Cross-Platform Editor for Conquests now available! 1.48

Quintillus said:

After that comes the design of the interface for changing the map. This is where suggestions for improvements over Firaxis's editor will be valuable. ... But improvements on the map section of Firaxis's editor in general are welcome. Many of you are much more experienced in creating scenarios, and probably much more aware of the Firaxis map editor's shortcomings.

Click to expand...

Wish List:

• Utilities like MapTweaker allow a variety of things the Firaxis editor doesn't such as greater freedom in cropping the map and analysis of terrain ratios.
• It's also possible to have more unusual map sizes.
• It may be asking too much since all that exists now is hexadecimal editing, but apparently there is code buried for additional landmark terrains.

Those are the kinds of things needed for creative scenarios that Firaxis just didn't include.

If I decided to add map editing in my editor, I would probably use a very simple approach, with big colored squares instead of trying to put the real graphics.

Quintillus said:

Obviously, those haven't been done yet . Rome wasn't built in a day, neither are all the graphics done in a night. The preview is meant to show that it looks like this is going to be feasible (if with a couple of aberrations such as for forests), not that it's complete.

Click to expand...

I got the impression that what general-jcl was saying was that it might be the absence of the rivers that is actually causing the aberrations, and that, if you actually introduced the rivers and cities, the forests would look as they do in-game. That seems to make sense to me, anyway.

Steph said:

If I decided to add map editing in my editor, I would probably use a very simple approach, with big colored squares instead of trying to put the real graphics.

Click to expand...

I think it's much clearer and more aesthetically pleasing to have the actual graphics.


Anyhow, great work, Quintillus! Also, I second Blue Monkey's Wish List.

Sorry if i was not very clear.
Try in regular editor to place a city on a free square, you'll see there are sometimes changes in appearance on the neighboring squares. Don't know exactly why...
That's what I wanted to let you know. I suppose the absence of cities and other improvements (rivers...) in your editor may explain some differences

Blue Monkey said:

Wish List:

• Utilities like MapTweaker allow a variety of things the Firaxis editor doesn't such as greater freedom in cropping the map and analysis of terrain ratios.
• It's also possible to have more unusual map sizes.
• It may be asking too much since all that exists now is hexadecimal editing, but apparently there is code buried for additional landmark terrains.

Those are the kinds of things needed for creative scenarios that Firaxis just didn't include.

Click to expand...

That should be the civ3mapper's guide to the galaxy.
I didn't know about the additional landmark terrains…
Anyway, any self-respecting editor should allow for its files to be cropped from any direction, or selecting a few tiles and cropping everything else.

Blue Monkey said:

Wish List:

• Utilities like MapTweaker allow a variety of things the Firaxis editor doesn't such as greater freedom in cropping the map and analysis of terrain ratios.

Click to expand...

• 
  
  I'll have to take a closer look at MapTweaker. I haven't used it before. One thing I should note is that I won't be supporting random map generation right away (maybe not ever). But the ability to crop/expand the map should be possible. Initial map capabilities will be fairly simple, though, to avoid ever-expanding-feature-and-no-release syndrome, a la Duke Nukem Forever.
  
  

  [*]It's also possible to have more unusual map sizes.

  Click to expand...

  
  I was the one who posted that thread! There will definitely be support for unusual map sizes. The WSIZ tab already supports them for random maps, but non-random-map-support will be added too.
  
  

  [*]It may be asking too much since all that exists now is hexadecimal editing, but apparently there is code buried for additional landmark terrains.

  Click to expand...

Those are the kinds of things needed for creative scenarios that Firaxis just didn't include.

Click to expand...

I have seen that before, and do plan to enable additional landmark campaigns, as well as concepts such as Deepwater Ports. That something can currently only be done through hex editing isn't a problem (as long as the process is understood), as I'm already dealing with the raw binary file.

general-jcl said:

Sorry if i was not very clear.
Try in regular editor to place a city on a free square, you'll see there are sometimes changes in appearance on the neighboring squares. Don't know exactly why...
That's what I wanted to let you know. I suppose the absence of cities and other improvements (rivers...) in your editor may explain some differences

Click to expand...

Huh. And I was still trying to figure out the forest pattern without any cities, rivers, and such on the map. I'll have to take a look and see if the impact of rivers and/or cities causes a noticeable pattern. Can't say I'm too optimistic given the outcomes (lack of a general pattern) so far, but it's worth a try.

Quintillus said:

I was the one who posted that thread! There will definitely be support for unusual map sizes. The WSIZ tab already supports them for random maps, but non-random-map-support will be added too.

Click to expand...

Shows how long you've working on mapping capabilities. I just posted the links to threads I have bookmarked for my map work. I forgot to look at the OPs.

Quintillus said:

That something can currently only be done through hex editing isn't a problem (as long as the process is understood), as I'm already dealing with the raw binary file.

Click to expand...

Your dedicated work on this whole project is deeply appreciated.

Where would one find a good set of guidelines for using your editor?

