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Text File | 1992-10-17 | 15.3 KB | 355 lines

Election of Ecotopia by Jim Robison Copyright (c) 1986, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91 by Jim Robison. and 1992 by Robison Data Systems. Written with PowerBasic version 2.10f copyrighted by Robert S. Zale, Registered Trademark of Spectra Publishing. Incorporating the Windows for PowerBasic 2.10 routines copyrighted by Barry Erick. Copyright Notice: Election of Ecotopia is a trademark in use by Robison Data Systems and the software is copyrighted by Jim Robison. Portions of the software are copyrighted by Robert S. Zale and/or Barry Erick. Jim Robison grants to any user the right to copy and distribute this software, provided that no charge is made for the software other than standard disk copying and handling charges. All users are granted a brief trial period of no more than thirty days to try out and to test the software. If at the end of this trial period the user wishes to continue to use the software, the user is required to register the software by forwarding the appropriate software registration fee to Robison Data Systems. WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! THIS IS AN INTENSE, COMPLEX, AND HIGHLY STRATEGIC GAME. IT IS NOT MEANT FOR THOSE WISHING TO KILL TIME BY KILLING SPACE ALIENS. I. Description This is a multi-player game for one to seven players and an unlimited number of kibitzers. The basic structure of Election of Ecotopia is based on the concept of establishing a campaign plan, and following it through. The program itself is broken into four distinct parts which reflect play of the game. 1) The startup phase initiates all varibles, generates the demographics of Ecotopia, and allows the players to define their candidates. At this point you may establish computer managed candidates in addition to the player managed candidates. 2) The weekly "office" phase allows each player to establish and/or adjust their campaign plan, including their calendar, budget, volunteer assignments, etc. The order of play in this phase may give certain advantages to the players who move first or last, therefore the order of play is determined randomly each week. 3) The daily operations phase runs the actual simulation of the campaign taking place. This phase runs through a week of activities at a time, and may take several minutes depending on the complexity of activities under way, the number of candidates and the speed of your computer. During this phase certain events may occur which require input from the players. For example speeches and debates which take place will require the players to select topics for their statements. 4) Finally, the Election Day phase tallys all the votes received by the candidates. Total votes for each candidate are displayed on screen as they are being tallyed, along with percentages, voter turnout, and the percentage of precincts reported. Due to the complexity of the method for calculating votes, it takes several minutes for the final vote to be tallyed. II. Intended Users This is a multi-player game. Up to seven candidates may compete in a highly competitive political campaign. Election of Ecotopia is likely to attract those players who are interested in the electoral process, who are highly competetive, or who enjoy strategic challenges such as this. To play the game will require at a minimum one hour, and possibly several hours depending on the length of game selected, number of players, and the time each player takes for their turn. Students who wish to learn about the electoral process and campaign strategies will find Election of Ecotopia to be highly educational. III. Unique Features Election of Ecotopia is designed to operate as a fairly realistic simulation of a fictional campaign. While it is impossible to create a perfect model of electoral behavior, I have attempted to include the most important factors in any campaign. Incorporated into ECO are the attitudes of the voters concerning various issues, the stands of the candidates, the demographics of the electorate, and the likelihood of voters to turnout on election day. Information concerning the candidates includes their stands on various issues, perceived positions on the issues, political party, speaking ability, charisma, integrity, prestige, and momentum. In addition voters in each region, or party, are inclined to support a candidate from their own region, or their own party, even if they otherwise disagree with that candidate. Three major factors are calculated to determine the voters attitudes toward the candidates. These are: 1) issues, 2) personality, and 3) preferences. The weight various voters place on each factor will differ among the voters, and may change over time in response to the activities of the candidates. I have not seen another attempt to so thoroughly simulate the campaign process. Election of Ecotopia gives the player control over many factors of a camaign, and provides an internal campaign manual which could even be helpful to someone learning how to run a real life campaign. I have molded into this program many years of experience of working on various political campaigns in various capacities as well as years of studying the political process. If you want an easy and fun way to learn about campaigning, this is it! IV. Requirements Election of Ecotopia requires at least 640K of RAM to run. It should run with any version of DOS 3.00 or higher, though I have not yet tested it under all versions. The program may run well under earlier versions of DOS, but this has not been tested. I have not yet determined the exact memory requirements, but I know it will run under DOS 5.0 with 640K. There are no specific video requirements, the Map of Ecotopia may not display without a minimum of a CGA adapter card. The program will run properly on a monochrome monitor. The program requires approximately 1 Megabyte of disk space. It can be run on one 1.2M or 1.44M disk, two 720K, or four 360K floppy disks, but a hard drive is preferable. An additional floppy disk is required to use the game saving option. If run on 360K disks, set up the disks as indicated in the third column of the file list below, start the program from disk 1, then switch the disks when prompted by the program. It is highly recommended that this program be run on a machine with a 16MHz processor or faster. Slower machines will take considerable time to complete certain tasks. Placing the program files on a RAM drive will reduce delays while the program is loading overlays. V. Start Up Type "ECO" to start the program. Upon startup, you will first select whether to load a saved game, load a saved scenario, or start a new game. If you start a new game you will have to wait for the demographics of Ecotopia to be generated. The total number of registered voters will be displayed on the screen. Next you will have the options of Playing the Game, Reading the Instruction, Reading the History of Ecotopia, or Exiting the Game. The History is meant to add some color to the game. The Instructions