THIS PROGRAM IS NOW OUT OF DATE!!!

IT WILL NOT WORK WITH THE LATEST RELEASE OF CIV3.

AND NO I CAN'T MAKE ANY CHANGES TO IT.

it would be cool to be able to switch civs at the beginning of the game. i'm currently playing on a standard map as persians and started with 8 civs. its mid-1900s now and i'm close to a culture vic and may even win before then with UN.

but here's the thing. at the beginning, i was on a continent with 6 other civs while china got a cont of its own. i'd like to try it out as china and see if i can make a good civ outta that situation (the ai dropped the ball big-time... china's in the dark ages).

it would just be a completely different game. i build almost no navy until very late... that would have to change. i also needed to be very careful with all the civs around me since i was in the middle while they were all blasting the heck outta each other. again, china was somewhat removed from this.

it would just be interesting if it could happen. but since its not a premade map i dunno how it would work.

dss

I maybe able to help you with this one, but you'll have to wait until I release a new version.

Untill then keep your save game, I take it you still have the save game from the very beginning?

Cheers.
James.

I think it's time for an update.

I've fixed the bug with changing the year, this now works, you will not be able to enter Invalid years, you will get prompt that there is an error with the year and it'll suggest two valid years.

i.e -4000, -3950, -3900 are valid
-3999, -3920, -3907 are Invalid

If you enter -3999 it will suggest you change it to -4000 or -3950.

Things being worked on: ( Will be release in the next version. )
The ability to change your selected civ.
Uncovering the world when you move units about with the editor.

Possible be able to change the units you start with.

If you 'd like to suggest any thing you'd like in the next version or an update of any version then let me know.

Cheers.
James.

Good job, James! :goodjob:

Is it possible to use your program to change the starting position of ALL Civs on a world map?

Another question: If you change the year of a 2000 AD saved game to 0 AD, will that create a problem because all cities and Wonders have the construction year recorded? For example, if you build the Hoover Dam in 1900 AD, but you change the year of the saved game to 0 AD, will this create a conflict?

You most certainly can, if you start Civ3 and save a game at the very start. Load up the editor and load the save file, you'll get a list of units, which when clicked on give what nationality they belong to, and also the X and Y tile locations.

When changing locations it's best to have the map loaded up in the Civ3 Map Editor, moving units about will only work with premade maps, it'll work with other maps but you won't have a clue where your placing them.

Hope that makes sence.

Cheers.
James.

I should'nt think it'll cause any problems, apart from the fact that you'll have citys built in the future!!!

The main purpose for putting the change of year in was to show functionality, it's main purpose will be to make scenarios when it's possible to do.

Adding citys and units, to the sav file shouldn't be a problem, it'll just take a while to get the file format worked out.

James.

Just used it on a world map that finally is playable... But WHY wasn't this in from the start?

Used one of the world maps wich is downloadable from this forum, it's a bit tight in Europe though... So I guess the Aztecs, Zuluz, Chinese, Americans, Iroqiues, Egyptians have a small advantage?

thanks, jimmy. yeah, i've still got the save from the beginning of the game. and i also started thinking about it. i guess i wouldnt necessarily havta change civs (from persia to china), just switch their places i guess... and your proggie already does that right? but then again, this isnt premade map, so i dunno if it would be easy to do.

dss

does not work here. Is this a windows program? then win95 doesn't accept it as such.
If it's a dos program, it doesn't work, too.
And add a txt file with syntaxt.

It would be great to bypass this incredibally annoying civ3 savegame bug by having the possibility of adding a new city for a civilization soon to be destroyed... (if you know what i'm talking about ) The bug occurs when a civ doesn't have any cities left but 1 potential city in the form of a settler, when that settler is destroyed all the savegames from that point on get corrupted..
I wasn't able to find anything out of the ordinary with my hex editor in one of the many "CITY" fields, or maybe i was just to lazy, anywayz adding a city should probably fix this so i can continue my game.

thanks,

T.

Thanks Jimmy. Great program!

Ive already made several new games including the huge world map with the correct starting positions.

I started a game and saved it without building a capitol. Then used your editor hack to move the civs units to where I wanted them. Saved and restarted, no problem.

One interesting side effect was that the origional starting position was still visible even though another civ was there. I could "see" their capitol and all units around it moving in and out.

All civs could communicate before long, without making actual physical contact, because each could see another from their "old" starting position, and started trading "contact" with each other.

Wierd. Anyone else have this happen? Any way to "fix" it? The only problem is trading techs early in the game unbalances things right off the bat.

I dont mind so much, its still great to be able to design worlds and place specific civs. Just curious.

I tried to use this program with Marla Singer's new world map to place the civs in the correct starting positions, and it crashes when I try to open the saved game. It works on my other games just fine, but not that one. Any ideas why?

