Author: Ulf Lorenz
Version: 0.0.1
Date: 07-19-2002

This document wants to give a brief overview about how to play freelords. As
the current version is still a bit unstable and in more or less heavy
development, the information here and the overall style of the game is very
unconvenient yet. The information here can be partly wrong or obsolete, but
should be a good start if you just want to have a short look. If you find 
something which isn't written in this document, but would be helpful to know,
send a mail to Michael, he is happy about such things. 8-)

Contents:
1. The Splash Screen
2. The Main Screen
3. Using the interface
4. Misc information
5. Army abilities



1. The splash screen

Currently, the only possibility is to start a new game or quit the game.If you
start a new game, you are asked about the map. Choose random if you want to
play on a random map. "Previous" will select the last map you have played on.
Loading doesn't work yet. It brings up a nice dialogue, but that's all. In the
following dialogue, you can choose how many players want to participate etc.
Computer players don't work yet, so don't try this one, too. At least one player
needs to have the "default" armyset, else the game crashes (will be changed very
soon, but up to now...). The players are currently assigned stupidely cities
from top left to top right, line for line. To be changed, too.


2. The Main Screen

Most part of the screen is self-explaining. However, the menu items won't do
anything, so ignore them for now. On the right hand side, you have six buttons.
If they are coloured, they are active, else you can't use them. Move the mouse
over the buttons to have them toggle the state (propably a bug in the paragui
lib, we'll see). The actions associated with the buttons are:

legs		-	continue last round's movement
arrow		-	next unit
shield		-	defend (ignore this unit when going to the next unit)
shield and arrow	-	defend and next
question mark	-	search ruins and temples
hour glass	-	next round

On the bottom, if you have selected a stack, you see the armies which the stack
contains including the hitpoints of each army.

3. Using the interface

Click on a unit to select it. To deselect it,either click on the shield or
select another unit (this is propably something to get used to, but I have been
said this is original Warlords behaviour). Click on a destination to move there,
a city to attack it, an enemy unit to attack it etc.
Right-clicking on a city opens a dialogue. It shows you the current units you
can produce, the tax income of the city, the defense level and some buttons,
whose use is the following:

Upgrade	-	upgrades the city walls by one level (up to level 3). Costs
		(current level)*1000 gold. Each level gives a defense bonus of
		20%

Buy production	-	another dialogue appears which shows you which
			production you can buy. A city can hold a maximum of 4
			different productions. You can't select a type which the
			city can already produce or which is too expensive.

For the following informations, it would be good to distinguish the terms stack
and army. An army is a single unit, like a dragon, a fighter etc. Up to 8 armies
can be combined, joined etc. in a stack.
If one of your stacks stands on a ruin or a temple and has a hero (!!!),
you can search it. Searching a temple brings all participating armies a once and
for all bonus of one strength (unless they have already searched another temple,
of course). If you search a ruin, you will certainly first have to defeat the
monsters lruking there (currently, it is always a dragon). If you do this, you
will get some reward (currently 600-1000 gold).
Although it is hard to see, you can also split stacks and join them, if the
joining stacks together have not more than armies. To join two stacks, simply
move one at the top of the other. To split a stack, select one and click on the
army icons on the bottom of the screen which you want to deselect (you can't
see which are deselected, admitted, but it works), and move the other stacks.


4. Misc Information

This is some unsorted information about freelords. The army abilities and fights
have a separate chapter. Look there to find more.

- Each unit costs money every turn. This is the "upkeep" data on the city
screen. Heroes don't cost any upkeep.

- Sometimes, heroes will offer to work for you. In difference to the hero you
get at the beginning of the game, they will cost you money to hire. They are
quite powerful, allowing you to search temples/ruins and giving other units a +1
strength bonus in combat.

- Although ships can move and fight on water, embarking/disembarking does not
work yet.

- Units regain one fifth of their hitpoints every turn.

- The vitality value of an army has currently no purpose.

- Negative gold amounts won't make your units run away, but you can neither buy
additional productions nor upgrade cities. Armies will still be produced.

- When fighting a city, you have to face _all_ defenders at once. Currently, you
can only attack with one stack.

- In fights, there is always a minimum hit chance of 5% (maximum 95%)

- You have won when you have defeated all other (human) players. If you play on
your own, you can't currently win.

- Currently, the only possibility to earn money is searching ruins and having 
many cities. :)


5. Army abilities

This chapter deals with some internal information about units. As mentioned at
the beginning, gaining infomation about the units is currently quite
unconvenient. The unit informations are to be found under
$freelords/pic/army/<armysetname>, where armysetname is currently default or
third_age. In this directory, you find a file called default.xml. Open it with
a text editor. The content should be quite obvious. The unit values are:

Name, Picture	-	self-explaining
Production	-	the number of turns a city needs to produce this army
Production cost	-	the gold to be paid to buy this production
Upkeep		-	the amount of gold the unit needs each turn
Strength...Vitality	-	self-explaining

Leaves Move_Bonus and army bonus. To understand them, open the file
$freelords/src/common/defs.h. The move boni look like "MAPTILE_SWAMP" and are
each associated with a number. These are the values of "move_bonus" in the
army description files. An army can have more than one move bonus, in this case,
they simply add, i.e. MAPTILE_SWAMP+MAPTILE_HILL gives a value of 12. A move
bonus means that the stack can move over this specific terrain for 2 move points
only,if all armies have this bonus. MAPTILE_WATER is special. If an army doesn't
have this, it can't move over water
A bit above this you find the army boni. They add like move boni. The number
behind each bonus "1<<x" means "2 to the power of x" (for non-programmers).
Some additional infos to the boni:

ARMY_HERO	-	the bonus dosn't affect the hero himself or other heroes
ARMY_CAVALRY	-	the bonus doesn't work when attacking cities or ruins
ARMY_HEALFAST	-	not implemented yet
ARMY_EVADE	-	not implemented yet
ARMY_CRITICAL	-	the chance is 1%
ARMY_IS_LOADED etc	-	not implemented yet

