Evolution ReadMe File
Version 1.0
11/26/97
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CONTENTS
I. Game Feature Updates and Corrections
II. Network Game Tips and Troubleshooting
III. Other Troubleshooting Additions
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I. Game Feature Updates and Corrections
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Historical Earth
The Historical Earth scenario is not available in the
initial release of Evolution. An update patch will be
available on the Evolution web site
<http://evolution.discovery.com>.
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"Updating The World" Window
The complex calculations required to compute the movement
and interaction of continents in the game result in the map
being "locked" while this update occurs. This happens every
several minutes in the game, at which time you will see the
"Updating the World" progress bar.
During the update, you can still access most of the other
functions in the game. This is an excellent time to check
the evolution settings of your species in the Evolution
Information window, review the progress of your opponents'
clades in the Living World, look for new evolutionary paths
in the Tree of Life, and so forth. Once the world update is
complete you will see that continents have shifted and the
terrain has changed.
Several times a minute we also update the terrain in all the
locations on the map, adjusting for new rainfall patterns,
temperature, etc. These updates occur in the background and
do not interrupt play. You may, however, occasionally notice
terrain changing on the map (mountains disappearing, swamp
becoming forest, new vegetation appearing, etc.).
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MMX Graphics and Display Settings
When your display is set to 24-bit ("full") or 32-bit
("true") color, Evolution uses Intel's MMX technology to
provide alpha-blended terrain and feeding radii. The feeding
radii are the most obvious to spot; rather than the dot
pattern seen at 256 and 16-bit color, the radii are solid
and semi-transparent.
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Adjusting the Difficulty of the Game
Evolution does not include a "difficulty" setting. Instead,
you can make the game easier or harder by changing the
number of opponents you face and the speed at which the game
proceeds.
The game defaults to 2 opponents. You can reset this to as
few as 0 and as many as 5 opponents on the New Game window.
Playing against 5 opponents is the most challenging,
especially in the Complete Game and the Paleozoic Scenario,
where it is very easy to have your evolutionary paths
blocked by opponents. Playing with 0 opponents allows you to
explore the tree of life and try any evolutionary path you
wish without computer opponents getting in the way. And with
disasters, the inevitable changes in the world, and the
precarious nature of life, playing without opponents is
still challenging.
Game speed defaults to moderate, but can be changed during
play from the Game menu. Try faster settings for a more
challenging game, slower to make things a little easier.
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Scenario Durations
The manual incorrectly states that the Paleozoic scenario
ends about 140 million years ago (MYA). This should read
"about 250 MYA at the end of the Permian era."
The Mesozoic scenario begins at the start of the Early
Mesozoic game era (250 MYA) and ends at the end of the
Cretaceous game era (approximately 65 MYA).
The Cenozoic scenario begins at the start of the Cenozoic
era (65 MYA) and ends 30 million years in the future.
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Speed of Early Mesozoic, Cretaceous, and Cenozoic Eras
The average speed of the Early Mesozoic and Cretaceous eras
was increased during testing to 2 million years per minute
(from 1 million years per minute) and the Cenozoic era was
increased to 1 million years per minute (from 500,000 years
per minute).
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Minimizing the Game
When you minimize the Evolution window, the game is paused.
However, music and terrain sounds continue to play.
Minimizing the game during network play is not recommended,
as this pauses the game for all players. If you minimize a
network game and walk away from it, your fellow players
probably won't want to play with you again.
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Overlapping Feeding Radii Colors
When "All Feeding Radii" is selected, areas in which the
feeding radii of two creatures overlap appear in yellow
(instead of blue) and areas where more than two radii
overlap appear in red.
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Maximum Combat Multiplier
When optimizing for combat versus another species, the
maximum combat multiplier that can be achieved is 2.00. This
number is displayed in the Combat panel of the Species
Information window.
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Selecting Critters in the Same Location
If two or more creatures are on top of each other on the
map, continuing to left-click will select each of the
creatures in that location in turn.
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Living World Keyboard Shortcut
You can open the Living World window from the keyboard by
pressing the F4 key.
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Population Graphs Keyboard Shortcut
You can turn Population Graphs on and off for the active Map
View window by pressing CTRL-P.
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Disaster Locations
When a Comet Impact, Asteroid Impact, Traps Volcanism, or
Pyroclastic Volcanism disaster occurs, the game determines
where the disaster occurs at random. If the disaster occurs
on land (e.g., a comet hits in the middle of a continent), a
map view will center on this location to show the disaster
graphic (crater, volcanoes, etc.). If a disaster hits in the
ocean, no graphic is displayed. Some disasters have no
specific location or graphic (e.g., Nearby Supernova, Ice
Age) and are also not displayed.
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Disaster Extinction Alerts
A disaster can often cause many extinctions. However, after
a disaster strikes, only one alert appears warning you of
species extinctions--the last species of any player which
went extinct. You will want to check the Living World and
your Creature List to get a better sense of the condition of
both your and your opponents' creatures.
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Disaster Options
The "Disaster Options" choice on the World menu (described on
page 35 of the manual) was removed from the final version
of the game. We felt that disasters were more interesting if
they were surprising.
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Ichthyostega vs. Ichthyornis
In the Bestiary book which accompanies Evolution, the
Carboniferous era amphibian Ichthyostega was accidentally
illustrated by the Cretaceous era bird Ichthyornis. The on-
line Bestiary (F7) has the correct illustration.
