Adding New Units: Some Work; Some Don't. Suggestions?

[Colonel Kraken]

I've done a lot of reading on this forum to make sure I'm doing everything right in adding a unit, especially the following advice:



quote:
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To get any new units to work, you must make sure a few things:

1) There is a folder with the same name as the new unit under Civiliztion III\Art\units (ie for Corssbowman, there must be a folder called Crossbowman)
2) There must be an ini file in that folder which has the same name as the folder (in the above example there must be a Crossbowman.ini)
3) The lines inside the ini file must point to an existing flc file (ie if the ini point to CrossbowmanDefault.flc then this file MUST be in the folder).

And lastly, once you add new units to your Civ3mod.bic file then you can no longer load any savegames as Civ3 detect a major change in rules and will not allow you to load the files.

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I have successfully added the Arab Horseman, Crossbowman, Eastern Pikeman, and Arabian Knight so I obviously know how to do it (mostly). However, when I tried to add the Chinese Junk and Battlewagon, the game crashes when I attempt to scroll down in the production screen (city menu) to access the new units (Junk and Battlewagon) to build.

I've checked the folder and ini file names against the bic file names. Everything seems to be in order. I've checked to make sure that the ini files don't reference files not in the respective folders.

The only thing I can think of is it's attempting to put a picture in the build menu and none exists. Now, this is something that I *haven't* seen referenced in all the instructions on building units. So, I have a another question:

How does the game know what picture to use (the big one--not the little one in the queue) when selected to be built in the city screen?

And, just exactly when and where does the game use the images from Units_32.pcx?

Thanks for your help.

--Colonel

 

[Ed O'War]

Did you add a civilopedia entry in the editor for your new units, like PRTO_NEW_UNIT_NAME. This is used by the PediaIcons.txt file to tell the computer which unitlarge.pcx and unitsmall.pcx icons to use for your unit in the civilopedia and for building them in the city view. The units_32.pcx is used for the small unit picture in the build qeue. Hope this helps you out.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

I merely use the civilopedia entry for an already existing unit (just to get the unit up and running). So, for example, Battlewagon uses the PRTO for Battleship.

Where are the unitsmall.pcx and unitlarge.pcx stored?
What format must they be in?

 

[Ed O'War]

I think the unitlarge and unitsmall .pcx pictures are stored in Civ 3/Art/Civilopedia/Icons/Units (I'm at work right now, so I can't double check it for you). You can just re-use the pictures from other units...that's what I do. But if you give a unit a new civilopedia entry, you need to make an entry for it in the PediaIcons.txt file. Just copy the format for an existing unit and replace it with your information.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

I really DO appreciate everyone's help. It's just that none of the suggestions have borne out.

Thank you, Ed. That's certainly good info. I currently have not monkeyed with any civilopedia entries for units yet. I always like to make sure the unit actually works in the game before I make further changes (which also helps for troubleshooting).

I guess what I'll have to do when I go home is delete the offending unit folders and start over, meticulously going over everything to make sure it's done properly.

That brings me to another question: how do you DELETE a unit once you've added it? Is it possible? This might sound like a dumb question, but I didn't see anything in the editor that would give me that option.

Thanks for everyone's help. I do greatly appreciate it.
It's nice to have such a friendly forum (as opposed to others I've been in )

--Colonel

 

[Montezuma]

Originally posted by Colonel Kraken
... how do you DELETE a unit once you've added it? Is it possible? This might sound like a dumb question, but I didn't see anything in the editor that would give me that option.
...

Highlight them and hit Alt-D

 

[Kryten]

I don't know if this will be of any help, but here's the HorseArcherReadme.txt file. Inside you'll find detailed instructions on how to add/delete units and civilopeadia entries to civ3 using the Civ3Editor (although most of this you may already know. Still, have a look anyway....there might be something of use).

 

[Ed O'War]

Glad to be of help. One last note: if you are adding additional units over and above the number in the standard game, you'll need to add an additional icon for that unit in the units_32.pcx file (even if you are just copying an icon for a similar unit). If you don't do this, the pictures in your city build qeue will be off by one for each added unit.

For example, if you added one unit (without changing units_32) your settlers would look like workers, workers would look like scouts, etc. in the city build qeue. New icons MUST be inserted before the last eight icons on the units_32.pcx (the three era army and leader icons, and the additional modern era settler and worker icons, must always be the last 8 icons in units_32.pcx).

The readme for the new patch (1.21) says that units will no longer be hardcoded and any number of new units can be added. I'm really not sure what they mean by this, so the new patch may invalidate everything I just wrote here.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

This is absolutely wonderful, guys (gals?). I appreciate all of your help, and I look forward to modifying CivIII further. Hopefully I'll be able to fix the problems I'm having.

Keep up the great work!

--Colonel

p.s. Kryten, I'll definitely have to take a look at that readme. Thanks!