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.+===================+ ./ ./| +===================+/ | // ~~~\ ~~\ | NNN Software | | '+ ~ __I___, | P.O. Box 87 | | II ` Ii | North Aurora | | II ,~~^\ ~Ii/^\ Ii /^^^\ ~Ii/~\ | IL 60542-3001 | | II /^^^\' I^ I Ii Ii I Ii I | | | `` Ii I Ii I Ii Ii I Ii I | | | \\____/ \___/\_,Ii I_ `,__/ \___/ ,Ii I,~ | Net: nnn@seq.com | ./ +===================+/ An Atlas Pathfinder Adventure Copyright (c) 1994 NNN Software, Inc. INSTRUCTION MANUAL =============================================== I 0. TABLE of CONTENTS: I =============================================== 0. Table of contents 1. System requirements 2. Installing and starting Canton 3. The story of Canton 4. Playing Canton A. Purpose of the game B. Game rules 1) Time (the Turn concept) 2) What happens at the end of each turn? 3) Game objects 4) Movement rules 5) Starting resources C. Game controls 1) The game field 2) The local map 3) The global map 4) Mobility status indicators 5) The Control Panel 6) Controlling your caravans and ships a. How to move caravans and ships b. How to load/unload ships c. How to add caravans d. How to delete caravans e. How to keep track of your caravans 7) How to trade D. Getting on-line help E. Quitting the game F. Scoring 1) Exploration 2) Profit G. Random events 1) Treasures 2) Disasters 3) Pirates 5. Advanced features 6. Other tools 7. A quick start 8. Technical support =============================================== I 1. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS I =============================================== Canton requires: An IBM-compatible 286 or greater (386 or faster recommended) EGA graphics or better 640K RAM DOS 3.1 or later 4MB of free hard disk space Mouse =============================================== I 2. INSTALLING and STARTING CANTON I =============================================== A. TO INSTALL CANTON: ----------------- 1) Insert the diskette into your floppy drive 2) Go to your floppy drive 3) Type: INSTALL [Drive]: <Enter> For example: If your floppy drive is A and your hard drive is C, then you would type the following A: INSTALL C: The installation program creates a directory named \CANTON on your hard drive and extracts all CANTON files in that directory. B. TO START CANTON: ---------------- Got to the directory where you installed CANTON, and type: CANTON <Enter> Use the <Up Arrow> or <Down Arrow> key to position the cursor on the desired menu option, then press <Space Bar> or <Enter> to select item. NOTE: Canton allows you to save only one game at a time. Therefore, choosing the SAVE GAME option will over-write the previously saved. =============================================== I 3. THE STORY OF CANTON I =============================================== From Homer's Ulysses to Columbus to Neil Armstrong, history is punctuated by great travelers. Driven partly by material gain and partly by near- religious need to explore and gain new knowledge, these great navigators chart out our world. Explorers of the past linked together human cultures that previously knew nothing of each other. Explorers of the future may link together the cultures of earth and those beyond the stars. The link between East and West, probably first established by the great traveler Marco Polo, is one rich with potential. The Ching empire, the backdrop of the explosive growth of trading between East and West in 18th century China, came to a breaking point as it fought to survive this period of upheaval changes. Opium, a highly addictive narcotic, was sold openly to Imperial subjects against the dictates of Imperial law. This situation exploded into the Opium war.The Ching empire emerged at the end of the struggled crippled and permanently weakened. Into this dangerous arena rich with commercial potential, yet fraught with cultural upheavals and political intrigues enters Atlas Pathfinder, an adventurer formed in the mold of the history's great explorers. Orphaned at the age of twelve when his father, the brave captain of a merchant ship, was lost at sea along with his entire crew, Atlas grew up in impoverished seaside shanties and wharves. His skills as a navigator came by instinct . He combined a thirst for exploring the world with a lust for riches and power. Never shall his children (if he gets around to having any) experience the deprivation and poverty of his own youth. He vowed to conquer the storms that destroyed his father and build an empire of commerce which will overshadow even the greatest trading houses of all Europe. In Canton, the commercial hub linking East and West, you Atlas PathFinder set out to resume the thread left by the great Polo. With your modest savings, a small bag of gold coins, you set out from Canton to make your fortune in silk and spices. Beyond the gilded gates of Canton, the riches of the Orient awaits you in a vast world of unexplored dangers and possibilities. =============================================== I 4. HOW TO PLAY CANTON I =============================================== A. PURPOSE OF THE GAME ------------------- Canton is a game of trade and exploration. The purpose of the game is to become rich by exploring and building your commercial empire. To do this, you must 1) explore unknown territory to find cities to trade with, and 2) generate profit by trading according to the classic formula: buy low, sell high. The profit from trading will allow you to buy more caravans, ships and warehouses, which will in turn increases you ability to gather more wealth through trading. B. GAME RULES ---------- 1) TIME (the TURN concept) TIME in the Canton world is represented by TURNs. 