THE BROKEN SEAL - PLAYER MANUAL (BROWSER EDITION)
Version 0.6.1 - Created by Heisenberg

1. QUICK START AND CONTROLS
==========================

Starting a campaign

The title screen offers: 1 New campaign, 2 Continue (the latest autosave),
3 Load, 4 How to play, 5 Settings, 6 Quit (back to the site's home page)
and 7 Multi-Player game (section 15). Press the number, or click or tap the
line. When a campaign is already running, 0 returns to it.

A new campaign takes five short steps:

  Scenario   1 Seal Broken (year 211): four houses and two outlaw bands
             stand even. 2 The Usurper (year 219): House Lin holds the
             capital and four more provinces. 3 Last Houses (year 241): Lin
             and Feng hold six provinces each, Qiao and Shen one each.
  House      pick your house by its ruler's portrait. The houses are Lin,
             Qiao, Shen and Feng, and the landless Black Reed Sect and Grey
             Wolf Clan (section 10). The computer leads the other five.
  Abilities  the ruler's Command, War, Administration and Intrigue roll
             one at a time, each within 8 points of the house's usual
             figure. Press Space to set the one rolling; the next then
             starts. Escape rolls the last one again (from Command, it
             picks another house).
  Level      1 Easy, 2 Fair, 3 Normal, 4 Hard, 5 Hardest (see below).
  Confirm    Y begins; N goes back to change something.

Every new campaign draws a new map: 32 provinces of plains, hills, forest,
mountains and marsh, with the sea on one side, a wild range on the other
and rivers between. Provinces that share a border are neighbours: armies,
officers and grain cross any shared border. Province names change from map
to map, except the imperial capital, Yujing, which lies near the middle.
Each house starts in its own part of the realm.

The level sets how well the computer houses play:

  Easy     they sometimes let a month pass, misjudge the odds, attack only
           with overwhelming numbers, one army at a time, and start with a
           fifth less in store.
  Fair     fewer mistakes than Easy.
  Normal   no deliberate mistakes; stores as written.
  Hard     more recruits, better trained, better supplied, and readier to
           attack at closer odds.
  Hardest  they join up to four armies for an attack, carry six months of
           grain into the field and start with 30% more in store.

At every level the computer houses fight each other as readily as they fight
you, and they avoid piling on to a house that others are already attacking.
A new human player gets some grace before they attack: a year and a half on
Easy, falling to two months on Hardest. On Easy and Fair they would rather
attack another house than you.

The main screen

  Top left      the selected province: its number, name, land, the month
                and season, its owner, and its gold, grain, men, support,
                farmland, trade, forts and governor. For a foreign province
                you see the last report your spies brought, with its date.
  Middle left   your ruler: portrait, title, provinces held, men, gold,
                grain and legitimacy.
  Right         the map. House colours show who holds each province; pale
                land belongs to no house. A crown marks the capital, small
                flags mark armies and a tent marks an outlaw camp. The
                selected province has a gold edge.
  Bottom left   the governor of the selected province, or its land, or the
                key to the current map view.
  Bottom right  the last message and the orders.

The orders

  1 Govern     the selected province: assign its officers, set the tax,
               appoint a governor, raise an army, ship grain or gold.
  2 Officers   your officers in the province selected on the map (for an
               outlaw company, at the camp); select another province to
               see the officers there. An officer's card offers assign,
               governor, reward, candidates and story.
  3 Military   your armies and their orders; raise an army; ship grain;
               move an outlaw camp.
  4 Supply     standing and one-off shipments of grain and gold.
  5 Diplomacy  treaties, coalitions, gifts, captives and private messages.
  6 Reports    what happened last month, and the chronicle.
  7 Review     every order you have given and what it will cost.
  8 Campaign   1 Save, 2 Save as, 3 Load, 4 Quicksave, 5 Quickload,
               6 Settings, 7 Guide, 8 Controls, 9 Title screen. 0 returns.
  9 End month  review once more and let the month pass.

Map views

Press V (or click "V View" under the orders) to step through four views of
the map; Shift+V steps back. The key appears at the bottom left.

  Houses        who holds each province (the normal view).
  Diplomacy     your land in gold, coalition partners green, houses with a
                peace pact (non-aggression or defence) blue, trade or access
                only teal, houses with no treaty red, unclaimed land grey.
  Supply        how many months your provinces' grain will feed their
                garrisons: green a year or more, yellow 6 to 11 months,
                orange 3 to 5, red under 3, purple under siege.
  Intelligence  how old your news of each foreign province is: blue this
                season, teal this year, dark blue older, grey none.

A view changes only the picture; it never gives an order.

Mouse and keyboard on the main screen

  Click a province to select it; double-click to govern it.
  Click an order, or press its number, to give it.
  Arrow keys move to the neighbouring province in that direction.
  Enter governs the selected province.
  Escape or 8 opens the campaign menu; 0 or Escape closes it.
  F1 guide, F5 quicksave, F9 quickload (asks first), F11 full screen,
  Ctrl+S save, Ctrl+O load, Ctrl+Enter review and end the month.
  On a touch screen, tap for a click and tap twice for a double-click.

The letter keys P (govern), O (officers), M (military), D (diplomacy),
R (reports) and T (review) also work. They can be changed in Settings;
W, A, S, F and V are reserved. The Controls page lists the current keys.

