Land-water interaction

For the most part, land races operate on land and water races in the water. However, each can extend its influence to the other side of the sea level in various ways. Some armies have special flags which indicate whether they travel in land, water, or both.

Ships have the inverse altitude flag, I, which means that when owned by a land race, ships travel on water. For a water race, ships travel on land.

If a land nation would like to occupy sectors in the water it can do so using armies which have the water flag, W, such as Swimmers or Scuba_divers. Similarly, a water race can occupy land sectors using armies such as Walkers which have the land flag, L. Notice that any other army or spirit with the W and L flags will work fine. An army with both the L and W flags, such as the magical Sea Serpent can travel anywhere.

Some of the army types mentioned above have the front line flag, f. This means that they can be unloaded from a ship onto an unowned sector. Armies without this flag can only be unloaded onto land already owned by you.

Once the sector is occupied you cannot move people into it or they will drown (or suffocate if you are a water nation). You can, at great expense, build a bubble over the sector or cast a change altitude spell on it which will allow your people to move into it, even if it is a water (or land) sector. This provides a means for colonizing the oceans (continents).

Technology

A nation starts with very low skills in mining and farming. These skills can be developed by investing money or metal in technological research and development (R&D). This investment is made in the budget report. Increases in technology depends on how much metal and money you invest each thon. Metal increases technology proportional to the 3/4 power of the amount invested; money increases technology proportional to the square root of the amount of money invested. This means that doubling your metal investment will promote your technology research much more than doubling your money will.

With each new technology you develop, you can gain certain things. For example, fire technology increases your nation's mining ability, decreases your people's mortality rate, and increases their farming ability. With new technology you can also gain the ability to draft new types of armies.

Magic

Your nation is initiated to one of the magic orders available. Each order is characterized by the set of spells known to that order, and a set of spirits that can be summoned by mages of that order. When you are initiated as a national leader you know only a little of the magic of that order, but you can increase your knowledge by investing money and jewels into magical research. As you invest more and more, your magic skill will increase, and you will learn more advanced spells, and how to summon more powerful spirits. This investment is made with the budget report.

Your magic skill increase is proportional to the jewels invested in magic research, and to the square root of the money you invest. As with technology, this means that investing jewels will improve your magic skill more than investing money will.

In addition, some magical orders bring a set of characteristics to its initiates. These are described below in the descriptions of the individual magic orders.

Spell points

To use magic, that is, to cast spells and summon spirits, you must acquire spell points. You get spell points in proportion to the amount of jewels you invest in magical R&D, but not from your money investment. Your budget report indicates how many spell points you will earn from your jewel investment.

Note: spell points do not accumulate: if you don't use your spell points, two thirds of them will be lost the next thon. It is advisable to use all the spell points made in a thon, or to wait and save up jewels and then invest them all at once.

Mages

Mages are necessary for casting spells and summoning spirits. They must be initiated inside a capital, city, temple or university. They cost 5000 jewels to initiate, and 1000 jewels in maintainance each thon. Mages are moved around as if they were an army, and have twice the nation's basic move rate. Some spirits have the wizardry flag, and they behave like mages.

You need to bring a mage to a certain sector to cast a spell in it or to summon a spirit there, so you should make sure you initiate some mages to work for your nation once you are ready to use magic. They cost a lot to initiate and maintain, but are worthwhile.

If a mage is on a sector where there is a battle, he will try to stay out of the battle. If 85% of the mage's accompanying force is killed, however, he will be killed also.

See section section Wizardry on the [W]izardry command for details on using magic.

Magic Orders

The basic magic orders in dominion are:

Aule

Aule is the god of the earth, and is interested in all that happens in the depths of the earth. He protects miners and workers of metal and stone, and gives them an extra 10% mining skill.

Avian

This order allows you to summon spirits related to the air.

Chess

This order allows you to summon spirits similar to those on the chessboard in their movements and strength.

Demonology

his is concerned with the conjuring of demons.

Diana

This order is concerned with animals and hunting.

Inferno

This order is concerned with power through fire.

Monsters

This order has available many monstrous creatures.

Necromancy

Necromancy is concerned with the invocation of dead and undead spirits. Nations of this order start with their mortality rate increased by 2%.

Neptune

Neptune is the god of the oceans, and his order is concerned with the waters.

Time

This order steps back to the age of the dinosaurs.

Unity

This order has spirits that combine different creatures in one body.

Yavanna

Yavanna is the godess of plants, and everything that grows and is fertile is under her protection. Yavanna gives her initiates an extra 50% farming skill.

Insects

This order has spirits from the insect world. The order gives a nation 1% extra reproduction.

The Game Master can add other magical orders to the game by inserting a list of spirits for that order into a file.

Magic Spells

Here is a description of several spells available in dominion. Keep in mind that some spells may be available to several orders, and their cost and duration will be different for the different orders.

Both the cost and the duration of the spell are indicated when you list your available spells. The cost is in spell points. If the spell is applied to a sector, then that cost is all you spend. A spell applied to an army will usually set a special flag for that army, and will cost the given amount per 100 men. Army flags are described in the section on armies.

