# Empire Boy — Player's Guide A tile-based real-time strategy game for the original Game Boy, in the spirit of Age of Empires II. Gather resources, build a base, raise an army, and raze the enemy's Town Centre before they raze yours. This guide is for playing the game: what the buttons do, what everything costs, and how to survive long enough to flatten the enemy base. If you're new, skim **The aim of the game**, **Controls**, and **A solid opening build order** first. The deeper tables are here when you want the exact numbers. --- ## The aim of the game It's you against one computer opponent on a 32×32 tile map. - **You win** by destroying the **enemy Town Centre**. - **You lose** if the AI destroys **your Town Centre**. To get there, run an economy, grow your population, build military buildings, train an army, and march it across the map to tear down the enemy base. The win/lose screen returns you to the title so you can play again. The game runs in **slow real-time**: time always advances, but unit, build and training timers are gentle so you have room to drive the cursor between decisions. --- ## Controls The whole game is driven by a single tile **cursor** and the four buttons. Most buttons do double duty depending on what (if anything) you have selected. | Input | Action | |---|---| | **D-pad** | Move the tile cursor. Push at a screen edge and the map scrolls (the world is bigger than the screen). | | **A** | **Context action.** On your own unit → select it. With a unit selected: on a tile → move there; on a resource → gather it; on an enemy unit/building → attack it. On one of your **production buildings** → open its train menu. With **select-all-military** armed → order the whole army. With a **production building** selected (menu closed) → set its **rally point**. | | **B** | Cancel / deselect / back out of a menu. **With nothing selected → jump to your next idle villager** (press again to cycle through them). **On the setup screens → go back one screen.** | | **Start** | With a **villager** selected → open the **Build** menu. With a **production building** selected → open its **Train** menu. **With nothing selected → arm select-all-military** (then press again, or **B**, to disarm). | | **Select** | **In a match → Pause / unpause** (a `PAUSED` banner shows; in a linked match either player pauses or resumes both consoles). On the **title screen** → toggle **Sound On/Off** (see *Sound* below). | ### Selecting and ordering units 1. Move the cursor over one of your units and press **A** to select it (a bracket frames it). 2. Press **A** on a destination tile to send it there. It routes around obstacles (water, mountains, resources, buildings) automatically. If the destination is **completely walled off** (no route exists at all), the unit walks as far as it can and **presses up against the wall** rather than refusing to move — so an army ordered at a sealed-off base advances to the barrier instead of standing still. 3. Press **A** on a **resource tile** (forest / berries / gold) to send a villager to gather it. 4. Press **A** on an **enemy** unit or building to attack it. 5. Press **B** to deselect. Only **one unit at a time** can be selected for individual orders — but you can command your **whole army at once** with select-all-military (below). ### Quality-of-life controls These shortcuts cut down on cursor trips — handy because you give orders slower than the AI does, so the game hands you tools to keep up: - **Pause (Select).** Press **Select** during a match to freeze everything; a `PAUSED` banner shows on the bottom bar while the battlefield stays on screen. Press **Select** again to resume. In a 2-Player Link match, either player can pause or resume and the same state and banner are applied to both screens. Good for catching your breath and reading the map mid-battle. - **Select-all-military (Start, nothing selected).** Press **Start** with no unit or building selected to **arm army command**, then press **A**: on an enemy → the *whole* army attacks it; on open ground → the whole army **attack-moves** there (walks over, engaging any enemy it meets on the way, then carries on). Villagers are left out of it, so your economy keeps working. Press **B** or **Start** again to disarm. This is the fast way to move your army as one. - **Orders onto blocked ground still work.** A move or attack-move aimed at a tree, water, a mountain, or a building's own tiles sends the unit to the **nearest open tile beside it** instead of being ignored — so you can point your army straight at an enemy base that's still under fog and they'll march up to it and pick their fights when they arrive. - **Jump to idle villager (B, nothing selected).** Press **B** with nothing selected to snap the cursor onto your next **idle** villager; press again to cycle through any others. If income suddenly stalls, tap **B** to find the slackers and put them back to work — then **A** to select and order one. **With no villager idle, B jumps to idle soldiers instead** — after a battle, tap **B** to round up the survivors scattered across the map and send them back to the front. - **Rally points.