European Air War

EAW version 1.0

(c) 1998 MicroProse Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 1942: The Pacific Air War and MICROPROSE are U.S. registered trademarks and European Air War is a trademark of MicroProse, Inc. or its affiliated companies. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders. Uses Smacker Video Technology, Copyright (c) 1994-1996 by RAD Game Tools, Inc. 3D models in Intro, AutoPlay screen and Hangars by REM Infografica TM.

General Notes

Radio Communications

If you haven’t already, you should definitely make a point to read the “Command and Control” section of the electronic Flight School, available from EAW’s AutoPlay and the Start menu. Any questions you may have regarding controlling your wingmen/flight/section/schwarm/squadron/staffel, should be covered there. {note: to run Flight School, you must have both EAW and a web-browser installed on your PC}

Graphic Settings (and what they do)

Some of our Beta Testers were uncertain about what a few of the Graphics settings actually did, so we thought we’d give a quick rundown here…

*3D Renderer determines what graphic mode EAW will run under.

*Plane Detail determines at what distance the low-detail model of a plane switches to the high-detail model. For instance, with Plane Detail set to Low, the plane will not appear in high-detail until it is very close to the viewer. However, if Plane Detail is set to High, the plane will appear in high-detail even when far away from the viewer.

*Terrain Detail works the same way that Plane Detail does, but with the landscape.

*Ground Object Detail works the same as Plane Detail, but will also change the number of ground objects per mile/meter.

*Cloud Detail will set the number of cloud layers possible during the game.

*Special Effects determines the level of special effects seen in-game.

*Horizon Distance allows you to set the visibility level, moving the “horizon fog” either in or out.

*Shadow lets you turn the game’s shadows on and off (for planes and ground objects).

*External Stores allows you to turn the visual display of the plane’s armaments on and off. Note: this doesn’t make them unavailable in gameplay, just invisible until they’re dropped or fired.

*Lens Flare will toggle the lens flare on or off.

*Virtual Cockpit Gauges lets you to turn the gauges in the Virtual Cockpit on and off.

*Show Propeller in Cockpit determines the visibility of the plane’s propellers from inside the cockpit.

*Cockpit Shake allows you to toggle the shaking in the cockpit on and off.

*Gamma Correction will allow you to set your 3D Card’s Gamma Settings from within the game. {note: this feature will only function in Glide mode, and won’t work with all 3Dfx cards; if you have a 3Dfx card and Gamma Correction isn’t functioning, you’ll have to adjust your Gamma settings from your Desktop}

Pilot Skill Level

There are four places in European Air War that allow you to set the skill level of the pilot AI; one in Difficulty (“Enemy Skill Level”), two in the Single Mission Parameters (“Pilot Skill Level” for both friendly and enemy aircraft), and one in the Multi-Player Session Parameters (“Pilot Experience”).

In Difficulty, “Enemy Skill Level” allows you to set the overall AI level of your opponents, and can be viewed as a ‘general’ enemy skill level setting.

Modifying the specific “Pilot Skill Level” and “Pilot Experience” in the Single Mission Parameters and Multi-Player Session Parameters will set the pilot AI within the given range of the overall setting determined in Difficulty.

In Single Missions, you are allowed to set the AI for friendly and enemy pilots separately. In the interest of fairness (since chances are you’ll be playing against other human pilots), the Multi-Player AI setting is the same across the board, as your friendly planes will likely be the enemies of your opponent.

Multi-Player Cooperative Missions

Squadron and flight assignments: You won’t be allowed to mix aircraft types within the same squadron, so if you want to fly in the same squadron as another human player, make sure to pick the same aircraft type. Also, note that the first person to join a session with a particular type of aircraft will be considered the squad leader; the second will be his wingman, the third and fourth will be the third and fourth in the same flight; the fifth will be the flight leader for the second flight, and so on... However, if each player picks a different aircraft, each will be the squad leader of his own squadron.

Radio: You should also note that human teammates do not receive the squad leader’s radio orders-only the AI planes can be addressed with the radio menu (TAB key - default). Use the chat key (or chat macros) to order attacks, regroups, retreats and so on, to the other human players. If Ground Control orders a squad leader to return home, for example, the squad leader should tell the AI planes in his squadron to break it off and regroup with the normal method ([TAB]  Squadron  Regroup), then use the chat key ([~] by default) to tell the other players the same.

Force Feedback

European Air War has been programmed to work with any DirectX-compatible Force Feedback Joystick, and has been tested on Microsoft’s Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro, Logitech’s Wingman Force, and CHProduct’s ForceFX.

