Civ 4 player trying to readapt to Civ 3 needs help . .

[joelwest]

The biggest adjustments in going back to Civ 3 from Civ 4 are no longer having your combat odds precalculated, and no longer being able see to tile production (food/shield/coin) automatically without either haivng to go to a city screen or right clicking on a tile.

I found various combat calculators on this forum, but have looked around in the mod packs and utilities and failed to find a way to force Civ 3 to overlay the food, hammers, and coin on the normal default gamescreen. This makes planning city locations very time consuming in comparison to doing this in Civ 4.

I am trying to introduce a friend of mine to the Civ series, and Civ 3 is preferred since his computer and its graphics card are probably not powerful enough to run Civ 4 (even in low resolution). However doing dot mapping potential city locations is something someone new to the Civ series will never be persuaded to do. Nor is it likely they will open up all 20 terrain tiles for a prospective city. Hence their city placement will be poor since they have no basis of judgment.

Has anyone ever written such a mod? If not, does anyone have any interest in writing such a mod?

joel west

 

[Mirc]

Unfortunately, in Civ3, there is no such a mod.

And unfortunately, it's also hard to make. First of all it can't take into account irrigation, mine, road and railroad bonuses, and if there is an overlay (irrigation, mine, fortress, outpost, airfield, radar tower, anything), it will always appear above the food/shield/commerce, making the icons almost useless.

But you can look in the Utilities forum of Creation and Customization for programs that allow dot-map city planning, they will help you a lot in city planning (and they are fairly easy to use too).

 

[joelwest]

Unfortunately, in Civ3, there is no such a mod.

And unfortunately, it's also hard to make. First of all it can't take into account irrigation, mine, road and railroad bonuses, and if there is an overlay (irrigation, mine, fortress, outpost, airfield, radar tower, anything), it will always appear above the food/shield/commerce, making the icons almost useless.

But you can look in the Utilities forum of Creation and Customization for programs that allow dot-map city planning, they will help you a lot in city planning (and they are fairly easy to use too).

The Food/Shield/Coin overlay I am looking for in the normal gameview IS available in the city view (or you would not be able to know which square to manually assign a worker). I am not running Civ 3 now, but my memory is that the FSC overlay in city view covers up all tile improvements such as mines and roads.

If there is already code out there in the base Civ 3 program that knows how to put such a FSC overlay on a tile in city view, the only question is whether a modder can find this city view overlay code and extend it to the normal gameview, preferably as a viewing option that can be toggled on and off (as in Civ 4).

I find the tiny icons for roads, mines, resources, etc. on the Civ 3 map unreadable in comparison to the Civ 4 versions. Hence covering up unreadable icons is not a problem.

joel west

 

[Mirc]

The Food/Shield/Coin overlay I am looking for in the normal gameview IS available in the city view (or you would not be able to know which square to manually assign a worker). I am not running Civ 3 now, but my memory is that the FSC overlay in city view covers up all tile improvements such as mines and roads.

Yes, it does cover all the improvements, that is true.

If there is already code out there in the base Civ 3 program that knows how to put such a FSC overlay on a tile in city view, the only question is whether a modder can find this city view overlay code and extend it to the normal gameview, preferably as a viewing option that can be toggled on and off (as in Civ 4).

Civ3 modding does not work with coding! That's the part you didn't know. Civ3 modding works with altering graphic files (static .pcx or animated .flc) and for altering any other stuff, you are forced to use the EDITOR, which is something that Civ4 misses. The Civ4 worldbuilder is only a shadow of the Civ3 editor, as it doesn't allow you to edit the rules in any way.

There is no way you can change Civ3 beyond what the editor can do. While people (like the famous Skyer2) were able to change certain things using hex executable editing, this appeared very late, doesn't have a lot of possibilities (and it's fairly random what you can do any what you can't), has been known not to work on some computers for apparently no reason, and most important has a doubtful legal status.

It is thus obviously impossible to copy the code and use it elsewhere, since you do not have access to the code!

I find the tiny icons for roads, mines, resources, etc. on the Civ 3 map unreadable in comparison to the Civ 4 versions. Hence covering up unreadable icons is not a problem.

