Seven Cities Of Gold

[Tom Henrik]

Feel free to comment and discuss this game here. Also, if you have any useful tips or tricks don't hesitate to share them with the others! Thanks!

Review (http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/318)

[Chef Boyardee]

Whoa, this game looks fantastic! I'm downloading it right away!

[Tyrfing]

Anyone else having difficulty doing anything but scrolling through the main menu? I can't select any options....

:sos:

[Dream]

Hmm I downloaded dosbox 0.63 but the game tends to collapse time from time, is this normal? Also when I sail the game always freezes for a few seconds and then I can sail again, but it sure is annoying...

[Dream]

Originally posted by Tyrfing@Nov 22 2004, 01:59 PM
Anyone else having difficulty doing anything but scrolling through the main menu? I can't select any options....

:help:
use ctrl to confirm things and open menus

[Sebatianos]

Yes for choosing use control.
About that freezing - well the C64 original did that also (it happened everytime you sailed from the clear open sea into either a storm or into shallow water).
About the craching part - son't remind me. The game had such a configuraton it didn't work in any other dosbox. Works in XP and VDMSound though (bot without a sound).

[Dream]

any other dosbox

I couldn't find any under which it would work, not even 0.63.

I'll try to run it in XP then.

[Sebatianos]

Well all the trouble people had with this game are described here (http://www.abandonia.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1436). Hope you find something you can use!

[Guest_captivus]

Hey 0 how am I supposed to build colonies?? Or mine? And what are priests for??

PS.
For unknown reasons I cant open the manual so please don't tell me to look for info in it

[squim]

i played this game a long time ago... there were little things that i wish they'd carried over from the 8-bit version that i thought were neat... there was more of a sense of discovery... when you found a new geographical feature you could name it etc... not the same... :not_ok:

[Sebatianos]

I really missed that one too. I remember how I loved naming the Everglades - my little gator-pool and stuff like that...
They ruined a great classic...

[TaloN]

such a classic. i jsut remember awlking into a huge village and slaughtering hundreds of them, before returning to my base camp and being nie on wiped out by surrounding tribes in revenge LOL

[Jonny Blaze]

Originally posted by Guest_captivus@Nov 27 2004, 10:37 PM
Hey 0 how am I supposed to build colonies?? Or mine? And what are priests for??

PS.
For unknown reasons I cant open the manual so please don't tell me to look for info in it
I think the some of the fun of playing these older games is figuring out how to play them without the manuals that would probably explain these things. Obviously, Some games are just too complicated for that. 7 Cities is not. Here's a hint in regards to your question: You have probably figured out that "dropping" a person it creates a camp. If you want to create other things you have to work on numbers and combinations...

[Makinus]

I figured out that 40 soldiers make a Fort and 10 (or 20, i don´t remember well) Clergy make a Mission, but my question is, what are the advatages of a Fort and/or a Mission? What they do, exactly?

I believe that with some big number of people it will become a colony, but what are the advantage of it? I stiil have to keep it supplied with food (at least the Fort and Mission do)?

[sopas]

simple question. How the hell do I find the land? I spend a lot of time in the sea sailing east until it says: "you must turn back or face mutiny!!!!!!!"

[sopas]

Hi again.

When trying to find the new world coast I can not pass of:

48 North Longitude
52 South Longitude
125 West Latitude

Any hints as to how to reach the new world???

[Sopas]

Originally posted by sopas@Mar 3 2005, 04:14 AM
Hi again.

When trying to find the new world coast I can not pass of:

48 North Longitude
52 South Longitude
125 West Latitude

Any hints as to how to reach the new world???
I just noticed that it only happens in the historical game option. When I play customized map I can reach the new world. Any reson for this????