1 turn = 1 month In the shareware version, the game lasts 5 years (60 turns) In the registered version, the game lasts 20 years (240 turns); you will need the longer time to explore the larger global map. A turn ends when ALL your caravans have moved the maximum number of movements allowed to them. If you wish to end the turn before this happens, click END TURN in the control pad. It is sometimes strategic for you to END TURN early, since at the end of each turn, you may gain more assets. For example, each warehouse with 4 or more peasants will produce for you one unit of grain or meat per turn; each warehouse with 4 or more artisans will produce for you one unit of tools or weapons per turn. 2) WHAT HAPPENS AT THE END OF EACH TURN? Two set of events are updated at the end of each turn (each month): a. EXPENSES Each caravan or ship you have consumes two units of food and two coins of payroll per turn. b. PRODUCTION Each 4 peasants you have produce 1 unit of food per turn but having more than 4 peasants in a warehouse does not further increase food production Each 4 artisans you have produce 1 unit of tools per turn but having more than 4 artisans in a warehouse does not further increase tool production 3) GAME OBJECTS There are 2 different types of GAME OBJECTS: ACTIVE and PASSIVE. a. ACTIVE GAME OBJECTS are things that you can move/create/delete. These include: OBJECT PURCHASE COST COST PER TURN ------ ------------- ------------- Caravan 4 coins 2 foods & 2 coins Ship* 1 coin 2 foods & 2 coins Warehouse* 16 coins none * Must have a caravan first b. PASSIVE GAME OBJECTS are things you buy/sell. These include: Objects with FOOD VALUE: OBJECT WORTH ------ -------------- 1 bushel of grain 1 unit of food 1 cow 1 unit of food Objects with PRODUCTION value OBJECT ACTION PER TURN ------ --------------- 4 peasants produces 1 food 4 artisans produces 1 tool Objects with DEFENSE value OBJECT ACTION ------ ------ 1 soldier gives your ship 1 extra life in pirate battle Objects with TRADE value Salt, Ore, Tools, Weapons 4) MOVEMENT RULES Each caravan can move up to 4 grid cells per turn Each ship can move up to 8 grid cells per turn Each ship loading costs 1 coin Each ship un-loading costs 1 coin Caravans/Ships must carry their own supplies (grain or meat). Each caravan or ship consumes two UNITS OF FOOD per turn. Plain and coast terrains cost 1 movement point to cross. Jungle, forest, and mountain terrains cost 4 movement points to cross (but a caravan with any movement points left can always enter these rough terrains). Only ships can cross water; it costs them 1 point to do so. If its food supply runs out, the caravan/ship will starve and you will lose not only the caravan, but all the goods it carries. The two bar graphs labeled MOBILITY and FOOD SUPPLY to the right of the playing field display the number of movements and how much food the currently active caravan has left. 5) STARTING RESOURCES At the start of a new game, all your worldly possessions (except the clothes on your back) includes: 86 gold coins 1 caravan 1 peasant 1 artisan 1 soldier 3 units of food Your startup funds become smaller if you increase the level of play difficulty. C. GAME CONTROLS ------------- 1) The GAME FIELD consists of: The Local Map (lower left of screen) The Global Map (upper right of screen) Mobility Status Indicators (center right of screen) Control panel (lower right of screen) 2) THE LOCAL MAP (Lower left of screen) The local map is the playing field itself. At the start of a new game your first caravan (man with mule) is positioned at the city of Canton, centered on the local map. Initially most of the local map will be black, reflecting unexplored territory, except the known area around the city of Canton. As you explore the world, its terrain features (forest, hill, ocean...) emerge. A rectangu- lar grid divides the map into cells, which is the scope of one movement. When you have more than one caravan or ship, the currently active one is outlined in white. If the currently active caravan/ship is stacked on top of another (they are positioned on the same grid cell), the active one is outlined in pink. 3) THE GLOBAL MAP (Upper right of screen) This map gives you a 'satellite view' of the world. The white- framed Zoom Box shows the region currently displayed in the local map. You can scroll the local map by pointing (in the Zoom Box) to where you want to zoom in, and click. The white dots on the global map indicate the positions of your caravans and ships. 