Playing as barbarians

Wilson Theodoro · August 18, 2000, 22:29

Is there anyway to play a regular civ game as the barbarians ( maybe with hex editing )? It would be very fun to receive units out of nowhere and bother the real civilizations.

Allard HS · August 19, 2000, 06:21

Very much possible. It's about the simplest operation you can do with hex-editing.

Open your hex-editor and load your saved game. Go to the 47th byte.
Take a calculator, and convert the number there on the 47th byte to binary. All 0's are civs not in play, all 1's are civs the human ís playing. Normally only one 1 is in the list, but you can choose to play as many civs as you like. Including the barbarians.

0000 0000: the first 0 are the barbarians, the second for the first civ, etc.
So assuming you wish to play as Barbarians and Romans/white civ, make it 1100 0000, convert it to hex (C0), write it in the 47th byte, and play.
Of course you can also play as the barbarians only.

excerpt from my guide on hex-editing:
"47 human player played (can be more than one) [binary]
toggling this byte is great and allows Hotseat mode in FW!!!
eg. 0110 0100 means: human is playing as civ 1, 2 and 5."

Wilson Theodoro · August 19, 2000, 10:41

Where can I get a free hex editor ?

CornMaster · August 19, 2000, 11:06

Yeah I'd like to try this to. Would it be the same way to assign some one to play barbaians in a scenario???
Or would I just create the scenario and save it on the first turn and alter it for barbaians??

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"I'm too out of shape for a long fight so I'll have to kill you fast"
Administrator of the CornEmpire Forum
My Civ 2 Scenario Page.

C Chulainn · August 19, 2000, 16:05

If you use this hex editing operation to create more than one human civilisation in play, what exactly do you see in the diplomacy screens when the human civs meet?

jcarkey · August 19, 2000, 16:18

How do you go to the 47 byte?
Btw I use WinHex.

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What if the Hokey-Pokey is really what its all about?

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Allard HS · August 20, 2000, 07:58

I use Hex Workshop (it's shareware). You can download it at www.bpsoft.com , but a lot of people prefer other ones.

In diplomacy, the player you use at that moment will conduct diplomacy with the other human as if it were a computer. No, no real multiplayer, after all the game was not built for that.

The 47th byte is given in decimal, not hexadecimal, and is simply the 47th hex pair from the start of the saved game. You could count them, but usually you can use the hex editor to do that for you

CornMaster · August 20, 2000, 19:41

I tried and tried but I could not get it to work.

Could you maybe take a screen shot of the 47th byte and it's value so I can play the barbs.

I downloaded the Hex Workshop too. I had some wierd stuff to my civ games though.

Edit: Does this work in MGE too??? Because I just can't get it to work!!!!

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"I'm too out of shape for a long fight so I'll have to kill you fast"
Administrator of the CornEmpire Forum
My Civ 2 Scenario Page.
[This message has been edited by CornMaster (edited August 21, 2000).]

CornMaster · August 21, 2000, 16:00

If you e-mail it to me at cornmaster@xoommail.com I'll put it on my web site so you can link to it for other people too.

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"I'm too out of shape for a long fight so I'll have to kill you fast"
Administrator of the CornEmpire Forum
My Civ 2 Scenario Page.

August 21, 2000, 21:11

Wait...you can have the human player be two civs at once? Do you realize how useful this could be? Aside from hotseat, it could be great in scenarios. Imagine, for example, a scenario of Xerxes' invasion of Greece. You could have the human be both the Athenians and the Spartans and have both civs have different capabilities. Or if you wanted a single region only to be able to build something useful (like simulate how only the single city of Damascus could get good steel swords in the Crusades) you could make two Arab civilizations that are exactly alike, give one of them the Arab Empire except Damascus, and then give the other only Damascus and the tech to make steel swords. Or you could simulate colonies (like the British and the American colonies) for a French and Indian War scenario as two completely different civs, each of which can do its own thing...this could be quite useful...

jcarkey · August 22, 2000, 00:40

The 47th byte is byte 2F. You can change the outset to decimal and then find forty.(The third line.) Then count pairs to 47.

I was playing as the barbs, when I retired or did the advisors. It said "King Attila of the Barbarians"

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What if the Hokey-Pokey is really what its all about?

Contact me at cpoland@mail.win.org

jcarkey · August 22, 2000, 00:47

I have a screenshot, but I don't know how to post it without a website.

How do you post images without a webpage?!?!

