Java4K.com

Description

A small 4X game in the vein of Master of Orion. Playable against the computer and hotseat.

Instructions

Click on planets to select them. The buttons on the left are the available actions for the given planet. The capitalised letter on each button is the shortcut, eg "T" for taxing the planet.

One action is one turn. Colonised planets slowly gain money each turn.

You can only interact with planets inside your fuel range, which is shown as a blueish-gray area in the map.

An unexplored planet is dark grey, an explored one is light grey. A colonised planet is its owner's colour, and a planet with an outpost on has a ring of the owner's colour. The coloured arc on the top right indicates the amount of defences the planet has, the white arc on the bottom left indicates that the owner's fleet is at that planet.

Actions available on uninhabited planets:

Explore: See information about planet. Required for any other action involving the planet.
build Outpost: Builds an outpost, extending your fuel range. Outposts don't produce money, but are cheaper and can be built on barren worlds.
Colonise: Builds a colony.



Actions available on your own planets:

Tax: Adds the money on the planet to your imperial treasury.
improve Defences: Improves the defences on the planet by 5, making it harder to invade.



Actions available on enemy planets:

trAde: You both gain the amount of money on the planet.
Raid: You steal the money on the planet. Requires cloaking device and at least one warship.
Invade: Invades the planet, making it yours. On successful invasion, you gain control of the planet and get all the money on it. Its defences are reduced by a quarter as a result of the attack. You also lose ships, more if the fight was close. If you don't have enough ships to mount an invasion yourself, you can pay mercenaries to help you, but this is very expensive. (100$ per mercenary ship, and your fleet tends to take the brunt of the losses.)



Actions are available for your empire as a whole:

build Warship: Builds a new warship to invade planets with
develop advanced fuels: doubles fuel range
develop terraforming: can colonise all planets at half price, even barren ones
develop cloaking device: can raid
develop advanced economics: +50% income
develop advanced weapons: warships become 50% stronger
develop long-range scanners: reveal entire map
build transcendence device: win the game



Planets can have the following attributes:

Barren: need terraforming to colonise
Fertile: half cost to colonise
Rich: +50% income
Poor: -50% income
Ancient Artefacts: One free tech for first player to colonise
Ancient Warship: One free warship for first player to colonise
Defensible: Free planetary defences



Each player starts out with a different tech already researched:

Brown: Advanced Economics I
Red: Advanced Weapons I
Green: Terraforming
Blue: Cloaking Device



You can play the game hotseat by selecting more than one human player in setup.

Tips:

Fortify planets immediately after colonising or invading them lest they be snapped up by your opponents.
If you invade a planet defended by the enemy fleet, the enemy fleet will lose half of their ships. Use this to hunt down and crush their fleet.
Raiding is a wonderful way to make money and damage your enemies' ability to do anything at all.

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