In the Control menu, under Configure Game, three Force Feedback options are listed; “Disabled,” “Arcade,” and “Realistic,”. If these options are all grayed out, your joystick does not support Force Feedback. If your joystick supports Force Feedback but you don’t want to use it, select “Disabled,”. The other two options, “Arcade” and “Realistic,” set different types of Force Feedback responses. “Realistic” places an emphasis on the forces of flying (such as engine stalls and G-force effects); “Arcade” on the other hand, will exaggerate ‘action’ forces (such as firing your guns and taking damage).

Beneath these settings is a slide bar entitled “Force Feedback Gain,” which sets the overall strength of Force Feedback responses from Low to High.

Gun Jams

Your guns keep jamming and you don’t know why? Though there’s a slight chance that your guns may jam for no reason at all, there are a few factors that can affect this, and you should keep them in mind during combat. Pulling heavy negative or positive G’s while firing can cause them to jam, and so can your guns overheating (often incurred by constant firing). Can you un-jam your guns? Sorry, no; you’ll have to stick it out or head on home. Don’t worry though, your guns will be in full working order at the start of the next mission.

Medals & Promotions

It should be noted that you won’t be able to obtain any medals or promotions unless the “Unlimited Ammunition” and “Invulnerability” features from the Difficulty menu are turned off.

Autopiloting Home

One thing that we forgot to point out in the manual and in the electronic Flight School was how to Autopilot your aircraft back to Home Base. Once you’re ready to return home, change your waypoint ([P] by default) back to your Home Base, then enable the Autopilot. If you fail to do this, your Squadron Commander has the ability to call you back into formation, and your Autopilot will listen.

Map Distances

Please keep in mind that though they are flat, the Pilot and Briefing Maps in EAW are based on a curved section of the Earth, and distances aren’t easily measured by eye. Before taking off, you might want to double check the distance to the target in the Briefing section of the Armaments board.

Manual Corrections

On PAGE 10, it notes that the Unlimited Ammunition feature is automatically set to “Off” for all Multi-Player games. This was changed by popular demand, and is now modifiable for all modes of gameplay.

On PAGE 42, Numpad 4 should read “Left” instead of “Left Rear” and Numpad 6 should read “Right” instead of “Right Rear,”.

Also on PAGE 42, it is stated that “[Ctrl]+[F6]” will allow you to “jump into the cockpit of a different plane,”. This is incorrect; the accurate default key command for this function is “[Alt]+[J]”. It should also be noted that this feature is not available in a Pilot Career.

On PAGES 43-45, the differentiation is not made between External and Virtual Cockpit camera motion. The Virtual Cockpit controls are actually opposite those of the External Camera, i.e. the [H] key (default) in the External view moves left, clock-wise around the plane. In Virtual Cockpit however, the [H] key will move the pilot’s view to the right.

On PAGE 46, Target to Player should read “[Ctrl]+[F10]” instead of “[Ctrl]+[F8]”.

On PAGE 77, under Communications, it states that the shortcut keys are from [F1] to [F10]; this actually goes up to [F12].

On PAGE 78, under Player Kills, it mentions that the [F10] key may be used to bring up the player tallies in a Total Mayhem Multi-Player game. This is incorrect; these scores are automatically written to the screen with no need to press [F10].

Also on PAGE 78, the manual fails to mention that in Total Mayhem Multi-Player games, if you’re able to land your aircraft and roll to a stop, your plane will be respawned mid-air, damage fixed and guns reloaded, ready for the next dogfight without having a ‘loss’ added to your score.

Additional (last minute, undocumented, unsupported) Features

*Cockpit Gauge Details [Alt-F1]

This feature will toggle the names on and off of each of your functioning cockpit gauges and dials in the regular cockpit view. These labels may appear slightly jumbled in some cockpits due to the historically accurate placement of the gauges.

*Free Camera [Ctrl-F12]

This camera will allow you to hop out of your plane and free-roam around the gameworld. We suggest enabling Autopilot or pausing the game beforehand, however.

*Target Primary Ground Object [Ctrl-E]

On Bombing and Interdiction missions, Ctrl-E may be used to highlight your primary ground target, regardless of its distance. In the case of multiple targets on a Bombing or Interdiction mission, the closest primary target will be chosen.

