Preview of the Civ Manager Utility

Xin Yu · February 1, 2002, 06:23

When losing focus, the utility contracts to a small bar at the top middle of the screen

Xin Yu · February 1, 2002, 06:29

When you click on it, it expands:

Xin Yu · February 1, 2002, 06:33

The gray cells can be edited, the blue cells can be changed via a pull down combo box.

This is still a half-baked product, but any comments are extremely welcome!

our_man · February 1, 2002, 12:15

Looks good Xin!

Is it just for changing production orders in cities, or does it have any other features? When you say the boxes in gray can be edited, do you mean simply changing the cities names?

Heresson · February 1, 2002, 13:15

Very very very nice.

Marko · February 1, 2002, 15:37

Impressive!

Have you thought making an utility what changes events, rules, etc during gameplay in response of certain triggers (like TURN turn=n1, CITYTAKEN city=n2, UNITKILLED unittype=n3 etc). Angelo Scotto made similar thing for ToT (CSPL) but unfortunately he didn't made macro language for it and the program doesn't work for MGE.

Xin Yu · February 1, 2002, 16:19

our_man: There will be 4 main functions: Change production item, rush buy, change all citizens to scientists or taxmen, and assign group numbers to cities so that a function can be repeated for the same group or for all cities by just pushing one button. Editable fields are city names and group numbers.

Heresson: Thanks!

Marko: I don't know about events, but I have already figured out rules.txt. This means I can change rules whenever I want. One possibility is to change rules when each civ takes control. When civ 1 is playing a warrior has move point 1, but when civ 2 is playing a warrior may have move point 2! This can effectively give unique civ specific units without using extra slots.

Currently I have tons of research to do to make it perfect. First, I only have the number of total food and total production per turn, Net surplus numbers haven't been found yet. Then I can only capture city improvement and unit names for ordinary games; if the user changes rules.txt then the positions for the names change (although fortunately other properties don't). I may have to come back to the idea of reading rules.txt directly rather than trying to find the information in memory.

Are there any other functions you want to have? Again appreciate your comments!

our_man · February 2, 2002, 11:36

Xin, would it be possible to have an option to sell improvements on masse? I hate the hassle of having to go around to all my cities and sell Cathedrals individually if I've just acquired Mike's Chapel, Police Stations if I captured Woman's Suffrage etc.

Shaka Naldur · February 2, 2002, 14:11

can we downloaded?

Xin Yu · February 2, 2002, 15:43

our_man: In the pull down menu there is an item to repeat the last function for all cities (This can also be activated via a hot key). So if you want to sell all cathedrals, just sell one then activate that option.

Shaka: I estimate that the alpha version will be released by the end of this month (I learned a lot from Firaxis on this.

). Currently the size of the program is between 1-2 M before zip. So I can put it here for downloading.

Xin Yu · February 7, 2002, 16:36

Update:
Added buttons on top of each column as headers (previously the idea was abandoned since the buttons did not resize when the column width were adjusted, but not it works). This will allow sorting by certain columns.

Developed this wonderful idea of using 'Ctrl-click' to repeat a job. i.e., you change a city's production, then hold the control key while clicking another city's production column -- the result is that that city will try to change to the same production item; or, if you hold the control key and click on the same city's production column (the cell you just changed), then all cities of the same group as the city will try to change to the same production item; if you ctrl-shift-click instead, then all cities will try to change to the same production item. I think it's doable but haven't started trying yet.

I'll be out of town for two week so the releasing date will likely to be postponed accordingly.

Xin Yu · February 17, 2002, 03:51

Just came back and resumed work. A major setback is that the address which holds the wonder expiring techs changed. Without the info the program will not allow building cathedrals after Mike expires, if the human player owns that wonder. This is not a problem in ordinary games but will be one when playing scenarios.

Xin Yu · February 17, 2002, 07:16

Well, a good news and a bad news. Good news: found the wonder expiring tech address. Bad news: don't know if the city is on or next to a river square -- means don't know if a city can build hydro plant. Hopefully there is an unknown flag (just like coastal) to give whether next to river information. Otherwise I need to access map information block and that will severely postpone timeline.

Marko · February 17, 2002, 13:17

I'm sure that "can build hydro" is flag.

In his last CivCity version (1.3 if I remember correctly) Carl Fritz added the function to enable or disable a city's ability to build the hydro improvement. Maybe you can ask him about it.

