Wars of the Land of Sumer

A fairly basic empire building strategy game using RPG Maker 2000...

Basis for sprites, tilesets, and animations* : Final Fantasy IV Final Fantasy VI Chrono Trigger (I think) The dreaded RTP

*Before I modified them

The backgrounds were taken from a number of RPG Maker websites and from actual pictures of ruins. I forget who created the originals...

Sounds: Warcraft II Sid Meier's Gettysburg

Music: Dune (Cryosis computer game) Dune (1984 film) Conan the Barbarian (1982 film) Bloodwar by ??? Other pieces by Adam Naubert

Instructions:

Your army is controlled entirely through the keyboard. You can talk with other characters and enter buildings with the select key. Entering cities and engaging with enemy armies will happen automatically if you position your army adjascent to it. Within enemy cities, however, you will have to press the select key to engage enemy armies across the barricades.

You start off with a commanding officer. This officer, being only one man, is not very good at fighting off scores and scores of bandits, let alone trained units of men. He is, however, very good at withdrawing from battle (or if you prefer, charging to the rear or running away). If your army is defeated, your army will revert back to the officer.

Direction keys:

Movement of hero Up: [up arrow] [K] [8-number pad] Movement of hero Down: [down arrow] [J] [2-number pad] Movement of hero Left: [left arrow] [H] [4-number pad] Movement of hero Right: [right arrow] [L] [6-number pad]

Talk, Select, Decision key: [Space] [Z] [Enter]

Cancellation key: [Esc] [X] [C] [V] [B] [N] [0-Ins-number pad]

Hitting the cancellation key on any maps will bring up the menu. On the right, you will see the units in your army. Each unit has the following stats: L (level - unimportant), H (health - how many men this unit holds), Ex (experience - unimportant) and M (magic - unimportant) On the left, you will see more menu options: Item (which lists any items that in your army that are not currently equiped), Tech Skill (RPG Maker 2000's magic system- unimportant), Equipment (where you can change the equipment of your units), Save Game, and End Game (which will take you back to the intro menu)

Known bugs:

• If one tries to buy more than two of a same kind of unit, there's a chance that the program will take your gold and give you nothing.
• Royal Guards inexplicably lose all their equipment and gain 10 extra HP when purchased.

RPG Maker 2000 bugs:

• If no MIDI can be heard, open Windows Media Player. Play a MIDI (a short one, like BASE2.MID will allow you to get back to the game quicker) and let it play all the way through. Do not pause the MIDI or exit WMP (since both cause the MIDI to go offline). With WMP open, play the game. The MIDI should be piping through the speakers now.

RPG Maker 2000 limitations:

• Once your army is in a city, you will have to manually engage the enemy. The enemy will advance toward your army, but since there is a barricade in between, it will not automatically make contact. You will need to push the talk/select key. (I had tried to make them contact automatically, since the barricade counts as a counter. This RPG Maker feature allows players to talk to merchants across a store counter, hence the name. Unfortunately, it does not allow for other events or NPCs to contact the player)
• Each individual unit is a PC. Ideally, each purchased unit of a certain type should be a clone of a type template.
• Purchasing units uses a simple If/Or coding based on listed units. However, since you can only modify a party via the PCs names (i.e. Add or remove "Alex" from the party), this leads to a rather bloated code. I would prefer at times to be able to pick out PC numbers (like "party member #3") or being able to link the units to simple equations with variables.
• The types of damage/attack are not a true Rock/Paper/Scissors relationship, or at least they don't really make a difference. So if the siege weapon is killing infantry as well or better than your infantry, just humour it.
• All enemies share the same sounds. It would be cooler if walls would crumble loudly instead of yelling out Wilheim screams like everyone else.