How to change civ or settings in save file.

How to change civ or settings in civ5save file?

All civ5save files includes two parts: prefix with all settings and map details part. If you know where prefix ends and map starts you can replace prefix with new one in any Hex editor.
New prefix can be generated very easy in CIV5 game by set up new game and saving it as new civ5file, coping new prefix in Hex edit and past it into old save file. Remember that you have to replace old prefix. Size of new and old prefix is not important. You just have to connect two parts: new prefix and old map.

In this way you can do anythink:
1) activate new seed setting,
2) change your civ to new one (must be at the map),
3) change difficulty level,
4) change game speed,
5) change turn to new one from new save.

I test it only with single players game save, I don't know if it works also in MP.

ok, and now the most important part, screen with info where prefix ends:
Prefix is selected in red.

Firaxis should do sth more smart.
Maybe Password protected save or some hush function protection... It's suck.

To edit civ5save you can use freeware Hex-editor: XVI32.

Have fun and push Firaxis to improve it next time.

Moderator Action: Imageshack video removed

Firaxis should do sth more smart.
Maybe Password protected save or some hush function protection... It's suck.

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Uhhh... why? If you want to edit your single player saves, why should they stop you from doing so?

Ahriman said:

Uhhh... why? If you want to edit your single player saves, why should they stop you from doing so?

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because of GoTM and other multisingle games...

How is this any different from entering worldbuilder and changing the game in Civ4?

Ahriman said:

How is this any different from entering worldbuilder and changing the game in Civ4?

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Using this method you can convert multiplayer game to singleplayer.

Could you elaborate a little more on a few things? Like a lot of others here, I'm but a semi geek ...

1. What's your point? So now we can screw around in a saved game ... not really surprised - I might try it when I have to kill some time. But to you this is a bad thing per se?

2. What can I do exactly? What do I gain from doing any or all of the five possibilities you mention?

3. You say 'prefix is selection in red' ... why does it only say 'release 201080' etc? and what is the part you circled in blue?

Basically there is no security for multiplayer games or singleplayer competitions, and it is not even possible to create a mod to add security.

This has been known for a while, the only answer is to lower your expectations and play with people you trust.

Nefliqus! THANK YOU! omfg thank you so freaking much! this has rescued my save file!

me and 2 close friends are very deep into a large game and i made the error of unchecked the quick combat option when i created the game, we have put up with the combat camera screwing us around for this long but it is getting on our last nerve ive tried many things to try and get it toggled back but this is what worked! as someone who has never used a hex editor before this program you recommended was actually quite easy to figure out, this took me all of ten minutes and now our online multiplayer game no longer has the camera jerking us around every time theres a combat sequence,

truly thank you so so much for posting this thread i had not found any solution to this issue until i found this thread just now, i know this thread is some 5 years old, i know im necroing it, i know the op will probably never even see this message, but for gods sakes i must thank you profusely this is alike to having a gigantic thorn in my ass being eradicated, i am so utterly relieved that i found this successful solution to my problem, im rambling about my relief here and yet i still feel i am understating it!!!

This is intriguing. But how to know where prefix ends? Near as I can tell, the thread was necro'ed on Mar 8 by somebody who was clearly satisfied with the instructions. Then the next day, the image that would've answered this important question was edited out as if it was not useful.

I have a map that I really like, but I'd like to play it on a higher difficulty.

I wanted to change a save file a few weeks ago, and I discovered it is possible to use a PLAIN TEXT editor to do the job. I am on a Mac, so I used TextWrangler (which is free to download). I leave it to others to report what might work on other systems.

The best thing is to set up a game that has the settings you want, save it, then compare it to the file you want to change. TextWrangler makes this easy because it has a "Find" function that will find any differences between one file and another.

I've put a screenshot of the first part of the file. I have set it to soft wrapt the text, otherwise the ends of the lines would not be visible on screen. The line numbers are on the left.



Make sure you save the altered file with the right extension (i.e. not as .txt).

Sorry, I'm a bit of a noob. Could someone elaborate on how to do this? The picture I assume that explained how to has been removed.

To be honest there are a lot of possibility to cheat, this is just one of them I guess. It's been a while civ5 community games are mostly on an honor basis. There's nothing to win anyway.

Nothing really new.

rushpunch said:

Sorry, I'm a bit of a noob. Could someone elaborate on how to do this? The picture I assume that explained how to has been removed.

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I usually wouldn't comment on a mod action, but the reason I removed the image is that imageshack had replaced his image with their video. (I don't know for sure why, but I would guess because sometime between 5 years ago when he posted this and this year, his imageshack account became inactive.)