City view on custom map

Greetings! I was advised to post my question in that subsection and here it is:

When I make a map on the map editor in Conquests what should I do so that I can view the cities and have the possibility to build my palace? Or such options are non-existent?

I am sorry that I had to open a new thread for this but I simply could not find an appropriate thread for my question...

Ηι

This is the wrong sub-forum for your question, you should post it in the main forum.

Btw are you from Bulgaria? It is always nice to have more people from our neighbourhood

Viva_Bulgaria, welcome to CFC.

As mentioned above this is the wrong place for your question, but you shall get an answer:

With C3C the city view was disabled for scenarios and conquests. You can us it only for the normal epic game. The only way to use the city view in C3C for scenarios would be to make the scenario biq and files your conquest biq (and files) and this needs a lot of experience in modding C3C, otherwise it will end in a big mess.

Thank you for the quick answers It is a pity that there is no city view in custom maps...

@Varwnos: Yes, I am from Bulgaria and live in Sofia. It is indeed nice to find a neighbour in the forum. Especially one obviously interested in the Middle Ages as seen from your avatar Bulgaria and Byzantium co-existed in peace or war for over seven centuries...

Perhaps you could help me with bulgarian monuments if i ever create a medieval bulgarian city set

I would gladly do that... though regrettably almost every medieval structure in Bulgaria was destroyed by the Ottomans. But still, I can help you with images or information if need

I see now I misunderstood your question the first time I read it, Viva_Bulgaria - I thought you had a problem to see the city graphics in the editor, but that wasn't it.

I don't think what you want is as difficult as Civinator suggests. You just need to backup your main Conquests file and put your scenario file in its place. The main file is called Conquests.biq if I'm not mistaken, so re-naming your scenario file to that would do the trick.
I know several players who aren't modders who do this, although they've often not changed the regular game by much, maybe just used different colours for civs, given buildings some different properties or changed corruption somewhat.
If your mod consists of a lot of extra files your registry could indeed become messy, maybe that is what Civinator means.

When testing a game with my new editor (for more than 4 eras and evolutive civ), I discovered that the city view, the hall of fame and the palace view were all working.

But I have no idea how it happened, and if it will work everytime.

There was a couple guys who recently developed the patch for 512+ cities, and included the no-raze with it... but I tried to get ahold of them about perhaps seeing if they could check out if the city view/palace is in the exe and patch that, but they never replied.

It would be a great addition for mods. Steph is now our only hope! Make sure it doesn't mysteriously disappear and stop working for you!

Optional said:

I see now I misunderstood your question the first time I read it, Viva_Bulgaria - I thought you had a problem to see the city graphics in the editor, but that wasn't it.

I don't think what you want is as difficult as Civinator suggests. You just need to backup your main Conquests file and put your scenario file in its place. The main file is called Conquests.biq if I'm not mistaken, so re-naming your scenario file to that would do the trick.
I know several players who aren't modders who do this, although they've often not changed the regular game by much, maybe just used different colours for civs, given buildings some different properties or changed corruption somewhat.
If your mod consists of a lot of extra files your registry could indeed become messy, maybe that is what Civinator means.

Click to expand...

Hey, this is something I'd love help with also, as the city view was one of my favorite parts of the game. I'm playing a modded game with Snoopys map and scenario(where all my terrain and animations are) in my scenario folder, and that links to my mod(which is where all my units are) in the conquests folder. Also using the no-cd/no-raze version of C3C. So what exactly would I need to do to enable the city view? I didn't understand the explanation.

I believe he is referring to actually changing the main files themselves (backing them up first) and replacing the whole Conquests directories with your mod changes.

Such as in the directory Conquests/Art instead of placing them in Conquests/Scenaios/YourMod/Art, etc...

Of course, make a mistake and overwrite a file without backup and you need to reinstall to get it back.

Yes, that's what I mean. It'll depend on how extensive your mod is whether this is a big job or not.
Maybe it can be explained a little clearer what the crucial move is though, as perhaps jackdubl didn't get that:
A scenario's main file is a file called a .biq, created with the editor. Normally a custom made biq gets saved in the folder called 'Scenarios'.
The default game also works from a .biq, but this .biq doesn't sit in your scenario folder, but in the main registry.

The game shows the city view, palace build and some victory screens only when it's running a .biq from the main registry, not when it's running a .biq from the scenario folder. This is regardless of what's in this .biq, as far as I know.
So put your scenario .biq in place of the main .biq and you'll get the features you want. Of course you'll get crashes if you've added lots of stuff to the .biq that requires additional files if you leave those files in the scenario folder. The game then doesn't find those files anymore and you'll have to move those as well. Here's where the work comes in that Civinator and Tom2050 are mentioning.

I like to play the default game, but I prefer maps that are inbetween normal and large. So I adjusted some figures in the section 'world sizes' in the editor, affecting the amount of tiles, players, optimal amount of cities, etc. No extra files needed. For me it is a piece of cake to put this .biq in place of the main .biq; no extra work needed. You need to assess how much work it would be in your case and whether you find it worth doing.
What the relationship to the .exe is (like the one with the no-raze feature) I have no clue about.

Could it perhaps work if you replace the conquests.biq with the mod .biq (same name), but then just giving the path to your scenario folder. It is possible that the city screen, etc will then show up, but it is just getting all the additional info from your scenario folder (so no files need to be replaced).

Doesn't sound that time consuming: I could just copy all of the files from my mod over the original files for Conquests.

Here's my question: The .biq file is basically your custom map and rules, right? I don't see where I'm saving my scenario .biq over the .biq in the Conquests main file. I don't think there is a .biq in the Conquests main folder. I've only ever played my modded game since I reinstalled C3C. How do you get a .biq file in the main folder? Or is it there already and I don't know it?

It should be in there, called conquests.biq. It is what runs your regular unmodded games (such as simply making a new epic game). If this is not there, chances are the game will crash or lockup, or something (I think it would just go back to Main Menu) since it won't be able to find this biq file. If you can play a game, by simply running a new unmodded game, then the file exists.

I'll give this a try this weekend. Thanks for the explanation.

Wait, I do have a question. How do you actually start the game from your custom .biq in the main folder? It seems like when you start a game you have to choose from either the scenario folder or the conquests folder to access it. Or do you just load it up from the saved games list?

In the start-up screen you should see a button called 'New Game', it's the one at the top, unless you've started a game up before, then it's right under 'Play Last World'. If you haven't got that button something must have gotten damaged or deleted.

OK, so the new Conquest.biq is in the main file, then when I hit new game, it uses my custom map instead of taking me to the map setup screen. Do I have that right?