Making a Demo questions

[Konig15]

Look, Curt's been on me to put up or shut about actually making a scenario, and frankly, I think he's got a point.

Everything I've wanted to do up to this point is....overambitious. So I'm gonna do something FAR simpler, and I'm not giving the name because right now I'm just a horsehocky talker, but it is a reimaging. Thing is, I have the map, I have the factions, I have the units, I have the events, cause they all pre-exist. I want to create something less derivative as a final product, but right now I want to create a playable proof of concept. Here are my issues:

1. The map has the cities in place, but because it's MGE, it's got fortresses in every single square. Is there a quick way to remove them all?

2. I want to keep the scenario creation in MGE as long as possible because it actually has editing tools, unlike TOT. Don't get me wrong, it WILL end up being ported to TOT, but I want to save that until the final second. Is that gonna cause me problems down the line? Especially when I start inserting TOTPP stuff into the old rules.txt?

3. Also, would people play a demo in MGE, or at least look at it? Knowing that the final product IS coming to TOT and is gonna have TOTPP features?

4. Is there a guide on the new terrain slots? I saw something in passing that you can create Terrian 2 stuff for them, but I can't find it and not sure how, and I want to confirm there's no way to make the terrain operate like grasslands, and that that the +1 to trade feature of grasslands, plains and deserts is hardcoded and non-transferable?

5. That there is no way to confer spy abilities to a diplomat unit at this time.

 

[Knighttime]

Starting with a simpler project first, and building up to one that's more complex later, is probably a very good approach.

1. There is, but not in MGE as far as I know. This is very quick and straightforward to do in a TOTPP scenario: in the TOTPP launcher, the very last item is named "Debug scripts". Click on that and review the information in the description, which explains how to use the "Unstack terrain" feature.

2. There is an entire thread about converting MGE scenarios to TOT, although I'm not sure how well it actually details all of the steps that go into doing this. It isn't exactly a straightforward process and there are a lot of little fiddly things to deal with; every unit icon is taller, as one obvious graphical adjustment, but there are many other less obvious issues that you would also need to confront. Unless you can get an "expert" (which I am not) to help, you might spend a lot more time on this conversion than you realize.

Personally, I think the approach you have in mind will benefit you in the short term, but be more difficult for you in the long term and overall. If you know you intend to release the scenario in TOT, I would recommend building the entire thing in that version. Yes, this means confronting the lack of some built-in editing tools and learning to understand and edit text files and images using external programs. But you'll need to confront that anyway, at some point, and doing it upfront will help you sidestep all of the conversion hassles and allow you to develop a project plan that isn't quite as disjointed.

If you're using Windows, I recommend Notepad++ for editing .txt and .lua files, and Paint.net for editing .bmp image files (GIMP will work but it seems more complicated to me). If you are comfortable using Microsoft Excel or another similar spreadsheet, you can probably start coming up with your own ways to utilize that to assist you that throughout the design and implementation process.

3. I personally have both versions working, but I can't speak for anyone else.

4a. The best/only instructions I'm aware of are found within the TOTPP launcher: click on the "Extra terrain types" patch (beneath "Extra cosmic parameters") and separately on the "Terrain overlays" patch (about 80% of the way down the list), and carefully read the notes in the box on the right. I recommend copying that info out into a separate text file and making a checklist for yourself of the steps you need to follow, so you can cross off each item as you complete it and make sure nothing is overlooked.

4b. "I want to confirm there's no way to make the terrain operate like grasslands, and that that the +1 to trade feature of grasslands, plains and deserts is hardcoded and non-transferable?" Correct. Those features are hardcoded to those terrain slots and TOTPP (as of 0.15.1, the current version) doesn't provide a way to alter them.

5. Correct. TOTPP provides a way to give Engineer abilities (upgraded Settler) to any unit slot, but not Spy (upgraded Diplomat) or Freight (upgraded Caravan). Only those original unit slots provide those extra features.

 

[Civinator]

Starting with a simpler project first, and building up to one that's more complex later, is probably a very good approach.

I second that and: Konig15, here you can show to yourself, that you are able to finish a project.

The map has the cities in place, but because it's MGE, it's got fortresses in every single square. Is there a quick way to remove them all?

