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Table Of Contents
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PREFACE
ON THE RIGHT PATH
Computer Specifications
The Settlers - Presentation
Configuration
Hard Disk Installation
The Status Screen
TO GET STARTED
Copy Protection
The Main Menu
The Game - The Commands
The Map
The Castle
Constructing Buildings
Constructing Roads
The First Settlers
Demolition
Saving And Ending The Game
TRAINING
Game 1 - Rural Property
Game 2 - Construction Materials
Game 3 - Food
Game 4 - The Riches Of The Earth And There Exploitation
Game 5 - Fabrication Of Tools And Weapons
Game 6 - Attack
THE ECONOMY
The Economic System
Your First Colony (Village, City)
About Statistics
The First Statistics
The Statistics Curves
The Supply Statistics
The Warehouses
Information About The Buildings And The Flags
The Distribution Menus
RULES OF COMBAT
The Knight Returns
TO CONTINUE
The Other Menus
Messages And Preferences
Renewable Games
Demonstration And Team Mode
The Options
Special Functions For The Map
HINTS
The Most Important Rules: Be Observant
The Behaviours Of The Opponents
Hints And Tips: Professions
Need Help?
The End Of The Game
ANNEXES
If You Have A Problem
PREFACE
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Dear Blue Byte client. What you have in your hands is not simply a game
manual. It is an adventure guide that will become an epic and that will
probably lastingly change your life in the coming months, along with your
attitude towards entertainment.
"The Settlers" is a program that you can play as often as you like and that
will teach you new things.
After playing for a few hours, you will agree with us when we say that this
game has no equal in terms of style or graphics.
For the first time, users can enter a world so complex, so detailed, that
they will literally want to plunge themselves into the game. With The
Settlers, we have achieved the goal that programmers have set for
themselves since the beginnings of video games: create a new world for the
player, where the adventure never finishes and can continue, based on the
desires of the players, to grow for years to come. The text in the box is
very clear: if you have had enough of daily life and you would like to
forget about it for a while, you no longer have to save up to buy yourself
a new State. The Settlers will allow you to construct your own refuge, one
that you can modify and enlarge as you like. We will be pleased if you can
find the peace and calm in your realm that is missing from your daily
existence. In fact, we are sure that vou will. This manual has been
written to help you achieve this freedom; it will:
1. allow you to install The Settlers on your computer.
2. familiarize you with the basic principals that ... (see 3)
3. you can apply and try for the first time
4. give you general information.
5. allow you to understand how the game functions.
6. teach you new things if necessary.
7. help you understand any areas that are not clear.
8. address itself to users who want to know everything about the game,
right down to the last detail.
At the end of this manual, we have included a troubleshooting guide along
with an index that will be extremely useful. Don`t be intimidated by the
bulk of information. We have designed this manual to be cleat. You don't
need to be a student in economics in order to understand it. You can
always find the information you need The Settlers is a game that will
provide you with an enormous amount of pleasure and entertainment.
The Blue Byte team. October 1993.
ON THE RIGHT PATH
-----------------
Computer specifications
The Settlers requires an Amiga or an IBM PC will or compatible (386
minimum) with a hard disk. As this program will exploit each computer to
the best of its capabllities, you do not have to worry about your
configuration, especiaily if you are using a PC. Based on your computer`s
memory capacity, the program will automatically use this memory as needed.
If you have more than enough memory, the game will be even more enjoyable
to play because you can play with the sound effects, music and other new
possibilities of the game.
The Settlers Presentation
Congratulations! By purchasing The Settlers, you have just acquired an
extraordinary program that will fully exploit the capabilities of your
Amiga or PC. This is true whether you are using an Amiga 500 with 1 MB, an
Amiga 4000 with 10 MB and a hard drive, or a PC 386 or DX2 486. The
Settlers is an "intelligent" program that thinks for you and a game where
you are not required to take care of everything yourself.
The Settlers is a "linear timing" program: no matter what you do or what
calculations are made by the computer, the settlers will always work or
fight at the same speed. This is a new feature that does not exist for
programs as complex as this one. You will decide where you want your
settlers to construct buildings, how the roads will be made, where to
search for raw materials, and where they will attack the enemy. You can
also modify numerous parameters, that will affect the behaviour of your
settlers.
The computer will handle the execution of your decisions and it commands
your numerous settlers. The men will build houses, cut down trees, work in
the mines, construct weapons and tools, dispatch construction materials in
the places where they are needed, defend their castles against enemy knight
attacks, provide the miners with food, and many other things!
The Settlers will allow you to play in several ways: alone, in teams or in
training mode. Alone or in a team against the computer, alone or in a team
against opponents controlled by the computer that you have chosen yourself,
in 2 player mode and against opponents controlled by the computer, or just
with players controlled by the computer in order to watch the world evolve
without you having to intervene.
The goal of the game is to build a prosperous and well organized city and
to gain control of the enemy cities. This might initially seem simple to
do, but in reality it is much more complex. If you consider all the game's
problems inversely, that is from the end of the game first you will
understand better.
In order to conquer the enemy castles, you will need many knights. To keep
their moral up, you will need gold, and for the weapons you will need iron
and coal. These raw materials are found in mines. The mines must be
provided with food and the raw materials must be melted in a foundry
The food supply is insured by the fishermen and the farmers, but they need
tools, as do all other workers. These tools are made by smiths. To build
huts, houses, castles you will need construction materials and workers...
But don't worry. you won't have to remember all this for the moment;
everything will be explained along the way. We hope that you will enjoy
this game.
The Blue Byte team
Configuration
this paragraph concerns the Amiga version only.
The program will try to use all the capabilities of your computer We
recommend that you read the following paragraphs carefully to insure its
proper functioning. If you are not familiar with computers and the words
"Chipram" and "Fastram" don't mean anything to you do not read chapters 1.3
and 1.5.
a) General remarks about the configuration
Do not forget that any program already loaded when the game is launched
will take up memory space; memory space that might be needed by the
Settlers game in order to run properly. We recommend, therefore, that you
do not load other programs into memory if you are going to use the game.
If several programs are automatically loaded when the computer boots up,
use another startup sequence for The Settlers.
b) Configuration for 512 KB of Chipram or 1 MB of total memory only.
If you have 1 MB of Chipram and at least 1.5 MB of RAM total, you can skip
this paragraph. The program uses Chipram memory for the screens, the
animation, the sound effects and the music. If you have only 512 KB of
Chipram, you will have to sacrifice something; you will hear only part of
the sound erects, and no music at all. The sound effects are loaded based
on the available memory. You can increase the available memory by:
disconnecting unnecessary disk drives
not activating the hard disk (if it contains Chipram)
avoiding to launch other programs
The rest of the available memory is used by the program for the data, the
scenery, and the graphics. In order to use the scenarios with only 1 MB of
memory, we recommend that you reread the points mentioned above.
Hard disk installation
If you want to use the game from floppy disks, you can skip this paragraph.
PC:
WARNING!!! Before using the original floppy disks,we recommend that you
make a backup copy of them.
1) Turn your computer on as usual
2) When the system is operational, insert the first game disk into one of
the drives
3) Enter the letter of this drive followed by a colon (;) and press the
Return key. For the internal drive, for example, enter the letter a:.
If you have a second drive, this is usually designated by the letter b:.
4) Enter the installation program's name (INSTALL), then press the
RETURN key.
5) When the program has been launched, you will have to specify the path
for the installation. If you want to change the path proposed by the
program by default, enter the new path and confirm by pressing the
RETURN key. The installation of the program will begin. To quit the
installation program before the end of the installation procedure, press
the ESCAPE key.
6) When the installation program is finished, enter (SETTLERS) to launch
the game.
AMIGA:
WARNING!!! Before using the original floppy disks, we recommend that you
make a backup copy of them.
1) Start up your AMIGA as usual from the hard disk, When the Workbench
screen appears, insert the first disk (with the installation program)
into one of the drives.
2) Open the disk by double clicking on its icon. A window will open
containing other icons. One of these icons, "Install", represents the
installation program for Blue Byte games.
3) Launch the installation program by double clicking on its icon.
4) In the installation program's window, you will see two dialogue boxes.
Enter the name of the drive where the installation program is located
in the upper dialogue box. This will normally be the internal drive
"DF0" and this is the drive indicated by the program by default. If
the installation floppy disk is located on the external drive, enter
the corresponding letter (DF1-DF3). Confirm by pressing the RETURN key.
The lower dialogue box is only used for the target drive. As this disk
normally carries the name "DHO:3", it is the drive selected by default If
you want to install the program in another directory, enter the path
corresponding to your configuration. As you have probably created a
special folder for your games, you can also specify the directory in which
you want to install the game, for example:
dhO:games /bluebyte/
If the specified directory does not exist, it will be created automatically
by the installation program.
Status screen
As the PC version differs in terms of the utilisation of the systems
capabilities, PC users can skip this chapter as the status screen will be
of no use for them. When you launch the program, the status screen is
displayed. It will tell you how the program is using your computer. It
displays the following information:
1. Workbench
Indicates whether the workbench has been deactivated (which allows the user
to free up memory), if the workbench has not been deactivated, if start up
programs have been loaded, or if the workbench has not been opened.
2. Program
Indicates if the program is stored in Fastram. If this is the case, the
program is much faster because it can work in tandem with the Blitter.
3. Data
Indicates, as for the program, if the data is stored in Fastram (thereby
further increasing the speed of the program).
4. Sounds
Indicates if the sound effects (none or a part) are loaded or not into
memory (based on the size of the Chipram memory available)
5. Music
If you have 1 MB of memory, the music must be loaded into memory.
6. The game worlds
The number indicates the maximum size of the game's world. This will
depend on the size of the available memory and can be limited by the
storage device (see 9) or the processor (see 8). You will find more
precise information in the table at the end of this chapter.
7. Missions
You can undertake missions beginning with a size three world
8. Processor
Indicates the type of processor(s) installed in your Amiga.
9. Storage device
The games are saved on hard disk or floppy disk, The size of a games world
is limited to 5 for floppy disks (size 7 represents 1.6 MB) Moreover, a
size 5 world is already immense.
If you play on a PC, do not worry about all this information. As indicated
above, your computer will load all necessary data into its memory based on
your system's configuration.
TO GET STARTED
--------------
Copy protection
When the program is launched, the computer will ask you to enter a code.
You will be presented with 16 different symbols. For example, if the
program asks you which combination of symbols is found at the top of page
18, look on the page in question and click with the mouse on the
corresponding symbols in the correct order. If you click on the correct
symbols, the program will continue.
The main menu
This is where all the preliminary parameters are displayed before the
launching of the game. A maximum of 4 groups of settlers can participate
in the game. A group of settlers is controlled by the player by the
computer or by two players working as a team.
To choose a game mode, click on the second icon from the left. The icon's
graphic and the text will indicate the game mode chosen among the following
modes:
Mission: Orders fixed opponents controlled by the computer (1 player), or
2 players in a team, with blue settlers
Training: Orders fixed for new players (1 or 2 players in a team with blue
settlers).
1 player: Opponents that can be modified at will and game for 1 player or
2 players in a team with blue settlers.
2 players: Opponents that can be modified at will and game for 2 players
against each other. One of the players plays with the blue settlers, the
other with the red settlers.
Demo mode: Here you are only an observer. You watch the computer colonize
itself.
In the lower half of the screen, you see the participants of the game. In
the left part of the screen, you will see an image. On this image, you
will see a friendly settlement (if this is the group of settlers that you
control) or a less friendly adversary (the computer). If you do not see an
image, this group of settlers does not exist in the game. The different
opponents controlled by the computer have their own personalities, and can
be aggressive or reserved, ready to take risks or preoccupied by their own
security. You will find further on indications concerning the personality
of these opponents. On the right side of the image, you will see three
bars having the colours of blue, green and red. These indications are very
important. The blue bar indicates the state of the stocks of a settlement
(city) at the beginning of the game. A large stock allows for rapid
expansion and procures ceriain advantages. A small stock creates problems
when the city begins to expand. If you are a novice, make sure that the
blue bar is always above the 50% level. The green bar indicates the
intelligence level of the players controlled by the computer. This level
affects the rapidity of their actions and reactions. For the players, the
green bar is always at its maximum (we assume that you are extraordinarily
intelligent....) and has no other signification.
The red bar represents the growth rate. The higher it is, the faster your
settlements will reproduce, and the faster you can expand Novices should
try to keep this bar above the 50% level.
According to the game mode chosen, you can modify certain other parameters.
To start off, we recommend that you try the training game No1.
Mission: You will see, in the middle of the screen, the current level
(beginning 1), the password (at the beginning "START") and two arrows.
When you accomplish a mission, the program will display the password that
allows you to restart the game at the same level. Click on the password
and enter the new password. Do not forget to press the Return key to
confirm. If the password is incorrect, the message "FALSE" will be
displayed. If the password is correct, you will see the level to which you
will have access.
With the arrows displayed to the right of the password, you can return to
the levels already completed. You can also activate the team mode by
clicking with the mouse in the left frame. You will see two mice. We
recommend that you do not try the mission orders right away.
Training game: there is no password for training. You can directly select
each available training game by using the arrows. As for the missions, you
can activate the team mode by clicking with the mouse.
1 player, 2 players and demo mode: You can modify numerous parameters for
these game modes. The size of the world is displayed in the centre. To
modify it, click on the small or the large planet. Novices should probably
not play with worlds with a size greater than 3, as they will be quickly
submerged by the train of events... You can modify all data concerning a
group of settlers:
the blue bar for the state of the stocks
the green bar for the intelligence (when the opponents are controlled by
the computer).
the red bar for the growth rate
the button to activate or deactivate the opponents controlled by the
computer
the image of the adversary controlled by the computer, to choose another.
The initial data is chosen randomly. If you are a novice, we recommend
that you change the parameters to your advantage, especially where the
stocks are concerned, because a large stock is very important. If you want
to see the game in demo mode, you can increase the intelligence level of
the players controlled by the computer, but reduce their stock. The
combination of numbers displayed to the right is a randomly chosen number
for the creation of a world. This number decides the location for the
mountains, lakes, deserts, forests, etc. in this world. The same
combination of numbers will produce, therefore, the same world. To change
worlds, click on the icon to the left with the question mark and another
combination of numbers will immediately be chosen. The icon remaining in
the middle of the screen and the turning star, that you have perhaps
already noticed, will be explained in the following section.
In 1 player, 2 player, or demo mode, you will want to set the values of
each participant at the same level. In the middle of the frame to the
right, you will see a small arrow. Click on the icon and the data for the
player (or the adversary controlled by the computer), which is located to
the far right, will be the same for all the other participants. The player
situated furthermost to the right is always used, because the only players
that have modifiable levels of intelligence are those controlled by the
computer.
To launch the game, click on the "START" icon. The screen will fade to
black and the computer will calculate the game's world. A red bar will
inform you of the progression of the calculations.
To reload a previously saved game, select the "LOAD" option. A few seconds
later a window will appear with a list of files saved on disk or floppy
disk. If you want to change floppy disks, insert the new disk and click on
the change disk icon. Click on the name of the saved game and then on
"load" to load the game, or on "Exit" to cancel. When a game is loaded, a
message appears on the screen to tell you if the loading procedure went
well or if there were any errors encountered. Click on "Exit". If the
game was correctly loaded a new screen will be displayed and you will see
all the opponents and all the values of the beginning of the game. This is
important if you do not remember against whom you played, or the strength
of your opponents. With the exception of the title, only the "Start" and
"Cancel" icons remain activated. The "Start" icon allows you to continue
the game, the "Cancel" icon to return to the main menu. To quit the game,
click on the EXIT icon in the upper left corner of the screen.
The additional options icon is discussed in paragraph 6.5
The game - The commands
You can play alone or with two players, with all functions being identical.
The only differences are that in 2 player mode the screen is divided in
two, the image of the world is smaller and the icons are closer together.
As no additional explanation is generally required for the 2 player mode,
it will only be rarely discussed in the information that follow. After
launching the game, you will see a part of the world on the screen:
perhaps some grass with some trees or a lake. To simplify explanaiions.
this part of the world will be called the "screen" from now on. At the
bottom of the screen are 5 different round icons that have different
functions. They will be called the "Menu" from now on.
As we have already mentioned, you will only see a part of a world on the
screen. According to the size of the screen, the world can range from 10
to 1200 times this size for giant worlds. To move around in a world, press
the right mouse button and drag it in the desired direction. When you
arrive at the desired destination, release the mouse button. Look at the
scenery for a moment. You will see deserts, lakes, forests, mountains, and
many other things.
Perhaps you have noticed your pointer in the middle of the image when you
launched the game. It is made of a central symbol and 6 surrounding
points. You position this pointer where you want to activate one of the
game options. If, for example, you want to construct a house or a road
somewhere, you must first place your pointer on this area. To place the
pointer on the desired area, just click on the screen with the left mouse
button. The pointer's central icon, which is also displayed in the lower
left of the menu, will probably change. We will discuss this in the
following paragraphs.
SPECIAL CLICK: further on in this manual, we will often use the term
"Special Click". This means that you do not click only on the left button
as usual but you must additionally press the right button. Therefore, a
click on, the left button while pressing the right button is called a
"special click". Why? Certain functions in the game are very powerful!
For exanmple, an accidental click on the mouse could destroy an important
building. This special click is more over often used for additional
functions.
The map
In the middle of the menu, you will see a "map" icon. Click on this icon
with the mouse. A new window will appear above the games world. You will
see a geographic map with different icons. On this map, the prairies are
indicated in green, the deserts in yellow, the lakes in blue and the
mountains (according to their height) in brown and white. If you click
somewhere on the map, your screen will move to the corresponding area and
the world and map will disappear. Try clicking on a lake or a desert: it
will immediately appear on the screen. You can similarly select a faraway
area very quickly by scrolling through the world until you reach the area,
as explained in chapter 6
A world is "endless" which is to say that if you continue moving to the
left you will eventually return to your point of departure. The world does
not have, therefore, any "edges". You will understand this better if you
select the map again and click on the icon located next to the magnifying
glass in the lower right area. You will see slanted and horizontal lines
that define the size of the world. For example if you have selected, size
3, you will notice that the world is represented 4 times on the map, and 16
times for a size 1 world.
The different sections are connected to each other and this is why the
game's terrain has no limits. The size 5 world will fit perfectly in the
map section. The size 8 world is enormous. You will only see one eighth
of the world on the map! With size 3 and larger worlds, you can move both
the map and the screen: press the right mouse button and drag in the
desired direction. Do not forget that this movement is not possible for
smaller worlds (as they adapt themselves to the section of the map),
With the magnifying glass icon, you can zoom in on the map. The other
icons displayed at the bottom of the map are discussed further on in
paragraph 3, because it is first of all necessary to have constructed
something to see their utility.
The castle
At the beginning of the game, you begin by constructing your castle, which
will serve as headquarters. The area where you place this castle is of
utmost importance for the rest of the game. If you are a novice and you
have a large amount of stocks, you will not run into any immediate problems
and the location of the headquarters does not have an extreme importance.
However, if you have limited stocks, a poorly placed castle can entail
fatal consequences if you should lack certain materials when the enemy is
already constructing weapons. To illustrate the most important aspects, we
have established a list of conditions that are favourable to the
construction of your castle:
avoid narrow valleys in the mountains. Look for a relatively flat area.
choose an area with raw materiais that are close to the castle for the
construction of new houses (trees and grey granite)
choose a terrain that has a large amount of underground riches
The first two points can easily be verified on the screen. If there are a
few trees and some granite, and if the environment is not too inhospitable,
these conditions will be fulfilled. The underground riches are also very
important. The underground riches are: gold, iron. coal and granite.
They are found only in the mountains. To see how much underground riches
are in the zone displayed on the screen, you can ask the geologist who will
give you an overall estimation of the area's riches. The second icon to
the left on the menu represents the geologist. Click on this icon to
obtain the desired information. You will know what riches are present and
where they are located, from top to bottom: gold, iron, coal and granite.
All the values do not need to be at a maximum, but if there is no coal,
iron or gold or only small quantities of the three, look for another area.
Click on the Exit icon to back up a step. The importance of the
underground riches also depends on your strategy. You will understand this
as you read this manual. Often with the size 1 worlds, it is possible that
certain riches do not exist at all, or that there are no mountains (and
therefore no riches). In this case, do not look desperately for another
area and forget about the riches. With the friendly geologist, you only
have an estimation of the riches in the area, but you do not know exactly
in which mountains they are to be found, or if you are going to find them.
Your settlers will have to find them for themselves, later in the game.
You have at last found a good place to construct your castle. The castle
is a large structure that must be placed on a relatively flat and grassy
area. To do this, click anywhere on the screen with the left mouse button
and the pointer will be placed on this area. if a castle appears in the
centre of the pointer the choice of area has been good. In the lower left
of the menu you will see the "Construct a Castle" icon. If, after several
tries, you have not found an area to construct your castle, use the
"Construction help" icon: special click on the left menu icon (it does not
matter what is displayed) the construction help function will become
active. All areas where a castle can be constructed will be indicated on
the screen. By clicking on one of these areas, you will cause the
"Construct a castle" icon to be displayed in the lower left. Click on this
symbol and your castle will be constructed in a few seconds. A flag with
the players colour will be flown in front of the castle. The castle will
be the only building that will be "freely" given to you. All the other
houses will be built by your settlers. At a certain distance from the
castle you will see a barrier of black and white poles, or of red posts in
the water. They indicate the limits of your property and, therefore where
you have the right to build other buildings.
The geologist's help will be available to you only at the beginning of the
game. Once your castle is built, you will have to manage by yourself.
Constructing buildings
You have taken the first step. Your castle has been constructed. You can
now have your settlers build other houses. If you place your pointer some
where within the limits around your castle, the central icon will tell you
the type of buildings that you can construt:
Two arrows: you cannot construct here
Flag: you can only place a flag here
Hut: you can construct any of the different types of huts (small
buildings)
Castle: you have enough space for all the buildings
Mine: you can build a mine (only in the mountains)
How do you decide which type of building can be built and where it can be
placed?
First of all, all buildings must be built on your land and there must not
be trees or boulders on the area. All houses, huts and castles must be
built on a green surface and the mines only in the mountains (but not in
the snow). The type of building that can be constructed also depends on
the slope of the terrain. For the large buildings, the ground must be
level: their construction is impossible on steep slopes. If you are
looking for an area that is well adapted for a large building, the
"Construction help" option will help you to avoid clicking all around the
screen to find a good location, as we explained for the castle. Special
click on the left menu icon. You will immediately see the areas where you
can construct a building on the screen. You can now choose an area. To
deactivate the construction help, special click again on the left menu
icon.
Depending on which icon is in the centre of the pointer, you will also
see other icons in the lower left of the menu: "Place a flag", "Construct
a Hut", or "Construct a large building". When you click on these options a
star appears above the construction symbol in the menu, along with a new
window with a choice of buildings. To construct a large building, you have
a choice among 20 buildings. As they do not all fit into one window, you
can scroll through them by clicking on the "change page" icon. All the
buildings are discussed in more detail further on in this manual. For the
moment, chose one of them and click on it to give the order to construct.
The window disappears and you will see the first stone of the construction
or a cross on the screen. The first stone means that a house will be built
in this place. The cross has the same meaning, but the ground must be
levelled first so that it can provide a solid foundation for the large
building that you have chosen.
If you decide not to construct a building on the chosen area, click on the
turning star and quit the construction mode. To transform a construction
site into a finished building, you must construct a road between the castle
and the site. We will discuss this in the following paragraph.
Constructing Roads
The settlers need roads so that they can access the different areas of
their city. These roads always run from one flag to another. Your network
of roads is very important. A good network ensures the rapid transfer of
goods and, when there are problems with the transportation, allows you to
more readily find other solutions. The flags serve as intersections. 6
roads can begin at each flag to lead to other flags. There is a flag in
front of each one of your buildings.
In the beginning, you must construct a road when you want to build your
first house. You will see a flag in front of the construction just like
the flag in the front of your castle. Click on one of the two flags and a
symbol for the construction of roads will appear in the pointer and in the
lower left of the menu. Select the icon in the lower left of the menu. A
turning star will appear and the pointer will contain two new symbols. You
are now in "Road construction" mode.
The different symbols around the pointer have the following significations:
zone hatched in red and yellow: you cannot construct roads in this
direction
different slope symbols that range from red (very steep ascents and
descents) to green (flat) and passing by the yellow: you can construct
roads in this direction.
Undo
If you click on this icon, you destroy the last part of the road made. If
you click on one of the slope icons and a part of the road appears, the
pointer contains new symbols. Repeat this operation until the road meets
the other flag. The star in the lower left disappears and the pointer
takes its initial form. The road is constructed and you will quit the
construction mode. The first settlers will begin to leave your castle. Do
not worry about them for the moment. We will discuss them in the following
paragraph. The meaning of the different slope icons is very simple: when
you look from left to right, the icon indicates the slope of the terrain:
a rapid ascent will be indicated for example, by a slope on the icon that
climbs from left to right. The colour is an additional help. It allows
you to see at a glance the slope of a road. Red indicates a steep slope,
yellow a moderate slope and green a flat terrain. The flatter the terrain,
the faster the merchandise can be distributed, because the settlers will
tire much more quickly on slopes than on flat ground. It is often
preferable to make a small detour if you can avoid a red, or very steep,
slope. Novices will not have to worry too much about slopes. If you
construct a road and then decide that you no longer want it, click on the
turning star. You will quit the "road construction" mode and the road will
be erased.
If you want to branch off from an already existing road, you must place a
flag on the road, Click on the desired area. If it is possible to place a
flag there, a flag will appear in the pointer and in the left of the menu.
