Cross-Platform Civ3 Editor

Cross-Platform Editor for Conquests now available! 1.48

I suggest Atomic Gamer, as always.
 
I suggest Atomic Gamer, as always.

I hadn't gone with them before because I associate them with having to wait 4-5 minutes, which is okay for a huge mod but not desirable for a relatively small program. I looked into them in more detail after seeing this post, and saw this on their site:

AtomicGamer said:
  • Download files that are less than 1 megabyte without having to wait in line.

Unfortunately the download is just over 1 MB in size, even if I compress it (7zip). I'm going to guess that most people would rather click one more time than wait 4-5 minutes and then click one more time. I could rework the program to decrease its size, but that would detract from features, so I'm not going to do that since the download speed is still less than 15 seconds on slow broadband (768kbps) and bearable on dial-up.

Updated version coming soon...
 
I used to have an old program (hacha.exe) which allowed people to cut files into parts and rebuild them… it was very useful before pen-drives and high-speed broadband became common in Latin America.
 
Version 0.61 is an ease-of-use update. Changes:

  • Can now change the settings from within the program (no editing text files). Error messages have been updated to indicate this as well.
  • Game more gracefully handles configuration file bugs

This won't be a necessary update if you've already got things working, but it is hoped that it makes it easier to fix problems such as the editor not working because the Civ3 install directory was given incorrectly, which seemed to be a repeated cause of problems. The Settings box will also be expanded in the future as configuration options are expanded.

As always, download from here.
 
You almost make me want to get a Mac…
 
I used to have an old program (hacha.exe) which allowed people to cut files into parts and rebuild them… it was very useful before pen-drives and high-speed broadband became common in Latin America.

If the download is unwieldy, let me know and I can look into this (this applies to anyone else reading as well).

You almost make me want to get a Mac…

The irony is I don't own one myself, I just noticed a gap in the Civ3 product lineup and it sounded like a challenging way to dive deeper into Civ3 and help out some modders and would-be modders. That's why all my screenshots are on Windows. It's actually much easier to develop this on Windows, as I have Firaxis's editor (as well as the hacked one and Steph's) available for reference a mouse's click away. But it does seem to run equally well on Mac, Windows, and Linux, at least since the different Civ3 Complete on Mac folder structure issue was cleared up in the 0.5x days.
 
Have you looked into Hackintosh? :)
Eh? no, never heard of it.
If the download is unwieldy, let me know and I can look into this (this applies to anyone else reading as well).
hacha.exe is 30-odd kB. I've checked and it's freeware.
Quintillus said:
The irony is I don't own one myself, I just noticed a gap in the Civ3 product lineup and it sounded like a challenging way to dive deeper into Civ3 and help out some modders and would-be modders. That's why all my screenshots are on Windows. It's actually much easier to develop this on Windows, as I have Firaxis's editor (as well as the hacked one and Steph's) available for reference a mouse's click away. But it does seem to run equally well on Mac, Windows, and Linux, at least since the different Civ3 Complete on Mac folder structure issue was cleared up in the 0.5x days.
Hmm. From the thread title many people -myself included- think it's just a Mac editor… maybe you could rename it to something like 'cross-platform editor'?
 
hacha.exe is 30-odd kB. I've checked and it's freeware.

I found it on Google, too. If you'd like the option to download the editor in chunks, just let me know what size chunks would work well and I can make it available in that form. Can't guarantee the absolute latest version will always be available in that form, but I'll update it periodically.

Hmm. From the thread title many people -myself included- think it's just a Mac editor… maybe you could rename it to something like 'cross-platform editor'?

You're probably not alone... but there was a reason for the name originally. I first made the announcement in the Civ3 Mac subforum as the original intention was to provide an editor for those who didn't have one (at least on their native platform), and then tom2050 made a thread about the editor in the C&C subforum, which was great, but keeping two threads up-to-date and in sync (as well as the Downloads page) was becoming unwieldy, and a lot of the same questions were being raised in multiple places. By that time most of the Civ3 Mac modders had seen the announcement, so I asked for the threads to be merged. The original title from the Civ3 Mac subforum thread was kept, which made sense then. At release, I didn't expect there to be a whole lot of reason for Windows users to use this editor, when both the Firaxis one and Steph's editor were already available for Windows.