4) MOBILITY STATUS INDICATORS (Center right of screen) a. MOBILITY Indicator: The bar graph labeled MOBILITY displays the number of move- ments the CURRENTLY SELECTED caravan has left for the current turn. It is reset each time a new turn begins. Each caravan has 4 movements per turn Each ship has 8 movements per turn For example, at the end of each turn, each caravan receives 4 additional movements, and each ship receives 8. Note however, that the MOBILITY Indicator only displays the number movements for the CURRENTLY SELECTED caravan/ship. b. FOOD SUPPLY Indicator: The bar graph labeled FOOD SUPPLY displays the food supply for the currently selected caravan/ship. Before setting out on a long exploratory journey it is a good idea to stock up on food. 5) THE CONTROL PANEL (Lower right of screen) The Control Panel is located at the lower right of your screen. It consists of: o Mobility and Food Supply Indicators o The JoyPad: Move active objects in the direction indicated o (A)dd: Add caravan o (C)ut: Remove caravan o (B)uild: Build warehouse o (T)rade: Pull up Trade Menu for trading o (L)oad: Pull up Warehouse Menu to Load/Unload items to/from warehouse o (I)nfo: Get info on existing Trade Routes o (E)nd Turn: Force ending of current turn oT(R)ade Route: Pull up Route menu to setup Trade Route o (Q)uit: Quit game 6) CONTROLLING YOUR CARAVANS AND SHIPS a. HOW TO MOVE CARAVANS AND SHIPS To move a caravan or ship, click on the arrow in the JoyPad which points in the direction you want to move. You can only move 1 caravan/ship at a time. If you have more than 1 caravan, you must first select the caravan/ship you want to move before clicking on the directional arrows to move it. Each click on a JoyPad button advances the caravan/ship 1 grid cell in the direction indicated by the arrow. A caravan can move up to 4 grid cells per turn, a ship can move up to 8 grid cells per turn; this is true regardless of how many TOTAL movements your caravan/ship may have. A turn ends auto- matically when ALL your caravans and ships have moved their maximum allowable movements for a turn (i.e., 4 for caravans and 8 for ships) or when you press END TURN in the Control Panel to manually end the current turn. For example, if you only have 1 caravan, and it has 8 move- ments available to it in total, 1 turn will increment automa- tically for each 4 movements it makes(you have moved ALL your caravans/ships the maximum allowable movements for that turn, so the turn increments automatically). If your caravan has less than 4 movements, naturally it can only move until those movements are exhausted. However, if you have 2 caravans, say Caravan #1 with 8 move- ments total and Caravan #2 with 3 movements total, you can only move Caravan #1 a maximum of 4 grid cells for that turn (caravans can move up to 4 grid cells per turn). To move it further, you must either: 1) END TURN manually, or 2) move Caravan #2 its maximum number of moves so that the TURN will end automatically. b. HOW TO LOAD/UNLOAD SHIPS To make a caravan move from land to sea, you must first load the caravan onto a ship. Double-click on the appropriate JoyPad arrow. The man-and-mule caravan icon will turn into a ship. Each ship-loading costs 1 coin (stevedor fees). To disembark and return to land, double-click on the appropriate JoyPad arrow to unload. The ship icon will turn back into a caravan icon. Each un-loading costs 1 coin. c. HOW TO ADD CARAVANS Having more caravans will enable you to explore the world faster, more efficiently. They will also help you establish trade routes, and scout out different cities to find out what the market for that city is like, giving you the "in" on where to buy low and sell high. To create more caravans, click on the ADD button in the Control Panel. Newly-created caravans always start out from Canton, your base city. Each new caravans costs 4 coins to purchase. Each caravan you own costs 2 coins and 2 units of food per turn to maintain. d. HOW TO REMOVE CARAVANS If your funds are low, you may find it unprofitable to main- tain too many caravans. To eliminate a caravan, click the CUT button in the Control Panel, then click on the caravan you want to rid of. It will disappear (sorry, no money back). e. HOW TO KEEP TRACK OF YOUR CARAVANS/SHIPS At any time, you can obtain status information on any caravan. Do this by clicking INFO in the Control Panel, then click on the caravan you are interested in. NOTE: The remaining 3 buttons (BUILD, LOAD, ROUTE) are des- cribed in the section ADVANCED FEATURES. 