Cross-Platform Editor for Conquests now available! 1.48

[Quintillus]

Sounds great (again)!

I am able to simply copy the 1.15 data in the existing editor file or do I have to wait for the XP Special Edition 1.15?

Thanks!

It should work to copy over the 1.15 XP items over to the new editor, specifically:

you can XP-ify future releases by copying the jre1.8_111 folder, and the Editor_XP.bat and XP_launcher.vbs files, to a future release's folder

Copying over everything except the Conquests Editor.jar file would also work (and copying the civ3editor.ini file will copy over your settings from 1.14), but may overwrite other files that have been updated. In the case of 1.15, it would overwrite the updated Unit Tab Help that is used when offline.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Is there some way to lower the science cap to below 50% with your Editor?

 

[Oni Ryuu]

Any improvement gets my support.
Quintillus, our resident hero.

Antal said that his level 3 city borders can be activated by a building in one of the expanded editors (yours); is that doable or is he mistaken? If it is possible, I’d like to make my suburbs building to enable the third layer to be accessable.
This Thread

 

[Quintillus]

Is there some way to lower the science cap to below 50% with your Editor?

Not currently, but a quick experiment shows that Civ3 doesn't crash with it below 50%, so it will be in the next version. 40% in particular works as you would expect.

At 30%, I'm showing 3/3/3 for science/lux/tax, which made me concerned that 10% of my GDP was vanishing into thin air. However, examining the city once the tax base hit 10, the extra 10% was going to the treasury, and my surplus and next-turn balance confirmed that.

Similarly, at 20%, it displays as 2/2/2, but the extra 40% goes to the treasury. I didn't check 10%, but at 0%, all your money goes to the treasury, with no option to make use of the science of lux sliders. You can still assign scientists and entertainers to advance science and avoid riots, however. Could potentially be an interesting setup for a scenario, where a population surplus enabling non-mandatory-for-survival occupations is the only way to make significant scientific progress.

Going above 100% is less interesting. You can set your science/lux rate above 100%, and you get bonuses - I set my science to 200%, and got twice as much science. But it's less interesting because there's no downside. My lux slider was at -100%, but there was no unhappiness. And running the lux slider at 200% for a turn, and the science slider at -100%, did not result in any lost science. Similarly, even with a cap rate above 100%, the sum of science + lux must not exceed 100%, which is why my opposing slider was negative. I was hoping it would take the extra away from the treasury - allowing you to, for example, put 110% towards science, but suffer a significant deficit by doing so.

Any improvement gets my support.
Quintillus, our resident hero.

Antal said that his level 3 city borders can be activated by a building in one of the expanded editors (yours); is that doable or is he mistaken? If it is possible, I’d like to make my suburbs building to enable the third layer to be accessable.
This Thread

I hadn't seen the expanded city borders option previously, but reading through the thread about that (there are too many pages to go through the main thread, and since the XenForo upgrade I can't download threads for quick searching), I believe where he says,

P.S. I've not made patches for Civ3ConquestsEdit, so there are few ways to edit new flag:
1) Modify custom editor to provide the option

It means that a custom editor would have to be modified to provide that option, not that there already is one that gives the option. My editor doesn't support the option since I didn't know about it until just now, and given that his patch was made available after the most recent release of Steph's editor, I doubt there is a way to do it other than manually.

That said, it's an interesting idea for a feature to add. I will have to play around with the patch first, but Antal's technical notes are sufficient that I think I should be able to implement it. Not making any promises on timelines, since it's definitely new ground, but it fits with the post-1.0 goal of expanding the possibilities of Civ where possible (with the other current goal being to make tasks easier, such as with the reordering and filtering).

 

[Oni Ryuu]

It’s on the “would be nice” list of things; not remotely urgent.

I’m only suggesting it because it’s an available option. I could (much more easily) tell players to load their game at a certain point with the Antal patch 8.exe if it’s too complicated.

Edit: Sorry, drunken babble.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Not currently, but a quick experiment shows that Civ3 doesn't crash with it below 50%, so it will be in the next version. 40% in particular works as you would expect.

At 30%, I'm showing 3/3/3 for science/lux/tax, which made me concerned that 10% of my GDP was vanishing into thin air. However, examining the city once the tax base hit 10, the extra 10% was going to the treasury, and my surplus and next-turn balance confirmed that.

Similarly, at 20%, it displays as 2/2/2, but the extra 40% goes to the treasury. I didn't check 10%, but at 0%, all your money goes to the treasury, with no option to make use of the science of lux sliders. You can still assign scientists and entertainers to advance science and avoid riots, however. Could potentially be an interesting setup for a scenario, where a population surplus enabling non-mandatory-for-survival occupations is the only way to make significant scientific progress.

