Civ II Extended

[pathos]

Introduction
Last week, I was playing the WWII scenario and Russia blew up a stack of my tanks and I thought to myself, "I wonder if I could edit that out of the game..."

And thus, Civ II [Extended] was born. This program is a memory editor that extends the options available to Civ II gameplay.

How to Use It
After launching Civ II, simply run the application, select the options you want, and hit "Apply." You should get a confirmation message -- otherwise, you'll get an error message. And that's it!

Current Options
- Removes the CD check. You can apply the patch while the "can't find the CD" message is on the screen, then hit "Repeat Search" and it should move on to the main menu. (v1.0)
- Changes the way stack deaths are handled. If the top unit dies, the stack should still survive. However, this doesn't apply to units on an ocean tile that are 1) units with transport holds; 2) units with the submarine flag set; or 3) units with the carrier flag set. If any of these three units dies, the entire stack still dies. (v1.0)
- Options to make terrain types impassable to ground units, and options for exceptions. Note: The AI doesn't understand this concept, but doesn't appeared to be too hampered. Now works with Civ II Unlimited. (v1.1, updated v1.2)
- Options keeping pollution from appearing and global warming from happening (v1.2)
- An option to reset all memory patches to default Civ II code (1.2)

Future Plans
- Make it so ground units can transport units
- Fighters on carriers and airbases scramble to defend the tile if attacked by air units, like in a city
- ToT compatibility

I can't say for certain if I'll be able to do these, but I'm going to give it a shot!

Requirements and Notes
I have only tested this with Civilization II MGE 1.3, using everything vanilla. It should work with Civ II Unlimited. It is a memory editor, so your anti-virus might not like it. This was made in Visual Studios 2008, so you might need some sort of .NET framework.

Download
I've attached v1.2 to this post. You can also: DOWNLOAD HERE

Images

How You Can Help
Let me know if there's any crazy things you'd like to see changed (or maybe added), and I'll see what I can do! I'm not really looking for fix bugs, but if you have one you'd like to complain about, I may look in to it.

I should also point out that while I have tested these options, I have not sat down with some of them enabled for an entire game. I don't foresee any issues, but if you end up finding a bug you think may be caused by one of these edits, please let me know.

[mackerel]

The mountain proposal will block mining gold/iron as well as fortifications. You may want to consider allowing settlers/engineers to pass mountains, and make them generally accessible if roads or fortresses are present. Or you may not, it works either way.

I've been poking at memory editing with Classic 2.42 / VS2010, my program is developed to the point where it tries desperately to find the process to connect to and frustrates me into giving up. Can you point this experienced programmer / memory editing noob in the right direction to get started with a similar project? Thanks.

[pathos]

Originally Posted by mackerel

The mountain proposal will block mining gold/iron as well as fortifications. You may want to consider allowing settlers/engineers to pass mountains, and make them generally accessible if roads or fortresses are present. Or you may not, it works either way.

Whoa, settlers and engineers didn't even cross my mind. They'll be allowed to. I also like the idea about mountains being accessible with roads -- that makes complete sense. Thanks for the suggestion.

Originally Posted by mackerel

I've been poking at memory editing with Classic 2.42 / VS2010, my program is developed to the point where it tries desperately to find the process to connect to and frustrates me into giving up. Can you point this experienced programmer / memory editing noob in the right direction to get started with a similar project? Thanks.

I had trouble getting to the process as well. This did the trick: Find Window. I also used GetWindowThreadProcessId, Open Process, and WriteProcessMemory. Don't forget to close it!

[mackerel]

Thank you! This is just the head start I needed.

Thinking more about the mountain thing, I can't help but wonder how it will affect the AI's attempted movements. Will they get confused when they can't walk in the normal pattern, or can you hack even that?

[pathos]

Originally Posted by mackerel

Thank you! This is just the head start I needed.

Thinking more about the mountain thing, I can't help but wonder how it will affect the AI's attempted movements. Will they get confused when they can't walk in the normal pattern, or can you hack even that?

I've wondered about the AI. It may still be a useful option for multiplayer games, but I don't know if the computer will know what to do, especially if you factor in that having a road on a mountain makes it accessible. It'll just be something I have to test if I can do it.

I'm sure the pathfinding could be hacked, but that's beyond my skill and my patience.

[pathos]

I have updated Civ II [Extended] to v1.1, which, in short, makes mountains impassable. The file is attached to the first post.

[peckx063]

Is there anyway to extend the impassable mountain options so it can be applied to any terrain? Also could it be possible to have both the settler/road option and the original option available?

This is very cool.

[pathos]

Originally Posted by peckx063

Is there anyway to extend the impassable mountain options so it can be applied to any terrain? Also could it be possible to have both the settler/road option and the original option available?

This is very cool.

I'm not sure I understand your second question, but as for the first, yes, it is possible. I'd have to rewrite some code, but it wouldn't be too hard. I have to rewrite a bit of it anyway to make it work with Civ II Unlimited.

[starlifter]

This is an amazing work, Pathos!
When I get time from doing this GOTM, I want to look at that more. Its great to see new activity in Civ2, but most impressive from what I read and see here. Nice job.

[pathos]

Bump for version 1.2! No with anti-pollution and customizable impassable terrain options! Check the first post for download!

Originally Posted by starlifter

This is an amazing work, Pathos!
When I get time from doing this GOTM, I want to look at that more. Its great to see new activity in Civ2, but most impressive from what I read and see here. Nice job.

Thanks! If you have any ideas you'd like to see implemented, let me know.

[CurtSibling]

This looks most interesting!

[clightning]

This is a Great work! A game changer!
And CurtSibling reminded me 1 suggestion to this patch:
If there is a air unit stack covering a ground unit,
1, enemy ground unit should still be able to attack the ground unit in the stack, but ignore the air one, until there is no more ground in the stack;
2, enemy air fighter unit should, on the contrary, ingnore the ground unit and always attack the air unit in the stack, until this is no more air in the stack;
3, if your stacking air is a fighter, then it denies enemy bombers from being able to attack this stack; if it's a bomber, then it's useless as it were not there;
4, if it's an enemy ground unit with "fighter" flag, then stay in the current way.

[Yagoda]

Hi everybody!


Very interesting option!
But when I destroy a ship carrying units there is a bug wich stop the game or the carried units remains on the sea.... Do you think there is a solution?


Cheers,

[geofelt]

I have been looking for a long time for a way to play civ2 2.42 on a 64 bit OS.
I have given up and resorted to a dedicated 32 bit os expressly for that purpose.

One solution is to run MGE with a 64 bit patch, but the hostile AI makes it not nearly as much fun as 2.42
I would like to see the necessary patch to make mge run on 64 bit, without needing a cd, and without the hostile AI.

[clightning]

Dear all,
I'm testing Civ II Ext but just met a fatal bug:
With "No Stack Kill" turned on, the game will always crash if a unit gains veteran level in a combat.

Pity. This bug makes the patch virtually unusable