                                        RINGS OF THE MEDUSA

Typed by ???  Edited by PARASITE.


A)   PRE-STORY:
        The player acts as the son of the king, on an unknown planet. The
country flourishes and thrives, life goes on very calmly. But one day the
situation changes.  The people get more and more controlled by and evil
force. Revolutions and wars arise. The formerly united kingdom divides.
Finally, the old king finds out that a goddess called "Medusa" tries to
control the people from out of the underworld, in order to conquer and
rule the entire world with her army from hell.

B)   AIM OF THE GAME:
        The player who takes the role of the prince is forced to stop
Medusa's advance and to reunite the split kingdom. To reach that, he must
fight against the goddess Medusa and defeat her again. As the opponent is
a goddess, the player is not able to find her anywhere in the country.
He can only call her when he finds 5 rings, puts them together in a
temple and forces Medusa to face a fight.  The basic task is therefore
the search for the 5 rings.  Unfortunately the king has very little
energy, and so the starting conditions for his son do not look very
good. First he has to earn some money to afford an army which is
necessary to find the rings. This causes more problems, which the player
realizes and includes in the
course of the game.

2.   POINT OF ENTRY:
        The player has severe financial problems, which means that he
first must collect some money. There are several possibilities:

     -Trade
     -Attack caravans
     -Conquer towns and plunder the treasuries
     -Search for raw materials, find and exploit
     -find the kings treasures
     -Gamble in the casino

3.   DESCRIPTION OF THE PROGRAM'S USER SURFACE
     On each screen, there is an information bar and an options menu.

notices, (e.g. the coordinates of an island).

Buying:  Serves to buy combination with buying or selling, i.e. all
possible articles are bought or sold.  Position of the switch is visible
on the mouse pointer.  Switch off by clicking on MAXIMUM again.

Door:   Serves in most cases to leave special situations or places.

OK:     To answer a question, player clicks on here, if the question
shall be answered with a "yes" (e.g. Enter Town XYZ ?).

Retreat: Serves to call back the selection unit in the fighting screen.

Attack: Make unit attack in the fighting screen.  Otherwise attack in
general (e.g. of a town, bankor a castle) .

Increase:  Serves to adjust the speed in the fighting screen, in which
the fight takes places. Also a possibility while adjusting the money
value during NEGOTIATIONS ( see below)

Search:  Send out scouts to search for raw materials or treasure.

Restore:  Serves to restore a saved game. Only possible in a town.

Town information:  Give you information about the town you are in.

Sell:   With this function, the player can sell his goods. Also in
connection with MAXIMUN.

More goods:  Helps you to ssearch inside the WAREHOUSE.

Treasure:  Shows you the known coordinates of a treasure visually.

Not Okay:  Like OKAY, helps you to answer question. Here it serves as a
negation.

Negotiations:  During the fight you can make negotiations to avoid an
armed conflict whenever possible.

Decrease:  Opposite of INCREASE.

Mine"   You can open a mine.

Furthermore, there is as information field in the center of the menu, in
which you can adjust or read special things.  There is also a green
button in the upper left corner of the field,. which makes the field
rotate.  Synchronization and effects can be switched on and off here.

( Also see the short description in Appendix A)

4. PROGRAM PARTS
     The program can be divided up into three parts:
Landscape, Town and Fight.

4.1  LANDSCAPE
In the landscape, the player can ride from one town to the other, open
mines and find treasures. You have       to pay attention to the fact
that the player cannot ride over mountains. If the player is accompanied
by an army, he has to make sure his soldiers receive their money on the
first day of each month. The player therefore always should have enough
money with him, so that he can pay for  his army. The money which the
player has on his account cannot be used for paying the soldiers' wages.

Furthermore, there are two dangerous places for the army:

a.      On the one hand the swamp, in which the players army sinks when
he does have enough magicians with him who protect his army. Each
magician is able to protect about 100 soldiers in the swamp.

b.      The same goes for the enchanted forest, except for the fact that
each magician can only protect 50 soldiers.

