Players Guide to GrogSoft's Kingdom
Introduction:
This brief guide is intended to familiarize the reader with some of the basic concepts involved in playing Kingdom. In particular this guide will attempt to describe the more peculiar elements of Kingdom's user interface. No attempt will be made to discuss strategy or even suggest styles of play as that is an activity best left to the players.
Kingdom Overview:
There are two ways to win a game of kingdom. The first is to conquer the world. If you eliminate every opposing province you win. The second is to capture all of the worlds relics. The game probably needs a turn limit concept but until I get more feedback on the game pace and such I have no idea where to set up such a limit. To move units (including making an attack) select a neighboring hex to the current unit (the blinking unit).
Start of Game and Main Screen:
The player begins a game of Kingdom controlling either one or two settlers and depending on the preferences one military unit. Only the area immediately surrounding the player's unit(s) is visible. The world awaits exploration.

This image is an image of the map screen. This is the screen the player will spend the majority of his time on.
There is online help describing the function of each of the small rectangular buttons at the bottom of the screen. From the menu select help then interface.
Units:
There are three basic unit types in Kingdom. There are military units (Paladins, Warriors, Archers and Fighters). There are monks. The last type of unit is the settler unit.

The military units are used to attack, defend and explore.
The monk unit only serves one purpose. Monks are the only unit that is able to pick up a relic [
]. Monks are used to bring relics back home into cities.
Settlers are the most versatile of units. They are used to found new provinces. They can be used to build roads between provinces. Another use is to have your settlers improve the lands surrounding your provinces through terraforming or other means.
All units move at one third cost when traversing rivers or roads.
Provinces:
Your provinces are the lifeblood of your Kingdom. This is where your people will grow and expand production capabilities allowing you to further expand and conquer. There are three important screens to understand when working with provinces. These screens allow you to manipulate your serf population, manage your defense and control the provinces production.
The province control screens all have several interface elements in common. First they all share a file-folder heading allowing the player to switch easily between control screens. Switching provinces is as easy as selecting the left or right arrows to the left of the province name indicator. Changing the province name can be accomplished from any of these forms by selecting the text field associated with the province name.
Finally the Map button brings the player back to the main map screen. Perhaps I should have labeled this button OK or Done. I would like to stress that feedback even on these seemingly trivial elements would be appreciated and listened to.
Serfs:

The serfs form features a mini map representing the lands surrounding this province. A serf (or citizen) is represented by a circular red and yellow indicator
. The terrain directly under the serf indicator is being worked by that particular serf. Each province starts with one serf and as the population grows serfs are added to the workable terrain. It is up to the player to place these serfs on the most advantageous terrain locations. To move a serf select the serf you want to move. It should start blinking. Now select the terrain location you want the serf to work.
The production levels for the current serf configuration are available to the left of the mini map. The three production values are Points, Food and Gold. Points are used in producing and maintaining units and improvements (see build section). Food is used to grow new citizens, maintain your current citizenry and settlers. Gold is used to rush production of goods. The values associated with each terrain type (as well as the effects of improvements) are available from the in game help system.
If any of these production values are negative (i.e. the province is using more for support than it is producing) they will appear in red and should be addressed by the player trying to bring them back into the black.
The final key element of this screen is the "New Citizen" status bar. Once the bar is filled a new citizen comes into existence also giving the player an additional serf to work a new terrain location. The bar fills as excess food is stored.
Build:
The build screen is used to change and view the current province production.

There are three key elements to this screen. Current national gold reserves are visible on this screen. This value represents your entire gold reserve. There is no per-province gold reserve. It is shown on this screen for the purposes of helping manage purchases. The current production with a drop down selector for changes exists below the gold indicator. The status of the current production is represented by a status bar indicating how far along production is. At the bottom of the screen is a list box containing all of the completed improvements. Improvements can be sold and purchased (subject to suitable gold reserves).
Guard:
The guard screen is used to view and locate the current province's supported units.

This screen is fairly self explanatory but it should be pointed out that to move a defending unit to active status simply select said unit. If an active unit is selected the main map screen is brought up and the map will be centered on the selected unit. To put a unit in a province's defender list place the unit over the province on the main map screen then fortify it.
Mini Map Screen:
The Mini Map Screen allows the player to gain insight into the big picture. Various elements can be displayed or hidden.

The user can instantly move to a section of the map by selecting a point on the map with the stylus. The main map screen will be brought up centered on the selected point.
The current main map screen location is represented by a box around the contents of the main map screen.
The mini map screenshot above was produced after the entire map was artificially revealed. During a game much of the mini map will appear black representing all of the unexplored territory.
Preference Screens:
The preference screens share a file-folder screen selection tool at the top of each screen. Furthermore they all have a done button located at the bottom right corner allowing the user to migrate back to the main map screen. Many of the settings available in the preference screens won't take effect until a new game is started. For example player color changes won't take place until a new game is started.
Human Preferences:

The Human Preferences Screen allows the user to change his name, color and nationality. Any nationality requests? Send me the nationality along with 20 prominent cities (in order of prominence) and I'll consider the most popular requests.
AI Preferences:

The Artificial Intelligence Preferences Screen allows the player to decide the number of AI opponents as well as the skill level each opponent will play with. This screen is only available to registered users.
Game Preferences:

The Game Preferences Screen allows the player to change various elements of gameplay. The map size is set from this screen as well as the number of relics and the status of the fast start setting. Fast Starts are games where each player starts with two settlers and one military unit. This screen is only available to registered users.
Display Preferences:

The Display Preferences Screen allows the player to change various properties of how the game looks and plays. When "Show Enemy Moves" is checked the player will see any visible movement (movement made in explored areas of the map). When "Always Show End of Turn" is checked the end of turn indicator always becomes active before the game moves to the next player. When "Show Hex Grid" is checked a hex grid overlay is put on the main map screen so the player can more easily distinguish the discrete map locations.
The remaining control is used to determine how provinces look on the main map screen. They can represented iconically or numerically. In iconic mode the provinces will be represented by one of three icons. Villages
look like an American Indian teepee. Towns
look like a small house. Cities
look like a castle. At least those are the things the icons were meant to look like. OK. I'll admit it. I'm no artist. The alternative is to have the population represented as a number. This choice gives more detailed information but the numbers look kind of artificial on the map. I didn't know which way people would like it so I put them both in.

© 2002 Greg Babineau
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Changes last made on: August 15 2002