Vermeer     (C) 1987  Ariolasoft
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Sylvester 1917. The most expensive art collection of the world is lost...

The first world war is raging in Europe. While being transported, one of
the most valuable art collections of Europe is lost in the new year's 
night of 1918. The owner of that collection was Walter von Gruenschild, a
business boss.

On new year's day of 1918 the possible heirs are called into Walter’s villa
and von Gruenschild tells then, that he had some thoughts about the one heir
of hall his plantations worldwide.

His successor is expected to be a clever plantation owner and business expert,
but he also has to bring back the most valuable part of the art collection.

The only hint about the collection leads to somebody called Lugiani, alias 
Vico Vermeer. Vico is known as one of the leading art fakers of his time.
Some of the pictures appear on international art auctions and the possible
heir has to invest his money plantations all around the world and try to raise
money with trading coffee, tea, tabac and cacao to purchase the pictures.
Additionally he tries to make sone money using the stock exchange.


STARTING THE GAME
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You can either continue and load an old game or start a new game. Enter the
amount of players and their names. The 1 player option should be regarded as
training mode.


AIM OF THE GAME
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Make the most money to buy the pictures of the collection and you will be
mentioned as heir in yon Gruenschild’s testament. Their are two ways:
1. By farming and trading coffee, tea, tabac and cacao.
2. Through investments at the stock exchange in the ship lines Lloyd, Star,
   Hanse, Royal and the dollar rate.
   
Unfortunately their are a lot of fake pictures. The instable world markets due
to the political situation make investnents hard — inflation! You can win a
lot, but also lose everything. It is possible that a putsch in one country
takes all your plantations away.


CONTROLS
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The game is menù controlled by keyboard or joystick. Choose a menù topic or set
an amount pressing up and down.

Choose digit of a value with left and righ. Press RETURN or FIRE to confirm.
Select EXIT to return to the last menù. To exit a number selection, use a zero
value (0000). If there is a symbol infront of menù item, then this item is not
available right now.


MAIN MENU'
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The menù offers this information:
name current player, location, money, current date, date and place of the next
auction. The menù structure:
   TRAVEL        -18 cities -Stay
   BANK          -Ship lines -Dollar -Credits
   MARKET        -Buy/sell -Transport -Dates
   AUCTION
   COLLECTION    -8 categories -Accessories 
   OVERVIEW      -Save -Plantations - Auctions
   
The game currrency is MARK (M). Area is measured in HECTARE (HA). Weight is
measured in CENTRUM WEIGHT (CWT).


TRAVEL
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You will have to travel between your plantations and the main storages in
London and New York. Later in the game you have to visit the auctions. While
travelling, you can't do anything else. Choose a destination from the menù and
map. If one destination is not selectable, you have to travel to another place
first and advance from there. The travel costs are shown. If you have not enough
money, you cannot travel and will be asked if you want to stay. Choose YES and
you will stay for 14 days. You can also select the menù item STAY and enter the
wanted duration. The time for the journey depends on the transportation.
LONDON - ANKARA takes about days by train while LONDON — NEW Y0RK takes ca. 14
days by ship.


FARMING OF COFFEE, TABAC, TEA, CACAO
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1. You have to be at the place where you want to farm.
2. You need seeds (buy on the market).
3. You need to buy land (plantations).
4. You need workers (ca. 1 per hectare).

You can plant seeds when the first three points are met. The success of a 
plantation depends on:
1. Which seeds are farmed in which land.
2. Do the seeds prefer wet or dry earth (close to a river or not).
3. If the earth is emaciated.
4. The amount of plantation workers.
5. The worker's wages.

Until there is no more space available, every player can plant up to three
types of seeds per land. This neans that there can be up to three plantations
per land. The price raises with every piece of land bought. Selling land brings
less money. If there were seeds on the sold land, then 3/4 are added to your
storage.

The crops are put in the storages, which are separated for each player and
state. You can't sell the crop from there, you need to transport it to London
or New York where you can also arrange trades in futures. The freight costs
depend on the distance, the amount and the kind of trasportation.

Controls for buying land:
Choose the menù item BUY and the cursor will appear. Move the cursor and select
to buy a field. As long as the bought land is next to bought land, it counts
for the same plantation. You can use it for one type of seed only then. Leave a
piece of land unused in between to begin a new plantation where you can plant
different seeds. Add land to an already planted plantation and it will directly
be farmed with that seed, too (as long as seeds are available).

Controls foe selling land:
Choose SELL and move the cursor. A plantation is always sold in one piece and 3/4
of the planted seeds are added to your storage.

Controls for planting seeds:
Select FARMING from the menù, select a type of seed and move the cursor. Plantations
are farmed as a whole. You can't plant when you have too few seeds.

Landreform:
A landreform is needed for the exchange of seeds. This is needed when the earth
is exhausted or you need another ware for trades in futures. Plantations are
reset to willows and are united then. 3/4 of the planted seeds are added to
your storage.


MARKET
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You see the current prices and the conditions in the storages. You can buy seeds
or transport crops to London or New York in order to sell them.

You can also watch the dates and places of your trades in futures and storages
in London and New York here.


WORKERS
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Wiring workers doesn’t cost money, but their wages do. To avoid strikes, you
better react on the worker's requests for higher wages. Poaching workers from
other players costs money, but the other players loose their workers then.


BANK
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Visit the bank to buy and sell shares of shipping lines or dollars. A safe takes
up to 32000 shares. Normally your safes are closed so that the other players can
not see how many shares you have. You can also take up or redeem a credit of up to
32000 Mark, but watch the rate.


