Cross-Platform Editor for Conquests now available! 1.48

Quintillus · Jun 17, 2018

Version 1.19 Legacy

Here's an update for the PowerPC Mac users among you - the Legacy version has been updated! I know @timerover51 is likely to be among this crowd, and the last Legacy update has three downloads, so there may be a couple more of you lurking in the thread. :scan:

Download it here.

This encompasses some of the updates from versions 1.10 through 1.19. The two largest updates that aren't included are the reorderable/filterable unit/tech lists, and copying settings over from a previous editor installation. The latter may be done manually by copying the civ3editor.ini file (and bmpcolors.txt, if you've been importing maps from BMP images). The auto-update-check is also not enabled.

Notable updates which are included include:

- Copying of Goods and Units
- Detection of infinite upgrade paths and Phantom Resource Bug
- The Resume Editing and Tip of the Day startup widgets
- Display of tech icons
- Various smaller usability improvements and fixes from the covered versions.

Please note that despite having about 50% of the changes from 10 updates, only about one update's worth of testing time was applied to this update. Although basic functionality, including map editing and three of the four top new features (the exception being bug detection) have been verified, there may be a greater chance of a bug slipping through than in a standard release. 1.09 Legacy will remain available in case you need it.

The full list of changes that are included and not included is in the spoiler below; items that are crossed out are not included.

Spoiler Full List of Changes :

This update has been brought to you by Windows XP (as my newer computer is waiting for a repair part to arrive) and Finnish metal music.

Wolfhart · Jun 17, 2018

Quintillus said:
...

This update has been brought to you by Windows XP (as my newer computer is waiting for a repair part to arrive) and Finnish metal music.

"Sons of winter and stars... RISE!" \m/

Midnight-Blue766 · Jul 9, 2018

Do you think it might be possible to add the ability to create duplicate flavour units that automatically upgrade and have the faction box checked for the next update?

Quintillus · Jul 9, 2018

I would probably need more details, as that's getting into I've-spent-more-time-on-the-editor-than-actually-modding-so-I-might-get-that-feature-wrong territory. A good example would probably serve well. I'm familiar with the upgrade chain, e.g.:

Spearman Flavour A -> Spearman Flavour B -> Spearman Flavour C -> Pikeman Flavour A -> Pikeman Flavour B -> Pikeman Flavour C -> Musketman Flavour A, etc.

But I'm not so sure about the faction box checked (as in, make A available to civs with Flavour A, B available to civs with Flavour B, and C available to civs with Flavour C?). I'd also like to make sure the effort-to-add-to-editor vs. effort-to-create-the-flavour-units manually ratio is good. For copying in general, it definitely made sense - there can be a lot of settings per unit. But I'm not sure at this point if it would really make sense here. Suppose I want to make flavour units of Spearman. I could first copy it three times, then modify the available to/upgrade to for A, then for B, then for C... which doesn't seem that much more than checking a few boxes to do the same thing upon copying the unit (unless you have a lot of flavor units, like one per civ). There would also be stat tweaks and matching up names with the graphics, but that will require manual actual in either case. I may be missing something though, due to spending more time on the editor than modding.

I'm also curious how much of the pain point is creating the unit, versus potential errors in creating the unit, which I can definitely see happening a few times over the course of a scenario. If it's more so the potential for errors than the creation time, a couple ideas spring to mind. One is that infinite upgrade paths (Spearman A -> Spearman B -> Spearman C -> Spearman A) are already detected. Another is using filters to check for errors. For example, filtering for "availableTo=France availableTo<5" will show only units that are available to France, and are available to fewer than 5 civs overall. A variant of this could likely show all the flavour units for a civ, and absent ones may stand out better in this abbreviated list. A couple new filters might enhance this as well. For example, a "civFlavour=Flavour 1" filter could show only units that are available to civs with Flavour 1 enabled, and along with perhaps a "flavoursAvailableTo=1" to exclude units available to civs of different flavors, could effectively show only flavour units of a particular flavour. I've also considered a few variants of "upgradeTo". Beyond the direct "upgradeTo=Cavalry", there could be "upgradeToFlavor=Cavalry" which would show direct upgrades, plus any whose upgrade path only has a stat boost at a Frigate (e.g. French Knight -> Cavalry, English Knight -> French Knight -> Cavalry, etc... although it would only work if it was cosmetic flavour, rather than stat-variant flavour), and "upgradeToEventual=Cavalry", which would show anything that eventually would up as Cavalry - Horseman, Three-Man Chariots, Knights, Riders, and so forth.