If it is not possible to place a flag there, use the "construction help"
function. It is possible that placing another flag in a road is impossible
because there is already a flag on this road that is very short, right next
to the chosen spot, or because there are trees in this spot. If you can
create a new intersection, you will see the "Place flag" icon in the menu.
Click on this icon to construct the new intersection. You also can prolong
an existing road or complete the road with a special click and, if
possible, a flag will be placed simultaneously.
You can also construct water ways. Two flags must be on the banks of a
lake for a water way to be built, Construct a Water way between the two
flags in the usual fashion. Do not forget to connect this water way with
your network of roads. The water way serves as a guide for the navigator
who will use it later to transport merchandise It is clear that the other
settlers cannot use a water way. This is why the water ways are used only
for the transport of merchandise and are not very important for novices.
When constructing your roads, make sure that a road runs on the land OR on
the water, but not both at the same time!
The first settlers
When the road leading to the first construction site is built, the first
settlers will begin to leave your castle. This paragraph will explain what
they are doing.
The first settler who leaves the castle is a transporter. He takes 100
steps on the new road and looks and sees if there is some merchandise that
needs to be transported. As soon as he sees merchandise on the road to
transport, he will take it to the next flag.
At the beginning of the game, you will have 20 settlers. Some of them
already have jobs, others are waiting for jobs.
If you want to build a large building, a settler with a orange helmet and a
shovel (the leveler) will arrive and begin walking towards the construction
site. Once there, he will begin to level the ground. When he has
finished, the cross on the site will become the first stone and the settler
will return to the castle.
If you want to build a small building, a settler with a yellow helmet
(construction worker) will arrive looking for his work area. He will ihen
wait for the construction material to arrive so he can begin building the
house.
Another settler will distribute the construction material from the castle
to the construction site: this will always be wood and, eventually, stones
(according to what type of building is being built). The transporter will
take the merchandise and carry it to the construction site. The
construction worker will immediately begin working and soon you will see
scaffolding and, eventually, the building itself. The small huts will be
built very quickly; a castle takes longer.
A worker returns to the castle as soon as he finishes his job. A worker
will then arrive to start working in the new house. The occupation of the
worker who moves in depends on the type of house that you built for him.
The functions of each worker and of each building are explained further on.
If you construct a water way, a settler with a boat will leave the castle
and walk towards the new water way and wait for merchandise
You do not have to wait for the construction of your house to be finished
before doing other things. You can give orders to construct other things
(houses, roads, etc.).
Your settlers will go about their tasks automatically, which is to say that
they will do their best to do the work with what they have at their
disposal. This is true not only for the transporters and the construction
workers that we just saw, but also for all the people that you will see
later on in the game, such as the forest rangers, the lumberjacks, the
carpenters, the quarrymen, the miners, the fishermen, the farmers, the pig
farmers, the millers, the bakers, the butchers, the different knights, the
casters, the locksmiths, the blacksmiths and the armorers.
Demolition
You may want to demolish a building, a road or a flag for a number of
reasons. This operation is discussed in this paragraph. To avoid
demolishing something by inadveriently pressing a mouse button, a special
click is required when demolishing something.
Demolishing buildings: Click on the desired building. The second menu
icon from the left will transform into a ruin. Special click on this ruin
to set the building on fire and burn it down. If a settler is living in
the building, he will return to the castle and wait for a new job.
Demolishing roads: Click anywhere on a road and the "demolish road" icon
will appear in the menu. Special click on this icon to remove the road.
The transporters that worked on this road will return to the castle and
wait for a new work. The other settlers on this road will run towards the
next flag and continue on their way.
Demolishing flags: You can demolish a flag only if it does not belong to a
building and if it is not yet connected to something else by a road, or if
there are exactly two roads leading to the flag. The reasons are simple;
if one road leads to the flag, it would lead suddenly into nothing, whereas
three or more roads can intersect without needing a flag. When there are
two flags, the flag can be removed and the two roads will merge into a
single road. Click on the flag that you want to remove and a ruin will
appear in the menu (if the flag's demolition is possible).
New construction: If you want to Construct a new building in the place of
another, you do not have to demolish the old building, wait for it to burn
down and then give the order to construct. You can directly give the new
order to construct in the desired location by placing the pointer on the
old building and selecting the construction function as usual. For
security reasons, you will have to choose the building with a special click
to avoid accidentally destroying an important building. The old building
will be burned down and you can order the construction of a new building.
Saving and ending the game
In 2 plaver mode these options can only be activated by the player on the
left. Click on the right menu icon and new options will be displayed. For
now do not pay attention to the upper icons, but only to the "SAVE" options
and "END" at the bottom of screen.
To quit the current game, click on the "End" option. The program will ask
you to confirm. If you have been playing for more than one minute or if
you have not saved the game for more than one minute the program will ask
you to confirm a second time. You will then return to the main menu.
The "SAVE" option allows you to access the saved file menu. The list of
saved files will be displayed on the screen. If you want to change floppy
disks, insert the new and click NEXT on the "Change Disk" option. To save
the current game, click on one of the 10 areas and then on the "New name"
option to enter a new name. You can also enter the date when the game was
saved to avoid any confusion. If you want to save a game with the same
name as a game already saved, you don`t have to enter a new name. Be
careful! The game already saved will be erased by the new game. Click on
the SAVE option to save the current game. Always read the floppy disks
message to see if the game has been correctly saved. If you save onto
floppy disk, we recommend that you format several floppy disks and that you
put labels on them before beginning to play. We also recommend that you
save the game onto two different floppy disks for additional security. If
one of the floppy disks is defective, you will have only lost an hour or so
of the game.
If you want to load (save) from a floppy disk, insert the new floppy disk
and click on the change floppy disk icon. The list of files on the new
floppy disk will be displayed.
Training
--------
You now know the game's basic principals and can begin with the first
training games. Each building will be explained to you and the program
will tell you where you should be careful. Each training game contains
orders that will be specified in the instructions. You can then play and
follow the game's progression on the screen. The paragraphs contain the
corresponding explanations and you will quickly learn how to play and the
game will become more interesting.
In the training games, you have a large stock that allows you to obtain
tools, food, construction materials and large quantities of settlers.
Do not hesitate to save training (or other) games from time to time. If,
in the instructions for advanced players, you find some useful information,
you can use the saved games (which already contain many buildings) to test
this information. When certain important events occur, you will be
directly informed. You will hear a noise and a small blinking piece of
paper will appear in the bottom left of the menu. The different events
about which you will be informed will be discussed in detail in this
manual. If you click on the piece of paper, a message will be displayed on
the screen and the computer will move the screen to the place where the
event is taking place. If you click on the hook in the window, the message
will disappear.
Game 1 - Rural Property
Guard huts, watch towers, castles and the geographic map.
Orders: have your settlers construct a guard hut, a watch tower and a
castle.
Explanations: After the beginning of a game, you will choose a location to
build your castle. You dont need to worry about the fertility of the soil
or the trees. Give the order to construct the 3 required buildings and
wait (use the help functions for construction if you cannot find a good
location right away). For the watch tower and the castle, a leveler will
begin by levelling the ground. You will have to have the construction
materials transported. While the hut requires only one delivery of wood
and stones the castle will require at least 10. A second transporter will
leave the castle to help his colleague. As soon as the guard hut is built,
a knight will leave your castle in order to occupy it. When the first
knight arrives in a guard hut, a watch tower or a castle your rural
property will grow. Look and you will see its limits move. So that you
will be informed of this growih (if you were looking elsewhere in the
world), you will hear a noise telling you that you have received a message.
Click on the piece of paper and you will learn that another building has
been occupied by a knight. Next, some gold will be brought to the hut, but
we will look at this a little later. A white flag will be flown in front
of the guard hut. Later, flags will also be flown on the watch tower and
on the castle towers. These flags have the following significations:
The flags height indicate the building's occupation rate. A hut can
contain 3 knights, a watch tower 6 knights and a castle 12 knights.
- the icon on the flag indicates the enemy's distance. The white flag
signifies that there is no enemy colony and that you will not be attacked
in the immediate future. If, later, you play against opponents controlled
by the computer or another player, you will see other symbols.
When the enemy is closing in, a black stripe will appear on the flag and,
when the enemy approaches, the stripe changes to a black cross. When the
enemy is right outside your door, the flag has a very thick black cross, In
the latter case, you will have to prepare for an attack. Your settlers are
probably still in the process of constructing the watch tower and the
castle, This is a good time to familiarize yourself with the geographic
map. Click on the map icon and the map will be displayed. Outside the
scenery, you will see several blue dots where your buildings (finished or
still under construction) are located. To better see the size of the
world, click on the right icon under the map. The left icon activates the
presentation mode in one of the 3 following modes:
scenery
scenery + property
property
Click on this icon. After the first click, the map's image changes just a
little. Around the blue dots (your buildings), you will now see a surface
with dots that indicate the size of your property. If you click again on
this icon the scenery disappears completely. Only your property is still
displayed in blue, and the buildings are represented by little white dots.
If you click a third time on this icon, you will return to the mode that
you started with. If you are playing against other players or against the
computer, their property will be hatched in their colour. Return once
again into "Property" mode (in which we no longer see the scenery) and
click on the second icon from the left.
You will see your network of roads on the map. It is not important to see
a road in great detail, but only to have a glimpse of it. If you click
again on this icon, the roads will disappear
The third icon from the right allows you to activate or deactivate the
buildings on the map. Quit the map by clicking on the turning star. The
map allows you to access two other special functions that we will discuss
further on.
Let's see what your settlers are doing. When the buildings are completed,
a window will appear to let you know that the order was executed. You can
now decide to continue your experiments or to move on to the next exercise.
Game 2 - Construction Materials
Forest House, a lumberjacks hut, a saw mill and a quarry
Order: Fabricaie new construction materials, At least 5 units of wood and
5 units of stone.
Explanation: This time, you will have to watch the scenery very closely.
Choose an area with trees and (especially) a few slabs of granite (the
large grey boulders) and place your headquarters next to it.
You must obtain stones and wood. These materials are necessary for the
construction of buildings and are generally the first things that you must
take care of in a new settlenment. The stones come from the slabs of
granite that a worker will look for in a quarry. The wood is a little more
complicated. You need a lumberjack to cut down trees and a carpenter to
transform the trunks into boards. The wood can then be used. The forest
ranger is described in this chapter because he is the one who plants the
new trees.
Place a lumberjack's hut near the trees, preferably in the middle of a
snmall forest, and a quarry somewhere near the slabs of granite.
Look for an appropriate location for the saw mill (which is a large
building) and place the forest house where there are not too many trees.
Connect the buildings with roads. If you have done everything correctly,
your work is finished. The rest will be done by your settlers!
They will progressively build huts, level the ground for the saw mill, and
the workers will arrive after the construction.
The lumberjack will go to his hut and leave it a little while later to find
a tree to cut down. After cutting it down, he will lop off the branches
and bring the trunk to his hut. He will then rest a while before returning
to work. A transporter will see the trunk and will come and take it. As
your sawmill is probably still under construction the trunk will be
temporarily stored in the castle.
The quarryman will climb on a slab of granite and hammer it with his
pickaxe until he extracts a few stones. He will put them in front of his
hut where, as for the lumberjack, a transporter will come and take them to
the castle (if the stones are not needed on a construction site)
The forest ranger is constantly in the process of planting new trees.
After a while, the trees will grow and can then be cut down. If you cut
the trees down without planting new ones, you will quickly find yourself
confronted with a shortage of wood. You can directly place a forest ranger
next to a lumberjack. The two complement each other very well. If there
is no lumberjack next to the forest ranger, you will soon have a new
forest.
The saw mill will certainly be the last building to be completed as it is
the largest of the four. The carpenter will go to the saw mill and wait
for the tree trunks. They will be brought from the castle or directly by
the lumberjack. He will cut them up and put the boards in front of the
mill. These boards will be stored in the castle until they are used.
You would like to know how you can have regular supply of granite? You can
plant new trees, but this does not work for stones However, even when you
have used all the slabs of granite there will still be some deposits of
these extremely hard stones under the ground. We will discuss the mines
later, in another scenario...
As soon as you have fabricated the materials asked for, you will have
accomplished your mission.
Scenario 3 - Food
Fisherman's hut, farm, windmill, bakery, farm, butchers shop and pipes for
the construction of houses and roads.
Objective: Fabricate 5 units of each of the following foods: fish, meat
and bread
Explanation: This time, you will need a lake for your fisherman that is
located close to the castle. You will also need a large area for the farm,
so that the farmer can grow his wheat. On the other hand, you will not
need any underground riches or other raw materials.
To allow your settlers to work during the following explanations, construct
the 6 required buildings:
the farm (a large building) preferably with a lot of free space, as the
farmer needs land to plant the wheat.
the fishermans hut, as close as possible to the lake.
the pigsty, the bakery, the butchers shop and the windmill in the locations
of your choice.
If you connect the buildings with roads, be careful not to build roads on
the banks of the lake because the fisherman will not stay on the roads as
he does not want to hinder the transportation of merchandise. While your
settlers start to work, we will give you some details on the food.
You have 3 possibilities to make the foods:
the simplest method is by fishing. A fisherman goes fishing and his fish
can be used directly as food. One drawback: you need a lake and when
there are too many fishermen on a little lake, it is quickly devoided of
fish. As long as there are fish, they will reproduce. It is recommended
not to "over fish" if you want to continue fishing for a long time.
the second method is by making bread. The farmer grows the wheat When the
wheat is mature, it will be harvested and a transporter will take it to the
miller, who will transform it into flour. The sacks of flour are then
taken to the baker who will use them to make bread. You will note that
this method requires much more patience, but its return is better and all
you will need is some farmland.
The third method takes as much time as the previous method, but requires
less space. The farmer will also provide the pig farmer with wheat, who
will then use it to feed his pigs. When the pigs reproduce the farmer will
remove a pig from his farm. It will be taken to the Butcher who will use
it to make meat.
But what is all this food for? It is used in other places, the mines For
example, to feed the miners who work in the mountains, They will strike if
they don't have anything to eat and will stop extracting raw materials.
The miners eat fish, bread or meat. You will therefore provide the food
that is easiest for you to fabricate. Looking at the game once again, your
fisherman is already in action and the other Buildings are still under
construction. Be patient: cultivating wheat and raising pigs takes some
time. Let's use this occasion to look at some useful information
concerning road construction. This is not very important for your current
settlement, but it will be when you will have built 20 or more houses.
Take a look at your settlement. There is often a lot of circulation in
front of the castle. Later on, when you have constructed several
buildings, you will have to place them strategically and build roads in a
practical manner. For example, the transportation of wheat on a road
between the farm and the mill that passes in front of the castle will
likely slow down the transportation of construction materials. We
recommend that you group all related buildings together and to build a
system of roadways that does not pass in front of the castle. You can put
a sawnmill near a lumberjack's hut, for example, As you did not know this
when you were building your city, the screen will show you what you should
not do. It is also very important to have a good network of roads.
To accomplish this, you need to take several factors into account. The
construction of an additional small connecting road can considerably
improve the transportation of merchandise. It is difficult to give you
precise advice about this because each method has its advantages and
disadvantages. The experience that you will acquire after a few games will
help you. But we will nonetheless give you a few tips:
Avoid dark or light red (steep slope) sections of road: it is better to
make a detour by using two other road sections because: the speed with
which the merchandise is transported on a road always depends on the
SLOWEST section of the road.
Do not clog up a flag's 6 possible branches with a road (that for example,
goes only halfway around the flag). You will otherwise have a hard time
enlarging your network of roads. In this case try to construct a
straighter road.
It is possibie to construct two parallel roads between two flags When one
of the roads is crowded, the other one will be used to transport the
merchandise. This solution is not necessary if you construct several cross
over roads, but it is very imporiant to have a good network. If certain
lanes of transport are crowded and the merchandise begins to pile up, your
settlers will be intelligent enough to transport the merchandise on
another, less crowded, road - as long as it exists. The least efficient
type of network is the one in the shape of a star beginning at the castle.
In this case, all merchandise will be transported on one of the star's
branches and will have to pass in front of the castie in order to access
another branch. An efficient network is a "grided" network that looks like
a piece of graph paper. There are many ways to go from one point to
another. To simplify things: construct several connections between the
buildings and your city will grow more quickly and with less effort. If
you display the roads on the map in "Property" mode, you will clearly see
the places where the "cross over" connections are missing.
Let's look at our game again and the men at work:
The fisherman sits on the bank of the lake and begins fishing Depending
on the number of fish living in the lake, he will fish more or less
rapidly. He might not catch anything. The fish are then taken to the
castle and stored (before the construction of a mine) to feed the miners.
the farmer spreads his wheat seeds, lets them grow and then harvests the
wheat which is then taken to the windmill or to the pig farmer.
As soon as the wheat is received, the miller will grind it and deliver the
flour in sacks to the baker.
The baker kneads the dough and makes bread, A thick smoke pours out of his
chimney.
The pig farmer uses the farmer's wheat to feed his pigs, and he will soon
be able to sell some of the pigs to the butcher.
The butcher cuts up the meat and hangs it up for storage.
As you have seen, the farmer provides the pig farmer and the miller with
wheat. His production might at times be insufficient and he will not be
able to deliver his wheat to both of them, even though they are continually
awaiting a new delivery. In this case, demolish the farm or the windmill,
after ensurtng that the quantity asked for will have been produced and
used. Wait for all the foods to be fabricated before moving on to the next
game.
Scenario 4 - The riches of the earth and their exploitation
Gold mine, coal mine, iron mine, granite mine, gold foundry, iron foundry
Objective: Search for the underground riches and find at least 5 units of
gold and of iron.
Explanation: the underground riches are extracted from the mines in the
mountains. Gold and raw ores will be transported from the mines to the
foundries. You will then have iron and unrefined gold. Iron is the most
important raw material because it will allow you to forge new weapons and
tools. Gold is also very important because it raises the moral of the
knights. When the knight think about their future fortune, they will fight
with more vigour, Coal is also very important. You will need coal for the
foundries and to extract the gold and iron. The blacksmith will also need
coal to forge the weapons.
Granite is the least important raw material. However, if there are no more
slabs of granite on the surface, the situation could change and a granite
mine might become extremely important. You will always need stones for all
the large buildings. As we have already explained the riches are found in
the mountains. Put your headquarters in a mountainous region and do not
forget to ask for the geologists help. Place your castle close to the area
where you will find coal, iron AND gold. Immediately construct guard huts
in the area in order to expand your rural property and prospect in more
mountains to find underground riches. We can now move on to the first
geological prospections. You must place a flag somewhere in the mountains.
Connect this flag to the rest of the network and special click on it. A
window with a few symbols will be displayed. Disregard them all except for
the geologist's head, at the bottom.
Click on the geologist and he will tell you that he has received his
mission orders. He will then leave the castle and head off towards the
mountains. Once there, he will examine the ground and take a few samples.
If he finds any riches, he will jump for joy and plant a sign in the ground
to indicate what he has found. This sign shows a small circle if there are
small quantities of underground riches and a large circle if he had
detected a large quantity of underground riches. The circle can be one of
several colours: yellow for gold, red for iron, black for coal, and light
grey for granite. If the geologist does not find anything, he will plant a
blank sign. When he finds underground riches for the first time, you will
recieve a message, because you will not always be there to watch him work.
You can send the geologist towards any flag (as long as it is connected to
the network of roads) and even towards the flags in front of buildings.
The geologist will examine the area and return home if he does not find any
mountains. To accomplish the goal of your training mission, you must find
coal, gold and iron. Do not hesitate to send several geologists into the
mountains and to expand your property by constructing guard huts if
underground riches are not nearby. You have certainly noticed already that
the guard huts cannot be constructed in the mountains. You will have to
"surround" the large mountains with guard huts if you want to find a
maximum of underground riches.
Begin constructing a mine as soon as you have found a likely location. As
soon as the mine is connected to the network of roads a mason will arrive
and go to work.
If you have given the order to construct at least one mine for the
exploitation of gold, one for iron and one for coal, you must now begin
thinking about building some foundries. Select a location near the castle
and have your settlers construct the gold and iron foundries.
Your settlers will construct the mines and the foundries while the miners
are looking for the necessary raw materials. They will be fed by the
castle. the raw materials that you find will be taken to the foundries
where the unrefined gold will be transformed into gold and the iron ore
into iron. As you don't need either of these raw materials for your city,
they will be stored in the castle. We will give you some additional
information while the game progresses.
If your network of roads has been poorly constructed, you will see it in
this training scenario. The mines will produce too many raw materials and
if you have set up only one road (which will also be steep!) between the
mines and the foundries, you will have trouble with the merchandise.
Build other roads if your settlers cannot transport these raw materials on
such a steep road. You will see that the new roads will be used and that
the merchandise will get to its destination much more quickly. Underground
riches are, naturally, not unlimited. When a deposit starts to run low,
the miner will find fewer raw materials. The mine will become unproductive
because: the miners that work in the mountains must be fed from the
valley. You will receive a message as soon as a mine has been devoided of
raw materials. If your food stocks are also low, demolish the mine. A
miner who doesn't receive food will strike and begin marching in front of
the mine to show his anger.
The geologist's signs will progressively disappear. You can, however ask
for a prospection at any time to see if there are any remaining underground
riches in the areas surrounding a mine.
If you are not in a hurry to build the mines, wait until the geologist
plants several signs so that you can be sure to find a profitable deposit.
On the other hand, if you are playing against other players or against
opponents controlled by the computer, you should construct the mines as
soon as you think a deposit might exist because each minute counts.
Naturally, the chances of barking up the wrong tree are greater, and you
will have fewer geologists and workers at your disposal. If the program
denies your request for a geologist this means that you do not have any
more workers or tools available. You must, moreover, wait for 2 seconds
before asking for another geologist. We will discuss this topic further
on. To conclude, here is a tip to better place your flags in the
mountains. When you place a flag for a geologist, it is because you plan
to construct a mine in this location later on. If there are underground
riches, click on the construction help function and choose a location to
build your mine Next place the flag next to this location, in the lower
right. Later you will construct a mine next to the flag, and you will not
need a new road or a new transporter and the mine will be built more
rapidly.
Scenario 5 - Making tools and weapons
Blacksmith, iron worker, Ship maker and warehouses
Objective: Make at least 1O weapons, 1O tools and 5 boats.
Explanation : This game will allow you to see 5 new buildings. You will
learn how to fabricate objects with the materials that you have extracted
in the preceding chapter. The blacksmith will fabricate weapons with iron
but he will also need coal. The iron worker will make diverse tools from
wood and iron that will be used by the other settlers. The ship maker only
needs wood to construct his boats. He is the least useful worker and is
generally needed only in worlds containing large expanses of water. The
warehouse is the last building discussed in this chapter. It will be used
to store merchandise. It is also the place where the workers wait for new
work (as at the castle). This is why the warehouse is, with the castle,
the most important building.
This time, you can choose a location without worrying about the richness of
the ground because you already have the necessary materials stored in your
castle at the beginning of the game. Choose any location that provides
enough space for several large buildings.
Construct a forge, a shop for the iron worker, a naval shipyard and a
warehouse. While the men are working we will give you some useful
information.
The shipmaker will receive wood and deliver the first boats shortly after.
The workers will then take these boats to the banks of the lake and
transport their merchandise on this water way. This method of
transportation is often quicker than the land routes.
The blacksmith will be supplied with coal and iron, He will forge swords
and shields that you will need for the knights that guard your castle and
attack the enemy. The weapons will be delivered to the castle where each
new knight will be able to take what he needs.
The iron worker will receive wood and iron to make 9 different tools:
hammer, saw, hatchet, shovel, scythe, pick, fishing pole pliers and
butcher's knife. These tools will be delivered to the castle and used by
the workers. According to their professions, they will need different
tools. Some will not need any tools and others will need two:
the leveler : shovel
the fisherman - fishing pole
the butcher - butcher's knife
the Farmer - scythe
the lumberjack - hatchet
the woodworker - saw
the miner - pickaxe
the quarryman - pickaxe
construction worker - hammer
the ship maker - hammer
the geologist - hammer
the iron worker - hammer and saw
the blacksmith - hammer and pliers
You might wonder why you must make the tools when the workers will
automatically leave the castle with their tools in hand. It is because at
the beginning of the game, you have a certain stock of construction
materials, food and tools. For the training scenarios you will have a
large stock to start off with and will therefore not have to fabricate
tools or merchandise. We will explain this in detail later on.
The warehouse is, along with your castle, the most important building
because in a relatively large city, the castle will quickly reach its
capacity without an additional warehouse. As soon as the warehouse is
built, a settler will leave the castle and go to the warehouse. You will
thereby have a sort of "second castle". If the expansion of your city
continues, it will be difficult to control if you only have a castle. The
workers will need too much time to go from the castle to the construction
site, or they will produce so much merchandise that it will start to pile
up on the road to the castle and the transporters will no longer be able to
do their job. Evenly distribute the warehouses to avoid all this. The
warehouse offers practically all the same benefits as your castle:
When you receive new men, they will be divided up between the castle and
the warehouse,
Useless nmerchandise was brought to the castle up until now. It will now
be taken to the nearest warehouse thereby cutting down on return trips.
merchandise (on a construction site for example) will be ordered from the
nearest warehouse having the required materials. The distance to the site
will thereby be reduced.
A worker will no longer return to the castle after his work is finished but
will go to the nearest warehouse and wait for his next job. The trip for
your workers to their worksite will therefore be reduced
If a building requires the presence of a new worker, he will be hired from
the nearest warehouse. His trip will thereby be shorter
These various points demonstrate that an even distribution of warehouses is
essential, As soon as your warehouse is built you will receive a message
displaying the new warehouse.