Notice that some armies and spirits come into the world with some of these magical properties already set, so you do not need to set them with a spell.

caltitude

is spell allows you to raise or lower the altitude of a sector. This means that you could plunge it into the sea, or place it on a mountain peak.

cfertility

is spell allows you to raise or lower the soil fertility of a sector.

cmetal

is spell allows you to raise or lower the metal productivity of a sector.

cjewels

is spell allows you to raise or lower the jewel productivity of a sector.

fireburst

is spell devastates the chosen sector, redesignates it to none, and sets the soil productivity to zero.

inferno

This spell will kill all population in the sector, and make it completely impenetrable to any army for its duration. You can only cast inferno on your own sectors. It is a very effective way to block enemy armies.

hide_sector

This spell completely hides the current sector from any other nation. The sector will just appear as a blank spot on the map.

hide_army

This spell sets the hidden flag on an army.

fly_army

This sets the flying flag on an army.

vampire_army

This sets the vampire flag on an army.

burrow_army

This sets the underground flag on an army.

water_walk

This sets the water or land flag on an army. It allows armies which normally walk on land to also travel in water, and vice versa.

mag_bonus

This gives magical enhancement to an army. The army will fight with an extra 30% bonus.

merge

This spell allows you to merge civilians into spirits (up to twice the spirits' basic strength), or to take spirits and merge them into the civilian population of a sector.

haste_army

This spell adds the army's basic move rate to its current move points. This has the effect of doubling the move points of an army in its normal state.

Spirits

Spirits are like armies, in that they can fight, and they can occupy sectors (if they are big enough), and their status and movement is manipulated with the [a]rmy command.

They are also different in many ways. To obtain spirits, your mage summons them with spell points. They are maintained by spell points each thon (typically 1/3 of the spell points that were needed to summon them in the first place).

If you don't have enough spell points to support your spirits some of them will become uncontrolled (see flags) so that you have enough spell points to control the rest. Uncontrolled spirits cost no maintanence, but they will be disbanded over the next update if there is not enough maintainance for all of the spirits the nation has.

The spirit types for different magic orders are listed in section Spirit tables.

Designations

If you own a sector, you can redesignate it. This specifies what function that sector has. When you first occupy an unowned sector, its designation will be x (none). It costs a certain amount of money, and possibly metal or jewels, to redesignate a sector.

Each type of sector can employ a different number of people. For example, a city can employ several thousand people, whereas a farm can only properly employ a few hundred people. The basic maximum number of people that a sector can employ is listed in section Designations below. This value is then modified by how much your race tends to crowd. If you are an orc, for example, more people can be crammed into a single sector. The formula to account for crowding is:

The more people you have in a sector, the more tax revenue it supplies, and the more of the sector's product is produced. A metal mine with 200 people working will produce twice as much metal and tax as a mine with 100 people. If there are more people than the maximum employable, the rest will be unemployed, and will produce nothing. However, they will of course continue to consume food, so it is a good idea to try to limit the unemployment in your nation.

The possible designations (together with the characters that are displayed on the map) are:

Farm (f)

produces food. Without farmers producing food, your people will starve to death.

Metal mine (m)

supplies your country with metal, proportional to how good the metal mine is and your mining ability.

Jewel mine (j)

supplies your country with jewels, proportional to how good the jewel mine is and your mining ability.

City (c)

generates a lot of revenue in the form of taxes. Cities are also the places in which you can draft armies and build ships. Cities contain temples, so mages can be initiated in them, and cities are places of trade, so caravans can drop their goods in cities.

Town (T)

a small city in which you can carry out trade, but not drafting or magic.

Capital (C)

a city, but the administrative bureaucracy of your nation is based in your capital, so if your capital is sacked (occupied by an enemy nation), many of your nation's riches will be taken.

University (u)

this is a school of higher education. Your country's intelligence can be increased if you put a lot of people in universities. Universities are costly to maintain.

Temple (+)

a place of worship. Mages can be initiated in temples. Also, the fraction of your people in temples increases your magic skill.

Fort (!)

forts give bonus to armies camped there (3/turn).

Hospital (h)

hospitals affect birth and death rates in your nation. (not yet) Hospitals have maintainance costs each turn.

section Designations, the Designation table, describes the properties of various designations: what they cost, how much revenue they produce per capita, how much money they cost to maintain, the minimum employment (not used in all cases), and how many people can be employed in that sector.

Designation table

@multitable {Designationxx} {markxx} {desigxxxx} {revenuexx} {per turnxx} {peoplexxx} {unemployedxx}

Economy and natural resources

The pillars of your economy are money and natural resources (soil fertility, metal and jewels). How you procure these and use them plays a major role in dominion.

Money

You get money by levying taxes. You set the tax rate in the budget screen. Set the tax rate wisely to encourage entrepreneurship in your nation. Production of food, metal and jewels decrease in proportion to your tax rate. Money is spent for redesignating sectors, drafting and maintaining armies, research and development, supporting universities and hospitals, and many other things.

Debt

[NOTE: the section on bonds described here is not yet implemented; for now a debt simply means negative money]

If your nation's money balance goes negative, you will be forced to issue bonds to your population to finance the debt (this happens automatically over the update, so there is no way you can plummet into a negative balance). You must then pay an interest on these bonds.

At any time you can also negotiate for other nations to purchase your bonds. Interest rate on domestic bonds is fixed (15%/thon), but you can negotiate the price for bonds issued to other countries.