*Multi-Player Macros [F1 - F12]

Feel like chatting but no time to type? In Multi-Player mode, after you’ve determined who you want to talk to, hit F1 through F12 for an automated response (the manual did note this, but only went up to F10). We’ve left in the ability for you to personalize these macros by editing the file “chatline.txt,” found in your European Air War directory.

*Skip to Next Encounter [Alt-N]

This feature is actually listed on the Default Key Command Card, but wasn’t documented in the manual. Hitting Alt-N will jump you to your next encounter, rather than forcing you fly in formation for lengthy periods of time. Note: you will not be allowed to use this feature when you’ve reached a mission objective, when the enemy is near, or when your plane is badly damaged.

*Changing HUD Colors [special - see below]

A few of our testers had expressed difficulty in reading the HUD (Heads Up Display) against certain backgrounds. Though there’s nothing in-game to modify these colors, we’ve put in an option for you to do so in the “eaw.ini” file, located in your European Air War directory. A full range of color-changing possibilities is offered, allowing you to alter the Red, Green and Blue values for each color of the HUD (10 in total; 1 for “friendly,” 1 for “enemy,” and 8 for Multi-Player pilots). To adjust these colors, follow the steps below;

1 In your European Air War directory, open the file called “eaw.ini”.

2 Scroll down until you find the section that starts with “HudColor”, under “[Display]”. See below example of the “friendly” HUD color’s settings:

HudColor_Green_R=64

HudColor_Green_G=255

HudColor_Green_B=64

3 Each color is broken into three lines, one for each of the RGB values. You may alter these values by changing the numbers to any number from 0 to 255. For example, if you changed the above values to R=0, G=0, B=255, then the color known as “Green” would appear as solid Blue once in-game. If you choose to change your HUD colors, you might want to play with these numbers until you find the color that’s right for you. We suggest making a backup copy of the eaw.ini file before doing so however, so that you’re able to return to the pre-set colors if the new ones aren’t to your liking.

4 After modifying the RGB values, save the file.

5 Run the game and take a look at your new HUD colors.

{note: If you didn’t feel like making a backup of eaw.ini and then later decide that you aren’t happy with the new colors you’d selected, another method of reverting to the original eaw.ini file is detailed below in the “Problems?” section, under “Messed-Up your EAW.INI file?”.}

Problems?

Before reading any further, calling Customer Support, or worrying that the game may be broken, be sure to check that you’ve got the latest drivers installed for all your video and sound cards. We’ve found that major gameplay problems often vanish with a driver update.

Also, please note that European Air War requires DirectX 6.0 (or higher) in order to run. If you haven’t installed DirectX 6.0 (or higher) on your system, you must do so before running EAW. An option to install DirectX 6.0 (or upgrade your current version of DirectX to 6.0) is available at the end of the EAW installation process.

Flight School

You will only be able to view the electronic version of Flight School (available from EAW’s AutoPlay and the Start menu) if you have a web-browser installed on your PC, along with EAW. Without a web-browser on your system, you will not be able to access this feature.

Joysticks & Other Peripherals

European Air War will only support one joystick, not two. If you have two joysticks installed on your machine, we recommend uninstalling one of them before attempting to run EAW, as unforeseen problems may occur.

Also, if you find that you’re having difficulty with a joystick, throttle or rudder pedals, try uninstalling all of your peripherals, then reinstalling them. Of the few problematic instances we’d experienced during the testing process, uninstalling and reinstalling the peripheral in question typically solved the problem. If not, please look at the “Uninstalling & Reinstalling” section, below.

Uninstalling & Reinstalling EAW

If for some reason you decide to reinstall European Air War, you must first make sure that you’ve properly uninstalled the game using either the “Add/Remove Programs” feature from your Control Panel, or the “Uninstall European Air War” shortcut we’ve provided, located both in your European Air War folder as well as in the Start menu. In addition to this, you must also manually delete the files that the Uninstaller was unable to remove. We suggest deleting the entire European Air War folder, just to be certain.

Switching from Glide to D3D

The Glide drivers are known to have a problem shutting down after another graphic mode is selected. If you’ve been playing in Glide mode and decide to switch to D3D, we recommend quitting out of the game entirely, then running it again before attempting to fly a mission.

12Mb Voodoo2 Cards Running 3Dfx Glide

If you are experiencing problems running the game using a 12Mb Voodoo2 card with Glide, try limiting the texture memory used for Glide applications in your Voodoo2 card settings. This can be accessed by right clicking on the desktop, selecting "Properties", then clicking on the 3Dfx/Voodoo2 tab in the display properties menu. The "Limit texture memory to 2Mb for Glide apps" option should be under the "Advanced" section.