Scenario 6 - Attack
objective: The conquest of several enemy buildings
Explanation: The objective of this scenario consists of conquering certain
buildings with your knights. Click on the geographic map and examine the
locations of the enemy's buildings. Choose your location close to the
enemy so that you will not have to travel very far to attack. Construct
several castles, watchtowers and guard huts around your castle. While your
settlers are working (the castle is the largest building and needs the most
time to build), we will take a look at the knights.
There are 5 kinds of knights in the game, and they are all different and of
differing strength. When you receive a new knight, he will start at the
lowest level. He can, however, receive training in the castle (or later in
a warehouse) and change levels. A knight can also recieve training in a
guard tower or in the castles, but he will progress very slowly as he will
have to work at the same time. However, during his service (when he goes
onto duty in a castle or another building, for example) he will not improve
his skills if he sits down and does nothing in the guard hut. The
advantages and disadvantages are clear: if you leave the knights in the
castle, they will be well trained but your city will be poorly guarded. If
you send your knights outside your buildings will be well guarded but the
enemy will perhaps have more powerful knights that could pose problems for
you. As you have built several castles and guard huts, your knights will
rapidly go to them. In this training scenario, however, your opponents are
still defenseless. Don't worry though...
You will only attack castles, guard towers or guard huts belonging to the
enemy. A knight must not attack a farmer or a fisherman. When you attack,
your knights will leave their castles etc... and march towards the enemy
buildings where they will prepare for battle. A knight will come out of
the enemy building and the combat will begin One of the two knights will be
victorious, After a while, either the attackers or the defending knights in
the enemy building will be eliminated. If there are no longer any knights
in the enemy building the attacker is victorious and will take control of
the building. The frontiers of your city will be consequently modified.
The eneny will burn any other building that it can. Such a defeat can be
devastating for a city, If, for example, your only coal mine or warehouse
is in flames, you will have problems.
When you have built your first huts and they are occupied by knights, you
will see flags with a thick cross. All guard huts that are located near
the enemy's territory and that can be targeted for attack are marked by
this cross. Special click on any enemy building having a thick Cross on
its flag. A new window will appear allowing you to enter the number of
knights that will attack it. The 4 numbers in the middle indicate the
number of available knights: in the surrounding areas, far away, or very
far away. The distance is not an essential factor but the knights will
need more time to reach the enemy. If all the numbers are zeros, there are
not enough knights in your buildings. You should know that all the knights
that enter a castle cannot be sent into battle because some of them will be
needed to defend the castle should it be attacked by enemies. Later on, we
will explain how you can influence the outcome of the combats. Hold on a
little and launch a new attack. The two arrows will allow you to modify
the number of knights that will attack the enemy. Watch the battle to see
the eventual outcome.
If you have sent all your available knights into combat, you cannot launch
other attacks. You will see, however, other knights immediately leave your
castle to replace those who have left for battle. When you seize an enemy
building, you will receive a message. A little later, your victory over
the enemy will most likely be definitive
If in the course of a game, an enemy counter attacks and the knights meet
at a specific place you can expect a furious combat because each enemy
knight will be attacked. We will see later how to send a troop of knights
off to intercept the enemy and how to efficiently defend a guard hut with
only 3 knights. Lastly, a final point that does not directly concern the
knights, but rather your rural property: do not construct buildings
(especially large ones, because of the long delays) near the enemy
frontier. For example, if the enemy constructs a guard hut at the same
time as you near the frontier and he finishes before you do, the frontier
will be modified and you will have to burn down your construction. A
castle situated near the frontier will be of no help to you because its
construction will take much too long. You can construct a guard hut and
try to finish it before the enemy or place your buildings in a safer
location. You can naturally do the same thing to your enemy if he or she
had the bad idea of constructing a warehouse too close to the frontier.
This chapter, consecrated to the training scenarios, is now finished.
You now know the basic principles of the game the different buildings, the
various professions and merchandise, you know how to prospect for the
underground riches and attack the enemy. We hope that you have begun to
enjoy the game and we guarantee that it will provide you with hours of
entertainment to come and that you will continually find new ways of doing
things and new strategies. The following chapters address themselves to
more experienced players who already know the game well.
Have Fun!
The Economy
-----------
The Economic System
From now on we will no longer give you precise instructions on how to solve
certain levels, just explanations, advise and many, many tips and new
ideas. It is essential to know the economic context of each building to
rapidly ascertain its needs and its production. Here is a brief summary:
The food chain:
. production of fish, meat and bread to feed the miners.
The fisherman fishes for fish that can be eaten directly. The farmer
plants and harvests wheat that is taken to the pig farmer who feeds his
pigs with it, or ground by the miller in his windmill and transformed into
flour. The pigs reproduce and can be slaughtered. The baker makes bread
with the flour. In both cases, you will have food at your disposal.
Merchandise:
. fabrication of tools, weapons, boats, gold and construction of buildings
The tools weapons and boats will be stored in the warehouses The gold will
be guarded in the castle, the watchtowers and the guard huts. The tool
maker needs wood and iron. The wood comes from the sawmill where the tree
trunks furnished by the lumberjack are cut up. The iron will be worked on
in a foundry. The caster needs ore and coal for the forge. These two
materials are extracted from the miners. To fabricate weapons, the
blacksmith needs iron and coal. The ship maker needs wood for his boats.
For the construction of your buildings , you will need (in most cases) wood
and granite. The use of iron, coal and wood for the fabrication of tools
has already been discussed. The granite is found either above ground, in a
quarry or in a mine. The gold is refined by a goldsmith from unrefined
gold. The unrefined gold is extracted from the mines. Did you get all
that? What follows will allow you to better understand the numerous
factors that affect the game.
During the first training scenarios you udubtedly thought that you could
possess an unlimited number of settlements and merchandise, and that you
could influence the games progression All the parameters are defined so
that you will have no difficulty in completeing the required missions.
More experienced players will want to influence the games progression more
directly and know everything about the game, from the stocks at their
disposal to the production capacities. All these aspects will be discussed
in the manual.
Your first large city
You now know about all the buildings. You should be able to find a good
location for each building and choose the right time to build it. A large
stock will allow you to build the little buildings first as you will have
enough materials to expand later on. If you have a small stock at the
beginning oF the game, however, be very cautious right from the beginning.
It is essential to build an "active" city. To do this, you will need all
the buildings (except for rare occasions). Your stocks will not be as
important as in the tratning scenarios. You will be responsible for the
exploitation of the necessary raw materials and buildings. Choose the
first scenario. You will play against a player controlled by the computer.
You will experience an exciting adventure. Your level of intelllgence is
rather low and you do not have large stocks. You will have to be careful
right from the start of the game. We will tell you how to build a
functioning city in the rest of this chapter. Or you could try to build a
city all by yourself.
The first thing to do is to find a good location for your castle. We have
already discussed this in detail. Try to expand your rural property
because if you see that you don`t have enough space when you are
cultivating your land, you will have to wait before annexing new land.
Place 2 or 4 guard huts near the frontier. The construction of watchtowers
and castles requires more time and will slow down your expansion. Take
everything you can without having to go into combat. Make sure that you
have a good stock of construction materials because you will have big
problems if you cannot build the necessary buildings. Place a lumberjack,
a sawmill and a quarrymans hut in appropriate locations.
After comnpleting these three tasks, the game will become more complex.
Depending on the layout of your land, you can do certain things that we
will discuss in general terms. As soon as possible, send the geologists
into the mountains. Based on their findings, construct mines in the
appropriate locations. Construct a gold or iron f a forge or a tool
factory (based on the underground riches found). If you can rapidly
fabricate weapons, you will have the advantage during combats. As soon as
the geologists start prospecting in the mountains, think about how you are
going to feed the mine workers. If there is a lake in the area, build a
fisherman's hut. The fish he catches can be stored before the first mines
are built. Meat production and the fabrication of bread take some time.
When the castles wheat reserves (for the pigs and the windmill) run low you
will have to wait for a farmer to plant and harvest more wheat. If no lake
is in the area build a farm as quickly as possible. You will prefer meat
or bread depending on the situation. If the enemies are still far away and
you possess a lot of land, choose the bread. Place windmills and bakers
close to the farmlands. The bread is the most productive food. If you
dont have enough space, we recommend pig farming. You will need one farmer
to supply the pig farmers with wheat. Dont forget that the lumberjacks
will cut down all the trees and that you might realize this too late. Try
to plant trees as soon as possible by using the forest rangers.
If the region contains large lakes, take advantage of the speed of the
waterways. You will eventually need a shipmaker if you are short on boats.
Above all, do not forget to build warehouses. They will alleviate
congestion on the roads and you will progress more rapidly.
The guard towers and castles will be used essentially to protect important
buildings, especially the warehouses. Depending of the progression of the
game, a mine or a tool maker could also be very important (especially if
you only have one of them!). Place your castles in these areas and don`t
let the enemy destroy your economic system because of a small victory!
Watch the enemy closely! Find a free moment in your schedule to see what
your adversary is doing. Is he already in the process of making weapons?
How Far away is he? Which lands should you occupy before the enemy annexes
them? Which locations are poorly protected where an attack could be
successful?
Your first attempt to construct a city with several huts and different
houses will perhaps not be entirely satisfactory. Don't be discouraged.
The next time, you will better plan your city and you will not make the
same mistakes. Experience will help you to resolve many problems Read the
following chapters while playing at the same time.
You will learn many new things in this way.
About statistics
The first statistics
The statistics about a person, buildings and warehouses. In this chapter,
we will look at these first statistics. They will allow you to quickly get
an idea about all important areas. At the beginning of the game, the
statistics will not be very interesting: you will, however have to look at
them regularly during the course of the game to see for example, when you
will be short on wood or food. We will first of all look at the statistics
concerning people, buildings and warehouses.
To see the statistics click on the second icon menu from the right. 8
other icons will be displayed. Each icon corresponds to specific
statistics. By activating one icon you can move from one statistic to
another and from one menu to another. If you click on the middle icon, the
buildings' statistics will be displayed. They will indicate the number of
buildings that you have at your disposal. All the buildings cannot be
displayed on one page and the bottom icon allows you to scroll through the
pages and see the other types of buildings. If the number is followed by a
+ and another number, these buildings are still under construction. 2 + 1
means therefore: two buildings completed and one under construction.
These statistics will also allow you to foresee certain difficulties: if
you have, for example, 10 lumberjacks, they will cut down a large quantity
of trees and one sawmill will not be enough to cut all the wood. To quit
the statistics and return to the 8 icons, click on "Exit."
Click on the right icon, in the centre. You will see various heads and
numbers. The statistics concern your settlers. Each head represents a
profession, with the number of persons practising this profession. You
will not recognize all the heads at the beginning but you will quickly
understand their signification. The head with a question mark (in the
lower right) indicates the number of settlers that do not have a profession
yet. A good player will try (if the game's progression allows for it) to
have a minimum of unemployed settlers in order to increase production and
yield. The last number in the lower right indicates the total number of
your settlers. To quit these statistics, click anywhere in the window.
Then click on the left icon in the centre. These statistics represent your
stocks. You will recognize the different types of merchandise more easiiy
than the heads corresponding to the diverse professions. These statistics
indicate the type and quantity of merchandise stored in your warehouses.
The merchandise stored in the warehouses are not immediately important.
But a large stock of wood and stones is a good sign because you will have
enough materials for your constructions projects. On the other hand, if
you have a lot of iron ore in your warehouses, this means that you do not
have an iron foundry or no coal, in your city. You must always stay one
step ahead.
The statistic curves
The statistics of comparison and of production
These statistics will show you different values over a long period.
In the selection of statistics, click on the bottom icon in the centre.
You will see the comparison statistics, Above, the colour of the curves
corresponds to the different players. Your colour will be sky blue, the
same as your settlers. The scale to the right contains percentages that
range from 0 to 100%, the scale at the bottom represents time. The curve
changes over time, from left to right. The unit used is the hour (.5 hour
= 30 minutes). You can choose the ditsplay mode for the statistics in the
lower left of the screen: upper left = overall comparison: upper right =
comparison of rural properties: lower left = comparison of the buildings:
and lower right = combat power. The comparison of the rural properties
will only indicate the size of your land compared to that of your
opponents. The buildings will be evaluated according to their size and
type, and not just according to their quantity. The combat power depends
on the number, type, and motivation of your knights. The overall omparison
allows you to obtain average curves based on these three values. This is
not all however! In the lower right, you will see 4 other icons that
correspond to the time. The 4 positions correspond to .5 hours, 2 hours,
10 hours and 50 (!) hours. You will see that a large and energetic combat
between different groups of settlers can become a long and exciting
adventure...
These statistics are the only way to obtain precise information about your
adversary. You will know who has the most powerful army and who possess
the most land. If the curves rise very quickly at the beginning of the
game, do not worry. It is not an error, because the player who places his
castle first will be momentarily the only person to possess land and a
building (100%). This has no imporiance for the progression of the game.
An icon will moreover allow you to see the statistics concerning the
opponents in the game. To see the production statistics, click on the
lower left icon. They will indicate the type and quantity of merchandise
produced by your settlers. The scale to the right corresponds to the
quantity, in units. The horizontal scale represents the time. In these
statistics, the time counted is around 2 hours. At the beginning of the
game, these statistics will be at zero (you have not produced anything
yet). Later on however, you can choose at the bottom of the screen the
merchantise that your settlers produce. From trees to tools, you will find
all the different types of merchantise. If you have, for example, selected
the trees at the bottom and the red surface of the vertical scale stays at
1, this means that your lumberjacks will cut down around 1 tree per minute.
This might seem rather uninteresting, but you will progressively learn how
to better interpret these statistics. For example, if the tree curve
descends, there will soon be no more trees to cut down. As this statistic
is very important, look at it from time to time. It will save you from
being unpleasantly surprised. These production curves are moreover
"smoothed" to be clear and more readable.
The supply statistics
The food chain, the merchandise, the statistics about the professions.
In these 3 statistics, small pointers will indicate the state of your
supply. The food chain and the merchantise are the most important
statistics if your city is relatively large.
Lets begin with the statistics about the professions. Click on the upper
right icon. As with the statistics for the settlers all the heads will be
displayed, but with pointers. The pointers will indicate the number of
settlers that you can use for the corrsponding profession. If none are
available, the pointer will stay in the red. It will be in the centre if
you have 3 settlers, and to the right if you have 20 or more settlers.
Before building a forge, look at the statistics. If the pointer is in the
red part and you need a blacksmith, no settler is available. Perhaps no
worker is available or the tooIs that he needs are not available in the
warehouses. The number in the lower right indicates the number of settlers
who are waiting for work. If this number is 10 or greater, and a
profession pointer is in the red, this means that you lack tools for this
profession. We will explain how to better control the fabrication of tools
later on. Certain professions do not pose any problems as they do not
require the use of any tools (bakers or transporters).
Let's look the food chain. You will see a diagram with heads, merchandise,
pointers and arrows. Each head represents a profession. The merchandise
is delivered by one profession to another profession, in the direction of
the arrow. The diagram is presented as follows: the farmer (in the upper
right) delivers the wheat to the miller and the pig farmer. The miller
delivers the flour to the baker who, in turn delivers the bread. The pig
farmer delivers pigs to the butcher who delivers the meat. The fisherman
(in the lower left) delivers the fish. The bread, meat and fish are the 3
foods that will be delivered to the 4 types of mines. The pointers are
special in this diagram. There are two types:
The supply pointer (for the Farmer or the miners for example)
The dial is, from left to right: red (no supply) yellow (good supply) and
green (excellent supply). This dial indicates the supply of the
professions: the more merchandise they receive, the better off they are.
The pig farmer prefers having a lot of wheat to feed his pigs rather than a
meagre, or non existent, supply.
The activity pointer (for the miller or butcher for example)
This dial is, from left to right: red (no work), green (a lot of work) and
yellow (too much work). This means that the ideal situation for the person
receiving the merchandise is to receive neither too much nor too little.
If the miller does not receive enough wheat, he will have no work and his
windmiil will be useless. If he receives a normal delivery, his mill is
active and he will be busy. If he receives too much wheat, however, he
will not be able to keep up with the work. The mill will turn constantly,
but the wheat will arrive too quickly and will begin to pile up. After a
while, you will have to put this surplus in a warehouse. if you build
another windmill, you can produce more flour. Later when you will have 10
millers you will be able to see the average activity rate for all the
windmills. These statistics will indicate potential problems and the
buildings that need to be built along with the buildings that are
functionally normal. you will see if the mines are well supplied, and if
the pig farmer is recieveing enough wheat to feed his pigs. Chapter 6.1
will explain how you can influence the delivery of merchandise. Don`t be
surprised if you dont see a pointer at the beginning of the game, as the
food supply for a mine cannot be indicated if it does not exist.
Merchandise
These statistics are identical to those for food, except that they
represent all merchandise except for food. The suppliers of raw materiaIs
are indicated to the left (miners, lumberjacks and quarry workers). The
intermediate professions are in the centre (workers at the Forge and the
mill). The users are to the right (knights, blacksmiths, iron workers,
ship makers and masons). The arrows indicate the direction of the
delivery, as explained above. The other function as for the food chain.
The only difference is that certain professions (casters, blacksmiths, iron
workers and masons) cannot do anything if there is iron but no coal...
These statistics will also help you to foresee any difficulties.
The Warehouses
You already know how to build a warehouse. But there are also other ways
of recieving information about the warehouses and of giving orders. If you
special click on a warehouse (if there are none use a castle), a window
will appear indicating the state of the stock in this warehouse. By
changing the page with the arrow, you will see the settlers that are in
this warehouse. The third page contains two having different symbols. The
upper icon concerns the merchandise, the lower icon concerns the settlers
located in this warehouse. The hook can be located in three places. Look
at the merchandise first in the beginning the hook is at the top. The
merchandise will be stored in this warehouse. When the hook is in the
middle, no more merchandise can be stored in the warehouse: it can only be
delivered. When the hook is at the bottom the warehouse will be emptied of
its merchandise and nothing else can be stored there. For the settlers the
signification is practically the same: when the hook is at the top they
must go to the warehouse after work. If it is in the middle no other
settler will be accepted. If it is at the bottom all the settlers must
leave the warehouse. You can determine the state of the warehouse. With a
special click you can activate the two lower options. What are these
options for? If the enemy approaches your warehouse and you can no longer
defend your position, you will lose all your merchandise in the ensuing
fire. Only certain settlers will be able to escape. You will have to be
able to retreat and fight if you want to minimize your losses. Dont forget
that you will need time to empty a warehouse or evacuate the settlers. If
you fight back too late when retreating, you will save only a few settlers.
The warehouses are, moreover crucial for your economy. If a warehouse no
longer accepts merchandise or settlers the others will be overstocked. The
evacuation of the merchandise and settlers will have a negative effect.
Think before deciding if it is better to retreat and fight. Do not build
your warehouses too close to the enemy, or protect them with casties. If a
warehouse appears not to be safe, stop the reception of merchandise in time
so that you dont accumulate it for no reason, and to be able to save it in
time.
You will sometimes have problems when the unemployed settlers are in the
warehouse and the weapons and tools are stored elsewhere In this case, your
settlers will automatically go to a warehouse where tools are stocked and
wait there for work. You will have similar problems with the tools when
the pliers are in a warehouse and the hammers in another. No blacksmith
can set up shop, as he needs both tools. This holds true for the iron
worker (saw and hammer) and for the knights (sword and shield). In this
situation, the tools and weapons will automatically be taken to the other
warehouse.
Information concerning the buildings and the flags
The statistics will give you an overview of your total development. You
might, at certain times, want to know specific things about the state of
the stock in a particular building etc... You will see the available
information for the buildings. This information is always activated with a
special click.
If you special click on a construction site, you will see the building
that you are in the process of building, questions like "Where am I going
to place my windmill?" Or "I don't remember where I built the farm....
become extraneous because they don't carry much importance at the beginning
of the construction phase, and you can therefore forget about what you
wanted to construct and where. Special click on one of your mines. You
will immediately see the mine's yield. The calculation will be made in
function of the number of trips the miners made into the mine (with
merchandise). Remember that it will require several trips into the mines
before you can use this information. It is useful essentially in the
future demolition of these mines, because if a mine no longer has a yield,
the miner will eat the food (which can become rare, depending on the
progression of the game) that will be needed in other mines. You will also
see the food stock that a mine has at its disposal. As the miner will
accept fish as well as bread or meat, this quantity is indicated by the
meat icon, If nothing is indicated, there is no food in this mine and the
miner will strike. If you special click on the castle, a guard tower or a
guard hut, you can see the position of your knights. Most importantly, you
will see the strength of the castle to be defended.
As for the mines, you will also see the state of the stocks, but this time
it concerns the gold. The guard huts receive a maximum of two units, the
guard towers can receive a maximum of four units and the castles can
receive a maximum of eight units.
You will see the state of the stock for all of the following buildings:
Naval shipyard (wood)
Sawmill (tree trunks)
Farm land (wheat)
Butcher's shop (pigs)
Mill (wheat)
Baker (flour)
Iron foundry (iron ore and coal)
Gold foundry (unrefined gold and coal)
Forge (iron and coal)
Iron worker (iron and wood)
You will not have to learn all that by heart. It just means that all the
buildings need merchandise. The woodcutter huts, the forest houses, the
fishermen huts, the huts for the quarrymen and farmers do not provide the
same information because they deliver merchandise, they don't require or
store any. You will also know if a settler is already working in a
building. To conclude, special click on any intersection. You have
already seen the geologist's window. In the upper section you will see a
flag. In each direction, when a road branches out from the flag, you will
see a hook or a line. If everything is normal, you will see a hook. If
you click on a flag where large quantities of merchandise to distribute in
this direction, but the settlers cannot get by, and the traffic jam will
disappear after they have distributed all the merchandise that is blocking
the road. You are not required to immediate alleviate a traffic jam but
you can find other solutions so that the settlers can distribute the
merchandise by making a detour. In locations that are often busy, take a
close look at the network of roads and think about constructing a new
warehouse. Do not wait until several flags are blocked up by the
merchandise.
Furthermore, you can construct a road that passes directly in front of the
flag with a special function. An extra icon will be available when this is
possible.
This chapter covered how to obtain a multitude of information about your
city. You learned how to access to the various informative statistics.
Foresee eventual problems, or simply to watch the evolution of your
kingdom. In this game, observing and learning are two important factors.
If you expand and construct without understanding what is happening around
you, you will not achieve your objectives.
The distribution menus
In the next 3 chapters, we will discuss the menus in detail. These menus
allow you to modify various parameters and to influence the life of your
city. To activate the menus, click on the lower icon. As with the
statistics, you may activate several menus and return to the main
selection.
In each menu, a Default button allows you to reset all the parameters back
to zero.
The first 3 menus are distribution menus for merchandise. There are
several types of merchandise (food, wood, iron, coal and wheat) which will
be delivered to the different professions. The tree trunks will only be
delivered to the sawmills, but iron will be delivered to the blacksmiths
and ironworkers. Your iron stock will sometimes be low. and you will want
to fabrtcate weapons rather than tools, and vice versa. You can modify
these parameters in the distribution menus.
Click on the top left icon. You will see the different foods displayed at
the top of the scrcen, with the mine below, each with a "supply bar",.
These bars show the food supply received by each mine. If you have a very
small stock of food and you want to supply the iron and coal mines in order
to continue fabricating weapons, lower the supply bar for the other mines
to zero (Left), and raise the supply bar of the iron and coal mines to the
maximum (right).
The second menu allows you to organize the wood and iron deliveries. Wood
is used for construction sites, tools and boats. If you have a ship maker,
stop delivering wood to him if you don`t want him to construct any
unnecessary boats. You will need more wood for the two other professions.
The iron will be delivered to the blacksmith and iron worker. If you are
short of iron, priorities will be established according to your evaluation
of the situation and the condition of your stocks.
The third distribution menu concerns coal and wheat. The coal will be
delivered to the foundries and the blacksmiths. There too, the
distribution will depend on the situation of the game. If you are short of
coal, decrease deliveries to the gold foundry. The wheat will be delivered
to the pigsties and the farms. Your preferences will depend upon your city
and your plan of distribution.
If you set one of the parameters at zero, the type of building selected
will not receive any merchandise. If a bar is two times longer then
another one, it means that the building receives twice as much merchandise
as the other one. But your settlers are also thinking a lot too. If the
merchandise is very rare, they will only deliver it to the most important
building concerned. If the stock is somewhat higher, they will deliver a
small amount of merchandise to the other buildings. If your stock is large
enough, they will also deliver to the less important buildings.
Rules of Combat
---------------
The Knight Menus
Two menus allow you to modify various parameters for the knights. Click on
the lower left icon in the menu, A new window will be displayed with 4
icons on the left, and 2 texts relating to each icon. The left image shows
the castles in various positions based on their distance from the frontier:
- on the front line: your castles, watchtowers and guard huts located
right on the frontier with the enemy are indicated by a thick black cross
on their flag.
- on second line: The castles, etc... located behind the front are
indicated by a normal black cross on their flag.
- on third line: The castles, etc... located far from the frontier are
not treatened directly. Their flag bears a black stroke.
- in the hinterland: The enemy is not visible, and the castles flag is
white.
In each case, you will have to decide how many knights will be placed in
these buildings (castles, watchtowers and guard huts). The optimal
occupation rate will be indicated next to the 4 images. The buildings
located on the front line should be full, the ones on the second line
should be well occupied, the ones on the third line moderately full, and
the Castles in the hinterland should be rather empty. Your buildings will
thus be better protected, and you will avoid a situation where most of your
knights are located in the hinterlands, while there is only one in your
castle located on the front line. The second word indicates the maximum
acceptable drop of the occupation rate of the building should you decide to
use knights to attack the enemy: "good" for the front liner "average" for
behind the front, "weak" for the third line and "minimum" for the
hinterland.
