Hardcore Gamer Resource Kit/Hardcore Gamer Resource Kit - Disc 2.iso/Pc/A_C/CNW112.ZIP/PATCHENG.TXT

Text File | 1996-09-18 | 20KB | 432 lines

Conquest of the New World
 Version 1.12
 Update Notes

 August 22, 1996


 INTRODUCTION

 This README file accompanies the version 1.12 release of Conquest of the New
 World. This file will provide you with late-breaking information about
 changes to the game design, along with tips on installing and playing the
 game.

 This version offers a slight change to version 1.10, a major new release. It
 includes Play By E-Mail support along with a number of gameplay improvements
 and bug fixes. It is international, so users running the game in English,
 French, or German can make use of this upgrade. Version 1.11 is different in
 operation from previous versions; in any multiplayer game, all players must
 be using the newest version of the code.

 This release is a patch to the full game. You must own a complete copy of the
 game on CD-ROM in order to use this patch.

 You should use this patch only to update an installed version 1.10. It will
 give you a new executable file and make modifications to your CNW.WAD file.
 This patch will operate on any version 1.10 installation (U.S. or
 International), and will refuse to operate on any prior releases. If you are
 running version 1.06 or earlier, you must first upgrade to version 1.10
 before using this patch.

 For all users with 8 megabyte machines: versions 1.10 and later include a
 special check-box in the Options window which allows you to turn off the
 highest zoom level of the game. You'll lose closeups of the buildings and
 units, but overall performance will improve significantly.

 For basic information on installation, system requirements, and
 troubleshooting, please consult the READ_ENG.TXT file on your Conquest of the
 New World CD-ROM.

 This program includes Play By E-Mail capability. Please refer to the separate
 instructions, included with this patch, for details.


 VERSION HISTORY

 1.00: Initial U.S. release.

 1.01: Initial European release; various string fixes and AI adjustments.

 1.05: Second U.S. release; also works with European data files, but strings
 associated with Commonwealth will be in English.

 1.06: Third U.S. release, with adjustments to Commonwealth and Federation.

 1.10: Play By E-Mail International release. Also includes a Final Zoom
 check-box to reduce RAM usage for 8 megabyte machines.

 1.11: Fixes to AutoColony and Tutorial plus a few minor cosmetic changes.

 1.12: Replaces 1.11, Fixes the Mission button in the tutorial.


 INSTALLING THE UPDATE

 The version 1.11 update for Conquest of the New World can be installed easily
 as follows:

     1) Copy the file CNW111.ZIP to the directory that contains your copy of
 Conquest of the New World. The game must have already been installed on your
 hard disk before you can use this patch. This file contains a compressed
 version of the game.

     2) You may wish to make a backup copy of your current version. The only
 files that you need to back up are CNWMAIN.EXE and CNW.WAD. If you wish to
 make a backup, do it now.

     3) Decompress the file using any common file decompression program such
 as PKZIP or WinZip. You should now see three new files, all of whose names
 begin with "PATCH".

     4) In Windows, double-click on the file PATCH.EXE to install the new
 version. This process will overwrite the file CNWMAIN.EXE in the directory
 that contains the update file, modify the file CNW.WAD, and install the new
 README files.

     5) In Windows (any version) you can also use the MS-DOS prompt and type
 PATCH to perform this procedure.

     6) You can now delete all three of the PATCH.* files.

 It's easy to identify which version of the game is currently running, because
 this version displays the string "V1.11" in the lower left-hand corner of the
 main game screen.


 REMINDERS

 In all multiplayer games and most scenarios, your Settler will arrive on a
 Ship at the start of turn #6. This is not stated explicitly in the manual.

 Network play requires that at least one machine on the network have access to
 the CD-ROM of the game. Whenever a player resumes a network game in progress
 or joins a newly forming net game, the computer will check locally and then
 over the network for the presence of the CD.

 In order to prevent problems between different versions of the game, such as
 CRC errors, the program requires that all machines on any given network be
 running the identical version of the software. Any machine which has the new
 code will not allow games to be played against people with older versions of
 the game. Users can determine which machines on the network have incorrect
 versions by bringing up the Network Status window. The information lines for
 all machines with versions that differ from the one on the current machine
 will be displayed in red. Be sure to install the update on every machine
 before starting a new network game.