When he crosses the landscape, the player further must consider the fact
that there are also some caravans travelling around and that he could
possibly bump into these.
The player has the possibility of finding the enemy armies. This depends
on the number of scouts the player takes with him. The more scouts he
has, the bigger the radius in which he can see his enemies.
During the search radius decreases, as the search for these goods is much
more difficult than the search for armies.

But look out! During the search for raw materials or treasures, the
player can no longer move his army as he has to wait for the scouts.
Moreover, he is not able to see his enemies, as the scouts are being used
elsewhere and can no longer enlighten the enemy's territory.

If it should come to a fight during a phase of searching, the scouts are
also not at player's disposal. The player should nevertheless keep in
mind that the scout's wages must be paid.

If the player is lucky enough to find a treasure or raw materials, he
must open a mine To do that, he needs a capital of 30000 and a
transportation system can be bought in the warehouse under  the
designation "machine".

With the money and the machine, the player can open a mine (by going to
the place chosen by the scouts and select the function "MINES").

If he has not exactly hit the place named by the scouts, it is possible
that he missed the raw materials reserves. In this case, the mine reveals
soil and waste. If the player should now get the idea of filling his
wagons with soil and waste, If the player should get the corresponding
number of wagons, as nobody will be ready to buy the waste from him.

But if he has found a raw material, the will reaveal this material
incressantly, until the space in the storehouse is filled or the reserves
are exhaust ed.  Each storehouse has room for 300 units of any raw
material. The player has the possibility of building more storehouses,
which would of course result in further costs. But the mine would be
ready to reveal raw materials for a longer time. Moreover, the player
does not need to fetch the raw materials as often anymore, as the
production will not have to be ceased because of the overfilled
storehouses so soon.  It is also possible for the player, if he has more
machines with him, to build up too 3 conveyor towers per mine. This has
the advantage of increasing the amount of the haulage.

As the player is only allowed to own a maximum of 20 mines at one time
(because of the danger of a monopoly), he must under all circumstances
close exhausted mines, when he wants to open new ones.

If the player finds a treasure and wants to take it, he needs, like the
mine opening, 30000 capital and a transport system. In a treasure, there
can be a ring but also a certain amount of money. Both are surely
helpful to win the game.

Concerning the treasure, one can say the following things:

On the big continent, 2 of the searched rings are hidden in the
treasures. 2 more rings are in treasures on the islands and another ring
is hidden among an army which is to be defeated.

4.2     THE TOWN
IN town every player can buy or sell goods, gamble in the casino, buy
armies, go to the bank and so on.  All players options are placed in
separate, single houses.  If you want to enter a house, you just have to
click on the appropriate house.
In general it is an operation. A player can compare prices and make
decisions because the clock is stopped.

THE HARBOR
The harbor can just be found in towns situated at the sea or at rivers.
Here the player can do everything concerning a message, so that he can
pick it up in the town where it has been built.
Before he can go to sea with this ship he has to enlist sailors who steer
the ship.
The player has to enter the pub and enlist the sailors by offering money.
The more money he offers the more sailors will be interested in the job.

"Wages/month" are placed on the left hand of the screen. By clicking the
mouse pointer to the top or to the bottom the given value can be changed.
Underneath the player can see how many people are interested in the bid.
If the player offers 20 per month, for example, there might be five
people who are interested. If he enlist these five people, he has to pay
100 per month. If he offers again 20 per month there will be no one
interested, because every who wanted to work for 20 per month is already
enlisted. The wages have to be raised to 25 per month,for example. Then
there might be a new sailor who is interested in the jobs. If the player
has not enlisted the sailors for 20 per month, these sailors would be
interested in the jobs further on. It is important that the player only
enlist 3 of 7 interested sailors for a wage and then raise or lower the
wage, or even leaves the pub, so that the remaining sailors are
disappointed and leave the pub themselves. This means that they not to be
enlisted anymore.
On the right side of the printed form you can see how many sailors are
needed.>>NEEDED<<. From<<wages>> you know how much you have to pay for
the chosen ship per month.