** See *Training units* below — set where freshly trained units gather so they don't pile up on your buildings. **The cursor tells you what A will do.** As you move it around, the cursor changes shape to match the action waiting under it, so you can read the order *before* you press **A**: | Cursor shows | Means **A** will… | |---|---| | **Corner brackets** | **Select** the friendly unit/building under it | | **Diamond** | **Move** the selected unit to this tile | | **Axe** | **Gather** this resource (forest / berries / gold) | | **Sword** | **Attack** the enemy unit/building under it | | **Hammer** | **Place** the building you're positioning | | **Hollow box** | Nothing here to act on | ### Building (villagers only) With a villager selected, press **Start** to open the **Build** menu. The buildables appear together on a menu row at the bottom of the screen (part of the HUD, not floating over the map), each with its cost shown below. In the **Feudal** age you can build **House, Barracks, Blacksmith, Farm, Market**, plus **Walls & Gates**; advancing to the **Castle** age (see *Ages & upgrades*) adds the **Archery Range**, **Stables**, **Tower** (a defensive turret — see *Defending: Towers & garrison*) and **Siege Workshop**. Press **Left/Right** to move the highlight and **A** to pick one and enter placement. The **name of the highlighted building** is spelled out on the cost row (next to its Wood cost), so you can tell the icons apart at a glance: - The D-pad drags a **ghost footprint** across the map. - It reads **OK** over valid, empty grass and **blocked/hatched** over occupied, blocked, or off-map cells. - **A** commits (spends the Wood); **B** cancels. **Buildings are built by a villager, not summoned.** Committing drops a **foundation**, and the villager you used walks over and **constructs it over a short build time** — a small **hammer icon** sits over it while it's going up. A foundation is **not functional yet**: it can't train units, and a House doesn't raise your population cap, until it's finished. A few things follow from this: - You can't realistically build **in the enemy's base** — your villager has to walk there and stand exposed for the whole build, so forward building is a real commitment, not a free drop. - Keep the builder alive: if it's killed mid-build the foundation just **pauses**. Send another villager onto it (press **A** on the foundation with a villager selected) to resume. - Put more than one villager on a foundation to **build it faster**. ### Repairing & demolishing - **Repair.** With a villager selected, press **A** on any of your own **damaged** buildings to send the villager to **repair** it — its HP climbs back up over time for a little Wood, and a **wrench icon** shows while the work is underway. Handy for patching up your Town Centre or a battered military building between attacks. One repairer out-heals a lone attacker, but not a group — repair buys time for your army to respond; it isn't a substitute for one. - **Demolish.** Select one of your buildings (press **A** on it) and its HUD menu shows a **Demolish** icon alongside any train option; pick it to tear the building down (a demolished House gives its **+3 population back**). You can't demolish your Town Centre. Useful for clearing a misplaced building or reclaiming the space. ### Training units Press **A** on one of your production buildings to open its train menu directly: | Building | Trains | |---|---| | Town Centre | Villager | | Barracks | Spearman | | Archery Range | Archer (Castle age) | | Stables | Cavalry (Castle age) | | Siege Workshop | Battering Ram (Castle age) | The **name of the highlighted option** (the unit, or a research line) is spelled out on the cost row next to its cost, so you can tell the menu icons apart at a glance. Press **A** to start training (if you can afford it and you're under the population cap); **B** closes the menu. While a building is training, an **hourglass icon** shows over it; the unit appears beside the building when its timer finishes. (Each building's menu also carries a **Demolish** option — see *Repairing & demolishing* above. The **Town Centre** and **Blacksmith** menus also offer **research** options — see *Ages & upgrades* below — and the **Market** menu offers **resource trades** — see *Markets: trading for Gold*.) **Queue several at once.** Pressing **A** on a producer that's *already* training the same unit **stacks another order** behind it (up to **5** waiting), charging each as you queue it — so you can tap **A** a few times to line up a batch instead of babysitting the building. The HUD shows what you're training as an **[icon][count]** tray on the status bar. Pressing **B** on the menu always closes it without touching the queue. To cancel and refund a queued order, highlight the explicit **Cancel Queue** option in that producer's menu and press **A**. If you hit the population cap, the queue **holds** and resumes the moment a House (or a death) frees a slot. **Rally points.