Windows

Every window has a title band and an "Esc: back" note. Inside:

  Numbered buttons   press the number, or click. 0 or Escape goes back.
                     Enter gives the main action (OK, Apply, Yes).
  Lettered tiles     the Govern window's actions are lettered A, B, C...;
                     press the letter or click.
  Yes/no questions   Y or N.
  Lists              click a line, or use the arrow keys.
  Choices            shown as < Normal >. Click the arrows, use the wheel
                     or the arrow keys, or click the middle (or press Space)
                     for a list.
  Numbers            type the figure, or use the wheel, the arrow keys or
                     the - and + ends. Shift moves ten steps at a time.
  Long text          scrolls with the wheel, the arrow keys and Page Up/Down.

While you type into a name or a number, letters and digits go to the text,
not to the buttons.

Time

There is no time limit. End month advances one month; opening windows,
reading reports and saving never advance time. Twelve months make a year.
When you end the month, the computer houses plan and all orders resolve
together.

A first month: select your home province and press 1 (Govern). Give each
officer an assignment: one develops commerce or farmland (one governance
order per province a month), the others train troops or gather
intelligence. Send one to town (Govern, I) to recruit soldiers, buy grain
or hire a traveller at the inn; watch stamina, and rest tired officers. Raise an army from a garrison when you are ready to march;
its commander then leads the army instead of taking an assignment. Press 7
to review, then 9 to end the month. Read the reports (6) when it is done.

Saving

Campaign > Save as keeps the campaign under a name in this browser. Save stores pending orders,
reports, private messages and random state in one file. A
previous version is kept as .bak. Quicksave is separate from named saves.
The game also autosaves when you change orders, before the month resolves
and after. Continue opens the latest good autosave; Save then asks for a
name, so the autosave is never overwritten by your save.
A campaign saved by an older version with more than one house led by a
person opens with you leading the house whose turn it was; the computer
takes the others, and a notice says so.

Saves from version 0.3 load and play on their old 24-province map.

The browser edition keeps its campaigns, settings and keys in the
browser's own storage for this site, so they stay on this computer and in
this browser. Clearing the site's data removes them. To keep a copy, or to
move a campaign to another computer, use Export (in the Load window, or
Save as) to download it as a .bseal file; Import in the Load window opens
such a file again. The files are the same as the desktop edition's, so a
campaign can move between the two. The browser has room for a few dozen
campaigns; delete old ones in the Load window if it fills up.
Load an autosave-before file to replay a month. Identical orders and random
state give identical results. Damaged saves are refused; load their .bak or
an autosave instead. Campaign files are never silently reset. Quitting
offers to save unsaved orders.

A finished campaign stays open for reports, the map and saving. Choose New
campaign when you want a fresh world; old named saves remain.

Music and settings

Background music plays from the title screen on: an original tune on the
five-note scale, in the style of an old sound chip, that loops. Settings
(title screen 5, or Campaign 8 then 6) turns the music on or off, sets its
volume from 1 to 10, turns the month's news on or off, chooses what happens
when your armies fight (ask each time, always fight them on the field, or
leave them to the commanders), switches full screen and changes the letter
keys. Your choices are kept in the browser with your campaigns. Browsers
let a page make sound only after a key press or a click, so the music
starts with the first one.

2. YOUR FACTION
---------------

  Gold         kept in each province, where it is collected (see below)
  Legitimacy   0 to 100: how widely your claim to rule is recognised.
               It is public. See section 9.
  Tax policy   Light (60%), Normal (100%) or Heavy (150%). It stands until
               you change it (Govern window).
  Ruler        your leader, an officer who never defects or dies naturally.
  Provinces    the land you hold. An outlaw company holds none (section 10).

Gold and grain are not held by the faction as a whole. Each province keeps
the gold its taxes bring in and the grain its harvest brings in; an outlaw
company keeps a purse and a store at its camp; an army carries grain and a
war chest of gold. Each province pays its own garrison and the officers who
are there, and an officer's assignment is paid from the treasury of the
province the officer is in. Gold and grain move between your provinces by
shipment, one border a month (section 6). The province panel shows the
local treasury and store; the ruler panel totals your provinces and camp,
not what armies carry.


3. PROVINCES
------------

The realm has 32 provinces, drawn afresh for each campaign (campaigns saved
by version 0.3 keep their 24 provinces on a 6 x 4 grid). Two provinces are
neighbours when they share a border. Each has a terrain: plains, hills,
forest, mountains or marsh. Yujing, near the middle, is the imperial
capital. Rivers and the wild range are scenery: they do not slow armies.

Every province records:

  Population   people. It grows each turn by population/400 x
               (support - 40)/40 (so it shrinks when support is below 40),
               up to twice its starting size. Recruiting takes people.
  Support      0 to 100: how much the people back you.
  Farmland     drives the harvest. Each province has a ceiling.
  Commerce     drives tax. Each province has a ceiling.
  Forts        0 to 100: the walls. They protect the garrison (section 7).
  Garrison     infantry, archers and cavalry, with a training (0-100) and a
               morale (0-100). Training is one level for the whole
               garrison: men who join it (recruits, a disbanded army) share
               it by numbers, so 1,000 green recruits added to 1,000 men at
               training 60 leave 2,000 at training 30. Train them back up
               with the Train troops assignment.
  Grain        the province's store.
  Governor     an officer you appoint (Governor button).

Tax, every turn:
  (commerce x 2 + population/1000 x 5) x tax rate x (50 + support) / 125
  then +1% for every 10 points of the governor's Administration (if the
  governor is in the province), halved under siege, halved while the
  province is newly occupied.

