Changing colors crash!!

[Wondian]

I have discovered that changing colors in the editor makes the civ crash.

I wanted to create my own set of colors for civilizations (choosing colors so that they will associate more closely e.g. French Blue for the French, dark blue for the American, Red for Japan, etc.) So I have created a mod file that only colors changed. But the civ crashed upon loading my mod file.

To analyze the problem, I created a mod file (everything completely the same as the original) only the default color changed for only one civilization, replaced it with civ2mod.bic and started the game: it worked! (To test the usability of colors, I had selected a huge map with all sixteen civilizations). Then made another change for the next civilization, it worked again. That went up to Aztecs, when the game crashed just after the first turn. I started the game again and selected Aztecs for myself, this time game crashed as soon as it started. Then replaced the colors for Aztecs completely same as Romans, then it worked again. Looking at the retirement histogram I found that the game has associated Romans with an unselected color.

I have tried many other combinations, (too long to write here), sometimes it worked, sometimes it crashed.

So far I could not reach a conclusion to work around this problem. Any opinions?
(There may be an upper limit for total selected colors and this is not checked by the editor?)

P.S. In one instance, another civ appeared with the same color as my civilization! This must rule out the opinion that repetitive colors may clash.

 

[Sam_Catchem]

I have seen this too!

I tried to just change the color of the French, cuz I hate that pink. When I load it..it crashes right away when I start a new game. All I did is change the color of ONE civ and I was careful not to duplicate another Civ's color too. I sent a note to Infrogrames, but I have never heard from them. Guess I will just have to use the defaults.

Everytime I touch that file it hates me..so I do not mess with it anymore.

 

[Rhye]

...same problem

 

[GIDustin]

After much testing, I have come to the conclusion that only the top 18 colors in the drop down list can be used in the game (FYI the 18th color is a lighter purple)

Why? Maybe this is another thing that Infogrames was working on when they decided "Release date's a'commin", and stopped coding it.

Lemme know if I am wrong, but I am sure I am right. If this is true, then only 17 civs can exist (remember we need barbarians as well), which means we can only SUCCESSFULLY add one extra civ.

 

[furtigan]

I had the same problem, but was eventually able to make a mod where I was england and red. Everybody else was the same as always, and I did not include rome. So it is somewhat possible.

still a pretty pathetic bug though.

 

[Moeniir]

I haven't tested this yet, but did those reporting problems make sure that only one civ had each color? I could see re-useing colors for two civs causing a problem.

Another conjecture (untested). The civ3\art\units\palettes folder contains 32 files, ntp00.pcx - ntp31.pcx, which are 1pixel pcx files. These files contain the civ-specific palettes in their palettes. So, if a civ uses color 7 (starting at 0), ntp07.pcx is opened, and the first 64 palette positions replace the first 64 positions in every palette of every unit used by that civ. The same folder has 17 files, otp00.pcx - otp16.pcx, which are similar in structure but have fewer colors in their palettes. I don't know what they are for, but mebbe they are required as well, and otp17-otp31 are missing? Might be worth a test to copy otp01-otp16 and rename the copies to otp17-otp31? I can' t test right now. And I might be (and usually am ) wrong.