[atteSmythe]

Hey, mates, some quick observations:

- The game runs great under Windows XP SP2
- If you change the command line options (or edit 7cog.bat), you can get some limited sound (Windows XP runs legacy soundblaster support for dos-mode programs). The command line should read:
7cities.exe -s -i5 -p220
- No freezing or crashing so far on my XP SP2 install, not running any emulators
- As mentioned above, ctrl is their enter/use key. alt will repeat the last item chosen from a menu, so you don't have to keep hitting ctrl twice to talk to native guides, for example.

Enjoy!

[Felipe]

Originally posted by sopas@Mar 3 2005, 12:59 AM
simple question. How the hell do I find the land? I spend a lot of time in the sea sailing east until it says: "you must turn back or face mutiny!!!!!!!"
Just use the left button. Don´t change the course going eather south or north and you will reach an island.

[kazamidori]

ok..i know i'm going to get hated for this..but..how the heck do i save my game?
heh..

i keep looking for the pub..but..heck..i'm not seeing it.... then i thought the log book might be the magic secret..but..

..*L* i'm not the swiftest player out there, you should have seen how long it took to figure out you have to put all your food back -then- your explorer..

ah..ot..i love this site! hoping to get a donation in soon-ish,..wont be much since it's on exchange rate..but...

its awesome to find games i remember getting when they were new (riders of rohan sticks out sine i could never get better than marginal victory..geh..*L*), or even playing some games when sounds cards were around.. ooh.. civ with non pcspeaker sound..the excitement..

anywhoo....

please, please don't kick my arse too hard.. but.... i'm so anal retentive about saving my game while playing.

[shootist]

You are supposed to sail WEST not EAST - haha....total lack of historical education....

[Sopas]

Originally posted by shootist@May 8 2005, 07:21 PM
You are supposed to sail WEST not EAST - haha....total lack of historical education....
Ups sorry. i meant west of course.
But the thing is that I still can't find land.

[Tharkad]

Anyone know what to do with natives after I trade in a village? Do I take them back to Spain?

[Sebatianos]

You can take them back to Spain or keep them as guides on your travels (there is supposed to be some benefit from it - like moving faster, not running out of food so soon, discovering things from a slightly greater difference), but personally I haven't found any difference what so ever.

[Tharkad]

When I return to my ship, it won't let me transfer the natives. It doesn't even show up in the list as an option.

[Sebatianos]

Yes, but you're not leaving them behind after you transfer everything to your ship (right?).
The Queen does sometimes revard you with extra money for your further explorations. But not always. Sometimes you get a warning that you need to be less violent with the natives. I remember that in the C64 version the Queen was more favorable if you had native guides, or made more monostaries.

[Tharkad]

I don't know if the natives are being transfered automatically or just disappearing. There are no natives in my inventory when I pull it up while sailing. It's like they escort me to my ship and then say "So long." Any ideas?

Is there a manual anyplace?

Thanks!

[Plavi]

How to download this game??? Please help!

[Sebatianos]

Sorry - can't help you there. The game is ESA protected - that means NO GO! It would be wrong of us to host it any longer and even worse to help you download it - because the game is not abandoned!

[Desertranger]

I would like to take a moment to answer several of the questions posted here.

