Historyline 1914-18 A1200 HD Launcher , Hints & Cheats ------------------------------------------------------- This ancient Blue Byte game had been in deep coma on my hard disk for some time because it could only be run from the Early Startup Shell by emulating the ECS chipset. It is a magnificent strategy game for its time with a quite tough AI and it drives you crazy with its generosity for the computer player. It is very addictive too -for the dedicated strategist ! Read below about how to make the computer player a sitting duck ! First how to run it from Workbench by double clicking its icon: Let us assume that you have HD-installed the game with the installer script that came with the seven disk pack.See what happens when you try to double-click the Program or Intro icons. All you get is a scrambled screen and horrible sounds... Because this game was made for the A500 system and would not run on a A1200 without degrading it. I have tried it with Killaga , ECSLaunch , etc. None of them could run the game. Recently, after many trials I have managed to configure a start script with TUDE (The Ultimate Degrader & Enhancer by N.O.M.A.D) that launches HL14-18 from Workbench in a jiffy !. TUDE is PD-ware and is available from Aminet (util/misc/ tude.lha 26 K ). Now if you want to run this cool strategy game from your hard disk and from Workbench (and kick some French, German or English ass under the Great War) copy the TUDE program , 20132 bytes ,(only the executable, not the icon files) to some place in your path ,(e.g. C:), and copy the Start icon, which is included in this archive, to HL14-18 drawer. Now there is a little trick to play here : There is a file named BBStart within the c subdirectory within HL14-18 directory. It is used by the Start script and it must be in the same directory as the Start icon. So just drag it (copy) out to the HL14-18 root directory.That's it,just click and enjoy. The start script (read TUDE ! ) hardresets the Amiga whenever you chose to quit the game, so you come back to a fresh Workbench screen instead of the gray AmigaDOS screen. A few lines of advice here: The game uses the German keyboard layout. So if you are asked to press (Y) to confirm something during the game just press (Z) instead. Keyboard response is very sluggish (I don't know if it is my Amiga or the game program) but very often you have to press a key a few times to get response. Especially when you will type a level password, you will have to enter it twice to get it accepted. Now about how to CHEAT and make the computer player croak ! : You need a Hex Editor to edit soma data files. 1- If you choose to play the game as GERMANY against computer: The first and most important thing to do is make a copy of the MAP sub- directory in the HL14-18 drawer and rename the "Copy of Map" as "Map_org". So if you make a mistake in editing you can always make a new copy from the Map_org drawer. *You can make your army stronger (and the opponent weaker) by HEX-editing some data files in the MAP subdirectory. The files to edit have (.SHP) as extension. 00.SHP to 23.SHP are levels for human player as AXIS against computer player as ENTENTE, 24.SHP to 47.SHP are for human as ENTENTE, 48.SHP to 71.SHP are levels for two human players against each other. *You will get 7 Armoured Cars at your HQ by increasing the value of the byte at the position (hex) 33 by one -e.g. if it is 04 make it 05 ,(09 to 0A,0B to 0C etc) This applies to all (.SHP) files from 00.SHP to 23.SHP. This will help you to stand against the usual enemy surge at the begining of the level.Do not increase this value with more than 1 otherwise the map wouldn't load. *You can increase or decrease the "resources income" of the two sides by first starting a level and writing down the values that the stores and factories have and then hexediting them in the respective .SHP file. For example if one of your stores has 15 (0F) resources,you can change this to 255 by overwriting 0F with FF. Or if your opponent has "too much geld" you can take him down a bit too !. Thus you can create new units