CCM (epic mod) preview thread

[Civinator]

So would it be posssible, with the appropriate flags checked, to have, say, a University turn out SGLs?

No, the SGL (with the special capability to finish Great Wonders) can only be received by the hardcoded event when leading in the techological race. BTW: What you suggested was a former setting for the Great University in an early version of CCM. My Great architect autoproduced by that GW could only finish buildings like a GL -no GWs. But may be my settings for that were not optimal.

In CCM the SGL is an era-specific unit, but that is not new. Former mods managed this, too.

 

[Ozymandias]

No, the SGL (with the special capability to finish Great Wonders) can only be received by the hardcoded event when leading in the techological race. BTW: What you suggested was a former setting for the Great University in an early version of CCM. My Great architect autoproduced by that GW could only finish buildings like a GL -no GWs. But may be my settings for that were not optimal.

In CCM the SGL is an era-specific unit, but that is not new. Former mods managed this, too.

Different POV - perhaps having "SGLs" that can't finish a GW isn't so bad, both from a gameplay POV and from a, well, it sort of feels like a cheat that can cut both ways ...

 

[Civinator]

Different POV - perhaps having "SGLs" that can't finish a GW isn't so bad, both from a gameplay POV and from a, well, it sort of feels like a cheat that can cut both ways ...

The option to finish a Great Wonder was always part of Civ 3 and it also was part of C3C and therefore I don´t consider it as a kind of "cheat". That option only was spoiled by Firaxis with their last patches and their last editor. It seems that the AI also treats SGLs well. I would consider a kind of "massproduction" of other units, that can finish buildings as a kind of cheating, as the AI can´t handle these units if they are not leaders. If I remember well, in RAR this was the reason, why a caravan-unit was skipped.

I´m always glad if I receive a SGL in CCM, what is not very frequently. It is a "fun"-element of C3C and therefore it is restored in CCM. . And I´m also always thankful to embryodead for pointing me to the differences of the C3C editors.

 

[Takeo]

The best is to show it with two screenes:



But all this settings at present are only working, if editor 1.03 is not used.

So, if in my personal mod(editor 1.03) I deleted the units page down to nothing to start from scratch and later added in a leader with same stats as a normal game, my mod will not produce a science leader like the normal game would?

 

[Civinator]

So, if in my personal mod(editor 1.03) I deleted the units page down to nothing to start from scratch and later added in a leader with same stats as a normal game, my mod will not produce a science leader like the normal game would?

Takeo, important for having the option to receive SGLs is, that you did the last save of the biq with editor 1.00. If you do the last save with editor 1.03 (the last editor) you don´t have SGLs, if you do the last save with editor 1.00 you have SGLs. You must not delete all your units from scratch. Until now there were no big deficits reported for single player games if the scenario or mod is done with editor 1.00. The most prominent mod done with editor 1.00 is MEM II and it was played a lot without problems.

May be the best is to read, what embryodead told me :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6254818&postcount=19

 

[Takeo]

So, is this science leader problem only if you add a new unit into a mod and try to give the unit the science leader abilities?
The reason I ask is because a mod I made a few months back, in editor 1.03, has the science leader option 'blued out' and while playing a test game it gave me 3 science leaders and all three were used to build wonders.

 

[embryodead]

Takeo, important for having the option to receive SGLs is, that you did the last save of the biq with editor 1.00. If you do the last save with editor 1.03 (the last editor) you don´t have SGLs, if you do the last save with editor 1.00 you have SGLs. You must not delete all your units from scratch. Until now there were no big deficits reported for single player games if the scenario or mod is done with editor 1.00. The most prominent mod done with editor 1.00 is MEM II and it was played a lot without problems.

May be the best is to read, what embryodead told me :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6254818&postcount=19

Small clarification is in order. I tested that 1.00 version for our discussion back then but the released versions of MEM II still use 1.03. But we also know that some Conquests on the Civ3 disc were done with 1.00 editor and they work fine.

The problem appears only if you change the default game rules in scenarios tab, where the SGLs option is missing in 1.03. Basic MEM mod allows SGL because it uses default rules, so the player can enable/disable SGLs on the starting screen. MEM scenarios that use VP scoring etc. have SGLs greyed out of course.

Basically, if you leave the "Default Game Rules" checked, the information isn't even saved in the BIQ and the game allows SGLs, which means the error is within 1.03 editor and not within the game itself, so it can be fixed with a custom editor

 

[Ozymandias]

Basically, if you leave the "Default Game Rules" checked, the information isn't even saved in the BIQ and the game allows SGLs, which means the error is within 1.03 editor and not within the game itself, so it can be fixed with a custom editor

Oh, Steph ...

 

[Steph]

I'll need to check it. Probalby today as my mod is almost finished (well, the first test version is!)

 

[Quintillus]

Exactly. So the problem could be that the editor doesn't save the SGL option in the 12.08, or it could be the game that read the 12.06 and the 12.08 differently, and wronlgy for 12.08

I have looked into the matter, and can report that the error appears to be in the editor, and that is definitely IS possible to make a BIQ version 12.08 with scientific leaders enabled and default game rules/victory conditions/etc. NOT enabled. The attached .biq is an example. I'll finish my explanation on an edit of this post, so Steph doesn't have to keep looking.