Harvest, once a year in Leaffall (month 10):
  farmland x population/1000 x (50 + support)/100 x weather (85-115%) x 2
  halved under siege.

Grain eaten by a garrison each turn: 10 per 100 infantry, 10 per 100
archers, 20 per 100 cavalry. A province whose store runs out loses 10
garrison morale and 3 support; from the second turn running out, a tenth
of the garrison deserts each turn.

Support changes each turn:
  Light tax +1 (up to 80); heavy tax -2.
  A governor with Administration 60 or more, in the province: +1 (up to 75).
  Newly occupied (6 turns after it was taken): -2 a turn.
  Under siege: -2. Out of grain: -3.
  Relief (an assignment): see section 5.

Unrest and revolt: when support is below 20 the province gets a warning,
then a second warning the next turn, and on the third turn it revolts. It
becomes independent with half its garrison, and you lose 5 legitimacy.
Support of 25 or more clears the warnings.

Independent provinces are run by their local lords. Their garrisons grow
by 1% (+2 men) a turn up to population/15, their support drifts back to
50-55 and their forts mend slowly. They never attack.


4. OFFICERS
-----------

About sixty named officers live in the world: serving a faction, at an
independent court, travelling in search of a patron, or held prisoner.

Ratings, 1 to 100:
  Command         troop morale and organisation; how many men an officer
                  can raise on a trip to town (100 + 8 x Command)
  Warfare         fighting in battle
  Administration  development, relief and governing
  Intrigue        intelligence

Also: loyalty (0-100), health (0-100), stamina (0-100), a trait (honourable, ambitious,
cautious, greedy, brave, steadfast), up to two friends and one rival, a
location and a short biography.

Pay. Every officer except the ruler draws 10 + (sum of ratings)/40 gold a
turn, paid where the officer is: a commander from his army's war chest,
anyone else from the treasury of the province they are in.

Loyalty moves one point a turn toward a target:
  40 + legitimacy/4
  +5 for each friend serving you, -5 for each rival serving you
  +10 if steadfast
  ambitious: +5 with a post (governor or commander), -10 without
  greedy: -5 while unpaid
An officer who goes unpaid loses 5 loyalty (greedy ones 10). The Reward
button spends 100 gold, from the province where the officer is, to add 8
loyalty, once per officer per turn.
An army that loses more than half its
men costs its commander 5 loyalty. A betrayal costs every officer 5 loyalty
(honourable ones 15).

Below 35 loyalty an officer is reported discontented. Below 20, each turn
there is a (20 - loyalty) x 3 percent chance they leave and become a
traveller. Honourable officers do not leave while loyalty is 10 or more.

Wounds. Battles cost commanders health. Officers heal 3 health a turn;
Rest heals 25.

Stamina. Work tires an officer. Each month's assignment (anything but Rest)
costs 25 stamina, and an officer with less than 25 cannot take one: they
must rest. Each trip to town costs 10, and a trip may not leave too little
for an assignment already given. A month of Rest gives back 50 (and 25
health); a month with nothing to do gives back 10. A repeating assignment
stops by itself, with a report, when the officer is worn out. A fresh
officer can work about three months in a row before needing a rest.
Officers on the officer card and in every list show their stamina.

Natural ageing, retirement and death are disabled in this edition.
The roster therefore remains available for campaigns of indefinite length.
Birth dates remain part of character biographies. Combat wounds and captures
still apply. If a ruler is lost through exceptional state changes, the engine
selects a loyal successor, preserving the faction rather than removing it.

Prisoners. Captured officers are held by the captor and cannot act. You
can release one (Diplomacy > Captives), or offer a
ransom or a prisoner exchange (Diplomacy). Releasing a prisoner gives 1
legitimacy, once per prisoner in 12 turns. Ordinary prisoners may escape:
after three turns, Intrigue/25 percent a turn (1% to 5%). A captured ruler
escapes after 6 turns; both sides see the date.


5. ASSIGNMENTS
--------------

Each serving officer takes at most one assignment a turn. A commander
commands and takes none. Information screens, reports and diplomacy never
use an assignment.

One governance order a province. Develop farmland, Develop commerce, Repair
forts and Relief are governance orders, and a province takes only one of
them a month, however many officers are there: you cannot develop farmland
and commerce in the same province in the same month. The Govern window
shows this month's order; choosing another offers to cancel it first. The
other officers there can still train, gather intelligence, rest or travel,
and go to town. (A save holding two from an older version keeps
the one funded first and cancels the other, at no cost.)

  Assignment         Cost            Effect
  Develop farmland   100 gold        farmland +(3 + Adm/10), less near the
                                     ceiling (see below)
  Develop commerce   100 gold        commerce +(3 + Adm/10), the same way
  Repair forts       150 gold        forts +(4 + Adm/12), up to 100
  Train troops       20 gold         garrison training +(4 + Command/10), up
                                     to 100 (outlaws: the men at the camp)
  Relief             120 gold, or    support +(4 + Adm/10), less as support
                     400 grain       nears 100. Relief where support was
                                     under 50 also gives 1 legitimacy (once a
                                     turn per faction).
  Intelligence       30 gold         news of a neighbouring province: chance
                                     40 + Intrigue/2 - (the best Intrigue of
                                     its officers)/4, between 10% and 95%.
                                     The estimate is off by up to
                                     (100 - Intrigue)/4 percent. A failure has
                                     a 1 in 10 chance of 20 lost health.
  Rest               free            health +25, stamina +50
  Travel             free            go to any other province you hold
                                     (outlaws: to the camp); see below

Development near the ceiling: the gain is the full amount while the
province is under half its ceiling, then gain x (ceiling - current) x 2 /
ceiling, at least 1.