If you want to finance a big war, and need lots of cash fast, the best way to go is probably to issue a lot of bonds to other countries.

The bonds your nation issues must always be backed by your reserve of jewels.

Soil fertility

Your nation must produce the food necessary to feed its people and soldiers. This is done by designating certain sectors to be farms. These farms will be more productive if they are on sectors with a better soil parameter.

Your farming skill also determines how productive your farms will be. You can increase your farming skill with research in technology, because your nation will discover better tools and methods for farming.

If your food production is insufficient, your reserves will be used. If those are not enough, you had better arrange to purchase some, or that part of your civilians who did not get enough food will starve. Once all your civilians have starved, your armies will start to starve. It is also important to know that soldiers eat slightly more food each thon than people.

Metal

Metal represents all metals and materials used for practical purposes, such as construction and armaments. It is found in metal mines. The production of each mine is greater if the sector has a higher metal parameter, and is also increased by your nation's mining skill. Your mining skill can increase if you invest in technology, because your nation will discover better tools for mining and prospecting.

You can spend your metal in several ways, including drafting armies, technological R&D, and constructing fortification and roads.

Jewels

In dominion, Jewels represent all kinds of rare resources, such as jewels, gold, silver, platinum, pearls, and so on. Jewels are found in jewel mines. How many jewels you produce in a mine depends on the jewels parameter of that sector, and also on your mining ability (see section on metal).

Jewels are very important, because they can be invested in magical research, and are used to get spell points. In fact, your spell points depend only on the amount of jewels you invest in magical R&D.

Jewels are also important in that they constitute your nation's reserve that backs up its currency and bonds. When you issue bonds, these have to be backed up by jewels, so it is a good idea to save some jewels, and not spend them all. (note: bonds are not yet implemented)

(We must find another use for jewels, so nations have more choices to make in spending jewels.)

Transportation and trade

You can trade with other nations or just transport goods/armies/people for your own benefit, using ships and caravans. Caravans travel on land, whereas ships travel in the water. (For water based nations, the inverse is true.)

Ships and caravans are drafted as if they were armies, and appear in your [l]ist of available armies in the [a]rmy menu. The construction and maintainance costs of ships and caravans are tabulated with those of other army types. Note that some spirits also behave as ships and caravans, in that they have the cargo flag. Examples of this are the flying carpet, the ghost ship and the living ship.

A single cargo hold can only transport a certain amount of goods. The unit of weight is the weight of a single person, and a caravan can transport 250 person weights. A bar of metal weighs 0.1, money weighs 0.01 for a sheckel, food 0.05, a jewel basket 0.01. If you load soldiers, their weight is equal to the weight of the number of people plus the weight of the metal used in drafting the army. Any caravan can transport only a single army and a single land title. The land title does not have significant weight.

To load a caravan or navy, you select it (with [a]rmy commands) and then use the [t]ransportation command to [l]oad goods, which can be [s]hekels (money units), [m]etal, [f]ood, [p]eople, [a]rmy or [t]itle. To unload it you move the caravan or navy to its destination and do the same with [u]nload instead of [l]oad.

You can only load certain goods onto a caravan in certain places. Anything can be loaded in a city (or your capital). Metal can also be loaded in metal mines, jewels in jewel mines and food in farms. The title to a sector must be loaded in that sector itself. People can be loaded from any of your own populated sectors. Armies can be loaded anywhere in your land, but out of your territory they can only be loaded if they have the front-line flag.

To unload in a foreign land you must be in a city or town. The only exception is that you can unload armies with the front-line flag anywhere. To trade an army in a foreign city or town, you should put the army in traded status, and then unload it in the city or town.

Alternatively, since armies move on their own, you can put them on traded status and just walk them up to the city or town. When you stop that army on the foreign city or town, you will be asked if you really want to trade it. You can also change the army to traded status once it is already at the city or town.

If you have unloaded goods or armies into a foreign nation's city or town, the goods or armies will become theirs. During the update, each nation will receive mail which indicates what trades occurred.

Transporting goods within your country is not really useful. However, transporting people is an effective way of getting them to the better mines and farms. Transporting armies can help mobilize your forces more quickly, since you can then unload them and they can still march.

Some armies, such as Sailors and Marines, have the front line flag (see the army types table). This means that they can be unloaded from caravans and ships anywhere: in your land, in un-owned land, and in foreign land. Thus ships and caravans can be used for transportation of fighting troops, not just for trade and migration.

If a transport (caravan or ship) is on a sector where there is a battle, it will be destroyed if more than 85% of its accompanying force is killed. Otherwise it will be left intact. If an army is on a transport and a battle occurs, the army's bonus is modified by the bonus of the transport. Thus, if 100 soldiers with bonus 30 are on a sailboat which has bonus -50, and are in a battle, their bonus will be -20.

Communications

Nations in dominion communicate through mail and news. Mail allows you to send personal messages to leaders of other nations. News is for general announcements, and is read by all nations.

There can be several newsgroups. One is always reserved for messages from the computer, containing general information on what has happened over the update. This newsgroup is usually called "News". Other newsgroups are set up by the Game Master, and any nation leader can post to them. At Stony Brook we usually have a newsgroup called "public" which receives many very creative postings from participants.