THE STORE:
Here the player can buy or sell goods. On the left hand side of the
screen you can see the price and quantity. On the right hand side you can
see your own cargo.
The player can adjust the quantity of the goods in the middle of the
screen so you can buy or sell the articles. The player of the articles
always think about the maximum function.
The price of the articles are calculated by the single number of
citizens, which is unstable. If there is a huge population in this town
at the moment, the prices are very high, because the demand is according
to the population. At the same time the production of goods in this town
is at its maximum. You're able to look at the momentary population of the
city information. In addition to that, there are differences of prices
from town to town.

Example: If city X produces apples, this is the city where apples are
cheaper than in any other town. In city Y, which could be far away, the
apples are expensive < the further away the city, the more expensive>. In
the store there is also a chart of the loading capacity of each means of
transportation, like in the harbor.

(please refer to Appendix B)

BANK:
In the bank the player can make his money transactions. There's just one
bank system in the whole kingdom, one office in every town. If the player
pays in money on a bank of town X, he can withdraw it in every other
town. The player can pay in or withdraw money on his account and he can
take a credit.
In the beginning, the bank offers an initial starting loan of 3000. If
the player takes just a part of the loan he has no claim to the rest of
the loan. The player has to pay the interest, of course. He'll see the
amount of interest in each banks business rates and conditions. He has to
pay interest on his bank account and loans. Caution: The local traders at
the store support the bank. The player won't get his goods from the
traders if he doesn't pay the loans ( but he can buy with credit for 3
months until the traders stop business with him). He should go to the
bank immediately and pay back the loan.
The bank decides if he is worthy of a credit. He has to have an
appropriate equivalent of goods; money is not an equivalent in this case.
He can look at the respective credit margin at "credit scope."

THE PARK:
The player can buy soldiers for his army in the park but he has to
observe several things. The army is subdivided into 7 parts: Infantry,
cavalry, artillery, scouts, dragonriders, wizards and archers. Every unit
has advantages and disadvantages which depend upon the fighting ground.
For example, the dragonriders are very good in the swamp because they are
able to fly; the other units would sink.
On the other hand, the dragonriders are bad in the forest. They can't
reach and fight the infantry on ground because of the dense forest. The
selection of races is also very important for the strength of the
army selected for the units. If the player takes the huge and clumbsy
giants as his scouts, they won't achieve as much as the little and agile
elves.


There are 10 races and 5 qualities each and every race has to a certain
degree:

100 means maximum,0 minimum

        STRENGTH  COURAGE   ENDURANCE   AGILITY   INTELLIGENCE
Human      50        50        50         50        50
Elf        40        37        28         75        70
Dwarf      64        67        81         22        17
Halfling   34        24        42         92        58
Orc        79        33        75         44        19
Gnome      16        33        26         89        86
Giant      99        27        91         19        14
Troll      92        32        87         21        18
Ogre       85        39        79         31        16
Zwark      18        40        32         81        79


This next chart shows which qualities are important for each unit (e.g.
scouts don't have to strong, but they have to clever):

1 is not important, 5 is very important

           STRENGTH  COURAGE   ENDURANCE  AGILITY  INTELLIGENCE
Infantry     5         5         5          1        1
Cavalry      1         5         1          5        3
Artillery    1         5         1          3        5
Scout        1         1         5          5        5
Dragonriders 3         5         3          3        3
Magicians    1         1         1          5        5
Archers      1         5         3          5        3


The following chart clarifies what unit is best for different scenarios (
the higher the value the better unit):

          PLAIN     FOREST    MAGIC FOREST  HILL
Infantry    10        10         58          8
Calvary     20         5         315         3
Artillery   10         3         115         1
Scout        8        20         815        15
Dragonrider 20         3         120        20
Magicians    8        10        2015        20
Archers     20         3         110         8


