Changing fonts in Pride of Nations

I picked up PoN from a Bundlestar sale about a week ago. The tutorials had tiny text explaining the game--so small I got a headache the first time I tried to read them. Today I figured out how to mod the text!

Go to your VGN directory. This is usually something like Program Files(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Pride of Nations\VGN

Then go to GameData. Scroll down to the text file Fonts. Make a backup copy. Open the Fonts file with Notepad or other text editor. You can see how all the fonts used in the game are described. For example the Font#0 is shown below:

// Font #0 - Small
{Font}
Verdana (True Type)

9
0
0
{/Font}

The 9 refers to the font size. I changed this to 11. Do the same for most of the other fonts. If it's smaller than 11, change it to 11. Font#6 I left as is, figuring the game might need some tiny fonts for icon text. Font#8 was in 10 point bold, so that one was good enough and left it.

Restarted the game, and voila! Tutorial and popup text are now big enough to read.

The text though went outside the tutorial window. There doesn't seem to be a way to change the size of the window---it appears to be a bitmap file.  But there is a workaround.

Go to VGN\FrontEnd directory. Find the TutorWin fte file. You'll  have to pick Notepad manually to open the file. Find the following bit of text:

// max nb of char for each line of text
Param1 = 80

As shown, the program puts 80 characters for each line of text. I changed this to 65 (Param1 = 65). The text no longer scrolls off the right side of the window. I could probably bump it to 68 or 70, but so far I'm  happy with 65. A few lines scrolls off the bottom of the window, but its workable. There are other files there like ColonialWin I may change in the future as I play the game, but as of today, I haven't done so.

Very happy I figured this out, because I was worried my $4 for the bundle was wasted. Hopefully this helps another person with progressive lens or bifocals enjoy the game.