Conquest of the New World Version 1.10 Update Notes July 22, 1996 INTRODUCTION This README file accompanies the version 1.10 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 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 1.10 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 replace previous versions of the game (1.06 and earlier). It will give you a new executable file and make modifications to your CNW.WAD file. For all users with 8 megabyte machines: this version includes 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. INSTALLING THE UPDATE Warning: There are two different versions of the patch for Conquest of the New World, depending on where the game was purchased. All owners of English-only versions of the original game must use the "English-only" update (CNW110E.ZIP). The size of the file CNW.WAD on your hard disk before updating should be 13,256,639 bytes. International purchasers (the installer asks you which language you wish to use) should use the International update (CNW110I.ZIP). The size of the file CNW.WAD on your hard disk before updating should be 13,256,685 bytes. The version 1.10 update for Conquest of the New World can be installed easily as follows: 1) Copy the file CNW110E.ZIP or CNW110I.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 "V1.10" in the lower left-hand corner of the main game screen. No previous versions display the version number. 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 1.05 or 1.06 against version 1.10 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 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. 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: 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 in Europe: +44 (0) 1628 423 723 Interplay's Fax: (714) 252-2820 Attn: Customer Service in Europe: +44 (0) 1628 487 752 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 +44 (0) 1903 732 596. 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.