Hacked Civ3 Editor

[Thunderfall]

Title: Hacked Civ3 Editor
Creator: Donarumo
Date: November 3rd, 2001

The hacked Civ3 editor reveals the "Add" and "Delete" buttons for most Editor screens. Firaxis programmmer Mike Breitkreutz explained why these buttons are hidden:

"Clearly, this functionality was needed during the creation of the
game. However, we did not feel it received adequate testing to make it available in the released version of the game. In addition, in yesterday's chat I made mention of some graphical glitches that were discovered that make it difficult to modify some of the art and thus support for additional art was not implemented in the editor. Without the ability to add art, the ability to add units, for example, is pointless, so I disabled the feature temporarily. I did not, however, remove the functionality completely as I intend to fix these limitations. Be aware, though, that some of the items were never intended to have add/delete support and are only in there for development purposes. In other words, use these hacks at your own risk".

So use it with caution...





Thanks to Donarumo for letting us add the hack to the database. This mod was originally posted at Apolyton.

[animepornstar]

those buttons should have been there from the beginning.

[joespaniel]

Thanks again, TF! You da ship!!!

[CurtSibling]

Thanks Thunderfall!
You are king of the Ticondergoa-Class battleships!!!

[cph]

Quick question about adding.

First, Let's say I want to add a new city improvement, "Newspaper," which is available with the discovery of printing press, and it reduces corruption in the city.

Then I want to add a new tech comes after democracy, "Journalism," that allows the building of a new wonder, "The Times," which builds a newspaper in each city.

Is the AI smart enough to know about these new improvements? Does it know how good/bad they are?

[Armor]

CPH brings up the most important issue -- if the AI doesn't respond appropriately to things like new technologies and improvements, what would be the point?

Also, has anyone added new units yet? If so, maybe they could explain how they handled the graphics. I've noted the 'icon number' variable in the units screen, but this appears to be only for the production list graphic (units 32.pcx). The units themselves have distinct directories with .FLC animation files and .WAVs. But it appears the program is aware of differences between units, since some directories have many more files than others; there doesn't seem to be a default set of FLCs and WAVs.

I'd be interested to know if anyone's figured out how to get a single graphic in for a new unit, a la Civ2. I don't see myself coming up with fancy animations or multiple angles for my new units. My first thought would be having an FLC file with just the same frame repeated 120 times (the length of the current FLCs), but I'm not sure how the program chooses the directory/filesnames, etc., or how to point it to the right one.

Armor

[GIDustin]

Has anyone successfully created (added, not replaced) a civilization with this tool? If so, does your foreign advisor work when you have that newly made civ as an opponent (regardless of whether you have met them or not)?

I have this problem where I use the tool to make a new civ, the spanish. I create a new game and force one opponent to be spanish. once in the game, before i even build my first city, I hit F4 (Foreign advisor). The game gives me an illegal operation error.

Anyone else getting this? Anyone add a civ and NOT getting this?

Thanks for the input.

[storm]

thanks to this editor ive defeated the world with 2 pikemen((monarch level)

i changed the pike men atributes to attack-50 defense 50 movement 50
made it available to my race only
and deleted its prerequisite of iron
also its upgrade to musketmen then to riflemen i changed the same way also

so i alone had an upgradable superunit that was cheap to build
only need one per city to defend
and then just with two pikemen i razed every city as i went(unless it had a wonder) and sent in settlers after to build cities as i went

and with one other civ left that had one town on a small tundra island i negotiated peace and colonised the rest of the world

not very challenging i just wanted to test the editor for bugs

i also changed my race from romans to elves but in the hall of fame i was listed as roman

nevermind i play around with it a bit more...good scenario tool

[cph]

Alright, I added a tech, "Law Enforcement," that comes after Espionage with the intention of adding a small wonder "FBI" that does the same thing as Forbidden Palace.

But my in game tech tree got all messed up and wouldn't let me select other techs and lines where going all over the place.

