Market
A market is used to store material for trading. Additionally it is
needed to train workers to become
merchants. A market can support up to
10 merchants. The merchants travel from market to trading points
and back. You may have only one market. Therefore it is important
to choose a good place for that market to minimized the length of your
trading routes.
Docks
Docks are used to build ships. Each dock can build as many ships as you wish.
But a ship itself is not armed. Therefore it makes no sense to build a lot
of ships if you do not have enough men to form the crews. To build
a dock you need 3x3 squares at height 1 adjacent to the water. Normally
buildings are not that resistant to attacks because they can
be protected by walls. But docks cannot be surrounded by walls, therefore
docks are built much more robustly to protect them against attacks from sea.
Orders
There are various classes of orders which can be given to the different
citizens and the administration of
buildings. Each profession or building supports
different mixtures of orders. When a citizen receives a new order he forgets
his current order and starts obeying the new one.
In case of the IDLE order this means an immediate stop.
Move Orders
There are two kinds of move orders. The difference lies in their behavior if a
multiple selection is active. In case of a
single selection there is no difference between
these two orders.
Ordering move will preserve the actual formation of the selected
citizens. During their march, the formation may temporarily be interrupted,
but at the final position the initial formation will be restored. The
move order is only accepted if all members of the
multiple select can reach their
destination point. The citizen selected first
will be moved exactly to the destination point.
After ordering concentrate, all selected citizens will try to reach the
destination point as near as possible.
This means formations are lost and not all citizens exactly reach the
destination point, but in principle the destination point must be reachable
by each of them, otherwise the order is not accepted.
While carrying out a move operation the route may be blocked by
obstacles such as a walls, buildings, etc. Additionally each individual has
its own idea of a nice route. Therefore it may happen that the
citizens work along unexpected routes. E.g. they may
decide to leave a fortification, even if you prefer a way somewhere behind
your walls. In this case you have to provide subgoals to force your men to use
the routes you'd like to see them taking.
Many orders like harvest or
fight may produce movements implicitly
if this is required to come closer to an important point (e.g. to hit an
opponent).
Guard Order
All your fighting citizens obey the guard order. The man looks out for
enemies and if any goal is seen within a range of 6 fields, then it is
attacked automatically.
Fight Orders
There a 4 different ways of starting a fight.
The explicit attack order is used to force the
selected troops to attack the
citizen or buildings at the
destination point, if there are any. In the case of
catapults it is also possible to order an attack to
destroy a wall.
The order search and destroy causes the
selected troops to attack any foreign
citizen or building near the
destination point. If an enemy leaves the
destination area it will not be followed by
your troops. Search and destroy can be used to clear a
selected area of enemies without causing a redistribution of your troop
concentrations.
The order follow and destroy works like search and destroy,
but the enemy is followed by your troops. This may result in a radical
redistribution of the troops, but it is quite useful for eliminating scattered
enemies that have no chance of receiving reinforcement.
And finally each of your armed men performs self-defence if it is approached
by an enemy in range of his own weapon. But the men don't walk,
they don't even run away. Thus a Scientist will
cast all his own citizens and
buildings which are close to him if their
health is below maximum.
Finally it should be mentioned that it is impossible to attack your own
citizens, but you may attack your own
buildings. E.g. if mines have been exhausted,
it is quite useful to destroy
your own town halls and to rebuild them near a fresh
mine somewhere else.
Recruit Orders
If you select buildings, the
possible recruit orders of the building are shown in the
order panel. Recruiting and training a
citizen consumes gold and
wood, the amount needed is shown in order panel behind
the orders.
After selection of a building it is shown, how many citizens can still be
recruited, before the support capacity of the building is exhausted.
All buildings except a town hall and a
farm have the ability to perform recruit
automatically, if the current resources are above a specifiable level.