7) HOW TO TRADE In order to trade with a city, your caravan must be physically present at that city (no electronic commerce in the 18th century). This is also the only way you can find out what the market supply and demand are for that city, and at what prices. To trade, activate the caravan you want to perform the transaction (remember that you can have up to 16 caravans/ships at the same time) by clicking on it, then click TRADE on the Control Panel to the right of the screen. The TRADE MENU will appear. This is the market chart compiled by the city's Department of Commerce to facilitate trade transactions in the city. It displays what is currently available for sale and purchase in the city's marketplace. This is where you can buy and sell goods. HOW TO READ THE TRADE MENU There are 9 MERCHANDISE ITEMS that can be traded: Trading Code Item Description ------------ ---------------- 1 Grain 2 Meat 3 Salt 4 Ore 5 Tools 6 Weapons 7 Peasants 8 Artisans 9 Soldiers Since this is an international trading post, to resolve any lang- uage problems, the Department of Commerce has devised a numeric system (Trading Code) to identify the merchandise for trading. A button, marked with this number (1-9) is located next to each icon. To purchase an item, click on the numbered button belonging to that item. At the center of the screen are 5 columns of numbers. The leftmost column, marked 'Caravan', is what you have in the currently. The next 2 columns to the right are the quantity and price of items available in this city for you to buy. The last 2 columns are the quantity and price for items that you can sell. At the upper left of the trade menu are three buttons: BUY, SELL, and DONE (the BRIBE MAYOR feature--red button--is available only in the shareware version and is described in the Advanced Feature section further below). A quick example: Suppose you want to resupply your caravan. Click BUY. Now click the button marked '1', i.e. the button which desig- nates 'grain'. The number of grain units in your caravan increments by 1 (you just bought 1 unit of grain), while the grain supply in the city decrements by 1 (one 1 unit of grain less in the market supply). The financial status of your company appears at the upper right: how much cash, how many warehouses, ships, and caravans you have. Note that your cash decreases as you buy and increases as you sell. When you are finished trading, click DONE to return to main playing field. 8) GETTING DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT A CARAVAN OR CITY To get information on a caravan or city, first click on INFO in the Control Panel, then click on the caravan or city in question. This INFORMATION MENU will appear. This menu looks similar to the TRADE MENU but there are no buttons. There are 5 columns of number at center page: caravan, supply quan- tity, supply price, demand quantity, demand price. For caravans, only the first column will be filled. For cities, only the last 4 columns will be filled. The financial status of your company appears at upper right. To exit the INFORMATION MENU, click anywhere on the screen. D. GETTING ON-LINE HELP -------------------- To get on-line help, click on MANUAL at the upper left of the screen. E. QUITTING AND SAVING THE GAME ---------------------------- To quit the game, click 'Q' on the Control Panel. You will return to the Main Menu, where you will have a chance to save the current game. You can save only 1 game at a time, therefore saving the current game will over-write the previously saved game. F. SCORING ------- Scoring in Canton is based on 2 factors: Exploration and Profit. 1) EXPLORATION: At the start of a game the map is mostly black. As your caravans move near black grid cells, they make the terrain features in these cells visible. Previously unknown territory becomes charted terri- tory. The larger a fraction of the vast Canton map you chart out, the higher your final score will be. 2) PROFIT The second factor for success is financial. At the end of the game, the more cash, caravans and ships you have, the higher your score will be. A full Canton game lasts 240 turns, corresponding to a career of 60 years (shareware version lasts 60 turns, or 15 years). Depending on your final score, when you retire you will end up anywhere bet- ween a homeless bum or a Viceroy of the Colonies. G. RANDOM EVENTS ------------- Just as in real life, events not under your control will happen in the Canton world. Messages pop-up to notify you of such events when they happen. Some events are good, others are bad. At beginner level only good events happen. As you increase the difficulty level adverse events will happen to you more often. 1) TREASURES When you have one or more caravans out exploring the edges of the known world, chances are you will discover treasures. These are ancient artifacts and other valuable archeological finds from lost civilizations, buried by centuries of weather and vegetation. Dis- covering these treasures will bring extra revenue to your company. The frequency of good fortunes does not depend on the difficulty level of the game. However you run into these random good fortunes only you have at least caravan exploring new terrains. 