Let me know what you think. I'm open to it if I can be convinced it will save a good amount of time in unit creation or error detection (ideally for many modders - is there a standard way of handling flavour units?), without being excessively complex to add or maintain. But there also are a lot of feature requests and only so much time, so I want to make sure I'm solving the right problem the right way before starting.

Quintillus · Aug 9, 2018

Version 1.20

Version 1.20 is now available! Download it here.

The changes are:

City defense bonus now shows up on the map
Fixed bug where if you had a menu open and were on the Map tab, before long the map would draw over your menu
The DIFF tab now tells you what the start unit types are
Basic map statistics (terrain type count/percent) can now be displayed
Add remaining "special actions" to the regular menus to increase their visibility
Menus are now smarter about disabling things that aren't valid at the current time
Code clean-up related to startup, which reduces start-up time by about 20%

The city defense bonus shows up after the population, such as:

London - 14 (+60%)

Or, in screenshot form:

Spoiler :

This was inspired by the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire scenario, where I lost a great deal of units attacking cities, only to learn via digging through the .biq that I was attacking cities that were nearly impervious to attack. You can see how if you were expanding along the Spanish coast in that scenario, hitting that 1115% defensive bonus would be an unpleasant surprise!

The menu bug fix is one we've probably all encountered, since in no more than 5 seconds after opening a menu on the map tab, it would be overwritten, and I was finally sufficiently motivated to figure out how to do something about it.

The "special actions" are "Set buildings in many cities at once", "Enable custom rules", and "View memory usage info". The first one in particular is one that can save time, but may have been missed before due to being hidden. "Enable custom rules" also has a new shortcut, Ctrl+R, so if you want to start a new scenario with custom rules, simply hit Ctrl+N immediately followed by Ctrl+R, and it'll be set up for you in no time.

Vuldacon · Aug 9, 2018

Well Done Quintillus... All Good Changes and the City Defense Bonus showing on the Map is a Great Addition.

Quintillus · Aug 25, 2018

Version 1.21

Version 1.21 is now available, and you can download it here. This release focuses on fixing bugs.

Fixes include:

Fix a bug where if you had custom player data, the BIQ would not open in the Firaxis editor or in-game in most cases.
Make the map robust, so that in the unfortunate event of a map rendering error happening, the map will not give up and stop rendering altogether.
You can now select, add, and modify cities with player ownership in scenarios with custom maps, but without custom player data.
Minor code improvements to unify new BIQ/open existing BIQ code, lessening the chance of errors in either one.

The first fix is the most important, and has been present since 1.11. The good news is that, if you have an affected BIQ, opening it in version 1.21 and saving it again will fix the issue; it's one of the dreaded "data length mismatch" errors.

The second fix is also noteworthy; this will resolve all remaining cases of the dreaded "white screen of death" where the map would not display for no apparent reason. Now, if an error should occur that would previously cause a White Screen of Death, instead you will be notified of the error the first time that particular type of error occurs (including which tile caused the error), but the map will continue drawing. Tiles with errors may not have all features drawn, but the map in general will keep working, and you'll be able to scroll around and edit. The error details will also be put in the log, so hopefully they can be reported here and fixed.

The third one is a collection of several small fixes, but is a first step towards supporting the unusual case of assigning cities to specific players when there is no custom player data. I could see this being used for setting up multi-player battle maps, where each player has differing terrain challenges to deal with. It should be noted that additional fixes for items such as colonies are required for this to be a fully supported case, but due to the severity of the first bug, and the stability benefits of the second item, I decided to release this before all aspects of this unusual case were addressed. Most likely, no one is trying to use this case anyway, or I probably would have heard the bug reports by now.

