Why I think now that more than 255 cities is impossible. Any other idea ?

Julius Brenzaida · January 7, 2001, 10:29

I start this topic in the hope that someone more skilled than I am will have another idea.
What I have done is to find the line of code where the maximum number of cities (255) is. And I have changed it in both ToT and MGE. So, it is possible to build more cities.
But two problems arouse. First of all the 256th cities acts as the attribute for all None units. I figure that I could get rid of this one, but I’m not sure.
The other problem that I cannot imagine how to resolve is the question of units allocation. The allocation is certainly coded in a single two digits hexa number (01-ff). It means they can only have a city between 1 and 255 as a location. For example, if you build an unit in city 258, it will be supported by city number 3, even if it is a foreign city (maybe it’s nice for a scenario of civil war, but …). My only idea is that in the original Civ2, units of all cities after 128 were None. If one could manage to do that again after 255, it would be great if the support city is not 255 anymore. Does anyone has an idea on how to do that with MGE or ToT ? Maybe that more than 255 cities would only work with the original civ2 !!!
But on the other hand, the cities really exist, really contribute to science and gold and one can build improvements in them. You can list them with the F1/F4/F5 keys and so on. But maybe than more problems would appear in the long run. With MGE it crashes after city 281 and with ToT it seems to go fine forever.

So here is what I know. I can try to answer more questions, but for me, the allocation of units is something that cannot be resolved. Sun Tzu, ask your programmer friend if he has an idea; brillant Apolytoners step up; me I just failed.

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Oh Man, when will you understand that your greatness lies in your failure - Goethe

Miner · January 7, 2001, 16:25

You are to hard on yourself. The max city limit will crop up in too many places to be edited out like that but there is no harm in trying. You have done more than enough by getting rid of the gold and population limit.

I have a suggestion: could you try and find the hex location of the .exe file that makes the unit shield flag colours in ToT darker than they are? and get rid of it? This would go a long way to making ToT more popular!

Thue · January 9, 2001, 18:00

Or you could play freeciv

DarthVeda · January 10, 2001, 08:58

Could you get rid of the part of the program that takes any negative treasury values and sets the treasury to zero? I really don't understand why the programmers were so kind to people who run big deficit budgets...

James Fox · January 11, 2001, 17:53

Well, you could try to increase the number of possible civilizations. 7 (plus barbarians) is rather restrictive for some scenarios that I'm contemplating.

Thue · January 11, 2001, 20:48

They probably used lots of bitvectors of length 8. So you would have to change a lot of places->impossible.

*mutters something about the 32 civ possible in freeciv*

DarthVeda · January 11, 2001, 23:51

*mutters something about Thue's spam of anything civ in the last few days

*

Can you remove the unit limit? It's something like 2040, 2047, or 2048.

Thue · January 12, 2001, 00:15

Hey - that last one was a legatime answer to a question

SCDARS · January 12, 2001, 20:39

Julius:
While I looked through Allards guide on Hex editing (actually for another thread) I noticed some hints that the developers of Civ2 intended to allow more than 255 cities; at least the "total number of cities" is two bytes long and so seems to be the "home of unit" info (it is supposed to be the 17th byte from the beginning of each unit table, but the 18th byte is empty in normal cases).
Perhaps you could first try to verify this by changing this value manually in any 255+ cities savegame (I don't own one...).

If storing the home cities in the savegame should prove possible, maybe just another value in the savegame has to be changed to get rid of the "home city problem".

The ANZAC · January 13, 2001, 10:03

Julius: Maybe you could try to allow MGE to recognize 3 pint objectives?

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""I had hoped we were hurling a wildcat on the shore, but all we got was a stranded whale!"-Winston Curchill on the Battle of Anzio

"Quis custodes ipsos custodiet?" -Juvenal

"I can walk!!" -Dr. Strangelove

Julius Brenzaida · January 13, 2001, 15:35

quote:

Originally posted by The ANZAC on 01-13-2001 09:03 AM
Julius: Maybe you could try to allow MGE to recognize 3 pint objectives?