Here are some examples: if you read "Full/good", this means that all
buildings must be occupied to the maximum. If your troops attack the
enemy, you will only send out a few knights, keeping enough of them inside
to maintain a "good" occupation rate. If you choose "full/ Full", the
knights will occupy the buildings equally, and none of them will leave for
this attack. Your front line will thus be protected to the maximum. But
in this case, the knights remaining in remote buildings will need more time
to get to the front line, as the road to travel is longer. With
"full/minimum", settings, all knights will leave the building to attack the
enemy, except one. Of course, this means that your building will be poorly
guarded. You can use such settings for the buildings located in the
hinterland if you have many knights available. This will allow you to have
more knights available in the event of an attack. But don't forget that
your knights will be better trained if, they, stay inside the building...
Do not use settings that could be too straining. If you dont have enough
knights, your guard huts, etc... will be too empty sooner or later. To
change these settings, click on the + and - signs. The upper setting
(ideal number of knights) logically cannot be smaller than the following
one (number of remaining knights), Change the second setting. It is very
imporiant to IMMEDIATELY change these paranmeters. If you change the
occupation rate setting from "full" to "minimum." in the castles located on
the front line, all your knights will leave, except one. Think first, and
click later. When your knights leave the castle to attack the enemy, they
will immediately be replaced by new knights coming from the warehouses, as
long as there are knights waiting for a job there.
The second knight menu will allow you to change several other parameters.
Click on the lower central icon. The "knights rate" will be displayed in
the upper left corner of the screen. The default rate is 30% and you can
modify it as you like. This rate shows the number of settlers that could
become knights, provided that you have enough swords and shields. If you
choose a medium setting (bar in the middle), half of your settlers will
become knights. If you set the bar to the left, you will not receive any
knights.
The lower icons allow you to directly recruit unemployed workers to form
new knights. The number of settlers available for recruiting is displayed
to the right. This number depends mostly on the number of weapons
available in your warehouses, But you also need enough unemployed settlers,
of course. Another icon allows you to choose the knights who will attack
the enemy. With the default settings, the weaker knights will attack the
enemy, while the stronger ones will stay in defence. But you can also send
the stronger ones on attack and keep the weak ones to defend your
buildings. Both options have advantages and drawbacks. But it is usually
better to send the weaker knights in combat and to maintain a good defence
in your castles. You will decide which strategy is the best. An icon, to
the right, allows you to organize your knights relief. When you click on
this icon, one or more knights will leave your castles, etc... if the
occupation rate is high enough (as explained earlier) and will go to the
closest warehouses. New knights will replace them. The advantage of this
is that the weakest knighs will go back to the warehouses to receive some
more training, while the stronger ones will take their place. When you use
this option you must consider the following factors:
If you fear an attack in the upcoming minutes, wait. You will prevent a
sudden drop in the occupation rate of your buildings during a short moment.
Make sure you have enough well trained knights in your warehouses. If not,
changing the settings is not useful.
Your knights' strength depends not only on their training level but also on
the amount of gold stored in their city. Your knights strength will always
be the same when they are defending, but it will depend on their motivation
during combats. They will be very motivated if your city shelters a lot of
gold. At the beginning of the game, it is extremely difficult to win a
battle. You did not extract any gold yet, and your knights are not trained
enough. If you want to stand a chance to win, the ratio must be 4:1. Your
loses will of course be higher than your opponent's, and you must carefully
choose the place of the attack. If your attack allows you to take control
over an enemy gold mine or his (or her) only food producing building, it
can be profitable even if you suffer heavy losses, because:
The ememy will suffer heavy damage
The enemy knights will be weak at the beginning of the game, and it will
also be very hard for them to recapture their lost territory.
As soon as you have enough gold, your knights will be stronger, and they
will be better in attack than in defence. You can then consider the
complete destruction of your enemies. But be careful if you play against
several opponents.
You can know the motivation level of the enemy knights in the attack menu.
Each gold unit stocked in a castler a watchtower or a guard hut will have a
positive effect. While transported, the gold is not considered as being
stored somewhere.
You have probably already noticed that the attack menu displays not only
the combat strength, but also the total number of goId units owned by the
player. The number of knights defending the castle is displayed at the
bottom of the screen. You can change this number by clicking on the
arrows. If you think that your situation is hopeless, you can click on the
white flag to quit the game.
You can also attack an enemy castle. But don't forget that the enemy may
have left more knights than usual in his castle. If you conquer the
castle, it will be burned down, just like the warehouses, the winner will
strike a decisive blow on his opponent, causing him to lose the merchandise
and settlers that were in the castle. Futhermore, your knights moral will
strengthen, while the enemy knights are really down. If you think you can
easily conquer a castle, launch an attack. But if you loose a castle,
don't give up. If enough well trained knights are available, you can win
the battle, but it will not be a piece of cake!
The attack menu allows you to specify the number of knights remaining in
the castle to defend it. Don't forget that the castle is important not
only for your troops' moral, but also because it is the only warehouse
directly protected by knights, and thus much safer than the warehouses you
constructed later in the game.
To Continue
-----------
The Other Menus
Tool fabrication, merchandise priorities and evacuation menu
In the menu, click on the central left icon. The 9 different tools will be
displayed with a bar showing the number of tools manufactured by your
workers. The default settings are as follows: high rate of hammers and
picks, low rate for scythes and pliers. Masons, geologists, blacksmiths
and iron workers need hammers but scythes are only needed by the farmers.
You can modify the tool fabrication rate during the game. For example, if
you urgently need a specific tool (you may have enough hammers, but you
need pliers for a new blacksmith), you can speed up the manufacturing rate
for the pliers while reducing that rate for the other tools. Don't forget
to change these settings later on in the game. The length of the bars
shows the number of manufactured tools. If the hammer bar is twice as long
as the saw bar this means that your workers will manufacture two hammers
for each saw. But as long as you don't have a blacksmith, this menu is not
useful. If you want to avoid having to set priorities for the tools,
manufacture as many tools as possible and as soon as you can. This will
allow to more easily control the warehouse statistics.
Click on the central icon to open the merchandise priorities menu. You
will see a list of merchandise and icons. This menu allows you to define
priorities for merchandise: some of them will be transported in priority
by your transporters. The wood is the first priority in the default
settings, because it is very important for construction works and must be
delivered as soon as possible to the sawmills. Gold, inversely, has a
lower priority level: even if it strengthens your troops moral, its
transporiation is less urgent; and this will have no negative effect on the
game. But you may also have your very own idea, and you can change these
priority settings. Click on the desired merchandise. The small arrows
allow you to lower or raise the priority level, the large one to place the
merchandise directly at the top or bottom of the priority list. The upper
left icon allows you to return to the initial settings. If you are
fighting against the enemy, weapons should generally be transported in
priority, before construction materials. The choice of the best strategy
is up to you.
The most important menu allows you to evacuate merchandise, and is
activated by the central right icon: If the enemy gets too close to one of
your warehouses and you decide to evacuate it, it would be a pity to save
more wheat than gold. In this menu, you will decide the evacuation
priority of the merchandise. This option works like the delivery
priorities menu.
Messages and preferences
During the game, you will always know what the important events are with
the messages displayed by the program. But you can also use these messages
for playing the game. This chapter is related to the various messages sent
during the game.
You will receive a message for the following events:
A new guard building is occupied for the first time by a knight. You will
thus annex new territories and will be able to plan your city's expansion.
A new warehouse has been constructed.
A geologist discovered new underground riches.
A mine yields no more ore and must be demolished as it consumes food for
nothing
You are attacked.
You conquered an enemy guard building and gained new territories.
One of your buildings has been taken over by the enemy.
The enemy placed a hut near your territory, and you lost some land.
Same as above, but you lost land and one or more buildings.
The construction materials stock in your castle is too low. An emergency
program is started, and the only construction works to recieve materiais
will be the woodcutter huts, the sawmills and the quarries.
The emergency program is stopped, the construction works mentioned above
have been provided with materials, and their delivery has been carried on.
You don't need to read all the messages when they arrive. The program will
memorize more than 50 of them for you, so you wil have time to finish what
you are currency doing, if for example you are creating new routes, To view
a message, click on the hook in the window. If the message displayed
doesn't interest you and there are some more, click on the sheet to view
the next message. An arrow also allows you to come back to the previous
message.
"THE SETTLERS" also includes other options. For example, you can send
yourself a message. How? The message will be delayed for several good
reasons, This option is in fact a "recall" option, and you can use it in
two ways:
a) It allows you to be called to a certain place after a specific length of
time.
b) It allows you to be called in a menu or a warehouse after a spacified
length of time. The different watches allow you to specify the length of
time with brackets of 5, 10, 20, 30 or 60 minutes. When this time has
expired, you will receive a message and you will be automatically recalled
to the desired pIace or menu. Here are a few examples on how to use this
option:
You urgently need a certain type of tool and you decide to halt tthe
manufacture of other tools with the production menu. But if you forget to
change the production settings later on, no other tool will be
manufactured, and you can easily foresee the consequences. Click on a
watch in the tools menu. After the specified length of time, you will be
informed that you still have something to do in this menu.
Your mine workers are on strike and you urgently need food. You can modify
the delivery priorities for the merchandise. Fish, meat and bread will be
delivered in priority, before the construction materials, But when the
problem is resolved, the recall option will allow you to change the
settings again and set new priorities.
You want to build new huts for fishermen in a certain place, but you have
not yet annexed the land, and the guard huts are still under construction.
Specify the desired length of time after which you will be recalled to this
place. The situation may be different later on,
You realize that the enemy is suddenly constructing many castles, and you
want to keep an eye on him. You just have to precise the length of time
after which you will be recalled to a certain place to see how the
situation evolved.
It is sometimes useful to use the recall option if you want to change the
merchandisc all and/or settlers settings again later on in the game,
You must also consider this: if you play in team mode with another player
(blue settlers), the right player on the screen may not use the watches,
and all the messages also arrive to the left player. But you're playing in
team, right?
Renewable games
Back to the main menu. In 1 & 2 player mode and in demo mode, an icon will
be displayed in the centre of the screen. We did not discuss this icon
earlier in this manual. As you already know, the 16 digit number affects
the world's appearance. Thus, the same number always produces the same
world. If you click on this icon, the same combination will be used for
your opponents. The turning star at the bottom of the screen indicates
that the world AND your opponents are derived from the same combination of
digits.
What is the real advantage of this? For example, say you choose the
6355174823325876 combination and a size 4 world. At the end of the game,
if you consider that it was interesting and challenging, you can give that
combination and the world size to a friend. He will be able to play the
same game using the arrow icon, because the world AND opponents data is
always based on the digits combination and the world's size.
The 16 digits (between 1 and 8) allow about 270,000 billion combinations,
but some are not interesting. Examine carefully your opponent's abilities,
and decide if you want to accept this game or not. If you want to play
another game, click on the arrow to obtain a new combination, and click
again on the bottom arrow. You can do this as many times as you want. If
another player gave you a combination, click on the dialogue box and enter
the combination, which must include 16 digits. Don't forget to note the
world size and the combination if you want to pass the game to another
player
If you find a fantastic combination, please feel free to send it to us here
at Blue Byte, we also like to colonize, when we have some rare free time.
Demo and team mode
In demo mode, you can watch a game entirely controlled by the computerer.
Even if you only watch the game, "THE SETTLERS", is an entertaining and
interesting game, In demo mode, the statistics, the menus, the map and the
usual buildings information are available like in a normal game. You may
change some menus and statistics options, but you cannot change the
settings or construct buildings or roads.
Relax and watch the opponents fight for the control of the land,
The team mode has been developed to allow 2 players to play together
against computer controlled opponents. As both players control the same
settlers group (the blue ones), the scenarios are identical. Team play has
an adyantage: you will haye more time to think and decide, But there is
also a drawback: you might experience some coordination problems from time
to time... In team mode, the game is slightly different. Both players
CANNOT activate the menus, the attack option and the geologist
simultaneously. But this is not a real constraint, as the players are
supposed to inform each other of any change in the settings.
The Options
Experienced players want to rapidly activate the options and avoid long
mouse controls. "THE SETTLERS" allows you to define several extra options
for each player. These options are activated when clicking on the icon on
the main menu or the play menu.
You can toggle the music on or off with the corresponding icon. You can
also assign the sound effects to 2 different channels when playing in 2
player mode. The left player will hear sound on the left channel, the
right player on the right channel. In that case, no music will be
available in the game.
Messages: the game includes 4 different message display modes
3) All messages are displayed.
2) All messages are displayed, except the messages concerning newly
constructed buildings and geologists.
1) Only important messages are displayed (attacks, victories, defeats,
building losses and emergency program).
0) No message displayed.
Scrolling when building roads: if you get close to the edge of the play
screen while building a road, the world will scroll automatically and you
will hear a sound,
Fast construction click: If you click twice on the pointer, this will have
the same result than clicking on the construction icon. Click twice on a
flag to build a road, or on an empty place to construct a building.
Fast map click: Double click on the right mouse button to display the map.
Double click again to close it. If your right mouse button does not work
properly, do not use this function, you could activate the map display
while trying to scroll the playscreen.
Special functions for the map
The map includes a special option: display the map and special click on
the buildings icon. A new window with buildings will be displayed. This
window is identical to the statistics window,
The change page icon allows you to see the other buildings Choose a
building and click on it. The buildings will disappear and the map will be
displayed
A new icon is displayed at the bottom of the screen. The map will only
display the selected building. This option allows you to quickly see where
your warehouses, etc... are located. In very large worlds this option is
very useful. The buildings currently under construction will also be
displayed for your convenience, allowing a better planning. For example,
if you look for the right spot to place a new baker, you can see where your
windmills are located. When you close the map, the option is still
activated, and the selected buildings will still be displayed on the map
when reactivated.
To return to normal mode, click "normally" on the icon. To select another
type of building, special click again.
You can also use the flag to select the type of buildings displayed on the
map. Click on the flag. A new icon will be displayed below the map. But
all flags will not be displayed, only the ones where all roads are not
used. This allows you to see where your network is jammed by the transport
of merchandise. Also, when a road is not used, there might be two reasons:
No worker has arrived on this road. Or you just built it, and you have to
wait a while. Or you do not have enough workers.
There has been a traffic jam at this crossroad (read the corresponding
chapter in this manual). With this option, you can immediately see where
the transportation of merchandise is posing problems.
Another special option will soon be essential for playing the game: the
magnifying glass icon, next to the map icon, which allows you to zoom in on
the game map,
Hints
-----
The most important rules: be observant
You have already understood that "THE SETTLERS", is a very special game.
As soon as you change one of the settings. your settlers (small groups or
hundreds of them) will act differently in order to follow your new
instructions. A small change may have profound effects. It is wiser to
carefully plan your construction schedule and your strategy, instead of
building things haphazardly and constantly attacking your enemies. You
should examine the situation carefully and analyze it before making a
decision. The winner of the game is not the one who clicks quicker on the
icons, it's the one who develops the best tactics and strategies. In this
chapterr we will give you some more hints to play the game.
Look at your statistics from time to time, analyze your development
mistakes or the negative results of an operation, and find the best
solution. You can solve a problem in many ways. Let's take an
example:your construction works are halted because your wood supply is
exhausted. Your analysis could be as follows: first you take into
consideration the number of woodcutters chopping down trees, then you
construct a new sawmill if enough carpenters are available.
In case of a grave crisis, demolish a few roads to reduce merchandise
deliveries to certain areas in your city. Some workers are using the wood
needed for your construction works? Reduce deliveries to the ship makers
or iron workers wood until the crisis is over. Do you have enough tools to
allow this, or do you have more urgent problem to solve in this area? Bow
will you do to have a sufficient stock of wood rapidly enough? Did you
train enough forest rangers? Will you be able to solve the crisis more
rapidly by cutting the trees down in a new forest? If there is no forest
around, a new guard hut will allow you to annex new lands if you need one.
Several factors play an important role in the game, and you will always
find new tasks in "THE SETTLERS", because each game is different.
Carefully examine your opponent's territory to determine what he is
preparing and his leyel of strength. Determine his weak points so that you
will be able to attack him. Bas he built only one iron mine, which will
allow you to deprive him of his raw materials? Is one of his warehouses
easy to take, or lacking food, and can you interrupt the production of the
enemy? The problems posed by a city are the same for your opponents.
There are several ways to freeze up his economy.
Depending on the size of the world, the number of settlers is limited to
the following number (sizes 1-8):
500/1000/2000/4000/8000/16000/32000/64000.
4 players, for example, face off in a size 5 world will each recieve
additional settlers, fairly distributed. The birth rate does not influence
the total number of settlers controlled by each player, but only on the
frequency at which new settlers arrive.
The behaviours of your opponents
Adversaries have very different behaviours, as you will notice during the
various events. Here is a brief presentation of the principal character
types:
1) Lady Amalie
An inoffensive lady, reserved, who goes about her work peacefully,
2) Kumnpy Onefinger
A very hostile character, who loves gold above all else.
3) Balduin, a former monk
A very discrete character, who worries chiefly about the protection of his
lands and his important buildings.
4) Frollin
His unpredictable behaviour will always take you by surprise, He will
"pilfer" away lands that are not occupied.
5) Kallina
She is a fighter who attempts to block the enemy`s food supply by using
strategic tactics,
6) Rasparuk the druid
His tactics consist in amassing large stocks of raw materials But he
attacks slyly.
7) Count Aldaba
Protect your warehouses well, because he is aggressive and knows exactly
where he must attack.
8) The King Rolph VII
He is a prudent ruler without any particular weakness. He will try to
check the supply of construction materials of his adversaries.
9) Homen Doublehorn
He is the most aggressive enemy. Watch your buildings carefully, otherwise
he might take you by surprise.
10) Sollok the Joker
A sly and repugnant adversary, he will try to stop the supply of raw
materials of his enemies right from the beginning of the game.
Hints and tips: professions
This chapter contains other tips concerning the choice of location for
buildings.
Demolition: when you demolish a road, you interrupt the transport of
merchandise passing in this direction. Try to figure out a way to always
leave a road. and do not destroy the only important connecting road.
Merchandise has to wait for the arrival of a new transporter before being
transported on a new road. Any modification of your network affects the
transportation of merchandise. Construct therefore, right from the start,
a well organized network.
Castle: you already know how to choose a good location for your castle,
but observe also the positions of your opponents castles. Do not place
yourself too close to a powerful adversary. The opponents controlled bv
the computer can fight among themselves and consequently destroy
themselves.
Large buildings: the land for the construction of large buildings is rare,
and consequently, expensive. Do not construct huts and small roads on land
where you could construct a larger building.
Ship maker: For the large lakes, a short cut by using a water way is very
efficient to quickly transport merchandise.
Fishermen: A lake that is as big as the game screen will contain enough
fish for 3 or 4 fishermen. Make sure that the fishermen are spread out on
the lake. If they all fish in the same spot they will finish by catching
nothing.
Farmer: he needs unoccupied lands in order to transform them into fields.
The roads cannot be considered as unoccupied lands. Do not construct too
many roads around a farm. To avoid the farmer losing time travelling to
losing time travelling to his fields, do not have him use steep roads.
Miller and baker: One miller and one baker are enough for several farms.
But make sure that the roads used for transporting their merchandise are
not too long.
Butcher: he works quickly and in spite of his deliveries to the farmers,
he generally does not have any problems with his work.
Lumberjack and forest ranger: they complement each other perfectly. The
forest ranger can replace the trees cut down after the passing of the
lumberjack. Wood is the raw material with the highest demand. Use several
lumberjacks and forest rangers. The forest rangers cannot plant trees on
the roads. Do not place them, therefore, in the general vicinity of the
castle or near the warehouses that require several roads for the
transportation of merchandise. Place them a little way away, even in
places that are not perfectly flat and that cannot be used for other
things.
Miller: One miller is sufficient for several lumberjacks. But you will
have to quickly construct several sawmills.
Ship maker: Make sure that the ship maker does not use up all your wood to
build a fleet of boats. As soon as he has finished his work, do not give
him any more wood.
Miner: If he can no longer find anything, burn the mine down so you will
not have to feed him. In the mountains, construct a network of roads with
numerous branches to facilitate the transport of raw materials to the
valley.
Caster: The cast takes a little while and the caster cannot cast the ore
of several mines fast enough without falling behind. But he will be able
to catch up as soon as the deliveries slow down. Depending on the size of
his backlog, you can hold back on new constructions.
Geologist: When the geologists return home after their prospections, they
will stay in the warehouses without anything to do. From time to time,
send them back in the mountains to look for new underground riches. You
might discover a new vein of gold that you had missed before.
How do the settlers choose the road on which to transport the merchandise?
It is a rather complicated procedure. It is important to know where the
merchandise is needed. A mill can be very close and contains a of of
wheat, even though the stock of another mill that is further away will be
dried up. Moreover, certain merchandise is distributed according to the
menu parameters. When a destination has been found for the merchandise,
the settlers take the shorter route. The essential element is the number
of roads that the merchandise will have to pass by: a very long road
between two flags is faster than a shorter voyage with an intermediate
flag. The player has, therefore, a great advantage, because he can
influence the choice of road chosen for the transportation. Here is an
example:
You have placed a flag on each side of a warehouse and a road to connect it
to your network. All merchandise that must transit through the warehouse
is already keeping the crossroad very busy, and the merchandise transported
from one flag to the other, and in both directions, blocks traffic even
more. On the other hand, if you create a new connection between the two
flags (even if it makes an apparent detour around the wanehouse), the
traffic will no longer pass in front of the warehouse, but by the new road
that allows you to avoid it. This principle allows you to construct
complex networks around important warehouses or castles, which, in turn,
allows you to transport merchandise more rapidly. Do not forget that any
construction, demolition and transformation of road initially has negative
effects on the transportation of merchandise. It is only when the settlers
will be adapted to the new situation that the transporiation of merchandise
will proceed normally. Your workers will often have to cross over enemy
land to cut downtrees or harvest wheat. In the mines, you can take
advantage of this situation and steal underground riches from the enemy.
Other loading options
If you know the CLI for the Amiga, you can launch the program with
different options:
-f: Save/Load to Floppy
The files will be loaded and saved from the floppy disk drive. If you do
not use the -f parameter, the files will be saved in the "THE
SETTLERS\save\", directory.
-s: Single player
The game is limited to one player. This option is useful if you only have
512 KB of RAM. If you play alone and if you want to use the memory for the
sound effects. The game for 2 players in a team is not available if this
option is activated.
-mx: Force mapsize x
X is a number between 1 and 8. It indicates the size of the games world.
The program has a size 3 world by default, because this is the size of
world used for the training scenarios.
-n: Force NTSC
If your system is in the PAL standard, the screen will be in NTSC mode.
You will thereby save memory (the screen is smaller) and the program can
load more sound effects if you haye more than 512 KB of RAM.
-q: quickgrafix disabled
The rapid graphics (that are reserved tor computers having 1 MB or more)
take the priority over the music. This option allows you to give the
priority to the music. If there is any space remaining, the program will
use the rapid graphics.
Need Help?
During the game, you can sometimes find yourself in a "no way out"
situation. For example, if you have lumberjacks but no more wood, the
construction of a lumberjack's hut can pose a serious problem. All is not
yet lost, however, because you can always send your knights into combat.
If you do not have any stocks at the beginning of the game, you might end
up quickly lacking materials. If you do not watch your production closely,
you will see that you lack one unit of wood for the sawmill too late....
and you will have to restart at zero.
To avoid this, an "emergency program" is placed at the beginning of the
game. This program is, in fact, a reserve of 2 units of granite and 7
units of wood that allow you to construct a lumberjack's hut, a sawmill and
a quarryman`s hut.
If you need materials, these construction sites will receive them in
priority order to ensure the minimal supply, because these three buildings
will open all the doors. You can also find yourself in a dead end with the
tool maker: if you don't have a tool maker, and all the hammers have been
distributed to the construction workers and to the geologists, you can no
longer send an iron worker to work and the fabrication of tools becomes
impossible. It is for this reason that at the beginning of the game,
certain settlers take the necessary tools. Early in the game, you will not
have too many problems. Everything has been foreseen. But, later on, you
will be the sole person responsible for your mistakes. You now know
everything about the program, and your knowledge is sufficient to be able
to confront the computer or to challenge another player.
The end of the game
The game finishes when there is only one city remaining in the game's
world. You can quit a game when playing by clicking on the white flag. If
the adversary controlled by the computer decides to quit, you can decide
whether or not to continue the game. There might be instances when several
cities remain in the game. In this case, the game will be a draw. This
situation can happen when no city has enough knights and all the deposits
of ore and coal are dried up, prohibiting the fabrication of weapons. In
this case, there is no winner.
THE END.
P.S.
