In Solar Realms Elite (SRE), you rule a solar empire. The
goal is to become and remain the most powerful empire. You can gain strength
by buying forces, and you can gain size by colonizing planets. You start with
6 planets, and a little bit of money. You are required to feed your people
and army, and to pay to maintain your planets and army. If you fail to do
these things, disastrous results may occur. You are given 20 years ("turns")
of protection, during which you can not attack or be attacked. You can not
perform covert operations (except Spy). This provides a way for smaller
empires to build up their defenses and planets before they enter the "real
world".
A note on time units in SRE: Turns and Years are game time.
Days and Hours are real time.
The main options you should be concerned about are [9] Diplomacy, and
[4] Play Game. Diplomacy is discussed next, and then the play sequence.
Diplomatic Relations
- Neutrality Treaty - This is a treaty with another empire that will
prevent you from being attacked by the other empire. It also allows
trading.
- Free Trade Agreement - This treaty will also protect you from being
attacked by the other empire if for more than 0 days. This treaty
also will earn money from tariffs from trade with the other empire.
- Minor Alliance - This treaty will not only protect you from the other
empire's attacks, but the other empire will also send you defensive
forces when you are attacked. You will automatically send him or her
forces when he/she is attacked also.
- Total Defense - This is the same as the Minor Alliance, but each of
you will send more forces in defense than in a Minor Alliance.
- Armed Defense Pact - This is a Total Defense pact that only applies
to soldiers sent in defense, but more soldiers are sent with the Armed
Defense Pact than with the Total Defense.
- Cruiser Protection Plan - The heavy cruisers of both empires patrol
the planet areas of both empires, to provide protection. Light
cruisers do not contribute.
- Break Treaty - This will automatically break ANY treaty. BUT, if the
treaty is for more than 0 days, the treaty is not broken until the
other empire plays and learns of it.
- View Relations - This gives you a list of relations with other empires.
- Other Treaty - If you do not like the defense plans listed
above, you may make your own defense treaty with this option. You can
set the percentage of soldiers and heavy cruisers sent when your ally
is attacked. These custom treaties are like defense treaties (#3-#6);
you do not get the special bonuses of Neutrality or Free Trade.
A treaty is used to ensure protection with your allies. You can propose
one of the 7 types of treaties with another empire, and if the empire
accepts the treaty, you two will be friendly for a period of time. If you
specify a length of time for the treaty to be obeyed, during that time, the
treaty is binding. The other empire may not attack you or perform covert
operations on you. Likewise, you are prohibited from attacking or
performing covert operations on the other empire. When the treaty expires,
or if you specify 0 days for the length of the treaty, the treaty still
exists between your empires, but an attack or covert operation is not
strictly prohibited. Performing one of these actions immediately cancels
the treaty. Breaking the treaty is also immediate if the treaty has
expired. Use of these treaties allows small empires to bond together or
with larger empires. Also, trading is only allowed with empires you have
relations with (by having a treaty). Both the Neutrality Treaty and the
Free Trade Agreement are meant to allow trading and to show good faith
without making a commitment of forces for defense. A guerilla ambush,
however, is a surprise attack, and military defense treaties do not help
the defender.
Play Game
When you select option [4], "Play Game", you can play up to 5 turns (per day)
of ruling your empire. The game flow is illustrated by this diagram:
[4] Play Game
|
Lottery (Registered version only)
|
XX> Reports on the earnings from planets and other sources of income
| |
| Status screen (shows the state of your empire)
| |
| Maintain your empire
| |
| Feed your people
| |
| Covert operations, if you have covert agents
| |
| Bank (Registered version only)
| |
| Government Spending <XXXXXXXXXX> Operations Menu
| | |
| | XX> Messages
| | |
| | XX> Bank
| | |
| | XX> Covert operations
| | |
| | XX> Trading
| Battles |
| | XX> Status Screen
| Trading
| |
| Change in population / end of turn status
|___|
The game will show you what each type of planet produced. It also shows you
the amount you made in taxes. For supply planets, it shows the amount of each
type of military unit that was added to your forces. Petroleum and
anti-pollution planets also report the change in the amount of pollution in
your atmosphere.
