Switching between different ToTPP scenarios.

[McMonkey]

That should be fairly simple to do. I guess it will depend on whether peoples PC will run batch files. Perhaps there is a more up to date alternative that will run on the latest OS? Perhaps best to check that with TNO.

 

[TheNamelessOne]

Let me try to explain this a little bit more, and figure out what the exact issue is you guys encounter when switching scenarios.

What are the last settings on your ToTPP? This is an issue I've been wondering about. ToT Patch Project isn't, AFAIK, a hex-editing program. It patches the executable, ie. the ToT program itself. So when you start a new scenario or load a saved game without using the Patch Program, the last setting used when you launched the program with ToTPP will still apply.

Indeed, the project patches the executable which is done the first time you start the launcher and press the "Apply patch" button. Technically all it does is make civ2.exe load TOTPP.dll, which does all the work, but this is a detail and you can forget about this if you want.

Now the statement "without using the Patch Program", does that mean without going through the launcher? In that case, yes, all previous settings will still apply. These are exactly the settings saved in TOTPP.ini, and these are read by TOTPP.dll, which is still patched into civ2.exe. But if you were to go back to a vanilla version of civ2.exe, before the patch was applied, then the settings won't apply anymore.

A number of new factors such as movement multipliers for railways and rivers, defensive bonuses for fortresses etc. are set in the new @COSMIC2 field in the Rules file. I'm not sure how they apply in a scenario without the new field. My ToT exec. is set for no movement bonus for rivers, and that seems to be how it's working with my Bitterfrost game, despite it not having a @COSMIC2 field.

The intended behaviour is like this (and if it's not, then it is a bug, so please let me know): When you load a scenario with some @COSMIC2 values set in rules.txt, then these are read and apply for the duration of that game. Now say you'd load another scenario without these values, or without a @COSMIC2 section for that matter. Then this other rules.txt is read, it will use default values for the missing settings, and everything should be exactly as in vanilla. Keep in mind that these things are never stored in the saved game, the executable or TOTPP.ini, they're scenario / game type specific and are always read from rules.txt.

I thought maybe the parameters are getting saved in some registry or other (it didn't occur to me at the time that it might be saved in the .sav or .scn files) so I decided to try and re-install the base game and TOTPP from scratch. But again to my surprise, and again I haven't tested this thoroughly, when I load the .scn of my Vietnam project, I see that at least one of the TOTPP features isn't working (I'm using the city sprite feature that assigns a different city graphic for each map I'm using but now all maps are using the same base city.bmp).

Is this also related to switching scenarios or does this occur all the time?

Thanks for the response. We should sort it out I think. By my count there are just 5 scenario designers at SL who still release regularly, if infrequently: McMonkey, Tootall_2012, Patine, Curt Sibling and me. Hopefully the Patch Project will attract more, but right now we are a major market segment for TNO's wonderful project.

Indeed you guys are. And I think you are also some of the first people who might be able to notice issues in a new release. As the main TOTPP thread is now dozens of pages long, I think it would help to create a new thread for bug reports only, maybe even here on the SL forum. Proper bug reports would help greatly in solving issues quickly after a release.

A couple of things occur to me. First, we should try as much as possible to retain interoperability between our scenarios. Being able to switch back and forth as seamlessly as possible is important for users, IMHO. If you have to install various new programs or manually enter a bunch of data before launching a new scenario or loading a saved game, the threshold of effort required will be too high for many potential users.

I've envisioned it like this: almost all users run the launcher with default settings, which is most of the patches enabled. Settings are stored in rules.txt for the most part, so switching settings happens seamlessly. Never should you have to quit the game and change launcher settings, unless you really know what you're doing and you're experimenting with patches that aren't enabled by default.

Also, the patches that are enabled by default should not impact gameplay in any way just by themselves, only after changing something else as well (e.g. in rules.txt or the TOTPP configuration menu etc.) should their effects apply. This is one of the most important aspects of preserving backwards compatibility, and if any patch violates this it is definitely a bug.

So the normal situation, which should apply to 99% of all users, is that changing settings actually happens seamlessly. I don't think you'd really need to distribute ini files with your scenarios for this purpose. Again, if it doesn't work like this, please let me know.

 

[McMonkey]

Thanks for clarifying that TNO. I suspected that compatibility would not be an issue but it is good to have that confirmed. I have started a sticky thread for reporting bugs. Hopefully it won't get much use!

 

[techumseh]

Thanks for being so responsive, TNO. This improves my understanding considerably.