2) DISASTERS Adverse things can also happen to your caravans and ships: ships at sea may be lost in violent storms or attacked by pirates (see PIRATES below) and caravans may get struck by plagues. Such are the hazards of exploring and trading unknown lands. If you have warehouses or trade routes, scandals of all types (theft, embezzlements, etc.) and accidents (fire, flood, etc.) can cost you losses in revenue and merchandise. You can turn off disasters from the Main Menu CHANGE GAME OPTIONS when you first start the game. Although good fortunes occur at all play levels, no disaster occurs if your play difficulty level is set at 1 (Beginner). The frequency of disasters increases as the difficulty level is increased. The frequency of good fortunes does not change as difficulty level changes. 3) PIRATES Pirates are a hazard of sea travel. At any moment your ships may be attacked. Unlike other random events however, in pirate attacks at least you have a fighting chance through skill and preparation. When this happens the screen will switch to a bird's eye view of the ocean with your merchant ship and the pirate ship (marked with a Jolly Roger--skull and crossbow flag). Use the keyboard <Arrow> keys (not the JoyPad arrow buttons) to move your ship, and <Space Bar> to shoot. You don't have to aim (the cannons back then are not that accurate) but the closer you can get to the enemy, the better your chance of hitting the pirate ship (and vice versa). A wooden panel at the bottom of the screen shows the current status of your ship. The two short bar graphs to the left, HULL and MAST, indicate the integrity of the body and sailing apparatus of your ship. If you are hit by pirate shots these bar graph indicators reflect a decrease in your ship's physical condition. When either of them reach zero you lose the battle; you lose the ship itself with all on-board crew and merchandise. The 2 long bar graphs to the right, AMMO and TIME, indicate how much ammunition you have left and how much time is left in the fight. If you run out of ammunition before the enemy does, your only recourse would be to run away, fast. If you can keep from getting sunk until time runs out, the pirates get discouraged and will go away and leave you alone. Setting a higher game difficulty level gives pirate ships faster speeds. You can better defend your ships against pirates by hiring soldiers. For each pirate attack you have as many chances of either sinking or evading the pirate ship as there are soldiers on your ship. [ What does this last sentence mean? ] =============================================== I 5. ADVANCED FEATURES I =============================================== A. WAREHOUSES AND THE LOAD MENU ---------------------------- Having warehouse strategically dispersed throughout the territory will help you replenish supplies for your caravans where cities are sparse. Warehouses also give your company the ability to produce goods, which you can in turn sell on the market. You can turn the currently selected caravan into a warehouse by clicking the BUILD button on the Control Panel. This conversion is irreversible and will cost you 16 coins and the caravan. Warehouses cannot move, and cannot be turned back into caravans. To remove a warehouse, click on the warehouse you want to remove, and then click on (C)ut in the Control Panel. A warehouse cannot produce goods unless properly staffed. After you put 4 peasants at a warehouse, that warehouse will produce 1 unit of food (grain or meat) per turn. Putting 4 artisans at a warehouse will enable it to produce 1 unit of tools or weapons per turn. However, due to overhead costs, adding more than 4 peasants or artisans will not increase the output for the warehouse. The maximum number of products that a warehouse can hold is 8 of each item. Suppose you have built a warehouse and it has 1 peasant in it. To add 3 more peasants to this warehouse, do the following. First, go buy 3 more peasants. Move a caravan to a city and click TRADE. The Trade Menu appears. Select BUY, then click button #7 (peasants) three times to bring three peasants on board your caravan. Now exit the Trade Menu and move your caravan to your warehouse. Click LOAD on the Control Panel to bring up the Warehouse Menu. At the upper left of the Warehouse Menu, there are three buttons: LOAD, UNLOAD, and DONE. Click UNLOAD to move items from your caravan to your warehouse. Next click item button #7 to start unloading the peasants on-board your caravan to the warehouse. The number display for peasants under the CARAVAN column decrements with each click to show the number remaining in the Caravan. The number display for peasants under the STOCK column increments accordingly. Similarly, once your warehouse has produced some goods, you can use your caravans and the load menu to take those goods to nearby cities for sale. B. TRADE ROUTES AND THE ROUTE MENU (available with registered version) ------------------------------- Trade routes give you the ability to delegate trading chores. Once you have established