The player should attempt to put the correct race with the correct unit,
otherwise the strength of the army decreases


There is just a limited number of available people in every town. The
young must grow up before they are able to fight. So it is possible that
the people of one race are not available yet. In the " TOWN INFORMATION"
you can see how people are available.
In the park, the player discovers how much money he has to pay for his
armies and sailors each month ( total wages ).  He can see the salary of
a unit for each month.
Underneath that he finds the chart of the composition condition of the
army which consists of the respective races. This training condition
determines the power of the army. The training condition can be improved
by training in the castles.

TRAINING:
The training happens only in castles. Here every part of the army can be
trained for different criteria. The training costs money but it's worth
it. The functions are the same as in the store.

WEAPONS:
Here the player is able to equip his army with additional weapons, in
order to increase the fighting strength of the units. He can purchase
armours, weapons and other equipment is much weaker than a perfectly
equipped one.

PALACE:
The player is only able to enter the palace when he is attacked and
conquered the plunder the treasury, i.e. collect the peoples taxes. The
taxes depend upon the total city population.

BARRACKS:
The player is only allowed to enter the barracks when he possesses a
town. If he has taken a town, the other caravans strive for the
reconquest of this town. Therefore the player should leave a part of his
army in the barracks, as as reinforcement for his newly conquered
town. The screen is again separated into halves. On the left there is
your own army, on the right, the town army. Now you can transfer parts of
your army to and fro. On the right edge of the screen there are several
beams which describe the time delay after which the corresponding unit
joins the fighting when the town gets attacked. In this way, the player
can order his people to a defense plan of the town, by setting up a
strategy for the people's action. It is, for example, wise for the
artillery to start shooting at once after an attack by the enemy. The
dragonriders should probably start a little bit later to reach the enemy
lines together with the infantry. The further to the left the beam
appears on the display, the earlier the corresponding units start the
fighting. When the beam is on the far right side. The player's army waits
for the enemy attack. To develop a good fighting strategy, it is useful
to analyse the computer opponent and possibly to go ahead in a similar
way ( very difficult).

STABLE:
In the stable, the player can purchase transportation for his goods. A
complete set consists of two horses and a wagon. Each provides room for a
maximum of 80 goods. The user's control is the same as in the "store".

PUB:
Inside the pub, the player has a possibility of playing a card game
similar to "Black Jack".

THE RULES ARE AS FOLLOWS:
Ace  (A)=11       Queen (D)=3      Ten =10    Eight= 8
King (K)= 4       Jack  (B)=2      Nine= 9    Seven= 7

Double aces always wins.
Before taking a card, the player must place his bet. The player has won
when he has more points than the computer, but not more than 21 ( the
only exceptions are two Aces, which always win). To reach that, he may
take as many cards as he likes. Should there be a equality of points,
the computer wins. The player always begins. He takes a card by selecting
from the stack of cards. If he thinks that he has enough points, he must
select the cancelled deck of cards. He can decide the amount of his bet
by clicking on coins of different values. In case of a victory, the
player gets back twice the amount of his bet, If he loses, his money goes
to the bank. If he wants to leave the pub, he must click on the door in
the lower right corner.

TEMPLE:
In the temple, the player receives information about the treasures, which
is situated in the corresponding part of the country. Unfortunately, the
priests inside each temple do not know the exact location of the
treasure. Therefore, you will only hear rumors about the possible
location. The actual place can sometimes differ considerably from the
named one. You will also just receive one geographical coordinate. You
can get two or more coordinates by conquering another town inside the
same part of the screen. The player will get to know about this town in
the connected temple.

The player's second possibility of finding a treasure is to find a big
area with one coordinate and to search through this area with his scouts.

