                  MARS RULES AND MAPS

     To use this mod pak, back up your RULES.TXT and UNITS.GIF files.  Rename
MARSRULE.TXT to RULES.TXT, and MARSUNIT.GIF to UNITS.GIF.

     These maps are based on the role-playing game "Space: 1889", and are for
the planet Mars.  Mars is a largely Desert world, studded with Hills and
Mountains, and criss-crossed with strips of Plains (the remnants of silted-up
canals).  The best land (Grassland and Plains) is in the dried-up sea beds.
There is a network Grand Canals (Ocean squares) and lesser canals (Rivers)
connected to the polar regions (broad strips of Tundra and Arctic terrain).
My first Mars map (not included) had no open water (Ocean) at all, just
Rivers.  The game engine seems to object to this: I could start playing on
it, but the game slowed down after a while and finally locked up.  The two
maps included are very similar; the main changes in MARS3.MP is some more
Grand Canals and some surface water (River squares) on the silted-up Desert
canals.  The maps have been slightly altered since the last release, to
include Hills and Mountains in the Tundra and Arctic regions.

     Changes in RULES.TXT vary from minor to major.  The transform terrain
path is changed to allow some ambitious terraforming: Forest -> Jungle ->
Swamp -> Ocean -> Swamp.  Some special terrains have been renamed (and more
may be later), but the attributes stayed the same: Wine becomes Liftwood,
Peat is Gumma, Spice is Bhutan.  Mining Mountains gets 2 more shields, not
just 1 more.  Mining Grassland into Forest takes 15 turns, Plains to Forest
takes 10 (I switched them because Plains is already a mixed terrain).
Science lost under Fundamentalism is 30% not 50%.  Under Communism, the first
_5_ units are support-free, not the first 3.  However, all cities have a
distance of 3 from the capital, resulting in universal low-level corruption.

     The biggest change is that most ships are aerial, not aquatic (after all,
this _is_ a Desert world).  The ships that stick to the water are those that
carry other units: Trireme, Caravel, Galleon, Aircraft Carrier, Transport.
Thanks to the antigravity properties of Liftwood, Mars took to the air rather
early.  The first flying unit is the War Kite (Frigate); it has a flight
endurance of 5 turns, but can only attack ground units.  The Gunboat
(Ironclad) also flies for 5 turns, but can attack air-to-air.  All later
flying ships have a 10-turn endurance.  Airplanes also have Liftwood in them:
Fighters and Jet Flighters fly 2 turns, Bombers and Jet Bombers for 3 turns.
Stealth Ship is the aerial version of the Submarine.

     My custom UNITS.GIF is included, but not really complete.  The flying
ships are there, but the Ruumet Breehr still has the Elephant picture and
mounted units still have horses, not gashants.  If someone who is good at
drawing animals (I'm not) wants to try, here's a description:

Ruumet Breehr - gray in color, with howdah on back.  Body form resembles a
rhinocerous, with a bony plate on the front of a broad skull, no horns.

Gashant - color gray, brown, tan, or dirty yellow like khaki.  Body form like
a forward-leaning tyrannasaurus, forelegs atrophied into stumps.  Beak-like
mouth, bony plate on front of head, crest from top of skull halfway down neck.
Bony club on tip of tail drags on ground when standing still.