That's the opposite of what I meant - the food/shield/icons would become unreadable, they would be covered up by the mine, irrigation (which covers the whole tile, btw), airfields (which also cover the whole tile), outposts, etc. So what you want can be done via graphic editing, but you can't switch it on and off and it would be pretty useless as it would be covered most of the time by other overlay graphics...

 

[joelwest]

Civ3 modding does not work with coding! That's the part you didn't know. Civ3 modding works with altering graphic files (static .pcx or animated .flc) and for altering any other stuff, you are forced to use the EDITOR, which is something that Civ4 misses. The Civ4 worldbuilder is only a shadow of the Civ3 editor, as it doesn't allow you to edit the rules in any way.

There is no way you can change Civ3 beyond what the editor can do. While people (like the famous Skyer2) were able to change certain things using hex executable editing, this appeared very late, doesn't have a lot of possibilities (and it's fairly random what you can do any what you can't), has been known not to work on some computers for apparently no reason, and most important has a doubtful legal status.

It is thus obviously impossible to copy the code and use it elsewhere, since you do not have access to the code!

Thanks for the rapid responses to my query.

Yeep, the good ole bad ole days of NO CODING??? It is hard to believe Firaxis went from from that model of delivery to making the SDK available with Civ 4.

Now that I know the limitations of trying to mod Civ 3, the fix needed is to

1)
replace the default bonus/luxury/strategic resource pics to make them BIGGER (or even better, also inside a white background quote balloon like in Civ 4), and

2)
to make the default shield icon BIGGER. To rub it in, how about also replacing the shield with a Civ 4 hammer (which serves the identical game function in Civ 4) and call it the "Civ 4 retro mod?"

Does anyone know if either of the above graphic mods have been made for Civ 3?

When looking for the nonexistent FSC overlay mod (for reasons you point out above) I found "Sn00pys Terrain Greener" which I downloaded and plan to install soon. It appears that it will make forests, grass, plains, and the other terrain easier to read and hence translate into FSC values.

Does anyone know of any other Civ 3 mods that give it more the look and feel of Civ 4? In that the graphics are static (only a close or a long view of a given tile), a scrolling 3D mouse wheel is impossible, but how about hitting the escape button to bring up the main menu rather it asking you if you want to quit? Reassignng F12 to the Civilopedia? Etc.

I really liked playing Civ 3 before Civ 4 came out and mods along the lines I have suggested above would help Civ 4 gamers like me return more often to play its older cousin.

 

[Mirc]

Thanks for the rapid responses to my query.

Yeep, the good ole bad ole days of NO CODING??? It is hard to believe Firaxis went from from that model of delivery to making the SDK available with Civ 4.

Yes, it's a huge step, and a good part in that decision has actually been played by this forum. Seriously. There were so many topics about releasing the code for Civ2 and Civ3 that they took a closer look, and in the end decided to make Civ4 a lot freer in modding, unfortunately becoming less modding friendly (what requires 3 clicks in Civ3 can require 30 lines of code in Civ4). Still, I'd switch to the Civ4 system if only it would be possible...

Now that I know the limitations of trying to mod Civ 3, the fix needed is to

1)
replace the default bonus/luxury/strategic resource pics to make them BIGGER (or even better, also inside a white background quote balloon like in Civ 4), and

2)
to make the default shield icon BIGGER. To rub it in, how about also replacing the shield with a Civ 4 hammer (which serves the identical game function in Civ 4) and call it the "Civ 4 retro mod?"

Does anyone know if either of the above graphic mods have been made for Civ 3?

I can do this... I'll see if I have some time tomorrow (whoops I mean today, it's 1:37 AM here), but I have a lot of other things to do (rehearsals for an upcoming concert of mine, some 3D graphics, etc) so I really can't guarantee anything.

When looking for the nonexistent FSC overlay mod (for reasons you point out above) I found "Sn00pys Terrain Greener" which I downloaded and plan to install soon. It appears that it will make forests, grass, plains, and the other terrain easier to read and hence translate into FSC values.

I love Snoopy's terrain... (I use the normal variant myself - not the greener one though I like that one too). If you like it, you should also look into Rhye's terrain, Rhye's terrain greener (which is great too), and Ares de Borg's terrain, maybe you'll like them better. Some people like also the watercolor or winter terrain, but I'm not a fan of either.

They are downloadable in the Civ3 Graphic Mods forum.