or refurbish cutdown units rightaway which otherwise require much time to accumulate the necessary amount. But do not go in excess with this Robin Hooding , the game might become "too easy to play". The most ingenious feature of this game is that; when you repair a unit, which has been cut down to e.g. 1 man (vehicle or weapon) but has increased its experiece points to e.g. 6, retains its experience (or hitpoints -denoted by the sign beside their numbers) after the repair.Those with cross sign (6 hp) are almost invincible !.So you multiply your power by repairing the experienced units rather than creating new ones!. I think this is the key to success in this game if you are going to play it without cheating.Tell you what, it is absolutely impossible to win any level beyond level 5 without cheating or trying it hundreds of times. It is like playing chess with 50-80 pieces against an unfair computer.Normaly the computer allocates more units to the computer player, gives them the most favorable positions,and gives him more resources than the human player !.OK,if you think that this is the main point in computer games, go on playing without cheat !. By the way ,in order to "have seven armoured cars at your headquarters cheat" function, you have to reset your computer after a completed level.It seems to function from coldstart only,especially when new types of units are introduced or some messages shown at the start of a new level. 2- If you choose to play the game as FRANCE against the computer: *I have not yet discovered a trick to put extra units in the HQ, but editing the French XX.SHP files are much easier and straightforward.Files to edit are from 24.SHP to 47.SHP : Just edit the byte at position 43(hex). The highest value you can put here is 255 (FF).So you get 255 resources right at your Headquarters to start with.You can also edit the stores and the factories as well. 3- If you will play againts a friend ( and make him a sitting duck too !) : First of all you need a "Mouse-joystick swicth" plugged in the mouse port for the mouse control in the game is absolutely useless (but the mouse functions OK in the Menu screens).So both players use own joystick. Edit the .SHP files 48 t0 71 in the same manner as the previous ones: Position 33 for German HQ and position 43 for French HQ. This HD patch and cheats have been successfully tested on: A1200 Blizzard 1230IV 50Mhz 16Mb HD 2.5" Hitachi 2.1 Gb A1200 Blizzard 1220 28Mhz 4Mb HD 3.5" WD 210 Mb Monitors: Amiga M1538S , Commodore 1084S Level Codes: These codes are copied from "The Cheat Collection" by Dirk Stoecker available from Aminet/game/hint.All of them are correct. 1 Player: GERMAN 01 PULSE 07 ORKAN 13 GOTHA 19 COBRA 02 CIVIL 08 FRONT 14 BALON 20 ATLAS 03 MOUSE 09 RATIO 15 PAUSE 21 AMPER 04 VENOM 10 PARTS 16 ELITE 22 RHEIN 05 NOISE 11 PLANE 17 INFRA 23 CANDL 06 RIGHT 12 FLAME 18 HILLS 24 STERN 1 Player: ALLIED 01 BATLE 07 BUMMM 13 SIGNS 19 BLADE 02 GOOSE 08 LEVEL 14 HOUSE 20 ZORRO 03 SPORT 09 TOXIN 15 SIGMA 21 STONE 04 BIMBO 10 PRINC 16 SEVEN 22 MOSEL 05 TEMPO 11 CLEAN 17 ZOMBI 23 ORDER 06 BARON 12 XENON 18 MOVES 24 SODOM 2 Players: 01 TRACK 07 VIRUS 13 GRAND 19 SPELL 02 HUSAR 08 BISON 14 ROYAL 20 CAMEL 03 BEAST 09 DRUCK 15 WATER 21 FLAGS 04 PLATE 10 TROLL 16 SKILL 22 STORY 05 LIGHT 11 UBOOT 17 SKULL 23 SCOUT 06 SCROL 12 DROID 18 AUDIO 24 GREEN If you succesfully use this patch on your Amiga or if you have difficulties with running other games from harddisk, please drop me a line at my e-mail address below.I might have solutions for other game-problems too. Let me remind you that TUDE which does a perfect job with my hardware and its present configuration might not function for yours.In that case you will have to experiment with TUDE's parameters (tooltypes) in the Start script.Just type "tude help" att the Shell prompt to get a short description of TUDE's arguments. Or download tude.lha from Aminet and read Tude.doc for a deeper study. I take up no responsibility if it does not function on your computer or causes any kind of harm. temel.bahadir@goteborg.mail.telia.com August 1988