[TOT] The Test Of Time Patch Project

[techumseh]

As I'm playing through Burma Campaign V 1.0, I've hit what may be a significant glitch. I've used the expandable events memory in a big way, it's listed as exceeding 2k. Many events have delays associated with them. They do not seem to be triggering.

Catfish has written a tip on this; extra events space is consumed each time a delayed event occurs. Perhaps the expandable events memory of ToTPP does not expand for delay events required memory. Any thoughts?

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi Hans99,

I'm Lost...
Installed ToT from original CD german version. Patched to v1.1 german version. CD in CD Player. Copied the Files for v0.12.1 Patch from The Nameless One into the Folder. Started launcher and i get the message, that civ2.exe version is unknown and not patched.
Another try with the english patch to v1.1 on the german version yields the same results.
What am i doing wrong ?

I find that TOTPP is VERY finicky when it comes to patching. I have the Civilization Chronicles version of the game and when I install it the program installs it to "C:\Program Files (x86)\ Sid Meier's Civilization Chronicles" by default. I then use the "CivChroniclesPatch.exe" to patch it to version 1.1.

But it's only when I move the game's folders to "C:\Sid Meier's Civilization Chronicles" that TOTPP seems to recognize my civ2.exe and let's me set up the TOTPP patch.

I have a 64-bit computer running on windows 7.

I hope this helps resolve your issue.

 

[Patine]

@TNO

I don't know whether or not you're still taking suggestions for improvements for future patches, but if so, I have one, however late it may be. I was thinking it could be useful in certain scenarios if specific player units, not just barbarian ones, had an expiry period after first appearing, after which time they would despawn. This could be useful, for example, for general and other leader units in a long-term Roman or Chinese epic scenario, where generals and emperors, while influential in their lifetimes, would still, even if they didn't die in battle, retire or die of old age eventually. It would also be beneficial in such a case if 'expired' and 'killed' for such units could be used as separate 'if's' for events. Regardless of whether you take this up or not (or it's even possible without rewriting the game) I still the good work and look forward to seeing the result of what you're currently up to (assuming it's even Civ-related and not just RL stuff).

 

[TheNamelessOne]

Quick update, since it's been quite some time. I'm quite busy with RL things atm, but I expect to return to the project in a little while. I'm definitely not finished with the project just yet.

For people having problems with the patching process, keep in mind that when ToT is installed in a protected location like "C:\Program Files (x86)\...", ToTLauncher.exe needs to run with administrator privileges to be allowed to patch the executable (Win 7: Right click, Run as administrator). If all else fails, I've already uploaded the patched executable in this thread. It's available in this post.

 

[Catfish]

Yeah, lots of requests coming in lately, but occasionally I take time to actually remove old issues from The List.

That's good to hear. I've got a few favourites that are hopefully on The List.

Confirmed. And since it's breaking backwards compatibility, I'll do a point release later today.

Thanks for the rapid response.

I'm using three maps in my scenario and some of my testing leads me to believe that the problem seems to occur only, or primarily, when I add the third map.

So you set the Eliminate Pollution scenario flag (note, you must save the game as a scenario first in order for this flag to 'stick') and new pollution (skulls) continues to be generated on the map? This only began when you added a third map?

Unfortunately, as I indicated in my last Vietnam War thread, see post #58, though I reviewed Catfish's site and the Hex Edit document, I can't seem to find the offset/column of the binary that controls the on/off pollution flag within the scenario save file.

I'm pretty rusty on this stuff, so I had to look it up myself. The standard fix is described by Allard Höfelt in this thread:

Yes. If you turn byte 33 to be 80 you can switch off global warming completely. I'll try to explain it in some more details so that everybody understands it, even without knowledge of hex-editing.

The thing is, normally byte 32 and 33 both stand at 0. If there is pollution, byte 32 gets higher and higher, and at a certain amount global warming will happen. Maybe there is a x% chance of this happening determined by this byte. If global warming happens, byte 32 is reset to 00, and byte 33 is set to 01, which is logical, cause if byte 32 would not be reset to 0, there would be again a chance of global warming. This goes on and on, and byte 33 gets higher after every global warming.

Note that this is for Fantastic Worlds. Offsets 0x32 and 0x33 translate to 0x2B2 (690) and 0x2B3 (691) in Test of Time (Game Parameters block). This method doesn't appear to work in ToT; the game resets byte 691 (I'll use decimal for offsets) when it's given a value of 0x80 or higher. However, there are a few other undocumented pollution counters. Try zeroing offsets 690, 691, 694-695, 984 and 1000-1003. Byte 984 and the short 1000-1001 appear to be the working versions (at least in ToT) of 690 and 694-695, respectively. I don't know why there are two sets of global warming/pollution counters. Perhaps TNO can clarify. Perhaps another ToTPP request could be to add a @COSMIC2 flag to disable global warming completely. I believe that the Eliminate Pollution scenario flag simply prevents the production of pollution, but does not affect the impact of existing pollution.

