Roadwar 2000 for Atari ST by Strategic Simulations, Inc., Westwood, screenshot, dump, ads, commercial, instruction, catalogs, roms, review, scans, tips, video. Roadwar 2000 is a 1986 video game published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. It is a turn-based strategy game set in a post-apocalyptic future which resembles the world portrayed in the Mad Max films.
Roadwar 2000 is a post-apocalyptic strategy game. In the year 2000, bacteriological warfare has nearly destroyed civilization. Crime flourished, and highways turned into battlegrounds between different gangs. The protagonist is a leader of one of these gangs. Roadwar 2000 seems to be his first title as the lead developer and programmer, and he lent support to Rings of Zilfin the same year. After Roadwar Europa (1987), there's an 8-year gap in his resume before he shows up as the co-designer of a strategy game called Stars!
ROADWAR 2000 WALKTHROUGH BY DALTXCOLTSFAN
I don't know why I became so obsessed with this game, but once I finally beat it I was VERY glad I took the time to figure it out. This was a VERY immersive game, complex in its simplicity, and different every time you play.
There is no 'set walkthrough' - you have to be able to manage your resources, plan your routes, and take notes, because the game is different every time you play.
First and foremost, you will want to play version 1.2 of the game, especially if you're going to play in an emulator. 1.0 is buggy and will suddenly and without warning just quit. The version number will be on the opening screen:
It will NOT always be possible to win the game. If an enemy encounter early in the game goes bad, just quit and start over. It can be frustrating sometimes, like when you spend 2 hours playing and then a mutant encounter wipes you out, or when you run out of food and can't find any to (literally) save your life, but it's worth it to stick it out long enough to get started.
Once you've amassed a good-sized army, discipline yourself to save the game every 10 minutes, because you WILL run into unpleasant surprises at certain points later in the game.
Roadwar 2000 Games
If you have access to the manual, READ IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is full of little tidbits and commands that will help you along at various points in the game. It's also an entertaining read!
Here are some general suggestions to get you started:
GETTING STARTED
Roadwar 2000 Game Free
The first thing you need to do is amass and army and supplies sufficient for exploring without starving to death or getting killed. I recommend building up all of these attributes before you even START looking for the scientists.
Since you start out with only 8 men, your first priority needs to be to gather between 75 and 100 men so that when you get attacked you don't get your entire army wiped out. This is easier said than done since you start out with only one vehicle that only holds 8 people! So start looking for (V)ehicles in whatever town you're in. If you find 3 or 4 good-sized vehicles before you get attacked by a gang, great. If not, start over. No shame in it!
Once you have enough vehicles to hold around 75 men, start looking for (P)eople to join your gang. When asked to send envoys, always send between 8 and 20 men - too few and they'll see you as a bunch of wimps and attack. Too many and if you run into cannibals they'll all die anyway. If you amass 75 people before getting wiped out by the enemy, great! If not, start over. By the way, I personally have found that more than 150 men is just not necessary at ANY stage of the game and is often counterproductive. The more men you have the more quickly you consume food and end up starving to death, and even at the end when you start facing Invader Death Squads, as long as most of your 150 men are armsmasters or bodyguards and your vehicles are well upgraded you shouldn't have a problem winning those battles.
While looking for men and vehicles, guess what? You might run out of food or gas! If that happens, dust yourself off and start over. If you see food start getting low, search for (L)oot.
Once you have a reasonably stable starting point of men, vehicles, food and gas, eventually you will want all 6 of your vehicles to be either a bus, trailer truck or flatbed truck. Anything else is just a waste of time in this game - you need to be able to hold around 150 men and just max out food, gas, tires, guns, medicine, antitoxin etc. Other vehicles than these 3 are just way too small.
I recommend that you visit Dallas and Houston as soon in the game as possible - you will find fuel and food additives that allow you to consume food and fuel at half the normal rate. You will not believe how much less tedious and frustrating this makes the game! If your food or fuel accidentally go down to 0, you lose these additives. This is why I recommend disciplining yourself to save the game every 10 minutes.
You will also want to visit Pittsburgh, Detroit, Indianapolis and Santa Monica as early in the game as possible. All four of these cities give you improvements to your vehicles and Santa Monica gives you a bunch of other neat little bonuses as well. What *I* recommend is to wait until all 6 of your vehicles are a bus, flatbed truck or trailer truck and THEN go visit these four cities, then SAVE THE GAME, and the moment you lose one of these six original vehicles in a combat, quit and restore the game from your most recent save. That way you'll always have 6 greatly-upgraded vehicles not just from these four starter towns, but you will occasionally find improvements for your vehicles while (L)ooting.
I believe Chicago Illinois has snow tires. Honestly I'm not sure what effect these have on the game.
You will eventually need Antitoxin. It's hard to find. You need to amass medicines, and then each time you visit a town, search for (P)eople for 2 to 3 days per town. If there are healers in the town, you will be able to trade medicine for antitoxin. If you run into mutants before you find a good supply of antitoxin you're hosed - quit and start over. Once you find healers in a town (and lots of towns have healers), you will always be able to go back to that same town for more antitoxin.