a profitable trade route, the increase of your fortune be done automatically via this trade route. This will save you the time and effort of having to manually move and trade back and forth between cities you have already explored. Setting up a trade route costs you 1 caravan (the caravan doing the setup). To set up a trade route, you must position a caravan at one of the trading cities. Then, click TRADE ROUTE on the Control Panel. Now click on the other city you want to trade with to bring up the Route Menu. At the top center of the Route menu, the average travel time and profit are shown. The average profit shows how much you make each time your caravan arrives at either city. The average travel time is how many turns it takes for you caravan to shuttle between the 2 cities. At the bottom center of the Route Menu are the market rates for each item at each of the 2 cities on your route. The 2 top left buttons: DON'T SETUP and SETUP, lets you setup the trade route, or forget it. Clicking DON'T SETUP returns you to the playing field without any changes. Clicking SETUP establishes a route between the 2 cities you selected. Your caravan will disappear, replaced by a dotted purple line between the 2 cities. The maximum number of trade route you can have is 36. GETTING INFO ON EXISTING TRADE ROUTES At any time you can get information on existing trade routes. First click INFO on the Control Panel, then click anywhere on the local map. A display menu pops up showing a list of your routes and a global map with the trade routes shown in purple lines. Once a route is setup it cannot be eliminated, so be careful with your choice of trade routes. In general you will make more profit by trading manually, at the expense of doing more work. On the other hand, as your company grows you may find these routes highly convenient. C. THE OPIUM WAR (available with registered version) ------------- Fortune found in cookie: "Toward the middle of your career a great calamity will occur." Unscrupulous foreign trading companies (not yours, certainly) have been dealing the highly addictive narcotic, opium, in the Canton world. Citizens and the government of that world decide to declare war against all foreign powers. The result: all trading stops. All of your trade routes are destroyed, and it is impossible to buy and sell goods any- where, except at the port of Canton (the blue city) and at certain 'friendly' cities (see section BRIBING OFFICIALS). Fortunately the war fever exhausts itself after some time. A treaty is signed, the markets re-open for trade, and you can start rebuilding your company if it has survived the war. D. BRIBING OFFICIALS (available with registered version) ----------------- As mentioned earlier, by planning ahead you can alleviate the effect of the Opium war. The BRIBE MAYOR button in the trade menu allows you to ensure that in case this great calamity occurs, this city will continue trading with your company. The cost is anywhere between 64 and 320 gold coins to bribe the mayor, depending on the difficulty level. It costs 4 times the regular 'fee' to bribe the mayor during the war. A 'friendly' city is shown in green, a normal city is red, and Canton is blue. =============================================== I 6. OTHER TOOLS I =============================================== A. PIRATES MODULE -------------- This module allows you to pratice fighting pirates. To start, make sure you are in the correct directory and type PIRATES <Enter>. The NNN logo appears. Press <Enter> to bring up the options screen appears. Use the <Up Arrow> and <Down Arrow> keyboard keys to move the cursor (not the JoyPad arrow buttons); use the <Space Bar> to select the speed for the pirate ship. When you are done setting the speed, press <Escape>. The battle begins. B. TEDIT MODULE (available with registered version) ------------ This module allows you to change 1) the terrain features, and 2) the economy of the Canton world. To start, make sure you are in the direc- tory where you installed Canton, and type: TEDIT <Enter>. The NNN logo appears, press <Enter>. The Editor menu appears. The local and global map work the same way as in the Canton game, except there are no black squares. The Editor control panel has the following buttons: 1) EDIT ECONOMY, use this button to call up the Economy Menu (see ECONOMY EDITOR below). 2) NEXT TERRAIN, use this button to select the next terrain type. 3) PREVIOUS TERRAIN, use this button to go back to the previous terrain type. The current terrain type is displayed next to these 2 buttons. Clicking on any grid cell in the local map causes the current terrain type to appear in that cell, with one exception: you cannot change the location of cities. 4) SAVE MAP, use this button to save the results of your edit session. To use the new map in the Canton game, type NEWMAP <Enter>. To res- tore the previous map, type OLDMAP <Enter>. Only one version of the map is saved. SAVE MAP will overwrite the last map modified. 