** By default a trained unit just stands beside its building. To send new units somewhere automatically, select the production building, press **B** to close its train menu (the building stays selected), then press **A** on any walkable tile to set that building's **rally point**. From then on, every unit it trains walks straight to that tile — handy for gathering an army at a forward muster point, or routing new villagers toward a fresh resource patch. ### Defending: Towers & garrison Two ways to turtle once you reach the **Castle** age: - **Defensive Tower.** Build a **Tower** (a Castle-age building) anywhere you want to cover — it **auto-fires at the nearest enemy unit in range**, no orders needed, so it guards a chokepoint, a resource patch, or your base while your army is away. It's tough (lots of HP) but, like any building, it has to be **built by a villager** first. It only shoots **enemies** — your own units pass safely. - **Garrison your Town Centre.** Under a raid, pull villagers to safety **inside the Town Centre**: press **A** on your TC to open its menu and choose **Garrison**, then press **A on the exact villager** you want to shelter — any villager, even one mid-task (it leaves the field but **still counts toward your population**). A Town Centre with anyone garrisoned **fires arrows** at nearby enemies, just like a Tower, turning it into a defensive strongpoint. Choose **Ungarrison** from the same menu to send the sheltered villagers back out (they reappear beside the TC). Classic "garrison under attack, then get back to work" play. - **The Town Bell.** When the raid is already on top of you, picking villagers one at a time is too slow — ring the **Bell** instead (the last option on the Town Centre's menu): **every villager within 6 tiles drops what it's doing and runs inside** in one press. The manned TC starts firing, your workforce is safe, and one **Ungarrison** sends everyone back to work once the coast is clear. ### Walls & Gates Fence your base off with **Walls** (15 Wood each) — cheap 1×1 segments that block movement like a mountain, so you can seal a flank, close a chokepoint, or box in your economy. Drop a **Gate** (30 Wood) where you need to get in and out: **your** units walk through a gate freely, but the enemy treats it as a wall and has to go around — or batter it down. Walls are available from the **Feudal** age. - **They take time to build**, just like any other building. Placing a Wall or Gate drops a **foundation** and sends the selected villager to build it up; it doesn't block-for-real (and a Gate won't open for your units) until it's finished. Build each segment, then re-open the menu for the next — and if a builder gets pulled away, select a villager and press **A** on the unfinished segment to resume it. - **Walls are not indestructible.** Each finished segment has **120 HP**; an enemy that can't get around one will attack it, and it falls after enough hits. To knock down an enemy's wall yourself, select a military unit and press **A** on the wall. - **Turtling tip.** A wall line with a single gate, backed by a **Tower** or a garrisoned **Town Centre**, forces raiders into a killing lane. Don't seal yourself in so tightly your own army can't sally, though — that's what gates are for. ### Siege Workshop & Battering Rams Once you reach the **Castle** age, the **Siege Workshop** lets you train **Battering Rams**. Rams are slow, tough siege units built to crack buildings: they hit normally for only **2** damage, but get a huge **+24 damage** bonus against buildings, Walls, and Gates. Use Rams to punch a hole through a wall line, break a defensive Tower, or finish off a Town Centre. Escort them with soldiers: Rams do not chase enemy units on their own, and they are poor in a stand-up fight against an army. ### Seeing what things cost Whenever a **Build** or **Train** menu is open, the HUD grows two rows upward: an **options row** showing every choice's icon at once, and a **cost row** below it showing the highlighted option's price. Each cost number sits directly under its matching resource in the stockpile bar, so you can read **what you have** (top) against **what it costs** (below) at a glance. Only the resources an option actually needs are shown. Any option you **can't afford** (or that's blocked by the population cap, or a building already busy training) has its **icon dimmed to grey** — and because all the build options show together, you can see at a glance exactly which buildings are within reach before committing. ### Reading the HUD A status bar runs along the **bottom** of the screen showing, left to right: ``` Food Wood Gold Population / Cap ``` --- ## The economy Resources are gathered by **villagers** from a tile **next to** the resource (they never stand on it). A villager walks to the resource, mines until it's carrying a full load (**carry capacity 10**), hauls it back to a drop-off (your Town Centre — it can deposit at any edge of the footprint), then repeats. | Resource | Source tile | Speed | Mainly buys | |---|---|---|---| | **Food** | Berries | Fastest | Villagers, Spearmen, Cavalry, population | | **Wood** | Forest | Medium | Houses and all military buildings, Archers | | **Gold** | Gold ore | Slowest | Archers, Cavalry | **Distance is the real rate limiter** — the further a resource is from your drop-off, the slower the effective