Taipan

Taipan

Taipan is a game of trading in the Orient during the 1800's.

Taipan v 1.0.1

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Taipan is a game of trading in the Orient during the 1800's.

How To Play

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*) Starting A New Game

Once you name your firm, you will be given an option about how you want to start the game.

You can choose to have either 400 in cash, 5000 in debt and no guns (harder) or no cash,

no debt and 5 guns (easier).

Once you make your choice, you will be transfered to the City page and arrive in

Hong Kong. Every time you arrive in Hong Kong you will have the opportunity to visit

Elder Brother Wu, the moneylender.

*) What To Do In Town

From the City page, you have some options. If you choose to start with guns, you will

probably want to start sailing around from city to city looking for enemy ship to

plunder. To sail away, select the destination city from the Go To: popup in the upper

right corner. Once you encounter an opposing fleet, you will be go into Combat mode.

If you choose to start with cash, you can begin to buy and sell commodities. In either

start mode your first ship will have 60 cargo spaces available (guns take 10 spaces each,

so if you took the guns, you'll only have 10 left). Displayed across the middle of the

City page you will find the local price per uint, the quantity you own stored in your

ships hold and the quantity you own stored in your Hong Kong warehouse for each of the

four commodities (Opium, Silk, Arms and General Cargo). Below the Hold and Warehouse

columns, the total units in use and the total space left is displayed.

*) Buying, Selling and Transfering Cargo

Tap on the unit price or quantity owned to select the commodity to trade, select the mode

for each table from the popups above each and push one of the transfer buttons to execute

the trade/transfer. The tables can be set to the following modes:

Buy/Sell (Right Table Only):

Displays the cost of each commodity. Transfering from this column (< button) performs a

Buy operation. Transfering to this column (> button) performs a Sell operation. The

left table should be set to indicate where purchased goods are to be stored and where

sold goods will come from.

Hold (Either Table):

Displays the amount of each commodity stored in your hold and the space available.

Warehouse (Either Table, Hong Kong Only):

Displays the amount of each commodity stored in your Hong Kong Warehouse and the space

available.

You can transfer goods from your hold to your warehouse (or vice versa) when in Hong Kong

by selecting Hold for one table and Warehouse for the other table and tapping one of the

transfer buttons.

The amount that is Bought/Sold/Transfered is controlled by the push buttons below the

goods tables ranging from 1 to All.

*) Banking

There is a bank located in Hong Kong that you can use to save money and accrue interest.

Money stored in the bank is not subject to loss due to theft or fines.

*) Events

Events can occur when traveling between cities or on arrival at a city. Certain events

can occur at other times.

Events include:

Combat - While at sea, you run across either free lance pirates or the dreaded pirates

of Li Yuen! You will be transfered to the Combat form to do battle or run away.

McHenry - Any time you arrive in Hong Kong, if your ship is in less than Perfect

condition, you will be given the opportunity to visit the Hong Kong Shipyards where

McHenry will repair your ship, for a price of course.

Li Yuen - Every once in a while Li Yuen decides it's time to extort some money from you.

His lieutenants will accost you upon arrival anywhere but Hong Kong and tell you to go

to Hong Kong to pay Li Yuen. When you arrive in Hong Kong, Li Yuen will ask you for

some money. If you pay him, he will be satisfied for a while. If you do not, he will

continue to ask for money and his lieutenants will continue to pester you. Furthermore,

when Li Yuen wants money from you, his pirate fleet will be hostile towards you and

will appear more frequently. (They may still chase away othe pirates, but they will then

attack you.)

New Ship - Upon arrival at any port you may be given the opportunity to trade in your

existing ship for a larger one. If your ship is currently damaged, the price will be

higher.

New Gun - Upon arrival at any port you may be given the opportunity to purchase an

additional gun.

Elder Wu - Upon arrival in Hong Kong you will be given to opportunity to visit Elder

Brother Wu, the moneylender. Elder Wu may provide you with additional cash, but like

most banks, he won't lend you more than you have. Also like most banks, your loan

accrues interest at an alarming rate.

*) Combat

During combat, you have three options: Fight, Run or Throw Cargo. Tap the desired action

and then tap the "Go" button to begin the first round. Fighting will fire each of your

guns once. Running will attempt to escape from some or all of the enemy ships. Throwing

Cargo will increase your chances of escaping.

At the end of each round, the enemy ships will shoot back at you. They may either miss,

hit causing ship damage or hit and destroy a gun. If your ship status falls below 0%,

your ship will sink and the game will be over.

Between rounds, you can choose a different action for the next round or leave the current

action selected. Tap go to proceed with the next round. Combat will continue until all

ships are destroyed, escaped from or run away. In some cases, Li Yuen's pirate fleet

may show up and chase the others away. If you've paid him off, he will leave you alone.

Otherwise you will have to fight a whole new fresh batch of ships. If you succeed in

sinking or driving off all of the opposing fleet, you will be able to plunder the remains.

The greater the number of enemy ships in the fleet, the greater rewards can be.

The NFI push buttons are shortcuts to the Combat speed preference settings for Normal,

Fast and Instant speed.

Version History

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*) 1.0.1

-- Fixed a bug that could cause a Fatal Exception error when Cash/Bank or Debt exceeded

1 Million.

-- Fixed a bug that could cause a DataMgr: Index out of range error.

-- Fixed a bug that could cause a crash on the Buy/Sell/Transfer page when the popup menus

were tapped repeatedly at any city except Hong Kong.

-- Adjusted enemy ship strength to decrease damage early on and increase it at later stages

of the game.

-- Adjusted the random seeding to produce a more appropriate distribution of events.

Credits

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Taipan was created by Art Canfil for the Apple II. This version for the Palm Pilot was

written by Matt Bowen.

Send comments or bug reports to [email protected]. Updates can be found on many Pilot

software web sites (such as www.palmgear.com and www.palmcentral.com) or at the Taipan

homepage at http://mdbowen.ne.mediaone.net/taipan.

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