/\ ________________________ _________________ / \ \ \ \/ \ \ / \\ rAt! \_____ /\___ // \______ \/ \____________ ____/ /____/ __/ \ / \___ __/ / / __// / \_ / / / Y \ __|_____/ \______| \___\_______/________/\ _______/\___:__/ \_ |____________ \/ .\ | / / / \__________/ / / / / / \_____ / /_____/ - Prodigy Presentz - ROME: PATHWAY TO POWER FuLL ENGLISH MANUAL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ by Baser Evil & Maker ROME From the time when its legendary founders, Romulus and Remus - fresh from sucking wolf milk in the forests of Central Italy - began to build a city on the Palatine Hill, the story of Rome is one of almost constant expansion. Initially, the tiny city-state of Rome suffered the attentions of neighboring kingdoms, the kings of which were constantly giving unwelcome advice of how to run things and generally trying to conquer everything in sight. Wisely, therefore, the Romans killed all the nearby kings and set themselves up as a republic. At first, the society of the infant republic was divided into two classes: the patricians, who had most of the money, did none of the work, lived in the biggest houses and spoke the best Latin (these qualities naturally making them the best choice for running the government), and the plebians, who had no money and did all the work (so, naturally, they could have no say in government). After a century or so, this state of affairs being somewhat irritating to the plebians, they marched out of Rome and threatened to start their own city. The patricians, horrified at the thought of having to do their own cooking, let them back in and gave them the vote. The next few centuries were ones of unrelenting expansion as the Romans began conquering all the neighboring states. Once admitted to the fold of Roman rule, the new citizens were equipped with full voting rights. Alas, as the republic grew, the tedius business ============================================================================ Page ii Rome: Pathway to Power ============================================================================ of counting so many votes was such that democracy was dropped in favor of nice, straightforward dictatorship, and the rise of the emperors began. Rome had many emperors: some good, like Julius Caeser and Augustus, some bad, like Caligula and Nero, and some ugly, like... well, like most of them really. Under its emperors Rome continued to expand, north, east and west, until the empire covered most of the known world. (Actually, most of the world wasn't known until the Romans conquered it!) As they swept across the world, the Romans took with them the chief fruits of their civilization: plumbing, literature, art, fine wines, plumbing, pavements, hot baths and plumbing. However, all good things must come to an end. The Roman citizens, made decadent by too many hot baths and hot orgies, and poisoned by the lead in their plumbing, stood by and watched as their empire crumbled into decay. Until, at the end, the once-mighty Roman Empire stood at the mercy of any ruthless, conniving, merciless, bloodthirsty adventurer who thought himself capable of scheming, plotting and murdering his way to the ultimate prize - the Imperial Crown itself. Someone just like you perhaps...? ============================================================================ Page iii Rome: Pathway to Power ============================================================================ CONTROLS IN GENERAL In this game, you use a mouse to guide Hector, your hero, by selecting buttons in the control box or clicking directly on the landscape. Some buttons will act immediately (e.g., MAP), while others open a "toolbox" containing further choices (e.g., USE: MESSAGE). Some commands, after you select them, require you to specify a target person or object by clicking directly on it. In these cases, the cursor will change from an arrow to a cross. For example, to greet a person, select (click on) DO. A toolbox will open containing various things you might want Hector to do. Select GREET/ The cursor will now change to a cross. Point at the appropriate person with the mouse and click. Hector will do the rest. You can abort a toolbox selecting by clicking on its CANCEL button, or abandon a "cross' object selection by clicking a second time on the command button. Because each character in the game has a mind of his own, characters sometimes tend to walk off screen before you have had the chance to select the appropriate buttons for interacting with them. If you find this a problem, simply click on the character first, and Hector will divert his attention for a while, allowing you time to press the required buttons. MOVEMENT There are three ways of getting Hector to walk around the landscape: 1. Use the arrow buttons in the control box. Hold them down with the mouse, or hold down their keyboard equivalents (A, S, Z and X). ============================================================================ Page vi Rome: Pathway to Power ============================================================================ 2. Click directly on the landscape where you want Hector to go. The advantage of this method is that Hector will take care of the tedious business of avoiding obstacles for you. It is easiest to use this method most of the time, and resort to the arrow buttons only when more precise positioning is required. 