Trade Assist

[ainwood]

This is a BETA version! If you find any problems, or want to suggest any improvements, the please PM me or post them in this thread.

What is this?

Well, I got really sick of haivng to click through numerous screens to see if the AI had any workers for sale, any techs that I didn't have, or any contacts/communications that I didn't have. So I wrote this utility to put all the info in one place.

Features:

1. Configurable alerts: Program will bring itself to the foreground if any AI civ that you have contact with has new communications, new techs or workers for sale, or if a city is about to riot. You can turn these on or off.
2. Lists numbers of techs / communications / workers that AI civs have that you don't.
3. Lists AI gold.
4. Spoiler safe - only lists AIs that you have contact with, and only lists techs / communications if you or the AI have the prerequisite tech to trade them.
5. Calculates where the capital will move to in a palace move.

To use: Simply fire it up when you have Civ / PTW running, and set which alerts you want to see. I suggest that within the civ game you set the "wait at end of every turn" flag. This program will not update until 2 to 3 seconds after your turn starts, so in the early game you may miss something if you don't wait for it!

Limitations:

1. Doesn't (yet) support conquests.
2. Doesn't support map trading.
3. Doesn't support resource trading.
4. Written in VB. You will need VB runtime modules (which most windows version have as standard anyway). Not sure if Mac users can run it via a windows emulator...

Edit:
Version History:
v1.0.1:

1. Fixed bug with capital index not linking to the correct city (only affects games where one or more civs capitals have moved, either through jumping or capital being captured).
2. Added command-line directory specification. Currently, the autosave directory is determined from the registry setting for your main civ installation, and your choice of game version. If you want to, you can specify an alternative directory location by putting the directory as a command-line argument.

Version 1.0.0. replaced after 132 downloads.


Version History:
v1.0.2:

1. Added support to allow location of new capital to be determined in free palace jumps.
2. Added support to alert players when cities are going to riot.
3. Fixed bug in loading files where no cities have been founded.
4. Fixed problem with spurious BIC LEAD sections.
5. Fixed two load bugs when a new game is loaded.

Version 1.0.1. replaced after 155 downloads.


For more details and discussion of this utility (including a few of the suggestions to date), please see this thread.

Note:
You will need to install This common DLL to enable this program to support compressed file.



And the actual program (ZIP format): V1.0.2

[Gogf]

NICE! Any idea when you'll have a Conquests version?

[Dr Alimentado]

It works

Nice work, it will certainly make life easier. This is a simple but incredibly effective idea.

[Gramphos]

Interesting utility concept...

Does it work directly on the game memory or on autosaves?

[Dr Alimentado]

Gramphos - I believe it works on autosaves.

Ainwood - Here are some suggestions:
Make the app keep a topmost window - maybe just a button to bring up the main form. Hunting around for your taskbar or using alt-tab is a little unfriendly.
More Info Luxurys, Strategic resources, (I am sure you are going to add this stuff anyway) and it would be great to see what items you have that they want.

How about an interface that uses the civ3 menu gfx (the parchment type background and no title bar)? what would be really cool would be just a civ-like gold button that stays on top of the game window. When you press it it brings up a diplo-like window with the info in it.... just a wild thought anyway


I also found a small bug - I loaded an old game and started trade assist but the auto-save was for a different game that had no contacts (so no info). I hit end turn and at the beginning of the new turn brought trade assist up from the taskbar and got a crash with the (generic) error message "Runtime Error 9 'Subscript out of range'".

When I ran trade assist again it seemed to run fine.

The autosave it loaded at first (with no info) was for a debug test game, though I doubt that makes any difference.

[Gogf]

I like the idea of civish graphics, and a bottun that stays on top. If you can make it Ainwood, that would be great!

[ainwood]

Originally posted by Gramphos
Interesting utility concept...

Does it work directly on the game memory or on autosaves?

As Dr Alimentado said, it uses autosaves. More efficient to use my old classes than to re-write for the in-game-memory offsets.

[TedJackson]

Looks interesting...

I'll give it a try


Ted

[Justus II]

Ainwood,

Can I assume that since you wrote it, and it is "spoiler-proof", that it is acceptable for use with GOTM?

[Offa]

I just tried this out in a quick practice game and it seems great. Any players who haven't already realized the benefits of checking the diplo screen every turn could receive a big boost from this, and others will save a lot of time.

I presume this is going to be legal in GOTM.

[anarres]

ainwood - have you got an ETA for a Conquests version?

[Gramphos]

just PM me if you neeed any help with the C3C save changes.

[ainwood]

Originally posted by Justus II
Ainwood,

Can I assume that since you wrote it, and it is "spoiler-proof", that it is acceptable for use with GOTM?

That was a prime motivator for making it spoiler proof.

Originally posted by Gramphos
just PM me if you neeed any help with the C3C save changes.

Much appreciated!

@anarres: I am away for a few days, but hope to tackle it first thing in Feb. It shouldn't take too long to sort out conquests, but I have other prioirities in the next two weeks. I won't bug gramphos just yet, or it will just distract me...

[sabrewolf]

you probably don't even need to "bug" him... i don't know if you know this thread yet:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=105623

[Gramphos]

Weel there are differences between the savefile format and the BIQ format. And one of the major is that the SAVE is so mush unknown areas in that posting it public would just araise tousends of questions which some would be answerable, and some not.

However, I follow the policy that if someone who is making a utility needs help with the save format I'm willing to help with what I have, but not post things public.

[BomberEscort]

Excellent utility and a very original idea... I'll wait patiently for the conquest version!!!

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by Gramphos
Weel there are differences between the savefile format and the BIQ format. And one of the major is that the SAVE is so mush unknown areas in that posting it public would just araise tousends of questions which some would be answerable, and some not.

However, I follow the policy that if someone who is making a utility needs help with the save format I'm willing to help with what I have, but not post things public.

yep, i understand there are a lot of differences.
but i also remember you once saying that a lot is similar anyway.

as you -and others- have figured out nearly all of the BIQ-format, and ainwood has proven that he knows where to find the data in BIX/BIC-files, i thought maybe that thread would be enough

but either way, great work of all of you!
i wish i were able to create such stuff...

[ainwood]

Well, I have enough info from the PTW and Civ game-data sections, and they are a better starting-point for getting the equivalent conquests game data than the BIQ format is.

However, I actually need both, to ensure that I read the Tech effects properly etc (to support modded games for example). Like I said - its not a huge task to make it conquests-supportable, but unfortunately, I'm too busy for the enxt two weeks.

[Balastulin]

Ainwood.

Thank you soooo much for this. I have been wanting something like this for ages (and even tried to bug Firaxis into putting it into a patch fix.) This should greatly improve my higher-difficulty performance on account of the fact I'm too lazy to do this manually.

I don't suppose resources and luxuries are too important as the TA takes care of them.

Thanks again.

Yours patiently waiting for C3C update!

[AlanH]

This sounds like a great utility for reducing the playing time for high level games. I've tried running it on a Win98 PC without Civ3, and it doesn't like it. So I guess a Mac player would need Virtual PC plus Civ3 for Windows to use it, which is kinda not going to happen for most of us!

Soooo! Please can someone post screenshots of the TradeAssist output, as I'd like to look at producing a native Mac version, and I'd rather not have to reinvent Ainwood's hard work on the user interface.