ROAD COMBAT
You will inevitably encounter road gangs throughout the game, often at inopportune times. Here are my thoughts:
ALWAYS answer yes when asked to fight detailed road combat. If you do not, the computer will automatically select a 50% ram ratio. I saw on another walkthrough site that the walkthrough author recommended that you never ram. I followed this suggestion and noticed a HUGE statistical difference in how often I lost vehicles when I didn't ram vs. when I did - FAR less often you lose vehicles if you never ram. If you don't fight detailed road combat it automatically chooses a 50% ram ratio for you - you'll lose cars a LOT.
ALWAYS auto-deploy unless you enjoy a lot of tedium. I never needed to custom-deploy to win the game.
When it asks if you want to use quick combat, I always answered yes. Abstract road combat (what it goes into if you say no) is just not necessary. The manual says that each time you win an abstract road combat it increases the maximum number of vehicles you can take by one. I had no trouble winning the game with 'only' 6 vehicles.
I always say 0 ram ratio and always set priorities at 1 - top, 1 - interior and 8 - tires. This was another tip I got from another walkthrough and it really does seem to work - I noticed a huge statistical difference in how many cars the enemies lost when I concentrated on the tires.
VERY IMPORTANT: AFTER A ROAD COMBAT, IMMEDIATELY (F)IX FLAT TIRES, AND AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, GO TO A TOWN AND (L)OOT UNTIL YOU FIND SOMEWHERE TO GET YOUR VEHICLES REPAIRED. Like a Taxi Garage, High School/College, Shopping Mall, Bus Depot etc. You will lose vehicles in road combat far less often if you remember to do this after every combat.
SEARCHING FOR THE SCIENTISTS
When you're ready to start looking for the scientists, the first thing you need to do is take over a couple towns. Smaller towns are easier to take over. Just keep searching for (P)eople and getting into fights and you'll take it over. You can also scout the (C)ity. You might lose a few men, but every now and then the town is controlled by NO ONE and is (therefore) easy to take over.
I've seen on other walkthroughs that when you take over a couple towns, you need to stay in the same area before you'll be contacted by the first government agent (who says 'The GUB wants you! The password is panacea.'). I was unable to observe a statistical correlation here. Sometimes the government agent appears 5 minutes into the game, sometimes I'll have been playing for 4 hours and he NEVER appears! It's one of the frustrating parts, sure enough, but be patient - it's worth it, and once you find the lab (the 3rd of the random steps), there is no more guessing.
The next thing that happens is another agent, at random (and it can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 4 hours), will say, 'Hey, ever heard of the GUB?' and when you answer yes he'll say, 'Oh yeah? What's the password?' When you type in the password, he'll tell you where the GUB is. Once you know where the GUB is, all of the random guessing and waiting is over (THANK GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!). You can save the game in total assurance that you are in complete control.
Next, go to the town the agent told you and spend a day or two searching for (P)eople. The leader of the lab will eventually identify himself and ask you to try to find the eight scientists. Once he has given you this instruction, and ONLY once you have been given this instruction, you will need to go out and search every single town on the map for (P)eople for about 2 to 3 days per town, even towns you've already taken over and/or already searched. When you find an agent, you will see a screenshot like this:
Once you find a scientist, return to the city where the GUB is and search for (P)eople again. You do not have to return to the lab each time you find a scientist. But each time you do return one you will see a message like this:
You *will* receive a few shortcuts along the way so that you don't have to manually search all 128 towns :). A couple times an agent will whisper from the shadows that a certain scientist is in a certain region. The manual will tell you which towns correspond with which regions. Also, after you return 5 or 6 scientists, the GUB will give you an RF indicator which when you use it (I can't remember which letter it is but I think it's (U)se RF indicator) will tell you in which direction a scientist is.
By the way, as I said above, having more than 150 to 200 soldiers in your army is just not necessary to win the game and can cause you to consume food so quickly you end up starving. What I do, even though it seems cruel, is once I have around 150 soldiers, I (F)ire a volley every time 'A group of people on foot eyes me from a distance'. They either flee, or you get to upgrade your soldiers more quickly. An army of 150 armsmasters absolutely owns!
As I mentioned a little bit above, you will run into Invader Death Squads once you've found 6 or 7 scientists. These are the toughest road gangs you will encounter, but as long as you kept your original 6 vehicles and you aim for the tires and never ram, you shouldn't have much trouble defeating them by that point in the game. Just remember to discipline yourself to save the game every 10 minutes so that you don't lose more than 10 minutes of play when something goes wrong.
A NEAT SURPRISE
Toward the end of the game you will run into a military courier plane that takes you to a deserted island! It doesn't have much impact on the game but it's fun. Here are some screenshots, and I hope I got them in at least MOSTLY the right order! Basically, when you board the plane, a little trial and error and you'll figure out which button starts the engine, which closes the door, which takes off, which lands, etc. The button to take off won't work while the door is open for example. You'll eventually land on a deserted island that was the headquarters of the invaders and find out that they got it worse than the United States!
THE ENDGAME
To win the game, all you have to do is deliver the eight scientists to the GUB. The game did a pretty good job of providing fanfare at the end - I HATE games where you bust your hump for weeks, months, years to solve it and then it just says 'You won!' and ends!