, you must retreat from the
battlefield and take your losses.  When choosing this option you will  be
prompted for the percentage for each side.  The percentage has a range from
50% to 100% in increments of 5%.  Simply click on the + and - on either side
of the percentage to increase or decrease the percentage.  When the
percentages are at the chosen value, click on the finished bar.  You will be
prompted for a file name to save the data. Then you will return to the main
menu.

B. OCCUPY AN AREA ENDING
When this option is chosen, the battlefield file listed next to the Draw Board
listing in the main menu will be shown. Clicking the right button on any
square will center that square on the screen.  Once you have chosen what area
must be occupied, you use the mouse to draw a box around it.  In one of the
corners of the area press and hold the left mouse button.  Drag the mouse to
draw the box.  When the box encompasses the area, let go of the button.  

C. RESIZING THE AREA
If you wish to resize the box, press and hold the left mouse button on any of
the corners.  Then drag the mouse to resize the box, letting go of the button
when the box is satisfactory.  If you want a box that extends to a part of the
battlefield not shown on the screen, draw as much of the box as you can and
let go of the left button.  Use the right button to reposition the battlefield
on the screen but where part of your box is still showing.  Then simply grab a
corner of the box with the left mouse button and continue to size the box.

Once the box is drawn, you will be asked which army must occupy this area. 
You will specify it by either clicking on the A box or the B box.  Army A and
Army B are entirely defined by which army is contained in the file listed by
'Pick Army A' and 'Pick Army B' in the checklist.

Following this, you will be prompted to enter a number describing the
percentage of this area that must be occupied.  This percentage is based on
the number of squares the forces occupy within the box divided by the total
number of squares within the box.  Troops take up one square, while mechs take
four squares and major vehicles, i.e. tanks, hovercraft, etc, take nine
squares.  If a mech is only half way into a designated area, only two squares
will count as occupying the area.

If an army is supposed to occupy an area, but doesn't have enough forces left
to do it, then it obviously can't secure its objective.  Because of this
reason, the Casualty option is always a back up to Occupy and Destroy
objectives.  After completing the Occupy questions, you'll be prompted to
enter the Casualty levels as in the previous section.  This represents your
will to fight for the objective.  Meaning your army can still win a battle
even though you didn't occupy what you were supposed to.  Instead you routed
the opposing army and then were free to occupy the entire field.

D. DESTROY AN AREA ENDING
Be sure to read through 'Occupy an Area' because these two options are
parallel with one exception: the box you define is meant to be destroyed
instead of occupied.  Almost all terrain can be destroyed. Notable exceptions
are deep and shallow water.  When a terrain is destroyed it can change, i.e.
boulder to rubble, and/or become blackened.  Either way it will be obvious
that the terrain has taken damage. 

Terrain takes damage just like any of your forces and usually right along with
your forces.  If you blast a mech with a rocket, the terrain it's on can just
as likely be damaged as the mech.  All terrain has a strength of 7.


XVI. PICK ARMY (A or B)
The makeup of the army is completely in your hands. You choose what men,
machines and vehicles to include in your army and how many of each.  When
picking your army, you also have the choice of what colors the uniform of each
of your forces should have.  This allows you to create battalions and
squadrons along with any special forces and keep them separate with different
color schemes.

A. PICK ARMY SCREEN
The main part of the screen holds your army. When the screen first appears,
the box will be empty except for the word 'Army' in the upper left hand and
'Points' in the upper right hand corner.  On the right hand side of the screen
are the available forces that you have to choose from to make up your army. 
At the top of the screen are two menu bars labelled 'Army' and 'Make Up'.  Up
to 20 different troops types are supported in Circa 7000.  

B. ADDING FORCES TO YOUR ARMY
Each army can have a total of 100 points.  The value of each force is listed
below its respective picture on the right of the screen.  To begin, one of the
forces will have a box around it.  This indicates that it is the currently
chosen force and its stats will appear in the lower right corner of the
screen.  You can change the currently chosen force by clicking on other
forces.  By clicking a second time on a boxed force, it will be added to your
army and appear in the army portion of the screen.  