 

[EricSmiler]

A question if I am allowed.
Right now I always play with the Civ II Unlimited loader/patcher by Elys, in combination with MGE. That tool has these options:

- Increase the global max units from 2048 to 32000.
- Increase the max gold from 30,000 to 2,000,000,000.
- Increase the max map surface from 10,000 to 32,767.
- Increase the max population from 320,000,000 to 2.000,000,000.
- Increase time limit from 2020 to 9999
- Increase the Events memory to 212,960
- Remove the CD check.

I particularly like the time limit and max population/gold changes.

But the ability of not being able to make more than 254 cities is something I miss.. and this is possible in this ToTPP (wonderful!).

But are any of the other limits also removed, similarly like in the 'Unlimited' too?

 

[tootall_2012]

...For people having problems with the patching process, keep in mind that when ToT is installed in a protected location like "C:\Program Files (x86)\...", ToTLauncher.exe needs to run with administrator privileges to be allowed to patch the executable (Win 7: Right click, Run as administrator)... this post.

Windows 7 usually advises me when a program requires administrative rights but I believe in the case of TOTPP it didn't, which after your explanation, would explain why I was having troubles patching. Thank you for the confirmation, I will remember this the next time I need to set it up again.

So you set the Eliminate Pollution scenario flag (note, you must save the game as a scenario first in order for this flag to 'stick') and new pollution (skulls) continues to be generated on the map? This only began when you added a third map?.

That's correct I set the Eliminate Pollution flag to off within the scenario's parameters and saved it as part of the .scn file. Because I generally keep a separate copy the scn file for each significant upgrade/modification I make, I retested the scenario when I only had 2 maps and found that I was having the same problem with pollution.

Now this was unexpected because for my Battle of Iwo Jima scenario I also used three maps and had turned the pollution flag to off without any problems. So I suspected that my Vietnam scn file might have been corrupted.

So I decided to try and rebuild the scenario from scratch last week, adding one map at a time to see if this was the indeed the problem and it appears as though it was. By Friday, I had all three maps in place and I can confirm that as of that time that the pollution no longer appears to be a problem (fingers crossed).

Having kept a copy of the old corrupted scn files I will probably try to see if I can follow your instruction with regards the hex editing to see if I can remove the pollution there. Thank you for your advice.


In an unrelated question, I'm curious to know what program did you use to generate your video files in your 'War of the Ring' scenario? Are they AVI files and if so what format do they need to be created in?

 

[Catfish]

That's correct I set the Eliminate Pollution flag to off within the scenario's parameters and saved it as part of the .scn file. Because I generally keep a separate copy the scn file for each significant upgrade/modification I make, I retested the scenario when I only had 2 maps and found that I was having the same problem with pollution.

Just to be clear, the info I provided above was for the global warming fix, not the location of the Eliminate Pollution flag. I figured this information to be more useful. If you reload your game and the Eliminate Pollution option is still ticked under Scenario Parameters, then you probably don't need to go digging with a hex editor. However, you can find the byte in the Scenario Parameters block at the end of the SAV/SCN file; search for the scenario name string and count back. It's a bitmask containing several scenario flags. You want the 7th bit. This block will only be present in SAV files derived from SCNs. So my advice to scenario designers is to save your development SAV as a SCN, change the file extension from SCN to SAV (Don't load it using the Begin a Scenario option.) and resume work on this new file.

In an unrelated question, I'm curious to know what program did you use to generate your video files in your 'War of the Ring' scenario? Are they AVI files and if so what format do they need to be created in?

I used the free utility, VirtualDub. The AVI files are single-frame images compressed (50%) with Indeo 5.1. Frame rate was 0.0001 FPS. Image dimensions must be divisible by 4. The single frame kept the file size to a minimum; the very low frame rate gave the player plenty of time to view and read it. That was Mercator's idea. Note that the ToTPP supports DirectShow, so you are no longer restricted to the rather crappy Indeo codec.

 

[tootall_2012]

Thanks for the info Catfish. I took an initial look at both VirtualDub and DirectShow and at first glance they appear to be a little beyond my technical expertise. I'll take another look later on.

 

[Hans99]

@tootall_2012

Many thanks for the advice! Will try this by time and Report the results.