Soldiers and new officers are no longer assignments: they are found in
town (below).

Travel. An officer can travel to any province you hold, however far and
whoever holds the land between. The road crosses two borders a month: one
or two borders take one month (he arrives at the end of this month, as
before), three or four take two months, five or six three, and so on. The
list of destinations shows each one's distance, the months on the road and
the month he arrives. He sets out after this month's battles. For every
month after the first he is on the road: he is in no province, takes no
orders, governs nothing, commands no army, is not listed among any
province's officers and cannot be caught when a province falls. He is still
paid, from the treasury of the province he is going to, and his loyalty
changes as usual. A governor who travels keeps the title but, like any
absent governor, gives his province nothing until he is back. The Review
shows "travelling to X, arrives at the end of <month>", and the officer's
card says "On the road to X". If the province he is going to is lost on the
way, he goes on to the nearest province you still hold (fewest borders;
on a tie, the first in the province list), and the report says so. If your
house loses its last province, everyone on the road joins the outlaw camp.

Repeat. Most assignments can be set to repeat every turn until you change
them. Travel never repeats.

Priority and gold. Each assignment has a priority, 1 to 9 (5 unless you
change it). During resolution, gold is set aside for assignments in priority
order (1 first, then down the officer list), each from the treasury of the
province where the officer is. An assignment there is no gold for in that
province is cancelled with a report saying why. Income comes later in the turn
and cannot pay for this turn's orders. If the assignment then cannot be
carried out after all (the officer was captured, the province lost), the
gold comes back. Review (7) shows in advance which orders would be short.


The town. Every province has a town. Send an officer there from the Govern
window (Go to town) or the officer card. The trip happens at once, while you
plan, costs the officer 10 stamina and is not the month's order: the same
officer can still take an assignment, and you can go to town as often as
stamina allows. In town:

  Recruiting   a share of the people will enlist each month: population/30,
               more where support is high (x (50 + support)/100). One officer
               raises at most 100 + 8 x Command men a trip. Per 100 men:
               infantry 60, archers 90, cavalry 150 gold, from the province's
               treasury. The men join the garrison at once, untrained (training
               0), and pull the garrison's training down in proportion;
               population falls by the men raised and support by men/300. The
               garrison may hold 20,000.
  Market       buy grain from what the market has this month (commerce x 20)
               or sell grain to it. The price per 100 grain is about 30 gold,
               dearest before the harvest (Goldmonth and Harvest, about 40)
               and cheapest just after it (Leaffall, about 21); a busy market
               (high commerce) is a little cheaper. The market pays 3/5 of
               its selling price. Grain you sell is added to what it offers.
  Inn          travellers looking for a patron stay at the inn of the town
               they are in, and each month about a third of them move on to
               another town, so who is there changes. Hire one for a fee of
               100 + 2 x (sum of ratings) gold (half as much again for the
               greedy); they join at once with loyalty 50 (65 if
               honourable). Honourable travellers will not serve outlaws.

The town's recruits and market are renewed at the start of every month.

Winter roads. In Darkmonth, Thawmonth and Rainmonth snow can close the roads
to town for the month: about half the time in the mountains, a third in the
hills, a fifth in forest, a sixth in marsh and a tenth on the plains. The
province panel says "Snowed in" and nobody can go to that town until the
next month. Outlaws use the town of the province where their camp is.

The computer houses use the town in the same way: one trip a province a
month, for soldiers on a threatened border, grain for a hungry store, gold
from a full one, or a traveller worth hiring.

6. ARMIES, MOVEMENT AND SUPPLY
------------------------------

An army is formed from a garrison (or the outlaw camp) under one commander
(Raise Army). It carries grain and a war chest of gold. It has an order, a battle plan, a retreat
threshold, a fallback province, and a defence standing order.

Orders:
  Stay     do nothing
  Drill    in your own province: training +(3 + Command/12), up to 90;
           20 gold, from the war chest (or the province)
  Move     to a neighbouring province you may enter: your own, a coalition
           partner's, or one opened to you by a military access treaty
  Attack   a neighbouring province (or the one the army stands in) that is
           independent or belongs to a faction you have no pact with

An army moves one province a turn, across a shared border. Terrain does not slow it, but mountains and
marsh make it eat 10% more.

Supply. Each turn an army eats 10 grain per 100 infantry or archers and 20
per 100 cavalry - a quarter more in winter on ground that is not yours. It
eats what it carries first; in your own province it may then draw on the
store. Access to an ally's land never lets you take their grain. An army
without grain loses 15 morale and is reported; from the second turn without
grain a tenth of its men desert each turn. The army page shows how many
turns its grain lasts.

Pay. Each turn an army pays its men 4 gold per 100 infantry, 6 per 100
archers and 10 per 100 cavalry from its war chest; in your own province the
treasury there pays what the chest lacks. An army that cannot be paid loses
10 morale and a twentieth of its men. An army marching into enemy land
should take grain and gold for the whole campaign.

Supplies (army page) loads grain and gold from the store and treasury where
the army stands, or unloads them with a negative amount. Disband returns
troops, grain and gold to the local store; the men join the garrison (or
camp) and share its training by numbers. A new army takes the training of
the garrison or camp it is raised from.