Going above 100% is less interesting. You can set your science/lux rate above 100%, and you get bonuses - I set my science to 200%, and got twice as much science. But it's less interesting because there's no downside. My lux slider was at -100%, but there was no unhappiness. And running the lux slider at 200% for a turn, and the science slider at -100%, did not result in any lost science. Similarly, even with a cap rate above 100%, the sum of science + lux must not exceed 100%, which is why my opposing slider was negative. I was hoping it would take the extra away from the treasury - allowing you to, for example, put 110% towards science, but suffer a significant deficit by doing so.

That would be fantastic if you can do this. I'm particularly interested in 0% and 10%.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

(Much more sober now) What MeteorPunch said; I second. Less than 50% and more than 100% Scientific output would be immensely advantageous to my game.
I would like to drain my treasury if I thought it necessary.

 

[Quintillus]

I realized tonight that while safety levels will, as of 1.15, be carried over in the "Adjust Safety Level" window, the "Firaxis" limits will still be applied when the editor is started, regardless of what the saved levels were. Your saved settings can be applied by going to Options -> Adjust Safety Level, and clicking the "Update" button. A fix for this will be in the next version.

At least it's still a little less re-work to apply them than in 1.14 . I had thought the existing code was smart enough to pick up the new safety levels once I had it to the point of loading in Adjust Safety Level, but was mistaken.

That would be fantastic if you can do this. I'm particularly interested in 0% and 10%.

It looks like it is doable. Those probably are the most interesting ones from a different gameplay perspective.

(Much more sober now) What MeteorPunch said; I second. Less than 50% and more than 100% Scientific output would be immensely advantageous to my game.
I would like to drain my treasury if I thought it necessary.

Unfortunately more than 100% does not drain the treasury, or at least I couldn't find a way to make that happen. I will have it as an option when the safety levels are set to Experimental, so others can see if they can persuade it to behave that way.

 

[Kirejara]

you can XP-ify future releases by copying the jre1.8_111 folder, and the Editor_XP.bat and XP_launcher.vbs files, to a future release's folder

I have simply missed that part. Sorry, my mistake!

However the "shake and bake" XP Edition 1.15 works for me.

I was able to search after both nations with multiple words in their name and I was able to search with both attack and defence value at the same time.

I may repeat myself, but: Great Work!

 

[Quintillus]

Version 1.16

Version 1.16 is now available! It introduces the concept of startup-screen widgets, which appear in the formerly-empty space you see prior to opening a .biq. There are two to start with, described below. There are a few additional enhancements and fixes as well.

• Introduce the "Resume Editing" widget, which is a one-click link to resume editing your most-recently-edited BIQ file.
• Introduce the "Copy Settings" widget, which will appear on first run, and lets you copy your settings from a previous editor version
• Safety level settings are applied when the editor starts.
• You can no longer add/rename units to have a name of length longer than 31 characters, which could cause BIQs to become unopenable
• The Cap Rate on the GOVT tab now allows 0% - 100% on the Safe safety level (the new default), and any increment of 10% on Exploratory and lower.
• Added ghost text of "Filter units..." to the Unit Tab's filter, to make it clearer what it does (will likely add to Tech Tab in 1.17 if no issues are reported)
• Downloaded units are now immediately added to the unit list when using the modern, filterable and reorderable lists (restart no longer required)
• Minor UI fixes on the BLDG tab and About panel

The Cap Rate change is inspired by the question @MeteorPunch asked in post #962. I set 0% - 100% as the default Safe option based on in-game testing; outside that range didn't work as well, as mentioned in post #964, but didn't entirely break either, so I left that as an Exploratory option.

When you start the editor for the first time, after selecting the install folder (or it being auto-detected), you will notice the Copy Settings widget:



It does what its description says - copying all your settings from a previous version's folder. Navigate to the folder via double-clicking folders in the file selection window, then single-click the old version's folder (such as Conquests Editor 1.13), and click the select button. Your settings will be copied over. This includes XP-ify your install if you previously had that version. Do note that some settings, such as font, the options to disable menu or the new tech/unit lists, and the bundled XP launcher/Java version, require a restart to take effect. Others, such as your Recent Files and whether the editor asks you to confirm quitting, take effect immediately.

The other widget is the Resume Editing widget:



This widget is visible so long as there is at least one file in your Recent Files, including after importing your settings, if the previous version had Recent Files. It is simply a quicker shortcut to opening the file that you are most likely to want to open. The existing File -> Recent Files works just as it did before, as does the Open (Ctrl+O) dialog, should you wish to edit a different file.