3. Open the MAP view and click where you want Hector to go. After you click, the map will close and hector will walk towards this spot. (Clicking somewhere off the actual map will close the map without signaling a new destination.) THE MAIN CONTROL BOX This is what all the buttons in the control box do: USE - Clicking on USE opens a toolbox that fills with the objects that Hector collects during the game. When you want to use these objects, select USE, then click on the object you want to use. DO - Clicking on DO opens a toolbox of all the possible actions Hector can perform at a given time. The available actions in the DO toolbox change, depending on the specific situation Hector is in at the moment. For example, if someone asks Hector a question, AGREE and DISAGREE buttons will temporarily become available inside the DO box. The precise way in which Hector will respond to a particular command often depends on the context in which it is used. For example, select DO: INQUIRE and Hector will ask a question appropriate to that person and to the current situation. NOTE: If you are not sure how to achieve something, it is always a good idea to look in the DO box, to see if an appropriate button has become available. WHO - Click on this button to identify characters. When you choose this button, the cursor changes to a cross. Point at a person and click the mouse button to see a description of the character. ============================================================================ Page vii Rome: Pathway to Power ============================================================================ MAP - click on this button to bring up a map of the entire level, complete with the location of all characters. hector is represented by a flashing yellow dot. Once the map is open, you can click in it. After you click, the map will close and Hector will begin to make his way to the spot where you clicked. FOLLOW - This button directs Hector to follow a character. When the cursor changes to a cross, point at the character you want Hector to follow. RUN - Run speeds up Hector's movement and is an efficient way for him to cover ground when he is in a hurry. SYSTEM - Use this button if you would like to turn on/off the sound, or quit, save or restart a game. ARROW BUTTONS - Click on these buttons when you want precise control of Hector's every step. THE MILITARY CONTROL BOX The DO, USE, etc controls described above are relevant to many parts of the game. However, some sections involve military action. At these times, the control box chnages to a different set of buttons. These open toolboxes and generate cross-cursors in the normal way, but there are a few other things you will need to know in order to make good use of them. Firstly, many buttons cause Hector to issue commands to his troops. Some of these he makes by blowing his trumpet, and these can be heard from very far away. Others, however, are verbal instructions, which can only be heard over a moderate distance. It's no good with Hector staying safely back at base and giving orders - he'll need to be up there in the thick of it! Secondly, you should note that Hector commands four units of me, and can choose to issue orders to any one of these units at a time, or to all at ============================================================================ Page viii Rome: Pathway to Power ============================================================================ once, the I, II, III, IV and ALL buttons at the top of the screen determine which unit or units receive future commands. The individual controls act as follows: I II III IV ALL - Determine which unit(s) respond to subsequent commands. FORM - Click here to open a toolbox full of orders which Hector can decree. Experiment will tell you how each order is carried out, but you may not notice (unless we tell you) that the WATCH button allows you to use the MAP function to see the whereabouts of any enemy soldiers currently within range of those men on watch. STD - This button controls Hector's use of the Roman War Standard. Pressing it once will cause him to go to the Standard and pick it up. the Standard is an important element in the game: it is the symbol of the Roman Empire, and of immense psychological importance to the troops - never let it fall into enemy hands! The most important fact about the Standard is that it marks the point to which your men will run if you select the RALLY button. Because of this, it is a useful way of gathering your men together, perhaps in a place of safety. The SYSTEM and the ARROW BUTTONS work as they do in the main control box. ============================================================================ Page ix Rome: Pathway to Power ============================================================================ THE SYSTEM CONTROLS In either the main or the military control box, click on the System button to access these controls: CONTINUE GAME - Clicking here closes the System box without doing anything. SOUND ON/OFF - This button toggles the sound on and off. QUIT AND SAVE - This button saves the current state of the game under the name entered when the current session was started, and quits Rome. QUIT WITHOUT SAVING - This button ends the game without saving it. RESTART THIS GAME - This button returns you to the beginning of the game if you are playing a new game, or the place where a saved game was loaded. RESTART WHOLE ADVENTURE - This button returns you to the beginning of the game even if you're playing from a saved game. ============================================================================ Page x Rome: Pathway to Power ============================================================================ SOME NOTABLE EPISODES IN THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 753 BC: Tired with mucking about in forests amongst the wolves, the two brothers Romulus and Remus decided instead to found a city. Keeping in mind future expansion (shopping malls and such), they decided that seven hills' worth should be just about enough, and so set about laying out the streets. Unfortunately, during an argument about the meaning of a portent ("Was that twelve eagles or thirteen?"), Remus freaked out and started jumping over the city's walls. Romulus took affront at this act (Well, you would, wouldn't you?) and quite understandably clubbed his brother to death, thus setting the tone for much of Rome's future history. 600 BC: Rome got its first leisure center: the Circus Maximus. (Circus because it was round, and Maximus because it was big - not ones to waste words, the Romans!) 390 BC: If the Greeks had a word for it, the Romans probably invented it: as in their invention of the airborne early warning system, the use of which was most effectively demonstrated in 390 BC when the Gauls invaded Rome. As the Gauls attempted the ascent of the Capitoline Hill, the sacred geese of Juno, resenting this attack on their privacy, took wing. They cackled so loudly they awoke the defenders of the Capitol and thus saved Rome from defeat. 