C. REMOVING FORCES FROM YOUR ARMY
If you decide that you do not want that piece in your army, you can then click
the left mouse button on it in the army window and it will disappear. 
Clicking the right mouse on a troop within this area will pop up a box
describing the stats of that force.  When first creating an army, these will
all be the same.  But when the vets come back from battle, you should see some
changes.  Note that once you remove a veteran from your army, it cannot come
back.  You will get a confirmation box making sure you do want to kick out a
veteran before doing so.

D. ARMY POINTS
Note that when you add forces to your army the point total decreases and when
you take forces away, it increases.  When you get to zero points, no more
forces can be added.  

There are some limits on how many of each size force can be shown on the
screen.  These are relatively high and shouldn't be a problem. Just be aware
that this may be the reason for forces not showing up on the right hand side
of the screen or your army quits accepting new recruits.

E. MENU BAR
Picking your forces is only half the job of creating an army.  In addition to
that, there are other modifications to make.  Click on the Make Up menu bar
to see these following choices:

1. COLOR
When you click on this, 10 color bars will appear below the menu bars and
above the main window.  Click on one of these with your left mouse button to
choose it.  When you do, a box will appear around it.  Now, if you click on
any forces in your army, they will change to that color scheme.   Note that 10
colors and 20 different forces can give you 200 unique looking forces.

2. ACTIVE/RESERVE
When this is chosen either an A (active) or R (reserve) will appear below each
of your forces.  When a piece is active, that means it will appear in the next
battle (as opposed to being left out).  Therefore, if the scenario only calls
for a small force, or it is a city with streets too narrow for tanks, those
pieces can be put on reserve and will not partake in the next adventure.  

Click on each piece to toggle between active and reserve.  This doesn't allow
you to go above the 100 point limit.  It's just a way to keep from having to
get rid of your veterans unnecessarily.

3. ORDERING
Ordering your army isn't a necessity in choosing your army - simply a
convenience.  When you choose this, a number will appear below each of your
forces.  This is the order in which your forces will move, shoot, etc.
throughout the game and is a good way to group squads together.  The numbers
start out in the order you chose your army.

When chosen, two squares appear below the menu bar.  One is marked COUNT and
the other REARRANGE.  The count box holds a number that is used to number the
forces in the army.  When you click on a force, that force takes on the number
in the count box.  The count then increases by one.  

So, for example, if the count is at 10 and you click on a force that is
numbered 5, that force changes to 10.  The force that originally was numbered
10 is now numbered 5.

After you are finished ordering your army (or any time in between) click on
Rearrange.  This moves all the forces around so that they once again are
numbered consecutively.  If there are any spaces in your line up, it also
fills those in.  Lastly, you can increase the count by clicking on the '+' or
'-'. Or, conversely, click on the box itself and type in a number.

4. ADD/SUBTRACT
Use this to go back to the default setting of adding and subtracting forces to
your army.

Under the ARMY MENU you will find:

5. CHANGE NAME
This changes the name of your army.  After picking this, a prompt will appear
asking for a new name.  This name will then appear in the upper left corner of
the army window.  Making the names of the armies fit in with the story adds
extra flavor.

6. NEW ARMY
This erases your current army and starts you over from scratch.  A warning
will be given if there are any pending changes to your current army.

7. LOAD ARMY
This allows you to bring in a old army from disk.  You can then continue to
edit it as you wish.  If this is after a battle, only the survivors will be
included.

8. SAVE ARMY
The name under which you save your army does not necessarily have to be the
name of the army.  However, some correlation would make it easier.  You must
save your army before finishing.  

The extension of all armies - A or B - is ".arm".  Be sure you save your A and
B army files under different names.

9. FINISHED
After you have saved your army, this will take you back to the main menu.  To
the right of Pick Army, the name of the file you saved your army under will
appear.

XVII. PLACE ARMY (A or B)
Placing your armies cannot be done until after they have been picked and the
battlefield has been drawn.  Only after that can you proceed with this option.