 

[TheNamelessOne]

Work on the project has resumed, and the extra unit types patch is pretty much done. I've been playing with 127 unit types a bit, and so far no major problems!

This of course meant a significant change in the saved game format, in which the unit transport settings and the unit stats per tribe (active, in production and lost) have been moved to the extension block. Conveniently, this allowed me to improve the defense minister screen a bit:

Spoiler :

Statistics over 255 are correctly stored and displayed and there's some more room for the interface elements. I've also fixed a bug where the "In production" stat was not correctly updated after capturing a city (and a subsequent change in production could send it to 255), which should help the AI to make better decisions about whether to build more units or not.

Other changes in the next release include a patch to limit playable tribes and difficulties in scenarios, an alpine movement multiplier, and some bugfixes. I'm planning to release it in a couple of days.

 

[Metro Polis]

Awesome!

 

[TheNamelessOne]

Here's the new release, 0.13:

• Extra unit types: 127 available unit types instead of 80. Take a close look at the description in the launcher, quite a few changes are needed to set it up correctly (and it's a little long to repeat here).
• Playable tribes & difficulties: Limit playable tribes and difficulties in a scenario.
• Added road and alpine movement multipliers to the Movement multipliers patch.
• Added a script to create stacks of 256 units to the Debug scripts patch.

As always, detailed information about the patches is available in the launcher. For an overview of all patches, as well as installation instructions & requirements, see the included README.txt. Happy gaming!

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Ok, so doing some quick math, that means a max of 14 rows and 9 columns of unit graphics for the total count of 126, with the barbarian unit making up the only column of units for the 15th row and counting itself as the 127th unit, correct? If not, an example units.bmp with 127 units would help visualize it.

 

[TheNamelessOne]

No, the barbarian unit counts as the 128th, just as it counts as the 81st in vanilla. So you'll get 2 units in the 15th row.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Ok cool. What about when I choose to have less than 127 units? The barbarian icon just will not show up no matter where I put it. I chose 117 in my rules file because I ran out of ideas.

Additionally, my game crashes for an entirely different reason. Debugview is unhelpful with this crash. I narrowed it down to the AI Persians. I set the player to them, I recieved a "build complete" dialog for a temple, and then it crashes.

When I reloaded, went in to "kill civilization" and got rid of the Persians, and then something weird happened. Two units remained, an archers and a settler. Trying to use the cheat on them again didn't work. Manually deleting them did. Knowing the game updates build orders in reverse order of city foundings, I checked the order for the Persians, and Pasargadae and Persepolis were next. Pasargadae was fine, but Persepolis was next to finish building something, a trireme. I'm thinking building that trireme causes the crash, so I switched to a longer order, and the crash went away.

Regardless, here's the zip files. Hope they help.

EDIT: The crash happened more and more as the civs grew.

 

[TheNamelessOne]

Confirmed, here's the fixed release, 0.13.1:

• Fixed a crash bug when city production was updated from an obsolete unit type.
• Fixed a bug where the barbarian diplomat sprite didn't show when having less than 127 unit types.

As always, detailed information about the patches is available in the launcher. For an overview of all patches, as well as installation instructions & requirements, see the included README.txt. Happy gaming!

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

The new .exe is tripping Avira; says it contains malware 'TR/Crypt.ZPACK.Gen4'. Version 012 and older never had problems.

 

[minipow01]

Wow, so much has happened since I last stepped in here! If it's not too much, I would like to resurrect an old suggestion from post #325 about air cover.

I think most scenario designers would consider air cover to be a potential nuisance that unfairly advantages the human player. It makes any stack of ground units essentially invincible to enemy attack. This has led tootall_2012, amongst other scenario designers, to introduce house rules that ban players from placing ground units and bombers in the same square.

How difficult would it be to disable air cover? Let me illustrate what I mean. I'm not saying that non-fighter units should have the ability to attack air units suspended in flight. Rather, I'm arguing that the unit with the highest defensive value should automatically defend a stack of units regardless of whether the stack contains an air unit. If an air unit happens to have the highest defensive value against a would-be ground attacker, then the ground unit should rightfully be prohibited from attacking the stack. However, if the air unit does not have the highest defensive value, then I see no reason why an enemy ground unit should be prevented from attacking the stack. Does this make sense? If so, how feasible would it be to implement this modification?

 

[frobozo]

I'm sorry if this is a bad question or has already been addressed somewhere else, but what would happen without the patch when you hit maximum units? Would the game crash or would you just not be able to build any more units? The limit is per game, not per player, right?