What's the deal here? Anyone else have difficulties adding these types of things?

[Cyclopee]

CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in
module CIVILIZATION3.EXE at 015f:0040309c.
Registers:

I used this tool to add a civ. When I start to game using the civ I made this error closes it. Any ideas. Im stumped

[Ron Gretz]

Kind of frustrated here.

I would like to make some simple upgrade changes to the Civ3 rules but for the life of me, I am missing something.

How (or what do I use to) do I open up the basic game rules so I can upgrade a few units.

When I use the hacked Civ3edit utility all I get is a screen for creating new scenarios.

Thanks.

[Plutarck]

Some issues that have been answered since the posting of this, so I'll post them here and make sure everyone knows.


1) New units and wonders are DEFINATELY used by the AI. In my testing the AI built my Chichen Itza wonder, and it uses any units you may add to the game.

Someone else's "terrorist" unit for example is like a hidden nationality stealth cruise missle, and apparently the AI used it to beat up on the modmaker quite a bit

2) Adding a new Civilization is highly bugged right now and I'm still not satisfied that it fully works.



Ron Gretz: In your main Civilization III directory double-click your civ3mod.bic file, which should launch the editor. Under the Tools menu be sure that Use Default Rules is not selected, and you should now be able to choose Edit Rules under the Rules menu.

That should solve you're problem.


Armor: I know you already know now, but for the benefit of those who don't know the .flc files are not editable currently because Firaxis added some stuff into the file format, so it's definately not the default .flc file type.


3) About the tech tree screwing up, you have to have your mod replace the civ3mod.bic file and just choose New game instead of Load Scenario. Long story as to why, but it should be fixed in the next patch.


For any other querys check out my tutorial in the Creation forum.

[Ron Gretz]

Appreciate the help Plutarck

[takama2]

im having a fatal problem with the editor

i made a new gov't (republic, and monarchy combined)
and i made slight changes to the terran. i played it ok for a while, but after some playing the game crashed, and i had to restart (i managed to restart correctly) my screen was on the wrong resolution (everything is really big!!), and wehn i went to go to properties to change this it said it was missing a file named : rundll32.exe

also i cant get into civ3...it just doesnt load

i had a recent virus prob, but i exterminated the virus, so i doubt that has anything to do with it (lky me. it was a buisness virus, and my computer isnt for a buisness...my dad wasnt as lky, and lost 2 computers)

any ideas on the prob?

[Ron Gretz]

Originally posted by cph
Alright, I added a tech, "Law Enforcement," that comes after Espionage with the intention of adding a small wonder "FBI" that does the same thing as Forbidden Palace.

But my in game tech tree got all messed up and wouldn't let me select other techs and lines where going all over the place.

What's the deal here? Anyone else have difficulties adding these types of things?

Hey CPH,

Instead of adding the tech "Law Enforcement"; why not simply make use of the existing tech Communism, which allows the player to build Police Stations? That would appear to be much easier and the FBI Sm Wonder would actually coincide with the effect of the Communism Government type being available.

That would at least resolve the issue of adding another tech in and limit your problem to only creating a Small Wonder that triggers off of an existing technology.

[takama2]

ok the game still works. im playing were i left off on a different computer(ha and i rule).

err maybe its just amother sign that i need a new computer

[Charles]

See people!

We wouldn't be having all these problems if Firaxis gave us a half decent editor! Idiots! Idiots I say. You should all send Firaxis some feedback.

Charles.

[takama2]

but i fixed it

thx for makeing the add buttons, they are really important, especially for the gov'ts

[takama2]

i would ask fixazis, but id prob end up emailing a computer that will send me junkmail instead of the answer...at least here im talking to people(arent i?)

[Charles]

But... we shouldn't be designing mods because Firaxis made an incomplete editor is all I'm saying. But its good to "vent" our problems in here. I have!

Charles.