CORPORATE RAIDER by SoftServ Inc.
User's Manual
Corporate Raider is a game for the IBM PC and compatible computers
based on the phenomenon in American business of corporate takeovers.
You, the player, attempt to take over corporations in various
industries trying to gain a monopoly in the industry. The object of
the game is to take over controlling shares of all of the companies in
a given industry.
1. Installation and Startup
Before you can play the game, it must first be installed on either
hard disk or disk(s). Due to the slow access times of floppy disks,
it is recommended that Corporate Raider be installed on a hard disk,
or RAM disk, if possible. If you wish to install the program on
floppy, you will need either two standard 360K floppy drives or one
high density drive (720K or 1.2Meg).
To install Corporate Raider, place Corporate Raider Disk #1 into
drive A. Log onto A by entering A: then type:
INSTALL
The installation program will prompt you for a video adaptor type
and your hard/floppy drive arrangement. For an EGA video adaptor,
the game will run with 16 color 640 X 200 graphics. For a CGA
video adaptor, the game will run with 2 color 640 X 200 graphics.
For all other video adaptors, the game will run in text mode.
Corporate Raider requires 256K bytes of RAM.
To start playing the game, change to the directory that contains the
Corporate Raider program files and type:
RAIDER switches
where switches can be /S, /R or /M:
/S causes the game to start up with sound disabled
/R will cause the game to start up from a 'SAVE'd game
/M for playing the game on a monochrome monitor
For example, to run the game using a previously saved session with
sound disabled, enter:
RAIDER /S /R
2. Playing the Game
You begin the game by owning companies in each of twelve industries.
You play one industry at a time and can change industries at any time.
When changing industries, you have the option of saving the game for
the industry you have been playing in. You also have the option to
restore a previous game in the industry to which you have changed.
There is a "hostile corporation" in each industry that is trying to
take over other companies as well. It is possible for the hostile
corporation to take over your company in which case you lose the game.
The hostile corporation is assigned randomly from the list of
companies when the game begins.
You win the game when you take over all of the companies the industry
in which you are playing. You can only take over the hostile
corporation after you have taken over all of the other companies
in the industry.
2.1 Companies
You begin the game by entering your name. You are then assigned a
company in each of the twelve industries. A ticker symbol is generated
for your companies by using the first character a your last name, a
unique character for each industry, and an exclamation point.
For example, if you enter in your name as Bob Jones, you are assigned
the following companies:
Company Name Ticker Symbol
----------------------- -------------
Jones Computer Company JC!
Jones Textile Company JX!
Jones Steel Company JS!
Jones Mining Company JM!
Jones Timber Company JT!
Jones Chemical Company JH!
Jones Pharmaceutical Company JP!
Jones Petroleum Company JO!
Jones Automotive Company JU!
Jones Aerospace Company JA!
Jones Retail Company JR!
Jones Entertainment Company JE!
2.2 Obtaining Financing
An important aspect of the game is how you raise money to fund the
takeovers of the various companies that you wish to purchase. Ways of
raising money include:
1. Company funds gained by buying and selling stocks.
You can buy and sell stocks of any company in the exchange using
the BUY and SELL commands. When the game is started, a random
profile is generated for each company. In each game there will
most likely be some stocks that perform very well and some stocks
that perform very poorly. The information used in the profile can
be viewed by using the REPORT COMPANY command.
In order to purchase a major share in a company, you must first
file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) using the
FILE command.
2. Conventional bank loans
To obtain a loan from the bank, use the FINANCE command. If you
qualify for the loan, you will receive the funds, however you
will be charged interest periodically while playing the game. If
you do not qualify for a bank loan, you will be referred to a
venture capitalist.
3. Venture capital
Venture capital is obtained in same manner as a bank loan but at
a higher interest rate. If you do not qualify for vanture
capital, you will be referred to a junk bond broker.
4. Sale of junk bonds
Junk bond funds are obtained in same manner as venture capital
but at a higher interest rate.