You should read your mail and news whenever you play your turn, to be in touch with your neighbours and the rest of the world. You also get mail from the update program after each update, telling you what has changed in your nation over the update. Alternatively, you can tell dominion to forward your mail, news, or both, to an electronic mail address using the [O]ptions menu.

World Geography

The world is shaped like a torus (i.e. the surface of a doughnut). This is the best approximation of a sphere which can be displayed easily on a flat terminal.

Thus, the world wraps in both the north-south and east-west directions. So, if you are playing in a 100x100 world, and your nation grows to be 100 sectors wide, you can travel around the world.

Terrain

There are various types of terrain. They affect how fast a race can move on a sector, and are related to the food production of that sector. We define terrain to mean what covers the surface of that sector. You find a sector's terrain described in the sector window, in the sector [Z]oom window, and in the [t]errain [d]isplay. The Terrains table lists the possible terrains in Dominion, together with the marks that appear in the [t]errain [d]isplay.

@multitable {Description} {mark} {Description} {mark} {Description} {mark}

Altitude

A sector's altitude greatly affects how fast races move on that sector.

The altitudes in Dominion range from Ocean Trenches to Mountain Peaks. You find a sector's altitude described in the sector window, the sector [Z]oom window, and the [A]ltitude [d]isplay.

You also see the altitude marks for un-owned lands on the ordinary designation map display (the default display when you start playing).

The Altituted table lists the altitudes together with the marks that appear on the map and the numbers that give the ordering. Notice that altitude 0 is sea level, and is considered land.

@multitable {Sea Mountain} {mark} {level} {Mountain Peak} {mark} {level}

Climate

Climates in Dominion range from Desert to Polar. They have a significant effect on each race's speed of movement, and they also affect the sector's food productivity. Climates can be seen with the [w]eather [d]isplay, or in the sector [Z]oom window.

The Climates table shows all the climates together with the marks that appear in the [w]eather [d]isplay.

@multitable {Dry Summer Subtropical} {mark} {Humid Continental Warm} {mark}

Diplomacy and war

Diplomatic relations with your neighbours are extremely important. Your nation could be destroyed if you do not properly set your diplomacy: you might make several enemies who could then form a treaty to fight you. This happens quite often.

Your nation starts out with 10 armies of 100 Cavemen each in your capital; more can be drafted using the [a]rmy menu. Soldiers are used to occupy unowned land, to defend your own territory, and also to conduct war against enemy nations.

To occupy an unowned sector, you must have an army of at least 100 soldiers there, set on occupy mode. To occupy a sector owned by another nation, you have to declare war or jihad with them. Sectors can also be occupied by spirits with 100 units or more. If you occupy an enemy's sector that has people on it, they will be hostile toward you for one thon. This means that you will not be able to draft from the sector or redesignate it.

Diplomatic status

In the [r]eports menu, you can access your [d]iplomacy report. This report shows your status toward other countries, and their status toward you. You start out UNMET with all nations. Then, as your armies come close to their sectors, or vice-versa, the two nations will meet and be put in neutral status.

You can change your status toward other countries as you meet them. Many statuses are possible, but the most important ones are:

Allied

this gives permission to the other nation to pass through your land at a lower move cost. Also, you can put your armies in GARRISON in allied land, and they will get 1/2 of the GARRISON bonus.

Treaty

this goes beyond ALLIED: if your armies or those of the other nation are involved in a battle, and the other has armies on the same sector, the two will fight together. Also, if you put your armies in GARRISON in treaty land, they will get the full GARRISON bonus.

War

if any army of yours is on the same sector as an enemy army, and one of the two is on ATTACK or OCCUPY mode, there will be a battle.

Jihad

for now, this is the same as WAR. In the future, JIHAD should involve some expense, and give a better fighting bonus due to fanatism in combat.

You can change your diplomatic status towards any nation you have met. They will see the change immediately. You can only change it by two degrees each thon, so that you cannot be ALLIED, march into someone's land, and then declare WAR and occupy all their sectors.

Armies

The army types table lists the various types of armies, their costs, bonuses and move rates.

Each army or spirit has a set of army flags that affect its behaviour. Some are innate abilities of that army, others can be set with magic spells. The table lists each army's innate flags. The flag abbreviations are:

F - Flying

Any army with this flag can fly. Move costs of sectors don't depend on altitude, and thus are much lower. These armies also ignore PATROLs and INTERCEPTs unless the patrolling army has missiles.

H - Hidden

An army with this flag is magically cloaked. Other nations will not be able to see the army on their maps.

V - Vampire

An army with this flag will possess some of the dead on the battlefield who will join ranks with the army.

T - Transport

This army is being transported as cargo.

^ - Missiles

This army has weapons that are thrown, such as arrows. Archers are a type of army with missles. These units, when in PATROL or INTERCEPT status, will slow down flying units too (normally flying units are not slowed down by PATROLs or INTERCEPTs, though they do get intercepted once they land).

W - Water

An army with this flag must stay in water, or in the land sectors along a coast; even if it belongs to a land nation. Compare with the L flag below.

L - Land

This is the exact inverse of the W flag. An army with this flag must stay on land, or in water sectors along the coast; even if it belongs to a water nation. Notice that if you have both the L and W flags, you can move that army onto any sector on the map.

