For OrientEx Playtesters

St Leo · April 6, 2003, 17:12

Converting back to the standard Civ2 palette will decrease the quality of main map graphics (probably considerably), but will make the various fairly extraneous empire management screens more pleasing to the eyes. Which option does the majority prefer?

EZRhino · April 6, 2003, 17:32

Post some screenshots.

St Leo · April 6, 2003, 18:15

As Is
Standardized

WarVoid · April 7, 2003, 19:29

You know what my vote is.

Cyrion · April 8, 2003, 02:16

I prefer the original one (YOUR original one, I mean)!

BTW, you never answered to my idea of using "change terrain" events (landslide, flood, etc...) that would force the player to rebuild a section of the railway?

St Leo · April 8, 2003, 08:55

BTW, you never answered to my idea of using "change terrain" events (landslide, flood, etc...) that would force the player to rebuild a section of the railway?

I'm not planning to implement them.

St Leo · April 10, 2003, 23:03

I've made an optional set of graphics for the standard civ2 palette and the batch files for switching between the two.

A link to the download of the second playtest will be sent out eventually.

Does everyone install their scenarios under /scenario/name/ ?

Cyrion · April 11, 2003, 02:29

Quote:

Originally posted by St Leo
I've made an optional set of graphics for the standard civ2 palette and the batch files for switching between the two.

Wow, brilliant St-Leo!!

The graphics are nice AND it's easy to recognize!!

Quote:

Does everyone install their scenarios under /scenario/name/ ?

I do

Mercator · April 11, 2003, 15:39

How exactly have you changed the palette?

Palette indexes 192 through 247 are unused (56 colours, that is), so you could use these to add some extra colours, without messing up other civ2 graphics.

St Leo · April 11, 2003, 19:50

How exactly have you changed the palette?

By changing all the used non-transparent colours that aren't used in the Mouse and Mouse2 tiles in Terrain1.gif.

Palette indexes 192 through 247 are unused (56 colours, that is), so you could use these to add some extra colours, without messing up other civ2 graphics.

I thought of this afterwards.

techumseh · April 12, 2003, 00:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Mercator
Palette indexes 192 through 247 are unused (56 colours, that is), so you could use these to add some extra colours, without messing up other civ2 graphics.

Let me get this straight. The unused spots on the civ palette can be filled in with other colours, eg. extra shades of red, orange, purple, etc. with out losing any of the existing colours, AND it will show up when you download and play the scenario?

St Leo · April 12, 2003, 01:01

Let me get this straight. The unused spots on the civ palette can be filled in with other colours, eg. extra shades of red, orange, purple, etc. with out losing any of the existing colours, AND it will show up when you download and play the scenario?

I haven't actually tried that.

"Civilization II will recognise only the colours supplied in the UNITS.GIF. So if you use a totally different palette in, for example, CITIES.GIF, the game will simply use the colour that appears in that colour's palette location in UNITS.GIF" - Allard Hoefelt

I changed the units.gif palette. It worked moderately well, but I didn't feel like messing around with DLLs so the various reports look horrible.

City.gif also looked lousy if you didn't copy the bundled one into the parent civ2 directory manually.

Allard actually alleges that "In the game, 192 to 235 will simply become black. 236 to 249 will show up different colours than you have chosen in the palette. They are: Creamy White, Light Grey, Dark Grey, Blood Red, Light Green, Yellow, Dark Blue, Violet, Light Blue, White, Black, Bordeaux Red, Green, Olive Green. You might be able to use these colours simply as extra (unchangeable) colours of the palette, but I do not know of any further use of these."

However, I am not sure if he has actually tried changing them or if he just looked at what they showed up while unchanged (black being the appropriate colour since they are, in fact, black).

Mercator · April 15, 2003, 11:38

Next time I open my mouth, I'd better do some testing first (or read up on what's been found out before)... I checked it for the first few and the last few of those colours, and Allard's absolutely right...
No matter what colour you put in the palette, the first few will always be black, the last few the colours Allard mentioned.

Quote:

By changing all the used non-transparent colours that aren't used in the Mouse and Mouse2 tiles in Terrain1.gif.

Are these special in any way? What are those tiles used for anyway? Not for the "Move units w/ mouse" at least.

St Leo · April 15, 2003, 17:21

Are these special in any way? What are those tiles used for anyway? Not for the "Move units w/ mouse" at least.

They are used for figuring out which square you clicked on. Try moving the selection rhombus after getting rid of them.