Even now, the only features that I can think of (besides .NET compatibility issues or wanting to have the same editor on Windows and Mac) that would make this editor a more-desired choice would be (1) the ability to manually override the limits built in to the editor by Firaxis. Which could be handy, but I haven't read much about people putting that feature to use. Maybe it is being used, just not commented on? And (2) export to CSV.

But you're right, there probably are a number of user's who've bypassed this thread entirely because they figured they couldn't run it, and maybe some of them would be interested in the unique functionality that is offered. So why not request that the thread be renamed as "Cross-Platform Editor for Conquests now available!"?
 
It's legal here ven if you don't, mostly because it hasn't been penalised and there's no government official to punish it. :rolleyes: Of course, there's no use for Mac here as Microsoft have cornered the market anyway :(

That's the thing about Hackintosh, it lets you use the Mac OS on your PC.
 
Version 0.62 focuses on making it easier to use the editor. Changes:

  • The editor will attempt to automatically detect the Civ3 install editor on both Mac and Windows. NOTE: Until version 0.66 this only works on XP or earlier versions of Windows.
  • Buttons that should not logically be enabled before a scenario is opened are no longer opened until a scenario is opened. For example, you can't save a scenario or export data from it without having one open.
  • Fixed swapped city/colony positions in TILE section of BIQ. This affects the BIQ Compare part of the editor.

On OSX, the auto-detect assumes the default install location (/Applications/Civ III Complete, going by where AlanH's copy is installed). I don't know if it is possible to choose a custom install directory for Civ3 on OSX; if it is and you did choose a custom location, you'll still have to manually specify that directory.

On Windows, I use the registry to look up the install directory. It will work with a non-default install directory, and has been tested with one. However, I have only tested with the Vanilla + Conquests version of Civ3. If the Steam or Complete (disc) version uses different registry keys, you'll have to choose manually. Similarly, if you are running a version of Windows that doesn't support registry querying (I don't think 98/ME do, not sure about 2000, I think XP Home does support it), you'll have to choose manually.

If you don't use the BIQ Compare part of the utility, you probably don't need to upgrade from 0.60/0.61. However, if you (a) have Civ3 installed somewhere other than where AlanH does on OSX or (b) have a non Vanilla + Conquests version on Windows or (c) are running XP Home/2K/ME/98, testing would be appreciated, as I don't have all these different systems to test.

Download link here.
 
Yes, OSX installs can be to any arbitrary directory. Saves still go to the default directory (user / documents path) - in my case the saves end up in a directory on a different physical drive than the main game files & the scenarios/biqs.
 
I have now reached the point where nearly all overlays, except units, are present on the map. So the map more or less looks like it does in Firaxis's editor. However, there are no actual editing capabilities. So it's going to be awhile until map editing is possible. The good news is, with (nearly) all the graphics display capabilities in place, once I add the ability to modify the map, the updates to the map display come automatically.

If there is interest in having a map-viewer without the ability to edit the map, I can release a 'technical preview' version that would be 0.62 plus a map viewer. Testing a wider variety of maps would certainly be good for ensuring subtle bugs don't slip by, and I am curious about how performance holds up on other people's computers. I only worked on performance enough that it wasn't bad when developing it on my machine, but it may be necessary to further improve it so it runs well enough on more machines.

Yes, OSX installs can be to any arbitrary directory. Saves still go to the default directory (user / documents path) - in my case the saves end up in a directory on a different physical drive than the main game files & the scenarios/biqs.

Good to know. I unfortunately don't know how I could detect non-default install directories. In 0.62 I set the default scenario directory to be within the scenarios folder in the CivIII (application) folder, but I can change the default to ~/Documents/Civilization 3 Conquests/Scenarios instead if that is more common.
 
I unfortunately don't know how I could detect non-default install directories. In 0.62 I set the default scenario directory to be within the scenarios folder in the CivIII (application) folder, but I can change the default to ~/Documents/Civilization 3 Conquests/Scenarios instead if that is more common.
Someone else would have to tell you the default path on a Mac.

"name Game Data" is the default folder name for each version of Civ inside the Mac Civ 3 Complete installation. On my Complete installation it is Civ III {my rename}/Conquests Game Data {the default install name}/Scenarios. Inside Civ III/ are similar paths: /Play The World Game Data/Scenarios/ & /Civilization 3 Game Data/Scenarios/

If you've included the ability to manually set the directory then anyone who can get the game installed in a custom file path should have the skills to do that as well.
 