income. Keep gatherers near home and expand outward. ### Resources run out Resource tiles are **finite**. Each holds a number of loads (one villager carry = one load): - **Forest** → **5 loads**, then becomes a walkable **stump** (eventually grass). - **Berries** → **7 loads**, then **grass**. - **Gold ore** → **8 loads**, then **grass/rock** (rich enough to support the age advance plus Archers/Cavalry without adding extra resource clutter to the map). A 2×2 starter Berry cluster therefore holds roughly **28 loads** (about 280 Food); same-size Forest clusters hold **20 loads** (about 200 Wood). Enough to open with, but not forever. When a villager's tile runs dry it automatically re-targets the **nearest live resource of the same type** nearby; if none is close, it goes idle (check your villagers if income suddenly stalls). So the map gradually opens up over a match and you're pushed to expand — you can't camp one forest forever. ### Farms: a renewable Food source Build a **Farm** (Wood only, see *Buildings*) and put a villager on it — with the villager selected, press **A** on your own finished Farm — and it gathers Food exactly like Berries, standing beside it and hauling loads back to your Town Centre. Unlike Berries it **never runs out**, so a Farm is the way to lock in a steady Food income once the wild patches near your base start to thin out. You can't work an enemy's Farm, and it demolishes like any other building if you need the space back. ### Markets: trading for Gold Gold is the tight resource — Archers, Cavalry, Blacksmith upgrades and the Castle age all cost it, and gold ore runs dry. Build a **Market** (Wood only) to open a **release valve**: press **A** on it to open its menu and pick a trade: - **Sell Food → Gold** — spend **100 Food**, receive **50 Gold**. - **Sell Wood → Gold** — spend **100 Wood**, receive **50 Gold**. The menu's bottom row spells out each trade: the commodity you **spend** (Food or Wood) and the **Gold you get** in return. The trade is **instant** — the Gold lands the moment you press **A**, and the menu stays open so you can **keep tapping to sell in bulk** and watch your stockpile shift. The 2-for-1 rate means it's a way to *convert a surplus*, not free money — but when your gold mines are exhausted and you're sitting on spare Food or Wood, a Market keeps your army and upgrades coming. It demolishes like any other building. --- ## Population | | Value | |---|---| | Starting population cap | **4** (granted by the Town Centre) | | Per House | **+3** | | Maximum cap | **16** | Every unit — villager or soldier — costs **1 population**. When you hit the cap, training is blocked until you build another House (or a unit dies). Build houses early so your training never stalls. **When training is waiting for room, the population digits on the HUD blink.** A blinking pop counter means a finished unit is being held — usually you're at your cap (build a House), or the battlefield is simply full (the map supports 16 units across both empires; win a fight or lose a unit and the queue pops out). The order isn't lost — it resumes by itself the moment room opens. --- ## Units You start each match with **3 villagers**. Your main combat units share a **counter triangle** so no single unit dominates: **Spearman beats Cavalry → Cavalry beats Archer → Archer beats Spearman** (the Archer out-ranges the Spearman). | Unit | Role | HP | Attack | Range | Armor | Speed | Trained at | Cost | Train time | |---|---|:--:|:--:|:--:|:--:|:--:|---|---|:--:| | **Villager** | Gather & build | 25 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Medium | Town Centre | **50 Food** | 12 s | | **Spearman** | Melee infantry | 45 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Medium | Barracks | **60 Food** | 14 s | | **Archer** | Ranged | 30 | 5 | 4 | 0 | Medium | Archery Range | **40 Wood + 30 Gold** | 16 s | | **Cavalry** | Fast melee | 50 | 8 | 1 | 1 | **Fast** | Stables | **70 Food + 40 Gold** | 20 s | | **Battering Ram** | Siege breaker | 80 | 2 (+24 vs buildings) | 1 | 2 | **Slow** | Siege Workshop | **120 Wood + 50 Gold** | 30 s | **Counter and siege bonuses (extra damage):** - **Spearman: +5 vs Cavalry** — brace spears to break a charge. - **Cavalry: +4 vs Archer** — fast enough to close on archers and ride them down. - **Archer (range 4)** punishes Spearmen who can only hit at range 1 — but is fragile (30 HP, no armor) once anything reaches it. - **Battering Ram: +24 vs buildings, Walls, and Gates** — slow and weak against soldiers, but brutal once it reaches a structure. **Combat model:** damage per hit = `max(1, attacker Attack + counter bonus − defender Armor)`. Armor never makes a unit fully immune (minimum 1 damage). A unit attacks once its target is within range and its cooldown has elapsed; an idle unit that gets hit **retaliates** automatically. Hit sparks and HP bars show the fight on screen. > **Soldiers fight by default.