Sorry, it seems that some of you misunderstood the title of my topic. By new ideas, I meant ideas to help me solve the problems, not new defies or new limits to break. During my next holidays I’m going to try again with ToT to tackle the 255 cities limit, because as I said in the 1st message, it doesn’t seem to work with MGE.
For other matters, well I am only human and I’ve got to sleep, eat, work, etc.

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Oh Man, when will you understand that your greatness lies in your failure - Goethe

Julius Brenzaida · January 13, 2001, 15:38

quote:

Originally posted by DarthVeda on 01-11-2001 10:51 PM
Can you remove the unit limit? It's something like 2040, 2047, or 2048.

DarthVeda, for the 2048 units I have tried with MGE. It is indeed not more than 1948 for one civ and 2048 for all civs. I’ve changed the number, but the game crashed at 2050! I shall try during the February holidays with ToT.

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Oh Man, when will you understand that your greatness lies in your failure - Goethe

Julius Brenzaida · January 13, 2001, 15:40

quote:

Originally posted by SCDARS on 01-12-2001 07:39 PM
Julius:
While I looked through Allards guide on Hex editing (actually for another thread) I noticed some hints that the developers of Civ2 intended to allow more than 255 cities; at least the "total number of cities" is two bytes long and so seems to be the "home of unit" info (it is supposed to be the 17th byte from the beginning of each unit table, but the 18th byte is empty in normal cases)

SCDARS, where can I get this guide ? I am very much interested.

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Oh Man, when will you understand that your greatness lies in your failure - Goethe

Julius Brenzaida · January 13, 2001, 15:43

quote:

Originally posted by SCDARS on 01-12-2001 07:39 PM
Perhaps you could first try to verify this by changing this value manually in any 255+ cities savegame (I don't own one...).
If storing the home cities in the savegame should prove possible, maybe just another value in the savegame has to be changed to get rid of the "home city problem".

I have indeed changed the numbers for the max cities with MGE. I have then build some more, but at 280 the game crashed I don’t know why. It’s the 1st problem. The second one is the allocation of units. An unit build on the 258th cities is allocated to the 2nd, while all none units are allocated to the 256th. Maybe I can change that. Can I contact Allards ? Maybe together we can understand all that.
As it crashes for MGE, I shall try with ToT, I’ve build more than 300 cities without a problem with ToT. I will try that at the end of February. But you are right that there is a possibility to build more than 255 cities. I’ve even made a patch for that. Does anyone want to try it ?

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Oh Man, when will you understand that your greatness lies in your failure - Goethe

Allard HS · January 13, 2001, 17:09

I believe that with Allard, it's me they mean. And you can contact me at ahofelt@hotmail.com

To be honest, I'm not very actualized on this problem, but I understand your points.
Still, it's a very interesting subject. And much more "possible" I believe than hacking civ2.exe.

Anyway, maybe my guide can help you with anything. It's written mostly for FW, not MGE: http://allard.8m.com/hexediting.htm

Maybe you'd be so kind to add some value locations for MGE?

The Capo · January 13, 2001, 19:04

Probably not much help, but if you notice when creating scenarios if you try and max out the shield cost and upkeep costs for city improvements, (for instance putting 9999999999, in and hitting enter) it defaults them to 255.

Doubt it will help but I thought it may have some connection.

Lefty Scaevola · January 17, 2001, 14:48

smax can run real slow when you get above 350 to 400 bases. The same might happen to civ2, particulaly on less capable platrotms.

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Gaius Mucius Scaevola Sinistra
Pontificator Pendanticus
older richer & wiser than you

niteowl · January 17, 2001, 15:02

Call me naive, but why in God's name would you want that many cities?

I do good to keep up with the 30 or so that I usually end up with after a long game.

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"My dear girl don't flatter yourself. What I did this evening was for king and country. You don't think it gave me any pleasure do you?

--- James Bond
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