Food strorage/shield accumulation bin graphics problem

This has probably been discussed here before, I have a vague memory of seeing something about this problem here before, but I couldn't find anything about it with a search.

What happened is the food storage bin and the shield accumulation bin in the city display got changed to where they only displayed every other line. This is in Conquests and it was after I changed a few things in the WW2 In The Pacific stock scenario in the Conquests editor and fired up the scenario to see if things worked. The changes were minor. Made Netherlands a player civ, changed specs on most units, terrain, resources, governments, what civ had what government and things like that. No graphics changes, just changed the numbers.

Possible problem was caused when I made the Kamikaze an air unit and changed its specs to that of a usual air unit, the editor wouldn't allow any of the AI roles for air. Then noticed it would only allow "explore" when I switched the Kamikazi back to being a land unit. It had been originally a cruise missile type unit.

Another, probably unrelated, thing I noticed is I could not add units on to the map of this scenario in the editor if there was a unit or city on the square. If the square was empty, then I could add units. Didn't see a way to load units onto other units in the editor, either. I was trying to load more aircraft onto the carriers (one of the changes I made was raising the carrier's load capacity) when I discovered this.

Before when I edited scenarios I did not notice any problem with the graphics of the food storage and shield accumulation bins. But the problem showed up after I made changes to the WW2 scenario. Are these stock scenarios hard wired or something so that putting them in the editor messes up the graphics in the game? As far as I could tell, it only seemed to affect those storage bins in the city display, but I didn't try playing the game.

Once this graphics problem appeared, it was a problem in all the scenarios and in the basic game. Deleting the WW2 mods (I renamed the scenarios I changed when I saved them so I would leave the original unchanged) didn't fix the graphics problem and deleting the original WW scenario didn't fix it either. Tried uninstalling the game and reinstalling. First time, the problem was still there. Uninstalled a second time, then went and deleted all the files left behind after the uninstall. Reinstalled and the problem was fixed and the graphics finally looked normal again.

My question is: what caused this graphic problem to happen? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I do remember reading in a previous thread that there was custom code written for the WW2 scenario. If you accidentally migrated some of it to a common game file, I imagine it could do some mischief (programmers take note however: it might be exploitable). I would have gone to a previous restore point (on my XP) long before you ran out of patience.

Balthasar said:

I do remember reading in a previous thread that there was custom code written for the WW2 scenario. If you accidentally migrated some of it to a common game file, I imagine it could do some mischief (programmers take note however: it might be exploitable). I would have gone to a previous restore point (on my XP) long before you ran out of patience.

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I kinda thought there was some additional coding on that scenario when the Kamakaze unit refused to let its AI role be edited. Thanks for the link. Interesting reading.

Hey, I've already showed that there's no additional coding in that thread, I feel ignored The "every other line" effect on food and shield is simply "Accelerated Production" option turned on, in game setup screen (and scenario tab -> rules).

Game rules from once played scenarios always apply all random games played, unless you click on "default rules", it's a stupid way civ3 behaves. This is why you have this effect everywhere now - just turn it off in game setup.

Also, you can edit the Kamikaze AI role fine. Air units also need operational range, air missions and attack value (for fighters) before you can enable the air roles. Cruise missile needs Bombard ability, among other things, which you might have turned off.

(edited for clarity)

embryodead said:

Hey, I've already showed that there's no additional coding in that thread, I feel ignored The "every other line" effect on food and shield is simply "Accelerated Production" option turned on, in game setup screen (and scenario tab -> rules).

Game rules from once played scenarios always apply all random games played, unless you click on "default rules", it's a stupid way civ3 behaves. This is why you have this effect everywhere now - just turn it off in game setup.

Also, you can edit the Kamikaze AI role fine. Air units also need operational range, air missions and attack value (for fighters) before you can enable the air roles. Cruise missile needs Bombard ability, among other things, which you might have turned off.

(edited for clarity)

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I may have missed some of those things when editing the Kamakaze, I'll have to look at it again. I did notice "accelerated production" was set when I was making changes in the editor, but I did not turn it on myself, it was already on. I was going to turn it off, but thought it was one of the designer changes for the scenario because of the limited turns allowed and left it alone. That and the default rules explanation is very helpful, thanks. And it also explains why it kept coming back when I deleted the scenarios and uninstalled the game initially. Strange how "accelerated production" got switched on when I didn't touch it, either when setting up a game or in the editor.

Last night scanning threads here I noticed someone here also had problems trying to place units on the map if there was already a unit or city on the square when editing the WW2 in the Pacific scenario. But those replying couldn't confirm the problem when they tried editing the scenario themselves. That's strange. Perhaps an intermittant glitch? Or maybe something turned on in the editor prevents adding units to a square when another unit or a city is already there. It would allow me to place multiple units in empty squares, even after I had done a save after previously placing units on the square.

I noticed when starting the scenario as the Japanese, the production que for their cities is different on the first turn. Most military items were not in the list of possible things to make, but the obsolete guerillas were. Then on turn #2, the production que was normal, with guerillas gone and the expected items listed. This is another reason I suspected there might be some additional coding done to this scenario.

OK, using the info from embryodead I went back and tried editing the scenario again.

First edit I changed nothing, just saved the scenario under a new name. Then went and fired it up and "accelerated production" was on in the game set-up. Went back to the editor and "accelerated production" was highlighted. So this must get set automaticlly in the editor when a scenario is loaded into the editor. Definitely a programming bug of sorts specific to the WW2 in the Pacific scenario because this never happened when editing the general game before. Maybe it is something the rest of the stock Conquest scenarios have in them as well. Definitely something to check whenever doing an edit in the future.

