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 @      9  L                       ս  README: STAR TREK 3D Version 2.1
For Warlords II Deluxe on the Mac and PC.  

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CREDITS
Many of the army and shield pictures were made from icons 
created by Corey Marion in his "Complete Starships Collection"
 archive at the IconFactory (ccmarion@aol.com, www.aol.com/icnfactory) 
and the various "Star Trek Series" character profile icon sets by 
MGraphics (iconsplus@mgraphics.com, www.mgraphics.com/iconsplus).  
Give these guys credit, they do great work!  And they made my task much 
easier.  The remaining pictures were based on my Crystal 3D shields set 
or were otherwise created by me.  In the end, however, everything 
relating to Star Trek is trademarked, copyright, and otherwise 
intellectual property of Paramount Pictures.

Created by Corey Marion:
  Bajor scout ("Bajoran Fighter").  Several ships based on this icon; also space station.
  Ferengi marauder ("Marauder").  Several ships based on this icon.
  Klingon marauder ("Bird of Prey"), heavy cruiser, and flagship.  Several ships based on these icons.
  Federation pod, transport ("galileo"), scout ("runabout"), marauder ("reliant" and related ships), heavy cruiser ("Enterprise C"), flagship ("Enterprise D"), prototype ("Defiant").
  Romulan scout ("bird of prey") marauder, heavy cruiser, space station.
  Cardassian heavy cruiser, space station ("tarak nor")
  borg scout, fighter, transport, station, marauder, cruiser, flagship (all borg "cube")
  Neutral fighter (Miradorn), transport (Valkris), scout (Vidian), marauder (Talaxian and Klaestron), cruisers (Kazon), flagship (Kazon), station (k7), dreadnoughts.
  The Hero Item symbol (a helmet for most warlords army sets) is from Corey's "Bat'leth" icon.


Created by Mgraphics:
  Dominion Hero (DS9 "Vorta") and Heroine (altered from "Vorta" icon)
  Bajor Heroine (DS9 "Kira")
  Ferengi Hero and Heroine (both altered from DS9 "Quark" icon)
  Klingon Hero (DS9 "Martok") and Heroine (altered from Voyager "Torres")
  Federation Hero (DS9 "Sisko") and Heroine (Voyager "Janeway")
  Romulan Hero
  Cardassian Hero (DS9 "Dukat") and Heroine (altered from Voyager "Seska")
  Borg Hero (TNG "Borg") and Heroine (First Contact "Borg Queen")

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SIDES
The army and shield sets are designed to have the following race/country 
sides:

white: Dominion
yellow: Bajor / Maquis
Orange: Ferengi
Red: Klingon
Blue: Federation
Green: Romulan
Light Blue: Cardassian
Black: Borg
Grey: Neutral / unfederated planets

The Dominion goes first, since they always put everybody on 
the defensive.  The Borg go last, because they have plenty 
of advantages in other departments (see the Armies section 
below).  Everyone else is in between, matched with the most 
likely color.  The 'yellow' country was designated as Bajor 
/ Maquis, simply because they show up on DS9 the most 
consistently, are both underdogs, and are both 'guerrilla' 
fighters against the Cardassians (and there's a DS9 episode 
where Kira expresses her sympathy for the Maquis...); so, I 
did the best I could in creating a sort of combined, generic, 
Bajor/Maquis "what if" group.  Finally, the "neutral" cities 
consist of many of the various races and planets that have 
showed up here and there in the various series (including a 
couple from the Delta Quadrant).

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STRATEGY / GAMEPLAY

I made no attempt to make the TREK3D scenario completely fair 
for every side (it's not stacked fairly in the Star Trek 
Universe!), though I did have the computer play a number of 
games against itself for general balance.  In particular, 
Bajor has a lot of odds stacked against it (its main army is 
the space station, and it's in everybody's way!). The 
Dominion and the Borg have powerful armies accessible nearby, 
and have relatively defendible systems.  The Romulans and 
Cardassians have corners to hole up into (but watch out for 
the back door!); the Federation has lots of nearby planets 
and ruins but usually ends up fighting a 5-front war!  On 
the other hand, it's relatively easy to "bottle up" the Gamma 
Quadrant, and it takes a while for the Borg to reach anybody
 from their Quadrant.  Hint: Monopolize the Temple.  Destroy 
enemy warp capability.