** An idle **military** unit (Spearman, Archer, > Cavalry) automatically attacks the nearest enemy unit or building that comes > within a short radius — so a garrison left at your base defends itself. > **Villagers never pick fights**; they keep gathering. Any order you give > **overrides** auto-engagement: a unit you've told to move or gather ignores > nearby enemies until that order > finishes, so you always stay in control — move a soldier away and it won't turn > back to brawl. **Battering Rams** are military units too, but they only attack > when you order them onto a target. > **Friend or foe:** your units and the enemy's are drawn through different > shading so you can tell them apart at a glance, and each civilization's > military units have a distinct silhouette. --- ## Buildings You start with one **Town Centre** (pre-placed). Everything else you build with a villager. Buildings are tough — razing a base is a real commitment, not a drive-by. | Building | Footprint | Wood cost | HP | Age | Purpose | |---|---|:--:|:--:|:--:|---| | **Town Centre** | 2×2 | — (pre-placed) | 400 | — | Drop-off for resources; trains Villagers; researches the **Castle age**; **garrisons villagers & fires arrows when manned**; **its destruction wins/loses the game** | | **House** | 1×1 | **30** | 150 | Feudal | **+3 population cap** | | **Barracks** | 2×1 | **160** | 250 | Feudal | Trains Spearmen | | **Blacksmith** | 1×1 | **120** | 200 | Feudal | Researches permanent **attack / armor** upgrades (no units) | | **Farm** | 1×1 | **80** | 100 | Feudal | Renewable **Food** source — work it like Berries, but it never runs out | | **Market** | 2×1 | **140** | 200 | Feudal | **Trade** surplus Food or Wood for **Gold** — see *Markets: trading for Gold* | | **Archery Range** | 1×2 | **175** | 200 | **Castle** | Trains Archers | | **Stables** | 2×2 | **190** | 300 | **Castle** | Trains Cavalry | | **Tower** | 1×1 | **150** | 350 | **Castle** | **Auto-fires** at the nearest enemy unit in range (no units) | | **Siege Workshop** | 2×1 | **200** | 250 | **Castle** | Trains Battering Rams for breaking buildings and walls | | **Wall** | 1×1 | **15** | 120 | Feudal | Blocks movement — fence off your base and funnel attackers | | **Gate** | 1×1 | **30** | 120 | Feudal | A wall **your** units walk through but the enemy can't — the door in your wall | You can only build on plain, unit-free **grass**. The **Archery Range**, **Stables**, **Tower**, and **Siege Workshop** appear in the Build menu only once you've reached the **Castle age**. The row shows **seven** buildings at once, which is the whole Feudal list — so until you reach Castle, everything you can build is on screen together. In Castle the list outgrows the row and **scrolls** (◄ ► arrows): press Left/Right past the edge to reach the rest. > **No turn-one rush.** You start with **150 Wood** — enough for an early House > (30 Wood) but *not* any military building (the cheapest, the Barracks, is 160). > You must gather Wood before you can field an army, and so must the AI. --- ## Ages & upgrades Both sides start in the **Feudal age** and can advance once to the **Castle age** — the strategic spine of a match, in the spirit of Age of Empires II. ### Advancing to the Castle age Select your **Town Centre** (press **A** on it) and its menu offers, alongside the Villager, an **Advance to Castle Age** option (a castle-keep icon). It costs **300 Food + 100 Gold** and takes a good while to research (the Town Centre can't train Villagers while it's researching), so it's a real mid-game investment. When it completes: - **The elite roster unlocks.** You can now build the **Archery Range**, **Stables**, and **Siege Workshop**, and so field **Archers**, **Cavalry**, and **Battering Rams** — they're **Castle-age units**, unavailable in Feudal. - **The higher Blacksmith upgrades unlock** (tiers 2–3, below). - **A one-time army boost:** every one of your units gets **+1 attack**, applied instantly and permanently. Aging is a commitment — it ties up your Town Centre and a chunk of resources — but without it you're stuck with Villagers and Spearmen while a Castle-age opponent fields cavalry, archers, and siege. **The AI ages up too**, so don't fall behind. ### Blacksmith upgrades The **Blacksmith** (120 Wood, a Feudal building) researches **permanent stat upgrades** for *all* your units, present and future. Select it to open its research menu — it offers two lines: | Line | Effect per tier | Cost (tier 1 / 2 / 3) | |---|---|---| | **Attack** | **+1 attack** to every unit | 60 / 120 / 180 Food (+ 0 / 40 / 80 Gold) | | **Armor** | **+1 armor** to every unit | 60 / 120 / 180 Wood (+ 0 / 40 / 80 Gold) | Each line has **three tiers** (a cumulative +1, +2, +3). **Tier 1 is available in Feudal**; **tiers 2 and 3 require the Castle age.