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*                                                                          *
*                           RORKES DRIFT                                   *
*                           ripped by mikey                                *
*                                                                          *
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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

     Just after noon on January 22nd, 1879, the British army undertook
the first engagement with the Zulu empire.  Wrongly, they assumed they
were fighting ignorant savages.  Yet already they ruled an impressive
empire which covered a large area of Southern africa.  An army of over
50,000 men had trained hard, and led by their King--Cetshwayo, had
become a highly disciplined fighting machine.  The British encampment
at Isandhlwana was unprepared for the coordinated assault directed
against them, and the column was annihilated.  An army of 4,000 warriors
then pressed on to the British outpost at Rorke's Drift.  Here stood a
church and a hospital in which there were 36 wounded and sick soldiers.
There were just 101 able-bodied men.  Led by their highest ranking
officer, a lieutenant of the Royal engineers called Chard, the Redcoats
built a perimeter of barricades from mealie bags and wooden crates.  The
battle that followed was full of bravery and devotiOn to duty on both
sides and eleven Victoria Crosses were won by the British defenders.
     The re-creation of this incredible chapter in history took many
months work by an experienced wargames designer--and countless hours of
research went into making sure it feels and plays like the original
encounter.  Each character is represented individually on the
battlefield.  A pose has been drawn for every order, 80 in all,
allowing him to face any one of 8 directions whilst standing, kneeling,
firing etc.  Attention as been paid to ease of use.  As a result this
simulation is fully mouse-driven.  You will control each of the 137 men
(including the wounded, who played--and play--an active part of the
battle).  You will decide when they advance, retreat, rest, aim, fight
and fire. each man has his own skill-level for shooting and fighting
hand-to-hand.  He also has an individual level for his health and his
ammunition.



LOADING

     Place disk in the disk drive and switch your computer on.  We would
recommend formatting a spare disk before starting to enable you to save
a game.



GETTING STARTED

     On the title screen, first select the language you would like the
text to be displayed in by using the mouse and clicking on the
appropriate flag.  Then click on either the PLATO logo--to start the
game where the Zulus will follow the attack pattern that actually
occured, or the IMPRESSIONS logo where each time you play the Zulus
will vary their strategy.



ORDER OF PLAY

     The game has two distinct phases:  command and battle.  In the
command phase, no movement or fighting takes place--the game is paused.
In this phase you give orders to as many of your men as you wish.  In
the battle phase--the simulation runs, the Zulus move and attack, your
orders are carried out--the battle takes place!



VICTORY CONDITIONS

     For you, commanding the British forces, victory is out of the
question--survival is your goal.  The battle starts at 5:30pm on 22nd
January and finishes when either you are wiped out or at 7:00am on the
23rd of January.



THE COMMAND SCREEN

     Disk icon:  This enables you to save (and load) game positions.
You can save up to 3 games on a diskette.  Note:  if you wish to exit
this screen without saving click yellow arrow to exit.
     Throughout the game the yellow arrow signifies exit.
     Clock icon:  The simulation starts at 4:30 pm on 22nd January.
You have completed the construction of your defences.  You have an hour
to deploy your men.  Once you have deployed you can move the clock
forward to 5:30pm  (when the Zulus first attack) by clicking on it.
During the battle, if you click on the clock, you will go into "fast
battle" phase--where a summary of events is displayed while the action
continues in the background.  This option allows you to accelerate the
game.
     Map icon:  A map of Rorke's Drift is displayed.  Clicking on any
part of it takes you to that part of the area, and a new set of icons
appears at the bottom of the screen.  From left to right, the icons
show: defense, strength, marksmanship, ammunition and health status.
The numbers are out of a 100, with 100 being the best/highest.
     Red Cross icon:  shows the number alive, injured and dead for each
side.
     Exit icon:  Switches to battle phase.



ORDER SCREEN

     You turn the man to face in the direction you want, click on either
of the curved yellow arrows.
   The top left gets the man to stand easy.
     The one to the right gets him to use his specialist skills:
     Private--fights
     Sergeant--fights
     Officer--fights
     Medic--attempts to heal the wounded around him.
     Quartermaster/storeman--will fill ammo bags of the soldiers near
him with bullets (70 bullets per man).
     The next three commands only apply to the soldiers.  They allow
you to get him to aim and reload while kneeling, aim and reload while
standing or Fire!
     The final icon on the left hand side gets the soldier to move.
     There are three speeds:  walk (signified by 1 soldier), run (shown
by 2) and charge (shown by 3).  Walk also allows the soldier to climb
over certain parts of the terrain, like the barricades.  If you charge,
your strength will decrease until you become worn out!  At the end of
the charge, your soldier will immediately switch to fight mode.
     Having given your order, click on the exit icon--to confirm you've
finished.  You can come back and change the order if you wish.



MOVE COMMAND

     Having clicked on the speed, the mouse pointer will turn yellow
and the order icon disappear to reveal the battlefield.  Click the
pointer over the area you want the man to go.  When you switch to
battle phase he'll go!  Note:  a yellow cross sometimes appears to
denote where a soldier is currently travelling to.  Also 'soldiers'
cannot climb over one another or through brick walls!


FIRE COMMAND

     Having clicked on the fire icon, assuming you have a loaded gun,
the order menu will disappear to reveal the battle field.  Using the
yellow mouse pointer click on the target you wish to hit.  The result
will appear.  You will have to reload your gun, before you can fire
again.  Reloading only takes during the battle phase--only 1 shot per
soldier per turn is allowed.
     Whether the shot hits the target depends on which direction the
soldier is facing (don't try and fire behind your back), whether he is
aiming and for how long, the distance between the gun and the target,
the soldiers firing ability, and whether there are any obstructions in
the line of fire (don't try firing through brick walls!).  Soldiers
kneeling are unable to fire over sandbags.



REPEAT ORDER:

     Having issued a command, you can get that order carried out by other
soldiers--this is very useful for keeping soldiers in formation while
they move.  Just click on the soldiers number and rank at the bottom of
the screen.  The pointer will turn yellow to indicate that you are in
repeat order mode.  Just point at and click on the soldiers and they
will carry out the order.  This feature significantly decreases the
time you need to spend on giving out 'individual' orders.  To finish
just click on the soldiers number and rank to return to the normal
command phase.  Note:  Repeat order does not work for firing.



NEXT SOLDIER

     Having finished giving order to a soldier, you can select the next
man in a number of ways.  If you can see the man you want just click on
him, you can use the up and down arrows in the bottom corners to move
through the ranks or by displaying the map, bringing up the part of the
battlefield that you are interested in and then clicking on your man.



HAND TO HAND FIGHTING

     During the battle phase, should a Zulu or a soldier meet, they will
engage in hand to hand combat.  The outcome will depend on their
individual abilities (attack/defense), current strength and the amount of
cover if any).  The results of the fighting will be displayed to you
after each round.



MAP CO-ORDINATES 

    The X (left/right) and Y (up/down) co-ordinates
showing the location of the window are displayed at the top left hand
side of the screen.  (0.0 is the top left of the map).



BATTLE PHASE

     The battle will continue until the left mouse button is held down
and released.  You will then go back into command phase.  To move
around the battlefield move the pointer to the edge of the screen.  The
battlefield will then scroll.
     When you leave the battle phase, on entering the command panel, if
there are any unreported fight results, they will appear.  If you click
on the reports exit icon, no more will be displayed.  Click off the
report and the next report will be displayed.  Continue clicking until
no more appear.  Note:  if you click on the report card itself, the
screen will switch to the battle area so that you can see exactly where
the action took place.



                               THE END
   


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