Howdy
In place of an Editor for the Mac I decided to poke around in the civ3mod.bic file with HexEdit.
I found a couple of things. The Units, City Improvements, City names, Civs, etc are all contained in that .bic file.
You can edit the .bic file with HexEdit to change the attributes of the above.
I've only given this a couple of hours exploration so far but have managed to make up a quick England Vs Zulu scenario for myself where the only units allowed were Settlers, Workers, and Warriors for both Civs with Impi only for the Zulu and Rifleman/Cavalry for the English. I upped the Defense of the Impi to 4 and allowed the Rifleman to come into the game at Iron Working for the English (Cavalry at Horsemanship).
All other Units were banned from both Civs. I left the Unit costs as they were.
Nice little quick Impi against Redcoats scenario too it turned. It hummed along okay, no crashes... The Zulus started grinding out the Impi. I built up a bunch of Riflemen (slowly) and they all met up on a Standard Pangea. Pitched battles from the start, a couple of Rorke's Drifts, and a large Isandlwana later I quit out and made up this post to explain to those interested some of the basic points I picked up.
I have attached a screenshot to this post of the way the German Panzer looks in the Hex.
Line 40: The 0A underlined in red is the Cost in shields. 0A is the Hex for 10. Panzer costs 100 shields so. Change it to 01 and the Panzer costs 10 shields.
Line 50: 08 (underlined in red) is the the Defense points. Panzer has 8 points. You can change it higher or lower if you wish.
Line 50: 3E Unit number in the catalogue.
Line 50: 10 (underlined in red) is the Attack points. Panzer has 16 Attack points. 10 is the Hex for 16. (Hexadecimal is 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 0A, 0B, 0C, 0D, 0E, 0F, 10, 11, 12 etc)
Line 60: 03 (highlighted and underlined in red) is the Movement points of the Panzer. Which is 3 in the game.
Remember to back up the civ3mod.bic file! You can get HexEdit at this url:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/hexedit/HexEdit_175.sit
I'd like to have a closer look at the attributes of more units, civ specific ones etc to find out what makes them tick. For example... the Privateer is a good sea unit allowing covert attacks without threat or penalty of war. I'd like a land based Privateer unit. You could remove the Aztecs, give the Jaguar Warrior to all civs, set it to the Privateer attribute of no penalty hostility, a kind of Freebooter unit. Good possiblities there I think... I don't know if that is feasible though. It's just something that could be tried to see it it works or something
Only way to figure this all out is through trial and error with a bit of deduction (by comparison) thrown in.
Hope this post shows that at least something can be done at this stage.
cheers
front
front_at_mac_dot_com
In place of an Editor for the Mac I decided to poke around in the civ3mod.bic file with HexEdit.
I found a couple of things. The Units, City Improvements, City names, Civs, etc are all contained in that .bic file.
You can edit the .bic file with HexEdit to change the attributes of the above.
I've only given this a couple of hours exploration so far but have managed to make up a quick England Vs Zulu scenario for myself where the only units allowed were Settlers, Workers, and Warriors for both Civs with Impi only for the Zulu and Rifleman/Cavalry for the English. I upped the Defense of the Impi to 4 and allowed the Rifleman to come into the game at Iron Working for the English (Cavalry at Horsemanship).
All other Units were banned from both Civs. I left the Unit costs as they were.
Nice little quick Impi against Redcoats scenario too it turned. It hummed along okay, no crashes... The Zulus started grinding out the Impi. I built up a bunch of Riflemen (slowly) and they all met up on a Standard Pangea. Pitched battles from the start, a couple of Rorke's Drifts, and a large Isandlwana later I quit out and made up this post to explain to those interested some of the basic points I picked up.
I have attached a screenshot to this post of the way the German Panzer looks in the Hex.
Line 40: The 0A underlined in red is the Cost in shields. 0A is the Hex for 10. Panzer costs 100 shields so. Change it to 01 and the Panzer costs 10 shields.
Line 50: 08 (underlined in red) is the the Defense points. Panzer has 8 points. You can change it higher or lower if you wish.
Line 50: 3E Unit number in the catalogue.
Line 50: 10 (underlined in red) is the Attack points. Panzer has 16 Attack points. 10 is the Hex for 16. (Hexadecimal is 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 0A, 0B, 0C, 0D, 0E, 0F, 10, 11, 12 etc)
Line 60: 03 (highlighted and underlined in red) is the Movement points of the Panzer. Which is 3 in the game.
Remember to back up the civ3mod.bic file! You can get HexEdit at this url:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/hexedit/HexEdit_175.sit
I'd like to have a closer look at the attributes of more units, civ specific ones etc to find out what makes them tick. For example... the Privateer is a good sea unit allowing covert attacks without threat or penalty of war. I'd like a land based Privateer unit. You could remove the Aztecs, give the Jaguar Warrior to all civs, set it to the Privateer attribute of no penalty hostility, a kind of Freebooter unit. Good possiblities there I think... I don't know if that is feasible though. It's just something that could be tried to see it it works or something
Only way to figure this all out is through trial and error with a bit of deduction (by comparison) thrown in.
Hope this post shows that at least something can be done at this stage.
cheers
front
front_at_mac_dot_com