 To summarize: you can't play multiplayer using version 1.10 against version
 1.11 of the game.

 The virtual memory code for this game creates a temporary swap file on the
 hard disk. The game therefore requires that at least 8 megabytes (preferably
 16 megabytes or more) of disk space be available when the game is started.
 Additional disk space will be necessary for each game file created
 (approximately 500K bytes). Failure to provide this amount of free space may
 cause the program to report "Out of Memory" errors even if sufficient RAM is
 available.

 Clarification: you can use the Shift key to speed up the up and down arrows
 for numeric values in the Trade dialogs, the War College, and so on. But you
 need to press Shift before clicking the arrow, not after.

 Back door: You can exit your game without saving if you wish to redo a turn.
 Just click the Exit button in the main game menu. This will exit to the main
 screen without saving the changes made since the last save.


 DETAILED INFORMATION ON THIS RELEASE

 The following is a list of all important changes which have been made in the
 game since the 1.06 release, along with selected items which may be of
 interest to users upgrading from earlier releases.

 * Saved games: Saved games from previous versions should work correctly with
 this release. We recommend that you play only new games using this release,
 however, since some bugs in older releases caused problems with the data
 files which cannot be corrected by the new release.

 * Added the "Final Zoom" check-box, which allows the user to avoid loading
 graphics for the closest-in zoom level in the interest of saving RAM and
 increasing performance.

 * Fixed a crash which occurred if you traded with a colony that's been
 destroyed. This was especially problematic if it was a Persistent trade.

 * All mentions of Mother Country were removed when playing as the Natives.

 * The name "Ferdinand Magellan" was too long and was shortened.

 * Fixed occasional "QSLock Failed" problem under Windows 95.

 * Esc did not close some windows; it should work everywhere now.

 * Combat modifiers for War College: There's always a 2-in-40 chance of
 hitting and a 2-in-40 chance of missing.

 * AutoMap persists across turns. If it's up at the end of the previous turn,
 it will pop up at the start of the next one.

 * In the full version, there is an installer option to copy the sound WAD
 file to the hard disk, increasing performance.

 * Incorrect Diplomacy status numbers no longer occur.

 * Added check-box functionality for Independence/Commonwealth/Sue for Peace.
 This gives the ability to retract it.
 * Computer players never seemed to respond to Diplomacy or Trade offers. Now
 they do.

 * AutoDiplomacy is now turned off upon Independence (or always for Natives);
 previously, this would cause diplomatic messages to be sent by the player
 when he or she did not want them sent.

 * Computer players can now have more colonies if there are fewer of them.

 * Scrolling articles in newspaper.

 * Some diplomatic status level names were too long to fit on the Our
 Diplomatic Proposal (Pending) window. The Current Level prompt was too far to
 the right.

 * A new window called the Building List displays all of the buildings in a
 given colony, along with their current levels and production modifiers. In
 addition, the window also flags any buildings which have been upgraded this
 turn. This is especially useful following AutoColony, because it allows a
 player to see at a glance what the AI has done.

 * Added a button to the message announcing a Leader's increase in points so
 that a player can simply click it and be taken directly to that Leader.

 * "Intelligent" retreats: AI players now sometimes run away when combat is
 not going their way.

 * Added to Diplomacy window an indication of what the Mother Country wants a
 certain relationship to be.

 * Exit button: exits game without Save. Disabled in multiplayer games.

 * "Add New Player" button in In-Game window when players are joining a new
 game.

 * The game now displays production bonuses for ALL commodities in status bar
 at same time.

 * Convert to Surplus can no longer starve the colony.

 * The game now prevents a player from receiving benefits from a War College
 in a town which has been subjugated. It also stops all investment in the
 College while subjugated.

 * Zoom switch and user interface to allow users to turn off the highest zoom
 level. This can improve performance significantly on 8 megabyte machines.

 * Added IRQ selection for modem/serial users with nonstandard configurations.

