CivCity released

Gothmog · October 7, 2000, 06:37

Version 1 of CivCity is now available for download.
CivCity is a program to help you set cities up in the
scenario file. Learn more about it at http://users.sgi.net/~harden/utils.html

Because some of the feedback I got during the Beta test, version 1 looks somewhat different than the Beta Version. Please note that it doesn't do Test of Time files; I have yet to crack the code for that.

Panda · October 7, 2000, 11:50

Gothmog: thank you, thank you, thank you. This is fantastically wonderful.

1. How easy would it be to do updates if we find out anything more? And should we tell you?

2. Are you thinking of making any more "hacking made easy" programs like this? Say, for the map data or leader information?

PDG.

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"The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on" - anon

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed" - President Eisenhower

October 7, 2000, 14:47

Will it work for ToT?

DarthVeda · October 7, 2000, 15:00

Not yet but I've been badgering him about making it for ToT

Prometeus · October 7, 2000, 15:02

I playtested it for my Antigonos scenario... It works great !!!!

C0ckney · October 7, 2000, 16:06

Yeah it worked great for Napoleon (which incidently will be realsed soon (albeit without the multiple events.txt files

)) as well, another wonderful addition to the scenario designers tool kit

Gothmog · October 9, 2000, 08:27

Andrew, I have no new projects in mind. I plan only to maintain CivCity and CivTweak.

If anyone could tell me how to locate the map data in a Test of Time file, I could include ToT in CivCity. In versions prior to ToT, the map data was in a fixed location; in ToT it's in a variable location and I don't know how to find it.

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"There is no tiddle-taddle nor pibble-pabble in Pompey's camp."

PolarisGL · October 9, 2000, 10:37

Hey Gothmog,

I totally forgot about your things you wanted me to playtest, but I remember sending you a substantial amount of feedback on your scenario. My apologies for not testing this out, but it looks great so far.

techumseh · October 9, 2000, 14:19

Gothmog, these are great programs! In your analysis of the civ files, have you run across anything that would allow changes to the size which triggers a change in the city graphics? Eg. small city until size 4, medium from 5-8, and so on? It would be a great help for scenarios if we could control that parameter.

Gothmog · October 10, 2000, 06:24

Techumseh;
I have not seen anything that would allow you to control the city graphics. However, tribes with the industrial advance need one more population to display the next city graphic. Example pre-industrial cities use the first graphic for populations of 1-4; post industrial cities use the first graphic for populations of 1-5.
Polaris;
I'm just glad you're still with us.

Angelo Scotto · October 10, 2000, 15:40

Gothmog:
Are you sure that TOT doesn't use static position for Map structure?
I'm pretty sure that you can find the map section at 0x74cc from the beginning of SCN/SAV TOT file, i used this info in CivConverter and it worked well with all scenarios (I heard you!

Problems of civconverter are caused by other things...).
BTW Have you discovered how TOT saves infos about transporter sites?

Angelo
[This message has been edited by Angelo Scotto (edited October 10, 2000).]

Kull · October 10, 2000, 16:49

Gothmog: As you may have noticed from the "Windows 2000 & Batch Files" thread, those of us with NT versions of Windows are unable to use delevent.exe to strip events out of Saved game files. Is that a feature you could add to CivTweak? Based on Allard's comments, it should be a fairly straightforward piece of programming (said the non-programmer!)

If it's doable, it would be appreciated!

Angelo Scotto · October 12, 2000, 15:00

Ok, i solved the mystery and found that we both were right;
You were right because Map section is no more static and i was right because the reason of this is that Tot programmers added a dinamical Transporter sites list just before map structure (and this means that civconverter still believe the address is static since in original Civ2 scenarios there are no transporter sites).
Anyway, the transporter list starts at 0x74c8 with a DWORD containing the nr of transporter sites placed on maps and continue with 7 WORDs for each site; so, the correct way to check out Map section address is:

1)Read Nr of sites at 0x74c8 (Remember, a DWORD);
2)Go to 0x74c8+(2*2)+(7*2*Nr) address

If all goes well you'll be at the beginning of the Map section.

NOW I WANT A TOT VERSION OF CIVCITY!!!

Angelo

techumseh · October 13, 2000, 01:47

Me too!

Gothmog · October 13, 2000, 10:32

Angelo,
By a word do you mean 2 bytes, and a dword (doubleword?) 4 bytes? It also seems that the location of the map header depends upon the flavor of ToT you're playing, such as original, sci-fi, and fantasy.
But maybe that is all explained by this transporter site stuff.

Once this mapheader location question is settled, the next question is how long the map section is. I am thinking it must be at least 4 times (4 maps) as long as classic civ, but again this might vary according to ToT flavor. What did you find with the original flavor?