Good to know. I unfortunately don't know how I could detect non-default install directories.
There's a Mac OS Cocoa API call to find out where an application is installed, but it only returns the path to the copy that would be launched by default. If someone has Civ3 installed elsewhere than /Applications/, it's quite likely to be a second copy they use for mod development.

I don't know whether the API is exposed to Java these days - Java-Cocoa bridging was deprecated a few versions ago. It may be possible to wrap it in small utility that you could run from Java, but you would have to tell me how worthwhile the effort to do this is.


In 0.62 I set the default scenario directory to be within the scenarios folder in the CivIII (application) folder, but I can change the default to ~/Documents/Civilization 3 Conquests/Scenarios instead if that is more common.
I've no feel for which path is more common. I tend to use ~/Documents/Civilization 3 Conquests/Scenarios/, as i think of that as "my" space as opposed to the application directory, which was installed by Aspyr. But I may not be typical.
 
I've continued work on the map, as well as a few small changes elsewhere, but have run into a slight problem - how the game knows which colors to change on units for civ color. And how much to change them by. I checked and Firaxis's editor definitely changes more than just one color when it's changing civ-specific color, but I don't know which colors in the palette are changed, or how they are changed. It would be possible for me to use Paint and the GIMP with highly-zoomed-in images to reverse-engineer a decent approximation of the formula, as I did with borders to, but if this information is already known I'd rather stand on the shoulders of giants than have to built The Colossus anew. Unfortunately my searches haven't turned up anything on this particular aspect of palettes and civ-specific colors (I did find some very good info on the civ-specific colors in the ntpXX.pcx files, but those aren't the same sort of civ-specific colors).

The map does now display everything (unless I'm forgetting something), and I've also added an interface so that you can get information about all units on a tile, improvements in cities on a tile, etc. A few items are missing, such as the auto-named city option (does anyone use that? I didn't know it existed until a few days ago) and the ability to set AI strategy on individual units, but at this point it's the ability to edit the map that is the next major step. Right now the only thing you can do is rename cities.

I did test the editor on all the BIQs I have (a decent but certainly not exhaustive collection), and after a few bugfixes having to do with the map, all open except two:

*TETurkhan's world map, because it uses custom PTW-style city graphics, which don't have all the terrain buildings Conquests does. I don't plan to make this a high-priority fix.
*The Human Body scenario, because it uses non-standard-size city graphics in one of its files.

The latter point is something I plan to implement more generally - Balthasar's Manhattan scenario doesn't display the Empire State Building correctly in my editor because it is too tall. The good news is, this is a problem because Civ3 is more flexible than it first appears in at least one aspect. Both of these scenarios would open with map graphics disabled.

An additional 'standard', non-map update might be coming before long - I've made some updates there as well, such as fixing the Import from SAV ability.

Someone else would have to tell you the default path on a Mac.

"name Game Data" is the default folder name for each version of Civ inside the Mac Civ 3 Complete installation. On my Complete installation it is Civ III {my rename}/Conquests Game Data {the default install name}/Scenarios. Inside Civ III/ are similar paths: /Play The World Game Data/Scenarios/ & /Civilization 3 Game Data/Scenarios/

If you've included the ability to manually set the directory then anyone who can get the game installed in a custom file path should have the skills to do that as well.

The default directory is configurable, but I'd like to have it automated at least somewhat as that seems to be a common cause of the editor not working out-of-the-box for people. You have a good point about those who installed the game to a custom directory probably being able to point the editor there, though.

Thanks for the title change, too - forgot to mention that in my last post.

There's a Mac OS Cocoa API call to find out where an application is installed, but it only returns the path to the copy that would be launched by default. If someone has Civ3 installed elsewhere than /Applications/, it's quite likely to be a second copy they use for mod development.

I don't know whether the API is exposed to Java these days - Java-Cocoa bridging was deprecated a few versions ago. It may be possible to wrap it in small utility that you could run from Java, but you would have to tell me how worthwhile the effort to do this is.

I've no feel for which path is more common. I tend to use ~/Documents/Civilization 3 Conquests/Scenarios/, as i think of that as "my" space as opposed to the application directory, which was installed by Aspyr. But I may not be typical.

In light of Blue Monkey's point, it probably isn't worth it to write a utility to find the primary install path. And I'm afraid it would be a complete guess as to where most people use for their scenarios, so I think I'll leave it as it is for now.
 
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