There are two dials in the order panel
that allow adjustment of these levels. The zero-button is a toggle button, if it is pressed, the
building starts to produce as much units as possible, if it's released, the production is stopped
immediately.
Construct Orders
If there is enough gold and wood
available and if there exists a least one town hall,
after selection of a worker, the
order panel shows what kind of buildings can be
constructed. At the destination point of this
order, there must be a square of flat land. After receiving the
construction order, the worker will walk to the
destination point and he will start to construct
the building. This process takes a while. If the worker is interrupted
during construction, e.g. by other orders or by being killed (haha), the
construction site breaks down and the gold and
wood for construction is lost, without finishing any
building.
Excavation Orders
A worker can perform two kinds of excavation
orders. He may either dig or heap. Digging decreases
the height of the landscape by one step, and
heaping increases the height. Depending on the heights of the
neighboring fields this can be used to build walls, moats, or bridges.
See the description of the landscape to
understand the consequence of these orders.
If an heap or dig order is to be performed on a square
this can be ordered by heap to and dig to. E.g. if these
operations are applied along a column or line of width one, it can
easily be used to build walls or moats. Heaping and digging requires
small amounts of gold and wood
to buy building material. As a special case of digging a worker can construct traps. These hidden holes may be quite useful for
weakening enemy forces during their marches.
Harvest Orders
Harvest orders are given to workers. The
destination point of the harvest order can
either be a mine or a tree or
a bush.
In the case of a mine the worker will start to dig gold
from the mine, until it is empty.
In the case of a tree or bush, the worker will continue to harvest
wood in an area around the initial
destination point until all trees and bushes have
been cut.
The harvested wood and the gold from
the mines is carried to the home town hall of the
worker.
Per default each worker uses the
town hall of its own recruitment as home. But the
home
can be changed by giving a move order to the
worker. If the
destination point of this order is another of your
town halls, the home will be switched to this location.
Cast Orders
Casts performed by scientists may have
one of three effects.
Casting a citizen of the own nation increases the health of this individual to maximum.
Casting a worker of another nation will
persuade the worker to become a member of your
nation.
Casting one of your own buildings will increase
the health of the administration of the building to a
maximum.
Using a Cast all, the scientist will
sequentially cast all own citizens, own
buildings and foreign workers
in the destination area.
Upgrade Order
Upgrade orders can be used to force workers to become
merchants and pawns can be
forced to become Scouts. The orders need no
specification of goals, because the citizen automatically selects the
market or the
fort to be entered for training.
Trade Order
The trade order tells a merchant which
trading point should be served. The trading
point is specified by clicking on it.
Hide Order
Hide orders can be used to tell scouts where to hide.
After clicking on a goal point, the scout starts to move to this point. At
this point the scout camouflages himself as a bush.
Workers are completely peaceful members of your nation. They do all the
hard work for you. You can use them to
harvest
gold from mines or to chop down
trees to produce wood.
They can also construct buildings or
perform excavation work to dig moats or to
heap mounds or walls. And finally they can
build hidden traps.
Workers can be recruited at town halls.
They should never be involved in any encounters because they are
absolutely helpless in conflict situations. Workers obey
orders of the following type:
move, harvest,
construct and
excavate.
Pawns are lightly armored and poorly armed troopers. As a result of their limited
trappings they can move quite quickly. Pawns can be recruited from town halls. In a fight they
are quick but vulnerable forces for short range
fights. They obey move and fight orders. 
Knights are the standard infantry soldiers of your army. Both their
armor and weapons make them
particularly strong in short range fights. But the
resulting heavy loads disable them from very quick movement. To train a knight
you need a camp. Knights obey
move and
fight orders.
The bows of the archers are dangerous weapons in
long range fights. They are also effective for
short range fights. Because of their light
armor the archers should be prevented from close
man-to-man encounters. Archers are quite mobile. To arm them with
arrows you require a mill. They obey
move and fight orders.
