[Col] Colonization - Playing as Indians

[Blake00]

Hey guys,

Is there a way to take control of one or all of the Indian nations? In Civ1 you could take control of the Barbarian/Pirate red slot by using a Hex editor or save game editor so I'm wondering about Colonization.

When activating cheat mode in Colonization the 'set human player' option predictably only allows selecting the 4 European nations so that's no good. I could swear that around 18 or so years ago I saw someone talking in a forum about being able to do it via a hex editor but I can't seem to find anything now as any search seems to bring up conversations on various forums about playing as indians with the Civ 4 Col remake and not the original game.

Guessing it would be glitchy as hell but would be interesting to check out and see how much I can get away with.

EDIT: Released a bonus video over in my playing Colonization in HD thread and talked about this thread and the cool work AyCe did to replicate what we think EdBigHead did all those years ago. Might eventually bring more curious people here wanting to mess about with the files but I doubt there's much more that can be done.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-video-series-ep-02-colonization-hd-tour.673998/

 

[Blake00]

Here we go.. this guy's old thread appears to be referencing what I saw all those years ago. Someone called 'EdBigHead' was able to hack the game and play as the Sioux. Wish I could find how he did it.

 

[Blake00]

Just found this hacking guide webpage that also mentions 'EdBigHead' claim that he played as the Sioux. But I still can't find his original claims and how/if he did it.

 

[AyCe]

Just tried this for a bit with a hex editor for fun.

It seems indians are identified by ID 04-0A, for purposes of "which player is the human one" etc.
I set 0x24 and 0x28 to 07 and loaded the game (restart).

I almost played as the iroquois. But it doesn't quite work. Turns "pass", but nothing happens, you don't get your moves back, and nobody else moves.

The missing move animation is due to the cheat mode setting "show indian moves" off (you are indian now, after all).

And at the point where I tried to create a colony the game went off the rails. ^^ I suspect it tried looking up a name. A corrupt colony is created. Assigning a colony to it via hex works, but the colony never "ticks", and cannot be interacted with. If you put your unit in it, enter it in cheat mode and create a soldier out of one of the colonists, the "DANGER WILL ROBINSON" message appears - I've never seen it before.

"Church of Braves". Like a "flock of birds".

So yeah, it can be done, but at least in this form is pointless.

 

[Blake00]

oh wow!!! thank you so much for doing this! I wonder if there's any differences in the Windows version.. probably crashes to desktop haha!

 

[AyCe]

Try entering europe and buying tools.
This is what happens when there is no bounds checking
Can you load that same savegame in the windows version, or is the format different? If it's not too different you may be able to perform the same hex trick there. I found out about those addresses by saving a game, using the cheat to switch the human player and saving again. Then comparing the differences. Trial and error.

 

[Blake00]

Unlike CivWin thankfully ColWin uses the same save file format as the DOS version so yup I should be able to load your savegames in it and see what happens. Will let you know how it goes when I try.

 

[tupi]

the "DANGER WILL ROBINSON" message appears - I've never seen it before.

I liked to play around with a cheat menu, and this message is pretty common if I remember correctly. I'm 100% sure that this always happens when you put a european unit in native village, but I guess any other crazy situations will give you this debug message (and usually a crash after that). And because I didn't have an idea about Lost in Space, this message sounded very cryptic for me then.

Thank you for your research.

 

[Blake00]

@AyCe I finally got around to testing your savegames in the windows version of Colonization to see what would happen with that version of Col.. it did not go well haha!

When I loaded your Colony06 sav I got a king removing me from power message ending the game right away.

And when I loaded the Danger Will Robinson sav I got a CTD lol.

 

[Blake00]

Forgot to post here that if anyone is interested I recently released a bonus video over in my playing Colonization in HD thread and talked about this thread and the cool work AyCe did to replicate what we think EdBigHead did all those years ago. Might eventually bring more curious people here wanting to mess about with the files but I doubt there's much more that can be done.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-video-series-ep-02-colonization-hd-tour.673998/