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ARMIES
I took the following items into consideration when designing 
the armies: (1) the various ship types/classes that were 
featured in various episodes / movies that I remembered; 
(2) Starfleet Battles (tm) game (which I never played), 
(3) various technical classifications from things like 
starship technical specs (from web pages and manuals), 
(4) and the fact that I had to fill up 30 army slots for the 
game.

This identified many ship types, most of which have only been
 shown for one "country" or another.  For example, no episode 
or movie I know has ever portrayed a Ferengi scout, a Bajoran
heavy cruiser, a Romulan space station, a Cardassian pod, etc.,
 etc., to the best of my knowledge.  However, for playability, 
one of each ship type had to be assigned to each country.  So,
 I did my very best to create ships to fill in the blanks, as consistently as I could with the pictures I DID have.  I probably got a little carried away with the prototypes, I hope I can be forgiven.  All I can say is that it had to be done to preserve consistency and most of the information just doesn't exist.  Many other ships I had to 'piece together' from poor images and descriptions.  I put in as much time researching these ships as I could and I'm not interested in having die-hard trekkies send me all kinds of flame mail or corrections.  I did my best.

Given all that, and that "flight capability" is translated as 
"warp capability", here are the armies:

Shuttlepods:  Tiny little vessel with no warp or real attack capability.  Perfect for visiting your mother-in-law on Mars but little else.

Fighters:  Powerful little attack vessels built for in-system defense; hence, they have no warp capability but are relative cheap, fast, and strong.  Perfect for defending the Mars orbit from attacking Borg vessels.  Defensive nature and agility give advantages on city defense and over larger ships in places like asteroid fields (hills).

Navy ("Ships in warp"): The icon for this is a little blurred, warped ship.  It indicates a ship without warp capability that happens to be in interstellar space... where it shouldn't be!  Either they are undertaking a very, very long journey, or they have hit a subspace anomaly like Sisko's Bajoran lightship (that accidently warped to Cardassia).  Navies have a strength of 1 (interstellar space is rough on them), and a movement of 1 (because this stuff can't be to scale- however, I believe W2D enforces a minimum movement of 6).

Shuttlecraft:  The most popular travel vessel; a very small ship with limited warp and attack capability.  Perfect for visiting your mother-in-law on Rigel.  Luxury models available.

Transports:  Large freighters with warp capability, built for hauling lots of supplies and people.  Some defense capability.  Perfect for smuggling troops and weapons to your mother-in-law in the Neutral Zone.

Scouts:  Long-distance, fast ships built to hit and run, and gather information.  Warp capability, some defense capability.  High agility gives an advantage over larger ships in places like asteroid fields (hills).

Marauders:  The workhorse ship of any battle; powerful, fast and dangerous, not too expensive but not too big.  These ships are big enough to overcome the dangers of travelling in/through nebula (forests), and small enough to have a maneuvering advantage in them (to evade heavy cruisers, for example).  Warp capable, ally.

Heavy cruisers:  The few and the frightening; the real kick-ass ship of any normal fleet.  Home to senior officers; big enough to withstand the dangers of travelling in/through nebula, and armed and powerful enough to have a real advantage out in the open.  Perfect for visiting your mother-in-law on Romulus and blowing her up.  Warp capable, Ally.

Flagships:  Galaxy-class ships, like heavy cruisers but tend to kick more butt and have nicer carpeting (because that's where the Admirals command).  Same bonuses as heavy cruisers, but also provides some command / tactical bonuses to its stack.  I think I have these included as Temple Allies.

Space Stations:  The real prizes, and the ultimate in defense.  They take forever to build, and aren't cheap... but have the most defensive capability of all and are almost impossible to destroy.  Even a Flagship would really think hard about attacking one, especially if it has support ships under its defenses.  However, they are all but immobile, and have no warp capability (I set movement to '1', but I think W2D enforces a minimum movement of 6).

Prototypes:  Once in a while, one faction or another makes a big investment and packs all its newest R&D into a new ship type, like the Defiant or Voyager.  Since most of the stuff tends to work, they kick butt... but they're expensive and time consuming to build.  Obviously, they're warp capable.  Temple Ally.

Note:  Since it wasn't really appropriate to break down Borg ships into the various army categories (Borgs only make one generic, all-purpose-cube type it seems), I let them keep their technology advantage by making all Borg armies look like (almost!) identical cubes or sphere-pods (from "First Contact").  This will give a real advantage against human players, but probably not against the computer.

