.
SantaParavia
andFiumaccio 2003!
Charles 'Doctor Tom' Turley keeps bugging
me to release some in-house stuff; so, since
SP has been play-tested, it seems like a good place to start.
This new version of George
Blank's classic citystate simulation is the result of years of
playing, program changes, more
playing, more tweaking, ... in our gaming group.
In Santa Paravia', you rule one of several
15th century Italian citystates. Your aim is to
guide your state to ever greater prosperity and, in the process, advance
in rank. If you are
the most successful in building up Lands, Buildings, Population, and
Treasury, you become
"King" or "Queen" and win.
Naturally, after a couple decades, there have
been quite a few program changes. In fact,
SP2003 is a complete rewrite of the original. Still, the new version
retains much of the look
and feel of the old Santa Paravia'. If you played the original
game, you may or may not
notice the numerous changes ...
o- Ratings: Each game is rated and players have ratings based upon results
which are
maintained from game to game.
o- The game no longer randomly kills off players.
o- There are now 8 citystates and the game accommodates 2-8 players.
o- Taxes and Justice are preset and fixed. This is a result of discovering
an optimal setting.
Once the optimal setting is known, having screens to change the settings
became a waste
of time and programming space; so, the settings are embedded and the
screens are gone.
o- Models for harvest, grain price, land price, rank, invasions, rats,
weather calculation,
income, move-ins, ... are different.
o- There is a "Seer" which players may pay to get a weather prediction for the next year.
o- Instead of having a player advance immediately to King or Queen and
winning (possibly
due to luck in getting an early move in a year), players advance to
"Pretender". When all
players have moved, the Pretender with the highest score is decared
"King" or "Queen"
and wins.
o- Each citystate has a "shield" which is displayed at the start of the player's turn.
o- Each citystate map is in lo-res. This makes for a faster, more colorful display.
o- There is a "Harvest Prize" of at least 1000 Florins which is credited
to the player
with the best harvest at the start of each year.
o- On a IIgs, players can choose the color scheme for their displays.
o- On a IIgs, the program automatically adjusts for speed.
o- The program plays note sequences to announce displays.
o- The progam plays intro and victory music.
o- The program has an "emu" (emulator) option to optimize sound.
o- The Manual for the game is readable from the game diskette.
System Requirements
The program can run on any 64k or larger Apple
II series computer. Under
DOS 3.3, it can run on a 48k Apple II. It should run fine on Apple
II clones
and most modern Apple II emulators.
SP runs under DOS 3.3 or ProDOS. So, it can
run from a DOS 3.3 or ProDOS
diskette or .dsk image. On a ProDOS or GSOS system with a hard disk,
it can be
placed in a ProDOS folder and run there-- move the files from the ProDOS
disk
to the desired folder (you do not need to move PRODOS or BASIC.SYSTEM).
SP looks best on a IIgs because you will get
colored backgrounds and Text.
During the first part of a turn (when buying/selling Land and Grain),
you can select
one of 21 pre-set text/background color schemes by pressing the <-
or -> arrow key.
Unless changed, the color scheme you pick remains in effect for the
rest of the game.
On a IIgs, you also have better speed. The
program will automatically switch to
low speed while playing music and other sounds and for some displays.
Running SP on an Apple II Emulator
SP uses the standard sound for 8-bit Apple
II games, sometimes called
"old Apple II sound". (Sound is produced by toggling a bit at address
$C030
which goes to a small amplifier and is output by the Apple II's speaker.)
Any Apple II computer or decent clone will
reproduce SP sound without a
hitch. But, so far, none of the current Apple II emulators tried has
been
completely successful. For sure, all of the for-PC emulators tried
bomb on the
two-voice sound used for the game's music and some of the prompts.
For running on emulators, SP can switch to
single-voiced sound and make
other changes to try to get the best sound. When the game program starts
you
will have an option to select sound for emulators. If the game is being
run on
an emulator, you should probably select this option.
On AppleWin, the best sound setting is "PC Speaker (translated)".
Except, perhaps, on an Apple IIgs emulator,
the program has no way to
detect emulator speed. So, setting an emulator above 1 MHz (e.g. "authentic
Apple II speed") will speed up everything, including music and tones.
Up to
about 2MHz seems to work and sound okay.
Manual
The SP Manual goes into more detail about playing
the game and game features.
It is included on-disk and is readable via a Text reader also included
on-disk. You
can peruse the manual on-line Here.
Downloads
SantaParavia2003.zip
Unzip to get file SP2003.DSK.
SP2003.DSK is a standard 5.25" disk image which boots ProDOS and starts
the SP intro program.
Click Here to download.
SP game disk which boots and runs under DOS 3.3 for 48k Apple II's: click Here to download.
Both .zip files include the SP Manual as a Text file.
AppleWin Apple II emulator for PC
AppleWin.zip
Unzip AppleWin.zip to obtain AppleWin (in a folder named "AppleWin").
Run APPLEWIN.EXE to start the emulator.
Click Here
to download.
Apple II emulators for Macs
Go Here.
Credits
Play Testers (who offered many valuable suggestions): John Rhoades,
Richard Gray, John Lowe, Jim Bruton, Mike McLellan, Peter Rokitski
Original Inspiration: "Santa Paravia and Fiumaccio" by George Blank
Intro Tune: adapted from "The Institute"
Music adaptations and editing: H.Z. Hurlburt
Programming: Jeff Hurlburt & H.Z. Hurlburt
Contacts
Let me know if you have any comments, suggestions, bug reports, or questions.
Have fun!
Rubywand
email rubywand@swbell.net