Startup-Screen Widgets are only visible prior to opening a BIQ; they are replaced by the BIQ editing screen after a scenario is opened.

 

[Quintillus]

I have ideas for a few more Startup-Screen Widgets. These include:

• New version notices, including a summary of changes. This would replace the current pop-up in a less in-your-face manner, while also providing more information.
• A Tips and Tricks widget, which would highlight editor features that you may not be aware of if you haven't been following this thread for the editor's entire existence, such as importing maps from BMP files, deepwater harbours, and civ color modification. On first load, it would have a Welcome notice giving a broad overview of editor conventions, such as right-clicking to add/delete/rename items on the tabs, and the availability of autosaves should something go wrong.
• Settings that a fair amount of people may want to change, and the ability to toggle them there. For example, Horizontal Mousewheel Scrolling can be useful on laptops with touchpads, or fancy mice that allow left-right scrolling, but is disabled by default as it doesn't work on all laptops.
• As part of the above, I plan to add an Online Help toggle, and perhaps one or two more that would disable future online functionality, to be considerate of those on limited/slow connections.
• Potentially some form of integration with CFC. If signing in would persist across editor launches (not yet tested), I could see a widget that notified you how many unread messages you had in your CFC inbox, and would open the built-in browser to that page if you wished.

I suspect there are at least a couple potentially useful ones that I haven't thought of as well. Some of them could also have lives outside of the start screen - for example, Copy Settings is likely to be integrated into the first-run popup at some point, and Tips and Tricks is likely to be browseable within the Help system as well.

In all cases I plan to make them context-aware, in that they only show up when relevant. The current ones already do that; as an example, the Settings one would disappear after you had selected your preferences (whether on the first time or subsequently), and only re-appear if a new setting were added where there was not a clear default for most users.

 

[Vuldacon]

Awesome Work Quintillus!

 

[MeteorPunch]

Thanks Quintillus!

Now I'm finding out that the max for the science slider was the same as the luxury slider - it's always something...

 

[Kirejara]

Oops! I did not realized, that there is a new version available.

My 1.15 (XP-Edition) did not noticed me.

I just wanted to ask if one can also search units after techs (z. B. tech=Flight) or if such a search routine could be included in one of the next versions?

Thanks again!

 

[Quintillus]

Oops! I did not realized, that there is a new version available.

My 1.15 (XP-Edition) did not noticed me.

I just wanted to ask if one can also search units after techs (z. B. tech=Flight) or if such a search routine could be included in one of the next versions?

Thanks again!

Oops, I forgot to update the latest version file! Still getting into the swing of remembering that step!

There isn't a way to search for units by tech yet (although you can by era), but I'm glad to have a suggestion for a unit filter! Would it be more useful for you to search by units that require an exact tech, units that require a tech that requires at least that tech (e.g. Flight or any tech which cannot be researched without Flight), or units that can be build before a certain tech (e.g. units that can be built prior to having researched flight? All three should theoretically be possible, although the first would be the most straightforward.

 

[Kirejara]

Ok, now I have got a reminder in the editor.

The simple search for the exact tech would sufficent for me. I doubt, that I would use any of the other variants.

Currently I use mostly the searches for names and partial names, availableTo and class. But I had also searched with attack and defend in order to locate and edit all Grenadiers (some of them have got different names).

 

[Quintillus]

Version 1.17

Version 1.17 is now available! You can download it here. Changes are:

• Add filtering for essentially everything on the Technology tab (only Tech Tree position and the unused Icon cannot be filtered on).
• Add filters for all of the Unit Abilities, plus required technologies and required resources, on the Unit tab.
• Replaced the old file chooser with native operating system file chooser integration for most of the file opening/saving tasks.
• The "era" filter now works with names of eras, on both the Unit and Tech tabs.
• The "class" filter on the Unit tab now works with all-lowercase class names.
• Fixed the UI locking up after using Input from SAV in 1.16.
• Minor UI improvements on the Civilization tab, Import from CSV window, and Help window.
• Somewhat improved BIC support (but not enough to recommend yet).

The number of new filters available is in the dozens, and they have all been documented in the Help files. I recommend viewing the Help sections on the Tech Tab and the Unit Tab (which has its own Unit Filters page due to the number of filters) for the full list of available filters and how to use them.

By integrating with your native file choosers, you should have a more responsive file chooser, with more advanced features, such as auto-completion on the name, breadcrumbs, and more sort options. The exact features will vary by your operating system, including by the version of your operating system (Windows 8.1 has a different default file chooser than Windows XP, for example). I expect it should be an all-around better experience, regardless of operating system, but do report any issues.

