*MACBETH*
ver 1.0, 1995
This manual: 2000
INTRODUCTION
It is the year 1031. Macbeth has succeeded his father, Finlay, as moarmaer (provincial governor) of Moray...
Later... It is the year 1040. You have recently become Thane of the Highlands under King Duncan I. A messenger enters, "I have terrible news, mi lord." The messenger pulls out a scroll with the seal of Macduff upon it. He reads, "Macbeth hath slain our noble King Duncan in battle near Elgin. He makes a direct claim to the crown by his marriage to the granddaughter of King Kenneth III. You hereby are urged to aid us in cleansing Scotland of this murderous tyrant."
As Thane of the Highlands you realize the neccessity for your involvement.
If you do not choose a side, you will surely be taken after the conflict. The
High King of Scotland is Macbeth, but you fear his rule may be at an end.
The choice is up to you...
PLAYING THE GAME
This game is very simple. It is completely menu driven. As Thane of the
Highlands you make the choices that affect your rule and your survival. Your
actions either affect your people or how the other leaders view you, but often
affect both. The other leaders are Macduff, Malcolm, and of course Macbeth.
Here is an outline of different actions you may take.
1) Send a messenger a) request a peace treaty (40 pounds) b) make a threat (1 pound) c) request military aid (10 pounds) d) send gifts (100 pounds) 2) Visit a castle a) Macduff (42 pounds) b) Malcolm (84 pounds) c) Macbeth (56 pounds) 3) Make an attack a) an army of 100 men (400 pounds) b) a band of 10 men (50 pounds) c) knight and legion (120 pounds) d) hire an assassin (80 pounds) 4) Deploy a spy a) Macduff (23 pounds) b) Malcolm (28 pounds) c) Macbeth (42 pounds) 5) Make an alliance a) Macduff (60 pounds) b) Malcolm (75 pounds) c) Macbeth (120 pounds) 6) Collect more taxes 7) Declare a holiday 8) Wait, do nothing 9) Quit Game
On the Main Menu, you may press
MESSAGES You communicate with the other leaders by sending messages. This can hurt their view of you, or make you more attractive. If leaders get mad enough at you, they will certainly attack. You can also request military aid which will increase your power rating should the leader like you enough to send help.
VISITING LEADERS Visiting another leader may lead to a good or bad outcome. But as a general rule, visiting another house is a sign of an alliance, and will not only build good relationships but will raise the morale of your people. Be warned though, visiting the castle of another leader's enemy may make that leader distrust you.
ATTACKING You may make an attack, sending different number of troops. In general, a Knight will increase the morale of the troops and make them fight better. But sending a full army brings back more spoils. If you win a battle, your power rating increases and your enemy's power rating decreases even more (you aren't able to seize ALL the spoils and power your enemy had unless you think you can raise the dead). Be very cautious when hiring an assassin. They often get caught by the King's personal guard, and if word gets out that you are hiring assassins, all the other leaders will begin to view you with disgust.
SPYING You may send a spy to any one of the other leaders. The spy infiltrates their country, and brings back vital information about them. They find out how rich they are, how much power they have, and how much their people care for them.
COLLECT TAXES Though this is the traditional way to get more money, it isn't recommended that you let the morale of your people go below 20%
DECLARE A HOLIDAY By declaring a holiday, people are not obliged to go to work, and may have many festivals instead. Or they may just stay at home and do nothing. Either way, this takes away from your budget, and you must work it in. Your spending cash is effectively reduced.
GAME MECHANICS (How it's done.)
Unfortunately in my early days I always thought it was a good idea to
destroy all source code so it could never be tampered with by the wrong person.
So I can only give you a general idea of how the game actually works.
The game mechanics were actually one of my inspirations for writing this
game. I wanted a system in which different computer players had different
feelings about each other. I call this "loyalty." There's a certain % of
loyalty that each computer player has to another, and each computer player has
to the human player. Now these start out at certain values that I had chosen,
but the idea was the human player would be interacting with computer players who
were already against each other. So all the computers have an average loyalty
(depending on their attitude) toward whoever's playing the game, but low loyalty
to each other. As loyalty goes down, the chance of an attack increases.
Needless to say, for anyone who has read Macbeth, the loyalties between Macbeth
and Malcolm/Macduff are the lowest, whereas Malcolm and Macduff have high
loyalties to each other. There is definitely some randomness to what actions
they take, but it's not completely arbitrary. For example, even though Malcolm
may hate Macbeth, if he doesn't have very much power, there is a strong chance
he will wait before attacking. But if he waits too long and his power doesn't
go up, he might just get tired of waiting and attack unwisely anyway.
But the interesting part is the human aspect. Your actions also affect the
way other leaders view you, and how they will react. Not only that, but your
actions also affect the morale of your people. Your power rating gradually
increases over time even if you do nothing.
RANDOMNESS
There are TONS of random things that can happen when you perform different
actions. They all have a certain percentage of happening. You can get an idea
of how many things that can happen by the sheer number of text files that come
with the game. The text files are everything that can be put up on the screen.
If you get bored one day, you can browse through them. I always hated the idea
of people going in, changing the text files, and making an entirely different
game by figuring out which one goes where. So I had created my own encryption
method. I thought it was cumbersome and who would really go through all that
trouble anyway? But now I think that would be kind of a cool idea to see if
someone did it.
CHEATS
mbsetup.exe : This allows you to set up the game, giving any of the leaders including yourself, whatever beginning stats you wish them to have. For example you can give yourself 2000 pounds, and Macbeth only 1 to start out with.
Joe's Technique: Joe Doran III has a technique which is based more on brute force rather than intrique or intellectual force. Basically wait while other leaders attack each other, build up your forces, and when the time is right, just keep trying to assassinate.
Josh's Technique: Josh C. Matthews developed an almost sure way to become rich.
He discovered a loophole in the monetary system. What you do is you make good
with Malcolm, maybe by sending gifts first, etc. Then you make an alliance with
him. Each time you make an alliance, your morale goes up, and it doesn't cost
that much. When your morale gets high, just raise taxes until you have to make
alliances again.
This game was programmed by Angelo Bertolli in 1995.