Originally posted by Kino
I tried to use this program with Marla Singer's new world map to place the civs in the correct starting positions, and it crashes when I try to open the saved game. It works on my other games just fine, but not that one. Any ideas why?
You can try with the SaveGameEditor in version 0.70+ of Civ3CopyTool. (I believe it can read and write all sort of savefiles.)

Please pardon me for showing my stupidity.

I am desperate to be able to place civs in specific places on my pre-designed maps but I'm a real novice at this. I downloaded the program but can't seem to get it to work.

I open the map editor and then I open your Save game editor. I go to the saved games folder click on the map I want want to edit.

Then I get this message "Save Game.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience"

What am I doing wrong?

Do I need to install the Save Game editor in a particular folder or something else? I've tried several different things but can't seem to get it to open a saved map. I'm using Windows XP.

Could you please give me a simple walk thru? I know I'm ignorant but it's better to ask a stupid question than.....

Thanks in advance. I'm desperate.

i too am having problems using the editor with Marla's world map. what to do?

Originally posted by metrognome
i too am having problems using the editor with Marla's world map. what to do?
I've managed to load it into Civ3CopyTool's SaveGame Editor (with version 0.70 and later, but v0.73 is the one I've tested it with, and it seem to work)

where might i find this Civ3CopyTools of which you speak?

Originally posted by metrognome
where might i find this Civ3CopyTools of which you speak?
Check this forum. I have a thread for it here.

(It can also be found in the Apolyton Civ3-files forum)

The save game editor didn't work for me either, but after some messing around with it, I figured out that you must use the default rules for it to work. Apparently it can't be a random map either. (Jimmy had said this, though I didn't test it.) If you want to play with custom rules, you can still modify the civ3mod.bic file in your map editor. Those are the core rules so I'd make a backup of them first.

All you do is save a game you want to play. Close Civ III. Open the save game editor and edit unit positions. Save. Close the program and load up your save game to play. Maybe my last post will help, if you were using any custom rules with a map.
It's kind of a tedious proccess but well worth it I think. I'm still surprised they left this out of the game and thanks bunches, Jimmy for making this tool.

Someone posted that after moving all the settlers to their correct starting positions (before building the first city), they could see the city that the AI built in the old starting location. To prevent this and the resulting contact from occuring, try editing the map and put all the starting locations in Antartica (or somewhere equivalent) just far enough apart so that no one can have contact. Then you could edit the map and put all the settlers in their correct starting positions such that no one will be able to see any one else's old starting position.

Note that I have not tried this to see if it works.

Ive got news for you, i managed to edit the year of a random map fairly succesfully. Haven't tried to edit the location of units yet, looks too much hard work!! ;)

Originally posted by Acid Reign
Ive got news for you, i managed to edit the year of a random map fairly successfully. Haven't tried to edit the location of units yet, looks too much hard work!! ;)
The format is the same for Random maps and other maps. The reason why you "can't move the units is that you don't know where to move them.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jimmyh
[B]Some one asked to be able to change unit positions in the save game file so that they could have correct starting positions on the map.

Well I've managed to hack the file and find out where this is done.

I've tested this and it works, if you want to change unit positions then you should have the Civ3 editor up and running with the map you are playing on ( THIS WILL ONLY WORK WITH PREMADE MAPS ), when you select each unit it'll tell you what civ if belongs to, you can even move the barbarian units.

I'll look into being able to add units to the file, maybe this could then be used to create scenarios or some thing

You can also edit the year of a save game file, THIS DOES NOT WORK AT THE MOMENT.

Putting in silly vaules for positions will be your fault, there is no error checking of what is entered.

If any one wants any other features then just let me know.

Cheers.
James.

Hey James, got a copy of your editor-mod. I followed your instructions, tried everything, but no matter what I do, it keeps crashing on me. And I get this error...

" SAVED GAME EDITOR caused an invalid page fault in module SAVED GAME EDITOR.EXE at 015f:00401670. "

I hope that helps, I've been searching for a mod to "place starting locations" so that I can build a proper scenario, I hope you continue your mod-designing, and are able to help me with this peticular problem.

Thanks, Charles.

World Map completed.

-Resouces, rivers, terrain, forests very accurate. Spent lots of time looking through Maps, reading up on the historical origins of certain resources. Anyhow, the product of all my time spent is here in the attachment, I encourage anyone to edit and make improvements. One thing though, after all this work to get things historically accurate as possible, I was still unable to get the player start positions to work out right. It only allows me to move 8 races start positions, I was hoping for 16?

Originally posted by teturkhan
World Map completed.

-Resouces, rivers, terrain, forests very accurate. Spent lots of time looking through Maps, reading up on the historical origins of certain resources. Anyhow, the product of all my time spent is here in the attachment, I encourage anyone to edit and make improvements. One thing though, after all this work to get things historically accurate as possible, I was still unable to get the player start positions to work out right. It only allows me to move 8 races start positions, I was hoping for 16?
You can try to create a CPF-file for Civ3CopyTool.