I - Inverse altitude

This flag says that the army will have either the L or the W flag, depending on the race of the army's owner. If the army belongs to a land race, then it will have a W flag, and vice-versa. This flag is used mostly for things like ships, which travel in the "inverse" altitude medium.

f - Front-line

Army can be loaded/unloaded on/from a ship or caravan on land that does not belong to you.

k - Kamikaze

Armies with this flag will fight with very high bonus, but will all die in any battle.

m - Machine

These armies are really machines, such as siege engines, war carts and catapults. They help ordinary armies in combat by destroying fortifications and adding bonus to the armies.

d - Disguised

You can disguise this army so that it will appear to be of another type to other players. For example, to disguise a poltergeist as an areal serpent you would change the army's name so that it ends with "/areal_serpent".

w - Wizard

This flag means that the army can summon spirits and cast spells, like a mage.

s - Sorcerer

This flag means that the army can excercise powers of sorcery (not implemented yet).

c - Cargo

This army can transport cargo, like ships and caravans.

U - Underground

This army can burrow underground, and thus is not slowed down by patrols and intercepts.

u - Uncontrolled

This means you have lost control of the army or spirit, usually by not having enough spell points available to support a spirit. Uncontrolled armies have no movepoints, have their status's set to neutral, and will not prevent an opposing force from taking a sector. As well uncontrolled armies will be dibanded in not brought under control within one thon.

R - Race specific

These armies are available only to certain races. Race specific armies have a fixed bonus related to their original race and are unaffected by improving technology, and sometimes they have special flags (for example, Hobbits are hidden). They are available from the start of the game, and are much more powerful than Cavemen, so they present a strong advantage. When traded, these armies keep their special characteristics and their bonus; they will not acquire the strength of the nation to which they are traded.

* - Magic order specific

These armies are available only to certain magic orders.

Army types

This is is the Army types table, which describes in detail all army types available for drafting. Some of the army types deserve a special description here:

@multitable {Crossbowmen} {ch} {move} {bonus } {money } {metal } {draft } {money } {metal } {maint } {flags}

Legion

A sophisticated form of Infantry with much higher bonus. They become available with higher technology and cost barely more than infantry to draft; metal and maintainance are the same. Once you have Legion available, there is no reason to continue drafting Infantry.

Phalanx

Not yet very well inserted into Dominion. They should in principle have greater strength in numbers, but this is not yet implemented.

Elite

Cost a lot of metal and no money to draft and maintain; they are best used if you have too much metal and are bankrupt.

Ninja

Good for spying, but cost too much in jewels to make them effective as large armies.

Army maintenance costs

Each army has a maintenance cost in money, metal, and/or jeweles, which is for the salaries of the soldiers and upkeep of weapons and other materials needed by the army. The maintenance cost for each army is given in the army types table. There is also a fixed per-army overhead of 2000 sk.

Movement points

Your armies can move only a certain distance before they must stop and rest. How much they can move is expressed in the army's move points, and the move cost of the sectors they cross.

For example, if an army has 13 move points, and it goes through sectors with move costs of 4, 3, and 4, it will have two move points left. It will only be able to move onto a sector with move cost of two or less.

Army statuses

[i]ntercept

This army will intercept a nearby enemy army. Intercept raises the move cost of adjacent sectors, and then (over the update) the army will move to any adjacent sector where an enemy army might be located. This is quite powerful, since you don't have to defend each square, but you should be careful because intercepts can be decoyed. An army must have at least 50 soldiers to intercept. Intercept will also move the army to intercept a flying enemy army, once it has landed. But the increased move cost will not apply to flying enemy armies unless the intercepting army wields missiles (for example, archers). See the description of army flags.

[p]atrol

This army will patrol the area, raising the move cost of adjacent sectors for enemy armies. If the enemy army is flying, the move cost will only be raised if the patrolling army has missiles (for example, archers). An army must have at least 50 soldiers to patrol.

[g]arrison

This army garrisons the sector, getting an extra 20 bonus on your own land. If the sector belongs to a nation at treaty with you, then you also get bonus 20. If it is allied land, you get a bonus of 10.

[n]eutral

This army is neutral and will not involve itself in any conflicts that occur. You cannot choose this status, it is assigned automatically to any army or spirit that becomes uncontrolled.

Detailed description of commands

Options menu

You can set some options that affect the way the game appears to you. The [O]ptions menu allows you to set the following options:

e[x]pert mode

This toggles expert mode on and off. Expert mode allows an experienced player to do things much more quickly by showing most menus on the status line, instead of drawing windows.

[f]orwarding mail

This allows a you to get mail forwarded to your e-mail account instead of reading mail inside dominion.

[n]ews forwarding

This allows a you to have all of the news posted to the game to be forwarded to the mail address you specify. You will still be able to read news inside dominion.

[c]ivilian movement

This toggles between the three available types of migration that your government allows: Free, Restricted and None. These are described in section section Migration on migration.

[m]ail program

This allows you to choose a mail program with which to read your dominion mail. Examples are "elm", "mush", "Mail", or "mailx". If you type nothing, you will get the built-in bare-bones mail program.

[e]ditor program

This allows you to choose your default editor and to overide any environment variables you may have set. If the gamemaster has a restricted list of usable editors then it will tell you which editors you may choose from.

