I have spent some time making the first test alpha of my mod. I have added many new units, some resources, and now, several buildings (a few wonders included), and a new government. I have also changed the names of several techs, but have not added any new ones.

I've had no trouble with the units or the resources, and I have added buildings before, but now when I go to a New Game (to finally test my modification in its entirety), it immediately brings an error message:

ERROR READING FILE. Missing entry in "text\PediaIcons.txt". ICON_

I have triple-checked, and every new building I added to the .bic is counted for in the Pediaicons.txt file. And finding no reference to governments anywhere... is there anything the order of the building entries need to be?

I've made sure all the entries are in alphabetical order, as well. So I'm pretty muched stumped. :help:


And considering - I'm not lying here - I've spent more time editing this game then I have playing it, I feel like Firaxis should pay me 60 bucks for this game.

The funny thing is, I ran into this problem way back in the day - but, well, several months ago I deleted everything that had to do with Civ3 from my computer, put the CD back in the box, and threw the box somewhere, to be found a few weeks ago to be again played - and hated, then modified extensively. :wallbash:

Heh, I think that time I decided to quit was whenever they released the patch that lowered the maximum map size. I was sick of the stupid world being colonized before anyone could even make explorers, and they were making the maps SMALLER? :argh:


Anyway, sorry to go off like that, here is the error message again:
ERROR READING FILE. Missing entry in "text\PediaIcons.txt". ICON_
This appears immediately after I press the New Game button on the main menu screen.

If anyone can tell me what that error message means, and what the causes are, that would be just lovely. :love:

Do you have some messed up entry in the file called ICON_ ? I e an empty entry.

Or an empty space in some line after #ICON_ ?

Make one more check in the editor to make sure everything you have added has an associated civilopedia key. That is what the problem has been when I have seen this error. If you still can't find the problem, zip up the bic and pediaicons file and attach it and I can take a look.

"Do you have some messed up entry in the file called ICON_ ? I e an empty entry."
Nope.
"Or an empty space in some line after #ICON_ ?"
Nope.


"Make one more check in the editor to make sure everything you have added has an associated civilopedia key."

Heh, well, I don't HAVE any civilopedia keys for any of my additions. :crazyeye: But, looking at the key names for the standard entries, it seems obvious now that the civilopedia and any related icon list uses the reference names as the item.

So, yeah I guess I will add in 'pedia keys for the new buildings... does there HAVE to be a civilopedia entry as well? Like, if there is no related entry in the civilopedia.txt file, will it crash out as well? Or just bring up a blank page in-game?

Thank you all for the help. :)

Sweetness! The missing keys were the problem. :goodjob:

Originally posted by Bjorn Bjornson
... does there HAVE to be a civilopedia entry as well? Like, if there is no related entry in the civilopedia.txt file, will it crash out as well? Or just bring up a blank page in-game?... I don't think there have to, but I usually add one anyway, just to be sure. It's often very boring, like this:
#PRTO_Inca_Spearman
^
^
^Inca Spearman.
But then I at least know that the civilopedia works. :)

After a solid week of continual civilopedia editing, I'm pretty confident that you don't actually need something in civilopedia.txt for any of the buildings, units, etc and the game will just put up a blank page for it and work fine. That said, I have been putting the #THIS_Whatever and #DESC_THIS_Whatever entries in for pretty well everything anyhow, even if I leave them totally blank, just because it seems the right thing to do.

Well, yeah, I will be doing that, plus adding actual data to the entry, but that is another time! I need to test to see if my additions and modifications are balanced and work correctly before I care about the finishing touches, shall we say.

Again, thanks for the all the input, it seems to be working now on a minimal level.