En/Manual
From OpenAnno
This is the under construction manual of OpenAnno, the development edition of the manual. A stable release of the manual will be made in PDF format with each release. Additionaly you can find the manual corrosponding to to newest release version of OpenAnno on our information page.
Contents |
Introduction
Welcome to the first playable demo of OpenAnno. OpenAnno is a real time strategy game which follows game play similar to the Anno (known as "A. D." in the USA, Canada and Australia) series by Sunflowers/Ubisoft. But we also try to improve on the it by adding new features to the game.
The game is being developed by volunteers. We aren't professional but we do it as hobby and don't get paid for this. Why we do this: We learn something and you have got fun while playing - hopefully.
OpenAnno is an open source game. That means, that everyone can look at and modify our source code, the text which tells the computer how OpenAnno works. Therefore, everyone's invited to help us and join the team. You can find further information on the Main Page under "Developer".
OpenAnno is and will remain free and open source. This means, that you are allowed to download and play the game legally for free. Furthermore, it is even better if you copy and distribute the game or demonstrate it in public, as long as you keep to rules.
Please remember that we can give no guarantee that OpenAnno works without problems. The actual Demo-Version is not completed and does not include all functions and Buildings. If anyone wants to help us you can do this by Bugreport in the Forums or contacting us at the IRC-Chat.
The following is the first Version of our manual. But just as OpenAnno it is not complete. If you find mistakes or missing things, contact me by PM on the forums, by the IRC or you can leave me a message on my Discussionpage
From the whole OpenAnno team I wish you have a fun time playing and exploring the first Demo.
With best wishes,
Andre
General
Play goal
In OpenAnno you have to build a colony and make money by supplying your people with food, alcohol or access to public buildings like a chapel or church. Also you can fight wars with other players and trade with the merchants.
GUI
The user interface of OpeAnno consists basically of the main screen and then from top left clockwise:
Resource area
In this area all belongings of the current island appears. The display will appear only when the mouse pointer is over the island and the island is in your possession. The gold display appears globally forever - whether an island is active or not. The gold stocks are also independent of islands and everywhere the same.
City info area
This area shows you all necessary information on the currently selected city. You can find the owner's coat of arms, the total population of the city and it's name here.
News area
In this area are all important information about the game will be displayed. If you hover over an icon with the mouse pointer, a small descriptive text will appear. If you click on a message, the view jumps to the point of interest. The messages disappear after a certain time. If more than four messages are current, you can scroll through the messages by using the two small buttons placed on the left and right side of the news bar.
Menu - and Help button
You can open the menu with this button or use the Escape-key. In this menu can you save or load game and also go back to the mainmenu.
Next to it is the golden interrogation mark, which shows the keyboard bindings when clicked on.
Mini map
Besides the minimap are some buttons, they are for resizing and turning the perspective. The telescope hides the minimap. More information is available in the chapter "The mappanel".
Dialog
This part is variable based on game conditions. At the bottom is all important information, the buildmenu, information about selected ships or buildings and the exchangemenu between ships and the branch office. You can hide the dialogs by leftclicking on an empty part (water or land) of the gamemap.
Menu buttons
Here are all important menu buttons, the build button (tools) and the diplomacy button (document). If you click on one symbol, the corresponding menu will be opened.
Concept
Navigation
This chapter is about navigation of the map, scrolling, zooming and rotating the perspective.
Scroll the perspective
There are two ways to scroll. You can either use the four arrow keys or you can touch the screen border with the mouse to move the perspective in one direction.
The map panel
The panel is to zoom and turn the map. The two magnifying glasses are for scaling the perspective up ("+") and down ("-"). The compasses are for rotating the perspective. The minimap is actually not implemented yet, but you can toggle it with the telescope. The four control buttons will be repositioned at the bottom.
Marking
There are two ways to mark something.
...by clicking
Only click on an object to mark it.
...by drawing a border
Hold down the left mouse button and draw a border, so every unit in this border will be marked.
You can't mark more than one building at a time, but if there are units and buildings in a border, the units will be marked but not the building.
Ship control
This chapter explains how to navigate a ship.
Movement
To move a ship you must select it first, with a left click. The ship will be white bordered and a green health bar is shown. To deselect the ship click on a different object or an empty part of the map. After selecting the ship you can move it by clicking in the deep water (dark blue), with the click you see a marking in the form of a buoy. The ship moves on the shortest path to the marking.
When an object is selected an info window appears at the bottom middle of the screen. This info panel is constituted of two separate tabs which you view by clicking on one of the golden orbs.
The first tab shows you basic status information. Beside the ships picture you can find the ships name and its health in percent. With the button at the bottom right corner you can build new settlements if the ship is in range of a suitable coast.
If you press on the bottom golden orb, the inventory of the ship appears. Every hold keeps a maximum range of 50 units of a good of your choice. The green bar beneath each slot shows in percentage how full the current hold is. A click on the wooden box opens the trade dialog. With this dialog you can swap or trade goods between the branch office and the ship. The details of the dialog is not within the scope of this chapter and will be discussed further on.
