WordPad Wonders & bad news for the 2050 problem

phildphild · June 6, 2002, 12:52

This is more like Civ3-General, not Help...
Right, I'll say from the start: I'm a newbie. If this kind of stuff has been posted before, then feel free to flame me like mad

If you open a savegame with WordPad (don't use NotePad... too risky. It mucks up end-of-line markers) you'll see among all the binary bits & bobs, some good old Humanoid ASCII. From here you can change mouseover text to whatever you want... e.g. you can change the City View mouseover "A {civgoeshere} unhappy citizen" to "a {

whatever you want to put here

} nuicanse!!!".

I've been particularly interested in the thread about changing the end date of the game. Get ready for some BAD news... the term "2050" is not contained in ASCII text form in any Civ3 files. The only way to alter it would be to:

Learn machine code (not recommended)
Hack at every file until you find one with some code like:
" finish{3}.endDate='2050' " (ok, ok, obviously that depends on the language, but you get the general idea)

Unfortunately, I'm not one to risk breaking Civ3 or the law so I'll leave it to the 'more ambitious persons ' from Apolyton to take the issue further...........
I might post more but I'll wait to see if anyone's interested first

Trevman · June 6, 2002, 23:46

Intriguing-
Unfortunately I doubt that Firaxis would make it that easy to hack anything core to the game such as the end year, but maybe a real hacker could do something without destroying the game. Some hex editing might do it but I know very little nothing of the art.

Lawrence of Arabia · June 7, 2002, 00:03

I don't see what the problem is with the 2050 date. You can always play on after than, althouth your score wont count.

Dienstag · June 7, 2002, 00:22

I just tried...as far as I can tell, I got absolutely no ASCII. even searched for strings like "unhappy" and "citizen". Maybe I have a different version of WordPad or something...

...that's the last time I skim 190 screens' worth of nonsense today.

Pythagoras · June 7, 2002, 08:48

Well any decent scenario editor should let you play with the starting/end years and increments.

zulu9812 · June 7, 2002, 09:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Pythagoras
Well any decent scenario editor should let you play with the starting/end years and increments.

absolutely

phildphild · June 7, 2002, 09:59

Sorry if you don't have the ASCII like I do... can't understand it...
It does seem that only games before 800 A.D. appear to have this information. Here's an s/shot....

This has been posted before by someone else, but for those of you who have not seen the thread yet, I have just found a file on my computer called "play the world.txt", last modified the date I installed CivIII, with lots of error messages inside it relating to multiplayer capabilities... Hmmm.... I'm sure I recognise that from somewhere...

And I quote from it:

; Play the world
; text strings for the main menu
; Created: D.E.

#PTW
EXIT
MAIN MENU
Get the Game of the Week
Get the Game of the Day
View Scores
Exit
Your Current Score:

#PTWERR_SERVER_NOT_FOUND
Cannot find the Server or communications error.

#PTWERR_BAD_USERNAME
Bad username, please re-enter or create a new account.

#PTWERR_BAD_PASSWORD
Password incorrect, please try again.

#PTWERR_UNDEFINED
Undefined error. Server returned something unexpected.

# ; This line must remain at end of file

I also did a bit of research and found that the phrase "egg" comes into civilization3.exe numerous times. So what, coincidence! you'll say, but I'm not so sure because in amongst meaningless charachters was suddenly "egg" all in the same case. Is there something we haven't noticed yet?

Solver · June 7, 2002, 11:20

Soren, please reply!