Total newbie questions on scenarios

[vik]

Wow, I'm glad I found this area -- I usually hang out in the civ2 strategy section. Thanks to all of you contributers. I have just a few questions I will post here, then I will check the archives. I know that's backwards, but I don't have a lot of time, and the archives are expansive. I will sort through them gradually, but if I can get some answers sooner, then that's just great.

Question 1: I have ver 2.4.2. I want to make scenarios in which other players can download and play them with out having to backup the "cities.txt" and "units.gif" and so on. Is this possible?

Question 2: Just how finicky is the "units.gif" or all the other ".gif" files? Just viewing them, they seem really precise, but I'm wondering what types of errors will lead to a big crash.

Question 3: What is the procedure for replacing the default AI leader pictures. I would love to replace the female American leader's unflattering picture (currently the default is an underwhelming Eleanor Roosevelt) with a picture of my choosing. I would love to have someone like Marilyn Monroe or even (heh heh) Jenna Jameson pop up when contact with the "Americans" is made.

Question 4: Would anyone care to post some good places to get a variety of 2.4.2 scenarios. I am a great cutter-n-paster, and am great at controlled plagiarism as it applies here. At a minimum, I might be able to get some ideas to help get me on the right path.

thanks

[Civfan]

Well first off, update your Civ2. Heres the site for doing such a thing. http://www.angelfire.com/ga/hiciv/

Most scenarios use Fantast Worlds version (Well the good scenario's anyways) and Scenario League/Civilization Scenario Collection which are part of this great community Apolyton have the best scenarios around.

Question 2. What? Keep in the bounderies, use 256 colors and they should be fine. if that helps your question.

Question 3. You need the Gifextractor made purposely for Civ2. I think its at Scenario league or Apolyton in the utilies section. Download and open it. Scan your CD for the DLL files. Some should have pics. Not sure right now which ones have it.

Question 4.
http://apolyton.net/cgi-bin/civ2file...000&sort=title

[Panda]

Re Qs 1 and 4, any scenario made with a version earlier than Fantastic World (2.7.81) can be played by anyone. You can make scenarios using 2.42, but as you know there is the hassle of backing up the game files you want to edit. For versions later than 2.62 (Conflicts in Civilization) all the game files are stored in seperate sub-directories and accessed from these. The big improvement was the introduction of events, with more and more allowed as later versions were released. So as to scenarios available for pre-FW a good guide is to look for older scenarios before FW came out (about mid '97). You'll usually find that web-sites will specify if FW is required or not.

[Panda]

Ah...secondly, regarding Q2: keep the exact same pallete order when you start editing (open the default units.gif file and save the pallete so you can recover). That was one of my first mistakes, though I blame Corel Paint for it entirely.

*

Just thought of something else: Crousto actually programmed a nifty little utility which can convert scenarios made with FW to the non-FW version.

Check out http://www.multimania.com/meuh/fw2civ/index.htm

And as for cutting and pasting (I just noticed that), you can download any scenario and open any of the graphics files to see what's what. Again most sites have sections for graphics and include unit compilations.
[This message has been edited by Andrew Livings (edited March 28, 2000).]

[Cam]

Just on the question of the colours used in
Civ2 - be careful that you save the pallete
used in the units graphic - which
research to date has indicated is the one
adopted by the game.

This topic is discussed in;
sleague.apolyton.net/Guides/sldt_palette.shtml