You will be prompted to pay your forces, your planets, the bank (to repay
a loan), and taxes to the Galactic Coordinator. In the registered version,
you can visit the bank before you do this to get extra funds if necessary.
If the system determines that you can afford to pay everything fully, it
will ask you whether you want to pay it all at once, and if you do, it will
not ask you to pay for each item individually.
NOTE : The number in brackets [] is the default. If you press
[ENTER], the default will be used.
If it shows as [MAX=####], it is the maximum; default 0.
If you press >, it enters the maximum number for you.
Pressing K or M enters 3 or 6 zeros for you.
In the Food Market, which is owned and operated by the Galactic Coordinator,
you can buy or sell food. Your people and army require food each turn; if
you have extra food, you can sell it to the market. If you do not have enough,
you can buy food. The default amount to buy is the amount that you need to
feed everyone this year; if you can feed them all, the default is to buy 0.
Your advisors will warn you if they believe that you are running out of food.
Here are the options in this menu:
- Send Spy -
You can get information about another empire, similar but less
detailed than your own status screen. Spying may not always be
successful, but you can guarantee that you can get a spy report by
bribing a spy in the other empire (see option 9). You can spy as many
times as you like.
- Insurgent Aid (*) -
By sending rebellious troublemakers and pamphlets an opponent empire,
you can increase the internal violence in that empire. To restore
peace may be costly or impossible for the other emperor, and may cause
civil war. The violence in the other empire will cause tourism
profits to decrease and the population to drop. Insurgent Aid can be
attempted once per turn per empire. It's harder to do Insurgent Aid
if the other empire is already in civil disorder.
- Set Up (*) -
Your spies send reports to empire B that it was attacked by empire A.
Although the two empires may have been at peace prior to your
meddling, empire B will believe that he was attacked by empire A.
Empire A may deny it, but there won't be a way to prove it. The
operation can be performed once per day to the empires. You cannot
set up empire A with empire B and then empire A with empire C on the
same day, but you can set up A and B and then C and D. Your spies
will wait until the "attacker" player plays before performing this
operation; that way, the time of the attack will be during the
time that the emperor played his turns.
- Support Dissension (*) -
Your spies will encourage the opponent empires's soldiers to desert
their posts. This operation can be performed once per day per empire.
Your spies will not attempt the action for 12 real hours.
- Demoralize Troops (*) -
By sending distractions and interruptions to the target empire, you
can reduce the training efficiency of their soldiers and reduce the
effectiveness of the army. You can demoralize troops of each empire
only once per day. Your spies will not attempt the action for 12
real hours.
- Bombing Operations (*) -
Your spies can booby-trap the target's food supplies. Some or
all of the food may be blown up. This is useful in starving another
empire to death. You can bomb the food supplies of each empire
only once per day.
- Relations Spying (*) -
Your agents discover the treaties held by another empire. You can
perform this action as many times as you like.
- Take Hostages (*) -
Your terrorist spies capture a prominent official from the other
empire and demand a sum of money for his or her return. The opponent
emperor is forced to pay the fee, and you will receive the money.
Taking hostages can be done once per day per empire. The terrorists
wait 12 real hours before performing the action.
- Bribe Personnel (*) -
After bribing a spy in the other empire, you can be guaranteed spy
reports without fear of your spy being captured.
* - Only available when NOT in protection.
If your sysop is running the REGISTERED version, and the bank is
enabled, you will enter the bank. You can deposit credits as a savings
account, on which you will earn interest, or get a loan, which you will
have to make yearly payments. Each year, interest is accumulated on a
savings account or on a loan. Early payback of a loan reduces some of
the interest costs. You can also invest in Galactic Coordinator Bonds.
They cost 8500 credits and they return 10,000 credits after some amount
of time.
You will then come to the government spending menu. You have the option
of buying various forces. Some are defensive, and others are offensive:
- Soldiers: Defensive and Offensive
- Fighters: Offensive
- Defense Stations: Defensive
- Heavy Cruisers: Defensive and Offensive
You can also Colonize Planets:
- Food:
On these planets, huge farms produce food,
which is required for your empire to survive.
