Notes on using the Hywar Elite Utility
0. First of all there is a new setting tab in the software that allows you to change the font color and back ground color of the software to better tailor the software to your individual tastes and monitors. There is also a sorting option that is for character sorting. You will notice that as the game progresses you will have dead characters throughout your kingdom and sometimes you may want these dead characters to be left at the bottom of your screen rather than in numerical order. Clicking on the appropriate control button will decide how the characters databases isd sorted.
1. Creating new games and saving character information is the backbone of this software.
CAUTION: For every new game created, the HyWar program will automatically copy and add to the existing databases approximately a thousand new records. I have made the databases as compact as possible, and do not believe that the size of the database will be a problem.
2. You can do a search for any character by clicking on the "Find Character by Name" button. This button is located under the tab labeled "Game." By doing so, HyWar will prompt you to enter the character's name. The entire character's name is not needed, in order to perform a search. (I.E.: You can enter in just the fist couple of characters and hit the ENTER key on your keyboard, and the program will search the entire database for anything that contains those characters.)
3. New characters may be added as your games progress by:
a) Click on the "Characters" tab
b) Then click on the button labeled "Add New Character."
(This button will create a blank record with the game number of the current select game and kingdom plus a character id of 999.)
You can not have any characters in the game with the same
game number +kingdom ID+character number (I.E.: Game 710 + Zamo-11)
To make it faster to create new characters, I have created an abbreviated way to enter characters. To use this faster method, just enter the character's stats with the first letter of the ability (I.E.: "E" or "e" for Excellent). Then, after you close the program and restart it, the program will find the records that are entered with only 1 character, and automatically change the character to its appropriate name (I.E.: "E" or "e" will become Excellent; "S" or "s" will become Superior; etc.).
CAUTION: This will only work if the character's Personal Combat is a single digit, and then it will change all the stats for that character. The search is based on the Personal Combat's character length
4. You can delete any characters. However, they will not actually be removed from the database until the program is restarted. You can also undelete a character that you marked for deletion.
WARNING: Un-deletion only works as long as you are in the same program session. In other words, if you restart the program, it will delete any characters you have marked fort deletion, and at that point, you will not be able to recover the character or data deleted.
5. All characters that are designated as "not alive" will show up highlighted in a light purple color. You can delete the characters, but it would not be much of a database if you lost all your character stats from previous games.
Under the characters tab if the screen is in full window view then you will get several more fields about the character that you can edit. if the screen is in normal mode then the fields will not be visible unless you double click upon the characters name in the character list. This action will bring open another screen that will have the additional fields.
6. Under the "Provinces" tab, if you click upon a terrain the program will bring up the terrain advantage and disadvantage rules. Also, the any province of the kingdom selected from the "Kingdoms" tab will show up highlighted in a soft green color, after you select a kingdom from the "Kingdoms" menu and then click on the "Provinces" tab.
7. In the "Provinces" menu, you can change the province owner ship field as you gain new provinces, the auto-highlighter will highlight your new provinces. There is also a notes field in the province tab for PA and IA troop counts or any other information you wish to enter. This extra notes field is only visible in full screen mode.
8. By double clicking upon the colored square between treasury and audio clips buttons, HyWar will initiate your bitmap editor program. If you do not have a designated bitmap program, it will initiate the "open with menu" screen. If so, choose MS Paint or another bitmap viewer.
RECOMMENDED: When altering province ownership on your game map, you should use the eyedropper to select the color of the kingdom you are changing the province to, and then use the bucket to fill the province. Also if you disagree with the original colors I chose for the Hywar map it is recommended that you change the Hywar Elite\Maps\HWORIG.BMP file to reflect the desired colors you wish. Because all future maps start off as a simple copy of this map.
9. Under the "Notes" tab menu, you can add your own notes about specific kingdoms and descriptions concerning each individual kingdom.
10. Under the "Kingdoms" tab menu, HyWar has an edit box with the imperial goals and victory conditions of the selected kingdom. and a second edit box that I use for IA counts and locations
11. Under the "Games" tab you will see export game information and import game information buttons. to Export game character stats you select the game in the list box to the right and double click on the export game button. this will create a small database file that contains all your character information for that game in the directory (Hywar Gold\Export\ "game number.dbf") you simply need to send this file to the person you wish to send the info to. That person then takes the file you give him and puts the file in (HyWar Gold\Import\) folder and clicks upon the import game button. The program will then give you a list of all files within this folder. you simply click upon the game you wish to import and it will copy all the character stats from that game to your game.
NOTE (the program will not rewrite any characters you have entered into the game. It will only add characters you do not have in the database to your game.)
NOTE (there is also an export character button under the characters tab. This button will create a database file of the current selected kingdoms characters in Hywar Gold\export\KingdomID+Game Number.dbf you import these files the same way you import a game file. The difference between export game and export kingdom is that export game gives all kingdoms data for that game and export charqacters just gives the specified kingdoms character information.
CAUTION: (you must have a game created the same game number as the game you are attempting to import otherwise it will fail to import)
12. If, for some reason, you have created a game, and it is not listed under games.
A First, try and create the game number again.
B If it gives an error message which says that the "uniqueness," or anything remotely like that, then press the delete game button, and enter the number of the game, and then when you restart the program, try to create the game again.
If when trying to add a new character to a game and it tells you that you cannot add to the ORIG game then click cancel and try again.
NOTE If you find data that is incorrectly entered in the ORIG game, then you need to change the data in the ORIG game, because all new games are copied from that data. Subsequently, any data accidentally entered or changed in the ORIG game will effect all future game data.
Thanks for using my freeware, I am an ACTIVE programmer and if anyone has any work for me, please let me know :)
Also if anyone has any suggestions as to an improvement to the software please let me know I will see if I can work it in. Iam currently using Visual FoxPro 6. If I ever get the cash together to get Visual Foxpro 8 I am sure I can incorporate and create a better program. I have been toying with the idea of creating a flash GIF that will have you create a game map of what you can see in your blue map every turn. Then with a run button the program will run through the sequence of your turns giving you alittle movie of your hyborian war expansion progression. Sounds neat but I havent been able to get all the bugs out yet. In time I am sure Ill get it.
UprightGuy@charter.net
PS
Thanks again!!
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P.S. The Print turn sucks on the program. I am having a little difficulty with printer eject commands and it seems the program waits to fill the spool before it prints or it waits until you exit the utility to finish the printing. Sorry I will work on it.....