TRADE OF COFFEE, TABAC, TEA, CACAO
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The goods can be sold in London and New York. Now and then you will be offered
trades in futures which you can accept or deny. Such a deal is based upon a
set date, ware, place and price — which normally is above the regular price. If
you fail to deliver, you have to pay a penalty. It might be cheaper to purchase
wares or transport them between London and New York instead. Normal selling is
based on daily prices.


AUCTIONS
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Auctions are held in Berlin, Amsterdan, Paris, Lisbon, London and New York. Try
to fetch as many pictures as your money allows — especialy real Vermeer! You do
not bid alone and there are also fakes, which are called "A real Vico Vermeer“.
To visit an auction: be on time in the mentioned city and choose AUCTION. When
there is currently no auction, this menù item will show the dates, places and
pictures of upcoming auctions.

Vico is always bidding. If there are several players in town for an auction, all
of them are bidding. You see the name of the player beneath a red bar. Press your
button to place a bid within this time limit and your nane will be shown as the
leading bid above. Then it is the next player's turn of bidding. This procedure 
ends when no player or Vico places a higher bid anymore.


COLLECTION
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When you bought at least one picture (or won it in the new year's rafffle), you
can watch your collectiion. New pictures are shown in ACCESSIONS first. Before
sorting it into your collection, you should VERIFY that it is an original art
and not “a real Vico Vermeer“ fake. This does not mean, that for exanple picture
no. 5 is always a fake. You can always offer one picture for sale at the next
auction, but only exactly one picture at the same time. 


OVERVIEW
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This shows the trues and amounts of your stored wares in London and New York, the
conditions of the plantations, the dates of your trades and the date, place and
picture of the next auction. And you can save the current game data to disk. Old
game files are overwritten without any warning.


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
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— The game begins on Jan., 1st 1918 and ends when all 40 pictures are sorted into
  the collections. The winner is mentioned in the testament then.
— The most important news are shown in the form of headlines and have effect on the
  current situation.
— There are also personal messages now and then. These can be positive or negative.
— Now and then Vico will invide you to a ride, but you can fail trades during that
  ride unfortunately.
— At the end of each month, there is a report of shares and dollar values, the current
  inflation and the rate of interest. Press you button to proceed.
— There is a picture prize draw every new year and the current standings are shown
  by moved boxes. The more the box is move to the right, the closer this player is
  to win the game.


STRATEGY HINTS
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1. Take credit of 32000 M and travel to Ankara.
2. 2 plantations, each 35 hectares, farm with tabac (about 30000 M remaining).
3. Hire 70 workers at 1.00 daily wage.
4. 30 days stay (crop should be ca. 50).
5. Add 2 hectares to plantations and transport crop to London.
6.  Raise workers by 20. 30 days stay.
7. Whole crop to London. Travel to London. Sell crops there.
8. Travel to Ankara. Enlarge plantations until you have about 15000 Mark remaining.
   Hire workers (one worker per hectare).
9. 30 day stay. Crop to London. Travel to London. Sell crop. Travel Ankara. Enlarge
   plantations. 30 days stay. 
10. Continue this until you have the plantation is complete.
11. Farm tea in Monbasa until the plantation is complete.
12. Start buying pictures as soon as you got your first million Marks.


BUG NOTE
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There a slight bug in the original of VERMEER which looks strange, but doesn't harm
the game: if you want to travel, but have not enough money, the game asks about 
staying. If you answer N0 and instantly choose STAY from the menù, the game will
show the travel animation instead of the staying scene for the set duration — this
might exceed the text line then.


THE BEST PLACES FOR FARMING EACH WARE
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                     ------------------------------------
                     | Coffee | Tabac  |  Tea   | Cacao |
 --------------------------------------------------------			  
 |Ankara             | --     | +++    | ++     | --    |
 |Bombay             | --     | +++    | ++     | --    |
 |Colombo            | --     | -      | ++     | --    |
 |Munbasa            | ++     | -      | ++     | --    |
 |Duala              | ++     | -      | --     | ++    | 
 |Abidjan            | ++     | -      | --     | ++    | 
 |Rio                | ++     | +++    | --     | ++    |
 |Bogota             | ++     | -      | --     | ++    |
 |Guatemala          | ++     | -      | --     | --    |
 |Mexico             | ++     | +++    | --     | --    |
 |Richmond           | --     | +++    | --     | --    | 
 |St. Louis          | --     | +++    | --     | --    | 
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 THE LIST OF PICTURES
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 VERMEER        01 Vermeer    02 Vermeer    03 Vermeer    04 Vermeer    05 Vermeer
 BAROQUE        06 Rembrandt  07 Hals       08 Rubens     09 Breughel   10 Murillo
 CLASSICISM     11 David      12 Goya       13 Ingres     14 Chardin    15 Millet
 ROMANTIC       16 Turner     17 Constable  18 Gericault  19 Friedrich  20 Runge
 IMPRESSIONISM  21 Monet      22 Pissaro    23 Cezanne    24 Degas      25 Renoir
 SYMBOLISM      26 Moreau     27 Klimt      28 Holder     29 Whistler   30 Khnopff
 EXPRESSIONISM  31 Derain     32 Kirchner   33 Marc       34 MAcke      35 Munch
 MODERN         36 Van Gogh   37 Gaugin     38 Klee       39 Picasso    40 Braque
 
 -END-