In the near future, I anticipate fixing a couple more small bugs, and adding a couple minor features that the Firaxis editor supports but this one does not yet, such as choosing which barbarian tribe units/huts belong to, and Auto Name for cities (which is how I discovered the case for the third fix in this release). Adding custom player data to a scenario that does not have it also falls in this category. However, this release is strongly recommended if you have Custom Player Data already, and is recommended even if you don't due to the map stability improvements.

Oni Ryuu · Aug 26, 2018

Hi Quintillus.
I was about to send a crash report before I realised that I caused the error (and fixed it).
I converted an image to a .pcx from an unsuitable format. I don’t know how dopey other moders are but I could use an incompatibility warning so I know where I screwed up.

The editor does still freak-out when I copy a unit or drag-and-drop one.

Drag-and-drop usually knocks all subsequent units’ upgrade paths up one, causing an upgrade loop. This prevents you from saving until all of the loops are manually corrected.
Copying a unit will cause the stats to freeze or bleed into other units if you select them. There is usually a delay of a few minutes before the error surfaces. It’s similar to an error that appeared some time back that had no obvious trigger.

Thanks again, Hail Quintillus!

Quintillus · Aug 26, 2018

Good idea with the incompatibility warning. Hadn't really thought about that before, but it would be a good check. Did the image wind up not being a valid .pcx at all, or was it still a valid PCX but had some aspects that didn't agree with Civ3 or the editor?

I tried to reproduce the drag-and-drop issue, but so far my units are keeping the correct upgrade path. Do you have a .biq I could play around with that causes it, ideally with a unit swap that reliably causes the issue?

I haven't seen the copy issue, but I'm about to head out for a few hours, so I'm leaving a BIQ with a copied unit up while I'm gone and will see if the problem happens when I'm back.

Oni Ryuu · Aug 26, 2018

.png files have a palette above 256 colours messing with Civ’s ability to display the image when converted. .bmp files are colour indexed blow 256 before they are converted into a .pcx. The .pcx files are otherwise fully functional.

My Dropbox account won’t update so I can’t send you my latest .biq. You should still get results from this one though.
Try copping a unit then moving it up the list. Repeating this a few times then altering a few stats on several units should cause the error.

Quintillus · Aug 26, 2018

I have now reproduced a drag-and-drop issue with the TLC Merchantile BIQ. Steps (for my future self as much as anything):

- Copy Colonist; name it Colonist II
- Click on Alcoholic Drinks; stats still update
- Drag Colonist II up between Pharmaceuticals and TVs
- Click elsewhere; stats stuck on Colonist II

I also can now get info about the error in the development environment. Looks like it's an off-by-one error. Just like they say, there are only two tough problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors

. But now that I can consistently reproduce it, I should be able to dig into it and solve it for 1.22.

I am not 100% sure if this covers both cases; it's kind of a combination of what you mentioned, and I haven't been able to knock the upgrade paths off kilter. But at least one bug is squashable.

It sounds like you may have wound up with a PCX with > 256 colors? That is something I should be able to check for; I actually have code that can read > 256 color PCX files, so it could be that it isn't yelling about it because it can read it, even if Civ3 cannot. Pretty sure I wrote that code "because I could" back when I thought, "it'd be cool to write an image viewing program" though, not for the editor itself.

Oni Ryuu · Aug 27, 2018

It’s good to hear that it wasn’t hard to find.

As far as the > 256 colour thing; please don’t write any code to exclude images larger than their initial value. I've used the unit’s large.pcx file to display the required resources so I can avoid the ‘over link bug’.

Spoiler :

EDIT: Have you been able to look into that .biq data transplant idea yet. It would still have a huge impact if all we could do is change the ‘Search Folders:’ address.

Quintillus · Aug 27, 2018

Interesting; I'd forgotten about that resource work-around. I don't plan to exclude large images; I've actually added code to support displaying them in some cases (such as the Empire State Building in the Manhattan scenario). But the ideal state is a balance where things that will cause problems in Civ3 are flagged, while allowing unusual things that work.