If I remember well, there exists the tool 'Civ Stack 1.1 utility', but this tool can only add fortresses and airfields easily to maps, but is not able to remove them from a map. May be some modders here with a much deeper modding knowledge about Civ 2 have a better idea for solving that problem. On the other side: Why not removing those fortresses tile by tile ?

 

[Konig15]

Starting with a simpler project first, and building up to one that's more complex later, is probably a very good approach.

@Civinator]

Civinator, Because this map is 32,000 squares that's why. BIG map. I'm making this scenario because the old ones didn't go far enough where I wanted.

Now I have a VERY embarrassing problem. I keep trying to start a new game on the established map, and I've tried this before elsewhere. I start the game and on turn 1 I save the game to the directory where i have the new tiles and rule.txt wait for deployment.

I CANNOT load a new game saved in a scenario folder, cause it causes a CTD every time. Something about an Error 5 module 3, something something. What's the fix here?

 

[Civinator]

In the Civ2 - Technical Support forum at CFC a search for Error 5 showed the following list: https://forums.civfanatics.com/search/110478486/?q=Error+5&o=date&c[node]=20

May be here a specialist like FoxAhead could help you. At least he wrote 'Error code 5 is ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED' in that post.

 

[Knighttime]

I start the game and on turn 1 I save the game to the directory where i have the new tiles and rule.txt wait for deployment.

I CANNOT load a new game saved in a scenario folder, cause it causes a CTD every time. Something about an Error 5 module 3, something something. What's the fix here?

I'm not sure if "Error 5" here is necessarily the same as "Error code 5" that Civinator referenced -- one might be a Civ error and the other a Windows error. At any rate, in my experience, this type of message usually means there is a problem somewhere within rules.txt. I think the "module 3" is actually telling you the section of that file where it encountered the problem, although I don't know how the numbers map to the headers (i.e., is @ COSMIC module 0? or module 1?). Here is a post that describes how someone else was able to troubleshoot a similar issue: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/summer-project.466895/page-4#post-13713228.

 

[Konig15]

In the Civ2 - Technical Support forum at CFC a search for Error 5 showed the following list: https://forums.civfanatics.com/search/110478486/?q=Error+5&o=date&c[node]=20

May be here a specialist like FoxAhead could help you. At least he wrote 'Error code 5 is ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED' in that post.

I don't think so. the error is
Error "-5" in module '3' data 67 0
The thing in the Highline at the top says Fatal Error, but nothing more descriptive.

According to Knighttime's link this might be linked to a Rules. txt, but the rules.text here TOT specific.

I HAVE to start from a new game, port it to a scenario file and start building from there. Have you tried such a thing recently?

EDIT: In this case the Rules.txt was NOT TOT compliant but MGE compliant. I replaced it with a TOT rules set and it worked.

Now we go to the next phase:
How does one convert an MGE tules to TOT rules? I thought they would be compatible on a one map game world, but that isn't the case.

I SEEMS like my best bet is to start with a TOT rules set. Maybe even the vanilla TOT rules set and copy and paste sections as needed. If I make up the rules for extra terrains (the full sisxteen) under TOTPP but don't have a terrian1 with all the lots, will that crash the game? Either on loding or attempting to create a new terrian without a slot in the GIF file?

 

[Konig15]

Oh and Here's the map problems I'm having:

Why is the overmap grey? I've never seen that. Also the Terrain file in MGE has no problem working but here you can see the words mountains, hills and of course look at norhern Italy, the special terrians are out of sorts and using the Ocean as background, not the designated ones in the terrain file.

So, not insurmountable, but hat's the quickest fix?

 

[JPetroski]

Did you grab the map from a save of a scenario using extra terrain? Maybe that is it?

 

[Konig15]

Did you grab the map from a save of a scenario using extra terrain? Maybe that is it?

Well, when I start the new game and it's using vanilla TOT assets the map looks fine. So it's not missing terrain types.

However, the terrain sets ARE from MGE. I copy and pasted. If hat's the wrong way I need to know how to do it right.

 

[JPetroski]

I'm not sure if that would cause the issue. It might.

@gapetit when you are converting scenarios from MGE to TOT do you need to do anything with the terrain to fix it and make it compatible?