I then tested the unit placement again and found out what had happened before that prevented the placement of units in squares that already had units or cities. It has to do with the "active player" pop-up. In this pop-up there are 3 different drop-down menus. The first appears to have all the usual civs listed. The 2nd just listed the 5 specific civs for this scenario. The 3rd listed these same 5 civs, but had "player 1", "Player 2", etc. in front of the listed civ. I had orginally clicked the civs in this 3rd drop-down and this is when the editor didn't allow me to place the units in previously occupied squares. If I chose the active civ from the 2nd drop-down, then I could place the unit in a previously occupied square. That explains why some people could and some could not place units when editing the scenario. It depended on which drop-down menu they used to pick the active civ.

I also tried editing the Kamakaze again and it worked this time. Thanks embryodead, you were a great help.

meisen said:

First edit I changed nothing, just saved the scenario under a new name. Then went and fired it up and "accelerated production" was on in the game set-up. Went back to the editor and "accelerated production" was highlighted. So this must get set automaticlly in the editor when a scenario is loaded into the editor. Definitely a programming bug of sorts specific to the WW2 in the Pacific scenario because this never happened when editing the general game before. Maybe it is something the rest of the stock Conquest scenarios have in them as well. Definitely something to check whenever doing an edit in the future.

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It's still not any special coding, just a different biq version. I explained in that thread Balthasar linked. Conquests were made using editor version 12.06, while the latest editor version is 12.08. The older version has one more option in the rules tab so some rules get messed up when resaving. You can download 12.06 editor in that thread, it allows resaving of ww2pacific biq without any changes, but read my precautions in using it. Also, I just tried resaving my own ww2 biq and I don't get the "accelerated production" setting, I only lose the sci-fi leaders one as discussed in that thread. That's with editor version 12.08 at least, what is yours?

embryodead said:

Hey, I've already showed that there's no additional coding in that thread, I feel ignored

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No offense intended. I have trouble remembering what day of the week it is, usually. You are the font of great wisdom, and it would be unwise for me to forget that! I sit corrected. And I'm learning alot from this thread too, it turns out.

embryodead said:

It's still not any special coding, just a different biq version. I explained in that thread Balthasar linked. Conquests were made using editor version 12.06, while the latest editor version is 12.08. The older version has one more option in the rules tab so some rules get messed up when resaving. You can download 12.06 editor in that thread, it allows resaving of ww2pacific biq without any changes, but read my precautions in using it. Also, I just tried resaving my own ww2 biq and I don't get the "accelerated production" setting, I only lose the sci-fi leaders one as discussed in that thread. That's with editor version 12.08 at least, what is yours?

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12.06 is what it says in "about". I'm not really worried much about whether the designer of WW2 used a some additional coding as long as the scenario is editable. I'm already finding it very useful as a testbed for new ideas. Using the tactical missile function in the unit's abilities section, I found a workable way to have both ship based and land based aircraft.

I have a new question if anyone is interested. The WW2 scenario has the Allied countrys' troops all set as having already been moved. But when I save it in the editor, the save has the Allies units with their movement back again when I go to play the game. I couldn't find a way the designer did that with the editor. Does anyone know if it is possible to set a country's units to have already been moved with the editor?

meisen said:

I have a new question if anyone is interested. The WW2 scenario has the Allied countrys' troops all set as having already been moved. But when I save it in the editor, the save has the Allies units with their movement back again when I go to play the game. I couldn't find a way the designer did that with the editor. Does anyone know if it is possible to set a country's units to have already been moved with the editor?

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"Skip First Turn" in Players tab (it applies to human players only).

Last night scanning threads here I noticed someone here also had problems trying to place units on the map if there was already a unit or city on the square when editing the WW2 in the Pacific scenario. But those replying couldn't confirm the problem when they tried editing the scenario themselves. That's strange. Perhaps an intermittant glitch? Or maybe something turned on in the editor prevents adding units to a square when another unit or a city is already there. It would allow me to place multiple units in empty squares, even after I had done a save after previously placing units on the square.

Click to expand...

I haven't seen the thread, but it sounds to me like they didn't have the right active player (spacebar) assigned.

I suppose another test to find disprove any special coding would be to make a new scenario and import the map, rules, and properties of WW2, then play it and see if anything is broken.

embryodead, am I understanding you correctly that when you play a random map without "default rules" selected it will use the settings of the last played scenario with custom scenario properties? What happens when you manually select rules for a random map?

Weasel Op said:

I suppose another test to find disprove any special coding would be to make a new scenario and import the map, rules, and properties of WW2, then play it and see if anything is broken.

Click to expand...

Resaving does the same thing. At least my Conquest BIQ is 12.06 and resaving it with 12.08 editor "breaks" the BIQ, while doing the same with an old editor I grabbed from the original CD doesn't.

embryodead, am I understanding you correctly that when you play a random map without "default rules" selected it will use the settings of the last played scenario with custom scenario properties? What happens when you manually select rules for a random map?

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Yes, and as to what happens - nothing special, it just works. You can manually change them, that is. Just try it yourself: start a scenario with special rules like Regicide and VP scoring, e.g. the Middle Ages conquest, then start a new epic game (or a mod such as LotM) and look at the rules. Notice you have, among other things, mass regicide and VP scoring turned on.

embryodead said:

"Skip First Turn" in Players tab (it applies to human players only).

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Thanks. I had missed that.

embryodead said:

Yes, and as to what happens - nothing special, it just works. You can manually change them, that is. Just try it yourself: start a scenario with special rules like Regicide and VP scoring, e.g. the Middle Ages conquest, then start a new epic game (or a mod such as LotM) and look at the rules. Notice you have, among other things, mass regicide and VP scoring turned on.

Click to expand...

Ah, ok. I have noticed that. I thought you were saying it overrode the actual set of "default rules" or something crazy like that.