Level Codes :
Level 01: START Level 11: CHOPPER Level 21: PASTURE
Level 02: STATION Level 12: GATE Level 22: OMNUS
Level 07: RECORD Level 17: SAVAGE Level 27: CANYON
Level 08: SCALE Level 18: XAVER Level 28: REPRESS
Level 09: SIGN Level 19: BLADE Level 29: YOKI
Level 03: UNITY Level 13: ISLAND Level 23: TRIBUTE
Level 04: WAVE Level 14: LEGION Level 24: FOUNTAIN
Level 05: EXPORT Level 15: PIECE Level 25: CHUDE
Level 10: ACRON Level 20: BEACON Level 30: PASSIVE
Level 06: OPTION Level 16: RIVAL Level 26: TRAILER
-----------------
PREFACE
ON THE RIGHT PATH
Computer Specifications
The Settlers - Presentation
Configuration
Hard Disk Installation
The Status Screen
TO GET STARTED
Copy Protection
The Main Menu
The Game - The Commands
The Map
The Castle
Constructing Buildings
Constructing Roads
The First Settlers
Demolition
Saving And Ending The Game
TRAINING
Game 1 - Rural Property
Game 2 - Construction Materials
Game 3 - Food
Game 4 - The Riches Of The Earth And There Exploitation
Game 5 - Fabrication Of Tools And Weapons
Game 6 - Attack
THE ECONOMY
The Economic System
Your First Colony (Village, City)
About Statistics
The First Statistics
The Statistics Curves
The Supply Statistics
The Warehouses
Information About The Buildings And The Flags
The Distribution Menus
RULES OF COMBAT
The Knight Returns
TO CONTINUE
The Other Menus
Messages And Preferences
Renewable Games
Demonstration And Team Mode
The Options
Special Functions For The Map
HINTS
The Most Important Rules: Be Observant
The Behaviours Of The Opponents
Hints And Tips: Professions
Need Help?
The End Of The Game
ANNEXES
If You Have A Problem
PREFACE
-------
Dear Blue Byte client. What you have in your hands is not simply a game
manual. It is an adventure guide that will become an epic and that will
probably lastingly change your life in the coming months, along with your
attitude towards entertainment.
"The Settlers" is a program that you can play as often as you like and that
will teach you new things.
After playing for a few hours, you will agree with us when we say that this
game has no equal in terms of style or graphics.
For the first time, users can enter a world so complex, so detailed, that
they will literally want to plunge themselves into the game. With The
Settlers, we have achieved the goal that programmers have set for
themselves since the beginnings of video games: create a new world for the
player, where the adventure never finishes and can continue, based on the
desires of the players, to grow for years to come. The text in the box is
very clear: if you have had enough of daily life and you would like to
forget about it for a while, you no longer have to save up to buy yourself
a new State. The Settlers will allow you to construct your own refuge, one
that you can modify and enlarge as you like. We will be pleased if you can
find the peace and calm in your realm that is missing from your daily
existence. In fact, we are sure that vou will. This manual has been
written to help you achieve this freedom; it will:
1. allow you to install The Settlers on your computer.
2. familiarize you with the basic principals that ... (see 3)
3. you can apply and try for the first time
4. give you general information.
5. allow you to understand how the game functions.
6. teach you new things if necessary.
7. help you understand any areas that are not clear.
8. address itself to users who want to know everything about the game,
right down to the last detail.
At the end of this manual, we have included a troubleshooting guide along
with an index that will be extremely useful. Don`t be intimidated by the
bulk of information. We have designed this manual to be cleat. You don't
need to be a student in economics in order to understand it. You can
always find the information you need The Settlers is a game that will
provide you with an enormous amount of pleasure and entertainment.
The Blue Byte team. October 1993.
ON THE RIGHT PATH
-----------------
Computer specifications
The Settlers requires an Amiga or an IBM PC will or compatible (386
minimum) with a hard disk. As this program will exploit each computer to
the best of its capabllities, you do not have to worry about your
configuration, especiaily if you are using a PC. Based on your computer`s
memory capacity, the program will automatically use this memory as needed.
If you have more than enough memory, the game will be even more enjoyable
to play because you can play with the sound effects, music and other new
possibilities of the game.
The Settlers Presentation
Congratulations! By purchasing The Settlers, you have just acquired an
extraordinary program that will fully exploit the capabilities of your
Amiga or PC. This is true whether you are using an Amiga 500 with 1 MB, an
Amiga 4000 with 10 MB and a hard drive, or a PC 386 or DX2 486. The
Settlers is an "intelligent" program that thinks for you and a game where
you are not required to take care of everything yourself.
The Settlers is a "linear timing" program: no matter what you do or what
calculations are made by the computer, the settlers will always work or
fight at the same speed. This is a new feature that does not exist for
programs as complex as this one. You will decide where you want your
settlers to construct buildings, how the roads will be made, where to
search for raw materials, and where they will attack the enemy. You can
also modify numerous parameters, that will affect the behaviour of your
settlers.
The computer will handle the execution of your decisions and it commands
your numerous settlers. The men will build houses, cut down trees, work in
the mines, construct weapons and tools, dispatch construction materials in
the places where they are needed, defend their castles against enemy knight
attacks, provide the miners with food, and many other things!
The Settlers will allow you to play in several ways: alone, in teams or in
training mode. Alone or in a team against the computer, alone or in a team
against opponents controlled by the computer that you have chosen yourself,
in 2 player mode and against opponents controlled by the computer, or just
with players controlled by the computer in order to watch the world evolve
without you having to intervene.
The goal of the game is to build a prosperous and well organized city and
to gain control of the enemy cities. This might initially seem simple to
do, but in reality it is much more complex. If you consider all the game's
problems inversely, that is from the end of the game first you will
understand better.
In order to conquer the enemy castles, you will need many knights. To keep
their moral up, you will need gold, and for the weapons you will need iron
and coal. These raw materials are found in mines. The mines must be
provided with food and the raw materials must be melted in a foundry
The food supply is insured by the fishermen and the farmers, but they need
tools, as do all other workers. These tools are made by smiths. To build
huts, houses, castles you will need construction materials and workers...
But don't worry. you won't have to remember all this for the moment;
everything will be explained along the way. We hope that you will enjoy
this game.
The Blue Byte team
Configuration
this paragraph concerns the Amiga version only.
The program will try to use all the capabilities of your computer We
recommend that you read the following paragraphs carefully to insure its
proper functioning. If you are not familiar with computers and the words
"Chipram" and "Fastram" don't mean anything to you do not read chapters 1.3
and 1.5.
a) General remarks about the configuration
Do not forget that any program already loaded when the game is launched
will take up memory space; memory space that might be needed by the
Settlers game in order to run properly. We recommend, therefore, that you
do not load other programs into memory if you are going to use the game.
If several programs are automatically loaded when the computer boots up,
use another startup sequence for The Settlers.
b) Configuration for 512 KB of Chipram or 1 MB of total memory only.
If you have 1 MB of Chipram and at least 1.5 MB of RAM total, you can skip
this paragraph. The program uses Chipram memory for the screens, the
animation, the sound effects and the music. If you have only 512 KB of
Chipram, you will have to sacrifice something; you will hear only part of
the sound erects, and no music at all. The sound effects are loaded based
on the available memory. You can increase the available memory by:
disconnecting unnecessary disk drives
not activating the hard disk (if it contains Chipram)
avoiding to launch other programs
The rest of the available memory is used by the program for the data, the
scenery, and the graphics. In order to use the scenarios with only 1 MB of
memory, we recommend that you reread the points mentioned above.
Hard disk installation
If you want to use the game from floppy disks, you can skip this paragraph.
PC:
WARNING!!! Before using the original floppy disks,we recommend that you
make a backup copy of them.
1) Turn your computer on as usual
2) When the system is operational, insert the first game disk into one of
the drives
3) Enter the letter of this drive followed by a colon (;) and press the
Return key. For the internal drive, for example, enter the letter a:.
If you have a second drive, this is usually designated by the letter b:.
4) Enter the installation program's name (INSTALL), then press the
RETURN key.
5) When the program has been launched, you will have to specify the path
for the installation. If you want to change the path proposed by the
program by default, enter the new path and confirm by pressing the
RETURN key. The installation of the program will begin. To quit the
installation program before the end of the installation procedure, press
the ESCAPE key.
6) When the installation program is finished, enter (SETTLERS) to launch
the game.
AMIGA:
WARNING!!! Before using the original floppy disks, we recommend that you
make a backup copy of them.
1) Start up your AMIGA as usual from the hard disk, When the Workbench
screen appears, insert the first disk (with the installation program)
into one of the drives.
2) Open the disk by double clicking on its icon. A window will open
containing other icons. One of these icons, "Install", represents the
installation program for Blue Byte games.
3) Launch the installation program by double clicking on its icon.
4) In the installation program's window, you will see two dialogue boxes.
Enter the name of the drive where the installation program is located
in the upper dialogue box. This will normally be the internal drive
"DF0" and this is the drive indicated by the program by default. If
the installation floppy disk is located on the external drive, enter
the corresponding letter (DF1-DF3). Confirm by pressing the RETURN key.
The lower dialogue box is only used for the target drive. As this disk
normally carries the name "DHO:3", it is the drive selected by default If
you want to install the program in another directory, enter the path
corresponding to your configuration. As you have probably created a
special folder for your games, you can also specify the directory in which
you want to install the game, for example:
dhO:games /bluebyte/
If the specified directory does not exist, it will be created automatically
by the installation program.
Status screen
As the PC version differs in terms of the utilisation of the systems
capabilities, PC users can skip this chapter as the status screen will be
of no use for them. When you launch the program, the status screen is
displayed. It will tell you how the program is using your computer. It
displays the following information:
1. Workbench
Indicates whether the workbench has been deactivated (which allows the user
to free up memory), if the workbench has not been deactivated, if start up
programs have been loaded, or if the workbench has not been opened.
2. Program
Indicates if the program is stored in Fastram. If this is the case, the
program is much faster because it can work in tandem with the Blitter.
3. Data
Indicates, as for the program, if the data is stored in Fastram (thereby
further increasing the speed of the program).
4. Sounds
Indicates if the sound effects (none or a part) are loaded or not into
memory (based on the size of the Chipram memory available)
5. Music
If you have 1 MB of memory, the music must be loaded into memory.
6. The game worlds
The number indicates the maximum size of the game's world. This will
depend on the size of the available memory and can be limited by the
storage device (see 9) or the processor (see 8). You will find more
precise information in the table at the end of this chapter.
7. Missions
You can undertake missions beginning with a size three world
8. Processor
Indicates the type of processor(s) installed in your Amiga.
9. Storage device
The games are saved on hard disk or floppy disk, The size of a games world
is limited to 5 for floppy disks (size 7 represents 1.6 MB) Moreover, a
size 5 world is already immense.
If you play on a PC, do not worry about all this information. As indicated
above, your computer will load all necessary data into its memory based on
your system's configuration.
TO GET STARTED
--------------
Copy protection
When the program is launched, the computer will ask you to enter a code.
You will be presented with 16 different symbols. For example, if the
program asks you which combination of symbols is found at the top of page
18, look on the page in question and click with the mouse on the
corresponding symbols in the correct order. If you click on the correct
symbols, the program will continue.
The main menu
This is where all the preliminary parameters are displayed before the
launching of the game. A maximum of 4 groups of settlers can participate
in the game. A group of settlers is controlled by the player by the
computer or by two players working as a team.
To choose a game mode, click on the second icon from the left. The icon's
graphic and the text will indicate the game mode chosen among the following
modes:
Mission: Orders fixed opponents controlled by the computer (1 player), or
2 players in a team, with blue settlers
Training: Orders fixed for new players (1 or 2 players in a team with blue
settlers).
1 player: Opponents that can be modified at will and game for 1 player or
2 players in a team with blue settlers.
2 players: Opponents that can be modified at will and game for 2 players
against each other. One of the players plays with the blue settlers, the
other with the red settlers.
Demo mode: Here you are only an observer. You watch the computer colonize
itself.
In the lower half of the screen, you see the participants of the game. In
the left part of the screen, you will see an image. On this image, you
will see a friendly settlement (if this is the group of settlers that you
control) or a less friendly adversary (the computer). If you do not see an
image, this group of settlers does not exist in the game. The different
opponents controlled by the computer have their own personalities, and can
be aggressive or reserved, ready to take risks or preoccupied by their own
security. You will find further on indications concerning the personality
of these opponents. On the right side of the image, you will see three
bars having the colours of blue, green and red. These indications are very
important. The blue bar indicates the state of the stocks of a settlement
(city) at the beginning of the game. A large stock allows for rapid
expansion and procures ceriain advantages. A small stock creates problems
when the city begins to expand. If you are a novice, make sure that the
blue bar is always above the 50% level. The green bar indicates the
intelligence level of the players controlled by the computer. This level
affects the rapidity of their actions and reactions. For the players, the
green bar is always at its maximum (we assume that you are extraordinarily
intelligent....) and has no other signification.
The red bar represents the growth rate. The higher it is, the faster your
settlements will reproduce, and the faster you can expand Novices should
try to keep this bar above the 50% level.
According to the game mode chosen, you can modify certain other parameters.
To start off, we recommend that you try the training game No1.
Mission: You will see, in the middle of the screen, the current level
(beginning 1), the password (at the beginning "START") and two arrows.
When you accomplish a mission, the program will display the password that
allows you to restart the game at the same level. Click on the password
and enter the new password. Do not forget to press the Return key to
confirm. If the password is incorrect, the message "FALSE" will be
displayed. If the password is correct, you will see the level to which you
will have access.
With the arrows displayed to the right of the password, you can return to
the levels already completed. You can also activate the team mode by
clicking with the mouse in the left frame. You will see two mice. We
recommend that you do not try the mission orders right away.
Training game: there is no password for training. You can directly select
each available training game by using the arrows. As for the missions, you
can activate the team mode by clicking with the mouse.
1 player, 2 players and demo mode: You can modify numerous parameters for
these game modes. The size of the world is displayed in the centre. To
modify it, click on the small or the large planet. Novices should probably
not play with worlds with a size greater than 3, as they will be quickly
submerged by the train of events... You can modify all data concerning a
group of settlers:
the blue bar for the state of the stocks
the green bar for the intelligence (when the opponents are controlled by
the computer).
the red bar for the growth rate
the button to activate or deactivate the opponents controlled by the
computer
the image of the adversary controlled by the computer, to choose another.
The initial data is chosen randomly. If you are a novice, we recommend
that you change the parameters to your advantage, especially where the
stocks are concerned, because a large stock is very important. If you want
to see the game in demo mode, you can increase the intelligence level of
the players controlled by the computer, but reduce their stock. The
combination of numbers displayed to the right is a randomly chosen number
for the creation of a world. This number decides the location for the
mountains, lakes, deserts, forests, etc. in this world. The same
combination of numbers will produce, therefore, the same world. To change
worlds, click on the icon to the left with the question mark and another
combination of numbers will immediately be chosen. The icon remaining in
the middle of the screen and the turning star, that you have perhaps
already noticed, will be explained in the following section.
In 1 player, 2 player, or demo mode, you will want to set the values of
each participant at the same level. In the middle of the frame to the
right, you will see a small arrow. Click on the icon and the data for the
player (or the adversary controlled by the computer), which is located to
the far right, will be the same for all the other participants. The player
situated furthermost to the right is always used, because the only players
that have modifiable levels of intelligence are those controlled by the
computer.
To launch the game, click on the "START" icon. The screen will fade to
black and the computer will calculate the game's world. A red bar will
inform you of the progression of the calculations.
To reload a previously saved game, select the "LOAD" option. A few seconds
later a window will appear with a list of files saved on disk or floppy
disk. If you want to change floppy disks, insert the new disk and click on
the change disk icon. Click on the name of the saved game and then on
"load" to load the game, or on "Exit" to cancel. When a game is loaded, a
message appears on the screen to tell you if the loading procedure went
well or if there were any errors encountered. Click on "Exit". If the
game was correctly loaded a new screen will be displayed and you will see
all the opponents and all the values of the beginning of the game. This is
important if you do not remember against whom you played, or the strength
of your opponents. With the exception of the title, only the "Start" and
"Cancel" icons remain activated. The "Start" icon allows you to continue
the game, the "Cancel" icon to return to the main menu. To quit the game,
click on the EXIT icon in the upper left corner of the screen.
The additional options icon is discussed in paragraph 6.5
The game - The commands
You can play alone or with two players, with all functions being identical.
The only differences are that in 2 player mode the screen is divided in
two, the image of the world is smaller and the icons are closer together.
As no additional explanation is generally required for the 2 player mode,
it will only be rarely discussed in the information that follow. After
launching the game, you will see a part of the world on the screen:
perhaps some grass with some trees or a lake. To simplify explanaiions.
this part of the world will be called the "screen" from now on. At the
bottom of the screen are 5 different round icons that have different
functions. They will be called the "Menu" from now on.
As we have already mentioned, you will only see a part of a world on the
screen. According to the size of the screen, the world can range from 10
to 1200 times this size for giant worlds. To move around in a world, press
the right mouse button and drag it in the desired direction. When you
arrive at the desired destination, release the mouse button. Look at the
scenery for a moment. You will see deserts, lakes, forests, mountains, and
many other things.
Perhaps you have noticed your pointer in the middle of the image when you
launched the game. It is made of a central symbol and 6 surrounding
points. You position this pointer where you want to activate one of the
game options. If, for example, you want to construct a house or a road
somewhere, you must first place your pointer on this area. To place the
pointer on the desired area, just click on the screen with the left mouse
button. The pointer's central icon, which is also displayed in the lower
left of the menu, will probably change. We will discuss this in the
following paragraphs.
SPECIAL CLICK: further on in this manual, we will often use the term
"Special Click". This means that you do not click only on the left button
as usual but you must additionally press the right button. Therefore, a
click on, the left button while pressing the right button is called a
"special click". Why? Certain functions in the game are very powerful!
For exanmple, an accidental click on the mouse could destroy an important
building. This special click is more over often used for additional
functions.
The map
In the middle of the menu, you will see a "map" icon. Click on this icon
with the mouse. A new window will appear above the games world. You will
see a geographic map with different icons. On this map, the prairies are
indicated in green, the deserts in yellow, the lakes in blue and the
mountains (according to their height) in brown and white. If you click
somewhere on the map, your screen will move to the corresponding area and
the world and map will disappear. Try clicking on a lake or a desert: it
will immediately appear on the screen. You can similarly select a faraway
area very quickly by scrolling through the world until you reach the area,
as explained in chapter 6
A world is "endless" which is to say that if you continue moving to the
left you will eventually return to your point of departure. The world does
not have, therefore, any "edges". You will understand this better if you
select the map again and click on the icon located next to the magnifying
glass in the lower right area. You will see slanted and horizontal lines
that define the size of the world. For example if you have selected, size
3, you will notice that the world is represented 4 times on the map, and 16
times for a size 1 world.
The different sections are connected to each other and this is why the
game's terrain has no limits. The size 5 world will fit perfectly in the
map section. The size 8 world is enormous. You will only see one eighth
of the world on the map! With size 3 and larger worlds, you can move both
the map and the screen: press the right mouse button and drag in the
desired direction. Do not forget that this movement is not possible for
smaller worlds (as they adapt themselves to the section of the map),
With the magnifying glass icon, you can zoom in on the map. The other
icons displayed at the bottom of the map are discussed further on in
paragraph 3, because it is first of all necessary to have constructed
something to see their utility.
The castle
At the beginning of the game, you begin by constructing your castle, which
will serve as headquarters. The area where you place this castle is of
utmost importance for the rest of the game. If you are a novice and you
have a large amount of stocks, you will not run into any immediate problems
and the location of the headquarters does not have an extreme importance.
However, if you have limited stocks, a poorly placed castle can entail
fatal consequences if you should lack certain materials when the enemy is
already constructing weapons. To illustrate the most important aspects, we
have established a list of conditions that are favourable to the
construction of your castle:
avoid narrow valleys in the mountains. Look for a relatively flat area.
choose an area with raw materiais that are close to the castle for the
construction of new houses (trees and grey granite)
choose a terrain that has a large amount of underground riches
The first two points can easily be verified on the screen. If there are a
few trees and some granite, and if the environment is not too inhospitable,
these conditions will be fulfilled. The underground riches are also very
important. The underground riches are: gold, iron. coal and granite.
They are found only in the mountains. To see how much underground riches
are in the zone displayed on the screen, you can ask the geologist who will
give you an overall estimation of the area's riches. The second icon to
the left on the menu represents the geologist. Click on this icon to
obtain the desired information. You will know what riches are present and
where they are located, from top to bottom: gold, iron, coal and granite.
All the values do not need to be at a maximum, but if there is no coal,
iron or gold or only small quantities of the three, look for another area.
Click on the Exit icon to back up a step. The importance of the
underground riches also depends on your strategy. You will understand this
as you read this manual. Often with the size 1 worlds, it is possible that
certain riches do not exist at all, or that there are no mountains (and
therefore no riches). In this case, do not look desperately for another
area and forget about the riches. With the friendly geologist, you only
have an estimation of the riches in the area, but you do not know exactly
in which mountains they are to be found, or if you are going to find them.
Your settlers will have to find them for themselves, later in the game.
You have at last found a good place to construct your castle. The castle
is a large structure that must be placed on a relatively flat and grassy
area. To do this, click anywhere on the screen with the left mouse button
and the pointer will be placed on this area. if a castle appears in the
centre of the pointer the choice of area has been good. In the lower left
of the menu you will see the "Construct a Castle" icon. If, after several
tries, you have not found an area to construct your castle, use the
"Construction help" icon: special click on the left menu icon (it does not
matter what is displayed) the construction help function will become
active. All areas where a castle can be constructed will be indicated on
the screen. By clicking on one of these areas, you will cause the
"Construct a castle" icon to be displayed in the lower left. Click on this
symbol and your castle will be constructed in a few seconds. A flag with
the players colour will be flown in front of the castle. The castle will
be the only building that will be "freely" given to you. All the other
houses will be built by your settlers. At a certain distance from the
castle you will see a barrier of black and white poles, or of red posts in
the water. They indicate the limits of your property and, therefore where
you have the right to build other buildings.
The geologist's help will be available to you only at the beginning of the
game. Once your castle is built, you will have to manage by yourself.
Constructing buildings
You have taken the first step. Your castle has been constructed. You can
now have your settlers build other houses. If you place your pointer some
where within the limits around your castle, the central icon will tell you
the type of buildings that you can construt:
Two arrows: you cannot construct here
Flag: you can only place a flag here
Hut: you can construct any of the different types of huts (small
buildings)
Castle: you have enough space for all the buildings
Mine: you can build a mine (only in the mountains)
How do you decide which type of building can be built and where it can be
placed?
First of all, all buildings must be built on your land and there must not
be trees or boulders on the area. All houses, huts and castles must be
built on a green surface and the mines only in the mountains (but not in
the snow). The type of building that can be constructed also depends on
the slope of the terrain. For the large buildings, the ground must be
level: their construction is impossible on steep slopes. If you are
looking for an area that is well adapted for a large building, the
"Construction help" option will help you to avoid clicking all around the
screen to find a good location, as we explained for the castle. Special
click on the left menu icon. You will immediately see the areas where you
can construct a building on the screen. You can now choose an area. To
deactivate the construction help, special click again on the left menu
icon.
Depending on which icon is in the centre of the pointer, you will also
see other icons in the lower left of the menu: "Place a flag", "Construct
a Hut", or "Construct a large building". When you click on these options a
star appears above the construction symbol in the menu, along with a new
window with a choice of buildings. To construct a large building, you have
a choice among 20 buildings. As they do not all fit into one window, you
can scroll through them by clicking on the "change page" icon. All the
buildings are discussed in more detail further on in this manual. For the
moment, chose one of them and click on it to give the order to construct.
The window disappears and you will see the first stone of the construction
or a cross on the screen. The first stone means that a house will be built
in this place. The cross has the same meaning, but the ground must be
levelled first so that it can provide a solid foundation for the large
building that you have chosen.
If you decide not to construct a building on the chosen area, click on the
turning star and quit the construction mode. To transform a construction
site into a finished building, you must construct a road between the castle
and the site. We will discuss this in the following paragraph.
Constructing Roads
The settlers need roads so that they can access the different areas of
their city. These roads always run from one flag to another. Your network
of roads is very important. A good network ensures the rapid transfer of
goods and, when there are problems with the transportation, allows you to
more readily find other solutions. The flags serve as intersections. 6
roads can begin at each flag to lead to other flags. There is a flag in
front of each one of your buildings.
In the beginning, you must construct a road when you want to build your
first house. You will see a flag in front of the construction just like
the flag in the front of your castle. Click on one of the two flags and a
symbol for the construction of roads will appear in the pointer and in the
lower left of the menu. Select the icon in the lower left of the menu. A
turning star will appear and the pointer will contain two new symbols. You
are now in "Road construction" mode.
The different symbols around the pointer have the following significations:
zone hatched in red and yellow: you cannot construct roads in this
direction
different slope symbols that range from red (very steep ascents and
descents) to green (flat) and passing by the yellow: you can construct
roads in this direction.
Undo
If you click on this icon, you destroy the last part of the road made. If
you click on one of the slope icons and a part of the road appears, the
pointer contains new symbols. Repeat this operation until the road meets
the other flag. The star in the lower left disappears and the pointer
takes its initial form. The road is constructed and you will quit the
construction mode. The first settlers will begin to leave your castle. Do
not worry about them for the moment. We will discuss them in the following
paragraph. The meaning of the different slope icons is very simple: when
you look from left to right, the icon indicates the slope of the terrain:
a rapid ascent will be indicated for example, by a slope on the icon that
climbs from left to right. The colour is an additional help. It allows
you to see at a glance the slope of a road. Red indicates a steep slope,
yellow a moderate slope and green a flat terrain. The flatter the terrain,
the faster the merchandise can be distributed, because the settlers will
tire much more quickly on slopes than on flat ground. It is often
preferable to make a small detour if you can avoid a red, or very steep,
slope. Novices will not have to worry too much about slopes. If you
construct a road and then decide that you no longer want it, click on the
turning star. You will quit the "road construction" mode and the road will
be erased.
If you want to branch off from an already existing road, you must place a
flag on the road, Click on the desired area. If it is possible to place a
flag there, a flag will appear in the pointer and in the left of the menu.
