INTRODUCTION

In the beginning of the 19th century after becoming the emperor Napoleon started to pursue the policy aiming at ensuring French political and economical hegemonye over Europe.

Do you want to repeat the success this great commander had at Marengo, Austerlitz, Wagram? Or maybe you want to stop one of the greatest tyrants of Europe?

You’ll be given an army which you can use for implementations of your plans. The army is made up of units, any of them has different capacity, and the stronger the units are, the less of them you have. Moreover, there are also units that have some peculiar skills. For instance, sappers can neutralize the enemy’s mines, a spy can kill the enemy general, and a brave can sacrafice himself to win any other unit.

You don’t like strategy games, and you prefer chess or card games? Then, this game is for you too.

Napoleonix is a logical turn-based strategy game for two players (though it can be played by one person against the computer as well). The game presents a successful combination of strategic and tactical planning employed in turn-based strategies, it also has some elements of applying psychological pressure towards the opposer (bluff being one of them) which are used in a number of card games. The main thing about this game is that your opposer doesn’t know where your bulk strength is dislocated. This makes it possible to carry out diversionary maneuvers, complicated readjustment of force, make attacks and commit counterattacks. So, the main goal of the strategy is to get the actual information on where the opposer’s forces are dislocated.

FEATURES

* Campaign mode with 12 missions;

* Player profile screen;

* 8 ranks and 21 medals;

* Multiple slots for storing dispositions;

* Music and SFX;

* TCP/IP multiplayer

* 3D mode

* Hi-Res on VGA devices

GAME RULES

1. The game is played on a rectangular field.

2. There are squares of two types on the field, through the first-type squares the troops can move forward, and they cannot be on the squares of the second type (lakes).

3. In the beginning of the game each of the players has an army. Before the game starts you must put your army on the selected place. Keep it in mind that you can put one unit on one square (units cannot be grouped). If you place your army in the right way, you are half-way to the victory.

4. The army is made up of movable units of different capacity (from 1 (a general) to 9 (a rank-and-file)), a spy – S and a brave – 0, and also immovable units – mines, a flag and a fake flag. All the units are placed onto the field before the game starts.

5. Before the game is started the opposer doesn’t know where your units are placed. The only information he has is what’s the type and how many of them you got. During the game all the units of the opposer are displayed in such a way as if they are equal, and till the units of the opposers confront each other, you can’t know how powerful the opposer’s unit is.

6. All the movable units can move forward one after one neighbor empty square. You can’t move on diagonally. But it’s allows to step back, returning to the pervious square when taking your turn, after your other unit has moved or after an attack

7. If your movable unit is occupying the square next to (any of) your opposer’s units, he can make the ATTACK move. As a result, the players exchange information on what the capacity of the hitting back and attacking units is. In case the attacking unit is stronger (the units strength decreases in the 1>2>…>9> S> 0 row) than the hitting back one (in other words the attacking unit has a bigger number), then the unit that’s hitting back is defeated and the attacking unit takes its place and is now located on the battle spot. If the hitting back unit is stronger, the attacking one stays on the spot it was on before. If the units are equally strong, they both will be defeated. But the S (spy) unit is the exception. It can beat the unit 1 (general), but it’s also defeated by any other unit. The second exception is 0 unit (brave). This unit perishes together with any unit it attacks. If the brave is attacked, it’s always killed and the attacking unit survives. If an immovable mine unit is attacked, the attacking unit doesn’t go through. The exception is when a mine is attacked with a sapper – the 8 unit. If any unit attacks enemy flag (or fake flag), it is captured. Captured flag should be transported to the first line to know whether it is real or fake. Captured flag can be recaptured, but it becomes immovable.

8. Margin of victory: à) killing all the opposer’s soldiers; b) you can seize and check the flag by carrying it to your first line (through the checking you can know if the flag or the faked flag is seized; the flag and the fake flag look the same till you check, if you seized the fake, it doesn’t bring you the victory); c) if after a certain number of moves (say, 20) no action taken by any of the sides resulted in defeating at least one unit, the winner is named after counting the points (the number of units which survived).

ADDITIONAL NOTES

* The player's not knowing what's the capacity of the opposer’s unit is makes the games really interesting from the psychological point of view. You can create combinations on the basis of fake defense or attacks requiring a bulk of the opposer’s forces on the flank while it’s completely not required. The other point is the strategy, according to which the player tries his best to convince the opposer that his fake flank is real. It should be noted that with the help of these psychological tricks the game becomes awesomely fascinating especially when you are playing with a man, not a computer, because it’s really interesting to observe his reaction to your steps;

* The other important component is a strategy planning of the battles during the dislocation process before the game starts. Moreover, this process should include the possibilities of carrying out the tactical maneuvering with different units, and that makes it possible to carry out the attacks in the direction you planned;

* The game plan is initially elaborated on the map, which is divided into three battle front parts because of the impassable squares. Theoretically, you can change your maps without any problem, as well as the army components. The maps changing can affect the strategy and the fighting tactics.