To figure out if it was possible, I saved a blank scenario with default rules but not default player data. I then disabled default victory conditions and default game rules within the Scenario tab embryodead mentioned in post #167. This can all be verified by opening up the attached .biq in Civ3ConquestsEdit version 1.03. I then opened up the file in a hex editor, and went to the four bytes where victory conditions and rules are set in binary (an explanation of the BIQ layout can be found here at Apolyton). I noticed there are 18 items under the "Rules" section for a Civ3 game on the screen where you choose who you are playing. That is two too many for the first two bytes that are documented at Apolyton. Reverse Capture the Flag and Scientific Leaders are the two odd ones out. So I turned on Reverse CTF and saved. That changed the third byte from 00 to 02 in the hex editor. From there it was just trying all the different possibilities for that position. And it turns out, three combinations allow scientific leaders:

00 = Neither
01 = Neither
02 = Reverse CTF
03 = Reverse CTF
04 = Reverse CTF
05 = Reverse CTF
06 = Both Reverse CTF and Scientific Leaders
07 = Both
08 = Neither
09 = Neither
0A = Reverse CTF
0B = Reverse CTF
0C = Scientific Leaders
0D = Scientific Leaders
0E = Both
0F = Both
10 = Neither
16 = Both
20 = Neither

And the values of these numbers in binary, remembering Civ3 uses little-endian integers:

00 = 0000 0000 (little)
01 = 1000 0000 (little)
%02 = 0100 0000 (little) <-- this is the value used for ReverseCTF by Civ3ConquestsEdit v1.03
%04 = 0010 0000 (little)
%05 = 1010 0000 (little)
*%06 = 0110 0000 (little)
07 = 1110 0000 (little)
08 = 0001 0000 (little)
09 = 1001 0000 (little)
0A = 0101 0000 (little)
0B = 1101 0000 (little)
*0C = 0011 0000 (little)
*0D = 1011 0000 (little)
0E = 0111 0000 (little)
0F = 1111 0000 (little)
10 = 0000 1000 (little)
*%16 = 0110 1000 (little)
20 = 0000 0100 (little)

Percent signs are Reverse CTF; asterisks are scientific leaders. The attached file has value 0C in hexadecimal for this byte, and thus has only scientific leaders enabled.

The unfortunate thing is there doesn't seem to any pattern in the bits where one bit being enabled turns reverse CTF or scientific leaders on or off, as there are for the properties documented at Apolyton. But by using specific values of those listed above for each of the three possibilities for those bytes, a custom editor could allow scientific leaders with BIC 12.08.

I have not tested these values in game, to see if there are any unintended side effects. However, the attached file does at least start a game properly, and "Enable Scientific Leaders" does show up in blue on the scenario Rules on the page where you choose who you are playing.

The bit in question is number 0x376 in binary in this file (position will vary by BIQ). Version number can be verified by examining the 4-byte integers starting at positions 0x018 (major number version; reads 12 in decimal), and 0x01C (minor version number, reads 8 in decimal). You'll have to use a hex editor to verify the version numbers, unless there's some way to in Civ3ConquestsEdit/Civ3Conquests that I don't know about, as it appears Steph's editor doesn't support uncompressed BIQ's without custom rules enabled yet (this holds true for another scenario I saved just now with only Custom Game Data, not Custom Rules, enabled).

 

[Civinator]

Thank you very much for your clarification embryodead and for your work Quintillus.
So SGLs are a point, where a new editor really would make sense.

 

[Steph]

Ask and you shall receive

 

[Civinator]

Steph, thank you very much in this thread, too. But if I read this well, I still can´t use this editor for CCM as there player data were changed (number of civs set to 31 and an additional starting unit was added for each civ). Is this correct?

 

[Steph]

I need to finish the players data.

My editor will read them properly, but it doesn't display it, and you can't change it.

So:
- Use my editor to set everything, except player data.
- Save
- Open the regular editor, and modify the player data.

That's the only thing you need to do.

 

[Civinator]

I need to finish the players data.

My editor will read them properly, but it doesn't display it, and you can't change it.

So:
- Use my editor to set everything, except player data.
- Save
- Open the regular editor, and modify the player data.

That's the only thing you need to do.

But in that case, doesn´t the SGL option dissapear, as the biq was treated last with the editor 1.03?

 

[Steph]

You can do it the other way.

My editor loads the custom player data. You just can't edit it yet.

So you could always open again the biq with my editor, and save to keep the SGL.

If you don't need to change the custom player data with my editor, it will just load and keep it as it was when opening.

If you change something, like delete a unit that was given as a custom unit, the unit should be removed correctly from custom player data.

 

[Civinator]

Thanks Steph, I will try it.

 

[Steph]

In fact, it's similar to the map.

You cannot edit the map, but if you have a map in the file it works.

 

[Moosezilla]

Any Chance on beta ETA?... and of course progress...interest still keen!

 

[Civinator]

I´m just preparing an ""all-units-on-the-map" test for the -so I hope- last prebetatesting upload for CCM. There are a lot of new beautiful units, that appeared in the last weeks, included in that upload.