If it is not possible to place a flag there, use the "construction help"
function. It is possible that placing another flag in a road is impossible
because there is already a flag on this road that is very short, right next
to the chosen spot, or because there are trees in this spot. If you can
create a new intersection, you will see the "Place flag" icon in the menu.
Click on this icon to construct the new intersection. You also can prolong
an existing road or complete the road with a special click and, if
possible, a flag will be placed simultaneously.
You can also construct water ways. Two flags must be on the banks of a
lake for a water way to be built, Construct a Water way between the two
flags in the usual fashion. Do not forget to connect this water way with
your network of roads. The water way serves as a guide for the navigator
who will use it later to transport merchandise It is clear that the other
settlers cannot use a water way. This is why the water ways are used only
for the transport of merchandise and are not very important for novices.
When constructing your roads, make sure that a road runs on the land OR on
the water, but not both at the same time!
The first settlers
When the road leading to the first construction site is built, the first
settlers will begin to leave your castle. This paragraph will explain what
they are doing.
The first settler who leaves the castle is a transporter. He takes 100
steps on the new road and looks and sees if there is some merchandise that
needs to be transported. As soon as he sees merchandise on the road to
transport, he will take it to the next flag.
At the beginning of the game, you will have 20 settlers. Some of them
already have jobs, others are waiting for jobs.
If you want to build a large building, a settler with a orange helmet and a
shovel (the leveler) will arrive and begin walking towards the construction
site. Once there, he will begin to level the ground. When he has
finished, the cross on the site will become the first stone and the settler
will return to the castle.
If you want to build a small building, a settler with a yellow helmet
(construction worker) will arrive looking for his work area. He will ihen
wait for the construction material to arrive so he can begin building the
house.
Another settler will distribute the construction material from the castle
to the construction site: this will always be wood and, eventually, stones
(according to what type of building is being built). The transporter will
take the merchandise and carry it to the construction site. The
construction worker will immediately begin working and soon you will see
scaffolding and, eventually, the building itself. The small huts will be
built very quickly; a castle takes longer.
A worker returns to the castle as soon as he finishes his job. A worker
will then arrive to start working in the new house. The occupation of the
worker who moves in depends on the type of house that you built for him.
The functions of each worker and of each building are explained further on.
If you construct a water way, a settler with a boat will leave the castle
and walk towards the new water way and wait for merchandise
You do not have to wait for the construction of your house to be finished
before doing other things. You can give orders to construct other things
(houses, roads, etc.).
Your settlers will go about their tasks automatically, which is to say that
they will do their best to do the work with what they have at their
disposal. This is true not only for the transporters and the construction
workers that we just saw, but also for all the people that you will see
later on in the game, such as the forest rangers, the lumberjacks, the
carpenters, the quarrymen, the miners, the fishermen, the farmers, the pig
farmers, the millers, the bakers, the butchers, the different knights, the
casters, the locksmiths, the blacksmiths and the armorers.
Demolition
You may want to demolish a building, a road or a flag for a number of
reasons. This operation is discussed in this paragraph. To avoid
demolishing something by inadveriently pressing a mouse button, a special
click is required when demolishing something.
Demolishing buildings: Click on the desired building. The second menu
icon from the left will transform into a ruin. Special click on this ruin
to set the building on fire and burn it down. If a settler is living in
the building, he will return to the castle and wait for a new job.
Demolishing roads: Click anywhere on a road and the "demolish road" icon
will appear in the menu. Special click on this icon to remove the road.
The transporters that worked on this road will return to the castle and
wait for a new work. The other settlers on this road will run towards the
next flag and continue on their way.
Demolishing flags: You can demolish a flag only if it does not belong to a
building and if it is not yet connected to something else by a road, or if
there are exactly two roads leading to the flag. The reasons are simple;
if one road leads to the flag, it would lead suddenly into nothing, whereas
three or more roads can intersect without needing a flag. When there are
two flags, the flag can be removed and the two roads will merge into a
single road. Click on the flag that you want to remove and a ruin will
appear in the menu (if the flag's demolition is possible).
New construction: If you want to Construct a new building in the place of
another, you do not have to demolish the old building, wait for it to burn
down and then give the order to construct. You can directly give the new
order to construct in the desired location by placing the pointer on the
old building and selecting the construction function as usual. For
security reasons, you will have to choose the building with a special click
to avoid accidentally destroying an important building. The old building
will be burned down and you can order the construction of a new building.
Saving and ending the game
In 2 plaver mode these options can only be activated by the player on the
left. Click on the right menu icon and new options will be displayed. For
now do not pay attention to the upper icons, but only to the "SAVE" options
and "END" at the bottom of screen.
To quit the current game, click on the "End" option. The program will ask
you to confirm. If you have been playing for more than one minute or if
you have not saved the game for more than one minute the program will ask
you to confirm a second time. You will then return to the main menu.
The "SAVE" option allows you to access the saved file menu. The list of
saved files will be displayed on the screen. If you want to change floppy
disks, insert the new and click NEXT on the "Change Disk" option. To save
the current game, click on one of the 10 areas and then on the "New name"
option to enter a new name. You can also enter the date when the game was
saved to avoid any confusion. If you want to save a game with the same
name as a game already saved, you don`t have to enter a new name. Be
careful! The game already saved will be erased by the new game. Click on
the SAVE option to save the current game. Always read the floppy disks
message to see if the game has been correctly saved. If you save onto
floppy disk, we recommend that you format several floppy disks and that you
put labels on them before beginning to play. We also recommend that you
save the game onto two different floppy disks for additional security. If
one of the floppy disks is defective, you will have only lost an hour or so
of the game.
If you want to load (save) from a floppy disk, insert the new floppy disk
and click on the change floppy disk icon. The list of files on the new
floppy disk will be displayed.
Training
--------
You now know the game's basic principals and can begin with the first
training games. Each building will be explained to you and the program
will tell you where you should be careful. Each training game contains
orders that will be specified in the instructions. You can then play and
follow the game's progression on the screen. The paragraphs contain the
corresponding explanations and you will quickly learn how to play and the
game will become more interesting.
In the training games, you have a large stock that allows you to obtain
tools, food, construction materials and large quantities of settlers.
Do not hesitate to save training (or other) games from time to time. If,
in the instructions for advanced players, you find some useful information,
you can use the saved games (which already contain many buildings) to test
this information. When certain important events occur, you will be
directly informed. You will hear a noise and a small blinking piece of
paper will appear in the bottom left of the menu. The different events
about which you will be informed will be discussed in detail in this
manual. If you click on the piece of paper, a message will be displayed on
the screen and the computer will move the screen to the place where the
event is taking place. If you click on the hook in the window, the message
will disappear.
Game 1 - Rural Property
Guard huts, watch towers, castles and the geographic map.
Orders: have your settlers construct a guard hut, a watch tower and a
castle.
Explanations: After the beginning of a game, you will choose a location to
build your castle. You dont need to worry about the fertility of the soil
or the trees. Give the order to construct the 3 required buildings and
wait (use the help functions for construction if you cannot find a good
location right away). For the watch tower and the castle, a leveler will
begin by levelling the ground. You will have to have the construction
materials transported. While the hut requires only one delivery of wood
and stones the castle will require at least 10. A second transporter will
leave the castle to help his colleague. As soon as the guard hut is built,
a knight will leave your castle in order to occupy it. When the first
knight arrives in a guard hut, a watch tower or a castle your rural
property will grow. Look and you will see its limits move. So that you
will be informed of this growih (if you were looking elsewhere in the
world), you will hear a noise telling you that you have received a message.
Click on the piece of paper and you will learn that another building has
been occupied by a knight. Next, some gold will be brought to the hut, but
we will look at this a little later. A white flag will be flown in front
of the guard hut. Later, flags will also be flown on the watch tower and
on the castle towers. These flags have the following significations:
The flags height indicate the building's occupation rate. A hut can
contain 3 knights, a watch tower 6 knights and a castle 12 knights.
- the icon on the flag indicates the enemy's distance. The white flag
signifies that there is no enemy colony and that you will not be attacked
in the immediate future. If, later, you play against opponents controlled
by the computer or another player, you will see other symbols.
When the enemy is closing in, a black stripe will appear on the flag and,
when the enemy approaches, the stripe changes to a black cross. When the
enemy is right outside your door, the flag has a very thick black cross, In
the latter case, you will have to prepare for an attack. Your settlers are
probably still in the process of constructing the watch tower and the
castle, This is a good time to familiarize yourself with the geographic
map. Click on the map icon and the map will be displayed. Outside the
scenery, you will see several blue dots where your buildings (finished or
still under construction) are located. To better see the size of the
world, click on the right icon under the map. The left icon activates the
presentation mode in one of the 3 following modes:
scenery
scenery + property
property
Click on this icon. After the first click, the map's image changes just a
little. Around the blue dots (your buildings), you will now see a surface
with dots that indicate the size of your property. If you click again on
this icon the scenery disappears completely. Only your property is still
displayed in blue, and the buildings are represented by little white dots.
If you click a third time on this icon, you will return to the mode that
you started with. If you are playing against other players or against the
computer, their property will be hatched in their colour. Return once
again into "Property" mode (in which we no longer see the scenery) and
click on the second icon from the left.
You will see your network of roads on the map. It is not important to see
a road in great detail, but only to have a glimpse of it. If you click
again on this icon, the roads will disappear
The third icon from the right allows you to activate or deactivate the
buildings on the map. Quit the map by clicking on the turning star. The
map allows you to access two other special functions that we will discuss
further on.
Let's see what your settlers are doing. When the buildings are completed,
a window will appear to let you know that the order was executed. You can
now decide to continue your experiments or to move on to the next exercise.
Game 2 - Construction Materials
Forest House, a lumberjacks hut, a saw mill and a quarry
Order: Fabricaie new construction materials, At least 5 units of wood and
5 units of stone.
Explanation: This time, you will have to watch the scenery very closely.
Choose an area with trees and (especially) a few slabs of granite (the
large grey boulders) and place your headquarters next to it.
You must obtain stones and wood. These materials are necessary for the
construction of buildings and are generally the first things that you must
take care of in a new settlenment. The stones come from the slabs of
granite that a worker will look for in a quarry. The wood is a little more
complicated. You need a lumberjack to cut down trees and a carpenter to
transform the trunks into boards. The wood can then be used. The forest
ranger is described in this chapter because he is the one who plants the
new trees.
Place a lumberjack's hut near the trees, preferably in the middle of a
snmall forest, and a quarry somewhere near the slabs of granite.
Look for an appropriate location for the saw mill (which is a large
building) and place the forest house where there are not too many trees.
Connect the buildings with roads. If you have done everything correctly,
your work is finished. The rest will be done by your settlers!
They will progressively build huts, level the ground for the saw mill, and
the workers will arrive after the construction.
The lumberjack will go to his hut and leave it a little while later to find
a tree to cut down. After cutting it down, he will lop off the branches
and bring the trunk to his hut. He will then rest a while before returning
to work. A transporter will see the trunk and will come and take it. As
your sawmill is probably still under construction the trunk will be
temporarily stored in the castle.
The quarryman will climb on a slab of granite and hammer it with his
pickaxe until he extracts a few stones. He will put them in front of his
hut where, as for the lumberjack, a transporter will come and take them to
the castle (if the stones are not needed on a construction site)
The forest ranger is constantly in the process of planting new trees.
After a while, the trees will grow and can then be cut down. If you cut
the trees down without planting new ones, you will quickly find yourself
confronted with a shortage of wood. You can directly place a forest ranger
next to a lumberjack. The two complement each other very well. If there
is no lumberjack next to the forest ranger, you will soon have a new
forest.
The saw mill will certainly be the last building to be completed as it is
the largest of the four. The carpenter will go to the saw mill and wait
for the tree trunks. They will be brought from the castle or directly by
the lumberjack. He will cut them up and put the boards in front of the
mill. These boards will be stored in the castle until they are used.
You would like to know how you can have regular supply of granite? You can
plant new trees, but this does not work for stones However, even when you
have used all the slabs of granite there will still be some deposits of
these extremely hard stones under the ground. We will discuss the mines
later, in another scenario...
As soon as you have fabricated the materials asked for, you will have
accomplished your mission.
Scenario 3 - Food
Fisherman's hut, farm, windmill, bakery, farm, butchers shop and pipes for
the construction of houses and roads.
Objective: Fabricate 5 units of each of the following foods: fish, meat
and bread
Explanation: This time, you will need a lake for your fisherman that is
located close to the castle. You will also need a large area for the farm,
so that the farmer can grow his wheat. On the other hand, you will not
need any underground riches or other raw materials.
To allow your settlers to work during the following explanations, construct
the 6 required buildings:
the farm (a large building) preferably with a lot of free space, as the
farmer needs land to plant the wheat.
the fishermans hut, as close as possible to the lake.
the pigsty, the bakery, the butchers shop and the windmill in the locations
of your choice.
If you connect the buildings with roads, be careful not to build roads on
the banks of the lake because the fisherman will not stay on the roads as
he does not want to hinder the transportation of merchandise. While your
settlers start to work, we will give you some details on the food.
You have 3 possibilities to make the foods:
the simplest method is by fishing. A fisherman goes fishing and his fish
can be used directly as food. One drawback: you need a lake and when
there are too many fishermen on a little lake, it is quickly devoided of
fish. As long as there are fish, they will reproduce. It is recommended
not to "over fish" if you want to continue fishing for a long time.
the second method is by making bread. The farmer grows the wheat When the
wheat is mature, it will be harvested and a transporter will take it to the
miller, who will transform it into flour. The sacks of flour are then
taken to the baker who will use them to make bread. You will note that
this method requires much more patience, but its return is better and all
you will need is some farmland.
The third method takes as much time as the previous method, but requires
less space. The farmer will also provide the pig farmer with wheat, who
will then use it to feed his pigs. When the pigs reproduce the farmer will
remove a pig from his farm. It will be taken to the Butcher who will use
it to make meat.
But what is all this food for? It is used in other places, the mines For
example, to feed the miners who work in the mountains, They will strike if
they don't have anything to eat and will stop extracting raw materials.
The miners eat fish, bread or meat. You will therefore provide the food
that is easiest for you to fabricate. Looking at the game once again, your
fisherman is already in action and the other Buildings are still under
construction. Be patient: cultivating wheat and raising pigs takes some
time. Let's use this occasion to look at some useful information
concerning road construction. This is not very important for your current
settlement, but it will be when you will have built 20 or more houses.
Take a look at your settlement. There is often a lot of circulation in
front of the castle. Later on, when you have constructed several
buildings, you will have to place them strategically and build roads in a
practical manner. For example, the transportation of wheat on a road
between the farm and the mill that passes in front of the castle will
likely slow down the transportation of construction materials. We
recommend that you group all related buildings together and to build a
system of roadways that does not pass in front of the castle. You can put
a sawnmill near a lumberjack's hut, for example, As you did not know this
when you were building your city, the screen will show you what you should
not do. It is also very important to have a good network of roads.
To accomplish this, you need to take several factors into account. The
construction of an additional small connecting road can considerably
improve the transportation of merchandise. It is difficult to give you
precise advice about this because each method has its advantages and
disadvantages. The experience that you will acquire after a few games will
help you. But we will nonetheless give you a few tips:
Avoid dark or light red (steep slope) sections of road: it is better to
make a detour by using two other road sections because: the speed with
which the merchandise is transported on a road always depends on the
SLOWEST section of the road.
Do not clog up a flag's 6 possible branches with a road (that for example,
goes only halfway around the flag). You will otherwise have a hard time
enlarging your network of roads. In this case try to construct a
straighter road.
It is possibie to construct two parallel roads between two flags When one
of the roads is crowded, the other one will be used to transport the
merchandise. This solution is not necessary if you construct several cross
over roads, but it is very imporiant to have a good network. If certain
lanes of transport are crowded and the merchandise begins to pile up, your
settlers will be intelligent enough to transport the merchandise on
another, less crowded, road - as long as it exists. The least efficient
type of network is the one in the shape of a star beginning at the castle.
In this case, all merchandise will be transported on one of the star's
branches and will have to pass in front of the castie in order to access
another branch. An efficient network is a "grided" network that looks like
a piece of graph paper. There are many ways to go from one point to
another. To simplify things: construct several connections between the
buildings and your city will grow more quickly and with less effort. If
you display the roads on the map in "Property" mode, you will clearly see
the places where the "cross over" connections are missing.
Let's look at our game again and the men at work:
The fisherman sits on the bank of the lake and begins fishing Depending
on the number of fish living in the lake, he will fish more or less
rapidly. He might not catch anything. The fish are then taken to the
castle and stored (before the construction of a mine) to feed the miners.
the farmer spreads his wheat seeds, lets them grow and then harvests the
wheat which is then taken to the windmill or to the pig farmer.
As soon as the wheat is received, the miller will grind it and deliver the
flour in sacks to the baker.
The baker kneads the dough and makes bread, A thick smoke pours out of his
chimney.
The pig farmer uses the farmer's wheat to feed his pigs, and he will soon
be able to sell some of the pigs to the butcher.
The butcher cuts up the meat and hangs it up for storage.
As you have seen, the farmer provides the pig farmer and the miller with
wheat. His production might at times be insufficient and he will not be
able to deliver his wheat to both of them, even though they are continually
awaiting a new delivery. In this case, demolish the farm or the windmill,
after ensurtng that the quantity asked for will have been produced and
used. Wait for all the foods to be fabricated before moving on to the next
game.
Scenario 4 - The riches of the earth and their exploitation
Gold mine, coal mine, iron mine, granite mine, gold foundry, iron foundry
Objective: Search for the underground riches and find at least 5 units of
gold and of iron.
Explanation: the underground riches are extracted from the mines in the
mountains. Gold and raw ores will be transported from the mines to the
foundries. You will then have iron and unrefined gold. Iron is the most
important raw material because it will allow you to forge new weapons and
tools. Gold is also very important because it raises the moral of the
knights. When the knight think about their future fortune, they will fight
with more vigour, Coal is also very important. You will need coal for the
foundries and to extract the gold and iron. The blacksmith will also need
coal to forge the weapons.
Granite is the least important raw material. However, if there are no more
slabs of granite on the surface, the situation could change and a granite
mine might become extremely important. You will always need stones for all
the large buildings. As we have already explained the riches are found in
the mountains. Put your headquarters in a mountainous region and do not
forget to ask for the geologists help. Place your castle close to the area
where you will find coal, iron AND gold. Immediately construct guard huts
in the area in order to expand your rural property and prospect in more
mountains to find underground riches. We can now move on to the first
geological prospections. You must place a flag somewhere in the mountains.
Connect this flag to the rest of the network and special click on it. A
window with a few symbols will be displayed. Disregard them all except for
the geologist's head, at the bottom.
Click on the geologist and he will tell you that he has received his
mission orders. He will then leave the castle and head off towards the
mountains. Once there, he will examine the ground and take a few samples.
If he finds any riches, he will jump for joy and plant a sign in the ground
to indicate what he has found. This sign shows a small circle if there are
small quantities of underground riches and a large circle if he had
detected a large quantity of underground riches. The circle can be one of
several colours: yellow for gold, red for iron, black for coal, and light
grey for granite. If the geologist does not find anything, he will plant a
blank sign. When he finds underground riches for the first time, you will
recieve a message, because you will not always be there to watch him work.
You can send the geologist towards any flag (as long as it is connected to
the network of roads) and even towards the flags in front of buildings.
The geologist will examine the area and return home if he does not find any
mountains. To accomplish the goal of your training mission, you must find
coal, gold and iron. Do not hesitate to send several geologists into the
mountains and to expand your property by constructing guard huts if
underground riches are not nearby. You have certainly noticed already that
the guard huts cannot be constructed in the mountains. You will have to
"surround" the large mountains with guard huts if you want to find a
maximum of underground riches.
Begin constructing a mine as soon as you have found a likely location. As
soon as the mine is connected to the network of roads a mason will arrive
and go to work.
If you have given the order to construct at least one mine for the
exploitation of gold, one for iron and one for coal, you must now begin
thinking about building some foundries. Select a location near the castle
and have your settlers construct the gold and iron foundries.
Your settlers will construct the mines and the foundries while the miners
are looking for the necessary raw materials. They will be fed by the
castle. the raw materials that you find will be taken to the foundries
where the unrefined gold will be transformed into gold and the iron ore
into iron. As you don't need either of these raw materials for your city,
they will be stored in the castle. We will give you some additional
information while the game progresses.
If your network of roads has been poorly constructed, you will see it in
this training scenario. The mines will produce too many raw materials and
if you have set up only one road (which will also be steep!) between the
mines and the foundries, you will have trouble with the merchandise.
Build other roads if your settlers cannot transport these raw materials on
such a steep road. You will see that the new roads will be used and that
the merchandise will get to its destination much more quickly. Underground
riches are, naturally, not unlimited. When a deposit starts to run low,
the miner will find fewer raw materials. The mine will become unproductive
because: the miners that work in the mountains must be fed from the
valley. You will receive a message as soon as a mine has been devoided of
raw materials. If your food stocks are also low, demolish the mine. A
miner who doesn't receive food will strike and begin marching in front of
the mine to show his anger.
The geologist's signs will progressively disappear. You can, however ask
for a prospection at any time to see if there are any remaining underground
riches in the areas surrounding a mine.
If you are not in a hurry to build the mines, wait until the geologist
plants several signs so that you can be sure to find a profitable deposit.
On the other hand, if you are playing against other players or against
opponents controlled by the computer, you should construct the mines as
soon as you think a deposit might exist because each minute counts.
Naturally, the chances of barking up the wrong tree are greater, and you
will have fewer geologists and workers at your disposal. If the program
denies your request for a geologist this means that you do not have any
more workers or tools available. You must, moreover, wait for 2 seconds
before asking for another geologist. We will discuss this topic further
on. To conclude, here is a tip to better place your flags in the
mountains. When you place a flag for a geologist, it is because you plan
to construct a mine in this location later on. If there are underground
riches, click on the construction help function and choose a location to
build your mine Next place the flag next to this location, in the lower
right. Later you will construct a mine next to the flag, and you will not
need a new road or a new transporter and the mine will be built more
rapidly.
Scenario 5 - Making tools and weapons
Blacksmith, iron worker, Ship maker and warehouses
Objective: Make at least 1O weapons, 1O tools and 5 boats.
Explanation : This game will allow you to see 5 new buildings. You will
learn how to fabricate objects with the materials that you have extracted
in the preceding chapter. The blacksmith will fabricate weapons with iron
but he will also need coal. The iron worker will make diverse tools from
wood and iron that will be used by the other settlers. The ship maker only
needs wood to construct his boats. He is the least useful worker and is
generally needed only in worlds containing large expanses of water. The
warehouse is the last building discussed in this chapter. It will be used
to store merchandise. It is also the place where the workers wait for new
work (as at the castle). This is why the warehouse is, with the castle,
the most important building.
This time, you can choose a location without worrying about the richness of
the ground because you already have the necessary materials stored in your
castle at the beginning of the game. Choose any location that provides
enough space for several large buildings.
Construct a forge, a shop for the iron worker, a naval shipyard and a
warehouse. While the men are working we will give you some useful
information.
The shipmaker will receive wood and deliver the first boats shortly after.
The workers will then take these boats to the banks of the lake and
transport their merchandise on this water way. This method of
transportation is often quicker than the land routes.
The blacksmith will be supplied with coal and iron, He will forge swords
and shields that you will need for the knights that guard your castle and
attack the enemy. The weapons will be delivered to the castle where each
new knight will be able to take what he needs.
The iron worker will receive wood and iron to make 9 different tools:
hammer, saw, hatchet, shovel, scythe, pick, fishing pole pliers and
butcher's knife. These tools will be delivered to the castle and used by
the workers. According to their professions, they will need different
tools. Some will not need any tools and others will need two:
the leveler : shovel
the fisherman - fishing pole
the butcher - butcher's knife
the Farmer - scythe
the lumberjack - hatchet
the woodworker - saw
the miner - pickaxe
the quarryman - pickaxe
construction worker - hammer
the ship maker - hammer
the geologist - hammer
the iron worker - hammer and saw
the blacksmith - hammer and pliers
You might wonder why you must make the tools when the workers will
automatically leave the castle with their tools in hand. It is because at
the beginning of the game, you have a certain stock of construction
materials, food and tools. For the training scenarios you will have a
large stock to start off with and will therefore not have to fabricate
tools or merchandise. We will explain this in detail later on.
The warehouse is, along with your castle, the most important building
because in a relatively large city, the castle will quickly reach its
capacity without an additional warehouse. As soon as the warehouse is
built, a settler will leave the castle and go to the warehouse. You will
thereby have a sort of "second castle". If the expansion of your city
continues, it will be difficult to control if you only have a castle. The
workers will need too much time to go from the castle to the construction
site, or they will produce so much merchandise that it will start to pile
up on the road to the castle and the transporters will no longer be able to
do their job. Evenly distribute the warehouses to avoid all this. The
warehouse offers practically all the same benefits as your castle:
When you receive new men, they will be divided up between the castle and
the warehouse,
Useless nmerchandise was brought to the castle up until now. It will now
be taken to the nearest warehouse thereby cutting down on return trips.
merchandise (on a construction site for example) will be ordered from the
nearest warehouse having the required materials. The distance to the site
will thereby be reduced.
A worker will no longer return to the castle after his work is finished but
will go to the nearest warehouse and wait for his next job. The trip for
your workers to their worksite will therefore be reduced
If a building requires the presence of a new worker, he will be hired from
the nearest warehouse. His trip will thereby be shorter
These various points demonstrate that an even distribution of warehouses is
essential, As soon as your warehouse is built you will receive a message
displaying the new warehouse.