I haven't specifically tried to implement the transplant idea, although I did write a decent amount of code for reading SAV data two or three months ago. Eventually it bogged down in some complexity and other things competing for free time, though. And the code I have so far only reads part of the SAV, not writing it yet. The amount of effort required is higher for reading, since that's when all the odd eccentricities of the format will be encountered, but it's closer to 70:30 than 90:10 in effort ratio.

But there could be a better way in the interim, focusing specifically on changing the items you mentioned (and not adding/deleting anything). By updating those specific values in the embedded rules section, and writing the SAV exactly as it is in binary (without trying to understand it), in theory the update should work. More advanced changes, such as swapping out units, would require an advanced understanding of the SAV format, as you said, as long as there isn't any information in conflict, it shouldn't cause an issue.

So thanks for mentioning it again! It is indeed still in the list of items to add, but as there are 25 items there since the start of the year, not counting the ones that have been added, it wasn't near the top (newest) anymore.

I have now fixed the issue that was tracked down yesterday, and will be re-building it and uploading a new version momentarily.

Quintillus · Aug 27, 2018

Version 1.22

Version 1.22 is now available! Changes include:

Units are now displayed in the proper civ-specific color on the Map tab.
Fix a bug where adding a new unit, and then dragging-and-dropping it, caused the unit list to freeze up.
Reduce memory use when loading a BIQ by 40-50%

The first one (and the one new feature) is brought to you by @Vuldacon, who wrote a guide on units_32.pcx files that was quite helpful in figuring out how to properly apply civ-specific colors. This visual clue should be most helpful for identifying the owner of troops in neutral or enemy territory properly.

The bug that has been fixed is described above, and dates to when reordering units was enabled. It only applied if you added a new unit and then reordered the new unit in the same session. This bug was detected by @Oni Ryuu .

The memory use savings are significant; the percentage savings translate to 112 - 136 MB less memory required for map editing, depending on the scenario in question. In terms of requirements, it used to be that 256 MB was sufficient for most scenarios, but not all; now 160 MB should be generally sufficient including for larger-than-average BIQs. This optimization was inspired by my Inspiron laptop.

Oni Ryuu · Aug 28, 2018

Quintillus said:
So thanks for mentioning it again!

When only Clark Kent can do it, I’m going to mither Clark Kent.

Quintillus said:
Version 1.22 is now available! Changes include:

Units are now displayed in the proper civ-specific color on the Map tab.

Fix a bug where adding a new unit, and then dragging-and-dropping it, caused the unit list to freeze up.

Reduce memory use when loading a BIQ by 40-50%

You seemed to have fixed the bug almost before I'd finished describing it; if only our professional institutions had the same work ethic.

Vuldacon · Aug 28, 2018

Thank You for your ongoing Great Work Quintillus!

Quintillus · Aug 29, 2018

Oni Ryuu said:
When only Clark Kent can do it, I’m going to mither Clark Kent.

You seemed to have fixed the bug almost before I'd finished describing it; if only our professional institutions had the same work ethic.

Let me know if it does totally resolve the problem or not! The cause of what I identified is somewhat a combination of what you described, so while I know it fixes a case related to what you mentioned, I'm not sure if it will fix everything (notably the upgrade path case, which I couldn't find a way to reproduce).

I think the direct and personal communication with this project is a significant motivating factor for fixing things quickly. Although there are likely lurkers who use the editor but don't post, those who report issues tend to be people I've already interacted with (whether in this thread or elsewhere on CFC). So it's more like if I built a piece of furniture for a neighbor, and they said, "oh by the way, there's xyz problem" when I saw them. I'd probably try to swing by and take a look at it the next free evening or weekend. Whereas there's not that connection or sense of responsibility if you bought it from a big furniture store and are going through a warranty process.

(Whereas with new features, there's more weighing of the time available to build it. That's like building a whole new piece of furniture!)

Spoiler Professional Institution Anecdote :

Vuldacon said:
Thank You for your ongoing Great Work Quintillus!