The screen for this option is split into two sections - a narrow one on the
left and a much larger one on the right. On the right, the landscape listed
next to Draw Board in the Main Menu will appear.  The left side of the screen
is where the forces to be placed appear.

At the top of the left window under PLACING, a force from your army will
appear.  Below that is a grid of arrows pointing in the eight directions. 
Click on the arrows to make the piece face in that direction.  Below that,
several options are listed.

A. NEXT
Shuffles to the next piece in the army.  This piece will then come up when all
the other pieces have cycled through.

B. RANDOM
Places the remaining pieces in the army in random positions and directions
across the board.  This is great for simulating parachute or space pod drops.

C. FINISHED
When everything has been placed, click here.  You will be prompted for a name
to save the placement under and then returned to the main menu.

The larger window housing the landscape is where the actual placing of the
army occurs.  To move around the landscape, click the right button on a square
to center it.

By pressing the left mouse button, the army piece shown in the left window
will be placed on the landscape where the mouse is pointing.  Note that the
direction it faces depends on the direction its facing in the left window. 
For example, to have a mech placed on the board facing to the right, you would
click on the right facing arrow in the left window when the mech appears in
above the arrows.  This causes the mech to face to the right.  Now you can
place the mech on the landscape and it will be pointed in the correct
direction.

After a piece has been placed, another piece will appear in the left window. 
If you have placed a piece in the wrong position, click the left mouse button
on it in the battlefield. It will disappear from the battlefield and be placed
back in the army pool.

Note that only the forces in your army that had been marked active will be
placed on the battlefield and that they cannot be placed on impassable
terrain.

Once you click on the FINISHED button, a box will appear asking if the army is
familiar with the battlefield.  If you click on YES, that means the army has
been there before and knows the layout of the field.  From the very beginning
of the game, this army will see the whole battlefield (but not necessarily the
opposing army).  If you click NO then the battlefield is initially fuzzed
over.  The battlefield reveals itself only as the forces in the army can see
it.  If an army is invading a bunker, one army would be familiar with the
layout while the other wouldn't, for instance.

Lastly you'll be asked for a file name to save the placements in.  These files
will have extensions of ".pla" and ".plb" for Place Army A and B.  

XVIII. FINISHED
Last in the main menu is the FINISHED choice.  When all the other choices in
the list have been checked off, you may use this command.  When clicked on,
all the files in the checklist will be confirmed and you will be notified of
what still has to be completed.  After this, you will be prompted for a name
to be given to the entire scenario. Under this name, all the information that
you have provided, and all your designs will be compiled into the single file
used by Circa 7000.  Note that each file used is left untouched so that it can
be used for other scenarios.

Once you've made several scenarios, you'll most likely find the choices for
creating them somewhat limited.  This takes you to the Customizer, which
allows you to create your own forces,terrain and weapons.


XIX. THE CUSTOMIZER
A. OVERVIEW
The Customizer allows you to make the building blocks of battles.  Up to 40
terrains can be supported for any one battle along with 20 different forces
and 15 weapons.  A lot of what has come with the game is my own personal
taste.

If any of this doesn't suit you, or it simply isn't enough, this is where to
change the game to make it fit your personal taste.

B. OPENING SCREEN
When you start the Customizer (type 'CUSTOMIZ' at the DOS prompt), you will
get a basic list of options: Customize Forces, Terrain or Weapons.  Click on
any of these to go to option.

Each of these options is set up basically the same way and is easy to figure
out.  Therefore, only a quick overview will be given on the mechanics of the
program and more time given to what all the stats actually mean.

XX. CUSTOMIZE FORCES
To start, load in a Forces file by clicking on the LOAD FORCES button at the
bottom of the screen.  (Again, enter '*' if you want the directory of
choices.)  

The boxes along the bottom of the screen will be filled with the forces. 
Forces come in three sizes, which can go by any number of names.  Small,
medium and large suffice for game play. So does Size 1, 2 and 3 which
specifies how many squares on a side the force is. The Customizer refers to
them as size 16, 32 and 48 which specifies how many pixels on a side the force
is.

