Get the Gladiators Multiplayer demo off Worthplaying (108mb)

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1. Getting Started

1.1 System requirements

a) Minimum system requirements

• Windows 98/2000/ME/XP with DirectX 8.0 or higher
• Pentium II 300 Mhz / K6-2 300Mhz
• 128 MB internal memory
• 800 MB free space on hardrive
• 4X CD-ROM drive
• No sound card or DirectX 8.0 certified sound card
• 16 MB Direct3D 8.0 compatible video card (TNT 16MB...)

b) Recommended system

• Windows 98/2000/ME/XP with DirectX 8.0 or higher
• Pentium III 800Mhz / Athlon 800Mhz
• 192 MB internal memory
• 800 MB free space on hardrive
• 4X CD-ROM drive
• DirectX 8.0 certified sound card
• 32 MB Direct3D 8.0 compatible T&L video card (Geforce 2, Radeon...)

1.2 Default Controls

a) General

Esc : Main menu
Ctrl S : Save menu
Ctrl L : Load menu
Ctrl Enter : Toggle Fullscreen/Windowed mode
PgUp : Increase sound volume
PgDown : Decrease sound volume
F9 : Quick save
F10 : Quick load
M : Open chat window - broadcast
Ctrl M : Open chat window - team broadcast

b) Camera

Up arrow or E : Up
Arrow Down or D : Down
Arrow Left or S : Left
Arrow Right or F : Right
Ctrl Arrow Up or T : Zoom in
Ctrl Arrow Down or G : Zoom out
Ctrl Arrow Left or X : Rotate left
Ctrl Arrow Right or V : Rotate right
K : Use tracking camera
Space : Centre camera on the last event (battle...)

c) Selection

Ctrl 1~9 : Create a group
#1~9 : Select a group
#1~9 twice : Select a group and centre camera on it
Tab : Select gladiator
Tab twice : Select gladiator and centre camera on it

d) Action

Enter : Default action (crawl...)
A : Attack or Move&Attack
M : Move to a square formation
R : Move to a line formation
Q : Move and attack in a line formation
W : Move and attack in a square formation
H : Hold position
C : Cancel

e) Power Up

F1 : Heals your gladiator and nearby units
F2 : Temporarily boosts the damage your gladiator can inflict
F3 : Speeds up your gladiator for a while
F4 : Adds a temporary damage protection on your gladiator and nearby units
F5 : First magic ability of your gladiator (heroism...)
F6 : Second magic ability of your gladiator (Fire ring...)

1.3 Gameplay advice

In this page you will find techniques that will help you be a better gladiator, whether it be in single or multiplayer mode.

• Line of sight management will strongly influence the outcome of battles. Considering this, the best places to set your troops is on top of hills or buildings to increase the damage you can inflict on you enemies as well as the distance you can see.
• Some structures can grant your units extra damage protection. Look for bunkers, for example, to get the offensive edge that will allow you to overcome stronger opponents.
• The joker card placed around the map can be very useful for your gladiator, because they allow him to purchase power-ups or extra troops at the spawnzones.
• Learn to use keyboard shortcuts to issue move and attack orders to your troops, so they will fight the enemies they see as they move.
• Some objects can provide cover for the units that are near them, but still allow those units to see properly. You can therefore use bushes to see your foes and set up ambushes without them detecting you.
• All the units don't inflict the same kind of damage. There are those who are efficient in close combat, those who can hurt far away enemies, and others who can damage packed opponents. But remember, units are also not equal in terms of resisting the damage they receive. Think about this when you create your army.
• The units recover their health as time passes. Don't hesitate to move wounded units away from fights, so they can regenerate instead of dying.
• The single player mode of 'The Gladiators' is a true challenge, so don't forget to save your game frequently, as you can loose a lot of units in a small amount of time.
• Almost all the buildings or plants can be destroyed. Feel free to blast objects that hinder you or that you think can provide cover for enemies.

This is only a small overview of the tactics that can be deployed to be a feared gladiator. Go to the official web site ( http://thegladiators.arxeltribe.com ) to find out more and share your experience.

2. Multiplayer

2.1 The basics of the multiplayer mode

'The Gladiators' can be played up to 16 players through TCP/IP, depending on the speed of the network connection.