If he has received all three coordinates, they will form a triangle, with
a treasure lying in the inner field. The more coordinates you receive,
the smaller the vicinity search.
Furthermore, the player can get information about his status in the
temple, i.e. he receives information about how many rings he has already
and how many mines, ships etc. he owns

He must also set the found rings in a five pronged star inside the temple
of his choice ( simply click on an empty space). With every ring the
player sets in the temple, he will receive magic skills:

1ST RING:
  The player gets a display of his own strength and the strength of the
opponets's army during a fight. Therefore, it is easier to find a
strategy, as the player can now see which unit is currently strong.

2ND RING:
  The player gets to know which goods are produced in which town.
Therefore he also knows where to get which product at the cheapest
prices. This information is displayed in the corresponding "TOWN
INFORMATION". with that, his trading becomes much more efficient.

3RD RING:
  The player does not need any more scouts to explore the surrounding
country, i.e. he can see all enemies, not depending on the distance and
the number of the scouts he has around him. Therefore traveling from town
to town is not as dangerous.

4TH RING:
  The strength of the player's army is increased by 50%, i.e., his army
is now 50% stronger than before. This is very useful for the final fight
against Medusa.

5TH RING:
  As soon as he sets in the fifth ring, the player calls Medusa, who now
accepts the final fight.

JEWELER:
Here the player can sell the precious raw materials which he excavated in
his mines. There are considerable price differences. It is not useful to
sell right beside the mine, as the prices will be very low. The player
should instead transport the raw materials to a place where it is
not possible to find them. He cannot trade with raw materials,i.e. they
cannot be bought, just sold. Once again, all adjustments are done like in
the "STORE".

4.3   CASTLE:
  Besides the towns there are also a few castles, which all have the same
purpose of educating the player's army and to improve his state of
training. To get inside a castle, it must be attacked or conquered.

5.0   The player's army can fight against opposing armies, ships, castles
or towns.  Therefore, the following configurations are possible:

5.1   FIGHT ARMY <-> ARMY
  If you bump into an opponet's figure with your own figure, it comes to
a fight between the two parties. The player's army is on the left side,
the opponent's on the right side. Unfortunately, the number of soldiers
the opponent owns is not known. Because of that, you get asked at the
beginning whether you want to send out your scouts to learn about the
opponent's strength. This cost a lot of money, but it is well worth the
engagement. If you do not own any scouts, this is of course not possible.
To learn about the exact calculation of the fighting strength, refer to
the section "PARK" in this manual.

When the fighting starts, the player has two possibilities:

1)    He can send single units into the fight (select unit and click on
attack) or he can call them back (select unit and click on retreat).
During the attack, the armies start moving forward,which the player can
follow on the upper edge of the screen. Only when units of his own army
meets units of the opponent's army, can a proper fight proceed.
The unites involved in the fight are shown in red. If there are
casualties, they depend on the players own strength and the opponent's
strength, as well as on he number of the player's own soldiers and the
opponent's soldiers.

One exception is the artillery. If it gets the order for an attack, it
opens fire at once, which directly results in casualties for the
opponent. The same goes, of course, for the opponent's artillery and the
player's own casualties.

The fighting continues one army has lost, i.e. has no more people. If the
player should lose the fight, he loses everything he has with him, except
his wagon. Nevertheless, the bank is so kind to hand out the starting
loan of 3000 again. An already existing bank-account will not be touched!
If the player wins the fight, he will receive all the money which the
opponent's caravan possesses.

2)    The player avoids a fight. This happens by clicking on the
"negotiations". With the help of that, he can start negotiations, but he
has only one chance. Failed negotiations cannot be started again. One
possibility:
Either he uses a bluff and he boasts that he is the strongest, or he
bribes the opponent with money ( adjust with "Increase" or "Decrease").
The opponent sometimes falls for the bluff, but not always. This depends
on the opponent's own superiority.

During the bribery, the player should not be to tight with his money.
When he loses a fight, all the money will go to the enemies anyway. The
amount of the bribery also depends on the number of the player's army and
the opponent's army.

