Oasis: Game Rules

Mind Control Software
April 2005

Overview

• You are the future Scarab King. Your father, the Falcon King, has been murdered. Egypt has plunged into chaos, and an evil fog has covered your father's empire.
• Using your magical staff, you will lift the fog and rebuild the empire. Your followers will flock to you and obey your commands.
• You will discover cities, build roads, and develop new technologies.
• Your goal is to seek out the Oasis and the Obelisk it contains, and to protect it from the barbarian hordes.
• Once your presence in a kingdom is discovered, you have a limited number of turns before the barbarian horde arrives. Spend your turns wisely, develop your kingdom carefully, or watch the barbarian hordes smash it to rubble!
• If your kingdom survives with the Obelisk intact, you will be able to retrieve its Glyph, and the power to restore order to the land. Earn twelve Glyphs from twelve different levels, and you will have the power to restore the empire, dispel the fog forever, and become the Scarab King.

Your First Game

The best way to learn to play Oasis is to play! Click “Play Oasis,” and let the tutorial guide you through every aspect of the game. You’ll be retrieving Glyphs and fending off Barbarians in no time!

Playing a Level

• Each level of Oasis is a 10x10 grid of squares. Every legal move consists of clicking on a square.
• You are represented by the Scarab King icon. You start on the edge of the map, in the only desert square not covered by the fog.
• At the start of each level, you have 85 turns to spend. Every legal move consumes one turn.

Explore

Searching the Desert

Click on any fog tile that borders the desert. The Scarab King will travel there and dispel the fog. When the fog is cleared from a tile, you may find a City, a Field, the Mountains, the Oasis, or more Desert:

• Cities: Cities are the mainstay of your empire. They provide the armies and defenses you will need to repel the barbarian hordes. The number on each city is its population, which determines the size of the army it can contribute. You can strengthen your cities by connecting them with roads, and by searching them for magical treasures.
• Fields: Cities are surrounded by fields on all sides. When you find a field, it means that a city must be nearby. Fields that are adjacent to two or more cities are noticeably darker in color.
• Mountains: The mountain range is completely impassible. Mountains can be seen from far away, and will be revealed when you explore any adjacent square. Some mountains contain mines, which are useful for producing technology.
• Oasis: The Oasis is a paradise that grants magical powers to the Scarab King. It can always be found on the edge of the map. One square of the Oasis contains the Obelisk, which holds the key to your victory.
• Desert: This barren wasteland makes up much of your kingdom. Because many nomads make it their home, desert is the best place to find followers. Somewhere in the desert is a cairn your spies have built to mark where the barbarians will enter the kingdom.

Gaining Followers

Rebuilding your empire will require the help of followers. Followers can build roads, mine mountains, and reinforce your armies. Every time you explore a field or desert square, you will find a few more followers. Nomad camps are a particularly abundant source of followers, and are concentrated in a single area of the desert.

O-A-S-I-S

On any level where you explore the entire Oasis, you earn a letter of the word "oasis."  If you spell the entire word, you will be taken to a special bonus level where you can get a free Glyph of Power, and lots of Scarab Power. But beware! Searching the Oasis can be a frivolous waste of turns. See to the defense of your kingdom before seeking out O-A-S-I-S letters.

Build

Roads

Once you’ve found a few cities, it is a good idea to connect them together with roads. To start building a road, click on an explored square next to a city. Continue the road by clicking on adjacent squares. Each road segment cost 5 followers to build.

When cities are connected by roads, they will trade with each other, and grow in population every 5 turns. Cities connected by roads can also supply each other with troops to help repel the barbarian hordes.

Mines and Technology

In addition to building roads, you can improve your cities' chances of defeating the barbarians by developing technology. 

Technology is developed by placing followers in the Mines that appear in the mountain range. Click on a mine to deposit 10 followers in it. (If you don’t have 10 followers, you can still click to deposit as many as you have.) Deposited followers become miners, and work in the mines every turn until the end of the level.

When you place miners in a mine, the Technology Bar at the bottom of the screen shows your miners digging towards the next available technology. They will dig over the course of many turns.  Whenever they reach the end of the tunnel, you earn the next technology, and your miners start working on another one. See Mining and the Technology Bar below for more details.

Treasures

Some cities contain magical treasures. To search a city for treasures, click on it. Some treasures are weapons useful in fighting the barbarians, others have special powers. Some cities will have more than one treasure. The treasure display at the top of the screen shows what treasures are available to be found.

The Secrets of the Obelisk

If you have extra turns, you can click on the obelisk to explore its secrets.  Spending a turn in this way will give you a random gift from the Gods.  These gifts are usually small, but can sometimes be quite potent.  They can come in the form of Technology, Scarab Power,  extra turns, or even an O-A-S-I-S letter!