 * Added "Sole Survivor" endgame condition: if only one player remains in a
 multiplayer game, that player is declared the winner.

 * Added automatic ejection from the game if a player has no Settlers and no
 colonies after turn 7. This prevents "nomadic" players from remaining in the
 game.

 * Added ability to resign from a game and either disband all units or allow a
 computer player to take over.

 * Made a number of other minor user-interface improvements.

 * Updated support for foreign languages.


 THE COMMONWEALTH FEATURE

 Commonwealth has been enabled since version 1.06. For players who have not
 received that upgrade, the following description explains how this feature
 works:

 Players may Sue for Commonwealth when they have done at least 60% of the
 damage to the Mother Country's attacking forces as would be required to reach
 Independence. Players who achieve Commonwealth status may later declare
 Independence again. They must do 60% of the damage to the Mother Country that
 would normally be required to reach Independence. Note that the victory
 condition for Independence is not simply the winning of three battles, but
 the destruction of a specific number levels of the Mother Country's units
 (100 levels).

 The Commonwealth button will become enabled during any War for Independence
 when the player has done an amount of damage to the Mother Country equal to
 60% of the damage required to gain Independence. Clicking the Commonwealth
 button will change relations with the Mother Country to Happy and stop any
 pending attacks. It will also award 500 victory points.

 When a player achieves Commonwealth, future taxes will be reduced to 20% of
 their former value. Any pending taxes will still be owed, but 80% of the
 balance will be forgiven. Trade prices for sales of commodities will improve.
 If the player was not a Craftsman, prices will improve to the equivalent of a
 non-Independent Craftsman. If the player was already a Craftsman, prices will
 be the same as those for a fully Independent player without the Craftsman
 ability.

 Players who achieve Commonwealth will still be subject to the Mother
 Country's dictates regarding relations with other players.



 CAVEATS (THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW)

 THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS A FULL ON-LINE HELP SYSTEM. SIMPLY RIGHT-CLICK ON ANY
 UNIT, BUILDING, WINDOW, OR BUTTON TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW TO USE IT.

 If you have a problem with the game (especially if it is repeatable), please
 send a note to us at [e-mail] so we can investigate and solve
 it.  Give us as much detail as possible about your hardware, your operating
 system, and the actions that led up to the problem.

 Likewise, if you see a feature that you really like or really hate, please
 tell us.  We design our games for you -- the dedicated gamer -- and we want
 to hear what you have to say, good or bad.  Our goal is to bring you a
 satisfying and challenging gaming experience.  Send comments to
 [e-mail]. We cannot respond to each person individually, but we do
 read our mail and will give careful consideration to all suggestions. In
 fact, many of the features of this release were prompted by suggestions from
 our customers.


 TROUBLESHOOTING

 If the program experiences slowdowns during play (the spinning globe appears
 when moving units around the map, or for no apparent reason at all), this is
 most likely due to a problem with the sound code. On fast machines (any
 Pentium-class unit), the globe should not appear during a player's editing of
 a turn or during combat. The problem can be fixed or reduced in a number of
 ways. The following are, in order, the most likely steps to take to reduce
 this problem.

 1. Turn off sound to see if it makes a difference.
 2. Be sure that SMARTDRV and EMM386 are off. These can cause serious
 slowdowns in some cases.
 3. If under Windows 95, try to adjust the Windows 95 CD-ROM cache settings.
 The system can be set to optimize its performance for a variety of hardware
 configurations. Changing the numbers may clear up the problem (there is no
 one fixed setting that applies to all makes and models of computers and
 CD-ROM drives; the proper settings must be determined empirically for each
 individual machine).
 4. Copy the file CNWSNDC.WAD from the CD-ROM to the hard disk, in the same
 directory as the game. This will allow the game to read all of the sounds in
 the game from the hard disk, at the expense of requiring an additional 35
 megabytes of space.

 When running under Windows 95, be sure that your swap file is set to at least
 20 megabytes. Even running in a DOS box, the game makes use of Windows'
 virtual memory system. Better yet, just leave the swap file management under
 Windows' control (this should be the default on your machine anyway).