Does anyone know of any other Civ 3 mods that give it more the look and feel of Civ 4? In that the graphics are static (only a close or a long view of a given tile), a scrolling 3D mouse wheel is impossible, but how about hitting the escape button to bring up the main menu rather it asking you if you want to quit? Reassignng F12 to the Civilopedia? Etc.

Unfortunately you can't reassign keys... but you CAN mod it a lot to make it more like Civ4. However many of the things that seem simple are very hard to do (or impossible), while some apparently impossible things have already been made (vassalage, religion...).

I really liked playing Civ 3 before Civ 4 came out and mods along the lines I have suggested above would help Civ 4 gamers like me return more often to play its older cousin.

I understand. There is a civ4-like mod somewhere in the Civ3 Creation and Customization... not sure how it was called though. I'll look for it.

 

[Civinator]

Hi joelwest,

the reason why there is no such mod in Civ 3 is, that the function to show the shields and food on the map is included in Civ 3 "out of the box". This is nothing new with Civ 4.

When you start C3C you only have to do the following steps:
Main Menue => Preferences => Game => Click on the box " Show food and shields on map". If you have done this when you restart the game or in later turns, you can see all tiles with food and/or shields on the map automatically represented by small green (food) or silvery dots (shields).

And here is a link to the "Civ IV-like" mod by Stargate:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=187885

I hope, this helps a little bit. Civ 3 contains much more and is much better as a lot of even experienced civers do believe.

 

[Mirc]

Hi joelwest,

the reason why there is no such mod in Civ 3 is, that the function to show the shields and food on the map is included in Civ 3 "out of the box". This is nothing new with Civ 4.

Well, the only reason why I didn't tell this to him is that I thought he knew this already and wanted a different kind of icons for food and shield. (that's what I understood from the first post, but I guess I was wrong)

 

[Civinator]

Well, the only reason why I didn't tell this to him is that I thought he knew this already and wanted a different kind of icons for food and shield. (that's what I understood from the first post, but I guess I was wrong)

I thought, he wanted both.

Mirc, I wrote this cause of your statement, that you would switch to the Civ4system if it only would be possible for you. I only can say, a lot of civers, who had the possibility to switch to Civ IV (including me) switched back, when they did real see and play, what kind of "joy" did await them with Civ IV.

A switch from you to Civ IV would be a tremendous loss for the Civ 3 forums.

 

[Mirc]

I thought, he wanted both.

Mirc, I wrote this cause of your statement, that you would switch to the Civ4system if it only would be possible for you. I only can say, a lot of civers, who had the possibility to switch to Civ IV (including me) switched back, when they did real see and play, what kind of "joy" did await them with Civ IV.

A switch from you to Civ IV would be a tremendous loss for the Civ 3 forums.

No, I think you got me wrong Civinator, I meant that I'd only switch to the Civ4 modding system, with full access to SDK... And virtually unlimited modding. Not that I'd actually switch to civ4, but I would replace the Civ3 modding system with the Civ4 one if I could as though it is less friendly, it's virtually unlimited, while civ3 has a lot of hardcoded limits. I have already tried Civ4 (got it in November last year) and Warlords, and after closely analyzing them both, I'm one of the fervent supporters of Civ3 in any Civ3/Civ4 discussions. Just my opinion, and I don't want to offend anyone with this - Civ4 simply isn't for me, while Civ3 is definitely my favorite game of all times. So I'm definitely not planning to leave Civ3 anytime soon.

 

[Civinator]

So I'm definitely not planning to leave Civ3 anytime soon.

Very good. I got you wrong.

 

[Ansar]

Joelwest - Nice avatar.

 

[joelwest]

I can do this [create more Civ 4-like tile resource overlays] ... I'll see if I have some time tomorrow (whoops I mean today, it's 1:37 AM here), but I have a lot of other things to do (rehearsals for an upcoming concert of mine, some 3D graphics, etc) so I really can't guarantee anything.

===========================

I love Snoopy's terrain... (I use the normal variant myself - not the greener one though I like that one too). If you like it, you should also look into Rhye's terrain, Rhye's terrain greener (which is great too), and Ares de Borg's terrain, maybe you'll like them better. Some people like also the watercolor or winter terrain, but I'm not a fan of either.