Display menu

The [d]isplay menu allows you to change what information is given on the sector map. The default view of the screen shows the designation of your own sectors, altitude markings for unowned sectors, and nation marks for other nations' sectors. If you are a land nation, all water sectors are marked as a "~", and if you are a water nation, land sectors are marked by a ".". Land nations may view underwater sectors, and vice versa, with the [W]ater toggle option in the [d]isplay menu. There are many other ways of looking at the map, and of highlighting sectors on it. These are described briefly here.

Map Style

[c]ompact

This will remove the spaces between sectors in the display, allowing you to see twice as much on the map.

[r]egular

This will display the map with a space between sectors.

Display Options

Most of these simply display characters or numbers based on which you choose (for example, [n]ation mark will display letters indicating the nation which owns the sector). Numbers greater than 9 are displayed as a plus sign (for example, metal 12). A few options require further explanation:

[p]opulation

For sectors containing less than 950 people, this displays a number indicating the rounded number of people divided by 100. Thus a sector with 475 people will be displayed with a "5". For sectors with more than 950 people, an "I" is displayed.

[T]errain move cost

This shows the basic move cost of each sector, with regard to your race.

army [M]ove cost

This shows the move cost for each sector, after adjustments are made for the army you have selected. For example, if your army flies, the move costs will be much lower.

Highlight Options

These select which sectors will be highlighted in the map (they will be displayed in reverse-video or in a different color depending on your terminal).

Other Things

[C]enter screen at cursor will do just that, and the [W]ater toggle was explained at the beginning of this section.

Movement

The movement commands are shown in the diagram at the beginning of this manual. They are quite straightforward, and only behave differently when you reach the edge of the screen. In this case, the screen is shifted over. The screen can be forcibly centered around the cursor using the [d]isplay [C]enter screen command.

You can also jump directly to a sector with the [p] command. You will be prompted for the coordinates to jump to. You can jump back to your capital with the [P] command.

Reports

Here is a detailed description of each report in dominion. To access them type [r]eports and then the letter of the report you want. You can switch from one report to another by hitting the key that corresponds to the report you want. The reports you can switch to are listed at the bottom of the report you are viewing.

Information report

To access this report you type [r]eports followed by [i]nfo.

This report gives complete information about your nation. Below is a description of most parameters printed. Simple parameters such as Nation are left out.

Treasury, Jewels, Metal, Food

Your current wealth.

Birthrate

The percentage by which your population increases each thon.

Mortality

The percentage of people who die in your nation every thon.

Intelligence

This affects your acquisition of technological skill. It can be increased by building universities.

Magic Aptitude

This affects how quickly you learn the spells for your nation's magical order, and how many spell points you gain. It is based on your race.

Magic Skill

What level of magic your nation is capable of. Investment in magic R&D increases this.

Speed

Your armies' move rate is proportional to this.

Spell points

Tells you how many you have and how many are spent for maintenance of spirits.

Technology skill

What level of technology your nation has reached. Investment in technological R&D increases this.

Farming skill

The higher this is the more food you produce per farmer. This is based on your race and can be increased by new technologies.

Mining skill

This affects how productive your metal and jewel mines are. This is based on your race, and can be increased by new technologies.

Spy skill

This expresses how good your intelligence service is.

Secrecy

This indicates how resistive you are to espionage by other nations.

Combat bonus

This percentage is added to the number of soldiers in your armies to get the effective force your army fights with.

Move points

This is the basic distance each army can move each thon.

From here you can change your [P]assword or [l]eader name. You can [t]oggle your nation to or from CN status, which will cause the computer to play your turns for you. This will also let you choose if your nation should receive update mail while it is being run by the computer. Changing your nation to an CN is a risky move: the computer will play a good game, but it will not honor your long-term plans.

Budget report

To access this report you type [r]eports followed by [b]udget.

The budget report gives you detailed breakdown of how you are spending your money and your natural resources.

Within the budget report you can adjust what percent of your money and/or natural resources you are spending on research in technology, the study of magic, and reconnaisance. You also can adjust your tax rate.

The screen shows how much money you are spending on military maintenance and other costs inccurred. The only way military maintenance can be lowered is to disband armies. Other costs include, but are not limited to the cost of drafting an army and the cost of redesignating sectors.

The metal and jewels breakdown lists the amounts spent on research and development, from both current revenue and storage, and the amounts spent by other activities. Other metal expenses include the construction of citites and the drafting of armies. Other jewels are used as a maintenance fee for mages.

The commands within this screen are:

[t]ax rate

Lets you adjust your tax rate.

[T]ech R&D

You choose how much of your metal or money revenue is invested in technology research.

[m]etal

sets the amount of metal you wish to invest.

[M]oney

sets the amount of money you wish to invest.

[M]agic R&D

You choose how much of your jewels or money revenue is invested in magic research.

[j]ewels

changes the amount of jewels you invest.

[M]oney

adjusts the amount of money you invest.

[S]py

invests money in your spy department

[s]torage

allows you to spend money/metal/jewels from your storage. The way you can spend it is similar to how you spend your revenue, but it is a once-only expense, and is cleared after each update.