Due to their high degree of knowledge and experience scientists are completely
peaceful members of society. They can heal wounded
citizens. Or they can be
used to repair buildings.
Their large experience enables them to persuade
foreign workers to surrender to your nation. To educate
scientists you require a university. Scientists can travel
very fast because they carry no extra equipment like
weapons or armor. They obey
to move and cast orders.
A worker can be trained to become a merchant. This is
done by giving an upgrade order to a worker.
Merchants can be important members of your nation if you have established good
trading links. A merchant can sell wood to get
gold, or he can buy wood and pay for it with gold.
To establish trading you require a market place. If
you give a trade order to a merchant he
will start to transport trading goods between the
market place and the specified
trading point. A trading point can be specified
by aiming the trade order over a point.
You get 300 gold coins for 100 units of wood
You get 300 units of wood for 100 coins of gold
Scouts are specially trained pawns. To train a pawn to
become a scout, you need a fort. Here the pawns
learn how to explore foreign regions and to hide themselves. As a
consequence of this a scout can perform a
hide order.Doing this a scout becomes invisible for
opponent troops more then one field away from the scout. For them the
scout looks like a bush. Additionally a scout can see
much further than other units.
Catapults are very powerful weapons for
long range fights. With these machines stones can be
thrown at buildings, walls or
citizens of other nations. Catapults require to
be a minimal distance from the desired goal. Therefore they cannot be used in
short range fights.
After use the catapults must always be reloaded. This takes a while and
therefore the frequency of thrown stones is relatively low. Catapults are
heavy and thus cannot be moved quickly. To construct a catapult
you require a smith to build the iron parts. Catapults
obey move and
fight orders.
Ships are essential if the landscape consists of islands. Without
ships it would be impossible to leave your home island to conquer
other islands. Sooner or later the resources of your initial island
will be exhausted, so the ability to leave this island is crucial for
survival. Ships are built in docks. A ship can
carry upto 12 men. In order to row a ship anywhere at least one man
must be on board. As for any other unit, the ship has a measure of
health. This represents the current damage status of the ship. If the
health is zero the ship is completely damaged and it will sink. In
this situation all the men on the ship will be forced to swim for
their lives. Unfortunatly you forgot to teach your men how to swim
:-). On clicking on a ship a ship control
panel will be displayed. 
This button toggles marking the captain of your ship (the first man on ship).
This one will toggle marking the whole crew, but the captain's marking will be untouched.
A town hall is essential for your nation. Without a town hall you can't
construct other buildings. Additionally town halls are the central trading
places for your nation. The gold and wood harvested by your workers is stored
in your town halls. Town halls can recruit workers
and pawns. The number of existing town halls per
nation is limited to two for scenarios on land and it is limited to four for
those with oceans. Of course town halls can be reconstructed if they have
been broken down. All other kinds of buildings can be constructed in
arbitrary numbers.
Farms are needed to produce food. Without a farm, your
food will rapidly decrease and there is the danger of a famine. In this case
of your citizens will all die before you can
count to ten. Farms need flat land to grow plants, therefore you should make
sure that there is enough free land around a farm.
Most parts of the area are covered by grass. It is easy to travel over
grassy land.
Whenever some excavation work is done, muddy areas are produced.
Travelling over mud is as easy as travelling over grass, but the
presence of mud gives an indication that somebody excavated
recently. 
It is impossible to travel trough forests, because they are too dense and
your citizens dislike the annoying flies. Anyway trees can be chopped down by
As with trees, there is no travelling through bushes, but bushes can also be
cut to produce 
Since none of your men knows how to swim, there is no way through the water.
If any 
Sea is water with depth of at least 3. It has exactly the same
properties as normal water, but it is impossible to heap or to dig
near a sea field. This makes the building of
bridges between islands in the ocean impossible.
You are standing on an absolutely flat landscape and give a single
A hole is the result of a single 
If a wall is increased in height again, you will get a fortification.
