Getting Cities to Appear Correctly

klesh · August 15, 2003, 14:14

Greetings,

What am I missing involving the appearance of cities in a scenario. One can set them, especially using civtweak, to avoid the traditional tech-based methods of getting to the higher or more advanced city slots, but even then there appears to be more.

It seems that the view of the human player somehow has a hand in the appearance of cities. I have set civs up to their corresponding city types, but only when viewing the map as certain (and of course the non-himan) civ do things appear properly. However, only some of the civs are involved. Some of them are taking their designations straight away, without issue. Others are blatantly ignoring their civtweak settings when viewed by the intended human civ.

Setting the protagonist doesn't seem to have any effect.

I have cities which definately need to have particular looks, and am at a loss as to what to do further, any ideas?

Thanks again,

-FMK.

Art of War · August 15, 2003, 16:18

i think you just have to set their tech levels. deny the one of the four tech advance techs to each of the civs....i think one of them if electricity, i can't remember the rest, but whenever you research it, it makes your cities change...

klesh · August 15, 2003, 16:25

Thats what I mean by the traditional way... I am pretty certain that civtweak is able to make these settings w/o using the tech method. :-/

-FMK.

Elok · August 15, 2003, 17:07

Do you really need the two slots from industrialization and automobile that badly? If you'd make them techs with "no, no" prerequisites you'd dodge the whole problem at the cost of two technologies, which you can probably make up for with plumbing and U1-X7 or whatever the last extra tech is. This is just me talking, but it makes more sense than messing around with editors.

St Leo · August 15, 2003, 17:39

Techs are necessary for Industrial and Modern cities. I learned that the hard way.

klesh · August 15, 2003, 17:45

I think something if definately wrong. I managed to use the in-game editors to 'temporarily' solve the problem of a civ using the ancient/classical style. It worked, I saved. Reloaded, its gone. Grrr.

techumseh · August 15, 2003, 18:23

So, are you back FMK? Or am I just jumping to conclusions again?

Boco · August 15, 2003, 20:02

Don't know whether this is common, but I've seen the same city change its style when you change the view or the human player via the cheat menu. No techs were edited and nothing changed via CivTweak. In fact I did nothing but press shift-F3 or shift-F2. In this example, the top city shows when the AI civ that owns the city is selected; the bottom when the human civ is selected.

[Edit] Welcome back FMK!

klesh · August 15, 2003, 22:35

@ Boco, yeah that is quite common, and was really the reason I spotted the cities being wrong or odd in the first place... I then made sure I was viewing as the intended human player, and still saw problems.

In particular, I cannot seem to get these things to stick. Even without going into the editors, simply loading a file seems to cause some undesired effects. I cannot seem to keep leader/ tribe names and adjectives to stick either. I PMed yaroslav about this and he is looking in to the file.

I think it could be part Civ (or civ editor) wierdness and part corrupted sav file. Not sure just yet.

@ techumseh, yeah I suppose, though I wouldn't really say I ever left.

Here's the idea I am trying to achieve... more trial and error fiddling involved, I think I have it. For a time. What I have noticed is that the barbarian city type (which is set by setting the 'Romans' civ in the in game editor [even if they aren't in the scen at all]) seems to affect what civs will actually display their proper city gfx. Strange.

fairline · August 16, 2003, 04:07

Hey Rob, welcome back

This must mean you are working on scenarios again?

curtsibling · August 16, 2003, 06:11

I think someone is going to complete the Blitz!

Case · August 16, 2003, 07:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Field Marshal Klesh
@ techumseh, yeah I suppose, though I wouldn't really say I ever left.

*Reports FMK for having a DL*

klesh · August 16, 2003, 12:49

Hi Fairline, Case, Curt, et al.

Problem still affecting me. Posted that screenie after having gotten it right, only to find them reset later. Still not sure what the problem is. Rules.bak keps poping up for no reason so I think i could have some kind of overactive in-game editors. This is why I prefer to use utilities and text editors instead of the in-game garbage.

I just hope that I can set them right before saving as a scenario, and they will stick then.

@Curt, nope not the Blitz.

Arthedain · August 16, 2003, 13:00

the final gigamap version of lebensraum1939? *cross fingers*

klesh · August 16, 2003, 13:02

Exile · August 16, 2003, 14:59

You mean that you're NOT saving as scenario whenever you make changes?!?!?

Maybe I'm missing something here. Hmmmm.

Cyrion · August 16, 2003, 15:40

Good to see you, FMK!

klesh · August 16, 2003, 19:15

Exile, no, never! My thoughts were that saving as a scenario was only trhe final step. If you always save as a scenario, I would think that player 1's science and money accumulation would increase every time they 'start' the scenario.

I have always saved as... well, sav. 4000bc still.