A. DRAWING YOUR FORCES
To edit the picture of the force, click on one of the forces in the line up at
the bottom of the page.  It will be highlighted.  Next, click on the big gray
arrow on the left of the screen that points to the large green boxes covering
the top of the screen.  The force will be redrawn up here at a much larger
scale.  This is where you edit the picture.

In between the two pictures are a number of colored boxes.  These are the
colors you can use to draw your forces.  All forces are drawn in red with dark
red shading.  These reds are the colors changed when drawing forces in 
different colors.  The black, white and gray shades remain constant.

To draw, use the left mouse button.  The right button is the background color
(green).  As you draw the big version, a small version is updated to the right
of it.  Always draw your force facing up in the left drawing square.

The right square shows the figure at an angle.  This must always be turned 45
degrees clockwise from the one on the left.  Both of these together will
combine for the 8 facing directions.

Once you are finished drawing your force in the left drawing square, click on
the arrow at the very top of the screen that points to the right.  This will
make an attempt to rotate your force 45 degrees and put it in the right
drawing square.  Because there isn't a one-to-one correspondence, you'll need
to do some cosmetic work.  

When done, highlight where you want the force to go in the lineup.  Then press
the gray area on the right of the screen to put it there.  The second half of
designing a force is to specify all its stats.  Click on STATS at the bottom
of the screen to do this.

B. STATS
A new screen appears with lots of information to fill in.  Clicking on the -'s
and +'s along with the PREV and NEXT words will change the information.  

Three weapons are shown.  Cycle through them until you find the desired
weapon.  If you don't want any, cycle until the box is black.  Then set the
firing arc associated with each weapon.  The arc is drawn to match it. 
Lastly, move the purple square until it represents approximately which square
it is located on a force.  These last two attributes assume the force is
facing towards the top of the screen.

Most of the other stats on this page you have been exposed to.  The exception
is the toughness and save of the force.  

C. WORKING OUT DAMAGE
To find the chances of being hit, compare the toughness of the force to the
strength of the weapon shooting at it.  If they are the same, then there is a
50/50 chance the force will take a hit.  For each point of difference, this
chance changes by 10%.  A strength 4 weapon has a 60% chance of damaging a
force with a 3 toughness.  A strength 4 weapon has a 40% chance of damaging a
strength 5 weapon.

The SAVE stat gives your force a chance of nullifying the damage - perhaps
by small size, thick armor or just an unlucky shot.  To see if damage is
nullified, a random number from 1 to 10 is picked.  If it is higher than the
forces save, then damage is nullified.

Weapons also have a save modifier.  This is a negative number and is the
modification to the random number.  If the random number is 8 and the weapons
save is -2, then the random number becomes 6.  This is then the final number
compared with the force's save.

For example, a troop has a save of 7 and is shot by a weapon with a save 
of -2.  An 8 is randomly generated - which would save the force from damage. 
But the weapons save is added, giving a 6, and the troop takes damage.

The bottom line is:  the lower the save of a force, the better chance it has
to avoid damage.  While the bigger the modifier of the weapon, the greater the
chance is has of causing damage.

Be sure to save your forces before quitting.

XXI. CUSTOMIZE TERRAIN
This option has almost the exact same setup as Customize Forces, except for
this (and Customize Weapons) you only need to draw one image.  Also, there is
only the one screen.  Start by loading in a terrain file.  Highlight any one
of them by clicking on them.  Click on the right-pointing arrow to put in it
the drawing box.  Click on the left-pointing arrow to transfer the image to
the highlighted box.

With terrain, you can use any of the fourteen colors at the right of the
screen to draw your terrain.  Click on them to highlight them.

Across the bottom half of the screen are the stats associated with the
highlighted terrain (not necessarily the one in the drawing box).   Click on
the name in order to change it.  It's a good idea, but not essential, that the
terrain have unique names.