If the player has attacked a caravan more than five times, he is no
longer able to enter the caravan's home town, as it will no longer trade
with him.  The same goes for the situation in which a player has
attacked a town directly.

(Please refer to Appendix C)

5.2   FIGHT ARMY <-> TOWN OR TOWN<-> ARMY
  If the player attacks a town or a castle, the same rules apply as in
5.1 "Fight Army<->Army". Should the player win, he takes over the
town/castle.  Naturally, not every castle or town is the same size. The
size of a town or a castle can be recognized in the screen graphics, but
also in the "TOWN INFORMATION." Big towns have of course more soldiers to
defend themselves than  smaller towns.

If a player's town is attacked by an opponent's army the player does not
have any influence on the outcome. He can only rely on his strategy (see
BARRACKS) and hope that he will win.

5.3   FIGHT SHIP <-> SHIP
  If 2 ships bump into each other on the map, a sea battle begins. In
this case, the out come is dependent upon how many canons are at the
players disposal. The battleships, of course, have an advantage over the
merchantmen. The player now faces one ship representing the opponent's
fleet.  His task is now to hit this ship as often as possible. This can
be influenced by two things: the shooting angle and the powder amount.
The shooting angle can be changed by clicking on the canon in the centre
of the screen.  On the right centre of the screen , you can see a section
of the canon. First you must fill the cannon with powder, this happens by
clicking on the powders barrel on the left side.
The powder now must be visible inside the section. The powder must be
stuffed by clicking on the stuffer on the far left side. This action must
also be visible in the cross-section. If you want to increase the
shooting distance, the canon must be stuffed and filled with more
powder. If you have filled in enough powder, the ball will be loaded by
clicking it on. Now the canon should be ready for shooting, which is made
visible by by a fuse. If no fuse is visible, something has been done
wrong (e.g. not stuffed etc.). But if everything has been performed
properly, he can now fir the canon by clicking on the flame and firing
the slow-match. Unfortunately, the player has to act in a limited space
of time, in which he should try to score as many hits as possible. When
the time is over, the final results will appear on the screen. As the
player has shot with one canon as a representative of all the canons, the
number of hits is multiplied by the number of canons. This results in the
total number of hits received by the opponent's fleet. Each ship needs 10
hits to sink. Therefore, one can ascertain in this way how may of his own
and how many of the opponent's ships have been sunk. If all of the
player's own ships have been sunk by the opponent, his game is over
because he drowns. If the player has destroyed all of the opponent's
ships, he receives some money or maybe even a ring.

Example of a possible begin for "Rings of Medusa"

1.    If the mouse pointer is moves in the options menu, the game will be
stopped until one leaves the options menu again. This is very useful to
reach the negotiations during a fight, for example.

2.    The game's score should be saved on a special disk as often as
possible. You prepare this by formatting an empty disk.

3.    Notes of a successful start for the game:
      1. Go to a bank and take a credit.
      2. Purchase a wagon with horses in a stable.
      3. Trade with the towns which are far apart from
         each other.
      4. Always negotiate with the opponent in case of an
         attack.
      5. Purchase scouts early in the game.
      6. Wright down coordinates and other important
         things in the Notice Pad.

APPENDIX A:
     Above:  Note Pad, Save, Buy, Sell, Maximum, Door,
 50/60 Hz, Music/Sounds, Okay, Not Okay,
 Retreat, Search
     Below:  Load, Town Information, More Goods,
     Coordinates, End of Game, Negotiation, Mine

APPENDIX B:
     Above:  Goods, Decrease Amount of Goods (fast and
 slowly), Increase Amount of Goods
     Below:  Disposal Amount, Capacity, Means of
 Transportation

APPENDIX C:
     Above:  Total Number of Soldiers
     Below:  Own Army, Army Unit Involved in the Fighting,
 Opponent's Army

End.