Morale rises 2 a turn toward 50 + Command/4; if it is more than 10 above
that, it falls 1 a turn. It falls 3 a turn in winter on foreign ground.

Defence standing order. An army with no other order can be told what to do
when a neighbouring province is attacked:
  none          it stays put
  own           it marches in to defend your own province (the default)
  own and allies  it also marches in to defend a coalition partner's or a
                  defensive-pact partner's province
Allies never command each other's armies.

Shipments (Military > Ship grain, or Ship grain or gold on a province's
Govern page) move grain, gold or both from one of your provinces to a
province of yours that borders it, in one turn. Further away takes several
turns: ship it on from there, or set up a chain of repeating shipments. A
shipment fails - and everything stays where it was - if the province does
not have it at the turn. Besieged provinces send and receive nothing.

A garrison its province cannot pay loses 10 morale and a twentieth of its
men each turn, so keep gold where your soldiers are. When a province is
taken, half its gold is lost and the rest passes to the victor.

Outlaw camps cannot be attacked. The camp can move to a bordering province each turn
(Military > Move camp).


7. BATTLES AND SIEGES
---------------------

Battles are fought when End month advances the month. When one of your
armies or garrisons is in a battle, the game asks whether you want to fight
it yourself on the hex field (see "Fighting on the field" below) or leave it
to your commanders, who fight it by the rules in this section. Settings can
make it always fight or never ask. Battles between computer houses, raids
and clashes at a border are always settled by the rules. Results appear in
Reports either way.

Plans (chosen with each attack order):
  Hold     siege only: no assault. The army sits outside the walls and wears
           them down. If the defenders' armies sortie with Assault, there is
           a battle.
  Assault  attack hard: +15% power, the walls count half, but 30% more of the
           army's own men are lost
  Ambush   in hills, forest, mountains or marsh: if it works, +50% power for
           the first two rounds; if it fails, -20% for the first round
  Raid     one round only, then home. If the raiders lose no more men than
           the defenders, a quarter of the province's grain is burnt and half
           of that carried off, and farmland and commerce fall by 5.
  Withdraw (a defending army only) leave for the fallback province before
           the battle; if it cannot, it fights at -30%.
Defending garrisons always Hold (+10%). No plan is best everywhere.

Ambush chance: 30 + (the best Intrigue among its commanders)/2 - (the
enemy's best Intrigue)/4, -25 on plains, kept between 5% and 90%. A
defending army can ambush too; if it works, the attackers also fight at
-20% for the first two rounds.

Power of each army or garrison:
  men x arm strength (infantry 10, archers 10, cavalry 14)
      x terrain for that arm, in percent:
                  infantry  archers  cavalry
        plains       100      100      130
        hills        100      115       90
        forest       110      110       70
        mountains    110      120       60
        marsh         90       90       60
  x (100 + match-up bonus)/100: cavalry against archers, infantry (spears)
      against cavalry, archers against infantry - up to +15% for a side made
      entirely of the arm that beats the other side's
  x (50 + training)/100 x (50 + morale)/100
  x (90 + Warfare/5)/100 of its commander (+5 if brave; a garrison uses its
      governor, or 40)
  x the plan, and x 80% if it is out of grain.

A battle has up to four rounds. Each round, the men the defenders lose are
the attackers' power x a roll of 85-115% / 100, times (100 - walls/2)% -
the walls being the province's forts, halved by an Assault. The men the
attackers lose are the defenders' power x the same kind of roll / 100 (x130%
under Assault). Losses are shared out by numbers. Each army's morale falls
by half the percentage it lost, plus 2.

An army leaves the fight when it is down to its retreat threshold (10% to
90% of the men it started with; cautious commanders retreat 10 points
sooner), its morale falls below 15, or it has fewer than 20 men. It falls
back to its fallback province if it can reach it and stay there, else to
where it came from, else to any neighbour it may stay in; if none, it
surrenders - the men are lost and the commander may be taken. An army
wiped out loses its commander with a chance of 50 - Command/4 percent;
otherwise the commander is wounded and gets home.

The attackers take the province when no defender is left standing. When
they do not:
  - an army ordered to besiege stays at the walls (it keeps its attack order
    for the next turn);
  - otherwise it goes back where it came from.
Each turn a besieged province's forts fall by 5 + the besieger's
Command/10 + besieging men/2000, and its garrison loses 3 morale. A siege
also stops shipments, halves tax and harvest, and costs 2 support a turn.

Fighting on the field. The battle takes the place of the automatic one and
the month goes on from its result exactly as it would have. The Assault and
Ambush plans do not apply on the field - you are the plan - and neither does
your army's retreat threshold; the computer's units still keep to theirs.

  The field: 15 x 11 hexes drawn from the province: open plain, with hills,
  forest, marsh or rocks according to its terrain, and a river with fords if
  a river runs through it. The town stands in the east. With forts of 30 or
  more it has walls and one gate facing west; without, its houses give a
  little cover.

  Units: each army or garrison splits into one unit per arm - infantry,
  archers and cavalry - with its men, training and morale. The commander
  (for a garrison, the governor) rides with the largest one, marked with a
  gold pennant. The attackers start on the west edge; the defenders stand in
  the town and to the east of it.