They are downloadable in the Civ3 Graphic Mods forum.

I eventually found out that the resource icons are in the resources.pcx file in the art folder. So my request is to add a white disk with a black ring around it as an underlay for each of the icons in this file.

===========================

I have yet to find the location for the icons tile for the food and shields. And yes I did "turn on" show food and shields, but these two types of tile overlay icons were still all but invisible due to their small relative size.

Is the tnt.pcx file in the \art\terrain folder the overlay for food?

In any case my request is to enlarge these icons and move them to the side for tile display so as not to covered by the white disk requested above. Ideally the shield symbol small would be replaced by the Civ 4 hammer symbol (also meaning production) enlarged.

===========================
Thanks for your recommendation to check out different terrains sets which have been made available to replace the default (yucky) terrain. When I have fine tuned my choices I plan on posting this "new" terrain on Civ 3 Fanatics graphics mods.

 

[joelwest]

Hi joelwest,

And here is a link to the "Civ IV-like" mod by Stargate:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=187885

I hope, this helps a little bit. Civ 3 contains much more and is much better as a lot of even experienced civers do believe.

I did download this mod for Civ 3 that attempted to clone Civ 4. I am re-editing the biq file so that it more closely matches the published data on Civ 4.

 

[joelwest]

Joelwest - Nice avatar.

thanks

did you recognize the forty year old Steve Ditko Marvel Strange Tales cover it comes from?

 

[joelwest]

The resource icons are in the resources.pcx file in the \art folder. My request is to add a white disk with a black ring around it as an underlay for each of the icons in this file. This would make the resources in Civ 3 look similar to the floating bubbles in Civ 4.

===========================

I did "turn on" show food and shields for Civ 3, but these two types of tile overlay icons were still all but invisible due to their small relative size.

So in my quest to make Civ 3 look more like Civ 4 I have yet to find the location for the icons tile for the food and shields.

Is the tnt.pcx file in the \art\terrain folder the overlay for food?

In any case my request is to enlarge the food and shield icons and move them to the side for tile display so as not to covered by the white disks representing resources requested above. Ideally the "shield symbol small" would be replaced by the "Civ 4 hammer symbol (also meaning production) enlarged".

I checked out different terrains sets which have been made available to replace the default (yucky/dark) Civ 3 terrain. I also investigated the Civ 4 clone mod Test 4 Time (see link in my signature below).

I posted a new terrain set compiled from SnOOpy Greener and other graphic modders who used lighter colors for terrain. I also updated the biq for Test 4 Time to more closely reflect Civ 4 gameplay.

Both are posted at the Test 4 Time completed Civ 3 mod (see link in my signature below). If enough folks like my new lighter terrain compilaton I will post it in the graphics modpack section of this website. Let me know.

UPDATE Sept 18, 2009
the file with food and shields blips is Art\Terrain\tnt.pcx. the blips are too small to read, and the only info conveyed is which grasslands have an outcrop and hence an extra shield since all plains and deserts have the same base tile stats. I edited Cordy's tnt.pcx (which uses rocks and trees instead of the blips) and deleted all rows except the second one from the top since that is the one for grassland outcroppings. the resulting file correctly indicates the grassland outcroppings with stones and trees, and does nothing else. the resolution in Civ 3 is not good enough to put actual icons for food, hammers (shields), and coin (commerce) like in Civ 4 hence the use of blips (small contiguous pixels) in the original tnt.pcx

the other problem graphics file was Art\resources.pcx. unlike Civ 4 the default file resource overlay resources.pcx only shows each resource icon NOT set against a white background. someone had created black abbrev letter inside a white background for the strategic resources and happy faces for the luxury resources, but Test IV Time uses a much expanded resource set since it seeks to mimic Civ 4. the problem I had was that editing resources.pcx gave purple blotches when imported into the game. the graphics tool I use is Irfanview. to solve this problem I found a post that indicated the key is to save the pcx palette, and then reimport it after chaning the images. this method works fine, althoug in some cases the image may degrade some. Irfanview also has a paint toolbar that can be used to add the text bubbles

I am posted these two updated files below, and will incorporate them into the next release of the T4T mod

View attachment tnt-Cordy's grass outcrop.pcx

View attachment resources(91 types for T4T&Civ 4).pcx

joelwest