Angelo Scotto · October 14, 2000, 07:17

Gothmog,
yes, for a WORD i mean 2 bytes and for a DWORD i mean a doubleword, so 4 bytes; i'll search if this scheme changes between Fantasy, Sci-fi or extended

About Map Section,
Tot makes slight adjustment to Civ2 Map structures (looking my notes i read that it adds a WORD between map header and first map block and adds also 7 WORDS between 2nd and 3rd map block BTW the first word of these words must be equal to map seed number because TOT looks here instead that in the header)
Anyway i'm sure about a thing, if you use a single map you'll have ONLY ONE map in the sav file as in a Civ2 original SAV games (only 7+1=8 WORDs longer), but if you use 2, 3 or 4 maps you will have 2,3 or 4 data structures appended at the first map section while the map header is always the same.
I know this is not very clear so just ask me everything you want me to explain better.

Angelo

Gothmog · October 14, 2000, 08:01

I've been digging into this myself. Your formula works perfectly to get to the map header. It also looks like the map header in ToT is 16 bytes (used to be 14). The extra word is an integer that indicates how many extra maps there are. So for the extended game the number is 1; for the sci-fi and fantasy the number is 3.

What I need to know now is the number of slack bytes between the actual map data and the unit table. It seems to vary depending on whether you're in the orginal game, the extended game, the scifi game or the fantasy game.

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"There is no tiddle-taddle nor pibble-pabble in Pompey's camp."

Angelo Scotto · October 19, 2000, 15:33

Unfortunately, actually i haven't time to look in scn structure again, but probably next week i'll try to decode this number of slack bytes, anyway this is what i've discovered with civconv. :
In original games this number is always the same even if it growns enormously since Civ2;
in Civ2 we had something as 0x400 bytes while in Tot we have 0x2800; i'm not sure about exact numbers for a couple of reasons, anyway the important thing is that (at least for original flavor) you can calculate an exact offset and solve in this way your problem.

Gothmog · October 20, 2000, 18:42

Angelo,
Do you think it would be worthwhile to make a version of CivCity that could only handle the 'original' version? I'm sitting on the fence on this question. On the one hand, people want a ToT version and maybe something would be better than nothing; on the hand an 'original' only version would leave people who wanted to use mulitple maps out in the cold.

DarthVeda.
Your thoughts on this?

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"There is no tiddle-taddle nor pibble-pabble in Pompey's camp."

Captain Nemo · October 20, 2000, 22:50

Gothmoth,
I downloaded the latest version of CivTweak for the purpose of changing the city "styles" for Second Front... And it doesn't work

It has a wonderful interface, easy to use but all the cities have become Bronze age and stay that way? Is there something I didn't get??

Gothmog · October 21, 2000, 08:32

I don't know what you mean by

quote:

Originally posted by Captain Nemo on 10-20-2000 10:50 PM
all the cities have become Bronze age and stay that way? Is there something I didn't get??

Do you understand that the styles in rules.txt have to agree with what you pick in civtweak?

Captain Nemo · October 21, 2000, 23:14

Gothmog,
I have edited the Civ Rules many times before to make the city styles conform to what I wanted... I thought CivTweak replaced that operation?
What is the purpose of choosing city styles in Civ Tweak when the game disregards that information and goes by the Rules anyway? Apparently something I didn't understand... Any way I went in and edited the rules.txt to do what I wanted.
BTW sorry for mangling your name in the previous post. I guess I am now qualified to be president...

Gothmog · October 22, 2000, 09:10

Nemo,
Apparently I'm not qualified to be an explainer of program documentation.

Civtweak is meant to replace selected hex editing chores. It only updates the save file; it does not update the rules file.

One chore it does is fixing the so called bronze-age city style problem. The city style pre-industrial appearance is determined by the rules file for UNPLAYED tribes. For PLAYED tribes, the appearance is determined by what is stored in the save file, which is a zero in most cases. Only the tribe you stared the game with will have the correct value stored in the save file.

Captain Nemo · October 23, 2000, 01:08

Thanks Gothmog, I got it...

The problem is the one you get when you load the Civ2 CiC Napoleon scenario and get Bronze age cities for the French... Yes, I remember editing that in the Hex-editor. I my case the played Civ (Allies) is Industrial Age so the Bronze age Bug wasn't getting me.

I had another problem with the "people" graphics, not being able to force a Civ to have the Renaissance style population. I always thought it was tied to the Philosophy technology just as the Industrial age people and cities are tied to the Industry Tech and the modern style are tied to Automobile and Electronics... But I am apparently wrong. It seems that Renaissance has additional prerequisites beside Philosophy. Any ideas?

BeBro · October 23, 2000, 05:28

According to W.Keenan´s advance slot design tip you need Philosophy AND Invention for the Renaissance people.

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Civ2000

Angelo Scotto · October 23, 2000, 14:05

Gothmog, like you said an Original only version of CivCity for Tot is better than nothing and, with some care in coding you should be able to add other flavors later, when we will understand how they work, with a minimal effort.

Angelo

Captain Nemo · October 23, 2000, 23:43

Thanks Bernd that worked!
I guess I had figured it out a long time ago but forgot :0