73 BC: The Romans took their maiming and murdering very seriously - so seriously that they set up schools to teach the slaves how to do it for them. The contribution of the citizens to all this was to go along to the games at the Circus Maximus (see above) and complain that slaves just didn't kill each other as well as they did in the old days. ============================================================================ Page xi Rome: Pathway to Power ============================================================================ One slave, Spartacus, took an understandably dim view of having a life expactancy of about five minutes and therefore escaped from gladiator school. His unlikely hideout choice was Vesuvius (fortunately not erupting at the time, or his life expactancy would have been about five seconds!). He gathered together a motley crew of other runaways, who, in a display or sever ungratefulness for their education, proceeded to kill the Romans, rather than each other, for the better part of two years. Spartacus' followers were eventually rounded up and crucified, but the rumor is that Spartacus himself escaped and went on to star in a major Hollywood epic. 55 BC: As an autumn holiday for his troops, Julius Caesar decided to let them invade Britain. However, the invasion itself was not exactly a display of Roman military might - the ships were wrecked and Caesar himself fell flat on his face on the beach. In the face of this awesome display of Roman power, the tribesmen of Kent had no option but to submit. Returning the following year for his annual invasion holiday, Caesar this time managed to remain upright, but once again left his ships on the beach to be wrecked. Despite this, Caesar persuaded the tribes of Kent and Essex to come under Roman rule, but wisely discovered a previous engagement in Gaul which prevented him from actually coming to battle. 51 BC: Ptolemy, the Greek king of Egypt, died in 51 BC. His children, Ptolemy Jr. and Cleopatra, obeyed the well-known saying "keep it in the family," and married each other. Alas, familiarity soon bred contempt and Cleopatra found herself thrown out of the marital palace. She threw herself at the feet of the recently arrived Julius Caesar (literally; she turned up rolled in a rug!) and, let us say, excercised her considerable charms. In return, Caesar's army killed Ptolemy and installed his brother Ptolemy as king. Cleopatra, in a triumph of hope over experience, promptly married him, whilst poor old Caesar had to hurry off and subdue Asia. We presume he would willingly have returned, but was, sadly, prevented from doing so by an unavoidable appointment on the Idles of March, 44 BC. 41 BC: Cleopatra's next Roman conquest was one Marcus Antonius, sometime Master of Caesar's Horse. Obviously, mucking-out and polishing saddles wasn't too strenuous a job, since Mark Antony managed to find enough time to... dally with the lovely Cleopatra - successfully too, since she later gave birth to twins! ============================================================================ Page xii Rome: Pathway to Power ============================================================================ According to Shakspeare (who was quite clearly there at the time and saw the whole thing), Cleopatra was a woman of "infinite variety; age could not wither her, nor the years condemn." Obviously an early client of the cosmetic surgeon! 16 AD: Rome's first and greatest emperor, Augustus, died after ruling Rome for 44 years. His reign so impressed the citizens that after his death they promoted him to a god. Other emperors thought this a pretty nifty idea, with all sorts of benefits - nice temple to live in, permanent supplies of ambrosia and so on - so naturally they wanted to be gods as well. Unhappily, these later emperors showed far less taste than the great Augustus (who at least had the good manners to wait until he was dead before achieving deification), and instead tended to deify themselves while still alive. The Roman populace gradually got used to humoring their emperors in this way - and at least all the bowing and scraping kept the streets clean! 40 AD: Britain again... and in a brilliant piece of military strategy, never tried before or since, Caligula arranged his infantrymen, catapults and siege engines along the south side of the English Channel, facing north, and sounded the charge. The British, protected from this onslaught by nothing more than a paltry forty miles of water, were undoubtedly unnerved by this radical approach - it's a wonder the entire island didn't capitulate on the spot! Having thus shaken British resolve, the emperor and his soldiers spent the rest of the afternoon collecting seashells from the beach. 43 AD: Continuing the mysterious imperial infatuation with a soggy island at the edge of the world, the Emperor Claudius decided to sort the British out once and for all. To the normal troops, weapons, armor, etc., Claudius added a squadron of elephants and camels, possibly on the grounds that the Londinium Zoo needed to start a breeding program. ============================================================================ Page xiii Rome: Pathway to Power ============================================================================ The British, fighting (as usual with them) entirely naked, protected only by gold necklets and tasteful blue woad body paint, put up stiff resistance to the Roman troops. Commanding the British were the Druid Priests and priestesses, heroically keeping to the rear of the battle, urging on their men with fearsome cries and the use of captured Roman soldiers as nighttime illuminations. Claudius fought his way as far up as Gloucester and Lincoln, but there halted, defeated by the northern tribes. Was their woad bluer or their necklets bigger. At any rate, their resistance would seem to have been stiffer! 