I can't even get the "SaveGameEditor" to work at all. I can load the program, and the map editor, but when I try to load a "Saved Game" into the Editor, it crashes! What I'm looking for is a "Place all 16 starting locations - Editor" perhaps one where you can do so, from the Editor that came with Civ3, not a saved game editor, because for a saved game editor you need to edit a saved game. I would just rather have someone design a modification to the ACTUAL editor that comes with Civ3.

Charles.

I think I finally got a grasp of how to work with the save game editor. It will NOT change locations on a scenario where default settings are not checked.

here is what I did to get around the problem:

1- there is a Civ3mod located in your main civ directory. Go into that and make any changes you would like. (make sure you back up this file somewhere). So lets say you want some map changes, unit etc, go ahead do them all. When editing the civ3mod you DO NOT have to have the default checked nor should you or your work and editing will have been for nothing.

2- once you are done making changes, save the civ3mod and then save again but go SAVE AS then type in a name you like - for this example lets give it a name "DEMO". When you have done this, go and check the default settings on.

3- now start the game, go to the DEMO scenario, once the game has started before doing anything, save it. Then exit.

4- go to the save game editor, now you should be able to open
the save game without it crashing.


sorry guys if this is confusing but I am short of time here, hope it works.. just remember back up the original civ3mod file.

I followed your instructions to a T. And it still crashes. Possibly something wrong on my end? Oh well.

Charles

I am guessing it crashes the moment you try to download the save file correct?

let me put the steps down once more:

1- civ3mod save it and put a copy into another folder.

2- make changes to the civ3mod using the CIV3 EDITOR, note that certain changes will cause a crash in the game. If it is operating fine now you are ok.

3- Once you are done the changes save the civ3mod file (MAKE SURE THE DEFAULT IS NOT CHECKED ON THE MOD before saving it).

4-Then right after go to SAVE AS and type in a new name "DEMO" and save this to0 (BUT UNLIKE THE MOD, YOU DO NOT WANT THE DEFAULT SETTIGN TO BE ON-MAKE SURE IT IS OFF).

5-start civ, pick the scenario and on your first turn (dont move or anything, save it and exit the game.

6- go to Save game editor (mine is in my main Civ directory, load the save game and you should be ok.


Try again see if it works

-Ray

sorry,

I meant that you DO want the default setting ON for the "Demo" Scenario. That was the key problem for me, with this settign off the Save game editor would always crash..

Sorry, I just figured out what my problem is. I downloaded the "other" saved game editor, the one designed by James. (smacking forhead repeatedly) I downloaded yours, "copy tool" and it works, thanks for all your help! I'm impressed too! Good little Mod!

Thanks,
Charles.

Originally posted by Kino
I tried to use this program with Marla Singer's new world map to place the civs in the correct starting positions, and it crashes when I try to open the saved game. It works on my other games just fine, but not that one. Any ideas why?

Originally posted by Gramphos
You can try with the SaveGameEditor in version 0.70+ of Civ3CopyTool. (I believe it can read and write all sort of savefiles.)

Well I can't get either utility to work with XP!

SGE Crashes with a nice box asking if I want to send the crash details to Microsoft (no thank you)

C3CT Wont even run

The Zip attached below contain's Marla's 1.085 Map and Mortioso's CivBreed 0.45 Utility.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Extract files to your Civilization directory

2. Start new scenario game with Marla's Map

3. Save game as "FIX.SAV"

4. Run the file "RUN_THIS.BAT" in your saves directory (inside the Civilization directory)

5. Load up "FIXED.SAV"

6. Play :D

My apologies to Gramphos I crawled all over your Civ3CopyTool thread, installed numerous VB runtimes and OCX files and it still would not work on my XP system so I decided to find a better way

EDIT: replaced with v1.11 (Marla's v1.10 with CivBreed Not Civ3CopyTool) 266K
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=128430 linked, not attached, to save server space!

Aloisia Vonotar

P.S.
Marla / Mortioso, yes I suppose I've taken liberties with your files but you two really should team up together on this. The attached zip is only 108K while I downloaded over 2Mb trying to get Civ3CopyTool working!

P.P.S.
Sorry Mod's I intend to post this a few places where people are experiencing the same problem's as Me (both on Apolyton and CivFanatics). Feel free to dock my Post's count accordingly!

If anyone can make a mini map appear or zoom, cause for some reason the people from Civ don't think we need it. http://forums.civfanatics.com/importers/forums.civfanatics.com/confused.gif

Actually I'm unable to draw a single map without at least one of these two, it's really hard.

Does any of the map designer give me a tip or two how they actually draw such accurate maps? Or they just spend long times in front of computer with trial and error theory... http://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/crazyeyes.gif

If I use this utility would I be able to insert new units in the game and edit the Civrules, with no problems. So I can continue my games without having to start allover again?:confused: