View Full Version : Utility requests thread.


The Navy Seal
Aug 06, 2007, 10:22 AM
Post utility requests here.:)

I want a Vannila to BtS xml updater.
And a Warlords to BtS xml updater.

Robotron 2084
Aug 06, 2007, 03:42 PM
I'd like to see the Civ4 soundtrack editor getting updated to work with BTS.

TheLastOne36
Aug 09, 2007, 06:08 AM
I'd like a LINK to a bts dll that would allow me to have 34 civs in one game.

Also on a sidenote, a guide on how to mod the DLL would be nice to.

The Navy Seal
Aug 09, 2007, 03:59 PM
Here's a link to a 34 civ SDK. Go Here! (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=233848)

The Frederick
Aug 16, 2007, 06:22 AM
There was this editor I used to use for DDS files, it could open the file and it's alpha in Paint. Can't find it anymore.

NikNaks
Aug 16, 2007, 07:21 AM
@The Frederick
You mean DXTBmp (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Editors/DXTBmp.shtml), right?

illram
Aug 21, 2007, 07:10 PM
Is there a program that allows placement of civ starting positions in WBS files? That would be my request... That seems to be the number one request from people using WBS files with random starts, and when I made my own Europe map placing the civs was by far the most agonizing part.

Of course none of this would be relevant if Worldbuilder was actually a functional map editor...

Bianezzi
Aug 29, 2007, 09:57 PM
I would *die* for some program that saves all high scores on a separate file, also uniting high scores for mods, etc.

Robotron 2084
Sep 08, 2007, 08:40 AM
I'm astonished nobody else but me is yearning for the soundtrack editor
being updated to BTS.

Does everyone else use Winamp to MANUALLY choose appropriate soundtracks
for each era??? How inconvenient!!!

Bah!:confused:

kristopherb
Sep 10, 2007, 11:48 AM
Combines DLLs in one DLL

dimon157
Sep 12, 2007, 03:36 PM
It would be great to have utility that can record games (including GSOTM) and then show video walkthrough.

Colwyn
Sep 12, 2007, 09:58 PM
I need a utility to export a civ2 or civ3 map to civ 4

Oregano
Sep 19, 2007, 10:46 AM
I'd love to see a mod/game editor for bts similar to what we had in Civ III Conquests. I'm not a programmer, and being married with kids, full time job, I don't have the time to spend hours and hours on end pouring through code I don't understand. I'd love to be able to manipulate pretty much everything from number and type of religions, resources, civics, units, you name it, with an easy to use and understand graphic interface.

ClassicThunder
Sep 19, 2007, 04:46 PM
Good grief people.

As a fairly experienced programmer I would suggest you to aim lower. A whole lot lower. I'm in for making a tool if it will only take about a week. But there is as far as I know no way to merge .DLLs and a full blown mod creator would take as long as making the game. Plus it would have to be updated constantly.

Basically I'm up for helping but most of these would require a team of half a dozen people and a few months of part time work. Both things I don't really have. A DLL merger would be absolutely evil to make.

Maybe you should think of shelling out a few hundred dollars for a professional team?

@Bianezzi
That would be easiest as a mod comp and not a separate utility.

@Colwyn
Thats actually reasonable but because I only have the civ 4 titles I can't help there.

@dimon157
There are APPs that do this so I would suggest Google.

@The Navy Seal
My Tag Editor will really help out with this.

skiaplg
Sep 29, 2007, 01:04 PM
If possible, though probably way too hard, I'd want a BtS to Vanilla Converter, Or an easy Add Religion Utility program. Like the one for units, only for religions ;)

ClassicThunder
Sep 29, 2007, 06:16 PM
My XML Manipulator will help a lot with the conversion, it will let you adjust the tags for the BTS files you can just copy can paste what you want into your stock files.

skiaplg
Sep 29, 2007, 06:32 PM
I'll try it ;) Just a little question: I mushed Classical Religions and Civ Gold 3 together and now I can't build any of the new Religions shrines...

NikNaks
Sep 30, 2007, 01:50 AM
I happen to know that no shrines were included in that mod. ;)

skiaplg
Sep 30, 2007, 06:47 AM
If I go into worldbuilder, there are ;) and If there aren't, someone could do them, hint hint.

FunkMaster Tut
Oct 06, 2007, 01:04 PM
I am not a programmer, but I am a lover of every incarnation of CIV. One of ones I loved most was Alpha Centauri...the main reason was the built in capacity to make your own CIVs.
So that is the utility I would like. For this game, a Utility that lets you make your own CIV's and Leaders. Nothing too intensive or game shattering. Just a little app I can launch that will do that for me without having to go into the code.
Thanks so much in advance, and for offering to do stuff like this for us!
FMT

The Navy Seal
Oct 08, 2007, 09:06 AM
ClassicThunder could you please give me a link to the tag editor.

P.S Welcome to CFC FunkMaster Tut I know you joined in 2004 but it's your first post so welcome. [party]

ClassicThunder
Oct 08, 2007, 09:34 AM
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=245177

It's been renamed to XML Manipulator since it can do a lot more now.

The Navy Seal
Oct 09, 2007, 08:39 AM
Thanks this will be very helpful. :king:

kristopherb
Oct 24, 2007, 09:10 AM
Is there a utility that tells me what is wrong with my MOD?

ClassicThunder
Oct 28, 2007, 03:06 PM
No. Post on the front page with details and people will help.

david75hanjr
Nov 06, 2007, 07:57 AM
I liked to know if anybody is working on updating Civ4 Editor to work with BtS worldbuilder map saves

bundy
Nov 14, 2007, 07:14 AM
Is there new map genertaor to download becouse basic one in the game creates continentents with really un realistic and predictive shapes?

Feeder74
Nov 14, 2007, 10:06 AM
@david75hanjr: Did you know you can just rename the files from various 3rd party map editors - they work for me,eg. MyTest.Civ4WorldBuilderSave will load in Civ4 Vanilla - but rename it too MyTest.Civ4BeyondSwordWBSave and it loads in BTS instead - I havn't had any problems so far doing this - not 100% sure - but you could at least give it a try...

Owain
Nov 28, 2007, 09:45 PM
I need a utility to export a civ2 or civ3 map to civ 4

I've been away from here for awhile, but this is something I'd be interested in as well... Anyo0ne know if anything like this is in the works or out and about?

Thanks :D

JohnYoga
Dec 01, 2007, 09:23 AM
Hello Folks,

I want to launch a mod from a list. I do not want to have to restart Civ to play a mod.

I used to try the mod launchers from a year or two ago, but they don't seem to work anymore. Is there one out there which works with BTS?

Thank you,

John

omglazers
Jan 28, 2008, 10:40 PM
Program that somehow helps with city planning / dot mapping

mourndraken
Jan 29, 2008, 02:50 AM
I'd love to see a BTS mod loader where you don't have to start the main game before loading a mod

moopoo
Jan 30, 2008, 04:42 AM
to load up mods I created a shortcut of the main game .ini file on the desktop, and just edit that to load up the mod i want before i get into Civ. Quick, easy, and no modding/utility required.

mourndraken
Jan 30, 2008, 10:31 PM
ic
thanks moopoo

`DG`
Feb 14, 2008, 01:07 PM
I am not a programmer, but I am a lover of every incarnation of CIV. One of ones I loved most was Alpha Centauri...the main reason was the built in capacity to make your own CIVs.
So that is the utility I would like. For this game, a Utility that lets you make your own CIV's and Leaders. Nothing too intensive or game shattering. Just a little app I can launch that will do that for me without having to go into the code.
Thanks so much in advance, and for offering to do stuff like this for us!
FMT
seconded. Just a "simple" thing that let's you mix 'n match:
- traits
- unique units
- unique buildings
- starting techs
- have a selection to allow "highly favourable mode" i.e. allows more then the usual number of each of the above
- Optionally:
* leader image upload
* leader personality for AI

NikNaks
Feb 15, 2008, 04:35 AM
@'DG'
Try Dale's CivCustomizer. It doesn't actually create new civs, but you get to pick the combinations you want during the game.

JohnnyBeGood
Feb 25, 2008, 03:26 AM
Is there such a thing, I know about the one for Civ4. But, it doesn't work with BTS.

Thanks.

NikNaks
Feb 25, 2008, 12:44 PM
Open it with Notepad. There are tutorials on how to do it.

JohnnyBeGood
Feb 26, 2008, 04:06 AM
I have done a few searches but haven't been able to find it.

Zebra 9
Feb 27, 2008, 09:11 AM
Just for your info
I'm currently working on zMod Maker. It will allow:
1. Editing of XML via an interface, no more tags
2. Editing World Builder Saves (Almost done, I can already place, read, and save terrains, features, and resources)

:D

Howei
Mar 05, 2008, 01:51 AM
Just for your info
I'm currently working on zMod Maker. It will allow:
1. Editing of XML via an interface, no more tags
2. Editing World Builder Saves (Almost done, I can already place, read, and save terrains, features, and resources)

:D

the WBS-editor: can you insert injured units, put some hammers to a building and put some food into the store of a city?
that would be :cool:

Zebra 9
Mar 06, 2008, 05:44 PM
Well I'm limited by the World Builder Save, but I plan on having different file versions that will support unit names, city production and anything else I can think of.

Howei
Mar 08, 2008, 07:10 AM
:thumbsup: looking forward

spoooq
Mar 13, 2008, 10:37 AM
I would like a way of dumping statistics about the players Civ into a log file, preferably in CSV or XML format. Id like to see things like city pop, beakers per turn at 0% and 100% slider, and so on. I dont mind if it runs during the game (can it be kicked off with a custom button or at a set date?) or on savegame files. If anyone has a dll capable of handling the savegame format and knows if this information can be read directly from there, then Ill write the rest.

ruepelzahl
Mar 26, 2008, 08:39 PM
hi.

does anyone know of a tga-editor, that doesn't make a bloody hell of a mess out of the GameFont.tga? Everything I tried out leaves the GameFont.tga crippled, if I do as much as open and save the thing without any further changes.:confused:

NikNaks
Mar 27, 2008, 03:51 AM
Try this tutorial (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=181119).

ruepelzahl
Mar 27, 2008, 11:35 AM
:(

Thx for your efforts, but it didn't work for me. I found that just copying GameFont.tga to ...\My Games\...\res makes a complete mess of the citynames and the icons above it. No changes whatsoever, just a copy of the original.

Making changes according to the tutorial you suggested, and placing the changed file in the original folder C:\progrmas\...\res yields correct letters in citynames but no icons whatsoever, just none, not a single one. Must have messed up something by just copying an pasting tiles, because all the letters are located before the icons. I think I call it quits due to frustration.

NikNaks
Mar 28, 2008, 06:05 AM
Did you also edit GameFont75.tga ?

ruepelzahl
Mar 28, 2008, 01:58 PM
yep, done that.

I think it might be a clue, that all the letters are ok, and are located before the religious icons I changed. But I really did it exactly according to the tutorial.

In addition, just opening GameFont.tga with the BTX-thing, and saving it with "replace --- yes" shrinks the file by 26 bytes. But the smaller file is still working, albeit not in the My Games directory, but in the original location only.

Would you agree, that this behaviour is a bug?

NikNaks
Mar 29, 2008, 05:03 AM
That's really strange. Are you sure you have all the pink dots in the right place?

SerriaFox
Mar 30, 2008, 11:34 AM
Vilu made a really nice technology cost editor:

Could we get a building cost editor:
a unit cost editor:
a wonder cost editor:

??

be really nice, :):)

ruepelzahl
Mar 30, 2008, 01:03 PM
I#m positively dead sure. What I did was paste a 21 x 20 area from the Gods of Old GameFont.tga over a 21 x 20 area of the original BtS GameFont.tga with carefully leaving all the green dots in place right where they were.

Even if I should have happened to make a mistake - though I could not think of any - it remains, that just relocationg GameFont.tga from the games' original folder to the My Games folder, makes a mess out of the towns' icons. How come?

Celebithil
May 17, 2008, 04:21 AM
I'd like a map statistics utility. Just count how many sea/ocean/grassland etc. tiles there are and what resources they contain. I want to do some testing on map scripts and right now want to know the amounts of resources (to answer questions like "how does the number of resources scale with map size?"). Manually counting the number of resources gets boring real quickly though :-).

An automated map script runner would also help here, but I don't really mind to run them myself a few times. However, given that there is a utility regenerating maps until you find a brilliant starting position, this should be possible as well, so if someone can help here I'd be grateful.

General Tso
May 17, 2008, 01:23 PM
Celebithil,
I just wrote a quick little program to do what you need. Here it is.

It shows the amount of each Bonus, Feature, and Terrain type. With the exception of Hills and Peaks. The information for them must be stored differently. If you can tell me how they are stored, I may be able to print them also.

Just unzip the downloaded program, open the folder, and double click on the "Map Stats" icon to start the program. Then click on the load button to load a file. Let me know if you have any problems.

MadmanOfALeader
Jun 15, 2008, 08:05 PM
Okay, folks.

I don't need nothin' fancy here, just something that'll let me add leaderheads and Civs easily. No tinkerin' with the Pythons and the Game Rules. Just new Civs and Leaderheads. I enter the leaderhead, unit art and infos and it generates a mod for me.

I need something that'll take away the HRE and let me add Italy, for example.

CivalGanjaman
Jul 18, 2008, 07:48 PM
Im eager to get started on some of these (such as above) except I dont have all the skills, I have time and determination so if anyone has good VB coding skills (esp in manipulating datasets) for a small amount of help I believe I could get quite far.

I am currently self learning so making slow progress :(

If you have these skills and a spare 20 min or so you could help speed me up a lot so drop me a line. I can upload my very basic code that I have so far if you reqd.

Rixile
Jul 22, 2008, 03:59 PM
I would like a vanilla civ 4 utility.

Make a simple utility that allows players to change music for certain eras.

So i could put jazz music in modern, classical in others, etc. Make it a free thing where music styles can go anywhere, even in ancient if you want it to. Also make it so it doesn't conflict with multiplayer.

Bigben34
Aug 06, 2008, 09:04 AM
Has any of you yet made a saved game editor, like the one Gyathaar had for Warlords?

I host ongoing multiplayer epics/marathons on high difficulty levels and frequently have the need to add/remove players or change their difficulty level.

Anyone who can design and post an update for this utility for BTS would be much appreciated.

Bigben34

Firestorm94
Aug 15, 2008, 11:48 PM
a scrollable scoreboard, for games with more than can fit on the right side of the screen, please

Dresden
Aug 16, 2008, 05:34 PM
a scrollable scoreboard, for games with more than can fit on the right side of the screen, please
ThomasSG made a scrollable scoreboard as part of his CCV mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=308). Never used it myself, but I've seen the pictures. (http://www.civforum.de/showpost.php?p=2378021&postcount=33)

musicfreak
Aug 23, 2008, 02:14 AM
I'd really like to see a program that can merge C++ files if the modcomp authors use a certain format. For example:
//#START
//...some code here...
//#ENDWould sure make the lives of us modders a lot easier. :)

Zebra 9
Aug 23, 2008, 09:19 AM
That wouldn't be hard, just depends on how much interface you want. I could have a small python script (you'd have to have python installed on you computer) in minutes and it would just be a prompt.

musicfreak
Aug 23, 2008, 12:13 PM
Yes, I have Python installed. That would be great. :) Thanks in advance!

Zebra 9
Aug 28, 2008, 12:54 PM
Well I hate to tell you this but I wasn't able to begin work on this despite its relative simplicity. I have spent the last few days getting ready for college. I leave tomorrow but I should be able to write it up sometime soon. ;)

P.S this won't be able to merge code that has been changed in more then 1 altered file. For example file 1 is being merged with file 2, and function A has been altered in both file 1 and 2. This snippet will only use the file 2 version of function A. Of course if function A altered in file 1 and file 2 but neither makes changes to the same parts then it will use both. But if there is any overlap anywhere in the file it will cause the compilation to fail.

musicfreak
Aug 28, 2008, 01:26 PM
Actually that's fine, I've written my own little script because I realized I needed more than just split()ing by comment lines. But thanks anyway! Have fun in college! :)