Arthedain · August 16, 2003, 20:07

Quote:

Originally posted by Field Marshal Klesh

don't be scared.. tell us the truth and we're all yours. you know that

Exile · August 17, 2003, 03:09

While it's true that saving as scenario will advance the time flow, it has its advantages when one works with the ingame editors. Apparently most despise these editors, but because I was more fearful of trying to work with the text files, I persevered with the editors and learned their quirks. The final thing that I do when completing a scenarion is to set the date and turn, and then set up the political situation. Just saving a game doesn't quite work to save certain things done with some of the editors. Saving as scenario freezes things like saving doesn't. No idea why. Not all the editors work the same way. I've got a book around here somewhere that describes the quirks--somebody else worked it out before I came along. I think it was John Possidente's guide to Civ2 scenario building.

techumseh · August 17, 2003, 03:40

That's right. "Save As Scenario" is needed for the scenario parameters stuff. Otherwise I just save the game, until I need to finalize the scn. file.

Mercator · August 17, 2003, 09:30

You can also load a scenario just like a savegame.
Just select "Load a (Saved) Game", change the filename in the open dialog from *.sav to *.scn and you'll see scenarios.

It loads just like any other savegame.

The only difference, I think, with saving the game is that you have to turn the cheat menu back on.

This might be handy, as saving as a scenario apparently has some advantages... or in case you lost your savegame and starting the scenario normally screws things up badly (think Red Front after one turn).

klesh · August 17, 2003, 12:29

Quote:

Originally posted by Exile
Just saving a game doesn't quite work to save certain things done with some of the editors. Saving as scenario freezes things like saving doesn't.

Perhaps this may help me? Perhaps the city styles and tribe/leader names are truly 'saved' when you use the editors, then save as a scenario.

Not only have I been experienceing resets with the city styles, but also a number of leader names and tribe names are getting myseriously reset too. Maybe I'll try this other technique.

Mercator, if I rename the .sav file suffix to .scn, then what is the difference between that file and a genuine .sav? In other words, is there a difference in the information stored in these two filetypes?

Thanks eveyone.

Henrik · August 17, 2003, 14:07

That's not the cause of your tribe/king problem Rob, if save files would reset king and tribe names then we wouldnt be able to load savegames from scenarios without that happening.

klesh · August 17, 2003, 14:49

shutup!

Henrik · August 17, 2003, 14:51

I aim to please

Mercator · August 17, 2003, 15:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Field Marshal Klesh
Not only have I been experienceing resets with the city styles, but also a number of leader names and tribe names are getting myseriously reset too. Maybe I'll try this other technique.

Are you using the in-game scenario editors? Those change the rules.txt, right? You should also use the "Edit King" dialog in the cheat menu to change everything.

When you start a game, all leader names, tribe names and adjectives are loaded from the then used rules into your savegame. If you change the rules afterwards (manually or by using the editors) the game will still keep using the names stored in the savegame.
The only way to change the names stored in the savegame is through Cheat > Edit King > Edit Name.

An alternative is to edit your rules before you start the game in the first place. That way the right values will be loaded from the start.

Quote:

Mercator, if I rename the .sav file suffix to .scn, then what is the difference between that file and a genuine .sav? In other words, is there a difference in the information stored in these two filetypes?

That's a good question, but I don't know the answer for sure...

A quick comparison shows only 5 bytes are different, one is a known scenario flag.
This scenario flag is what makes sure the cheat menu is off again.

Mercator · August 17, 2003, 15:16

And your problem with the city styles might just be the other way around. Set the styles both in the rules, and using CivTweak.

CivTweak will adjust the style of the human player, the editors/rules.txt will adjust the style of the non-human players.

klesh · August 17, 2003, 15:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Mercator

Are you using the in-game scenario editors? Those change the rules.txt, right? You should also use the "Edit King" dialog in the cheat menu to change everything.

Yes, I am using the 'Edit King' feature soley for the tribe/leader names. Genrally I stay as far away from the ingame editors as possible.

Quote:

When you start a game, all leader names, tribe names and adjectives are loaded from the then used rules into your savegame. If you change the rules afterwards (manually or by using the editors) the game will still keep using the names stored in the savegame.
The only way to change the names stored in the savegame is through Cheat > Edit King > Edit Name.

Right! This is why it is so confusing to me! I have been changing names only with the Edit King thingy as stated above.

Quote:

An alternative is to edit your rules before you start the game in the first place. That way the right values will be loaded from the start.

Yes, I have noticed that after starting, manually editing Rules.txt has no effect. But once again it seems that the game wants to revert to the defaults even after using the editor. Whats worse, is that it sometimes changes leader names, usually changes tribe names, and sometimes changes all but ne civ's worth of data.

Odd happenings, much like the favourite "Franklin Roosevelt attack near London!" type popup messages for missile attacks.

:) Smiley · August 17, 2003, 22:41

I would stick with just Rules.Txt editing unless there is a major reason not to.