Dark Oberon http://dark-oberon.sourceforge.net/ Quick Guide About ----- Dark Oberon is an open source real-time strategy game similar to Warcraft II released under GPL. Nowadays it only supports multi player game. However it is possible to try the game also in "single player" but without enemies. Running the game ---------------- To try the game without enemies select "Quick Play" in main menu. A random map and race will be choosen. To play multi player game, one player must create the game. The game is created by selecting "Play > Create > Create" in menu. Other players must connect to the player that has created the game by selecting "Play > Connect" and entering his IP address or computer name to the IP text field. The game is then started by clicking on "Play" on the computer where the game was created. What is on you display ---------------------- When the game is running, you see a right panel and a bottom panel. On bottom panel you can see amounts of materials: gold, wood, coal; as well as your used/maximu amount of food and energy. Right panels shows a minimap or radar, which is an overview of the whole map. If a unit is selected, information about the units are shown under the radar. In the middle part of the right panel there are icons for all actions a unit or building can do: stay, move, attack, mine, repair, build. At the right-bottom corner is an icon indicating which layers are shown. In Dark Oberon there can be 3 layers in the map, usually air, ground and underground. Game control ------------ The game is controled by mouse and optionally with a keyboard. Controling with mouse is easy. You select unit by left-clicking on it and process an action by right-clicking on other unit, building or place on a map. To move a unit select it by left-clicking on it and then right-click on the map where you want to send it. To send a Peasant to a Gold Mine select it and right-click on a Gold Mine. Selecting a group ----------------- To select more units at once, press and hold the left mouse button and drag the mouse. A green rectangle will show. All your units under this rectangle will be selected. You can add or remove units from selection by left-clicking on a unit while holding a CTRL key. You can add more units to selection the same way you select more units but before pressing left mouse button you hold the ctrl key. Remembering selections ---------------------- You can save and restore selections! Select some units and press CTRL with '1'. This will store your selection under key '1'. Whenever you will want to restore the selection, press '1' and the saved selection will be restored. Pressing '1' twice will not only restore the sellection but also show the units of the selection in the center of the screen. The same can be accomplished by pressing ALT with '1'. You can save up to 9 selections under keys '1', '2'... to '9'. Moving a map ------------ There are more ways how to move position of the map. It can be moved by moving your mouse cursor to the edge of the screen or game window. E.g. when you come to right edge of the screen the map will be moved right. Another posibility how to move the map is by pressing the left mouse button and draging the mouse while holding the ALT key. The map can be moved also with cursor keys UP, RIGHT, DOWN and LEFT. What about moving the map by clicking into radar or draging? Yes, that is possible too. What is more, you can move the map with center mouse button. While the center button is pressed, you are moving the map. But it is in a different way than with ALT key and left mouse button. Try it. :-) Zooming the map --------------- You can zoom the map by rolling your mouse wheel (vertical, if you have got two), or by keys '+' (zoom in) and '-' (zoom out). The key '=' acts the same way as '+' - it's here for those who are lazy to press SHIFT. One can reset the zoom by pressing '/'. Creating new building --------------------- New buildings are created by a Peasant. Select a Peasant. The build dialog will be shown. Choose a building from the list and right-click on the possition on the map where you want to build the building. Careful, if you click the left mouse button, nothing will happen, because the left button is used for selections and the right button is used for actions! New buildings can be build only on a place on the map where you see (is not in warfog). And you need to have enough material for building. If the building can not be build and you right-click on the map, a message like "Not enough gold for building" will be shown. You can find how much material you need in a tooltip - when you hold your mouse cursor over the building item in the right panel in the build dialog. You can build buildings faster when you build them with more Peasants than one. Just select more Peasants when you are going to build the building. You can add more Peasants to help by sending them repair that building. Creating new units ------------------ Units are created in some types of buildings. E.g Barracs can create Footmen. If you have got Barracs, select it. In the build dialog (which will be preselected when you click on Barracs) select the unit you want build. Barracs can build only Footmen, so there will not be many choices. :-) If you want to build more units in a row, you can click more than once on the icon of the unit. Creation of the second unit will start immediately after the first unit will be ready. You can pause unit creation by left-clicking on actualy created unit in the build panel. You can cancel the creation by right-clicking it. Attacking --------- Right click on the unit or building you want to attack. That simple! If you want to attack your own unit, select attack action in right panel or press 'A'. More to come... :-) ... in Release 1.0.2