An alternative to having food planets is to
buy from the food market each year, but the
risks are that the supply of food in the food
market may run out. Having a food planet is
safer, but costs more than buying food from
the market. Having too many food planets
leads to food surpluses, which can be sold
for low prices to the market, or saved for
a later time.
- Ore:
A stable source of income, ore planets continue
to function even during wars and domestic
troubles. They can be valuable if your tourism
planets are not producing a good income during
troubled times.
- Tourism:
Producing more money (on average) than ore
planets, the tourism planets depend upon the
tourists spending money. During periods that
your empire is not PEACEFUL (such as after a
civil war), the tourist attractions earn very
little or nothing. Too many tourism planets
can cause your empire to be dependent on
peaceful times, and the empire can easily
collapse if you do have internal troubles.
- Supply:
Supply planets can produce military at a lower
cost than buying them. They are also more
convenient, because they keep producing military
constantly. You can set the balance of
production by entering the Operations Menu
and choosing "Supply Planet Production".
- Government:
The base of the government agencies, these
planets house the generals, who not only are
military commanders, but are important
political figures as well. They set up bases
of operations for which they required 1/50th
of the planet's usable land area. Therefore,
50 generals can use a single government planet.
The covert agents also roam these planets, and
having over 300 spies on one planet causes them
to fight each other for territory, leading to
internal conflicts.
- Education:
Educational planets have large universities to
which students come from independent planets,
where the educational facilities are not as
large as those that your empire can afford.
After seeing your empire's resources and power,
most of the students remain in your empire to
add to your general population.
- Research:
These planets are set up as scientific research
laboratories in which developments may or may
not occur. If a breakthrough occurs, it may
benefit your empire and give you an edge over
other empires that do not have your technology.
The benefits are reported to you before the
first status screen. They include such things
as proteins to increase crop yield on food
planets to new tourist attractions that
increase tourism planet revenues. Some of the
benefits will last forever and others are only
temporary.
- Urban:
Urban planets are devoted to housing people.
Since every city has internal commerce in the
form of stores, fuel docks, and other
services, the urban planets earn revenue in the
form of sales taxes. Urban planets also
increase the population of your empire, and as
a result, increase the income taxes earned
from your people. Don't underestimate their
power --- even though they seem to do very little
at first, they become more influential the longer
you've had them.
- Petroleum:
These planets supply petroleum (oil) to the
galaxy. All planets in the galaxy require
petroleum to run machinery and vehicles. If
there are few petroleum planets, the demand
for oil will be higher and the income per
petroleum planet will be higher. If there are
too many of these planets, the price of oil
will drop, and so will profits. One problem
of petroleum planets is high pollution.
- Anti-Pollution:
Anti-pollution planets are completely covered
with forests and jungles to absorb the toxic
chemicals released into the galactic atmosphere
by petroleum planets. Pollution causes reduced
tourism, so the anti-pollution planets are
neccessary to keep tourism active and also to
reduce emmigration.
You can build a command ship, which will add power to your heavy
cruisers during battle. Light cruisers fight without the command ship's
coordination. The command ship's strength increases by 5% automatically
(at no cost) each turn. You can also build it up by spending money (to
build faster). In battle, one general is required to command every 50
soldiers. One carrier is needed to transport 100 fighters to the site of
conflict. Alternatively, if your research planets have produced a mothership,
it can carry 100,000 fighters, so that you do not need carriers for this.
(Carriers are still useful for trading.)
You may also buy covert agents, which allow you to perform immoral acts
on other empires, such as spying, encouraging soldiers to dissent, taking
hostages, setting up two empires against each other, reducing another
army's effectiveness with distractions, and aiding rebels to produce
internal conflicts. Covert agents are very useful to bring down a large
empire if you are a small empire.
You can also sell any item except a planet or the command ship for one- third
of the current price. When you sell a planet, you can release it, but you
will not receive any money for it.
