Conquest of the New World Version 1.05A Update Notes May 9, 1996 INTRODUCTION This README file accompanies the version 1.05A 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 is an interim bug fix release. It includes some new features, such as Commonwealth, but does not include Play-by-Email support. That feature will be available in version 1.10. Version 1.05A is identical in operation to version 1.05; the only difference is a few changes to this README file. 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 on versions 1.00 (U.S.) or 1.01 (European) of Conquest of the New World. It will give you a new executable file, but expects all other files to be identical to those installed with versions 1.00 or 1.01. Subsequent patch releases will include all of the features in this release plus additional changes, so you do not need this file if you are already running a newer version of the code. For basic information on installation, system requirements, and troubleshooting, please consult the README.TXT file on your Conquest of the New World CD-ROM. 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. INSTALLING THE UPDATE The version 1.05 update for Conquest of the New World can be installed easily as follows: 1) Copy the file CNW105.EXE (or CNW105.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 file that you need to back up is CNWMAIN.EXE. If you wish to make a backup, do it now. 3) In Windows, double-click on the file CNW105.EXE or CNW105.ZIP to install the new version. This process will overwrite the file CNWMAIN.EXE in the directory that contains the update file. 4) In Windows (any version), if you have the file CNW105.EXE, you can also use the MS-DOS prompt and type CNW105 to perform this procedure. For CNW105.ZIP under DOS, you'll need to type PKUNZIP CNW105.ZIP. REMINDERS 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 1.00 against version 1.05 of the game. But since 1.05A has the same executable file as 1.05, those versions can play against one another. 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. Hold down the Shift key and press the Esc key. This will exit to DOS 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 1.00 release. * Saved games: Saved games from previous versions should still work correctly with this release. Some problems will be fixed when games are loaded under the new code. * Fixed problems with "stuck units" which caused a number of related symptoms: - Units which are unable to move even though they have nonzero move allotment remaining. - AI acting nonaggressive - AI taking a long time to make moves sometimes * Fixed end of Island Scenario so that it works properly when Unlimited. * Native tribes do not assist in their own demise * Added safety code to prevent corruption of saved game files when the AI players reach their maximum RAM utilization. * Fixed a bug which could cause CRC errors under certain circumstances. * Computer players are now fully enabled to get on boats and cross oceans to settle colonies or attack other players. * Added code which allows insertion of CD after game is launched * Fixed the end-of-game screen so that elements of the screen no longer overlap one another in six-player games. * Commonwealth is now enabled in this release. 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 stop any pending attacks, although it will not make the Mother Country instantly happy with you. It will also award 500 victory points. When a player achieves Commonwealth, future taxes will be reduced to 20% of their former value. 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. * In previous releases, the attacking forces of the Mother Country during Independence were smaller than they should have been. This has been corrected. The Mother's combat contingent will be two to three times larger now. * Serial play: Serial port and modem games are now much less likely to lose a connection. Connections are generally much more robust. Some reported problems with COM1, which caused an inability to connect, should also be resolved. * Bug fix: At process time, the non-sentient natives would occasionally attack a colony which was subjugated by the Mother Country, causing a crash. This will no longer happen. It is very rare. * Bug fix: Fixed a Divide by Zero error which occurred in certain rare circumstances when the AI tried to found a colony on a small island; this was detected during automated computer play of the game. * Bug fix: Points for Federation. Victory points were being computed incorrectly. The game should now award the proper 50 points per Federated tribe. * Bug fix: Trade with destroyed colonies. In certain cases, the code was not responding properly to the destruction of a colony, and would crash trying to trade with it. The code now cleans up after itself. This fix is retroactive. If an old file with this crash is loaded, the bug will no longer occur. * Bug fix: Stuck ships. The computer players would occasionally get their ships stuck on some corners of continents. This no longer happens. * Other minor changes were made to AI behaviors, string lengths, and so on. These will not ordinarily be noticed. 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 support@interplay.com 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 cnw@interplay.com. We cannot respond to each person individually, but we do read our mail and will give careful consideration to all suggestions. 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. In general, 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. HOW TO REACH US Interplay support sites: Internet E-mail: support@interplay.com 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: (714) 553-6678 Interplay's Fax: (714) 252-2820 Attn: Customer Service Strategy guide available from Prima Publishing. To order call 800-531-2343. Also available at better bookstores and multimedia outlets nationwide. 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: cnw@interplay.com 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 (714) 553-6655. 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.