  Turns: the attackers move first, then the defenders; up to 20 turns each.
  Every unit has one order a turn:
    Move     infantry and archers 3 points, cavalry 5. Plain and town cost 1,
             hills, forest, marsh and fords 2 (forest and marsh 3 for
             cavalry). River, rocks and walls cannot be crossed. A unit that
             comes next to an enemy must stop there.
    Attack   strike an enemy unit next to it. Infantry and cavalry may move
             first and attack in the same order (cavalry that rode two hexes
             or more charge at +30% on open plain). The enemy strikes back.
    Shoot    archers only: an enemy up to two hexes away, with no answer; half
             as hard with an enemy beside them.
    Hold     stand ready: blows taken -20% and stronger blows back, until
             the unit's next turn.
    Rally    a unit with no enemy beside it that has not moved: morale
             +8 + Command/10 (half if its commander has fallen).
    Withdraw from its own edge of the field: it leaves with its men.
  The match-ups of the automatic battle hold here unit against unit: cavalry
  ride down archers, infantry stop cavalry, archers in a melee are weak.
  Hills, forest and the town give cover; marsh is bad ground to be caught on.
  A unit attacked by two or more enemies at once is flanked and takes 20%
  more.

  Walls: defenders inside the walls take only (100 - forts/2)% of every blow
  from outside. Only the defenders may use the gate until infantry standing
  beside it batter it down (its strength is the forts); the walls answer
  each blow with stones and arrows.

  Morale: every loss costs a unit half the percentage of men it lost, plus 1.
  Below 15 it breaks and flees; with fewer than 10 men it is cut to pieces.
  When the commander's unit breaks, the rest of that command loses 15 morale;
  any unit seeing a neighbour break loses 5. Each turn eats a tenth of the
  army's monthly grain; an army out of grain loses 3 morale a turn.

  The end: a side with no unit left on the field has lost. After 20 turns the
  defenders keep the field (as if neither side broke). Men who fled or
  withdrew go back to their army; a garrison driven out is gone as usual.

  Keys: arrows move the cursor, Enter (or a click) selects your unit, then
  moves it to the hex or strikes the enemy there - the hexes it can reach are
  speckled and the enemies it can strike ringed in red. Tab: next unit ready.
  H hold, R rally, W withdraw, E end the turn (it also ends once every unit
  has had its order), A leave the rest of the battle to the commanders,
  X sound the retreat for your whole side (each unit loses a tenth of its men
  as the rear guard). While the enemy moves, Space speeds it up. When the battle is over,
  Enter or Space returns to the month's end.

Occupation. When a province falls:
  its support falls by 20 (to no less than 5), farmland and commerce by 10%,
  half its grain is lost, its garrison is gone, and for 6 turns its tax is
  halved and its support falls 2 a turn;
  each of the old owner's officers there escapes to a neighbouring province
  of theirs with a chance of 40 + Intrigue/3 percent, or is captured;
  prisoners the old owner held there go free;
  the lord of an independent province is captured; its other courtiers
  become travellers.

A governor makes it yours. A province taken by force is held, but it is not
part of your realm until you name a governor: until then it pays no taxes,
takes no assignments, has no trips to town and does not count toward
victory (the province panel says "Held: no governor yet"). As soon as the
month's news has been shown, the game asks you to choose one for each
province you took, the army's commander first. A commander who governs gives
up the army: its men, grain and gold join the new garrison, and their
training mixes with it. Any other officer of yours in the province may
govern instead, leaving the army as it is. Choose Back to decide later; the
Govern window's Appoint governor asks again. Elsewhere a governor may not
command an army. The computer houses name governors the same way, preferring
an officer without an army.

Several armies attacking one province. All the attackers that name the same
occupier fight as one side. Sides naming different occupiers attack one
after another, in an order drawn from the turn's random numbers (never by
faction number); each faces whoever holds the province by then. A side whose
occupier is allied to the holder by then simply arrives.

Interception. Two hostile armies crossing the same border from opposite ends
meet at the border and fight up to three rounds on open ground; both then turn
back.


8. DIPLOMACY
------------

Every treaty is a proposal and an answer. The proposal screen and the
answer screen both say exactly what the treaty does, how long it lasts and
how it can be ended. An unanswered proposal lapses after three turns. An
accepted treaty starts at the next turn resolution.

  Non-aggression   neither side may attack the other or approach the other's
                   officers
  Military access  one or both sides open their provinces to the other's
                   armies, to pass and to stay. It gives no right to grain.
  Defensive pact   includes non-aggression; armies told to defend allies may
                   march in to defend the partner's provinces
  Trade            each turn each side gives an agreed amount of gold and/or
                   grain (grain between two named provinces). Both halves go together:
                   if either side cannot pay, or the grain route is shut, nothing
                   changes hands that turn, and both are told why. A trade is
                   never paid into debt.
  Ransom           a prisoner goes free for gold, once
  Exchange         two prisoners, one from each side, go free, once

Gifts (Diplomacy > Gift) are one-way transfers of gold and grain, sent at the
next turn resolution if the gold and grain are still there. Gold for gifts,
trades and ransoms leaves from the named province if it has enough,
otherwise from your richest provinces, and arrives at the receiver's seat
(the ruler's province) or the province named.

Messages (Diplomacy > Messages) are private: only the two factions see them. A
faction can send five a turn, of up to 200 characters. Treaty announcements
are public but never include a message.

Duration. A treaty lasts a number of turns from the turn it starts, or until
cancelled. A treaty of 6 turns or more kept to its end gives both sides 1
legitimacy.

Ending a treaty early, with notice (Treaties > Give notice). Notice given during turn T
is recorded at T's resolution. The treaty's protections still hold through
the fighting of turn T+1, and it ends after it. The side that gave notice
can attack its former partner from turn T+2. An attack cannot be ordered
while a pact is in force or under notice, so notice cannot be dodged by
attacking first. Routine notice costs nothing.