The operations menu can be accessed by pressing [*]. The system menu
allows you to go back to the bank or covert operations menu. It also lets you
see your status screen or the scores. You can buy a Super Lottery Ticket
in this menu. One Super Lottery Ticket is selected at the end of the day
to be the winner. All players will be notified of the winner of the
jackpot. From the system menu, you can configure the game to your suiting,
(like choosing short/long descriptions, report dates, etc.), see the
intructions (this file!), check waiting trade deals, abdicate (who'd want to
do that?), and set the taxation rate (the percentage your police steal from
each person's pocketbook every year), and set a draft rate (to draft
people into your military for defense against an attack).
After you are finished spending, you are given the option to attack
another player. You cannot attack a player that is in protection;
you cannot attack if you are in protection, unless you wish to void
your protection. To void your protection, you are required to be a
large enough empire with an adequate defense force. You are not allowed
to attack an empire that you have a binding treaty with. Treaties
that have expired but that are still in effect are no longer binding,
and attacking that empire will cancel the treaty.
Conventional Attack
The normal way to attack another empire, the conventional attack uses your
soldiers (led by generals), fighters (taken to battle by carriers), and heavy
cruisers for battle and looting. If you win, you can capture some of the
opponent's planets and take some of the money. The battle comes after a
declaration of war, so the opponent has time to call her or his allies for
defense. This is the only honorable way to fight another empire.
There are three fronts fought simultaneously during a conventional attack.
Soldiers will fight on the ground against enemy soldiers; fighters will
attack the defense stations, which will fire back at your fighters; these
battles take place in the space around the planets. Heavy cruisers battle
in deep space against each other. Light cruisers fight alongside with heavy
cruisers, but they do not get the attack bonuses that the command ship gives
to heavy cruisers. However, light cruisers get five bonus rounds of firing
at their opponents before the opponent can fight back. Your soldiers are not
very effective in taking out defense stations or cruisers, but are crucial to
your control of the planets. Fighters can fight soldiers, but are not able
to do much damage; they can do very little damage to cruisers. The heavy
cruisers are meant for deep space; although they can approach planets, their
energy is spent maintaining orbit or maneuvering rather than fighting, so they
are not able to do very much damage to defense stations or soldiers.
The best strategy to minimize your losses and to have the best chance
of winning is to match your opponent's army on each front. An army based
solely on fighters will be devastated if the enemy has soldiers and
cruisers; you need to control two of the three fronts to win. You may
wish to use covert agents to determine the type of military held by your
opponent before choosing what offensive you wish to use.
Guerilla Ambush
This somewhat immoral act is a surprise attack on the opponent that allows
no warning, so the victim empire has no time to call allies. Also, the
soldiers are randomly shooting at the enemy, so no generals are needed
to lead them. There is no good way of knowing the enemy casualties, and
no planets can be captured. However, fear can be spread in the civilian
areas of the opponent's empire, and some of the soldier defenses can be
weakened. There is a risk that the opponent will capture a few of your
soldiers and discover your identity; otherwise your attack will go
unnoticed.
Nuclear Offensive
Rumours have spread concerning nuclear weapons that are being sold on
the black market, now even in our galaxy. The Galactic Coordinator is
currently trying to destroy the sources of these weapons. It may be a
while before you are able to get nuclear weapons, if at all. Nuclear
weapons can spread radiation and make dead planets from productive ones.
Naturally, any empire caught using nuclear weapons will be punished or
eliminated by the Galactic Coordinator. If you think you can withstand
the force of The Galaxy's forces, and you have hired enough covert agents
to look for the weapons, you can take the risk...
Chemical Warfare
Poisonous chemicals have been banned in our galaxy, but exist in many of
the barbaric galaxies in the universe. Occasionally these chemicals are
brought to our galaxy for causing human misery. Due to the highly
uncivilized nature of these weapons, the Galactic Coordinator is tightly
enforcing the ban. If you found even possessing chemicals that can be
used for chemical warfare, you will be instantly annihilated by The
Galaxy's army. Don't even think of using these.
Psionic Bombs
While normal attacks are targeted towards normal physical destruction,
these bombs target the mind. The population of your opponent will be
thrown into anarchy as mass confusion and havoc reigns. In addition,
your opponent's soldiers will be totally demoralized.
