EMPIRE ALLEGRO version 1.23
--------------

Changes from version 1.21:
	-Somehow the map editor wasn't saving to maplist.txt, now it
	 does again.
	-Players can't have over 50 units in the game, but until now
	 the game never actively prevented players from making over
	 50 units.  This means that this version should prevent some
	 bad crashes from happening.
	-Added an icon for the windows EXE.

Changes from version 1.2:
	-Fixed a pathfinding bug that made the path go all screwy if
	 you were too quick with the mouse.

Changes from version 1.0:
	-Now remembers what graphics mode worked last time, and tries
	 that one first.  If you have an older version of this game
	 then you should delete the empire.ini file.
	-Included a yield_timeslice() and winalleg.h to the game, and
	 now it seems to play much more nicely with Windows XP.
	-You can now grab a screenshot by pressing F12.

NOTE: The DOS port is still version 1.0, because after "upgrading" to
      Windows XP I can no longer compile for DOS.  THis basically
      means that the DOS version is utter crap compared to the Windows
      version.


Absolute Minimum requirements (AKA what the game was made on at first):
  200 MHz CPU
  98M RAM
  Windows 95
Recommended (AKA the other system it was tested on):
  700 MHz CPU
  256M RAM
  Windows 98
If for some reason you have an even slower computer than me, I
doubt that the game will run very well or at all.

THE STORY:
  Hey, every game these days has to have some sort of plot, right?
OK,  here goes:  One terrible day on the allegro.cc forums, a flame
war of immense proportions broke out.  The opinions of people
participating eventually separated into eight factions, each led by
one person alone.  The debate got so heated, and the flames so vicious,
that eventually all eight factions decided that there was only one way
to resolve the issue: all out war and global domination of the victor!
The eight allegro factions quickly conquered national governments and
took control of their armies for use against the others.  Now, with
vast military equipment at their disposal, the eight will fight it out
to see who will control the world and ban the rest from allegro.cc
forever!

...
I made that up in under half a minute.  That has to be some kind of
record.

HOW TO PLAY:
  The gameplay has been designed to mimic Advance Wars (GBA) almost
completely, so if you know how to play Advance Wars you're fine.
  For those of you who are depriving yourselves of that game, the
object of the game is to defeat your opponent(s) either by capturing
their HQ or destroying their units and capturing or covering their
unit-producing buildings.  The game is fairly easy to learn, so just
experiment with different units and see what they can do and not do.
Certain characters have different strengths, weaknesses, and special
abilities, which you can customize using the Player Maker program.
The characters originally included are based on some people from the
www.allegro.cc forums.  Drop by sometime.

CONTROLS:
  Left mouse:  Select
  Right mouse: In the game:    Bring up menu
               In map editor:  View minimap
  Space:  View minimap (in game)
  Shift:  See attack range (only for distance-attack units)
  B:      Quick exit button.  Pressing this instantly exits the game.
To scroll the map, move the mouse to the edge of the screen.

The Map Editor:
  The map editor is, I hope, easy to use.  There are buttons to
  select and place tiles and units.  There are two important
  things to know about the editor first:
    1)  You must name the map before you can save.
    2)  CHECK THE MAP BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO USE IT.  The "check
        map" button will tell you if there is any fatal problem
        with the map.  If you ignore it and try to play on a
        problematic map, bad things will happen.  Bad things
        like your computer freezing / crashing / refusing to
        boot up normally or at all.  I've had all three happen
        to me at some point or other while making the game.

The Player Maker:
  A Visual Basic program I made, this lets you create your own
  characters or modify existing ones.  Should be easy to use.

  NOTE:  When the Player Maker is open, it creates 8 temporary
         bitmaps for the 8 players.  It will delete them once it is
         closed.  Do not delete them while it is running or bad
         things will happen.  Also, do not delete any of the player
         bitmaps and then try to run the Player Maker.  It will not
         load unless there are 8 "playerx.bmp" pictures in the folder
         the Player Maker is in.


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The unit sprites and building tiles in this game have been taken from 
Advance Wars, for the Gameboy Advance, so they belong to Nintendo.
This game was inspired by Advance Wars, and you should all go out and
buy that game (or Advance Wars 2) right now if you haven't already.

The land tiles, except for the buildings, were made by me.

The sound effects were found using findsounds.com, so I have no idea
who they may belong to.

The music, well...there is no music in the game right now, and I think
it's going to stay that way.

This game was made using Allegro, the game programming library.
http://www.allegro.cc

And always remember: There are no bugs, there are just features we were
unaware of. ;)