Altering terrain gif.

[TLF]

I tried editing the Terrain1.gif to change one of the terrain squares.

I replaced the square with one from one of the mod pacs.

I went to test it in game, and the game refused to load.
I replaced the original and the game loaded OK.
As an experiment I loaded the original Terrain.gif with the square cut out and the game loaded. Of course the map had that particular terrain type missing.

Also, the terrain gif that I was taking the replacement square from works fine in the game, so that's not the problem.

What can be causing this?

I would have expected a bad gif to just look bad, not cause the game to refuse to load.

Are there any suggestions for a decent free graphics editor?

Is there a tutorial anywhere on the editing process for the game's graphics?

 

[McMonkey]

I just use Paint to alter all the graphics. Not sure why the game would not load, normally it is just alterations to the Rules and other files that adversely effect the game if done incorrectly!

 

[TLF]

MS Paint?

Mine only loads bitmaps.

I just downloaded Gimp, but it seems like overkill.

I tried something called Brush and because I had the problem with the game not loading I figured something might be wrong so I tried Serif phtoPlus6 but had the same problem.

I sure could use some guidance.

 

[Catfish]

My version of MS Paint on Windows XP handles GIFs; saving them in the right format is the problem. GIFs for Civ2 need to be saved as version 87a (no transparency) and non-interlaced (loads line by line, top to bottom, in your web browser). However, IIRC, the incorrect settings for either of these won't cause the game to crash, they just corrupt the image. What does the palette look like? It should look something like the attached image. Again, the wrong palette won't cause a crash, but it could be a symptom of something else.

What editor were you using? The GIMP may be overkill, but you probably won't find a better free graphics editor. Have you tried editing and saving your GIFs in GIMP? You can always save the graphics as 8-bit BMPs; you'll end up with larger files, but you won't have these format problems.

 

[TLF]

I finally got it to work.
I used Gimp.
I had to adjust the palette to the proper green and magenta squares at 254 and 255.

I still don't know why the game refused to load before.

Thanks for the replies.