I also had problems with finding land in one version I downloaded. I don't know what the problem is, but I took the time to explore as much of the bloody land as I possible could and found something quite disturbing. There was no land-- nothing whatsoever. The random new world generator worked fine, however. I later downloaded the same game from another source, and the historical new eorld worked fine. About saving your game and such, please just ignore EVERYTHING in that stupid manual. Why they even included it on the same site is beyond me. The manual is for the C64 version, which aside from bearing the same name, has little else in common. To save the game you can do so at any time by pressing escape and selecting save game, and pressing ctrl. As for the purpose of colonies, missions, etc., I have not been able to find my old manual that I got when I first purchased the game. When you first return from the new world, the king will say something to the effect of "establishing the crown in the new world". He means that he want YOU to take YOUR OWN personal fortune and establish colonies so HE can have the deepest dip into the vast foutunes this new world offers before the other superpowers of the times get a chance. By doing these tasks for the crown, they give you promotions in rank (you also get some for discovering large portions of land), which effect nothing in the game, but gives you something to shoot for if nothing else. For the natives, you cannot bring them onto the boat. You go sailing, they go packing. While travelling on land you have the option of "Ask native guide" , which will inform you of nearby food, caves (goldmines), sacred grounds (good source of artifacts but nothing gets the natives on your arse quicker), etc. Natives use less food per person, so they are good for use in carrying items, but the best help they are is working gold mines. You can get them almost free (as opposed to the great cost for hiring people in the old world). To create anything from a camp to a colony, use the drop off items option. Once something is left, you can return to it by walking into the mark left on the game world map. A gold mine works differantly however. Travel along mountains asking your native guide the intire way. When a mine is near, he will start saying sometihng like "cave in area". Continue on and when you get closer he will start saying "cave very close". At this point wander all over every pixel, working your way along the mountain range. With luck you'll hit the right spot and you'll go immediatly into the goldmine menu. From here, you can put men (any will do) and food (actually you can store anything here, but these will help the most). After doing so, leave and travel around for awhile. Once you come back you should have some gold mined!

[Sopas]

Originally posted by Desertranger@Jun 19 2005, 07:02 AM
I also had problems with finding land in one version I downloaded. I don't know what the problem is, but I took the time to explore as much of the bloody land as I possible could and found something quite disturbing. There was no land-- nothing whatsoever. The random new world generator worked fine, however. I later downloaded the same game from another source, and the historical new eorld worked fine.
Where is that other source where the historical new wold worked fine???

[blastradius14]

One of the other abandonware sites has this, I think its either Dos Community, The Joystick, or Home of the Underdogs. Look up Cities on freeoldies.com. If this helps anyone... have fun :ok:

[Sebatianos]

Blastradious:
If the game is not to be hosted (and it's not at the moment, because it's ESA protected) you should not give people the names of the sites where they can get it.
Unless those sites have a clear permision from ESA that's highly illegal and we don't support that kind of thing.

[CW]

How do I download it on Abandonia? I'm searching the whole site for a "Download 7CoG here" button and I can't find it. Sorry for my impatience but I really liked this game back in 1993 and I would like to enjoy it again. Can anyone send me the game file since it's a little over 1 MB? ***email removed. see next post as to why... - strobe Thanks.

[A. J. Raffles]

Originally posted by CW@Jul 23 2005, 04:44 PM
How do I download it on Abandonia? I'm searching the whole site for a "Download 7CoG here" button and I can't find it. Sorry for my impatience but I really liked this game back in 1993 and I would like to enjoy it again. Can anyone send me the game file since it's a little over 1 MB? ~~email removed Thanks.
Sorry, but the game is ESA-protected. We used to have the permission to host it, but we no longer have it, so asking for it basically amounts to asking for warez now.

[CW]

Originally posted by A. J. Raffles @ Jul 23 2005, 04:59 PM
Originally posted by CW[/i] @ Jul 23 2005, 04:44 PM
How do I download it on Abandonia? I'm searching the whole site for a "Download 7CoG here" button and I can't find it. Sorry for my impatience but I really liked this game back in 1993 and I would like to enjoy it again. Can anyone send me the game file since it's a little over 1 MB? ~~email removed Thanks.
Sorry, but the game is ESA-protected. We used to have the permission to host it, but we no longer have it, so asking for it basically amounts to asking for warez now.
Oh man... :cry:

Do you by any chance know anyone who can send me the file? I am just dying to play this game. :OK:

[Sebatianos]

That would be the Electronic Arts (but I somehow doubt you'd be able to convince them to just send you the copy).
There's always sites like ebay.

[nikolla]

great game, but
i have a problem when returning to ships, it wont let me transfer all soldiers or explorers and horses to ship, so i cant sail, because if i left only one explorer on land i cant set sail, and if he dies the game is over??????

