[Col] Colonization for Windows graphics editing

[Lord_Hill]

Hi guys, I've been messing around with the Civilization for Windows file extraction and graphics mod tools here (https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/demonstration-source-extraction-tools-for-civwin.30680/) and recently discovered that the Microprose GIF graphics format is also used for CivNet graphics assets as well. This got me thinking whether any other Microprose games from around this time used the same format, and sure enough, it turns out Colonization for Windows also uses it, as well as using the same standard Windows 16 bit DLL format for archiving the files!

I'm using eXeScope v6.3 by Toshi to poke around the DLL files. When you find something that looks interesting, export and give the file you save the .gif file type.

Then use gif_convertor.exe from Honza's Civilization for Windows tools to convert from GIF to TGA. I haven't managed to stumble across the tilesets yet, but did find this nice background pic in coldata5.dll, offset 0x03e00

I realise this will be of relatively little interest as obviously the DOS version is by far the most popular, but figured I'd mention it. I know @Blake00 has messed around with the windows version in the past.

 

[Lord_Hill]

Tileset appears to be here, in coldata1.dll, at offset 0x06a00

 

[Lord_Hill]

And just to prove this really works, here is the classic CivDOS sail delivering my settlers to the new world. No, I'm not planning a Civ total conversion! :-D

 

[Blake00]

Oh and man as if I didn't think of this when we were talking over on the Civ1 forums about using Civ2 dll tools to get into CivNET , this is so awesome!! To see you extract and import assets into ColWIN is just epic. I'll have to share this with the Colonization fans FB/Reddit/Discord communities!

The final patch for ColWin has a text file that says they'll get the animating rivers and shorelines working in a later patch that never came. It's always bugged me that we had animating assets in the older CivWIN and CivNET yet none in ColWIN, which of course puts off a lot of the DOS players as they don't wish the lose the animation. I wonder if this kind of file access would allow us to see if there are unused animation frames in there.

 

[Lord_Hill]

Yeah, your comment about Civ II DLL files being editable with a generic resource editor like Resource Hacker started all this. I'd convinced myself it must be a custom container format just using the DLL extension, but nope, they're just bog standard 16 bit DLL files. It's a shame Resource Hacker doesn't support them, it's a much more powerful tool than eXeScope which basically allows viewing and export only.

I wish I could help with the water colour cycling, but I fear I'd do quite the opposite! My Civ mods break the colour cycling that's already present, let alone enable it if it's missing. And please do share it around, I have no idea where the hardcore colonization fans are hanging out these days.

 

[Lord_Hill]

This works on the Mac version as well, but Mac doesn't use DLLs, it continues to use the RSC resource files that CivWin and CivMac use. It's the same GIF files inside though.
So via the same convoluted method as my 'DOS tileset for CivMac' mod

1) Copy file 'Colonization2.data' onto a disk (CiderPress can create artificially large disks in order to fit it on)
2) use CiderPress to extract the resource fork of the file onto windows. Rename this file to have the '.rsc' extension (but make a note of its original name)
3) use 'rsc_extract' from Honza's CivWin mod tools to extract from the archive.
4) the tileset is called 'CivRSC_CvPc_0xC9' by Honza's tools
5) use Honza's gif_extractor to convert to tga, make changes, use Honza's tga2gif to convert it back to a gif file.
6) use rsc_replace to put your new graphics back into the rsc file (this is my command line RSC_replace ColData2.rsc 0 201 CivRSC_CvPc_0xC9)
7) put the rsc file back onto the floppy disk with its original name and copy back over to the Mac.

EDIT - alternatively, you can use ResEdit on the Mac to open the resource fork of 'Colonization2.data' and extract the resource with ID 201, and put that on the disk to copy over to windows.

 

[Blake00]

Oh this is great.. heh I just had one of the FreeCol devs asking me about the Mac version as he never sees others playing it. I'd actually never seen a screen of it either (so I didn't realise it used the upscaled ColWIN version instead of the blocky DOS one) until now so that's good timing and cool that you've gained access to it as well. I'll let him know.
EDIT: Oh and out of curiosity does the Mac version have any river & shoreline animation?

 

[Lord_Hill]

Nope, this version is identical to windows including the lack of water animations. I think all the Windows 3.1 versions of Sid Meier games are back ports from the Mac versions (except CivNet which never made it to Mac). The cheat is the same as well (hold CTRL and type WIN, instead of ALT like in the DOS version)