If you order workers to harvest in a mine, they will bring sacks full of gold to their home town halls.
But the amount of gold in a single mine is finite and after exhausting
this amount, the mine will break down and become worthless. The number
of gold coins which you can harvest from a mine is shown in the order panel if you select the mine. Very soon you will find out that
positioning town halls near mines will
stimulate the growth of your nation enormously. Therefore it is
important to know as much as possible about the location of
mines. Mines are always visible on the strategic map. In a land there are always 9 mines. In a land
with oceans the number of mines may vary with the number of
islands. Normally there are 3 mines on each island. 
Traps are hidden holes. If a unit walks over such a trap, it falls into the
hole. This hurts really bad and the health of the unit
is decreased. For already weak units this can mean death. As
mentioned above, deep holes like traps can not be climbed.
Therefore normally one needs a worker to leave a trap
and it will be a good idea to be healed by a
scientists afterwards. Traps are weapons which enable even weak forces to
cause bad damage to strong enemy units. But traps do not distinguish between
friend and foe, so be careful in using this near your own favorite routes.
There are two type of fights.
Stones and Arrows can be used to attack an enemy over a long
distance. The range of a stone is one field larger than the range of
an arrow. Arrows are dangerous, but stones take the biscuit. Long
range fights are only allowed if the landscape properties allow
them. Trees and bushes are no barrier. Any field which is more than two
units higher the the field of the shooter cannot be passed by the
line of fire. E.g. a fortification can
not be passed by a shot from a shooter, at the bottom of the walls. In
case of an arrow, the unit on top of the fortification is not hit and
an arrow can't damage any wall. In the case of a stone, the unit on
top is also not hit but the wall is damaged with a likelihood of
0.3. Damage means the height of the wall is decreased by one.
All weapons (except stones) can also be used for man-to-man fights. In
this case both enemies must be located on neighboring fields. In the case of
arrows, the fortifications have the same effect
as in long range fights. Any other weapon can only by applied if the height
difference between the two opponents is less than two. If a hitting unit
is lower than the attacked unit, the power of the hit is only 20% of the
strength it would have if both stand at the same level (as mentioned above
this is not valid for arrows).
This means building walls and fortifications
improves defensive power significantly. Walls prevent
invasion and short range fights, while fortifications prevent
attacks with long range weapons.
You need something to feed the mouths of your citizens. Food is produced by
Your workers can cut wood to produce timber for various purposes. Cutting
timber takes a while and you should start to do this early enough, before you
plan to built structures, or large armies of archers or catapults.
Gold is the driving force of your economy, so you should always have enough.
In fact most of your workers will be used to mine gold.
This panel is shown in the lower part of the
This panel shows the list of the 
This map gives an overview of the entire area where you can operate.
By clicking the left mouse button on a point in this map, your
tactical window is centered on this point. It is a good idea always
to have an eye on this window, to make sure that there are no
unrecognized enemy movements which are not displayed in the tactical
panel at the moment.
This panel contains a zoomed view of a part of the operation area. In
this window you can see all 
The pause panel allows each player to stop the game temporally, by
pressing the button with his name. E.g. the panel above shows a game
where "hua" paused. Pressing the button again shows your willingness to
continue the game. If all buttons are released, the game continues.
There can only be one winner. If you have been killed the game is
over and you fail to get a reputation as a remarkable king. If you
manage to survive longer than all the other kings, you are the "cha
chan", the king of the kings and one may call you the winner.
This game is a more or less serious offspring of our work on adaptive
agent systems. The final intention of this game is its use as an
experimental environment for different automatic adaptive players.
The whole thing should finally run in a client server version, which
enables the participants of the game to act in real time concurrently.
The quicker one can give orders, the quicker one may do it.
The game should have closed rules (is ok), should be quite complex
(is true for these silly adaptive methods) and should also motivate a
human to play online against these crazy adaptive robots (check it out).