Xin Yu · February 17, 2002, 15:46

Thanks Marko. Actually I found several flags last night, including this one. Here they are (some has been found before, see Allard's thread 'everything on hex editing':

position 5-8 of city info (right after location) are flags:

position 5:
01___city in disorder
02___city in celebration
04___city sold improvements this turn
08___tech has been stolen from this city before (to my surprise spy stealing also sets this flag)
10___autobuild
20___unknown
40___at start of the turn there exists settler/engineer(s) in the city
80___can build harbor and offshore platform

position 6:
01___unknown
02___unknown (do appear in some cities)
04___unknown (do appear in some cities)
08___can build hydro plant (seems must be on or next to river. Even coastal cities may not have this flag)
10___at start of the turn there exists caravans/freights in the city (did not check if commodity matters)
20___unknown
40___unknown, seems link to pollution (warning: pollution near city?)
80___unknown, seems link to hunger in city (food dangerously low warning?)

position 7:
01___city airlifted this turn
02___unknown
04___unknown
08___unknown, a lot of (big) cities have this flag and if you set it to zero they come back the next turn
10___unknown
20___if positioin 5, flag 80 is set, can build coastal fortress and port facility, also can build ships
40___another civ's diplo/spy investigated the city this turn (all civs can see inside the sity)
80___unknown

position 8:
01___if position 5, flag 10 set, this means military autobuild
02___if position 5, flag 10 set, this means domestic autobuild (both 01 and 02 flag zero = both autobuild -- strange, why not both set to 1?)
04___objective x1
08___unknown
10___objective x3, not working in MPE version (according to Allard, set both x1 and x3 flag will result in x2 objective)
20___unknown
40___unknown
80___unknown

Xin Yu · February 17, 2002, 15:56

Also found that the 3 position 14-21 (hex 0e-15) holds each civ's knowledge about city size. 14: barbarian, 15- white civ, etc. This is why your knowledge about another civ's size can be outdated. If the byte corresponds to a civ is zero, then the civ cannot see the city even if the city is built on a map square known to the civ.

I'm investigating other flags. Possible candidates are: requires aqueduct/sewing system to grow (growth halt warning), discrepencies in supply/demand from foreign view and domestic view for a city.

Thoddy · February 20, 2002, 05:55

There must also a flag(s) wich determines the founder/last owner? of a city, e.g.
-Partisans pop up or not
-xxx forces liberate/capture city

-flag for change improvements production if selected improvement has been built.

Xin Yu · February 20, 2002, 12:11

Thoddy: Yes, and see the following thread.
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=10364

Xin Yu · February 25, 2002, 05:42

Status: A slightly better interface. Read from the game functions finished.
Todo:
Write to the game needs more testing.
Will add two small controls to display turn number and treasury.
Will implement sort functions by clicking on column headers
Will implement ctrl+click to repeat the last action for the same column.

The attached image has been extorted (the forum only allows a width of 600).

Thoddy · February 25, 2002, 07:30

How about reporting food surplus, this information is the most useful Information on food.

Xin Yu · February 25, 2002, 12:32

Food surplus and net shield production cannot be extracted from city block alone. Food surplus requires information regarding government type, settlers supported, and food trade routes; shield net production requires information regarding government type and number of units supported.

I only know government type at this moment. Besides, even if I know the other pieces of information, it may not be practical to present them in this program since searching for those information needs a long time. Nobody wants to wait for 5 minutes every time the table gets refreshed. This is probably one major factor why Microprose did not do it when the game was released.

Xin Yu · March 4, 2002, 14:36

Update:
Added color schemes for celebrate/riot cities.
Added Ctrl-click functions:
Ctrl-click a cell repeats the last action for the same column for that cell.
Ctrl-click the production column header will change production items for cities of the same group.
Ctrl-clik the sell column header will sell every city's same improvement as the last action, unless another item for sell has already been selected for that city.

Will temporarily give up sorting and reporting game turn/treasury so that timeline for release will not be hindered. Those functions will be added later.

Now the only thing left:
calculate cost for incremental buying.

Pap1723 · March 7, 2002, 22:50

Xin,
I am sure you have looked here, but there are some really good ideas here. It is a discussion about the hex files.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=10364

Just some ideas...

Xin Yu · March 8, 2002, 00:36

Thanks Pap1723. The information was good but it was about saved files. I'm working on something that reads from and writes to memory while playing.

Xin Yu · August 14, 2002, 05:15

Finally figured out the impact of the musketeer slot and the knight slot. Release time is near...

Added new features including showing turn number, research goal and progress, and money.

Picture has to be shrinked to fit.

Xin Yu · August 14, 2002, 05:20

double post.

St Leo · August 14, 2002, 05:50

Cool, this might make Civ2 playable again.

Xin Yu · August 17, 2002, 19:27

The program is released! Please go to civ2-general forum to download.