Fight

When your 85 turns are up, the barbarian hordes are on their way!

Gathering Your Troops

Before the barbarian hordes arrive, you will have 10 seconds to prepare for the invasion.

Click on any city to reinforce it:

• Any leftover followers you have will be added to the city as population.
• Up to 50 units of population will be drawn to that city from the other cities that are connected to it by roads.
• You can click multiple times to draw more and more population, 50 units at a time.
• Each city can hold a maximum of 400 population, and must hold a minimum of 10.
• Try to amass your troops in the city you think the barbarians will attack first.

The Barbarians Attack!

When your 10 seconds are up, the barbarian horde will appear on the edge of the map, and attack the closest city. The square where they will enter is marked with a cairn, but only if you explored it with one of your 85 turns.

Once the barbarians attack a city, your soldiers will defend it using the manpower, treasures and technology available to them. If they lose, the barbarians will attack the next closest city. The barbarians will keep fighting until they are defeated or they have destroyed all your cities.

Scarab Power and Defeat

If the barbarians destroy all of your cities, they will come to the Obelisk to battle you personally. You must defend yourself using your Scarab Power. Your current amount of Scarab Power is shown in the Scarab King’s staff. You gain more Scarab Power whenever you explore the Oasis.

If you found the Obelisk and recovered its Glyph of Power during your 85 turns, then the Glyph will smite the barbarians as they arrive at the Obelisk, defeating up to 50 on the spot. The Glyph is destroyed in the process. If there are any left, you must use your Scarab Power to defeat them. Each point of Scarab Power defeats one barbarian. If you do not have enough Scarab Power to repel the barbarian horde, you are defeated and the game is over!

Prevail!

If you or your armies defeat the barbarian horde, then you survive to the next level. If you recovered the Glyph of Power from the Obelisk, then you will keep it for the rest of the game. When you have collected 12 Glyphs of Power, you are victorious!

Game Features

Treasures

Here is the complete list of all the treasures that can be found by searching cities.

Weapon Treasures

Weapon treasures give your city a damage bonus in combat. Each city can only have one of each weapon, and the weapons are always found in ascending order of damage.

• Sword: +2 damage bonus (i.e. every hit defeats one extra barbarian)
• Spear: +3 damage bonus (i.e. every hit defeats one extra barbarian, and every odd hit defeats a second extra barbarian.)
• Hammer: +4 damage bonus (i.e.every hit defeats two extra barbarians)

Special Treasures

Special treasures are always the only treasure in a city. Each has a unique effect.

• Jewel of the Pharaohs: If the Jewel’s city survives the barbarian assault, you will receive a 1000 point bonus to your score at the end of the game.
• Lamp of the Gods: If the Lamp’s city survives, you will receive a large amount of Scarab Power. The lamp only appears if your Scarab Power has dropped to a dangerously low level.
• Advisor: Advisors are special characters that will join your cause if enough cities survive. Once an advisor joins you, he will stay for several levels, granting you a special new ability. See Advisors below for details.

Advisors

There are six different advisors who might join your cause:

• The Alchemist: Increases your technology production by 33%, and adds an additional mine to the mountain range.
• The Architect: Increases your maximum city population to 500.  Increases the rate at which your cities grown in population.  Builds a bonus city at the start of the level, which begins the level already explored.
• The Engineer: Decreases the cost of road building to 1 follower per segment. Builds a free road through each Mine, allowing your road network to cross the mountains.
• The General: Gives a +2 damage bonus to all of your cities. During the 10-second troop movement phase, reveals the size of the barbarian horde (only if you found the cairn during your 85 turns). Also see Multiple Barbarian Hordes below.
• The Scout: Automatically reveals the mountain range at the start of the level.  Scouts ahead, showing you what is beneath the fog in squares that you could explore on your next turn.
• Mother Sepabee: Adds 20 bonus followers at the start of the level. Builds a "nomad village" in the center of the nomad camps, which can be clicked for additional followers.

Once an advisor joins your cause, he will stay with you until he retires.  An advisor will announce his retirement if either of the following are true:

• You have earned 3 glyphs since the advisor joined you (2 glyphs on Insane difficulty) or
• You have survived 6 levels since the advisor joined you. 