[Sebatianos]

You can leave people in villages only. When you return to ships you probably have a lot of gold, food or goods with you - so your ships are too full. It's better to leave some fod or even gold behind, because you can't leave people on the shore (only in villages/missions/forts).

[nikola]

thanx man, it helped a lot

[Sebatianos]

You're welcome Nikola :OK:

[Grrrrr]

do the colonies ever become self sustaining?

[Nick Archer]

Good to see this game's available, used to play the Amiga version back in 1986 on the Amiga 1000! Using Kickstart V.1.0! Havent played the C64 version or on the PC, will check this one out! This website is GREAT!

I loved exploring the coast and inland, I suppose Sid Meir's Pirates was better though (even new versions of that available!)

[laiocfar]

I also wanna know that: do the colonies ever become self sustaining or at least produce something?
In my last(only) game ended when i realized the huge amount of food to carry from europe to america.

[blazer-glory]

What another versions were there? A couple of people here say its not as good as the versions they played in the past.

[lwoodbloo]

I have the manual for this version (bought it and the old one back in the day!) Does anyone have specific questions I can answer?

[powerwis]

Hi guys,

1/ is there an end to the game ?
2/ do i need to bring food to forts/missions/colonies or do they produce food ?
3/ are there really seven cities of gold to find ?

thanks for your help

[Guest_Sebatianos_*]

3 - There are cities which yeild a lot of gold when plundered, they're the cities of gold (the Aztec and even more the Incan cities), but there will be no special notification.
2 - No, they don't produce their own food, so you will need to supply it and you may also want to supply people (don't forget you only have males, so no reproduction possible).
1 - I've never reached the end, but I've read in one of the magazines back in the eighties (when the original game first came out) that the game ends when you have discovered everything (100% on the map) - as I said, I never got that far, never beyond 88%.

[narses]

I can't get this game to run.

If I try to run it in XP, I get some error message. I also have dosbox and use it for other programs, but when I tell it to run the exe, it says 'file not found'. :tai:

[Sebatianos]

Sounds like there's a path problem.

Are you sure you're running the EXE file and there's no BAT file with the same name? In that case the BAT file would run and it might point to a certain directory. In that case you should edit the BAT file.

[Guest]

I think, like I was, you're lacking a subfolder, and every file is located in the main 7cities folder. What you should do is to make a folder "m52". In this, you put every file, except:

7cities.exe, (7cog.bat*,) 7cog.ad, adlib.adv, dock.xmi, land.smp, newworld.riv, sbdig.adv, sbfm.adv, sea.smp, splash.voc, terrain.xmi, testblas.exe, theme.xmi, trbscrn.xmi, values.cfg, village.xmi.

* You may not have this bat file. If so you can make one yourself:
Open notepad, and type:

7cities.exe -s -i7 -p220

Save this as "7cog.bat" so this means to change the file extension from *.txt to *.bat.

Now you can start "7cog" and play the game with sound.

Good luck

[tobsen]

a short remark on settlements:

Fort: needs a minimum population of 70 and a certain percentage of soldiers (e.g. 48 explorers + 22 soldiers)
Mission: needs a minimum population of 150 of which at least 10 have to be clerks
Colony: needs a minimum population of 301 of which at least 5 are clerks

The manual available on abandonia states that u need to have at least 3 forts, 1 mission and 1 colony to win the game. I tried this and when i returned to Spain the King told me something like: "Yourr mission to open a gateway to the New World was a succes!" and promoted me to Commander, however I didn't get an end of game sequence or anything. I could just continue playing, so I don't know if it did the trick.

[Geezer]

The original release of this game was in 1984 by Electronic Arts and Ozark Softscape. If the game is ok to download I will create an archive of the original (PC Booter) and scan the manuals, box etc and maybe we can have the original release archive be an extra that can be downloaded from the page for the 1993 version.