The ANZAC · August 22, 2000, 09:49

Actually, Captain Nemo is using it in SF for the Allies and Allied Expeditionary Airforce. Oops! Did I say to much...?

Tom DeMille · August 22, 2000, 13:14

OK, I've done a little testing, and have found that the 48th byte controls who you are playing in v242. It's also backwards, so 02 indicates you are playing Romans (instead of 40), and switching the byte to 03 gives you control of the barbarians too.

This opens up some possibilities for my next OCC scenario...

Tom DeMille · August 23, 2000, 00:36

It looks to me that v242 is different. I've gone to the 47th byte of a saved game (playing Romans), and the byte's value is BF. Anyone know the equivalent byte in v242?

Julius Brenzaida · August 23, 2000, 11:45

Well, for Barbarians in Civ Multiplayer, I do it another way.

If you hex edit the save file, you will see in the first few lines a triple repetition of the number of the color of the civ you’re playing. For example, 01,01,01 if you play the Romans; 070707 if you play the Mongols. You change that to 000000 and you play as the Barbarians.

If you’re in 4000BC wait a few turns before you are granted a few units, either horsemen from a shrine or archers from a trireme and try to conquer the world that way.

But what a challenge ! (as far as I have discovered, but I shall try to play a full game)
1) You don’t lose if you ain’t got no unit and no city (very reassuring indeed)
2) All your units are none ! (pretty cool)
3) Without seeing the map, you see every unit of every civ moving (they got nowhere to hide)
4) The AI won’t talk to you, but you can talk to them after establishing an embassy (that’s ok)
5) You cannot see the fights, but you get the results with the f2 key (one can survive that)
6) You cannot aquire any technology neither by research, conquest or diplomacy (hem, hem)
7) And oh yes, you don’t get nothing from the huts (in case you were still optimistic)
8) You don’t get any money by any means either. (hurps)
9) As you have no tech, you can only build warriors and settlers. (very frustrating). But you can build barracks, though. Veterans warriors are better than warriors !

That’s what happened when I opened the cheat mode to give myself an humble settler and build a little city. Does anyone else wants to try it that way. I shall play a long game to see if after a certain number of turns I get some tech to build Knights for example. I remember that barbarians cities that I captured were often producing knights.
Of course you should in your game settle for raging hordes, otherwise …

One could call that the ultimate nomad challenge !

I wonder if you can grant the barbarians some technology through an event.txt
And it seems you are always going to be called Attila the Hunt.
Maybe it could be useful in a scenario. By cheating you can give any unit to the barbarians.

Is it the same when you play the barbarians with the other hex editing variant, or are they able to act as a true civilization ?
(it would surprise me)

I’m going to play a full game to be able to give more informations.

Tom DeMille · August 23, 2000, 13:01

In v242 the barbarians act pretty much as you describe. You can research a tech, but discovering it doesn't actually "discover" it. I don't think you can ever build a military unit better than warrior if you conquer a city yourself.

And gifting myself some armour from the cheat menu has brought me to the conclusion that barb units suffer some big penalties while attacking. A couple of armours got killed off by a phalanx (in a city with no wall) without denting it.

CornMaster · August 24, 2000, 00:56

Thank you Julius Brenzaida I can finally be destroyed as the barbs!!! I've been slaughtered as everyone else.

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"I'm too out of shape for a long fight so I'll have to kill you fast"
Administrator of the CornEmpire Forum
My Civ 2 Scenario Page.

August 25, 2000, 16:31

If you can't hex edit, it sometimes works (with limits) to set human player to No Human Player and reveal the Barbarian map.

Julius Brenzaida · August 25, 2000, 16:51

Sorry,

I've got too much work to do (or is too much ego to endure such a beating).
I'm not going to try to play a full game as Barbarians in the near future.
If my experiences and those of Tom DeMille are the whole picture, it is really tough and maybe a bit boring.

And in my last comment I forgot to talk about these "ultimate" warriors in the capital stuff. It's great for OCC when your only defender in your capital is immortal, but as barbarians it is the worst cheat of the AI.

But maybe some deities have already won at the "barbarian level".
Is it the case ?

jcarkey · August 25, 2000, 18:50

Hey Corn,
Where are those pics I sent you?

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What if the Hokey-Pokey is really what its all about?

Contact me at cpoland@mail.win.org

CornMaster · August 25, 2000, 19:44

quote:

Originally posted by jcarkey on 08-25-2000 06:50 PM
Hey Corn,
Where are those pics I sent you?

I don't need them now. Thank you anyway. Would you still like me to post them??