Welcome to Anacreon! This program is a demo of Anacreon: Reconstruction 4021, a game system set in a dark future governed by the shades of Clausewitz and Machiavelli. As the absolute ruler of a powerful world, you must forge an empire that will challenge the wave of barbarism that has swept the galaxy. Though you will have only a single world at first, you must conquer the surrounding planets to set up bases that will build more ships, mine metals to build up industry, and develop the technology for more powerful weapons, all while defending your home worlds from the inevitable attacks of your enemies. I must admit that this game is not for everyone. If you like war games or detailed role-playing games, you will almost certainly like a Anacreon. Because it is played on a computer, Anacreon can have layers of detail unattainable on simple board games. But because it demands intelligence over hand-eye coordination, it can challenge you more than a simple video game. My goal in writing this game was to create a universe detailed enough to seem real, yet interesting and challenging enough to be enjoyable. SET UP The .ARC file should include the following files: README This file ANACREON.EXE The main program ANACREON.CNF Configuration file ANACREON.HLP Help file ANACREON.TXT Instructions manual INTRO.SCN Basic scenario JAKARTA.SCN Introductory scenario PRINCES.SCN Advanced scenario To play, all you have to do is read the instructions and run ANACREON from the DOS prompt. All support files should be kept in the same directory as the main program, but you can designate the directories for the scenario (.SCN) files and any save files. PLAYING Anacreon is admittedly difficult to learn, but the best way to learn is simply to try out different commands. The on- line help should give you some hints, and the instruction manual is useful as a reference, but nothing will beat experimentation. Here are some basic hints that should help you a bit: FUNCTION KEYS: Each of the function keys is tied to a different information window. You cannot ruin anything by pressing these keys, so you can always try them if you want to know something. If you want to close the windows and return to the menu bar, press or . ESC: The Esc key always gets you out of a command. Pressing if you panic is generally helpful and never disastrous. ABBREVIATIONS: Abbreviations and symbols can usually be found in the reference section of the instructions manual. The on-line help also has several lists of frequent abbreviations. NOTES ABOUT THE GAME Anacreon evolved out of an acute dissatisfaction with games like Empire (The War Game of the Century!) and Strategic Conquest (A recent Macintosh game). It was a love-hate relationships from the start. Games in which you could conquer the world or the galaxy fell into two categories: simple and poorly implemented. Games like Risk or Galactic Empire (an ancient TRS-80 and Apple II game) were too simple. One was left with a burning desire to increase the detail in the game. Why not have many different kinds of ships? Maybe each planet could produce something different? Games like Empire, on the other hand were of pretty high complexity but very poorly implemented. Why can't the map scroll? Why is moving your pieces so difficult? And why can't somebody write a decent galactic conquest game? I hope that I have been able to write just such a game, and that Anacreon will prove to be more successful than its predecessors, but above all I hope that you will enjoy this game in the spirit in which it was written.