5) EXIT TERRAIN EDITOR, use this button to quit. C. ECONOMY EDITOR ------------ Clicking EDIT ECONOMY on the Tedit menu brings up the economy menu. At bottom right is the global map with light-green dots where the cities are located. The current city is shown in yellow. Use the NEXT CITY button at right of this map to select the next city. At the top right of the economy menu are four buttons: SUPPLY, DEMAND, QUANTITY, and PRICE. Use these buttons to select what kind of change you want to make to the current city. Note that you can select either SUPPLY or DEMAND but not both, and either QUANTITY or PRICE but not both. At top left are the ++ and -- buttons. Click one of these to select the direction of the change. You can only select one direction. Now click a button, numbered 1 to 9, corresponding to the item you wish to change. Your changes are immediately reported on the number displays in the 4 columns at center. When finished, click the DONE button at upper left to return to the Tedit Menu. =============================================== I 7. A QUICK START I =============================================== Begin a new game. You will see your caravan (man-and-mule) icon position at Canton. The first thing you should do before setting out exploring is load up your caravan with load and things to sell. Click on (T)rade in the Control Panel. The TRADE Menu will appear. Buy all the grains and meats you can by clicking on #1 and #2 until the Supply amount decrements to zero, or when the Caravan inventory for that item reaches its maximum of 8. Each caravan can only carry up to 8 items of the same type. Note that before you buy, make sure the check marks the on BUY and not SELL button (BUY is the default setting), else you'll be selling the food from your caravan instead of buying it. Then buy say 2 units of salt, 2 units of Tools, and 2 units of Weapons. If Peasants, Artisans, or Soldiers are free, by all means, load up on them too. Notice that your COMPANY FINANCE status and your caravan inventory are updated accordingly. Before you leave the Trade Menu, note the prices of items you can buy and sell here; remember them so that you can "buy low sell high" when you find another city. When you are done, click on the DONE button at the upper left of the menu to return to the playing field. Now you're ready to go do some exploring to find a city to trade with. Let's go in the SW direction (ok, so we happen to know there's city around there). Click on the JoyPad arrow which points SW 5 times to move 5 grids in that direction. The pop up window announces that you are approaching a city. When you've finished reading the pop up, get rid of it with a click. If this is the first time you've encounted a new city, a second pop up will also display, showing the gates of the city and a peasant walking into it. Get rid of this pop up with a click. Notice on the local map now that the city is directly below you, so click the JoyPad button in the S direction to go there. Now, you're ready to trade, so click (T)rade in the Control Panel to the right. What do you know, TOOLs here sell for 8 gold coins! and you bought 2 units of TOOLs at 4 gold coins at Canton. You can make some profit by selling them here. Make your trading decisions and perform the trades as you want, load up on food if necessary, and click DONE when finished to return to the playing field. If you want to build a warehouse, move the caravan to where you want to build it, and click on (B)uild on the Control Panel. This will cost you 16 coins and a caravan, and is irreversible (can't get your caravan back). You can, however, remove a warehouse by clicking on it, then clicking (C)ut on the Control Panel. Since you've just turned your only caravan into a warehouse, you'll need to get another caravan. Click on (A)dd in the Control Panel. A new caravan will appear at Canton (starting location for all caravans--since that your trading headquarter). Click on (T)rade and load up on food and some items to trade, then DONE to get back to the playing field. Now, let's see what's on the other side of the body of water to the East of Canton. To move across water, you must get on a ship. To load on a ship, double click in the direction you want to move. When you get back to land again, to dis- embark double click in the direction you want to move. And onward you go on the road to fame and riches ... =============================================== I 8. TECHNICAL SUPPORT I =============================================== Thank you for playing Canton. We hope you enjoy the game. We have made every effort to test our products before they reach you. In spite of this, we may have overlooked a few bugs. If you find a bug in Canton, we would appreciate hearing from you. Please send us a note, either via e-mail or snail mail, to: NNN Software P.O. Box 50544 Lighthouse Point, FL 33074 Internet: nnn@seq.com Please give as much detail as you can. We exterminate every bug we can repeat.