MOVEMENT is the penalty for moving onto that terrain.  Click on what it should
be.  PATHs is pretty straight forward.  Only the biggest forces will leave
paths in forest, while anyone will leave them in the sand.  NUMBER of hits is
how many hits the terrain takes before it is considered "destroyed".   This is
important for the "Destroy an Area" objective.

"Diminishes Visibility By" is used for viewing and shooting.  If something
diminishes visibility by 100% (like walls), then nothing can see past it.  If
it is 50% (like woods), then you can see through two squares of it.  If it's
0%, then you can see forever.

This has a number of implications other than view.  If weapons ignore terrain,
they ignore all terrain - and forces - except for those that diminish
visibility by 100%.  This is because you don't want grenades to be thrown
through walls.   Visibility also plays a part in weapons that don't ignore
terrain.  If it's too thick to see through, it's probably too thick to shoot
through, and the weapon shot is assumed to get tangled up in the terrain once
the visibility hits 0%.  

The last use of visibility is firing at a target.  If visibility is diminished
by 50% (by sitting in the woods or firing through a window, for instance),
your shooting skill will be reduced by 25%, or half.  Therefore, try to make
good use of cover.

When terrain is destroyed (loses all its hit points), it can change to
something else.  Good examples are floor changing to collapsed ceilings or
boulders to rubble.   This can also help design bridges over water, for
instance:  when the bridge square is destroyed, it can change to water.  Click
on the "Changes to" option, then click on any of the terrains to get it to
change to that.  Most terrain will simply remain the same by "changing" to
itself.

XXII. CUSTOMIZE WEAPONS
Lastly comes the weapons.  Unlike terrain and forces, weapons are
automatically loaded and must be cycled through (as opposed to having them all
lined up and highlighting them).

Long Range is the farthest a weapon can shoot.  Short range is a an invisible
boundary that separates long range from short range.  Note the Long Range and
Short Range Bonuses.  This can be used to design weapons that are effective
based on the distance they're shooting.  These bonuses are percents (from -
100% to +100%) that are added to the force's shooting skills.

For instance, a weapon can shoot (has a long range of) 18 squares, but tends
not to be that accurate after 12.  You can set the short range at 12 squares,
make the Long Range Bonus -20% and the short range bonus 10%.  This means a
force with a shooting skill of 65% will have a 45% shooting skill past 12
squares and of 75% up to that point.

See WORKING OUT DAMAGE above for information on strength and save.  Damage
is based on per square and is random up to that point.  A shot that does
damage 5 will do 1 to 5 points of damage.  A 3x3 square explosion will do 1 to
5 points of damage for each square, for up to 45 points of damage total.

A weapon that repeats shoots 2 to 4 times in a row, one after the other.  Each
shot is treated as completely independent of the others.

XXIII. LAST FEW, RANDOM NOTES
This covers all the important aspects of the Customizer.  If you look at the
.trr, .frc and .wpn files, you'll notice that they are simply text files. 
These can be sent straight over E-mail without any concern.  They aren't
encoded at all in order to make things easier and to allow a simple text
editor to manipulate them.

For instance, if you want to combine two terrain files, the easiest way to do
it is cut and paste the two files together.  There are no headers or footers
to the files, but be sure your editor doesn't include any formatting codes
when you save the file.

When you combine files, be sure the terrain file doesn't have more than 40
entries.  Forces file can handle a max of 20.  Even though I only have 15
weapons in what I released, you can actually have a max of 20.  (I guess I
didn't see the need for that many, but left room in case someone else did.)

I'm very open to hearing any comments on the game.  If you have any ideas for
what you want changed or things added, please send them to me.  Future
versions of this game are a very real possibility but depend heavily on the
overall response I get to this release.

If you have a shareware version of this game, I (obviously) recommend
registering it.  Giving the game the personal touch is easy and adds a whole
new dimension.  Plus in doing this, you can trade your files with the whole
world via wais.com.  

Send all your comments, complaints, and questions to me at
cooney@ix.netcom.com or through the mail to:

Michael Cooney
Circa 7000
PO Box 2181
El Segundo, CA 90245-1281