A note of caution: Watch how much money you are spending carefully; you can run your nation at a deficit, but if you have no money, you cannot draft, construct or redesignate. If someone attacks you and you need armies quickly, you will be in trouble.

Production report

To access this report you type [r]eports followed by [p]roduction.

The production report tells you how many people are employed and unemployed in each area of your economy. It also shows you the average productivity of each employee. Your total economy is listed as General, and below it is broken down into Metal miners, Jewel Miners, Farmers, and Services. Services include all other types of employment, such as workers in cities, forts, etc.

Nations report

To access this report you type [r]eports followed by [n]ations.

This report displays minimal information on each nation in the world. The report lists the nation id, nation name, nation mark, leader name, and race of each nation. If the nation is currently being played by the computer, "cn" is displayed along with the information. If the nation has been destroyed, that will also be indicated. You are also told the size of the world and how many nations are in it.

Within this report is the [s]py option. If you select this, you will be prompted for a nation id, and then you will be presented with a screen that allows you to bribe officials in that nation for information.

You pay a certain amount of jewels in bribes, of which a percentage equal to the tax rate of the nation being spied upon ends up in that nations coffers. Certain types of information are easier to obtain than others. In order of increassing difficulty: [C]apital location, [t]echnology level, [e]conomy, ma[g]ic skill, [p]opulation, and [m]ilitary. The accuracy of the information recieved depends on the type of information sought, comparison of your spy skill to their secrecy skill, and upon the amount of jewels spent as a percentage of the nation being spied upon's jewel supply. And with each attempt at spying made there is a small chance that the spy will be noticed by the other nation.

You can also steal technology from another nation, and while the factors involved are still the same, it is much more difficult, the spy is much more likely to be caught, and if you don't spend enough in bribes then it is almost certain that you'll get no results. Lastly, the amount of tech stolen depends also on the difference in your tech levels. It is much easier to steal technology from nations vastly superior to your own than from those close to your level.

Diplomacy report

To access this report you type [r]eports followed by [d]iplomacy.

Diplomacy with other nations is extremely important. You should set a status with each nation you have met. This is done in the diplomacy report.

In most cases, all the nations in a dominion game will not fit on the screen at once. By pressing [>] or [.] you can move to the next page of nations. Pressing [<] or [,] will go back a page. Once you have found the nation you wish to change your status to, press [c]hange status and enter the nation number. You will be presented with a list of statuses to choose from.

Be sure to read section section Diplomacy report on diplomatic statuses for more information on what the statuses mean, and how to change statuses.

Construction

You can construct on a sector with the [C]onstruct command. Your construction will cost money and/or metal, and can make that sector more valuable. The construct menu options are:

[r]oads

Roads decrease the move cost for you (and anyone else) in the sector. The cost for building roads doubles for the next level of road construction. For each level of roads construction, the move cost goes down by 1 (but it never goes below 1).

[f]ortification

Fortifies the current sector: adds 10 to the fortification level, which gives your armies or armies of treatied nations that much bonus when defending that sector, and allied nations one-half that bonus. Many fortifications can be built on a sector and their effect is cumulative. The cost doubles for each level of fortification.

[b]ubbles

These are air/water-tight bubbles. They are necessary to colonize underwater (if you are a land race) and land (if you are an underwater nation). Once you have a bubble, you can move troops and civillians to that sector. Only one bubble can be constructed on a sector (that is all you need).

ref[i]nery

A refinery is constructed in a metal mine, and will increase the productivity of the mine by 12% by refining the metals produced there. Only one refinery can be constructed on a sector.

[d]estroy

This will bring up a sub-menu that allows you to remove any of the above. Removal of construction will cost you money, but you will also be able to retrieve a small percentage of the metal building costs.

What you can construct on a sector, and how much of it you can construct, is based on your technology level. As your technology improves, you will gain new skills which let you construct more.

Wizardry

Type [W]izardry to enter the wizardry menu.

The wizardry command has five options. These are:

[l]ist spells and spirits

This will show you which spirits are available to summon and how many spell points they cost, and which spells you can cast, how much they cost, and how long they last (in thons).

[c]ast a spell

This lists the available spells, and asks you to enter the name of the spell you wish to cast. If the spell affects a sector (such as caltitude) it will affect the sector your mage is on. If it affects an army (such as hide_army), you will be asked to enter the army id. The army must be on the current sector.

[s]ummon a spirit

This lists the available spirits, and asks you to enter the name of the desired spirit. The spirit will appear on the current sector. Spirits may only be summoned in your own land.

[h]anging spells

This lists all spells you have cast which have not yet expired, and indicates how much longer the spell will last. For example, the hide_sector spell lasts for eight thons, so would appear in the list until that time is up. In this list you may [z]oom on a specific spell, which will give more detail, such as which sector the spell affects. You may also [d]elete a spell which will terminate it early.

[i]nitiate a mage

Mages are needed to cast spells or summon spirits. They cost jewels to initiate and maintain, and move twice as fast as regular armies.

The update

It can be useful to understand exactly what happens during the update. Here are the steps and the order in which the computer performs them.