Technology

There are eleven technology advances you can develop:

• Bows and Crossbows increase your soldiers’ chances of damaging the barbarians each round of combat.
• Helmets and Armor protect your soldiers by deflecting a blow that would otherwise be fatal.
• Catapults and Ballistae inflict large amounts of damage on the barbarians, but only fire every few seconds. They never miss.
• Spikes automatically defeat 10 barbarians as they approach a city.  Traps defeat another 20. 
• Pikes allow you to train new soldiers quickly. At the start of each battle, 20 new soldiers are added to your city, potentially exceeding your city’s maximum population.
• Maps reveal 5 "interesting" squares on the map, as if you had spent 5 turns clicking on those squares.
• Scarab Power Orbs give you 100 points of Scarab Power.  This is the last technology, and it can be earned multiple times.

Mining and the Technology Bar

The Technology Bar at the bottom of the screen shows your miners' progress towards the next technology.

• Blue miners dig through rubble towards the next technology advance, shown at the right end of the tunnel.  Each blue miner represents 10 followers that have been spent on mining.
• In addition to the blue miners, there are also yellow Foremen.  Each mine has one foreman, who joins you when you add followers to that mine.  One foreman performs the mining labor of 10 followers, so putting miners in as many mines as possible will increase your technology.
• Solid Rock shows where your miners will reach by the time the level ends.  If the next technology is encased in solid rock, your miners will not reach it by the end of the level.
• At the top of the Technology Bar, stone carets mark of how much progress your miners will make each turn.  You can use this information to help plan your mining.
• At the end of the level, your miners will continue to dig while you gather your troops.  They perform one turn of mining every two seconds, on the "odd-numbered" ticks.

Multiple Barbarian Hordes

Late in the game, you may begin to encounter levels with more than one barbarian horde.

• When there are multiple hordes, the hordes will attack one after another. There is only one horde attacking at a time.
• The hordes may emerge from different points on the edge of the map. When this happens, there will be more than one cairn.
• In the case where there are multiple cairns, there will be a number on each cairn. The numbers on the cairns indicate the order in which the barbarians will attack.
• If you see a cairn with no number, it means that it is the only one.
• If you have the General, he will grant you an additional opportunity to move your troops around before the next horde arrives. He only does this if you have discovered the cairn that marks the horde’s entry point.

The Spoils of Battle

If the barbarians defeat one of your cities, they will sack the city and gain a damage bonus, much like the damage bonus your cities can gain from treasures. The first time they sack a city, they get a +1 bonus, each time after that they gain +2. Likewise, whenever one of your cities defeats a barbarian horde, it gains a +1 bonus.

Keyboard Interface

Oasis can be played with the keyboard.

• The Arrow Keys move the Scarab King around. If you move him into the fog, he will dispel the fog and explore that square.
• Use the Space Bar (or Enter) to “click” on the Scarab King’s square. This is useful for building roads, adding miners to mines, or searching cities.
• Press the  Tab key to make random move.  Hold down the Tab key to make random moves in rapid succession. This can be fun to watch.
• Hold the Shift key to teleport the Scarab King, which will move him without spending any of your turns. While the Shift key is held, use the arrows to move the reticle to your desired location.  Release the Shift key to teleport.  You can only teleport to squares you have already explored.
• Holding down the  Control key will increase the game speed. This is useful for fast-forwarding through battles, or through the 10-second troop deployment phase.

Strategy Tips

• Invest in mines early. They build technology over the entire course of the level once they are started.
• Invest in as many mines as possible. The more mines you have, the harder your miners work.
• Build roads as early as possible. Only cities that are connected together increase in population. The more cities that are connected together, the faster they all grow.
• Search cities for treasures. There are more treasures on the Hard and Insane levels of play. Since weapon treasures always appear in ascending order, you can often deduce which cities might still have treasures in them.
• During your 10 seconds of troop movement, try to concentrate your forces at the city the barbarians will strike first. You’ll also want to take advantage of the city treasures you find, so you may have to make a tough choice between a close city and a city with lots of treasures.
• Don't be too greedy and try to take too many Oasis tiles. It's a sure way to lose! Always focus on a military victory first, then, if you're confident that you're going to win, grab the low-hanging fruit.
• If you have enough turns, finish the Oasis. There’s a big scarab power bonus, and a chance to get to the Bonus Level.

Notes from the Designers

• Oasis was designed to be played fast. Although players can ponder their every move, Oasis is a game of risk taking and exploration.
• Take chances. Generally, your Scarab Power and the Glyph will defeat the barbarians. You have a safety net.
• If you’re winning the game on Normal or Hard, try Insane. It’s designed to be very challenging, but there are also more treasures and greater opportunities for more technology.
• Oasis was designed around the central principle that there should be no such thing as a “bad click.” The idea was to see what it would be like to play a game with lots of carrots, and only one, very big stick.
• Try watching other people play Oasis. It’s fascinating to see other strategies. Much like a card game, you’ll see many approaches to play.