Pirate Raid
If you pay attention to the events that occur before the status screen,
you may notice that various teams of Pirates take some of your military,
covert agents, planets, food, or money. You can raid these foes from the
attack menu by sending a military and lots of money to capture back some
of their goods. Included in the items you capture may be items that they
have captured from other empires.
Spy on Pirates
If you don't know which pirates are good to attack, you can spend your
attack turn spying on all of the pirate teams. There is no cost for
spying on the pirates, and you find out their number of planets and net
worth.
After you have finished in the battle section, you may trade with another
empire. You can trade with any player that you have a treaty with, even
if the treaty has expired. You can choose how much you would like to
send to the other empire, and how much you will demand in return. If you
are generous, you may wish to send items without demanding anything in
return. Trading requires enough carriers to carry everything you send
and to carry everything that will be sent back.
Note that empires in protection have guaranteed non-interaction
status. "Interaction" includes trading, attacks, and covert operations,
so you cannot trade with empires under protection.
When other empires perform covert operations on you, you go through civil
war, you are ambushed by guerilla forces, or your people riot due to high
taxes, you may experience insurgencies within your empire. There are 8
levels of insurgencies, listed in increasing order:
- Peaceful - Your empire is internally in peace,
and all operations are proceeding
normally.
- Mild Insurgencies - Peaceful demonstrations might disrupt
tourism, and faith in your empire is
slightly weakened.
- Occasional Riots - Small riots break out in your empire;
many people refuse to pay taxes, and
your empire's income is lower. The
conditions also reduce the number of
people coming to your empire and may
increase the number leaving.
- Violent Demonstrations - Large groups of your subjects participate
in riots and demonstrations. These
severely affect the flow of tourists
in your empire; your tourism industries
suffer. Universities, harboring many
dissidents, attract fewer people to your
empire.
- Political Conflicts - Officials within your government begin
to take sides, causing factions to form
and causing supporters to fight each
other. Some of your industries are
devastated by the conditions in your
empire.
- Internal Violence - Top officials begin to question your
authority; many of them form factions,
intending to take political power.
Massive riots leave your empire in
ruins.
- Revolutionary Warfare - Government officials organize large
scale military units to bring the
threat of civil war into the heart
of your empire. Your empire is avoided
by tourists and students; people flee
in masses.
- Under Coup - Your command position is in jeopardy;
you have little control of your military
except when you can convince them to
attack an outside foe. Income from
tourism, taxes, and urban trade is
gone, and your population is decreasing
rapidly. Unless you bring stability
to your empire, it will crumble soon.
The final status screen will then be displayed. This screen tells you
how much your population has changed, and in what ways. People leave
and die when you have internal conflicts, and they come and are born
when your empire is running well. The immigration rate is increased
by getting education planets, and the birth rate increases with urban
planets. The death rate increases with overcrowding, and the emmigration
rate increases with violence in your empire. Also shown on this screen
are losses from a civil war, if you have one.
Many times, you may wish to send messages to other empires in the game.
From the Game menu or the Operations menu, you can send messages (item
[7] on the menu). Messages can be either private (email) or public
(posts).
If you wish to post a message that everyone will see, you can press *
as the destination of the message. If not, you can specify the empires you
wish to send to by entering their empire letters. To see a list, press
?. You can also toggle all empires by pressing Z; you can
turn off an empire that you have already entered by pressing the same letter
again. (This is the same interface as the one for treaties, except here
you can also press *.) Press RETURN to stop toggling players and to
start writing the message.
Each time you start a new line of the message, the current line number is
displayed. You can type up to 99 lines in each message. Enter a line
with just "/S" on it to end the message. You can choose to
make the message anonymous if you wish.
As if this weren't enough, you will also need to think about your strategies.
The types of planets you buy will probably be the most influence in
determining how successful you are (for a while, at least). Some players
go for Tourism because it makes a lot of money; others go for Ore since
it is stable and does not lose profits when your empire goes through civil
war. Others like Education and Urban planets and collect high taxes. There
are many other strategies available to you, so explore the possibilities!
That's about all! Enjoy the Game!
Amit Patel, programmer