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II. Network Game Tips and Troubleshooting
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Latency, Game Speed, and Faster Processors
Evolution is extremely sensitive to network latency, the
time it takes for a message to be transmitted from one
machine in a network game to another. Some games get around
network latency by ignoring the accuracy of the
"unimportant" stuff that happens in between gun fire and
grenade explosions, like moving from point A to point B.
Unfortunately, in Evolution, moving a creature from point A
to point B and making sure that that move is reflected
accurately on every machine in the game is essential.
The reason why this is so is fairly obvious once you think
about how Evolution works. Every creature is constantly
feeding. How well it is feeding is based on where it is AND
which other creature are feeding from the same locations.
Add to this the complication of the continents sliding
around and it's clear that the precise position of every
creature at any given time is essential to assuring that the
results of the game remain synchronized.
To assure that everyone stays in synch, Evolution
automatically slows down machines which have gotten too far
ahead, allowing the other players' machines to catch up. As
a result, the slowest machine in a game determines the speed
of the game. Accordingly, it's best to play with machines of
roughly equal power (processor speed, total memory, CD-ROM
speed if reading files from the CD, and hard drive speed).
If you are playing in a game with unevenly matched machines
there are a few things you can do to speed play and prevent
momentary stalls as one or more machines catch up:
1) The faster machines should run at higher screen
resolutions, with map views set to 50% and as many windows
open as possible. This will prevent them from getting too
far ahead and causing the game to stall.
2) The slower machines should run at lower screen
resolutions, with smaller map views and as few windows open
as possible. This will prevent them from falling behind and
keep the game moving apace.
If you are still experiencing pauses or an uneven frame
rate, try setting the Game Speed lower. Network games
automatically switch to the lowest speed set by any player.
The slower setting can actually result in a more even frame
rate. (Similarly, if you are playing a network game with
several powerful machines, you can set all of the speeds to
"fast" or "fastest" and the game will zoom along.)
On a LAN, latency is generally low and you can play
successfully with disparate machines. On the Internet,
however, long latencies--sometimes a second or more--can
seriously disrupt an Evolution game. For this reason, we
recommend against Internet games with large numbers of
players; someone is bound to have a bad connection. Also,
cross-country play where the number of router hops between
you and your opponents is high is typically more problematic
than a game against local players who all use the same
Internet Service Provider.
On a related note, because of the high processor overhead
associated with IPX networking, we do not recommend
attempting to play with more than four human players over an
IPX network. For large games, we recommend using TCP/IP
networking exclusively.
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Evolution and Firewalls
Like most games which use Microsoft DirectPlay, Evolution
will not work through most Internet firewalls. Check the
Evolution web site <http://evolution.discovery.com> for
updated information on using Evolution through a firewall.
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No Disaster Movies in Network Games
At era changes in network play, the game pauses as it does
in solitaire play. The game will not resume while any player
has the "Disaster Strikes" window open. Play resumes after
all players press "Resume." You cannot play disaster movies
in network games.
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III. Other Troubleshooting Additions
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Virtual Memory Requirements
Evolution uses a lot of memory to store terrain graphics,
creature animations, and sounds. This need for memory is
especially great late in an era, when both the diversity and
population of creatures in the world is greatest.
As a result, we recommend a minimum of 50 MB of free space
on your hard drive for Windows 95 to use for virtual memory.
If you run low on memory, map views may not draw and window
graphics may not appear. As a stopgap, running without sound
will alleviate minor memory shortages. Under no
circumstances should you try running Evolution without
virtual memory turned on, even if you have 64 MB of RAM
installed.
You can check your virtual memory settings by opening the
System Settings control panel, selecting the Performance
tab, and pressing the Virtual Memory button.
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Windows 95 Large Fonts Setting
Most of the windows in Evolution will not draw properly if
your display is set to Large Fonts in the Settings panel of
the Display control panel. This is because Evolution uses
graphic backgrounds of fixed size on most windows and the
Large Fonts setting increases the sizes of windows and
controls like pop-down lists. Setting your display settings
to Small Fonts will correct this problem.
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DirectX 5.0
Evolution requires DirectX 5.0. You should install DirectX
when you install Evolution even if you believe you already
have DirectX installed. This will assure that you have the
most recent DirectX drivers--if you have more up-to-date
DirectX drivers, Evolution will not overwrite your files.
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DirectSound Conflicts
Evolution makes use of Microsoft's DirectSound technology.
If you play Evolution while running other applications which
use DirectSound (such as RealAudio), the programs will
conflict with unpredictable results. Evolution will refuse
to launch if another DirectSound application is running, but
attempting to launch another DirectSound application while
Evolution is running could lead to conflicts. Please close
all applications, but especially those that use DirectSound,
before launching Evolution.
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Screen Resolution Support
Evolution supports all standard Windows 95 screen
resolutions from 640x480 to 1600x1200. However, 1600x1200
does not work properly on all video cards. In testing, the
only card which failed to display Evolution in 1600x1200
mode was the Diamond FireGL 1000, which does run the game
successfully in 1280x1024 mode. Evolution does not support
640x400 or lower resolution modes.
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Feeding Radii, Map View Size, and Population Graph Effects
on Performance
Evolution's performance is directly related to the number of
creatures in all visible map views. On slower machines,
performance can be improved by using smaller map views at
higher zoom settings (100% rather than 75% or 50%). Also,
drawing feeding radii and population graphs further affects
performance. Turning these off will speed up the game.
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Copyright © 1997, Discovery Communications, Inc.
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