The first bit of Vanilla support was in 0.97, with a few fixes in 0.98. However, a significant number of holes were found when I was testing it more thoroughly as part of testing the new file choosers. Several of these have been patched, but quite a bit of work remains for it to work well, or indeed for the majority of Vanilla BIC files. The 0.97 recommendation that, "Currently, it is recommended that you only use this for importing Vanilla maps" still applies, and map importing should now work better, particularly when trying to open the resulting .biq file in-game. However, even this best-supported use-case still has items that are not imported, particularly defaults for values introduced in later Vanilla patches, or the expansions.

 

[Kirejara]

The new search routines are very helpful. I have only tested a few, but most important the search for a required tech works as intended.

1.17 works so far flawless in the XP edition.

And on a sidenote, skipping an update in the update reminder works also (I told my 1.15 to skip the reminder for 1.16 and it really only started to remind me for 1.17).

 

[Kirejara]

Two points I noticed while working with version 1.17.

While saving into an existing file, one is asked two times if one is sure (first by windows explorer and then by the editor).

The editor seems to partly hang up from time to time. Despite switching between the individual units, the editing window keeps the data of the unit, that was selected before the editor glitched. This seems to happen more often when using the new search routines.

If neccessary I can try to make a screenshot then the bug shows up.

I hope this is understandable as english is not my native language.

Thanks again!

 

[Quintillus]

Two points I noticed while working with version 1.17.

While saving into an existing file, one is asked two times if one is sure (first by windows explorer and then by the editor).

The editor seems to partly hang up from time to time. Despite switching between the individual units, the editing window keeps the data of the unit, that was selected before the editor glitched. This seems to happen more often when using the new search routines.

If neccessary I can try to make a screenshot then the bug shows up.

I hope this is understandable as english is not my native language.

Thanks again!

I noticed the two-time-save-confirmation last night when doing some BIQ editing, and realized I'd forgotten about that one during development of 1.17. I'd added the editor one way back, probably before the first release, since the old style didn't give overwrite warnings. But now the new style does, so the editor one needs to be removed. I've written it up as issue #115 so I remember it for 1.18.

I was wondering if anyone had run into the strange issue I'd seen while testing 1.17 from time to time, and what you are describing sounds similar. I hadn't heard anyone mention it since search came out, and indeed hadn't seen it myself early on, but noticed it inconsistently in 1.17 - and of course, when I tried to reproduce it, it would not happen. What I would see most frequently is that I'd be typing a search, and notice that the query would start duplicating - e.g. "att" would become "attatt", then "atta" would become "attaatta", and shortly afterwards the new list would hang, sometimes after allowing me to click on one or two more units. But it would eventually hang, and clicking on further units would do nothing (though the rest of the data on the tab would remain).

In my development tools, I did see an error message, but it did not mention any of the code I had written. After searching on the web, it appears to be related to this Java bug, which is current and does not appear to be platform specific. However, I am not sure what part of the editor code may be triggering it - I've never seen it in the Unit Download functionality, for example. I have two theories currently - one is that it's related to the code that adds the "Filter..." ghost text to the Unit Tab search list, and the other is that it's related to either the way I add the search query code, or perhaps to a search query taking long enough to interfere with a UI update (it seems to happen slightly more on slow queries, though that is anecdotal and may be coincidental).

The first theory is supported by the fact that I never saw the issue prior to 1.16 (which introduced the Filter... text), but only after that existed, and as far as I know no one else has either. If that theory is correct, it could happen in 1.16 as well, but as I added it late in 1.16, and 1.16 was not the current version for long, I could see it plausibly being missed in 1.16. However, the theory that it may be related to slower queries could also make it more likely to be noticeable in later versions. The other interesting thing about the "Filter..." query is that if that is the case, the issue will not occur on the Tech tab, which does not have the "Filter..." ghost-text. This is in fact the reason I intentionally did not include the "Filter..." text for the Tech tab in 1.17, after mentioning in the 1.16 release notes that I planned to add it there if no issues were reported with it on the Unit tab. I don't know that it's the cause, but I've only seen this happen myself on the Unit tab, so I am suspicious.

Of course, when I went to try to test that theory, I couldn't get it to happen again on the Unit tab either, even with the Filter... code being present.

The main challenge at this point is seeing if I can reproduce it more reliably. If it can be determined to be related to the "Filter..." text, it is easy enough to remove that, and not a big loss. If not, though, I could see it being a rather tricky one to track down, and I will likely be looking at a number options, including testing old versions to try to get it to happen, changing the way a couple things are programmed (that I don't think should cause an issue, but might be), and perhaps trying to detect it and re-initialize the lists if all else fails, like how sometimes Windows will re-initialize the desktop icons after a boot for seemingly no reason.