1. The current world is loaded. Each nation is loaded.
2. Hanging spells are loaded
3. Trading via cargos is handled.
4. CN moves are made.
5. Technology, Magic, and Spy skills are updated.
6. Revenue of money, metal, jewels and food are calculated.
7. Civilian migration occurs.
8. Battles are resolved.
9. Sector capture is handled.
10. Diplomacy is updated (nations become "met")
11. Armies are reset. Mages are disbanded if maintaince jewels are missing.
12. Mail is sent to each nation and statistics are posted to news.
13. The new world file is saved.

Migration

Civilian migration happens automatically. The people move according to the laws of the country. As a leader you can set those laws with the [o]ptions screen: you can set migration to be Free (the default), Restricted or None.

Free

People look for the sectors that have the most available jobs, because that's where they will get the best pay/best job. Some attraction is also excersized by how pleasant a sector's living conditions are, but in general a constant ratio of employment is preserved locally.

Restricted

The govevernment (you) has gotten sick of all these civilians wandering around so much. So civilians will not be allowed to leave their present place of residence unless they can prove they are unemployed. If so then they will move to the sectors surrounding them, partially by number of jobs available, partially by the desirability of the sectors available. However all sectors in range will be put to full employement if possible. If there is nowhere to go they will wander aimlessly in search of a place to find a job, jumping with the latest rumor of employment.

None

The government has decreed that there will be no civillian movement. Where they are is where they stay, and where they are born is where they will die. Unless the army comes to get them in caravans or ships, they will stay put.

Authors

Version 1.02 of Dominion was the first with this name. It was previously called Stony Brook World (SBW), until too many people suggested a catchier name.

Here is a list of the people who actually wrote code for sbw/dominion that is in the current release. The order is that in which they wrote their first piece of code.

Mark Galassi (@email{rosalia@nis.lanl.gov}) User interface (in curses), basic data structures, world generator, economy, technology, magic, basic army work, manual and formatting of manual with LaTeXinfo, miscellaneous. Currently maintains Dominion.

Michael Fischer (@email{greendog@insti.physics.sunysb.edu}) Update program, battle code, developed exec file format, dom_print, manual, lots of other things.

Doug Novellano (@email{doug@insti.physics.sunysb.edu}) Mail and News systems.

Keith Messing (@email{keith@insti.physics.sunysb.edu???}) Initial diplomacy system.

Alan Saporta (@email{gandalf@insti.physics.sunysb.edu}) Work on some exec routines, many suggestions of directions for the game.

Joanne Rosenshein (@email{raven@max.physics.sunysb.edu}) Initial draft of the manual, many suggestions of directions for the game.

Stephen Bae (@email{sbae@insti.physics.sunysb.edu???}) Basic world memory allocation.

Chris Coligado (@email{noel@max.physics.sunysb.edu???}) Army and battle code.

C. Titus Brown (@email{brown@reed.edu}) Adding nations and improvements on the reports; revised army menu and transportation menu. Lots of miscellaneous things.

Charles Ofria (@email{charles@krl.caltech.edu}) Designed the "cns" file, most magic orders and many races and techno powers; coded some spells.

There are also some major contributions from people not in Stony Brook:

Stephen Underwood (@email{hiranu@netcom.com}) Fractal terrain generator and contributions in very many areas.

Paolo Montrasio (@email{montra@ghost.unimi.it}) Several suggestions.

Kevin Hart (@email{hart@cs.utk.edu}) CN system.

Many others have made very important creative suggestions to the game, though they were not involved in the actual coding. Here are some names that come to mind. Please send us mail if we have forgotten any. Tony Matranga, Tim Poplaski, Chris Adami, and everyone else who participated in the FALL SBW and SPRING DOMINION games at Stony Brook in the fall 1990 and spring 1991 semesters.

Spirit tables

The Spirit types tables below list the spirit types available in dominion. Summoning costs (in spell points) are not listed and may be different if a spirit is available to more than one magic order. The flags for each spirit are described in section Armies.

Aule

@multitable {earth_elemental} {Sizexx} {Move} {Bonus} {Spell} {Flags}

Avian

@multitable {flying_carpetx} {Sizexx} {Movex} {Bonusx} {Spellx} {Flags}

Chess

@multitable {grandmaster} {Sizexx} {Move} {Bonus} {Spell} {Flags}

Demonology

@multitable {tormented_soul} {Sizexx} {Move} {Bonus} {Spell} {Flags}

Diana

@multitable {terrasque} {Sizexx} {Move} {Bonus} {Spell} {Flags}

Inferno

@multitable {fire_elemental} {Sizexx} {Move} {Bonus} {Spell} {Flags}

Insects

@multitable {creeping_doom} {Sizexx} {Move} {Bonus} {Spell} {Flags}

Monsters

@multitable {crimson_death} {Sizexx} {Move} {Bonus} {Spell} {Flags}

Necromancy

@multitable {poltergeist} {Sizexx} {Move} {Bonus} {Spell} {Flags}

Neptune

@multitable {water_elemental} {Sizexx} {Move} {Bonus} {Spell} {Flags}

Time

@multitable {tyrannosaurus} {Sizexx} {Move} {Bonus} {Spell} {Flags}

Unity

@multitable {warewolf} {Sizexx} {Move} {Bonus} {Spell} {Flags}

Yavanna

@multitable {shambling_mound} {Sizexx} {Move} {Bonus} {Spell} {Flags}

This document was generated on 6 March 1998 using the texi2html translator version 1.51.