5. Greenmail
Greenmail occurs when a company buys back shares that you own at
an inflated price. It is possible for a company to offer
greenmail when you tender a takeover offer with the OFFER command
(provided you already own shares via the BUY command).
2.3 Takeovers
A takeover is accomplished by owning the majority of the outstanding
shares of company. This is accomplished with a tender offer using the
OFFER command.
When the OFFER command is entered, you will be prompted for the price
you are offering for the outstanding shares. The company will respond
by accepting the offer (if the price is high enough), declining the
offer, or offering to buy back any shares you already own (greenmail).
It is not possible to take over the hostile corporation until you have
taken over all other companies in the industry. When you take over the
hostile corporation, you win the game.
2.4 Blocking
During the course of the game, the hostile corporation is competing
with you for control of the industry. As a result, the hostile
corporation will attempt to take over your company. You can attempt to
block this attempt by using the BLOCK command. It is possible that as
the result of the BLOCK command, the hostile corporation will offer
you the opportunity to buy back the shares of your company that it
owns (at a premium, of course, since you are being greenmailed!).
2.5 Reports
You can obtain a report of your stock holdings by using the REPORT
HOLDINGS or REPORT H command.
You can obtain a quick report on a company by entering REPORT [SYM]
where [SYM] is the ticker symbol for the company. A detailed report is
obtained by entering REPORT COMPANY [SYM] or REPORT C [SYM].
If you would like to know the name and symbols for all companies whose
names begin with a particular letter, use the COMPANY command.
2.6 Save and Restore
At any point you can save the game you are playing by using the SAVE
command. Games are saved according to the industry and only one game
can be saved per industry. Whenever you quit playing by using the QUIT
command or change industries by using the INDUSTRY command, you will
be prompted with the opportunity to save the game you are leaving.
When you change industries, you will be prompted with the opportunity
to restore a previously saved game for that industry. If you start up
the game with the restore command line option (/R) the saved game, if
there is one, will be restored for the selected industry.
2.7 Help
Quick help screens can be displayed for the various commands by
entering the HELP command.
2.8 Printer and Sound Control
All wire service events can be echoed to your system printer by
enabling the printer with the PRINTER ON command. The printer can be
disabled with the PRINTER OFF command.
The sound can turned on and off by using the SOUND ON and SOUND OFF
commands.
2.9 Shell Escape
The BOSS command can be used as a quick exit to DOS with the state of
the game preserved. This is particularly useful if you are playing
this game on company time and your boss is coming. The DOS EXIT
command is used to get back into the game.
3. Command Summary
Note: [SYM] refers to a company ticker symbol.
<argument> refers to an optional argument.
BLOCK
Used to block a takeover attempt by a hostile corporation.
BUY [SYM] <shares>
Used to buy stock on the stock exchange.
FILE [SYM]
Used to file with the SEC.
FINANCE
Used to obtain financing.
INDUSTRY
Used to select an industry in which to trade.
OFFER [SYM]
Used to tender a takeover offer.
REPORT [SYM]
Used to obtain a quick report on a company.
REPORT COMPANY [SYM] or REPORT C [SYM]
Used to obtain a detailed financial report.
REPORT HOLDINGS or REPORT H
Used to report holdings of your company.
SELL [SYM] <shares> or SELL [SYM] <ALL>
Used to sell stock on the stock exchange.
SAVE
Used to save the game for later play.
QUIT
Used to quit the game.
4. "Hot Keys"
The "Hot Keys" are used as a shorthand method of entering commands by
using the Function Keys on the PC keyboard. There are:
F1 - HELP F2 - BUY ALT-F1 - COMPANY
F3 - SELL F4 - REPORT ALT-F2 - BOSS
F5 - INDUSTRY F6 - OFFER ALT-F7 - PRINTER
F7 - FILE F8 - FINANCE ALT-F8 - SOUND
F9 - BLOCK F10 - SAVE ALT-F10 - QUIT
ESCape - Clear command line
CTRL-R - Repeat previous command
CTRL-NumLock - Suspend game (any key to resume)
