Hi there,

I am very new to this, as I only installed and started modding Civ 3 yesterday. So forgive me if my questions are a bit simplistic.

All I want to do (for now at least) is change the race names and leaderheads in my game in the most simple way. I don't want to add races, just change the existing ones so the leaders look like members of my family! I thought I had a handle on it, but the game keeps crashing every time I interact with another race :(

Could someone please tell me where I might be going wrong?

This is what I did:

I used Photoshop to create .pcx files for each of the leader pictures and saved them in place of the old ones in the leaderheads folder.

I did the same for the .pcx files in the Civilopedia folder.

I used Civ3FlcEdit to change the animation files to single frame pictures (just for simplicity) and saved them in place of the originals

I ran the .pcx files through the ImgConvert program that comes bundled with the MMToolkit

I changed the race names, the names of the Cities and the names of the leaders in Civ3 editor that came with the game.

I did try to have a look at my civ3mod file in the Civ3MM program, and when I checked my races, I get the following messages:

1. Scenario file path:
target path isn't specified.

2. Small Loved (120x150) icon target path is empty.

3. Item's binary data type is different with Scenario file.

I'm afraid I don't know what that means or what I can do to correct it :confused:

I would be wildly grateful to anyone who can assist me. Thank you very much in advance.

Angelina XX

I'm afraid I can't help here, but I'll bump the thread up in case anyone else can, and add that if you've got this far with modding only a day after installing the thing I'm bloody impressed!

Not much time avail., but have you specified in the new file created the folder were you keep the changes?

Thanks Plotinus, I was quite impressed with myself, if only I could make the bloody thing work for more than 5 mins!

After posting this yesterday I was doing a bit of reading on the forums and found a MAJOR thing that I was doing wrong ... I was modifying the main civ3mod file instead of making a separate scenario for my characters. :eek:

I didn't realise that was bad. So I reinstalled the game and tried making a scenario with all new races, but now I'm stuck even more. :cry:

I can get the scenario to feature, but none of the character Flcs show up, now I'm getting black screens, which I wasn't before. It's still crashing, too, mainly as soon as I interact with any of the races I created.

I think what I need is a nice beginner's guide to Civ3 modding. MMToolkit and Civ3 Editor are both fantastic programs, but I really need a manual! Can anyone recommend a site or a post where I can get a breakdown of how to do this? I've been flying blind really.

Failing that, perhaps I could download an existing Scenario which I could then modify for my own purposes. Can anyone recommend one of those, something basic that follows the original game as closely as possible?

Thanks for your help! :goodjob:

Yes, you should definitely do things like these in mods or scenarios rather than monkey about with the main game files.

If the game crashes when the new graphics are meant to appear, the first thing to do is check that you have told the game the right filenames to find them. It sounds obvious but you never know. So you want to check that your scenario tells the computer the right folder to look in (under the Scenario Properties menu) and that you have typed the right names for the flc files (under the Civilizations tab in the Rules section). But if it's looking black or not right then that sounds like your graphic is somehow in the wrong format. I don't know about leaderhead formats but you might try sending a private message to one of the leaderhead creators around here. Civ Army tends to be around a lot so he might know what your problem is.

Also, have you looked through the Tutorials forum? There are some handy threads in there...

Thanks very much, Plotinus, I will head over there right now and see if there's any tutorials that will set me on the right path.

Much appreciated. :)

Black squares is usually a sign that you saved the pcx in RGB format; you have to save them in 256 colour (aka Indexed) mode. Some of the crashdes can be for this reason too. Also, two of the colours in the palette are used for transparency, check the link in my sig for a tutorial on that. :)

I can't help, but I'm curious as to what "wildly grateful" means

Thanks mrtn, I think you could be right on the RGB/Indexed factor. Although I have run all the images through the ImgConvert program in the MMToolkit and they did work before when I was stupidly modifying the main game files. I dunno, it's a bit puzzling really. But thanks for pointing me in the direction of your tutorial, that's a great help.

And Bungus, I guess you'll just have to be helpful before you can find out what "wildly grateful" entails! ;)

And Bungus, I guess you'll just have to be helpful before you can find out what "wildly grateful" entails! ;)

Sounds like the sort of thing my girlfriend says. Nope, still not found out...

I think what I need is a nice beginner's guide to Civ3 modding. MMToolkit and Civ3 Editor are both fantastic programs, but I really need a manual! Can anyone recommend a site or a post where I can get a breakdown of how to do this? I've been flying blind really.

Assuming you have C3C, I've done a C&C newbie guide (see signature) for just that sort of thing, replete with links around the forum, and a few other things, although its gotten knocked down a bit in the appropriate forum.


I can't help, but I'm curious as to what "wildly grateful" means

Wildly grateful is an old Corsican expression referring to the spontaneous formation of piles of flaked parmesan cheese in the wilderness, believed to be caused by the leaky cows which call the island their home. It means "remarkable and peculiar in a manner which goes well with spontaneously formed pasta products".