[comp.sys.amiga.games] Can PowerMonger actually be won?

rad@avenger.think.com (Bob Doolittle) (02/02/91)

I have worked my way down the left edge, then along the bottom row to
the right.  There have been some strange lands which exhibited what may
have been bugs, but the lower-right land is totally wedged and gurus
constantly!

The "bugs" which I saw in some lands may have been features - if you
queried an individual soldier, you saw that your guys were carrying
something which printed in colors.  This is hard to describe, but instead
of saying something like "carrying a bow", it would say "carrying a [?"
followed by a wierd color pattern!  When I fought an enemy, colors would
flash around the individual battles, and I kicked major butt, seemingly
killing foes with one blow.  This only happened in the bottom few rows, and
only in a few territories.

Now, in the final territory, most of my soldiers start bare-handed, but my
general starts with a different random color pattern.  The only effect
seems to be that he can't pick up a boat (although everyone else can), and
even if everyone has a boat and there is a surplus, the general can't sail
anywhere, so the army can't either.  Once again, this may be a feature - it
seems like everybody is leaving their villages and attacking my land
anyway, so maybe if I play long enough I can just kill them all off and
eventually win that way...  HOWEVER, this territory constantly causes
gurus, usually when I am trying to save or restore a game!  I know this is
supposed to be the toughest land to win, but is it supposed to be hard
because you always have to start over again when the game gurus??? ;-)
I've had very little trouble up until now - some 10-second hangs, and a
very occasional guru, but this last territory is a drag.  Just when I get
to the end, too!

Has anybody else gotten this far who has had similar experiences, or is my
game buggy, or what??

bard@jessica.stanford.edu (David Hopper) (02/02/91)

In article <RAD.91Feb1152859@avenger.think.com> rad@avenger.think.com (Bob Doolittle) writes:
>
>Now, in the final territory, most of my soldiers start bare-handed, but my
>general starts with a different random color pattern.  The only effect
>seems to be that he can't pick up a boat (although everyone else can), and
>even if everyone has a boat and there is a surplus, the general can't sail
>anywhere, so the army can't either.  Once again, this may be a feature - it
>seems like everybody is leaving their villages and attacking my land
>anyway, so maybe if I play long enough I can just kill them all off and

I get this same 'feature' about ten rows up from the bottom, in a territory 
where you start on a separate continent in the north.  It's awful.  I've done 
everything to try to pick up a boat, to no avail.  It just goes into the troop
surplus.  As a result, I can only conquer the northern continent, and then 
leave the game going.  I left it on for 48 hours before I figured that this was
a bug, and not the way you won that particular territory.  I've tried this on
different machines, and it's the same all around.

>eventually win that way...  HOWEVER, this territory constantly causes
>gurus, usually when I am trying to save or restore a game!  I know this is
>supposed to be the toughest land to win, but is it supposed to be hard
>because you always have to start over again when the game gurus??? ;-)

I haven't had a guru (yet), but if your drive is the least bit mis-aligned,
there's no way in hell you're going to save your game.  I can save on my 1000
and my 500 at school, but not on my 500 at home, that has a drive that works
with every disk I own except PowerMonger.

>I've had very little trouble up until now - some 10-second hangs, and a
>very occasional guru, but this last territory is a drag.  Just when I get
>to the end, too!

I wouldn't know.  Unfortunately, I don't think I ever will.

>Has anybody else gotten this far who has had similar experiences, or is my
>game buggy, or what??

Yup.  MASSIVELY buggy.  What pisses me off is that they promised that this
game is copyable.  I've thrown every damn German, English, and American 
nibbler I own at the thing, and I'm still forced to run off the original.

Can't say I'll ever buy anything from EA or BullFrog again.  No loss on my
part.

Dave Hopper      |      ///  Yesterday, CS.           | Academic Info Resources
                 | __  ///    Today, Anthropology.    | Mac & UNIX Sys-Support
bard@jessica.    | \\\///                             | "Somebody get me a job
   Stanford.EDU  |  \XX/ Tomorrow: napping in gutters.| with a computer I LIKE"

DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu (02/02/91)

In article <1991Feb1.222857.9138@portia.Stanford.EDU>, bard@jessica.stanford.edu
(David Hopper) says:

>I haven't had a guru (yet), but if your drive is the least bit mis-aligned,
>there's no way in hell you're going to save your game.  I can save on my 1000
>and my 500 at school, but not on my 500 at home, that has a drive that works
>with every disk I own except PowerMonger.

this problem does not sound like drive mis-alignment; it sounds like a buggy
save routine, most likely dependent on a certain drive speed. For example,
they might not be writing a full track.


>>Has anybody else gotten this far who has had similar experiences, or is my
>>game buggy, or what??

>Yup.  MASSIVELY buggy.  What pisses me off is that they promised that this
>game is copyable.  I've thrown every damn German, English, and American
>nibbler I own at the thing, and I'm still forced to run off the original.

That's strange. My version (yes, legit) uses the standard trackdisk format.
Guess the read routine is flakey too. :-(

-- Dan Babcock

d87-khd@sm.luth.se (Karl-Gunnar Hultland) (02/03/91)

bard@jessica.stanford.edu (David Hopper) writes:


>Yup.  MASSIVELY buggy.  What pisses me off is that they promised that this
>game is copyable.  I've thrown every damn German, English, and American 
>nibbler I own at the thing, and I'm still forced to run off the original.

I just used TurboBackup and the copy works fine!

				Karl

--                 //
                  //
         // \\   //
  // \\ //   \\ //    Karl Hultland,(d87-khd@sm.luth.se)
\X/   \X/     \X/     University of Lulea,Sweden
500   2000    3000

I have called this principle, by which each slight variation,
if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection. /C. Darwin
			

pochron@rt4.cs.wisc.edu (David Pochron) (02/06/91)

In article <RAD.91Feb1152859@avenger.think.com> rad@avenger.think.com (Bob Doolittle) writes:
>something which printed in colors.  This is hard to describe, but instead
>of saying something like "carrying a bow", it would say "carrying a [?"
>followed by a wierd color pattern!  When I fought an enemy, colors would

I have noticed this in many territories - even ones near the top of the world map.
Obviously, some imagery pointers are getting trashed, and doesn't have to do with
the last map specifically.  It could be that some pointers got messed up when you
saved the game, and now critical sections of memory are getting loaded over when-
ever you restore the game.  Probably not much you can do about this except start
over.

-- 

       -- David M. Pochron   | "Life's a blit,
                             |  and then you VBI."
pochron@garfield.cs.wisc.edu |