[Picollo]

i cant find the original 7 cities of gold, does it exist for PC?

[Geezer]

i cant find the original 7 cities of gold, does it exist for PC?

Yes (see post above). PC Booter.

[Dave]

The original release of this game was in 1984 by Electronic Arts and Ozark Softscape. If the game is ok to download I will create an archive of the original (PC Booter) and scan the manuals, box etc and maybe we can have the original release archive be an extra that can be downloaded from the page for the 1993 version.
Indeed, what we offer for download is the Commemorative edition released later. You can upload the material. Thank you JMB :)

[Yaddy1]

So where can I get the original?

[gumpy]

So where can I get the original?

Retrograde station has it, but it isn't a 100% copy, the random map generator does not work in their copy.

http://retrograde.trustno1.org/index2.htm

[bigPizzal]

Hey everyone. I have been playing the game and I would like to start messing around with the values file that helps you alter stuff in the game. Problem is that it doesn't seem to recognize it. Any time i change something and go into the game its just like normal. Any help would be great

[Midgetlegs]

I realize it was only just asked (uh, a few months ago) but I'm having the same trouble with the values file. Just wondering how to fix this.

[DalTXColtsFan1]

I realize it was only just asked (uh, a few months ago) but I'm having the same trouble with the values file. Just wondering how to fix this.

This game looks fun but your explorers run out of food wwwwwwaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy too quickly - I'd love to be able to change these settings and actually make the game, I don't know, PLAYABLE!

Please let me know if you find an answer to your question. Thanks.

[DalTXColtsFan1]

Well, I figured out that horses and patience are big helps. I started off with about 20 explorers and about 50 horses, and about a year's worth of food. You need to keep track of how many natives you bring with you because you don't want to accidentally end up with more men than horses. Trade and trade and trade and trade - between the horses and the natives you'll be shocked how much you can carry. As a matter of fact, I couldn't fit everything they carried on the ship! I had to just take the gold back, come back with another ship, trade and explore some more, and I had more loot than I could carry on TWO ships!

By the way, the spices and artefacts seem to be worth a TON of money. I haven't done the math, but it almost seems like it's better to take the spices or artefacts your first time and come back for the gold.

Just stay patient and keep coming back with more ships each time and by your 6th voyage you should have enough money for an army, especially if you were lucky enough to find cultured civilations early - they're rich, and they replenish themselves quickly!

I'll post more as I play more.

[DalTXColtsFan1]

The point with the horses is when you're on horseback you use TONS less food. And when you have natives with you you lose even less yet because they can hunt for you.

[DalTXColtsFan1]

I've "beaten" the game. Post if you have any questions.

[Ultor]

maybe i´m just too stupid, but i really can´t figure out how to return to spain after you´ve landed in the new world.
how can you get that last explorer onto the ship?
thanks in advance

[DalTXColtsFan2]

maybe i´m just too stupid, but i really can´t figure out how to return to spain after you´ve landed in the new world.
how can you get that last explorer onto the ship?
thanks in advance

I think you have to put everything you're carrying onto the ship before you put the last explorer on the ship. If you're carrying more than you can fit on the ship (which is probable if you have native bearers and horses), you have you create a cache on land and dump a bunch of stuff that won't fit on the ship, come back with more ships, and *then* load it onto the ship.

Hope this helps.

[Ultor]

Well, obviously I was too stupid ;)
Thanks a lot!

[DalTXColtsFan2]

Well, obviously I was too stupid ;)
Thanks a lot!

No problem. If you have any more questions, please ask! Good luck, hope you enjoy the game!

[Guest]

Is anyone having a problem with save games not actually saving? I try to load a saved game, and my position and current inventory are, but all structures disappear, all settlements, goldmines, etc. just gone. And a side note, what is he difference from the original release and commemorative? bug fixes? additional features? Anyway, any help with this save game issue would be appreciated, as it takes hours to accomplish anything of note.