[Col] Decoding Colonization SAV files (1994 / Old / Classic)

[Bladrov]

Oh, I see. Yes, sure would! Something to make administration of things easier, esp. with the natives.

We've done a lot with RIS to make it easier to administer the game, but then, we have the unfair advantage of having access to the source code...and it's not in assembly!

 

[Bladrov]

Another idea--how about a script to remove a stockade from a colony? Something that you save in your Col folder. It shows the save files, you choose one, enter the name of the colony, and it finds that then changes the character 130 decimal characters from the start of the name to 00.

 

[AyCe]

I wanted to do such a thing, as it would be similar to my Hot Seat editor, but I was too lazy so far. Are you sure the entire byte gets set to 0? I would have expected the wall info to just be 2 bits in a bitfield for buildings.

 

[Bladrov]

Yes, I've done it manually several times. It works, but it's incredibly tedious to count 130 spaces, and then you might lose count and change the wrong bit. But what I do is open the game in a hex file, find the colony whose stockade I want to remove, put the cursor just before the first letter of the colony name, then arrow right 130 times. Then on the left in the hex editor I change the hex bit to 00. Save, load the save, and the stockade is gone.

 

[Bladrov]

Incidentally AyCe, I've looked into it and that 130th character (82nd, in hex) will show one of 8 values, as far as I can tell, depending on fortifications and armory.

00 - No Stockade, no Armory	08 - No Stockade, Armory
41 - Stockade, no Armory	49 - Stockade and Armory
43 - Fort, no Armory	4B - Fort and Armory
47 - Fortress, no Armory	4F - Fortress and Armory

 

[pavelbel]

Hi there! I'm an old (~27 years) Colonization fan and now playing it again. I was always annoyed by the fact that it is impossible to abandon a colony with any fortification, so I've created a utility to remove it. Attaching it here. It is written in Python, code is provided so you can make sure it is not a malware.

Fortification type of a colony is encoded in lower 3 bits of 130th character (after first character of it's name): xxxx x000 - is nothing, xxxx x001 - stokade, xxxx x011 - fort, xxxx x111 - fortress (x - any bit value). My utility just sets these three bits to zero for specific colony.

Usage:
1. Install python interpreter (from python.org or so)
2. Set default app for .py files to python.exe
3. Place smcol_stokade_removal.py to COLONIZE folder (where save files are)
4. Doubleclick smcol_stokade_removal.py to run it
5. Enter value from 0 to 9 to choose a save file
6. Enter colony name or several of it's first characters (3 or more, case insensitive)
7. Done, it's fortification removed.

 

[Bladrov]

Fantastic, I hoped someone would write one! It doesn't seem to have been uploaded though.

If I'm not mistaken, you could just paste the code in as text and I could save it to a text file and run from there.

 

[pavelbel]

Fantastic, I hoped someone would write one! It doesn't seem to have been uploaded though.

If I'm not mistaken, you could just paste the code in as text and I could save it to a text file and run from there.

You're right, I didn't noticed the forum excluded the script file from my post. I've reuploaded it in zip. It is awaiting moderator approval now. If it won't be appoved, then I upload it on github and post link to it here.

 

[Bladrov]

Thanks pbsite! I just tried it on Windows--didn't work at first, but I downloaded the latest version of Python and was able to remove stockades, forts, and fortresses from my colonies. Nice! However it doesn't remove fortifications on AI colonies, even though it says it removed them. Is that intentional?

 

[pavelbel]

Thanks pbsite! I just tried it on Windows--didn't work at first, but I downloaded the latest version of Python and was able to remove stockades, forts, and fortresses from my colonies. Nice! However it doesn't remove fortifications on AI colonies, even though it says it removed them. Is that intentional?

Thanks for testing! I'm glad it helped)

You're not quite right about foreign colonies. The utility does remove fortifications from them as well but you will only see it when your unit comes near them. It's because of game's mechanic: the game doesn't show you the real state of an enemy colony unless some unit of yours "see" it! Haven't you noticed it? It happens quite often when you see a foreign colony with 1 colonist on the map, but when your ship comes near it appears to be fort with 15 colonists.

 

[Bladrov]

Oh yes! Fog of war, of course. Once I pulled my privateer over next to Roanoke in the save I was testing, the fortress disappeared.

Incidentally, I have a fan site for Colonization (http://peyre.42web.io/Colonization/index.htm). This utility would make a great addition to it, if you're ok with that.

Would you mind if I touched it up here and there, as a native speaker?

 

[Bladrov]

Incidentally, for Linux users:

Install python from your package manager (I used Software in Xubuntu), then open a terminal window to your Colonization directory, and enter python smcol_stokade_removal.py

 

[pavelbel]

Incidentally, I have a fan site for Colonization (http://peyre.42web.io/Colonization/index.htm). This utility would make a great addition to it, if you're ok with that.

Would you mind if I touched it up here and there, as a native speaker?

Yes, it would be great. Feel free to upload the utility to your site and correct strings. You're great fan of the game!)

 

[Bladrov]

Thanks! Should I credit you as pbsite, or is there a better name to use? (Feel free to message me or write at lordpeyre at yahoo.com.)

 

[pavelbel]

Thanks! Should I credit you as pbsite, or is there a better name to use? (Feel free to message me or write at lordpeyre at yahoo.com.)

Credit me as Pavel Bel please.

Feel free to send me bug reports or other considerations regarding the utility. Maybe I'll be able to add functionality to it to workaround some other bugs or restrictions. I do not promise, but I may try to think of it. I will definitely not make a cheat utility of it, but some things (like removing stokades) are really needed.

Ah, there's one more thing I can think of: sometimes it may be useful to remove drydocks at your colonies. Or on the contrary - add some buildings to foreign colonies to make ai more challenging (if it will be able to benefit from it...)

 

[Bladrov]

Hey thanks! Since you ask, it would be handy if the utility would tell you, say,

Colony Roanoke has the following fortification: Stockade. [you could use the table above]
Do you want to remove the fortification? And that way the user would have a chance to change their minds.

Also, I've noticed that it changes the value to something not in the table above, e.g. to 48. What is the reason, do you know?

 

[pavelbel]

Colony Roanoke has the following fortification: Stockade. [you could use the table above]
Do you want to remove the fortification? And that way the user would have a chance to change their minds.

It seems to me that this particular modification is not very useful: does it really matter what kind of fortification is in a colony if you just want to remove it? BTW the utility tells you when there is no fortification. I don't think it's handy.

Also, I've noticed that it changes the value to something not in the table above, e.g. to 48. What is the reason, do you know?

It's because your table is incomplete: magazine and arsenal presence is encoded in the same byte.

 

[Bladrov]

Oh, of course! Seems you thought everything through more than I did. I'll attach the file as I have it now, in case you should want to make changes.

I do like that the game tells you a colony has no fortification, and that, for instance, there's no such colony as "amestown". I think a last-minute confirmation would be nice, but it's entirely optional. Another "would be nice" item would be listing the colonies in the save and who they belong to, but again, not important.

 

[pavelbel]

there's no such colony as "amestown"

Ah yes, it's an important thing. For now if you enter "amestown" it will "find" it and corrupt the save file. I'll fix that a bit later.

I'll attach the file as I have it now

Thanks. I will update your version.

 

[pavelbel]

I think, the next feature I'll add to the utility will be mass convertion of indian converts to Indentured Servants (or maybe criminals). The idea is not cheating itself, but to make use of them and give them purpose. Converts quickly become quite useless when you have enough specialists: you can't do anything useful with them, only disband. So I think converting them to Servants is a good idea - it will give them perspective of career growth. Imagine: elder statesman - indian! What do you think?