Finally, on the army Mask I've included a Bat'Leth (or however you spell it) as the default symbol for an item dropped by a deceased hero.  You'll recognize it.  Also, I've converted the boring little circles and Xs for army paths to nice little 3D red or green light bubbles.

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TERRAIN 

Map.  I tried to make the navigation map look like a tactical 
display on a grid layout.  I think everything is self evident.

Solar Systems / Intrastellar space (Plains).  Fastest 
movement- This terrain represents normal, in-system space 
where most of the Star Trek series takes place!

Neutral Zone (Marshes).  Same as normal space, but you have to 
travel slower because of course all neutral zones are held by 
enemy fleets.  Show on display as blue grid with brown crosses.

Intergalactic space (Mountains).  Mountains represent total 
barriers, like inconceivable distances (such as between 
quadrants), space anomaly or singularities, and the energy 
barrier at the edge of the galaxy (marked by a yellow border).  This is useful for 'hedging off' a map area, except for ONE space as a "wormhole".  

Nebula (Forests).  Thick gaseous clouds that are difficult to 
travel through or fight in, especially for small ships. 

Asteroids/ Rocks (Hills).  Hills, to me, represent in-system 
obstacles, especially asteroids fields.  Small, agile ships 
have an advantage there.  

Interstellar space (Water).  This is the most critical terrain 
choice; it represents interstellar distances that normally can 
only be covered by ships with warp technology (flight)!  The 
terrain  graphic is represented by complete blackness.

Ports and bridges.  These represent non-warp access to 
interstellar space.  They are basically wormholes. 

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CITIES

Basically color coordinated with no real reference to planets 
as they have been shown on various Star Trek series, except 
maybe Federation and Borg.  


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SCENARIO DESIGN SUGGESTIONS
Be sure to check out the "references" section below, especially 
for premade quadrant maps and ideas.

To enforce the warp/non-warp concept, be sure to enclose groups
of planetary areas (groups of cities) with water.  If you make 
sure that cities don't border water, and there are no ports 
(anchors), it would allow a scenario where it's possible to 
permanently pummel an enemy into pre-warp status! If you don't 
enforce this (like in random scenarios) I feel the army 
strengths will be unbalanced to give undue prominence to 
fighters, which should be limited to in-system travel and 
defense.

I personally think that temples should be avoided.  They don't 
fit in real well, in my mind, with the various Star Trek 
episodes... at least for playability.  Of course, there has 
been no end to god-like beings meddling in mortal affairs in 
the Star Trek universe, so it's up to the individual designers 
whether or not they want to put in an access point to the Q 
continuum, or Wormhole Beings, or an alien space station from 
the Voyager premier, or one of the dozens of other super-races 
out that we've been introduced to.  Still, keep the temples to 
a minimum; too many instant allies might unbalance the game.

Items:
Command bonus items:  Point-to-point transporter, Alien Device, Sword of Kaliss, Orb of the Prophets, Cloak Sensors, Transponder Codes, Tactical Computer, Alien Device (there have been lots of them)

Movement bonus items:  Transwarp drive, Warp Enhancements, Lava Lamp (all Federation ships are powered by lava lamps, you know), Astronav upgrades

Strength bonus items:  Vulcan Psi Weapon,  Shield Enhancement, Interphasic Shields, Wesley Crusher, Cloaking Device, Alien Device

Flight bonus items:  Wormhole Generator, Warpfield Projector

Gold bonus items:  Trilithium (processor), Staff of the Nagas, Genesis Device

I think you get the idea.


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REFERENCES
I suggest people interested in doing any designing visit the 
following web sites:
www.stwww.com
www.holodeck3.com
the behaviour group at www.behaviour.co.uk/Utopia/ and www.behaviour.co.uk/GreatLink/
and of course, the official Paramount Star Trek site at www.startrek.msn.com/. These sites have TONS of links and reams of information on maps, battles, etc.

DON'T forget to check out the STAR TREK OMNIPEDIA, which for $30 has more details than you ever ever will need.

Special thanks to http://members.home.net/danf/starship.html for the scenario battle graphic.

And of course, check out the various Star Trek books and manuals.


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FINAL NOTE
I hope everybody finds this enjoyable.  Send me email if you 
like it!  Please note:  you MUST enclose these text files when 
packing the Star Trek 3D accessories in your scenario.  
Guy Hagen <ghagen@chuma.cas.usf.edu>
Updated 8/98
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