55 AD: Seeking professional fulfillment, which he could nto find in mere Emperorship, Nero had serious ambitions in the world of entertainment. Having assured himself of success by having all his critics put to death (not an unjst treatment in the eyes of many an actor!), his foremost performance was held during the burning of Rome, in which he personally led the firefighters in a song of his own composition. Finding that the people of Rome were unaccountably unrecptive to having their city burnt as performance art, he rapidly pushed the blame for it onto a new religious sect, the Christians. 58 AD: The Emperor Nero, fed up with always being told what to do by his mother, Agrippina, decided to be rid of her at last. Being too frightened of her to dare involve himself in a straightforward assasination, he instead hatched a cunning plan. After inviting her to tea on one of his islands, he kissed her good-bye and helped her into a boat, surrounded by her maidservants. Agrippina's boat set sail for the mainland, shadowed by another containing soldiers (for her own protection, you understand). However, the boat had been specially designed to fall apart at a given signal (presumably radio-controlled from a joystick in Nero's pudgy little hand), and this it proceeded to do, leaving the women floundering in the sea. It was at this point that a maidservant had the brightest idea of her short life, and shouted to the soldiers, claiming that she was actually Agrippina and would they kindly rescue her, please? Unfortunately for her, the troops had already been primed to feign a rescue attempt by flailing around wildly with their oars, and so promptly clubbed the poor girl to death. Agrippina, meanwhile, swam to safety, and Nero was somewhat distressed the following day to receive a letter from his mother, thanking him for the tea and recommending that he change his shipwright. ============================================================================ Page xiv Rome: Pathway to Power ============================================================================ 60 AD: In an early and unwise example of sexual discrimination, and little knowing of the leadership qualities of Lincolnshire ladies, the Roman governor of Britain ignored the claims of Queen Boudicca to the leadership of the tribe of the Iceni. Scorned, Boudicca unleashed her fury, and attacked the Roman town of Camulodunum, killing all its inhabitants. Alas, the revolution was rapidly crushed, and Boudicca is chiefly remembered today for her early form of armored car - a knife-wheeled chariot - and for her unusual choice of burial place: beneath platform 10 of St. Pancras Station (perhaps in an effort to ensure a seat on the train?). 79 AD: On the 24th of August, 79 AD, the citizens of Pompeii had their afternoon peace interrupted when nearby Mount Vesuvius burst into an enormous eruption. Most of them (quite wisely, one feels) fled from their homes immediately, but one or two took a little more time... The priests of the temple of Isis, for example, were just sitting down to a light lunch of eggs and fish when the eruption began. Reassured by their belief that the worship of Isis conveyed immortality on her followers, they finished their meal, popped into the temple to collect the goddess and the temple treasure, and only then started to leave. Unfortunately, the goddess failed to come up to scratch; her priests perished in the lava. As did the historian Pliny, who was sunbathing on the beach when the eruption began. Not wishing to have an uneven tan, he remained there, until called away to help a friend who was trying to save his household goods, wife, children, etc. Having organized their rescue, Pliny went for a swim, then had lunch and took a little nap. Only then did he feel himslef ready to stroll down to the beach and get on a boat. Unhappily, he had left too late, for once there, he drank a glass of cold water and promptly fell down dead - thus clearly shwoing the bad effects of drinking water. He should have stuck to wine, like any sensible Roman. ============================================================================ Page xv Rome: Pathway to Power ============================================================================ 125 AD: The conquest of Britain was finally completed by the emperor Hadrian. His troops swept up the island like a giant military vacuum cleaner, pushing the nastier northern tribesmen before them. When the last long-haired, kilt-wearing, haggis-eating Pict had been finally tidied up into the rockier parts of Scotland, Hadrian, in an effort to keep the place looking nice and neat, built a wall right across Britain, so the Picts could be hidden from view. It also, happily, hid the view of them eating haggis, a sight ever painful to delicate Roman sensibilities. 300 AD: The expansion of the Roman Empire came to a halt during the reign of Diocletian. Nine hundred years of never missing an opportunity to take over any available (or even not-so-available) country had left sever strains in the board of directors. Diocletian therefore led a management buy-out, in which he wisely took control of the eastern half of the empire (much better weather, nicer food, well-trained concubines etc.), leaving the less-desirable western half to an associate, whose impact on history was so great that he is now, sadly, completely anonymous. 410 AD: Although the outposts had been behaving oddly for some time, the fifth century saw the very heart of the empire, Rome itself, under threat. From the north came hordes of very unpleasant barbarians, the Goths; swinging great battle-axes and manes of red hair and struggling under the weaight of some very peculiar names (well, could you cope with Vercingetorix?), these hard men of the north swept down upon Rome and, pausing for only the briefest bit of rape and pillage, captured it. The people of Rome, insulated for many centuries by the width of their empire from any actual fighting, were unable to put up any resistance. Thus ended the great Roman Empire. ============================================================================ Page xvi Rome: Pathway to Power ============================================================================