** A tier can't be researched twice, and like training, research runs on the building's timer (an **hourglass** shows while it works). These bonuses feed straight into the combat formula — a Spearman with +2 attack researched hits for **8** instead of 6 — and they **stack with the Castle age's +1 attack** and your civ bonuses. A Blacksmith economy is how you make a small army punch above its numbers. --- ## Civilizations There are three civilizations. Each is the **same units and buildings** with different numbers — one economic strength, one military strength, and one deliberate weakness — so each is strong in a different phase and none is strictly best. | Civ | Identity | Economy bonus | Military bonus | Trade-off | |---|---|---|---|---| | **Picts** | Turtle / economy | Gather **Wood +20%** | Buildings **+25% HP** (hard to raze) | **Cavalry costs +25% Gold** | | **Lombards** | Infantry / pressure | Barracks costs **−25% Wood** | Spearmen tougher & **train faster**; **+1 starting Spearman** | **Archers −1 range** (fire at 3, not 4) | | **Alans** | Cavalry / mobility | Villagers **move faster** & gather **Food +15%** | Cavalry **+20% HP** (60 instead of 50) & faster | Buildings **−15% HP** (fragile base) | Bonuses are small percentages — they tilt a match, not decide it. All of the bonuses above are live. > **Choosing a civ:** after the title screen a **civ-select screen** lists the > three civilizations. Use **Up/Down** to move the marker and press **A** to pick > yours; the AI is automatically assigned a civ that > counters your choice (Picts → Alans → Lombards → Picts), so picking a > different civ — yours *and* the opponent's — visibly changes the match. --- ## Choosing a map After you pick your civilization, a **map-select screen** lets you choose the battlefield. Use **Up/Down** to move the marker and press **A** to start the match on the highlighted map: | Option | What you get | |---|---| | **Classic** | The fixed, hand-designed map — the same symmetric layout every time, good for learning the game or a repeatable fight. | | **Arena** | A different, but still fixed, generated map — plays the same on every pick, so you can master it too. | | **Random** | A **fresh map every match**, generated on the spot. | Every map — fixed or random — is **perfectly fair**: it's built with 180° rotational symmetry, so whatever terrain, forests, gold and obstacles your side has, the enemy has an identical mirror image. Random maps are also checked to be **fully connected** (both bases and every resource patch are always reachable) and to give each side a **starter kit** of forest, berries and gold near its base — so you'll never get a dead start or a base walled off from the fight. The map starts mostly **hidden under fog** — you can only see your own Town Centre, starting villagers, and anywhere you've explored since. Walking a unit somewhere, or finishing a building, permanently reveals the ground around it (a building sees further than a lone unit), so scouting matters: send a villager or soldier ahead to find the enemy base and the resources between you. Once revealed, ground **stays** revealed for the rest of the match — nothing you've already seen goes dark again, even after you leave. ### Choosing a difficulty level After you pick your map, you select how tough the AI opponent should be. Use **Up/Down** to move the marker and press **A** to choose: | Difficulty | What to expect | |---|---| | **Training** | **Sandbox mode** — the AI gathers, builds, and even ages up, but **never trains military** or attacks. Practice economy, building, and unit controls without pressure. | | **Easy** | A **gentle opponent** — standard resources, a full **three minutes of peace** before its first attack, waves of only **two** soldiers, and a smaller army overall. Good for learning the basics. | | **Normal** | The **balanced experience** — the AI gathers all resources, grows its economy, counters your army, and keeps steady pressure — but grants you about **two minutes** to set up before its first wave marches. | | **Hard** | A **serious challenge** — it thinks faster, attacks as early as it can muster (around the **one-minute** mark), and starts with **extra resources** (more Food, Wood and a solid Gold purse). You'll need sharp economy and smart army composition to win. | The AI also **varies its strategy** from match to match: it might **Rush** (early Barracks and Spearman pressure), **Boom** (economy-first, then overwhelm with a big late army), or **Fast-Castle** (bank Gold to age up quickly and field Archers and Cavalry). Harder difficulties favor the more aggressive openings; Easy never rushes. This keeps every match feeling different even at the same difficulty. --- ## Sound The game has a short heraldic title theme and an original driving background music loop during matches — a dark, medieval strategy-game mood with a low hand-drum groove, written for the original Game Boy's four-channel sound hardware. Music uses two channels (plus drum hits whenever the noise channel is idle), while keeping sound-effect channels free for short, recognizable effects: - **Select** a unit/building, and **order** a move/gather/attack - **Combat hits**, a **building placed**, a **unit finishing training**, and a **villager depositing** a resource load - A low **"bonk" whenever an order is refused** — too poor to train or research, an invalid building site, or an army command with no army. If you hear it, the game got your press and said no; nothing was spent - **Confirming options** on the civilization, map, and difficulty screens - A triumphant **rising** chime on **victory** and a low **falling** one on **defeat** The effects you hear are for **your own** empire — the AI's distant economy across the map stays quiet so the