Betrayal (Diplomacy > Treaties > Betray). The treaty ends at the start of the next turn resolution, before that
turn's fighting, so the attack goes in. It costs 15 legitimacy, every
officer's loyalty (5; honourable officers 15), any claim to the throne in
progress, and it is written in the chronicle. The victim reads of it in the
turn report.

When access ends, armies inside get one turn in which they may only
withdraw across a border into land they may enter; an army still there after that surrenders. If
there is no way out, negotiate access again, or lose the army.


9. LEGITIMACY
-------------

Legitimacy rises:
  +1 every second turn of stable government - every province at support 50
     or more, no grain shortage and no revolt that turn - up to 60
  +1 a turn for holding the capital with support 50 or more
  +1 for relief where support was under 50 (once a turn)
  +1 when a treaty of 6 turns or more is kept to its end
  +1 for releasing a prisoner (once per prisoner in 12 turns)
It can rise by at most 3 in one turn, and above 70 every point takes two.

Legitimacy falls:
  -15 for a betrayal
  -5 for a revolt, -5 on succession
  -1 a turn with heavy tax while average support is under 40

Legitimacy feeds your officers' loyalty and your claim to the throne.


10. OUTLAWS AND DEFEAT
----------------------

A faction that loses its last province is not removed: it becomes an outlaw
company, camped in a neighbouring province. It gets no free troops, grain or
officers for losing.

An outlaw company:
  earns 100 + 30 gold per officer a turn into its purse, forages 300 grain
  a turn, and pays half upkeep for the men at its camp from the purse; when
  it takes a province, the purse goes into that province's treasury;
  can hold at most 4,000 men at the camp, and recruits at most 400 a trip
  (at the normal cost) in the town where the camp is;
  cannot be attacked at its camp, and moves the camp one province a turn;
  forms armies at the camp to raid or attack; when it takes a province it
  settles there, and the camp's men and grain move in.

Two of the six factions start as outlaw companies; both can reach the throne.


11. VICTORY
-----------

Alone. A faction qualifies when it holds the capital and 22 of the 32
provinces (16 of 24 on an old map) with legitimacy 70 or more. It wins when it qualifies at the end
of three turns in a row.

Together. A coalition (Diplomacy > Coalition) qualifies when:
  one member holds the capital;
  its members hold 22 provinces between them (16 on an old map);
  every member endorses the same member's ruler as emperor;
  that member's legitimacy is 70 or more, and every member's 40 or more;
  and no membership change is pending (an invitation, a notice to leave, an
  expulsion vote).
It wins when the same members and the same nominee qualify at the end of
three turns in a row. Every member shares the victory; the chronicle names
the emperor and every member.

Any change - a member, the nominee, an endorsement, the capital, a threshold -
resets the count. Claims and their progress are public (Coalition council).

When the war is won the world is kept for inspection and no further orders
resolve. Save the finished campaign and start another when you choose.

Coalitions. A faction can be in one coalition. Members have non-aggression,
passage through each other's land and each other's intelligence (with the
date it was gathered - joining reveals nothing nobody has seen). Each
member commands its own forces, approves its own attacks and keeps its own
treasury. The leader invites; an invitation needs the invited faction's
acceptance and every member's approval, one invitation at a time. Leaving
works like treaty notice (it takes effect after the next turn's fighting).
A member can be expelled only by the vote of every other member, with the
same notice. Betraying the coalition ends membership at once, with the
penalties of a betrayal. An attack by coalition members names the faction
that will hold the province if it falls - named in each army order - and an attack whose named occupier is no longer able to take it
is cancelled rather than handed to someone else.


12. END TURN RESOLUTION
-----------------------

  1  A pre-turn .bseal autosave preserves the world and committed orders.
     Computer factions give their orders; gameplay input is suspended.
  2  Diplomacy: betrayals first, then accepted proposals start (ransoms and
     exchanges happen), notices are recorded, coalition joins and expulsions.
  3  Every assignment and army order is checked again against the world as
     it now is, and gold is set aside in priority order. What cannot be done
     or paid for is cancelled, with the reason, as is a second governance
     order in one province.
  4  Trades, gifts and shipments of grain and gold.
  5  Outlaw camps move; armies move; interceptions; defence standing orders;
     battles, province by province in a random order; sieges; occupation.
  6  Assignments of the officers still able to carry them out. Work costs
     stamina; rest and idleness restore it.
  7  Tax, harvest, upkeep, grain, support, unrest and revolt, morale,
     loyalty, legitimacy.
  8  Prisoners and escapes, exceptional succession, roster replenishment,
     defection, a chance of one small event (bandits, floods or sickness).
  9  Treaties under notice end; coalition departures; stranded armies;
     intelligence; claims to the throne; victory.
  10 The new world, reports and chronicle are saved; control returns to you.

News of the month. When the month has passed, every attack a computer house
made is shown in turn under the map: the province is picked out, the
attacking ruler appears on the left and the result is told on the right
("1 of 3"). Each stays for a few seconds; Space, Enter or a click moves on,
Escape skips the rest. Battles, raids, new sieges and provinces taken
unopposed are shown. Turn it off in Settings. The Reports window follows.

A crash leaves either the old world or the new one, never half a turn, and
running the turn again from the old world gives exactly the same result.