Direct3D

If you feel that your video card should support Direct3D but are unable to select it from the Graphics menu, check your drivers to make sure they’re the most recent. If your drivers are up to date and “D3D” is still grayed out, chances are it means that your card doesn’t support DirectDrawPrimitive, a function of DirectX that EAW requires in order to run.

{note: Not every 3D card supports DirectDrawPrimitive. If your card does not support this feature, we suggest contacting your card’s manufacturer to inquire about upcoming drivers that will support DirectDrawPrimitive.}

{2nd note: If “D3D” is still grayed out after you’ve gotten the latest drivers, you can try the “cheat” below.}

The D3D “Cheat”

There is a method where we’re able to ‘trick’ some cards into supporting (or at least trying to support) DirectDrawPrimitive, which will enable the D3D graphics mode for cards that don’t usually support this feature. Please keep in mind that (a) this won’t work for all cards, (b) this is a mostly un-tested feature and may cause unforeseen errors, and (c) even if it does enable D3D, the game may still behave unfavorably when run in this mode, with noted/predicted bugs including misplaced textures and low framerates.

So if you’ve read all of the above and are still willing to give it a try (you can always change it back), follow these steps;

1 In your European Air War folder, open the file called “eaw.ini”.

2 Scroll down until you find the line that reads “TestDrawPrimitive=0”, under “[Graphics]”.

3 Change the “0” to “1”, and save the file.

4 Run the game and give it a shot, going to the Graphics menu and selecting “D3D” if it’s available.

[Keep in mind, to go back to the original setting, simply repeat the previous, changing the “1” to “0”.]

Checking & Changing your D3D Device

To determine (or change) which card EAW has established as your D3D device, follow the steps below;

1 In your European Air War folder, open the file called “eaw.ini”.

2 Scroll down until you find the line that reads “DisplayDevice=”, under “[Graphics]”.

DisplayDevice=1 means that EAW is using your primary video card to run D3D.

DisplayDevice=2 means that EAW is using your secondary video card to run D3D.

[DisplayDevice=0 means that EAW is set to Glide mode.]

[DisplayDevice=-1 means that EAW is set to Software mode.]

3 Changing this number will alter the display mode based on the numbers above (i.e. changing the number to “2” will have EAW use your secondary card to run D3D, to “0” will enable Glide, etc.).

4 The next time you run the game, these settings will be in effect.

[Keep in mind, to go back to the original setting, just change it back to the original number and save the file again.]

Frame Rate

To improve your frame rate, try lowering some of the settings in the Graphics menu. If you notice the slowdown while flying over cities, you might want to start with Ground Object Detail. If noticed while running in Software, lowering your Terrain Detail setting will probably help.

Messed-Up your EAW.INI file?

That’s okay, it’s easy to fix. Simply delete it, and the next time you start the game, a fresh new eaw.ini will be created. [Note that this will erase all of your personalized configuration settings.]

The 7217 Error

To the best of our knowledge, no one has experienced this problem with the full game. We did receive several reports of individuals having this error message pop up immediately after launching the game, and have two possible solutions;

Solution #1

1 Make sure DirectX 6.0 (or higher) is installed.

2 Make sure the latest video driver for your 2D card is installed.

3 Go to: Control Panel / Display / Settings / Advanced Properties / Performance, and make sure that Hardware Acceleration is NOT at the “None” setting. (Full is recommended)

4 After changing this setting, reset the machine, then try running the game again. Good luck!

Solution #2

1 If the above suggestion doesn’t correct the problem, try installing “old” drivers. I know this sounds strange, but one individual did report that when he reverted to the drivers that had come with his card - two year old drivers, mind you - the problem was solved. Go figure.

2 After installing the “old” drivers, restart the machine, and try running the game again. Good luck!

(FYI) Tested 3D Card Chipsets

The below chipsets have been tested and proven to run European Air War using the latest drivers;

3Dfx Voodoo 1, 3Dfx Voodoo 2, 3Dfx Voodoo Rush, 3Dfx Voodoo 2 SLI Mode, 3Dfx Banshee, ATI Rage Pro, ATI Rage Pro II, nVidia Riva 128, nVidia Riva 128 ZX, nVidia Riva TNT, Matrox Mystique, Matrox G100, Matrox G200, Rendition V1000, Rendition V2100

And if all else fails, you can always call MicroProse Customer Support…

Tel: 01 454 893900

9:00am - 5:30pm, Monday - Friday.