 Windows uses a number of special key sequences to switch between tasks.
 Because Conquest of the New World changes the video mode during play, some
 configurations may experience problems when switching tasks under Windows. We
 recommend that you not use these keys while playing the game. In addition,
 you may wish to set up a shortcut to your DOS box that has all of these keys
 disabled, and run the game from that. Likewise, new Windows machines have
 special Windows keys on the keyboard. These can also cause problems and
 should be avoided.

 Performance of the game can be improved through the use of a small hard disk
 cache -- 128 kilobytes or so -- if you have enough RAM to dedicate for it.
 Larger cache sizes are not necessary. However, on some systems, the disk
 cache can interfere with the proper operation of the virtual memory system in
 the game. If you experience crashes while running the game, disable all disk
 cache software and try again.

 The CONQUEST.BAT file contains one line which sets up virtual memory. When
 running on machines with 12 megabytes or more, virtual memory can be disabled
 by deleting or commenting out the line which contains the "SET DOS4GVM"
 command. This will result in a slight performance increase. If the game
 crashes or reports "Out of Memory" errors, you should put back this line or
 reconfigure your machine to make more memory available.

 Older versions of EMM386 may cause problems with the virtual memory in the
 game. Since EMM386 is not required by the game, we recommend that you remove
 it from your machine while running Conquest of the New World.

 Some users have experienced problems with certain versions of video drivers
 on their machines. If you experience crashes upon startup of the game or
 shortly thereafter, or you find that the game just displays a black screen,
 you may wish to try replacing your video driver with a generic third-party
 driver such as UniVBE or VVESA. This approach has been successful in the past
 in some situations.


 HOW TO REACH US

 Interplay support sites:

 Internet E-mail:  [e-mail]

 Web Site:  http://www.interplay.com

 America On-Line: Keyword INTERPLAY
     or E-mail IPTECH

 Compuserve: GO GAMEPUB
     or E-mail 76702,1342

 Genie:  Type M805;1 or go to the Bulletin Board in Scorpia's area

 Prodigy: Use the Web  browser to our Web Site
     or E-mail PLAY99B

 FTP Site:  ftp.interplay.com

 Interplay's phone:  [phone]
         in Europe:  [phone]

 Interplay's Fax:  [phone]  Attn: Customer Service
       in Europe:  [phone]  Attn: Customer Service


 Strategy guide available from Prima Publishing. To order call
 800-531-2343. Also available at better bookstores and multimedia
 outlets nationwide. In Europe, call Littlehampton Book Services at
 [phone].


 Please let us know what you think!  We love feed-back, and it helps us make
 the games that you want to play!

 Gameplay comments and suggestions: [e-mail]


 Quicksilver Software, Inc. Web Site:  http://www.quicksilver.com



 Thanks for taking the time to play Conquest of the New World.  Now for the
 legal stuff...



 SOFTWARE USE LIMITATIONS AND LIMITED LICENSE

     This version of Conquest of the New World (the "Software") is intended
 solely for your personal noncommercial home entertainment use.  You may not
 decompile, reverse engineer, or disassemble the Software, except as permitted
 by law.  Interplay Productions retains all rights and title in the Software
 including all intellectual property rights embodied therein and derivatives
 thereof.  You are granted a revocable, nonassignable limited license to
 create derivative works of this Software solely for your own personal
 noncommercial home entertainment use and may publicly display such derivative
 works to the extent specifically authorized by Interplay in writing.  A copy
 of this authorization, if any, will be provided on Interplay's World Wide Web
 site, and may also be obtained by contacting the legal department at
 Interplay at [phone].  The Software, including, without limitation,
 all code, data structures, characters, images, sounds, text, screens, game
 play, derivative works and all other elements of the Software may not be
 copied, resold, rented, leased, distributed (electronically or otherwise),
 used on  pay-per-play, coin-op or other for-charge basis,  or for any
 commercial purpose.  Any permissions granted herein are provided on a
 temporary basis and can be withdrawn by Interplay Productions at any time.
  All rights not expressly granted are reserved.


 Copyright (c) 1996 Interplay Productions.  All rights reserved.