Evolution ReadMe File Version 1.0 11/26/97 ============================================================ CONTENTS I. Game Feature Updates and Corrections II. Network Game Tips and Troubleshooting III. Other Troubleshooting Additions ============================================================ ============================================================ I. Game Feature Updates and Corrections ------------------------------------------------------------ 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 . ------------------------------------------------------------ "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.). ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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). ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ Living World Keyboard Shortcut You can open the Living World window from the keyboard by pressing the F4 key. ------------------------------------------------------------ Population Graphs Keyboard Shortcut You can turn Population Graphs on and off for the active Map View window by pressing CTRL-P. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ============================================================ ============================================================ II. Network Game Tips and Troubleshooting ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ Evolution and Firewalls Like most games which use Microsoft DirectPlay, Evolution will not work through most Internet firewalls. Check the Evolution web site for updated information on using Evolution through a firewall. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ============================================================ ============================================================ III. Other Troubleshooting Additions ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ============================================================ Copyright © 1997, Discovery Communications, Inc.