You will find some more information about the multiplayer modes on the official web site ( http://thegladiators.arxeltribe.com ).

2.2 The different game modes

The 'The Gladiators' multiplayer mode's goal is to innovate by introducing quick, fast paced multiplayer games. A gaming session can last just a few minutes, or can allow players to join in at any time. The various network game modes can be played in teams of one or more players.

a) Deathmatch

It is a game mode where to only goal is to kill as many of the opposing gladiators as possible. Every player has a gladiators at the beginning and has to use joker cards and spawnzones to built an army to be strong enough when the time arrives to attack another gladiator.

b) Capture the flag

The goal here is to bring a flag back to the base. The winner will be the more astute player, the one who will be able to be quick by avoiding fights.

c) Assault

This is the game mode that needs the most strategic preparation. The goal is for one player to besiege the base of the other and try to gain its control. The other player has to prepare a rock solid defence to avoid losing the base.

d) Co-operative

All solo missions can be played in co-operative mode by up to four players at the same time. Each player controls the units he wishes to but the host is the only one allowed to deal with power-ups and spawn zones. There are no cut-scenes in this mode. Scores and ranks are stored individually for each player.

2.3 Play on LAN

If TCP/IP is correctly installed on the network computers, a player can create a server that will be seen by the other players who choose to list the available network games. All this is can be done in the network interface of the start menu.

2.4 Play on the Internet

Internet game is easy to use, just click on the related button in the game start window and follow the interface's instruction to join a game, start a session yourself, or just chat with other players.

2.5 Communicate on the Internet

The chat rooms allow you to communicate with all people in a given room. On the left panel you can see all the rooms. Left-click with your mouse on a room name to enter it. By default, you are in the « MAIN » room. On the right panel, you can see all the players in the room.

2.6 Server statistics

Server statistics are automatically generated by the server in real-time, they give :

• The total number of players connected on the server
• The number of players in the Chat-rooms
• The number of players currently playing the game
• The number of game sessions actually running

3. Troubleshooting/Technical Information

3.1 Video card compatibility

Below is some information gathered by our video card test and compatibility lab. While we made every effort possible to get Gladiators to work on all hardware configurations, the reality is not all video cards behave the same way ; some are older an slower and lack features. Unless otherwise noted we found that using the VERY LATEST reference drivers provided the best stability and performance on all video cards.

Supported :

• 3DFX Voodoo 4/5 : Works ok.
• Ati Rage 128 : Frame rate and visual quality are not optimal.
• Ati Radeon 7x00 : Offers good performance and visual quality.
• Ati Radeon 8x00 : Offers very good performance and visual quality.
• Ati Radeon 9000 : Offers excellent performance and visual quality.
• Ati Radeon 9500/9700 : Offers excellent performance and visual quality.
• Kyro II : Needs a powerful processor to compensate the lack of hardware T&L.
• Matrox G4x0 : Works ok, but needs a powerful processor to compensate the lack of hardware T&L.
• Matrox G550 : Works ok, but needs a powerful processor to compensate the lack of hardware T&L.
• Matrox Parhelia-512 : Offers excellent performance and visual quality.
• Nvidia TNT : Works ok, but needs a powerful processor to compensate the lack of hardware T&L.
• Nvidia TNT 2 / TNT 2 M64 : Works ok, but needs a powerful processor to compensate the lack of hardware T&L.
• Nvidia Geforce 256 : Works ok.
• Nvidia Geforce 2 MX : Offers good performance and visual quality..
• Nvidia Geforce 2 GTS : Offers good performance and visual quality..
• Nvidia Geforce 3 : Offers very good performance and visual quality.
• Nvidia Geforce 3 Ti x00 : Offers very good performance and visual quality.
• Nvidia Geforce 4 MX : Offers very good performance and visual quality.
• Nvidia Geforce 4 Ti 4x00 : Offers excellent performance and visual quality.

Not supported :

• Ati Rage pro and earlier : Card manufacturer no longer supports these video cards.
• Kyro I : The game may have graphical issues and poor performance...
• Nvidia Riva 128 and earlier : Card manufacturer no longer supports these video cards.
• Voodoo1, 2, 3, rush and banshee : Card manufacturer no longer supports these video cards.