Scenario 6 - Attack
objective: The conquest of several enemy buildings
Explanation: The objective of this scenario consists of conquering certain
buildings with your knights. Click on the geographic map and examine the
locations of the enemy's buildings. Choose your location close to the
enemy so that you will not have to travel very far to attack. Construct
several castles, watchtowers and guard huts around your castle. While your
settlers are working (the castle is the largest building and needs the most
time to build), we will take a look at the knights.
There are 5 kinds of knights in the game, and they are all different and of
differing strength. When you receive a new knight, he will start at the
lowest level. He can, however, receive training in the castle (or later in
a warehouse) and change levels. A knight can also recieve training in a
guard tower or in the castles, but he will progress very slowly as he will
have to work at the same time. However, during his service (when he goes
onto duty in a castle or another building, for example) he will not improve
his skills if he sits down and does nothing in the guard hut. The
advantages and disadvantages are clear: if you leave the knights in the
castle, they will be well trained but your city will be poorly guarded. If
you send your knights outside your buildings will be well guarded but the
enemy will perhaps have more powerful knights that could pose problems for
you. As you have built several castles and guard huts, your knights will
rapidly go to them. In this training scenario, however, your opponents are
still defenseless. Don't worry though...
You will only attack castles, guard towers or guard huts belonging to the
enemy. A knight must not attack a farmer or a fisherman. When you attack,
your knights will leave their castles etc... and march towards the enemy
buildings where they will prepare for battle. A knight will come out of
the enemy building and the combat will begin One of the two knights will be
victorious, After a while, either the attackers or the defending knights in
the enemy building will be eliminated. If there are no longer any knights
in the enemy building the attacker is victorious and will take control of
the building. The frontiers of your city will be consequently modified.
The eneny will burn any other building that it can. Such a defeat can be
devastating for a city, If, for example, your only coal mine or warehouse
is in flames, you will have problems.
When you have built your first huts and they are occupied by knights, you
will see flags with a thick cross. All guard huts that are located near
the enemy's territory and that can be targeted for attack are marked by
this cross. Special click on any enemy building having a thick Cross on
its flag. A new window will appear allowing you to enter the number of
knights that will attack it. The 4 numbers in the middle indicate the
number of available knights: in the surrounding areas, far away, or very
far away. The distance is not an essential factor but the knights will
need more time to reach the enemy. If all the numbers are zeros, there are
not enough knights in your buildings. You should know that all the knights
that enter a castle cannot be sent into battle because some of them will be
needed to defend the castle should it be attacked by enemies. Later on, we
will explain how you can influence the outcome of the combats. Hold on a
little and launch a new attack. The two arrows will allow you to modify
the number of knights that will attack the enemy. Watch the battle to see
the eventual outcome.
If you have sent all your available knights into combat, you cannot launch
other attacks. You will see, however, other knights immediately leave your
castle to replace those who have left for battle. When you seize an enemy
building, you will receive a message. A little later, your victory over
the enemy will most likely be definitive
If in the course of a game, an enemy counter attacks and the knights meet
at a specific place you can expect a furious combat because each enemy
knight will be attacked. We will see later how to send a troop of knights
off to intercept the enemy and how to efficiently defend a guard hut with
only 3 knights. Lastly, a final point that does not directly concern the
knights, but rather your rural property: do not construct buildings
(especially large ones, because of the long delays) near the enemy
frontier. For example, if the enemy constructs a guard hut at the same
time as you near the frontier and he finishes before you do, the frontier
will be modified and you will have to burn down your construction. A
castle situated near the frontier will be of no help to you because its
construction will take much too long. You can construct a guard hut and
try to finish it before the enemy or place your buildings in a safer
location. You can naturally do the same thing to your enemy if he or she
had the bad idea of constructing a warehouse too close to the frontier.
This chapter, consecrated to the training scenarios, is now finished.
You now know the basic principles of the game the different buildings, the
various professions and merchandise, you know how to prospect for the
underground riches and attack the enemy. We hope that you have begun to
enjoy the game and we guarantee that it will provide you with hours of
entertainment to come and that you will continually find new ways of doing
things and new strategies. The following chapters address themselves to
more experienced players who already know the game well.
Have Fun!
The Economy
-----------
The Economic System
From now on we will no longer give you precise instructions on how to solve
certain levels, just explanations, advise and many, many tips and new
ideas. It is essential to know the economic context of each building to
rapidly ascertain its needs and its production. Here is a brief summary:
The food chain:
. production of fish, meat and bread to feed the miners.
The fisherman fishes for fish that can be eaten directly. The farmer
plants and harvests wheat that is taken to the pig farmer who feeds his
pigs with it, or ground by the miller in his windmill and transformed into
flour. The pigs reproduce and can be slaughtered. The baker makes bread
with the flour. In both cases, you will have food at your disposal.
Merchandise:
. fabrication of tools, weapons, boats, gold and construction of buildings
The tools weapons and boats will be stored in the warehouses The gold will
be guarded in the castle, the watchtowers and the guard huts. The tool
maker needs wood and iron. The wood comes from the sawmill where the tree
trunks furnished by the lumberjack are cut up. The iron will be worked on
in a foundry. The caster needs ore and coal for the forge. These two
materials are extracted from the miners. To fabricate weapons, the
blacksmith needs iron and coal. The ship maker needs wood for his boats.
For the construction of your buildings , you will need (in most cases) wood
and granite. The use of iron, coal and wood for the fabrication of tools
has already been discussed. The granite is found either above ground, in a
quarry or in a mine. The gold is refined by a goldsmith from unrefined
gold. The unrefined gold is extracted from the mines. Did you get all
that? What follows will allow you to better understand the numerous
factors that affect the game.
During the first training scenarios you udubtedly thought that you could
possess an unlimited number of settlements and merchandise, and that you
could influence the games progression All the parameters are defined so
that you will have no difficulty in completeing the required missions.
More experienced players will want to influence the games progression more
directly and know everything about the game, from the stocks at their
disposal to the production capacities. All these aspects will be discussed
in the manual.
Your first large city
You now know about all the buildings. You should be able to find a good
location for each building and choose the right time to build it. A large
stock will allow you to build the little buildings first as you will have
enough materials to expand later on. If you have a small stock at the
beginning oF the game, however, be very cautious right from the beginning.
It is essential to build an "active" city. To do this, you will need all
the buildings (except for rare occasions). Your stocks will not be as
important as in the tratning scenarios. You will be responsible for the
exploitation of the necessary raw materials and buildings. Choose the
first scenario. You will play against a player controlled by the computer.
You will experience an exciting adventure. Your level of intelllgence is
rather low and you do not have large stocks. You will have to be careful
right from the start of the game. We will tell you how to build a
functioning city in the rest of this chapter. Or you could try to build a
city all by yourself.
The first thing to do is to find a good location for your castle. We have
already discussed this in detail. Try to expand your rural property
because if you see that you don`t have enough space when you are
cultivating your land, you will have to wait before annexing new land.
Place 2 or 4 guard huts near the frontier. The construction of watchtowers
and castles requires more time and will slow down your expansion. Take
everything you can without having to go into combat. Make sure that you
have a good stock of construction materials because you will have big
problems if you cannot build the necessary buildings. Place a lumberjack,
a sawmill and a quarrymans hut in appropriate locations.
After comnpleting these three tasks, the game will become more complex.
Depending on the layout of your land, you can do certain things that we
will discuss in general terms. As soon as possible, send the geologists
into the mountains. Based on their findings, construct mines in the
appropriate locations. Construct a gold or iron f a forge or a tool
factory (based on the underground riches found). If you can rapidly
fabricate weapons, you will have the advantage during combats. As soon as
the geologists start prospecting in the mountains, think about how you are
going to feed the mine workers. If there is a lake in the area, build a
fisherman's hut. The fish he catches can be stored before the first mines
are built. Meat production and the fabrication of bread take some time.
When the castles wheat reserves (for the pigs and the windmill) run low you
will have to wait for a farmer to plant and harvest more wheat. If no lake
is in the area build a farm as quickly as possible. You will prefer meat
or bread depending on the situation. If the enemies are still far away and
you possess a lot of land, choose the bread. Place windmills and bakers
close to the farmlands. The bread is the most productive food. If you
dont have enough space, we recommend pig farming. You will need one farmer
to supply the pig farmers with wheat. Dont forget that the lumberjacks
will cut down all the trees and that you might realize this too late. Try
to plant trees as soon as possible by using the forest rangers.
If the region contains large lakes, take advantage of the speed of the
waterways. You will eventually need a shipmaker if you are short on boats.
Above all, do not forget to build warehouses. They will alleviate
congestion on the roads and you will progress more rapidly.
The guard towers and castles will be used essentially to protect important
buildings, especially the warehouses. Depending of the progression of the
game, a mine or a tool maker could also be very important (especially if
you only have one of them!). Place your castles in these areas and don`t
let the enemy destroy your economic system because of a small victory!
Watch the enemy closely! Find a free moment in your schedule to see what
your adversary is doing. Is he already in the process of making weapons?
How Far away is he? Which lands should you occupy before the enemy annexes
them? Which locations are poorly protected where an attack could be
successful?
Your first attempt to construct a city with several huts and different
houses will perhaps not be entirely satisfactory. Don't be discouraged.
The next time, you will better plan your city and you will not make the
same mistakes. Experience will help you to resolve many problems Read the
following chapters while playing at the same time.
You will learn many new things in this way.
About statistics
The first statistics
The statistics about a person, buildings and warehouses. In this chapter,
we will look at these first statistics. They will allow you to quickly get
an idea about all important areas. At the beginning of the game, the
statistics will not be very interesting: you will, however have to look at
them regularly during the course of the game to see for example, when you
will be short on wood or food. We will first of all look at the statistics
concerning people, buildings and warehouses.
To see the statistics click on the second icon menu from the right. 8
other icons will be displayed. Each icon corresponds to specific
statistics. By activating one icon you can move from one statistic to
another and from one menu to another. If you click on the middle icon, the
buildings' statistics will be displayed. They will indicate the number of
buildings that you have at your disposal. All the buildings cannot be
displayed on one page and the bottom icon allows you to scroll through the
pages and see the other types of buildings. If the number is followed by a
+ and another number, these buildings are still under construction. 2 + 1
means therefore: two buildings completed and one under construction.
These statistics will also allow you to foresee certain difficulties: if
you have, for example, 10 lumberjacks, they will cut down a large quantity
of trees and one sawmill will not be enough to cut all the wood. To quit
the statistics and return to the 8 icons, click on "Exit."
Click on the right icon, in the centre. You will see various heads and
numbers. The statistics concern your settlers. Each head represents a
profession, with the number of persons practising this profession. You
will not recognize all the heads at the beginning but you will quickly
understand their signification. The head with a question mark (in the
lower right) indicates the number of settlers that do not have a profession
yet. A good player will try (if the game's progression allows for it) to
have a minimum of unemployed settlers in order to increase production and
yield. The last number in the lower right indicates the total number of
your settlers. To quit these statistics, click anywhere in the window.
Then click on the left icon in the centre. These statistics represent your
stocks. You will recognize the different types of merchandise more easiiy
than the heads corresponding to the diverse professions. These statistics
indicate the type and quantity of merchandise stored in your warehouses.
The merchandise stored in the warehouses are not immediately important.
But a large stock of wood and stones is a good sign because you will have
enough materials for your constructions projects. On the other hand, if
you have a lot of iron ore in your warehouses, this means that you do not
have an iron foundry or no coal, in your city. You must always stay one
step ahead.
The statistic curves
The statistics of comparison and of production
These statistics will show you different values over a long period.
In the selection of statistics, click on the bottom icon in the centre.
You will see the comparison statistics, Above, the colour of the curves
corresponds to the different players. Your colour will be sky blue, the
same as your settlers. The scale to the right contains percentages that
range from 0 to 100%, the scale at the bottom represents time. The curve
changes over time, from left to right. The unit used is the hour (.5 hour
= 30 minutes). You can choose the ditsplay mode for the statistics in the
lower left of the screen: upper left = overall comparison: upper right =
comparison of rural properties: lower left = comparison of the buildings:
and lower right = combat power. The comparison of the rural properties
will only indicate the size of your land compared to that of your
opponents. The buildings will be evaluated according to their size and
type, and not just according to their quantity. The combat power depends
on the number, type, and motivation of your knights. The overall omparison
allows you to obtain average curves based on these three values. This is
not all however! In the lower right, you will see 4 other icons that
correspond to the time. The 4 positions correspond to .5 hours, 2 hours,
10 hours and 50 (!) hours. You will see that a large and energetic combat
between different groups of settlers can become a long and exciting
adventure...
These statistics are the only way to obtain precise information about your
adversary. You will know who has the most powerful army and who possess
the most land. If the curves rise very quickly at the beginning of the
game, do not worry. It is not an error, because the player who places his
castle first will be momentarily the only person to possess land and a
building (100%). This has no imporiance for the progression of the game.
An icon will moreover allow you to see the statistics concerning the
opponents in the game. To see the production statistics, click on the
lower left icon. They will indicate the type and quantity of merchandise
produced by your settlers. The scale to the right corresponds to the
quantity, in units. The horizontal scale represents the time. In these
statistics, the time counted is around 2 hours. At the beginning of the
game, these statistics will be at zero (you have not produced anything
yet). Later on however, you can choose at the bottom of the screen the
merchantise that your settlers produce. From trees to tools, you will find
all the different types of merchantise. If you have, for example, selected
the trees at the bottom and the red surface of the vertical scale stays at
1, this means that your lumberjacks will cut down around 1 tree per minute.
This might seem rather uninteresting, but you will progressively learn how
to better interpret these statistics. For example, if the tree curve
descends, there will soon be no more trees to cut down. As this statistic
is very important, look at it from time to time. It will save you from
being unpleasantly surprised. These production curves are moreover
"smoothed" to be clear and more readable.
The supply statistics
The food chain, the merchandise, the statistics about the professions.
In these 3 statistics, small pointers will indicate the state of your
supply. The food chain and the merchantise are the most important
statistics if your city is relatively large.
Lets begin with the statistics about the professions. Click on the upper
right icon. As with the statistics for the settlers all the heads will be
displayed, but with pointers. The pointers will indicate the number of
settlers that you can use for the corrsponding profession. If none are
available, the pointer will stay in the red. It will be in the centre if
you have 3 settlers, and to the right if you have 20 or more settlers.
Before building a forge, look at the statistics. If the pointer is in the
red part and you need a blacksmith, no settler is available. Perhaps no
worker is available or the tooIs that he needs are not available in the
warehouses. The number in the lower right indicates the number of settlers
who are waiting for work. If this number is 10 or greater, and a
profession pointer is in the red, this means that you lack tools for this
profession. We will explain how to better control the fabrication of tools
later on. Certain professions do not pose any problems as they do not
require the use of any tools (bakers or transporters).
Let's look the food chain. You will see a diagram with heads, merchandise,
pointers and arrows. Each head represents a profession. The merchandise
is delivered by one profession to another profession, in the direction of
the arrow. The diagram is presented as follows: the farmer (in the upper
right) delivers the wheat to the miller and the pig farmer. The miller
delivers the flour to the baker who, in turn delivers the bread. The pig
farmer delivers pigs to the butcher who delivers the meat. The fisherman
(in the lower left) delivers the fish. The bread, meat and fish are the 3
foods that will be delivered to the 4 types of mines. The pointers are
special in this diagram. There are two types:
The supply pointer (for the Farmer or the miners for example)
The dial is, from left to right: red (no supply) yellow (good supply) and
green (excellent supply). This dial indicates the supply of the
professions: the more merchandise they receive, the better off they are.
The pig farmer prefers having a lot of wheat to feed his pigs rather than a
meagre, or non existent, supply.
The activity pointer (for the miller or butcher for example)
This dial is, from left to right: red (no work), green (a lot of work) and
yellow (too much work). This means that the ideal situation for the person
receiving the merchandise is to receive neither too much nor too little.
If the miller does not receive enough wheat, he will have no work and his
windmiil will be useless. If he receives a normal delivery, his mill is
active and he will be busy. If he receives too much wheat, however, he
will not be able to keep up with the work. The mill will turn constantly,
but the wheat will arrive too quickly and will begin to pile up. After a
while, you will have to put this surplus in a warehouse. if you build
another windmill, you can produce more flour. Later when you will have 10
millers you will be able to see the average activity rate for all the
windmills. These statistics will indicate potential problems and the
buildings that need to be built along with the buildings that are
functionally normal. you will see if the mines are well supplied, and if
the pig farmer is recieveing enough wheat to feed his pigs. Chapter 6.1
will explain how you can influence the delivery of merchandise. Don`t be
surprised if you dont see a pointer at the beginning of the game, as the
food supply for a mine cannot be indicated if it does not exist.
Merchandise
These statistics are identical to those for food, except that they
represent all merchandise except for food. The suppliers of raw materiaIs
are indicated to the left (miners, lumberjacks and quarry workers). The
intermediate professions are in the centre (workers at the Forge and the
mill). The users are to the right (knights, blacksmiths, iron workers,
ship makers and masons). The arrows indicate the direction of the
delivery, as explained above. The other function as for the food chain.
The only difference is that certain professions (casters, blacksmiths, iron
workers and masons) cannot do anything if there is iron but no coal...
These statistics will also help you to foresee any difficulties.
The Warehouses
You already know how to build a warehouse. But there are also other ways
of recieving information about the warehouses and of giving orders. If you
special click on a warehouse (if there are none use a castle), a window
will appear indicating the state of the stock in this warehouse. By
changing the page with the arrow, you will see the settlers that are in
this warehouse. The third page contains two having different symbols. The
upper icon concerns the merchandise, the lower icon concerns the settlers
located in this warehouse. The hook can be located in three places. Look
at the merchandise first in the beginning the hook is at the top. The
merchandise will be stored in this warehouse. When the hook is in the
middle, no more merchandise can be stored in the warehouse: it can only be
delivered. When the hook is at the bottom the warehouse will be emptied of
its merchandise and nothing else can be stored there. For the settlers the
signification is practically the same: when the hook is at the top they
must go to the warehouse after work. If it is in the middle no other
settler will be accepted. If it is at the bottom all the settlers must
leave the warehouse. You can determine the state of the warehouse. With a
special click you can activate the two lower options. What are these
options for? If the enemy approaches your warehouse and you can no longer
defend your position, you will lose all your merchandise in the ensuing
fire. Only certain settlers will be able to escape. You will have to be
able to retreat and fight if you want to minimize your losses. Dont forget
that you will need time to empty a warehouse or evacuate the settlers. If
you fight back too late when retreating, you will save only a few settlers.
The warehouses are, moreover crucial for your economy. If a warehouse no
longer accepts merchandise or settlers the others will be overstocked. The
evacuation of the merchandise and settlers will have a negative effect.
Think before deciding if it is better to retreat and fight. Do not build
your warehouses too close to the enemy, or protect them with casties. If a
warehouse appears not to be safe, stop the reception of merchandise in time
so that you dont accumulate it for no reason, and to be able to save it in
time.
You will sometimes have problems when the unemployed settlers are in the
warehouse and the weapons and tools are stored elsewhere In this case, your
settlers will automatically go to a warehouse where tools are stocked and
wait there for work. You will have similar problems with the tools when
the pliers are in a warehouse and the hammers in another. No blacksmith
can set up shop, as he needs both tools. This holds true for the iron
worker (saw and hammer) and for the knights (sword and shield). In this
situation, the tools and weapons will automatically be taken to the other
warehouse.
Information concerning the buildings and the flags
The statistics will give you an overview of your total development. You
might, at certain times, want to know specific things about the state of
the stock in a particular building etc... You will see the available
information for the buildings. This information is always activated with a
special click.
If you special click on a construction site, you will see the building
that you are in the process of building, questions like "Where am I going
to place my windmill?" Or "I don't remember where I built the farm....
become extraneous because they don't carry much importance at the beginning
of the construction phase, and you can therefore forget about what you
wanted to construct and where. Special click on one of your mines. You
will immediately see the mine's yield. The calculation will be made in
function of the number of trips the miners made into the mine (with
merchandise). Remember that it will require several trips into the mines
before you can use this information. It is useful essentially in the
future demolition of these mines, because if a mine no longer has a yield,
the miner will eat the food (which can become rare, depending on the
progression of the game) that will be needed in other mines. You will also
see the food stock that a mine has at its disposal. As the miner will
accept fish as well as bread or meat, this quantity is indicated by the
meat icon, If nothing is indicated, there is no food in this mine and the
miner will strike. If you special click on the castle, a guard tower or a
guard hut, you can see the position of your knights. Most importantly, you
will see the strength of the castle to be defended.
As for the mines, you will also see the state of the stocks, but this time
it concerns the gold. The guard huts receive a maximum of two units, the
guard towers can receive a maximum of four units and the castles can
receive a maximum of eight units.
You will see the state of the stock for all of the following buildings:
Naval shipyard (wood)
Sawmill (tree trunks)
Farm land (wheat)
Butcher's shop (pigs)
Mill (wheat)
Baker (flour)
Iron foundry (iron ore and coal)
Gold foundry (unrefined gold and coal)
Forge (iron and coal)
Iron worker (iron and wood)
You will not have to learn all that by heart. It just means that all the
buildings need merchandise. The woodcutter huts, the forest houses, the
fishermen huts, the huts for the quarrymen and farmers do not provide the
same information because they deliver merchandise, they don't require or
store any. You will also know if a settler is already working in a
building. To conclude, special click on any intersection. You have
already seen the geologist's window. In the upper section you will see a
flag. In each direction, when a road branches out from the flag, you will
see a hook or a line. If everything is normal, you will see a hook. If
you click on a flag where large quantities of merchandise to distribute in
this direction, but the settlers cannot get by, and the traffic jam will
disappear after they have distributed all the merchandise that is blocking
the road. You are not required to immediate alleviate a traffic jam but
you can find other solutions so that the settlers can distribute the
merchandise by making a detour. In locations that are often busy, take a
close look at the network of roads and think about constructing a new
warehouse. Do not wait until several flags are blocked up by the
merchandise.
Furthermore, you can construct a road that passes directly in front of the
flag with a special function. An extra icon will be available when this is
possible.
This chapter covered how to obtain a multitude of information about your
city. You learned how to access to the various informative statistics.
Foresee eventual problems, or simply to watch the evolution of your
kingdom. In this game, observing and learning are two important factors.
If you expand and construct without understanding what is happening around
you, you will not achieve your objectives.
The distribution menus
In the next 3 chapters, we will discuss the menus in detail. These menus
allow you to modify various parameters and to influence the life of your
city. To activate the menus, click on the lower icon. As with the
statistics, you may activate several menus and return to the main
selection.
In each menu, a Default button allows you to reset all the parameters back
to zero.
The first 3 menus are distribution menus for merchandise. There are
several types of merchandise (food, wood, iron, coal and wheat) which will
be delivered to the different professions. The tree trunks will only be
delivered to the sawmills, but iron will be delivered to the blacksmiths
and ironworkers. Your iron stock will sometimes be low. and you will want
to fabrtcate weapons rather than tools, and vice versa. You can modify
these parameters in the distribution menus.
Click on the top left icon. You will see the different foods displayed at
the top of the scrcen, with the mine below, each with a "supply bar",.
These bars show the food supply received by each mine. If you have a very
small stock of food and you want to supply the iron and coal mines in order
to continue fabricating weapons, lower the supply bar for the other mines
to zero (Left), and raise the supply bar of the iron and coal mines to the
maximum (right).
The second menu allows you to organize the wood and iron deliveries. Wood
is used for construction sites, tools and boats. If you have a ship maker,
stop delivering wood to him if you don`t want him to construct any
unnecessary boats. You will need more wood for the two other professions.
The iron will be delivered to the blacksmith and iron worker. If you are
short of iron, priorities will be established according to your evaluation
of the situation and the condition of your stocks.
The third distribution menu concerns coal and wheat. The coal will be
delivered to the foundries and the blacksmiths. There too, the
distribution will depend on the situation of the game. If you are short of
coal, decrease deliveries to the gold foundry. The wheat will be delivered
to the pigsties and the farms. Your preferences will depend upon your city
and your plan of distribution.
If you set one of the parameters at zero, the type of building selected
will not receive any merchandise. If a bar is two times longer then
another one, it means that the building receives twice as much merchandise
as the other one. But your settlers are also thinking a lot too. If the
merchandise is very rare, they will only deliver it to the most important
building concerned. If the stock is somewhat higher, they will deliver a
small amount of merchandise to the other buildings. If your stock is large
enough, they will also deliver to the less important buildings.
Rules of Combat
---------------
The Knight Menus
Two menus allow you to modify various parameters for the knights. Click on
the lower left icon in the menu, A new window will be displayed with 4
icons on the left, and 2 texts relating to each icon. The left image shows
the castles in various positions based on their distance from the frontier:
- on the front line: your castles, watchtowers and guard huts located
right on the frontier with the enemy are indicated by a thick black cross
on their flag.
- on second line: The castles, etc... located behind the front are
indicated by a normal black cross on their flag.
- on third line: The castles, etc... located far from the frontier are
not treatened directly. Their flag bears a black stroke.
- in the hinterland: The enemy is not visible, and the castles flag is
white.
In each case, you will have to decide how many knights will be placed in
these buildings (castles, watchtowers and guard huts). The optimal
occupation rate will be indicated next to the 4 images. The buildings
located on the front line should be full, the ones on the second line
should be well occupied, the ones on the third line moderately full, and
the Castles in the hinterland should be rather empty. Your buildings will
thus be better protected, and you will avoid a situation where most of your
knights are located in the hinterlands, while there is only one in your
castle located on the front line. The second word indicates the maximum
acceptable drop of the occupation rate of the building should you decide to
use knights to attack the enemy: "good" for the front liner "average" for
behind the front, "weak" for the third line and "minimum" for the
hinterland.
