Island selection[edit]
Welcome to Mega Lo Mania (also known as Tyrants: Fight Through Time). At the start of each epoch (9 in total), you are given 100 men; these men will need to be allocated among three different islands within an epoch. You get another 100 men per new epoch which will stack. So save as many as possible (you will need them later).
Here you can also load/save games (by codes) and turn on/off music and sound effects (SFX). Note: at least in the Amiga version you can only have either music or SFX.
To enter a battle, select one of the islands. Allocate the number of starting men in your tower, and select one of the sectors for a given island.
Main game screen[edit]
- Information: Provides information about resource cost for researched technologies.
- Attack: Allows you to move men from the tower (along with weapons) and into the current or nearby sector. The forces will automatically engage enemies within a given sector (with unarmed men being given a weak attack), or will build a new tower in a vacant sector.
- Defense: Allows you to assign a man to a defensive point on a building.
- Repair: Views the health of a tower, and gives the option to repair it (after researching a technology)
- Mine: Shows and allows allocating resource production. Resources shown with a hand are automatically collected. Others need dedicated miners.
- Build: Allows construction of additional buildings, such as a mine, factory, or laboratory.
- Invent: Allows researching shields (used to repair towers), defenses, or weapons.
- Produce: Constructs advanced weapons, such as catapults.
The game speed is controlled by the man icon on the top. There are three speed settings available, with most versions automatically slowing down the game if your tower is under attack.
You can click the shield icon for a rival deity to offer an alliance. If it is accepted, you will be able to assist in combat with the other deity, but will be unable to build towers as long as the alliance holds. If there are no other gods left, the alliance will dissolve.
Gameplay[edit]
Your chance of winning per island depends on the sector you chose to start in (and the amount of people of course). Each sector has different resources. You can assign all your men to an island to build lab, factory and collect resources to see what technology is available for research, effectively scouting each sector before you start the actual session to win on the specific island. E.g. some sectors will only provide repair shields (starting out in such a sector is not ideal). Knowing all sectors also helps you know what your enemies can build in their starting sectors.
Generally, you do not really have time for turtling in most maps, especially in the later epochs when nukes become available. Start out with a small amount of men. You should not have to use more than 40 per island except for the final epoch. The earlier epochs require around 10-20 per island. Let your men clone and increase the assigned men to building/collecting resources gradually while your population grows. The higher the total number, the faster you can produce stuff.
Whenever a sector reaches the year 2001, you can choose to shutdown that sector (via shield/repair icon) as long as you have at least 1 man outside this sector. Shutting down will teleport these men to the final game map. You will need to shut down a single sector at least once throughout the whole game or you will instantly lose on the final map! It is even possible to teleport 999 men. However, the apparent maximum that you can get is 100, as has been reported on the final map. The final map can be won with only 30 men, so don't sweat about it.
On some maps in the late epochs where each sector is an island, it is possible for the AIs to nuke each other, letting you win. Otherwise, use SDI lasers as they shoot down incoming nukes (which consumes the laser, so build several). Anti-nukes only make sense if you manage to expand to an additional sector. If you cannot nuke the AI in the late epochs, build UFOs and jets. Although a handful of UFOs might not seem like a lot, they can easily take out an unarmed army of 250 men as well as provide decent defense for towers without many casualties.
In the last (9th) epoch, you can and should use up all men (divide them evenly per island) as there is no need to save on them anymore.
For the final map: handy laser guns for everyone! No research or building needed. Get your band of merry men and wipe out everyone else. Starting location doesn't matter. When you win, you are rewarded with a static win screen and some strange music made up of in-game voices.
Codes[edit]
Most codes only let you start with 100 men in a given epoch. Even worse, no men can be transported to the final map. Below are some helpful codes that you can use (click "load" on the island selection screen). They only contain characters, no numbers.
- 7th epoch: NCIDAAAICJU (409 men)
- 8th epoch: PLZBYONQEDC (429 men, max men already transported to final map -> no shutdown required anymore! This goes for the next code too!)
- 9th (final) epoch: HTXBUHTFGJN (428 men)