You're welcome! I'm pleased to have been able to make use of some of your own Great Work from 2004!

Vuldacon · Aug 29, 2018

Quintillus said:
You're welcome! I'm pleased to have been able to make use of some of your own Great Work from 2004!

Ah yes... that was a long time ago but Happy it Helped You

I want to add that I Really Admire Your Expertise and the Help you have been to the Forum Members.

Oni Ryuu · Aug 29, 2018

Quintillus said:
Let me know if it does totally resolve the problem or not! The cause of what I identified is somewhat a combination of what you described, so while I know it fixes a case related to what you mentioned, I'm not sure if it will fix everything (notably the upgrade path case, which I couldn't find a way to reproduce).

The data locking problem hasn’t resurfaced with 1.22. I think the upgrade path problem was caused be the previously mentioned actions in combination with deleting a unit.

I’m still not able to delete the last two bonus resources in the GOOD menu. They wouldn’t show in-game so I tried to delete them.

Quintillus said:
I think the direct and personal communication with this project is a significant motivating factor for fixing things quickly. Although there are likely lurkers who use the editor but don't post, those who report issues tend to be people I've already interacted with (whether in this thread or elsewhere on CFC). So it's more like if I built a piece of furniture for a neighbor, and they said, "oh by the way, there's xyz problem" when I saw them. I'd probably try to swing by and take a look at it the next free evening or weekend. Whereas there's not that connection or sense of responsibility if you bought it from a big furniture store and are going through a warranty process.

(Whereas with new features, there's more weighing of the time available to build it. That's like building a whole new piece of furniture!)

Spoiler Professional Institution Anecdote : Admittedly I also really like having things work, and don't have any consideration of money with this project. The company I worked at before would consistently get dinged by trade groups for having "too high of quality" software, which essentially meant they spent considerably above the industry average on QA.

Nonetheless there were bugs that didn't get fixed, and sometimes ones that probably should have been. My favorite was one involving infrequent, but recurring data loss for internal users. We figured out enough to know we needed better logging of what was going on to figure out how to fix it. But because that meant there would be higher costs of fixing it (at least two releases, with some wait time for the bug to recur, and code for both better logging and fixing the issue), it always got deprioritized, until a month or two later when someone would lose data and complain about it again. Then the same cycle would start over.

From a purely numbers perspective, it may have been that the amount of time required to fix it was higher than the amount of time the business folk spent re-entering lost data over the course of a year or two, even accounting for the business folk likely making more money. But letting it continue to happen sent a message to the business folk that their time lost and frustration weren't that important, and to the IT folk it sent a message that data integrity and code quality wasn't that important. Neither of those encourages good morale or good development practices.

On the other hand, the time when I found a bug that was due to go to production in two days, and would have cost a few hundred thousand per month in new revenue due to accidentally preventing a subset of customers from buying the product online? That got escalated and fixed really quickly.

I got all preachy, so I’ll just say; I agree entirely. Why bother doing something if it’s not to the best of your ability. If you can’t be assed, step aside.

Still preachy; just less ranting.

EDIT: The <50% science feature for governments has a glitch. Every turn the science and happiness sliders reset to their maximum values for that government.

Quintillus · Aug 29, 2018

Hmm, I'm running into a GAME tab safety level issue when trying to test the bonus resource deletion on GOOD, and am too tired to figure out why. Will look at it again when more rested though!

For the 50% glitch, I suspect you're seeing a side effect that I didn't explicitly mention in post #964 or the 1.16 release, but is consistent with the behavior at 50%, 60%, etc. as supported by the Firaxis editor. Namely, the cap rate applies to all of science, entertainment, and treasury. So if you have a 30% cap rate and set everything to zero, then the next turn it realizes that you effectively have 100% treasury income, which violates the 30% cap rate, so it pushes the treasury way down and increases science and entertainment funding.

This obviously kind of sucks, and it would be nice to be able to set the rate individually for science, luxury, and treasury, but unfortunately that's the way Civ3 is programmed :dunno:

.

Cross-Platform Editor for Conquests now available! 1.48

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