audio reflects what *you* are doing. **Sound On/Off:** on the **title screen**, press **Select** to toggle sound. The line at the bottom reads `SELECT SOUND ON` / `SELECT SOUND OFF`; the setting sticks for the matches that follow, muting both music and SFX. During a match, **Select** still pauses/unpauses the game; the music mutes while paused and resumes when play continues. --- ## Title screen & end-of-match stats The **title screen** is a full illustrated scene: the **EMPIRE BOY** wordmark over a dawn sky with a low sun on the horizon, and a castle on the ridge below whose keep and both flanking towers fly **fluttering banners**. The menu sits in a panel across the bottom. Use **Up/Down** to highlight **1 PLAYER VS AI** or **2 PLAYERS**, then press **A** to confirm. Every screen after it — civilization, map, difficulty, and link setup — uses the same panel, with your current choice shown as a **highlighted bar** beside the marker. The one-player path continues to civilization, map, and difficulty selection; the two-player path opens link setup. **Press B to go back a screen.** Changed your mind about the map while you're on the difficulty screen? B returns you to it, and each screen reopens on the choice you last made rather than resetting to the top of the list. B from the civilization screen returns to the title. Your picks are remembered between matches too, so a rematch on the same settings is four quick presses. With a Game Link Cable connected between two Game Boys, use **Up/Down** to select **Host** on one console and **Join** on the other, then press **A** on each to confirm. Once linked, the Host picks the **civilization** and **map**, and both choices are sent over to the Join side. There is **no difficulty screen in a two-player match** — difficulty only tunes the computer opponent, and in a linked game both sides are human. **Start** cancels out of the link screens at any point. The Host runs the match simulation, while the Join console receives continuous unit movement and world updates. Join-side orders are acknowledged and retried if the cable is briefly busy, and depleted Forest, Berry, and Gold tiles update on both screens. Either player can press **Select** to pause or resume the linked match; both screens freeze and show or clear `PAUSED` together. If the link cable goes quiet mid-match (a jostled connector, a peer that got switched off), a **LINK LOST** banner takes over the same bottom-bar spot the Pause banner uses, and the game freezes exactly like a pause. If the link recovers within a few seconds the banner clears and play resumes on its own — no button press needed. If it stays silent too long, the match ends and you're dropped back to the title. When a match ends, the **VICTORY** or **DEFEAT** screen reports how it went (a match ended by **LINK LOST** shows the same stats screen instead): - **Time** — how long the match lasted - **Trained / Lost / Killed** — units you trained, units you lost, enemy units you destroyed - **Built / Razed** — buildings you put up, and enemy buildings you tore down - **Gathered** — total resources your villagers brought home In a 2-Player Link match both consoles show their own figures, so each player sees the match from their own side. Press **Start** to return to the title and play again. --- ## Build orders & strategy ### Know your opponent The AI plays a genuine macro game with **variable difficulty and strategy**. Its behavior depends on the **difficulty level** you choose (Training/Easy/Normal/Hard) and the **strategy** it rolls for that match (Rush/Boom/Fast-Castle): **Base AI behavior (Normal):** - It opens with a **House**, then a **Barracks**, and its first attack — a group of **three Spearmen** — marches on your Town Centre at roughly **2m30s** in. That's your defensive deadline: enough time to get a Barracks up and two or three Spearmen of your own out, *if* you don't dawdle. - It **grows its economy**: it trains extra villagers (up to ~5) and gathers all three resources, **Gold included**. You can still out-expand it (it's bounded, and the map is big), but you have to actually *play* your economy. - It **counters your army.** The AI watches what you field and builds the unit that beats it — mass Cavalry and it makes Spearmen; mass Archers and it makes Cavalry; mass Spearmen and it switches to Archers. Spamming one unit type won't work; **mix your army**. - It **advances to the Castle age** when its economy can carry it, then fields **Archers and Cavalry** of its own and gains the +1 attack bump. If you sit in Feudal too long it will out-tier you — plan your own age-up. - Its **attacks never stop** — after the opening wave it keeps steady reinforcement waves coming, keeps adding Houses, and if its army can't grow any further it **presses the attack with what it has** rather than sitting at home, so a passive player *will* be ground down. Don't dawdle: stay ahead on economy and keep your defence current. - It **defends its own base.** When your army reaches the enemy Town Centre, the AI **garrisons its villagers inside** — they duck to safety *and* the loaded Town Centre starts firing on your troops — then sends them back to work once you pull off. In the Castle age it also builds a **defensive Tower** at home. Don't expect the enemy base to sit there quietly while you chip at it. - It **breaks your walls.