Civ2 MGE several fixes and additions with support for music tracks

[Buck2005]

it's not hard to get to the rhombus, but further it will be more difficult, but I think this is enough
graphics the window could be redrawed, find all the elements that are in the city window and move them, but this is obviously long and time-consuming, it's easier to reduce it and there is such a mechanism, but I don't want to reduce it too much otherwise it will be small

Personally, a “rhombus” will be absolutely sufficient for me, as it will allow me to implement the above-mentioned principle of city placement. I'm amazed that this is actually technically feasible. Thanks for your work!

In general, I don’t see any particular problem with reducing the scale of the city window image. I assume that the vast majority of players in 2024 use monitors with a sufficient diagonal and resolution so as not to break their eyes looking at small icons. If, in the future, it were possible to increase the city's area even more (by 1-2 "layers"), I think it would be a very interesting expansion of Civ2 gameplay. If this is technically difficult to implement, then, indeed, it is not worth spending a lot of effort because of the wishes of one single player. Either way, I'm definitely excited about the new possibilities that have opened up.

 

[Buck2005]

Civ2 Is a 30 years old game with huge imbalance and simplifications we cannot pretend to much, still We play it.

I don't think Civ2's imbalance is fundamentally different from that of newer versions. I've played Civ4 and Civ5 versions for quite some time. I also studied versions of Civ3 and Civ6. I can definitely say that despite significant differences in gameplay, the general principle of imbalance is present in each version (each version has its own). Therefore, I found no reason for myself to switch to any other version of Civ.

In my opinion, adding 4 (maybe 5? I dunno) tiers of experience to the single units, can add a lot of depth, tactics and strategy to the game, for example with time, after a long war you can have very powerful battleship or extremely competent tank units and the AI as well.

This may led to interesting situations where a disadvantages AI may survive or prevail thanks to the experienced units or you might transfer your better units to an important front and keep conscripts at home.
Let's see what duplj pulls out of the hat.

First of all, I don't see the addition of a new level of veterancy as exactly an innovation. In fact, this mechanism is already present in the game. The modernization “phalanx-musketeer-rifleman” or “horseman-elephant-crusader-daragoon-cavalry-tank”, at a certain level of abstraction, is definitely this “new level of veteranism”. Secondly, the introduction of this mechanic can lead to a deliberately absurd situation when a phalanx (or for example a trireme) of the second or third level of veteranism can kill a musketeer/rifleman (or a cruiser/battleship, respectively). All this already happened in Civ1, and it happened recognized as obviously erroneous.

However, I have already seen many times the impressive capabilities duplj as a designer. Perhaps his will be able to implement something playable from your idea. I think the most excellent implementation of the concept of "unit attrition" was added in Civ2Mult mod. I would recommend that you check out this modification. This is one of the best works in Civ2 in the history of this game.

 

[duplj]

Hi @duplj , another request that I got from another topic, is there a way to add 1 or maybe even more experience levels above veteran to the units? This would be incredibly great, adding a lot of depth to the game.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to implement this by simply adding several procedures. The veteran type status or other state is used in the game as a flag that is saved/removed as the "OR" "AND" state. If the battle was successful, the veteran flag was activated by setting "OR"; if it needs to be removed, "AND" is activated. All these 16 internal flags, responsible for different states, are stored in the word variable and it is no longer possible to add anything else there. This variable is part of the hierarchy of the array of variables responsible for squads with a 32-byte shift. In addition, some of the variables in this array are involved in the procedure for saving or loading the game so that the game can remember the state at the time of saving
To add some new variable there, you need to change a large piece of code, these are too big changes for the safety of the original game and of course will break compatibility with the patch at least in terms of supporting a large number of units
BUT in the modification it is possible to do this, maybe I will add it there

Spoiler How the assignment of the Veteran status is calculated :

While I was looking for places where the veteran flag is involved, I came across the process of assigning it based on the results of the battle. Maybe this was described, but then I will repeat it. If the battle was successful, the winning unit is involved in calculating the possible receipt of the veteran status
For the calculation, the attack of the attacker and the defense of the defender are used, these variables are increased by 8 and 4 times respectively with the addition of all sorts of bonuses from the flags from the rules.txt file, as well as internal modifiers, then they are added up and a random number is divided by this amount. If the attacker wins, then the remainder of the division is checked to see if it is greater than the increased value of the defender's defense, if it is greater, the squad does not receive veteran status, but if there is a Sun Tzu Academy, the status will still be assigned
If the defender wins, the process is similar, but in the end the comparison is between the remainder of the division and the increased attack of the attacker, if the remainder is greater, the veteran status will not be assigned, but if there is an academy, the squad will receive it
Thus, the higher the defense indicator of the defender, which the attacker was able to defeat and vice versa, the higher the attack indicator that the defender was able to withstand, the higher the chance of assigning this status

 

[Madcarak]

Hi @duplj I am adding images of technologies in the civilopedia, I followed the same as for city improvements, world wonders and units your readme however the image does not appear, I named the files 00tech.gif, etc.

In your files of your patch "Civ2MGE_v17" I see that in your pictures folder you had not put any example images.

Could it be that it is not yet active, or that the file name is not the right one?

Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience

 

[duplj]

In your files of your patch "Civ2MGE_v17" I see that in your pictures folder you had not put any example images.

Could it be that it is not yet active, or that the file name is not the right one?

It works for me, maybe it's the picture you want to display in the game, maybe it's the wrong gif file or other problems, send me this picture in reply

 

[Madcarak]

It works for me, maybe it's the picture you want to display in the game, maybe it's the wrong gif file or other problems, send me this picture in reply

I tested the image by replacing a wonder of the world and it worked. Maybe my civ2.exe files is not the right one.

 

[duplj]

I tested the image by replacing a wonder of the world and it worked. Maybe my civ2.exe files is not the right one.

View attachment 709180

It seems you are confused, but I still see my mistake, when using some pictures the color background of the game changes, I will fix it later

 

[duplj]

added a check for using icons in the window of constructed city buildings, either new ones from the improvements file or standard ones, slightly increased their size and slightly increased this part of the window so that everything fits well; fixed the error with changing the color due to pictures in the Pictures folder

 

[Madcarak]

It's a shame that you can't enlarge the size of the Civilopedia window for technologies, world wonders, units and city upgrades. I guess you've already looked for it, at least after browsing the file, it's not in the game.txt.

 

[Madcarak]

Hi,

I tried some more and it works now, I don't know why it didn't work. Thanks

Unable to download your file, problem with google drive (Unable to open the file at the moment.) *Edit : Working now

It seems you are confused, but I still see my mistake, when using some pictures the color background of the game changes, I will fix it later

Be careful with the image, I have a different palette compared to my mod, it's possible that the color differences are due to that!