Founding a colony
To create a new settlement, we need a few necessities fulfilled. First, enough tools and lumber are located in the ship. In addition, the ship is in the range of a coast. In order to build the settlement, click on the ship information dialog, in the first tab on the right building symbol and then build the branch office like any other building.
Once the button to build a new settlement has been operated, appears around the ship a lighter area, showing where a settlement can be created. Within this radius, the branch office can constructed. A branch office must always be built on the beach. If the place unsuitable, the ghost image in red, otherwise white. To create the final building, simply left click on the place.
Loading of goods
Before constructing buildings on the island, you need some initial amount of goods in the warehouses of the island. This will be is achieved by transferring goods from the ship into the branch office. To load goods, select the ship and then the second tab in the info panel. Bring up the trade panel by clicking on the wooden crate.
The goods exchange dialogue consists of two parts. The upper part represents the stock of the city, the lower part that of the ship. Here too, green bars show which show the stock status. As against the ship's stock, the city stock can contain only 30 units of a material per slot. With "Trade with:" you can change the target city if there are more than one branch offices in range. Below with "Exchange:" you can adjust, how many units of the good should be transferred per click.
To swap goods, just press on one of the buttons on the ship or in the branch office and the good will be transported to the other side immediately. If the stock is full, the symbol appears grey on the opposite site. It also appears grey if own stock is empty.
Building
If you have enough goods in the branch office, you are ready to build buildings. Click on the build button on the left side of the screen to change to bring up the buildings panel.
The build menu consist of six tabs which list all the buildings. In the tabs sort the buildings by function:
- Services: Important formal buildings, like the branch office or the church
- Residents: Residential building
- Companies: Building and processing companies
- Military: Barracks and town defense
- Infrastructural: Streets, bridges etc.
- Specials and Gifts: Special buildings and gifts for the citizen
Click on the building which you wish to build. Now you can place the building like the branch office. If the ghostview of the building is red, you can't build the builing at that place or you don't have enough resources. Place the building by left clicking on a suitable location.
How much a building costs, is shown above the actually resource index. After creating a building, the resources will be deducted and the deduction index will be hidden.
Screenshots
To take a screenshot, while playing the game, press the S-key. The screenshot will be stored with the date and time as a PNG-image. To open the image, change with a filebrowser into the openanno folder. The screenshots are saved in the "content/screenshots" folder.
Units
This chapter cover are all available buildings and ships.
Ships
This ship is for founding a colony and it has all the important goods required to start.
Buildings
The following part covers details of all available buildings of OpenAnno and are listed by their settlergrade. Crossed out buildings are planned but have not been implemented yet.
Sailors
This is the first settlergrade. All people are living in basic tents or sheds. The citizens are satisfied with a church, food and clothes.
Services
Outpost
The outpost is the branch office. It's the main island store, pier for ships and administrates the whole island.
Storage tent
In the storage tent it's possible to store resources and products. It's practical to do so if the branch office is far away, and the companies haven't enough carts.
Town square
Signal fire
The signal fire is visible from far away and direct the ships to your harbor.
Sunsail
A sunsail is a little chapel created by the priest, it satisfies a village with elementary religious needs.
Residents
Tent
Your settlers are living in tents and spend their daily life there. They demand for work, food, clothes and a place to satisfy their religious needs.
Companies
Weaver
The weaver takes fresh wool from the herder and produces cloth, from which citizens tailor simple clothes.
Lumberjack
The lumberjack saws trees into usable pieces for building materials.
Hunter
Herder
The herder fosters his animals to produce sufficient food and wool for the settlement.
Fisher
The fisher travels with his boat out to sea for fishing to provide for the citizens food demands.
Raft builder
Military
Tower
The Tower keeps a watch over the settlement and helps detect enemies quickly.
Wall
Infrastructural
Trail
The basic trail is used by units on foot. It makes walking easier for units as compared to walking on vegetation.
Bole
Specials and Gifts
Appendix
Shortcuts
There are some useful shortcuts in OpenAnno. If you want to see a list of them ingame, just press F1 or click on the question mark at the top on the right. Alternatively you can find them on the main menu screen by pressing the questionmark-button or F1, too.
- ← = Scroll to the left
- → = Scroll to the right
- ↑ = Scroll to the top
- ↓ = Scroll to the bottom
- F1 = Show the help
- F5 = Quicksave
- F9 = Quickload
- F10 = Toggle the console on/off
- ESC = Show the game menu
- T = Toggle the grid on/off
- X = Wreckingball/Pull down building
- P = Pause
- + = Faster
- - = Slower
- S = Screenshot
- ⇧ = Enables, by pressing, the building of multiple equal buildings one after another.
- , = Rotate building left
- . = Rotate building right
Production lines