13. WHAT YOU KNOW
-----------------

Public: the map and its borders, who holds every province, factions' legitimacy,
coalitions, treaties as they are signed and ended, and claims to the
throne. You see exact data for your own provinces and armies. Coalition partners
share dated intelligence rather than unrestricted live private statistics. Foreign garrisons, stores and forts you know only from
Intelligence, shown with the date and as estimates. Your scouts also report
any foreign army next to one of your provinces, rounded to the nearest 500.

Reports (R) show the latest completed turn with categories for government,
officers, diplomacy and military. The chronicle keeps major events throughout
the campaign. Older turn reports are retained in your saved checkpoints, not
as a browsable twelve-turn archive. Private messages keep the latest 100
entries per faction; computer factions do not interpret their free text.


14. WORKED EXAMPLES
-------------------

These examples use province names from the old fixed map; on your map the
names and figures will differ, but the sums work the same way.

A first turn. You lead House Lin: Anling and Zhulin, with about 1,080 and
1,050 gold in their treasuries, and five officers. Anling has commerce 110, population 30,000 and support 55; its
governor has Administration 80. Its tax is (110 x 2 + 30 x 5) x 100% x
105/125 = 310, +8% for the governor = 334. Your upkeep is about 460 (two
garrisons of 3,800 men, 200 gold each, plus four officers' pay). So:
  - The ruler (Administration 66) develops commerce in Anling: 100 gold,
    commerce +9 (3 + 66/10), about +15 tax a turn from then on.
  - An officer with Intrigue 76 gathers news of Baifeng, the independent
    province next door: 30 gold, a chance of 40 + 38 - (the lord's
    Intrigue)/4, about 65%.
  - A commander with Command 78 trains Zhulin's garrison: 20 gold, +11
    training.
  - The others develop farmland (100 each).
Review (7) shows 350 gold wanted and 2,130 across your treasuries; each
order is paid in the province where its officer is. End the month. During
resolution the 350 is set aside first; income arrives after.

An attack between allies. House Lin and House Qiao are in a
coalition. Both want Taohe (independent, 300 men, no forts). Lin's army
of 3,000 attacks from Zhulin and Qiao's of 3,000 from Baifeng; both orders
name Qiao as the occupier, and both factions see that on the Coalition
page. During resolution the two armies fight as one side. Taohe falls and
passes to Qiao; Lin's army stands in Taohe, which as a coalition
partner it may. Had Qiao left the coalition before the turn, both attacks
would have been checked again at phase 3 and cancelled, not handed to
Lin.

A supply shortage. An army of 1,500 infantry, 500 archers and 300 cavalry
eats 150 + 50 + 60 = 260 grain a turn. It leaves with 1,000 grain to
besiege a province in winter: on foreign ground it eats a quarter more, 325
a turn. After three turns it has 25 left; on the fourth it is short. In
enemy land it cannot draw on any store, so it loses 15 morale and fights at
80%; on the fifth turn a tenth of its men desert, and so on each turn. Ship
grain to a province of yours next to it and have the army come back to load
it (army page > Supplies), or plan for it: check the army's monthly consumption before setting out.

15. MULTI-PLAYER GAMES
----------------------

On the website you can play against other people as well as the computer.
Choose 7 Multi-Player game on the title screen. The game runs on the
website's server, so you can come back to it from any computer.

Players. Log in with your player name and password, or choose New player
to make one: a name of 2 to 20 letters, digits, spaces, - or _, and a
password of at least 8 characters. The email address is optional. If you
give one, the game tells you when a game starts, when each month has been
resolved (with the first lines of your reports), and two hours before your
orders are due if you have not ended your turn. Account (in the games
window, or 4 in the campaign menu of an online game) changes the address,
turns the mail off and on, and changes the password.

Making a game. New game asks for a name, the scenario, the level of the
computer houses, and how long each month lasts: 12, 24, 48 or 72 hours.
You can also let other people join after the start; they then take over a
house the computer leads. The game gets an invite code of eight letters:
give it to the people you want to play with. They choose Join with a code.

The lobby. Every player picks a house from the list; the ruler's
abilities are rolled for you (within 8 points of the house's usual figure)
and Roll the ruler again rolls all four again. When everyone has a house,
the game's creator chooses Start the game. Leave takes you out of the lobby
(the creator leaving deletes the game).

A month online. The main screen works as in a game of your own: give
orders in the same windows. Each order goes to the game server at once and
is checked there; there is nothing to save. When your orders are done,
choose 9 End month. You can take it back until the month resolves (campaign
menu, 3 Players). The month resolves as soon as every player has ended
their turn, or when the time runs out. Anyone who has not ended their turn
by then keeps their house, but the computer gives their orders for that
month, and their reports say so. The bottom of the main screen shows how
long is left, or how many players you are waiting for. The window checks
for news every 30 seconds: when the month has been resolved it says so and
shows the reports.

Battles in online games are always fought by the commanders, as nobody is
at the keyboard when the month resolves; the reports tell how they went.
You see your own reports and private messages, and not those of the other
players, nor the orders they are giving this month (except the attacks of
your coalition partners, as in any game).

The campaign menu (8) of an online game has 1 Games (your online games),
2 Refresh (ask the server now), 3 Players (who leads which house, who has
ended their turn, the deadline, the invite code, taking back your end of
turn, and leaving the game), 4 Account, and Settings, the guide, the
controls and the title screen as usual. Leaving a running game hands your
house to the computer for good. When a house claims the throne the game is
over; you can still look at the map and the reports.