3.2 Improving Performance

Of course getting a faster CPU, more memory, and a faster video card should drastically improve performance, but for those who don't want to or can't buy
new hardware you can try some of these tips.
- Gladiators requires the latest drivers for your hardware for optimal performance. Updating video drivers, sound drivers, operating system, and your system's bios significantly improved frame rate on several systems we tested.
- On some systems updating the AGP chipset controller improved framerate by three or four times. This was especially true with non-Intel controllers. To see which controller you have on most systems right click on My Computer and select properties. Go to the Device Manager tab and open up System Devices. Look for an entry that mentions AGP. Most AGP controllers will be listed as Intel, Via, Ali, or AMD. Go to the appropriate website to find your newest drivers and follow their install instructions.
- Try turning off or lowering your graphic options. Resolution normally has the greatest improvement on frame rate.
- Close all other programs before running Gladiators, especially if you only have 128M of RAM.
- Windows 2000 and Windows XP need more memory, so if you notice the hard drive constantly working, you should consider adding some memory to your system.

3.3 Known Issues

'The Gladiators' uses Microsoft's DirectX products to generate sound and graphics. These products are constantly evolving and hardware manufacturers are constantly releasing new drivers to support all the features that today's games require. You therefore need to make sure you have the latest drivers installed on you system for your graphics card, your sound card, and in some cases even your motherboard. Updating these drivers showed huge performance increases on
some systems (see section "3.5 Help References")

Signs indicating you need an updated driver :

• You receive any Direct Draw or Direct Sound errors
• Game crashes or hangs
• Sound cuts out during the game
• Windows desktop is distorted or corrupted
• The game is a lot slower than expected

If you have sound problems with a DirectX 8.0 compatible sound card :

• Update your sound card drivers to the latest version available from the card manufacturer, or the latest reference driver available for your card's chipset.
• Make sure that your speakers are turned on and any volume controls on them are turned up.
• Check your Windows volume settings by clicking on the small yellow speaker icon on your taskbar.
• Check the in-game volume settings in the "Audio Settings" menu.

If you still have sound problems, reducing sound drivers acceleration can help. You have to set the hardware acceleration slider to 'Basic hardware acceleration' (second from the left) in the windows sound configuration menu.

• How to do it with windows 98 and Me : Go to the Start->settings->control panel-> sound and multimedia settings .Go to audio->advanced->sound playback.In the performance tab move the hardware acceleration slider to the second notch : basic acceleration.
• How to do it with Windows 2000 : Go to start->settings->control panel then to Sound and multimedia->audio. Under the playback section, click on advanced, then go to the performance tab and set the hardware acceleration slider to the second notch (basic hardware acceleration).
• How to do it with Windows XP : Go to start->settings->control panel->Sound an audio devices. Then go to the Audio tab, click on advanced in the audio
  playback section, and set the hardware acceleration slider to the second notch (basic hardware acceleration).

On some systems operating Windows XP, a DirectX8Init error can occur as you go back to the multiplayer menu. To avoid having this, launch the game in windowed mode, the switch to full-screen after loading (by using the icon in the window bar).

3.4 Internet issues

• If you want other people on the internet to join your game session, your IP address has to published on the internet. If you have multiple IP addresses, make sure the one you choose is the one published on the internet.
• If you are behind a corporate firewall or a Network Address Translator, you won't be able to host sessions but you may join a game session if you are the only one playing the game behind the firewall.
• Connection fail : when two players connects simultaneously to the same game session, it may happen that one of the two players gets the following message connection fail : choose your gladiator faster. Should this happen, just restart the game an join the session again.

3.5 Help References

Updating drivers is very important. To assist you in this effort, the following is a list of websites which may be useful in finding the latest drivers or troubleshooting and understanding this technology. This list is by no means complete and is just for reference, any information obtained here has no connection with Eugen Systems.

Graphics card driver locations
- http://www.nvidia.com
- http://www.matrox.com
- http://support.ati.com

Sound Card driver locations
- http://www.creative.com

Troubleshooting for Advanced Users
- http://www.geforcefaq.com
- http://support.microsoft.com
- http://www.tomshardware.com
- http://www.reactorcritical.com

Information on system motherboards and updates - advanced
- http://support.intel.com
- http://www.viatech.com