1.29f civ3mod.bic changes

[ColdFever]

1.29f civ3mod.bic has almost NO CHANGES compared to 1.21f, only:

General Settings		1.21		1.29
----------------------------------------------------------
City Size Label	Level 1	town		Town
City Size Label	Level 2 	city		City
City Size Label	Level 3 	metropolis	Metropolis

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

so what, there a little more stuff to edit, and that's sufficient!

 

[ColdFever]

"so what?"
What do you want to say with this?

The official BIC-changes are important to know to all modders, as most of them usually want to update their modded BIC-files to include all official changes. So with patch 1.29f there is only little work to do.

 

[DrJambo]

wholeheartedly agree with you coldfever! As a modder this is essential information to know when deciding whether to start the mod from scratch or update the mod with the new undocumented changes....

thanks

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

It was clear all the time that there wouldn't be any changes in unit stats or so no surprise!

but thanx for pointing it out...

 

[kingjoshi]

There is a new category in the file. it's called SLOC for starting locations. If you don't specify any, then the field is zero. If you do, then this is the format (you can verify by checking the hex):

BIC format (4.01)

SLOC Section (Starting locations)

4 char "SLOC"
4 long number of starting locations

for each starting location:
4 long length (16 in decimal)
4 long type of starting location (0=None, 1=Barbarians, 2=Civ, 3=Player)
4 long The civ (or player) that starts at this location
if civ (0=None, 1=First Civ, 2=Second Civ, ...)
if player (0=player 1, 1=player 2, ...)
4 long X location on map
4 long Y location on map

 

[ColdFever]

A VERY important thing to notice:

1.29f uses a kind of checksum to check if civ3mod.bic has been modified. Modified files do behave different, for example the Tutorial cannot be played anymore. The BIC-checksum is stored in civ3id.mb, "mb" probably stands for Mike Breitkreutz/FIRAXIS, as he is the master mind behind the BIC-files.

I asked Mike about it, he told me that Firaxis and Infogrames can generate a valid civ3id.mb file out of a specific civ3mod.bic file to carry the "default rules flag". This way the game engine later can check in multiplayer, if the default rules have been modifed or not.

Here the essentials of Mike's statements:

Originally mailed by Mike Breitkreutz/FIRAXIS
Yes the new version of Civ3 compares the actual BIC data to determine if it has changed. It does not just check to make sure the file name is "civ3mod.bic." As such, if you rename something, you have, in effect, modified the default rules.

The default rules flag must be kept out of the user's hands for multiplayer. It's very important that the game knows if the rules have been modified in any way.