Ran across this error when trying to edit a scenario for the first time. See screenshot below:

How do I fix this? Searching my entire hard drive does not seem to locate that file.

That error means you haven't given the editor the correct location for your Conquests software. ntp00.pcx (note those are zeroes, not 'O's) should be in Conquests/Art/Units/Palettes/

Note: I am assuming that the error message is correct. It indicates that you are running the editor on a Windows system. If you are running on any other platform, then the editor has failed to detect that.

Thanks for the quick reply! Your suggestion helped me to see that I did not properly setup the editor by choosing the proper civ version I have. Once I did that I was able to use the editor.

The second path in your screenie is nonsense. What kind of success can the Editor have ,if he looks into .../Conquests/Scenarios/Art/... ???
Obviously a bug in the Editor.

I'm not so sure that was a bug. When I ran the program for the first time I incorrectly chose a file and the editor thought that was Civ3. When I moved the .jar file to infogrames/civ3/conquests/ and reran this time selecting the civ3.exe when asked I was able to edit my scenario file without error.


I love this editor, I just wish it would be able to select units by nation filter. Steph's editor does not work for a damn on my system and nothing can get it to work. Tired of hearing about please get framework 3.5 because that's not the issue.

Moff Jerjerrod said:

I'm not so sure that was a bug.

Click to expand...

I think you are right. Once you have selected a path ... however incorrect ... the editor does its best to track down the game software using that path. It's not surprising that this sometimes leads it down a blind alley.

Sorry for the slow responses, I've been away from CFC while finishing up another semester at college. I'm now on break, so I'll be at CFC much more often and updates to the editor will resume as well.

mythusmage said:

Where would one find a good set of guidelines for using your editor?

Click to expand...

I have some documentation available at http://jonesandrewd.webs.com/civ3editor.html, which I just now added a link to on the first page. There also is a link to a (somewhat old) downloadable version of the documentation for offline viewing in the opening post. The documentation is not yet comprehensive, so feel free to ask questions so that I can add the answers to the documentation, but it should help with some of the more unusual aspects of the editor at least.

Moff Jerjerrod said:

Ran across this error when trying to edit a scenario for the first time. See screenshot below:

How do I fix this? Searching my entire hard drive does not seem to locate that file.

Click to expand...

AlanH seems to have steered you in the right direction. It looks like you specified the Civilization III\Conquests\Scenarios folder as the install folder, resulting in the editor trying the nonsensical path while looking for the PCX files. Thinking about it now, it probably would make sense for me to add a "Reselect install folder" option to that dialog, as well as perhaps making the text copyable for easier searching in case the install directory isn't known.

I am glad you like the editor. I've added unit filtering to my list of additions to be made. There's already a backlog of feature requests, so it may be awhile before it's added on. My current plans are to finish up a feature request by The Guardian which I came close to finishing in early November, probably a 0.58 or 0.60 release, and then focus on finishing up the map as that's the biggest area that is not yet editable. After that, as well as any important bugs in existing features that come up in the interval, I'll go back to adding features to the greater editor.

Version 0.60 is now available. This will be the last update for the year unless my New Year's Eve plans implode! This is a functionality update.

*The ability to export data to a spreadsheet (.csv) file for units, buildings, technologies, and resources has been added. See screenshot (attached); instructions are included in the editor, as visible in the screenshot. This is in response to a feature request by The Guardian.
*Minor efficiency enhacements.

In addition, much code has been added to allow viewing of most of the elements on the Conquests map (see my post from October 25th for a screenshot). This functionality is currently disabled and hidden because it is incomplete and every once in a while it causes crashes, but that has actually been the bulk of the code additions since the last update. Eventually this functionality will be fully available.

Download from here.

http://https//sites.google.com/site/quintilluscfc/Conquests Editor 0.60.jar

That is the URL i was sent to, something has gone wrong here.

Update: So then I tried something and got sent to; http://www.devices.com//sites.google.com/site/quintilluscfc/Conquests Editor 0.60.jar

Something is definitely wrong here.

Link for download doesn't work

*The ability to export data to a spreadsheet (.csv)

Click to expand...

Absolutely awesome! This is a feature I have been wishing for for ages. Pivot tables, here I come!

TY Quintillus

mythusmage said:

http://https//sites.google.com/site/quintilluscfc/Conquests Editor 0.60.jar

That is the URL i was sent to, something has gone wrong here.

Update: So then I tried something and got sent to; http://www.devices.com//sites.google.com/site/quintilluscfc/Conquests Editor 0.60.jar

Something is definitely wrong here.

Click to expand...

general-jcl said:

Link for download doesn't work

Click to expand...

You're right. I investigated it, and it seems that the Download Database automatically prepended an "http://" to the beginning of my "https://sites.google.com/site/quintilluscfc/Conquests%20Editor%200.60.jar", and took out the ":". I don't recall it having done this before, but maybe I always used http without the s before? Will file a bug in site feedback. Anyways, it should be downloadable now. It does seem that Google Sites now requires an extra click to download content linked from elsewhere (CFC), so I'll look into alternate hosting arrangements, but it should be reachable.