man(1) Manual page archive


     OGRE(6)                                                   OGRE(6)

     NAME
          ogre - war game

     SYNOPSIS
          /usr/games/ogre [ogre type (3 or 5)]

     DESCRIPTION
          Ogre is a game of tank warfare in the 21st century.  You
          command a force of infantry, armor, and howitzers pitted
          against a giant cybernetic tank, the Ogre.  Your mission is
          to destroy the Ogre, or at least render it immobile, before
          it reaches and destroys your command post.

          A more complete reference on how to play can be found in the
          Ogre rule book for the Metagaming MicroGame, now distributed
          by Steve Jackson's company.  Here's some very sketchy and
          incomplete documentation for Ogre players:

          The game has the following phases:

          1) Initialization.  The player's armor units, infantry, and
          command post are placed on the map.  Nothing can be placed
          on the leftmost 7 columns of hexes, or on craters (*'s), or
          on any unit already placed.  Valid commands are:

                     w   e

                  a         d    (hex movement keys)

                     z   x

                      place a:

                  H   howitzer
                  T   heavy tank
                  M   missile tank
                  G   GEV
                  I   Infantry unit (attack strength 3)
                  C   Command Post

          on the space currently pointed at by the cursor.  Note that
          these are capital letters.

          Units are displayed as these characters, except infantry,
          which appear as '1', '2', or '3' depending on their attack
          strength.

          2) The Ogre (an O) now appears.

          3) You are given the opportunity to move all your vehicles

     OGRE(6)                                                   OGRE(6)

          and infantry that can move.  The cursor motion keys are used
          to move the unit indicated by the cursor.  Additionally, 's'
          or ' ' can be used to let a vehicle stay motionless.  No
          vehicle can move through a crater hex, or into a hex
          occupied by another friendly unit on its last turn, although
          it can move through a friendly hex on its way elsewhere.
          Moving through the hex occupied by the Ogre is an attempt to
          ram the Ogre.  This reduces the Ogre's treads by some
          amount, and destroys the unit.

          4) You now fire all your vehicles in range at designated
          targets on the Ogre.  The following commands are used:

          m    fire at missiles

          b    fire at main batteries

          s    fire at secondary batteries

          a    fire at anti-personnel guns

          t    fire at treads

          The odds of destroying the target are displayed, but no
          action is taken until 'r' is used, or until you run out of
          attack points (except for attacks on treads - see below).
          (In the odds display, '+' means a sure thing.)

          p    Pass.  The unit is passed over, and given the opportu-
               nity to fire later.

          r    resolve all allocations so far, and display the
               results.  This is implied by 't', as tread attacks can-
               not be grouped.  A resolve is done automatically when
               you run out of attacking units.

          5) Second movement phase for GEVs.  Just like step 3, except
          that only GEVs can move.

          6) The Ogre moves.  If it runs over any of your units, they
          are damaged or destroyed.

          7) The Ogre fires at all units in range.  Destroyed units
          are removed from the map.  Disabled units are displayed in
          lower case, and may not move or fire until the end of the
          NEXT Ogre attack.

          Steps 3 through 7 are repeated until either a) the Ogre has
          no movement points left, in which case you win, or b) your
          command post is destroyed, in which case the Ogre wins.

     MISCELLANEOUS

     OGRE(6)                                                   OGRE(6)

          The display "a/r Dd Mm" means the unit concerned attacks at
          a, at range r, defends at d, and moves m hexes per turn.

          The Ogre by default is a Mark III.  An argument of '5' on
          the command line makes it a Mark V, and gives you more armor
          points.

          The game can be interrupted at any point with a control-C.
          There's now no way to restart.

          The paper game is copyright (c) 1977 by Steve Jackson.  This
          computer implementation is copyright (c) 1984 by Michael
          Caplinger.

     AUTHOR
          Michael Caplinger, Rice University (mike@rice.ARPA), from a
          Microgame of the same name published by Metagaming of Aus-
          tin, Texas, and written by Steve Jackson.  This implementa-
          tion is not authorized in any way by Mr. Jackson, and should
          not be sold for profit.

     SEE ALSO
          termcap(5)

     BUGS
          The Ogre sometimes gets confused and doesn't know where to
          go, so it oscillates from one hex to another, and then back.