Here are some examples: if you read "Full/good", this means that all
buildings must be occupied to the maximum. If your troops attack the
enemy, you will only send out a few knights, keeping enough of them inside
to maintain a "good" occupation rate. If you choose "full/ Full", the
knights will occupy the buildings equally, and none of them will leave for
this attack. Your front line will thus be protected to the maximum. But
in this case, the knights remaining in remote buildings will need more time
to get to the front line, as the road to travel is longer. With
"full/minimum", settings, all knights will leave the building to attack the
enemy, except one. Of course, this means that your building will be poorly
guarded. You can use such settings for the buildings located in the
hinterland if you have many knights available. This will allow you to have
more knights available in the event of an attack. But don't forget that
your knights will be better trained if, they, stay inside the building...
Do not use settings that could be too straining. If you dont have enough
knights, your guard huts, etc... will be too empty sooner or later. To
change these settings, click on the + and - signs. The upper setting
(ideal number of knights) logically cannot be smaller than the following
one (number of remaining knights), Change the second setting. It is very
imporiant to IMMEDIATELY change these paranmeters. If you change the
occupation rate setting from "full" to "minimum." in the castles located on
the front line, all your knights will leave, except one. Think first, and
click later. When your knights leave the castle to attack the enemy, they
will immediately be replaced by new knights coming from the warehouses, as
long as there are knights waiting for a job there.
The second knight menu will allow you to change several other parameters.
Click on the lower central icon. The "knights rate" will be displayed in
the upper left corner of the screen. The default rate is 30% and you can
modify it as you like. This rate shows the number of settlers that could
become knights, provided that you have enough swords and shields. If you
choose a medium setting (bar in the middle), half of your settlers will
become knights. If you set the bar to the left, you will not receive any
knights.
The lower icons allow you to directly recruit unemployed workers to form
new knights. The number of settlers available for recruiting is displayed
to the right. This number depends mostly on the number of weapons
available in your warehouses, But you also need enough unemployed settlers,
of course. Another icon allows you to choose the knights who will attack
the enemy. With the default settings, the weaker knights will attack the
enemy, while the stronger ones will stay in defence. But you can also send
the stronger ones on attack and keep the weak ones to defend your
buildings. Both options have advantages and drawbacks. But it is usually
better to send the weaker knights in combat and to maintain a good defence
in your castles. You will decide which strategy is the best. An icon, to
the right, allows you to organize your knights relief. When you click on
this icon, one or more knights will leave your castles, etc... if the
occupation rate is high enough (as explained earlier) and will go to the
closest warehouses. New knights will replace them. The advantage of this
is that the weakest knighs will go back to the warehouses to receive some
more training, while the stronger ones will take their place. When you use
this option you must consider the following factors:
If you fear an attack in the upcoming minutes, wait. You will prevent a
sudden drop in the occupation rate of your buildings during a short moment.
Make sure you have enough well trained knights in your warehouses. If not,
changing the settings is not useful.
Your knights' strength depends not only on their training level but also on
the amount of gold stored in their city. Your knights strength will always
be the same when they are defending, but it will depend on their motivation
during combats. They will be very motivated if your city shelters a lot of
gold. At the beginning of the game, it is extremely difficult to win a
battle. You did not extract any gold yet, and your knights are not trained
enough. If you want to stand a chance to win, the ratio must be 4:1. Your
loses will of course be higher than your opponent's, and you must carefully
choose the place of the attack. If your attack allows you to take control
over an enemy gold mine or his (or her) only food producing building, it
can be profitable even if you suffer heavy losses, because:
The ememy will suffer heavy damage
The enemy knights will be weak at the beginning of the game, and it will
also be very hard for them to recapture their lost territory.
As soon as you have enough gold, your knights will be stronger, and they
will be better in attack than in defence. You can then consider the
complete destruction of your enemies. But be careful if you play against
several opponents.
You can know the motivation level of the enemy knights in the attack menu.
Each gold unit stocked in a castler a watchtower or a guard hut will have a
positive effect. While transported, the gold is not considered as being
stored somewhere.
You have probably already noticed that the attack menu displays not only
the combat strength, but also the total number of goId units owned by the
player. The number of knights defending the castle is displayed at the
bottom of the screen. You can change this number by clicking on the
arrows. If you think that your situation is hopeless, you can click on the
white flag to quit the game.
You can also attack an enemy castle. But don't forget that the enemy may
have left more knights than usual in his castle. If you conquer the
castle, it will be burned down, just like the warehouses, the winner will
strike a decisive blow on his opponent, causing him to lose the merchandise
and settlers that were in the castle. Futhermore, your knights moral will
strengthen, while the enemy knights are really down. If you think you can
easily conquer a castle, launch an attack. But if you loose a castle,
don't give up. If enough well trained knights are available, you can win
the battle, but it will not be a piece of cake!
The attack menu allows you to specify the number of knights remaining in
the castle to defend it. Don't forget that the castle is important not
only for your troops' moral, but also because it is the only warehouse
directly protected by knights, and thus much safer than the warehouses you
constructed later in the game.
To Continue
-----------
The Other Menus
Tool fabrication, merchandise priorities and evacuation menu
In the menu, click on the central left icon. The 9 different tools will be
displayed with a bar showing the number of tools manufactured by your
workers. The default settings are as follows: high rate of hammers and
picks, low rate for scythes and pliers. Masons, geologists, blacksmiths
and iron workers need hammers but scythes are only needed by the farmers.
You can modify the tool fabrication rate during the game. For example, if
you urgently need a specific tool (you may have enough hammers, but you
need pliers for a new blacksmith), you can speed up the manufacturing rate
for the pliers while reducing that rate for the other tools. Don't forget
to change these settings later on in the game. The length of the bars
shows the number of manufactured tools. If the hammer bar is twice as long
as the saw bar this means that your workers will manufacture two hammers
for each saw. But as long as you don't have a blacksmith, this menu is not
useful. If you want to avoid having to set priorities for the tools,
manufacture as many tools as possible and as soon as you can. This will
allow to more easily control the warehouse statistics.
Click on the central icon to open the merchandise priorities menu. You
will see a list of merchandise and icons. This menu allows you to define
priorities for merchandise: some of them will be transported in priority
by your transporters. The wood is the first priority in the default
settings, because it is very important for construction works and must be
delivered as soon as possible to the sawmills. Gold, inversely, has a
lower priority level: even if it strengthens your troops moral, its
transporiation is less urgent; and this will have no negative effect on the
game. But you may also have your very own idea, and you can change these
priority settings. Click on the desired merchandise. The small arrows
allow you to lower or raise the priority level, the large one to place the
merchandise directly at the top or bottom of the priority list. The upper
left icon allows you to return to the initial settings. If you are
fighting against the enemy, weapons should generally be transported in
priority, before construction materials. The choice of the best strategy
is up to you.
The most important menu allows you to evacuate merchandise, and is
activated by the central right icon: If the enemy gets too close to one of
your warehouses and you decide to evacuate it, it would be a pity to save
more wheat than gold. In this menu, you will decide the evacuation
priority of the merchandise. This option works like the delivery
priorities menu.
Messages and preferences
During the game, you will always know what the important events are with
the messages displayed by the program. But you can also use these messages
for playing the game. This chapter is related to the various messages sent
during the game.
You will receive a message for the following events:
A new guard building is occupied for the first time by a knight. You will
thus annex new territories and will be able to plan your city's expansion.
A new warehouse has been constructed.
A geologist discovered new underground riches.
A mine yields no more ore and must be demolished as it consumes food for
nothing
You are attacked.
You conquered an enemy guard building and gained new territories.
One of your buildings has been taken over by the enemy.
The enemy placed a hut near your territory, and you lost some land.
Same as above, but you lost land and one or more buildings.
The construction materials stock in your castle is too low. An emergency
program is started, and the only construction works to recieve materiais
will be the woodcutter huts, the sawmills and the quarries.
The emergency program is stopped, the construction works mentioned above
have been provided with materials, and their delivery has been carried on.
You don't need to read all the messages when they arrive. The program will
memorize more than 50 of them for you, so you wil have time to finish what
you are currency doing, if for example you are creating new routes, To view
a message, click on the hook in the window. If the message displayed
doesn't interest you and there are some more, click on the sheet to view
the next message. An arrow also allows you to come back to the previous
message.
"THE SETTLERS" also includes other options. For example, you can send
yourself a message. How? The message will be delayed for several good
reasons, This option is in fact a "recall" option, and you can use it in
two ways:
a) It allows you to be called to a certain place after a specific length of
time.
b) It allows you to be called in a menu or a warehouse after a spacified
length of time. The different watches allow you to specify the length of
time with brackets of 5, 10, 20, 30 or 60 minutes. When this time has
expired, you will receive a message and you will be automatically recalled
to the desired pIace or menu. Here are a few examples on how to use this
option:
You urgently need a certain type of tool and you decide to halt tthe
manufacture of other tools with the production menu. But if you forget to
change the production settings later on, no other tool will be
manufactured, and you can easily foresee the consequences. Click on a
watch in the tools menu. After the specified length of time, you will be
informed that you still have something to do in this menu.
Your mine workers are on strike and you urgently need food. You can modify
the delivery priorities for the merchandise. Fish, meat and bread will be
delivered in priority, before the construction materials, But when the
problem is resolved, the recall option will allow you to change the
settings again and set new priorities.
You want to build new huts for fishermen in a certain place, but you have
not yet annexed the land, and the guard huts are still under construction.
Specify the desired length of time after which you will be recalled to this
place. The situation may be different later on,
You realize that the enemy is suddenly constructing many castles, and you
want to keep an eye on him. You just have to precise the length of time
after which you will be recalled to a certain place to see how the
situation evolved.
It is sometimes useful to use the recall option if you want to change the
merchandisc all and/or settlers settings again later on in the game,
You must also consider this: if you play in team mode with another player
(blue settlers), the right player on the screen may not use the watches,
and all the messages also arrive to the left player. But you're playing in
team, right?
Renewable games
Back to the main menu. In 1 & 2 player mode and in demo mode, an icon will
be displayed in the centre of the screen. We did not discuss this icon
earlier in this manual. As you already know, the 16 digit number affects
the world's appearance. Thus, the same number always produces the same
world. If you click on this icon, the same combination will be used for
your opponents. The turning star at the bottom of the screen indicates
that the world AND your opponents are derived from the same combination of
digits.
What is the real advantage of this? For example, say you choose the
6355174823325876 combination and a size 4 world. At the end of the game,
if you consider that it was interesting and challenging, you can give that
combination and the world size to a friend. He will be able to play the
same game using the arrow icon, because the world AND opponents data is
always based on the digits combination and the world's size.
The 16 digits (between 1 and 8) allow about 270,000 billion combinations,
but some are not interesting. Examine carefully your opponent's abilities,
and decide if you want to accept this game or not. If you want to play
another game, click on the arrow to obtain a new combination, and click
again on the bottom arrow. You can do this as many times as you want. If
another player gave you a combination, click on the dialogue box and enter
the combination, which must include 16 digits. Don't forget to note the
world size and the combination if you want to pass the game to another
player
If you find a fantastic combination, please feel free to send it to us here
at Blue Byte, we also like to colonize, when we have some rare free time.
Demo and team mode
In demo mode, you can watch a game entirely controlled by the computerer.
Even if you only watch the game, "THE SETTLERS", is an entertaining and
interesting game, In demo mode, the statistics, the menus, the map and the
usual buildings information are available like in a normal game. You may
change some menus and statistics options, but you cannot change the
settings or construct buildings or roads.
Relax and watch the opponents fight for the control of the land,
The team mode has been developed to allow 2 players to play together
against computer controlled opponents. As both players control the same
settlers group (the blue ones), the scenarios are identical. Team play has
an adyantage: you will haye more time to think and decide, But there is
also a drawback: you might experience some coordination problems from time
to time... In team mode, the game is slightly different. Both players
CANNOT activate the menus, the attack option and the geologist
simultaneously. But this is not a real constraint, as the players are
supposed to inform each other of any change in the settings.
The Options
Experienced players want to rapidly activate the options and avoid long
mouse controls. "THE SETTLERS" allows you to define several extra options
for each player. These options are activated when clicking on the icon on
the main menu or the play menu.
You can toggle the music on or off with the corresponding icon. You can
also assign the sound effects to 2 different channels when playing in 2
player mode. The left player will hear sound on the left channel, the
right player on the right channel. In that case, no music will be
available in the game.
Messages: the game includes 4 different message display modes
3) All messages are displayed.
2) All messages are displayed, except the messages concerning newly
constructed buildings and geologists.
1) Only important messages are displayed (attacks, victories, defeats,
building losses and emergency program).
0) No message displayed.
Scrolling when building roads: if you get close to the edge of the play
screen while building a road, the world will scroll automatically and you
will hear a sound,
Fast construction click: If you click twice on the pointer, this will have
the same result than clicking on the construction icon. Click twice on a
flag to build a road, or on an empty place to construct a building.
Fast map click: Double click on the right mouse button to display the map.
Double click again to close it. If your right mouse button does not work
properly, do not use this function, you could activate the map display
while trying to scroll the playscreen.
Special functions for the map
The map includes a special option: display the map and special click on
the buildings icon. A new window with buildings will be displayed. This
window is identical to the statistics window,
The change page icon allows you to see the other buildings Choose a
building and click on it. The buildings will disappear and the map will be
displayed
A new icon is displayed at the bottom of the screen. The map will only
display the selected building. This option allows you to quickly see where
your warehouses, etc... are located. In very large worlds this option is
very useful. The buildings currently under construction will also be
displayed for your convenience, allowing a better planning. For example,
if you look for the right spot to place a new baker, you can see where your
windmills are located. When you close the map, the option is still
activated, and the selected buildings will still be displayed on the map
when reactivated.
To return to normal mode, click "normally" on the icon. To select another
type of building, special click again.
You can also use the flag to select the type of buildings displayed on the
map. Click on the flag. A new icon will be displayed below the map. But
all flags will not be displayed, only the ones where all roads are not
used. This allows you to see where your network is jammed by the transport
of merchandise. Also, when a road is not used, there might be two reasons:
No worker has arrived on this road. Or you just built it, and you have to
wait a while. Or you do not have enough workers.
There has been a traffic jam at this crossroad (read the corresponding
chapter in this manual). With this option, you can immediately see where
the transportation of merchandise is posing problems.
Another special option will soon be essential for playing the game: the
magnifying glass icon, next to the map icon, which allows you to zoom in on
the game map,
Hints
-----
The most important rules: be observant
You have already understood that "THE SETTLERS", is a very special game.
As soon as you change one of the settings. your settlers (small groups or
hundreds of them) will act differently in order to follow your new
instructions. A small change may have profound effects. It is wiser to
carefully plan your construction schedule and your strategy, instead of
building things haphazardly and constantly attacking your enemies. You
should examine the situation carefully and analyze it before making a
decision. The winner of the game is not the one who clicks quicker on the
icons, it's the one who develops the best tactics and strategies. In this
chapterr we will give you some more hints to play the game.
Look at your statistics from time to time, analyze your development
mistakes or the negative results of an operation, and find the best
solution. You can solve a problem in many ways. Let's take an
example:your construction works are halted because your wood supply is
exhausted. Your analysis could be as follows: first you take into
consideration the number of woodcutters chopping down trees, then you
construct a new sawmill if enough carpenters are available.
In case of a grave crisis, demolish a few roads to reduce merchandise
deliveries to certain areas in your city. Some workers are using the wood
needed for your construction works? Reduce deliveries to the ship makers
or iron workers wood until the crisis is over. Do you have enough tools to
allow this, or do you have more urgent problem to solve in this area? Bow
will you do to have a sufficient stock of wood rapidly enough? Did you
train enough forest rangers? Will you be able to solve the crisis more
rapidly by cutting the trees down in a new forest? If there is no forest
around, a new guard hut will allow you to annex new lands if you need one.
Several factors play an important role in the game, and you will always
find new tasks in "THE SETTLERS", because each game is different.
Carefully examine your opponent's territory to determine what he is
preparing and his leyel of strength. Determine his weak points so that you
will be able to attack him. Bas he built only one iron mine, which will
allow you to deprive him of his raw materials? Is one of his warehouses
easy to take, or lacking food, and can you interrupt the production of the
enemy? The problems posed by a city are the same for your opponents.
There are several ways to freeze up his economy.
Depending on the size of the world, the number of settlers is limited to
the following number (sizes 1-8):
500/1000/2000/4000/8000/16000/32000/64000.
4 players, for example, face off in a size 5 world will each recieve
additional settlers, fairly distributed. The birth rate does not influence
the total number of settlers controlled by each player, but only on the
frequency at which new settlers arrive.
The behaviours of your opponents
Adversaries have very different behaviours, as you will notice during the
various events. Here is a brief presentation of the principal character
types:
1) Lady Amalie
An inoffensive lady, reserved, who goes about her work peacefully,
2) Kumnpy Onefinger
A very hostile character, who loves gold above all else.
3) Balduin, a former monk
A very discrete character, who worries chiefly about the protection of his
lands and his important buildings.
4) Frollin
His unpredictable behaviour will always take you by surprise, He will
"pilfer" away lands that are not occupied.
5) Kallina
She is a fighter who attempts to block the enemy`s food supply by using
strategic tactics,
6) Rasparuk the druid
His tactics consist in amassing large stocks of raw materials But he
attacks slyly.
7) Count Aldaba
Protect your warehouses well, because he is aggressive and knows exactly
where he must attack.
8) The King Rolph VII
He is a prudent ruler without any particular weakness. He will try to
check the supply of construction materials of his adversaries.
9) Homen Doublehorn
He is the most aggressive enemy. Watch your buildings carefully, otherwise
he might take you by surprise.
10) Sollok the Joker
A sly and repugnant adversary, he will try to stop the supply of raw
materials of his enemies right from the beginning of the game.
Hints and tips: professions
This chapter contains other tips concerning the choice of location for
buildings.
Demolition: when you demolish a road, you interrupt the transport of
merchandise passing in this direction. Try to figure out a way to always
leave a road. and do not destroy the only important connecting road.
Merchandise has to wait for the arrival of a new transporter before being
transported on a new road. Any modification of your network affects the
transportation of merchandise. Construct therefore, right from the start,
a well organized network.
Castle: you already know how to choose a good location for your castle,
but observe also the positions of your opponents castles. Do not place
yourself too close to a powerful adversary. The opponents controlled bv
the computer can fight among themselves and consequently destroy
themselves.
Large buildings: the land for the construction of large buildings is rare,
and consequently, expensive. Do not construct huts and small roads on land
where you could construct a larger building.
Ship maker: For the large lakes, a short cut by using a water way is very
efficient to quickly transport merchandise.
Fishermen: A lake that is as big as the game screen will contain enough
fish for 3 or 4 fishermen. Make sure that the fishermen are spread out on
the lake. If they all fish in the same spot they will finish by catching
nothing.
Farmer: he needs unoccupied lands in order to transform them into fields.
The roads cannot be considered as unoccupied lands. Do not construct too
many roads around a farm. To avoid the farmer losing time travelling to
losing time travelling to his fields, do not have him use steep roads.
Miller and baker: One miller and one baker are enough for several farms.
But make sure that the roads used for transporting their merchandise are
not too long.
Butcher: he works quickly and in spite of his deliveries to the farmers,
he generally does not have any problems with his work.
Lumberjack and forest ranger: they complement each other perfectly. The
forest ranger can replace the trees cut down after the passing of the
lumberjack. Wood is the raw material with the highest demand. Use several
lumberjacks and forest rangers. The forest rangers cannot plant trees on
the roads. Do not place them, therefore, in the general vicinity of the
castle or near the warehouses that require several roads for the
transportation of merchandise. Place them a little way away, even in
places that are not perfectly flat and that cannot be used for other
things.
Miller: One miller is sufficient for several lumberjacks. But you will
have to quickly construct several sawmills.
Ship maker: Make sure that the ship maker does not use up all your wood to
build a fleet of boats. As soon as he has finished his work, do not give
him any more wood.
Miner: If he can no longer find anything, burn the mine down so you will
not have to feed him. In the mountains, construct a network of roads with
numerous branches to facilitate the transport of raw materials to the
valley.
Caster: The cast takes a little while and the caster cannot cast the ore
of several mines fast enough without falling behind. But he will be able
to catch up as soon as the deliveries slow down. Depending on the size of
his backlog, you can hold back on new constructions.
Geologist: When the geologists return home after their prospections, they
will stay in the warehouses without anything to do. From time to time,
send them back in the mountains to look for new underground riches. You
might discover a new vein of gold that you had missed before.
How do the settlers choose the road on which to transport the merchandise?
It is a rather complicated procedure. It is important to know where the
merchandise is needed. A mill can be very close and contains a of of
wheat, even though the stock of another mill that is further away will be
dried up. Moreover, certain merchandise is distributed according to the
menu parameters. When a destination has been found for the merchandise,
the settlers take the shorter route. The essential element is the number
of roads that the merchandise will have to pass by: a very long road
between two flags is faster than a shorter voyage with an intermediate
flag. The player has, therefore, a great advantage, because he can
influence the choice of road chosen for the transportation. Here is an
example:
You have placed a flag on each side of a warehouse and a road to connect it
to your network. All merchandise that must transit through the warehouse
is already keeping the crossroad very busy, and the merchandise transported
from one flag to the other, and in both directions, blocks traffic even
more. On the other hand, if you create a new connection between the two
flags (even if it makes an apparent detour around the wanehouse), the
traffic will no longer pass in front of the warehouse, but by the new road
that allows you to avoid it. This principle allows you to construct
complex networks around important warehouses or castles, which, in turn,
allows you to transport merchandise more rapidly. Do not forget that any
construction, demolition and transformation of road initially has negative
effects on the transportation of merchandise. It is only when the settlers
will be adapted to the new situation that the transporiation of merchandise
will proceed normally. Your workers will often have to cross over enemy
land to cut downtrees or harvest wheat. In the mines, you can take
advantage of this situation and steal underground riches from the enemy.
Other loading options
If you know the CLI for the Amiga, you can launch the program with
different options:
-f: Save/Load to Floppy
The files will be loaded and saved from the floppy disk drive. If you do
not use the -f parameter, the files will be saved in the "THE
SETTLERS\save\", directory.
-s: Single player
The game is limited to one player. This option is useful if you only have
512 KB of RAM. If you play alone and if you want to use the memory for the
sound effects. The game for 2 players in a team is not available if this
option is activated.
-mx: Force mapsize x
X is a number between 1 and 8. It indicates the size of the games world.
The program has a size 3 world by default, because this is the size of
world used for the training scenarios.
-n: Force NTSC
If your system is in the PAL standard, the screen will be in NTSC mode.
You will thereby save memory (the screen is smaller) and the program can
load more sound effects if you haye more than 512 KB of RAM.
-q: quickgrafix disabled
The rapid graphics (that are reserved tor computers having 1 MB or more)
take the priority over the music. This option allows you to give the
priority to the music. If there is any space remaining, the program will
use the rapid graphics.
Need Help?
During the game, you can sometimes find yourself in a "no way out"
situation. For example, if you have lumberjacks but no more wood, the
construction of a lumberjack's hut can pose a serious problem. All is not
yet lost, however, because you can always send your knights into combat.
If you do not have any stocks at the beginning of the game, you might end
up quickly lacking materials. If you do not watch your production closely,
you will see that you lack one unit of wood for the sawmill too late....
and you will have to restart at zero.
To avoid this, an "emergency program" is placed at the beginning of the
game. This program is, in fact, a reserve of 2 units of granite and 7
units of wood that allow you to construct a lumberjack's hut, a sawmill and
a quarryman`s hut.
If you need materials, these construction sites will receive them in
priority order to ensure the minimal supply, because these three buildings
will open all the doors. You can also find yourself in a dead end with the
tool maker: if you don't have a tool maker, and all the hammers have been
distributed to the construction workers and to the geologists, you can no
longer send an iron worker to work and the fabrication of tools becomes
impossible. It is for this reason that at the beginning of the game,
certain settlers take the necessary tools. Early in the game, you will not
have too many problems. Everything has been foreseen. But, later on, you
will be the sole person responsible for your mistakes. You now know
everything about the program, and your knowledge is sufficient to be able
to confront the computer or to challenge another player.
The end of the game
The game finishes when there is only one city remaining in the game's
world. You can quit a game when playing by clicking on the white flag. If
the adversary controlled by the computer decides to quit, you can decide
whether or not to continue the game. There might be instances when several
cities remain in the game. In this case, the game will be a draw. This
situation can happen when no city has enough knights and all the deposits
of ore and coal are dried up, prohibiting the fabrication of weapons. In
this case, there is no winner.
THE END.
P.S.
Level Codes :
Level 01: START Level 11: CHOPPER Level 21: PASTURE
Level 02: STATION Level 12: GATE Level 22: OMNUS
Level 07: RECORD Level 17: SAVAGE Level 27: CANYON
Level 08: SCALE Level 18: XAVER Level 28: REPRESS
Level 09: SIGN Level 19: BLADE Level 29: YOKI
Level 03: UNITY Level 13: ISLAND Level 23: TRIBUTE
Level 04: WAVE Level 14: LEGION Level 24: FOUNTAIN
Level 05: EXPORT Level 15: PIECE Level 25: CHUDE
Level 10: ACRON Level 20: BEACON Level 30: PASSIVE
Level 06: OPTION Level 16: RIVAL Level 26: TRAILER