** Turtling behind **Walls and Gates** no longer stops the AI cold: once it sees you've walled up, it techs to the **Castle age**, builds a **Siege Workshop**, and rolls **Battering Rams** at your wall line to smash a hole for its army. Walls buy you time, not permanent safety — back them with units and Towers of your own. - It **won't starve you out by outlasting the map.** When the wild Berry patches run dry, the AI **plants Farms** for a renewable Food supply and keeps its economy going — so racing it to deplete the shared Food nodes won't quietly stall it. **Difficulty differences:** - **Training:** The AI does everything above **except train military or attack** — perfect for practicing economy and controls. - **Easy:** Same economy but **slower tempo** and **no early rush** — the first wave comes later and smaller, giving you breathing room. - **Hard:** **Faster thinking**, **bigger waves**, and **extra starting resources** — you'll need sharp play to keep up. **Strategy variety:** The AI also rolls a random **opening strategy** each match: - **Rush:** Early Barracks, fast Spearman pressure to disrupt your economy. - **Boom:** Economy-first, building up villagers and resources before hitting you with a large late-game army. - **Fast-Castle:** Banks Gold to age up quickly, then fields Archers and Cavalry to counter your Feudal forces. Your edge is **uncontested expansion** (you can push out and grab map resources faster than it will) and **reading its counters**. Parking three villagers and waiting will not carry a match. ### A solid opening build order 1. **Villagers to work immediately.** Select each of your 3 starting villagers and send them to gather — a good split is **2 on Berries (Food)** and **1 on Forest (Wood)**. Food is your most flexible resource (villagers, Spearmen, Cavalry, population), so lean on it early. 2. **House first** (30 Wood) as soon as you have the Wood, to lift your population cap from 4 to 7. Don't let training stall at the cap. 3. **Pump 2–3 more Villagers** from the Town Centre (50 Food each). The AI grows its own economy too, so this is about **out-expanding** it — get more workers onto the map's resources than it does. Build a **second House** to make room. Remember a building is raised by a villager and takes time, so start it early rather than at the moment you need it. 4. **Bank Wood for a military building.** The cheapest is the **Barracks** (160 Wood) → Spearmen. You start with 150 Wood, so you need only a little gathering before you can place one. 5. **Defend the first wave.** Keep 2–3 Spearmen home and meet the AI's trio at your base — your Town Centre is tough, and braced defenders beat an attacker who arrives piecemeal. When you need to respond fast, **Pause (Select)** to read the battle, and use **select-all-military (Start, then A)** to send your whole garrison onto the attackers in one go. 6. **Age up and upgrade.** Once your economy is humming, drop a **Blacksmith** and start **attack/armor research**, and research the **Castle age** at your Town Centre to unlock Archers + Cavalry and the +1 attack bump. A Castle-age, Blacksmith-upgraded army beats an equal number of raw Feudal units — and the AI will age up too, so don't skip it. 7. **Then push out.** Once your economy is ahead, mass a mixed army and march it across the map to **raze the enemy Town Centre**. The AI's base is its weak point — focus the Town Centre and ignore distractions. ### Using the counter triangle **Spearman → Cavalry → Archer → Spearman.** Once you reach the **Castle age** and can field the Gold-gated Archers and Cavalry: - **Spearmen** are your bread-and-butter melee and **shred Cavalry** (+5 bonus). - **Archers** out-range Spearmen — keep them behind your line and they'll whittle enemy infantry from 4 tiles away, but protect them: anything that reaches them kills them fast. - **Cavalry** are fast raiders that **run down Archers** (+4 bonus) and harass villagers, but they lose head-on to braced Spearmen. Mix your army to answer what the enemy fields rather than spamming one unit. ### Picking a civilization Each civ rewards a different plan — match your build order to your pick: - **Picts** — *turtle & economy.* +20% Wood and +25% building HP. Lean on the tough buildings to absorb the AI's pushes while you out-economy it; great if you like to defend, boom, then roll out a big late army. - **Lombards** — *infantry pressure.* Cheaper Barracks, tougher and faster Spearmen, and you **start with a free Spearman**. Get the Barracks up quickly and apply Spearman pressure earlier than anyone else. - **Alans** — *mobility & tempo.* Faster villagers and +15% Food make for a snappy economy; their Cavalry are elite. Use the gather speed to power an early villager boom — but mind your **fragile buildings** (−15% HP), so don't get caught undefended. Remember the AI is assigned the **counter** to your pick (Picts → Alans → Lombards → Picts), so each match plays a little differently. Good luck, commander.