Monster Encounters
Combat

During the course of your adventures, you will encounter many types of vile creatures that try to stop you in your path. By ridding the kingdom of them, you will earn valuable experience points which help you earn promotions; and you will get to keep whatever gold or other items you find amongst the fallen foe.

When you encounter a band of monsters, you will be faced with a screen like the one above. The picture in the top-left always shows the first (or closest) monster group in out of all the monster groups you face. To the right of the picture, monsters you face are listed by group. Notice that there are actually two groups of monsters attacking you in this case. The first group is a spider 20 feet away, and the second group is a single cobra at 20 feet. In this case, your party has three choices:
Fight
If you chose to fight the monsters you face, or you attempted but failed to run away from them, then combat proceeds by choosing a set of commands for each character in your party for the upcoming round of battle. Note that summoned creatures cannot be given commands during combat. They will always automatically attack the first monster in range. All other characters may choose from the following four menu options:
Confirm

When you have entered a command for each member of your party (except for a summoned creature, if you have one), you will be prompted to confirm the use of your given commands before the combat round proceeds. If you accidentally entered the wrong combat command for a certain character, or you change your mind about a combat command, this is your chance to start over and assign new commands for the upcoming round.

Note that when combat round messages are scrolling, you can increase or decrease the scroll speed using the up and down keys.


Special Attacks
Advanced spell casters (and certain monsters) learn the ability to take advantage of special combat measures and counter-measures during combat. For example, a monster can summon another monster to join it's ranks, but in many cases, you may be able to dispell a summoned foe. Another example, a monster can inflict insanity upon a member of your party. This character will lose his or her ability to do anything useful until he or she is cured. Learning to use these special spells and counter-measures can be much more effective than brute-force attack and defense type actions. With a little experience, a good player will be prepared to defend against certain monsters, and become adept at taking advantage of other monsters' weaknesses.