are highly informative as to strategies which can be employed in winning the game. Note that the instructions are also available from the Library Menu (as Campaign Manual) during the weekly campaign strategy phase. I suggest that you skim the instructions once before starting, then refer back to the Campaign Manual while developing your strategy. Upon starting the game, you will be required to answer several self explanatory questions. Note that the election date is always November 3rd, 1992. The length of the campaign is determined by the date selected for the campaign to begin. An earlier beginning date gives a longer campaign. The length of the campaign ranges from 4 weeks to 28 weeks. I must warn you that this is a long and complex game of intense strategy. I highly recommend that if you have not played this game before that you select the shortest (4 week) version. The longest versions of the game should not be attempted unless you have registered the game and received the Save Games option, or you are willing to spend a couple sleepless nights at the computer. Your next task is to create the candidates. If you have saved candidate definitions, you may load a saved candidate at this time. Each player must select a name, party, and home region, then set up the stands their candidate will hold on the various issues. Note that when selecting the stand your candidate will take, your political party's position will be highlighted. This will also help you to know what the voters percieve your position to be. At the start of the campaign cycle, the voters will assume that you hold the same stands as your party's platform. If this is not the case, then you may want to let the voters know through your advertising and speeches. As time goes on, the voters will learn more about the stands of the candidates. Don't worry, you do have the option of later changing your position, at the cost of a little credibility, or of simply ignoring an issue in the hope that the voters will overlook it. VI. Registration This program took several years to produce. I started out writing this game in standard GWBasic as a method of learning and practicing programming. I later converted the program to TurboBasic, then to PowerBasic. This version bears very little resemblance to the original one. I have put a great deal of work into this product. This is not a "free" program. This is shareware. If you continue to use this program after a brief trial period, your conscience will bother you until you send a registration fee of $25.00 to: Robison Data Systems 6615 N. Princeton St. Portland, Oregon 97203. Payment of the registration fee will support continued improvements to this product, and entitle you to a free upgrade to the next release version. In addition, all registered users will be given discounted updates to future versions and receive the game saving feature which can be used to save games, scenarios, and candidates. In development is a scenario editing program. The Scenario Editor will allow users to create their own Candidates and scenarios, even to duplicate real life cases. The Scenario Editor will be made available to registered users only. When registering, please let me know where you received your copy of the program, the exact version number, and the serial number. (This information appears on the opening screen.) This will help me to keep track of how the software is being distributed and where there are outdated versions floating around. If you have comments or bug reports, please send them, regardless of whether or not you are a registered user. VII. Files Included File Ext Description Four 360K Setup ============================================================= ECO EXE The Startup Program on Disk 1 OFFICE PBC Weekly Strategy Chain File on Disk 2 LIBRARY PBC News/Library Chain File on Disk 2 ELECT PBC The Daily Routines Chain File on Disk 3 DEBATE PBC Debates Chain File on Disk 3 EDAY PBC Election Day Chain File on Disk 4 MAP ECO Graphic "BLOAD" Map of Ecotopia on Disk 1 & 2 HISTORY ECO Text History of Ecotopia on Disk 1 & 2 README ECO This Document File REGISTER ECO Registration Form SAVEOPT PBC Save Game Chain File, distributed to registered users only. save game disk * GAM Saved Game Files * CAN Saved Candidate Files * SCE Saved Scenario Files VIII.Contact Comments or suggestions should be sent to: Jim Robison 6615 N. Princeton St. Portland, OR 97203 CompuServe Id: 76645,1024 BBS: (503) 240-1851 FidoNet Node: 1:105/84. IX. Misc. Nearly all features of the program are documented within the program itself. Most options are accessable from the menus presented on screen. However, four function keys are used within the program, but are not fully documented in the program. F10 End the Game F9 Toggle Sound off or on F5 Decrease delays F4 Increase delays Delays are inserted when a screen is presented for informational reasons but requires no user input, for example concerning the actions of computer managed candidates. Depending on the current status of the program you will likely experience a short delay before a function key is recognized and acted upon. X. Version History 1.x - First try, in GWBasic 2.x - Converted to TurboBasic 1.0 - Many new routines. 3.x - Converted to PowerBasic 2.0 - Completely new windowed interface. - First Shareware distribution. 4.0 - Added numerous features. - Debates - Speeches - Save Games Option 4.1 - Upgraded to PowerBasic 2.10a 4.2 - Upgraded to PowerBasic 2.10f - Fixed a number of memory errors. - Significant changes in the handling of certain variables in memory. - Incorporated new factors in the behavior of voters, and added computer managed candidates. It is possible to set up a campaign, and have all the candidates managed by the computer. - Added function keys noted above. 4.3x - Added additional options for activities of the candidate, including Vacations, Meeting VIPS, Practicing Speaking. - Completed the computer managed candidates to take advantage of all campaign activities intelligently. 4.40 - Broke out Library and Debate into their own Chain Files, reducing the amount of free memory required to run the program. - Adjusted the calculations of votes to improve the voter model. The Future? - Maybe a Windows version. - Mouse Support. - Graphical Interface - An On-Line version for BBS Door play. XI. Questions & Answers. 1. "What is "SAVEOPT.PBC" and why don't I have it?" SaveOpt.Pbc is the Save Games Option. It is NOT distributed with the shareware distrution of the game. SaveOpt.Pbc is sent only to registered users of Election of Ecotopia. Once you register and receive this file, you will be able to save your candidates, scenarios, and games for play at a later date. 2. "What is this Scenario Editor you mentioned?" The Scenario Editor will be made available to registered users only. It will allow you to examine the details of a particular scenario, or candidate, and edit them. You could use the Scenario Editor to create a replica of a real life campaign and test the accuracy of the Election of Ecotopia model, or experiment with possible campaign strategies.