Editing the online Civilopedia

[Jatdrago]

Hello All. I'm a newbie. What I'd like to know is there a way to edit the online pedia to show the effects of Theocracy, my version of Fundamentalism. I've made it able to support only six units for free. I've already changed the pedia.txt, but that had no effect on the online. Thanks for any help.

[Cam]

With the default game, when consulting the civilopedia, the game refers to the contents in the folder C:\Mps\Civ2\Pedia, which contains an array of files that it's generally recommended not to edit.

Recommended path

For scenarios and modpacks however (being games not played from the default C:\Mps\Civ2 folder, but another folder), the civilopedia will first look for the text file 'pedia.txt' in that other folder.

As such, the game you are creating should be saved in a different folder to the default save folder - ideally a newly created folder that is a 'sub-folder' of C:\Mps\Civ2 such as C:\Mps\Civ2\My_mod that contains the modified 'pedia.txt' file (i.e. where the 'TEN' has been changed to 'SIX').

When the game is loaded from this new folder ('My_mod'), the new civilopedia will be the one referred to, not the default one.

Not-so-much recommended path

For the answer to your question that is prone to making lasting changes in your civilopedia and not recommended for modpacks (unless you are the only one who will use your modpack), you can edit the file C:\Mps\Civ2\Pedia\Govern.pde using Notepad. These changes will be made to your game of Civ2 only, and unlike the first approach, if you send your modpack to other Civ2 fans, these changes to the 'pedia won't go with the rest of the package (easily).
[This message has been edited by Cam (edited March 26, 2000).]

[Jatdrago]

Hi Cam. I just moved my scenario out of the "Scenario" folder and directly under Civ2/ -- and it still didn't work. In fact, what the pedia.txt contains vs the online 'pedia is totally different. For instance, the sentence with the word "TEN", is rephrased and contains the word "tenth". The game seems to be ignoring that part of the pedia.txt... Well, if nothing else, I guess it can be part of a readme.txt

[Cam]

Oh - I see. I was under the impression that you were making changes directly in the Civ2 (default) folder.

OK - what I suspect is happening is that your saved games are in the default folder, but your 'workings' (including pedia.txt) are in the scenario folder. Make sure when you load a saved game or begin a scenario it is from the scenario folder you've created, not the default folder. Also, are you using the progams 'notepad' or 'wordpad' to edit the text files?

Feel free to e-mail me (zipped please) your files in the scenario folder you've created if this problem persists. Note however, I can't do much if you're using the Multiplayer Gold Edition, as I only have Fantastic Worlds.

[This message has been edited by Cam (edited March 26, 2000).]

[Jatdrago]

Hi again. Yes, I'm using Gold Ed. Yes, everything is saved then loaded from a sub-folder of the scenario folder. I can add lines (w/ notepad) to the Wonders part of the pedia.txt and they show up fine on the online. Oh well no biggie.

If you have MGE, you can edit the civilopedia by editing a file called description.txt. You can also copy descriptio.txt to your scenario folder, and make a custom civilopedia for your scenario.

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