.SAV hacking

I was playing with the Colonization SAV files and a hex editor trying to recreate EdBigHead's experience of playing the Sioux. I doubt that's possible (by just hexing .SAV files), but I did find a few things I found interesting.

(This is for the DOS version of Colonization, v.2.25, I have no idea about other versions.)

There is a flag for each European power, which is on if the power is AI-controlled. In other words, you can turn multiple flags off for (single-terminal) multiplayer Colonization!

There would probably be some unexpected effects as independence approaches, since there appears to be a relationship between a withdrawn power and the king's troops. I altered the withdrawn English to play as them, and my newly independent French onto AI. I became the Tories, but I couldn't attack unless I turned the French AI off, to play as both Tories and Rebels.

Diplomacy would also be odd, because the game would have its own ideas about who's at peace, and who's at war.

The bytes where this flag reside are, in hex:

• &0CF English
• &103 French
• &137 Spanish
• &16B Dutch

Just set this byte to "&00" to control the power, or "&01" to let AI control it. "&02" appears related to whether the power has withdrawn, and the byte before this one appears related to diplomacy, but I'm not sure yet.

Byte "&36" controls the game level. The levels I've tried so far include:

• &00 Discoverer
• &01 Explorer
• &02 Conquistador
• &03 Governor
• &04 Viceroy
• &05 Spring (Harder than viceroy, but includes tutorial?)
• &06 Tundra (No tutorial for this or any additional level I tried)
• &07 Ocean
• &08 " "*,*****
• &09 Spring (Repeated title; Colonies inefficient at size 1,*****)
• &0A Spring (Crashed on colony founding: "DIVIDE BY ZERO",*****)
• &0B Spring (Colonies "inefficient"** at -1, crashed after some time,*****)
• &10 Spring (Colonies "inefficient"*** at -6,*****)
• &11 Spring (Colonies "inefficient"*** at -7,*****)
• &FF Spring (Colonies "inefficient"*** at -245, ****,*****)

* Title is just one blank space instead of word.

**"Inefficiency" at this level gives +1 benefits for every Tory citizen, so a size 4 colony got +4 work from each person! This would be strange to play, since your colonies would become less efficient the closer you got to declaring independence. Unfortunately it crashed, "DIVIDE BY ZERO", after I had a colony of 4 extremely efficient workers. Of course, I had to keep my Elder Statesman out of City Hall to keep them working so hard!

***On these levels, "inefficiency" had no noticeable effect.

****REF grows every turn, with extremely high native alarm; however, the king of Netherlands gave me 3 soldiers and an artillery for -$644, giving a much needed boost to my army and treasury!

*****At these levels, other European powers gained Independence before I reached landfall, although they had no rebel sympathizers.

[This message has been edited by kcsaff (edited July 24, 2001).]

[Gramphos]

Have you tried to run opening -d:0? That makes an AI only play.

It is also interesting that the text-files contains Multiplayer strings.