Feeling a bit rusty...

[techumseh]

When making scenarios several years apart, one tends to forget basic things. If you have unused slots in the Rules text, how do you prevent them displaying in the Civilopedia? Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi Tech,

You control it through the @@UNIT_INDEX of the Describe.txt file. You should only have as many rows as you have units:

@@UNIT_INDEX
-1, ;
.......
-1, ;
-2, ; MUST BE HERE! TERMINATOR!

 

[techumseh]

Thanks, but my unused slots are scattered throughout the @Units field in the Rules. Is there any way to ensure they don't show in the Civilopedia short of reorganizing everything? (I like to sort by civ and unit type, and leave blanks in case I want to add additional units. - I always think of more types as I go). If not, I'll just consolidate everything and delete the extra lines in @@UNIT_INDEX.

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi Tech,

I tried seeing if changing the index value from -1 to 0 might make a difference but it doesn't appear to have any effect. Perhaps another designer can confirm but as far as I can determine you cannot exclude a unit from showing up on the list if it's located somewhere in the middle of your index, i.e. for units not to display that have to be located at the end of the index.

EDIT: I tried physically removing the index line where I didn't want a unit to display in the civilopedia and it appears to work. You need to leave the line blank, i.e. keep it's position and just remove the -1 value. Mind this hasn't been thoroughly tested so I'm not certain if there are unforseen consequences but it's something to look into.

Example: If I didn't want the 2nd to 4th units to show:

@@UNIT_INDEX
-1, ;



-1, ;
-1, ;
-1, ;
-1, ;
etc

 

[techumseh]

Sounds like a plan. I'll give it a try. Thanks for experimenting.

 

[techumseh]

Sorry Yves, I don't get any change. The unused units still appear. This is the kind of minor problem that sometimes holds up progress on my scenarios, so I will just bypass it for now and move on. Thank you for giving it a shot.

 

[techumseh]

As usual, I couldn't leave it alone. The value I need is 1. This is something I no doubt knew at one time. And now, I do again. Thanks for your help.

 

[tootall_2012]

Speaking of feeling rusty... does any know where the civilization colors that are displayed on the unit health bars come from. I can't seem to figure out.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Speaking of feeling rusty... does any know where the civilization colors that are displayed on the unit health bars come from. I can't seem to figure out.

Here's a cropped version of allflags.gif i had laying around featuring Michael D. Raney's flags.(when was the last time anyone heard from him?)

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi Erika,

Thanks for the information but I tried different tests based on the tips above and I still can't seem to control the color in the health bars of the different nations.

I found another tip on the Scenario League website, here, that talks about the cities.bmp file in relation to ToT but it doesn't specifically talk about the health bar either so, at this time, I'm still ensure how to set the color.

 

[techumseh]

Can anyone explain the "Attacks per turn" feature of the ToT Patch? I assume it limits the number of attacks a unit with a high movement factor can make, even if has more hits left. Is there any way to end a combat before one or the other units involved is killed? eg. Bismarck attacks Prince of Wales, takes minor damage, PoW takes serious damage but is not sunk.

 

[Patine]

Can anyone explain the "Attacks per turn" feature of the ToT Patch? I assume it limits the number of attacks a unit with a high movement factor can make, even if has more hits left. Is there any way to end a combat before one or the other units involved is killed? eg. Bismarck attacks Prince of Wales, takes minor damage, PoW takes serious damage but is not sunk.

As far as I know, that's never been possible. All combat has been to the death of one unit or another involved. But someone MIGHT have found an exception or workaround I'm unaware of, but, as said, I'd be unaware of it...

 

[JPetroski]

Can anyone explain the "Attacks per turn" feature of the ToT Patch? I assume it limits the number of attacks a unit with a high movement factor can make, even if has more hits left. Is there any way to end a combat before one or the other units involved is killed? eg. Bismarck attacks Prince of Wales, takes minor damage, PoW takes serious damage but is not sunk.

Unfortunately it merely changes the number of attacks a unit can make each turn. Also, others have found that this feature causes large problems for units (such as not being able to attack at all) beyond the standard 80th, for some reason. I considered using it in Over the Reich because I have enough stationary "target" units that I could have used slots past 80 exclusively for non-attacking units and bypassed the issue. Im not sure if you also have that option?

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi Tech,

You can find a full description of all of TNO's features in the TOTPP Reference Guide I created, which can be found in the zip file of the compendium of Civ 2 resources I prepared for John here.

In essence the Attacks per turn (APT):
"
Enables a new section in RULES.TXT, @ATTACKS.
The numbers in this section define the number of attacks per turn per unit type. The section itself consist of a list of numbers, 10 per line, corresponding in order to the entries in @UNITS. For the Original game, it would look like this:
@ATTACKS

1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2,
2, 2, 3, 1, 1, 1, 2, 10, 8, 6
14, 12, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 5, 5,
4, 3, 5, 5, 12, 16, 2, 3, 1, 2,
1, 1, 4, 8, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,

The number of attacks is limited by the movement rate, as each attack still costs 1 movement point.

The popup shown when a unit is out of attacks can be overridden in GAME.TXT using the key @ATTACKSPERTURN.
"

As you may recall during your playtesting of my Vietnam scenario, see this thread, the feature appears to have issues if you used more than the standard 81 unit grid, i.e. if you use the APT feature for a unit grid greater than 81 units, some of the units beyond the 81st unit may not be able to attack at all.

 

[techumseh]

Right, I remember it now, and some of the issues. It's too bad there's no way to inflict mutual damage, but not necessarily destroy one of the units. I'm particularly thinking of naval battles between capital ships. A Bismarck-Hood scenario was not always the norm.

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi Erika,

Thanks for the information but I tried different tests based on the tips above and I still can't seem to control the color in the health bars of the different nations.

I found another tip on the Scenario League website, here, that talks about the cities.bmp file in relation to ToT but it doesn't specifically talk about the health bar either so, at this time, I'm still ensure how to set the color.

EDIT: It seems as though the unit health bar shield is indeed controlled by the the 2nd pixel of the third bar on the cities.bmp file (as per Catfish's website here).

 

[elmenhorster]

EDIT: It seems as though the unit health bar shield is indeed controlled by the the 2nd pixel of the third bar on the cities.bmp file (as per Catfish's website here).

Broken Erika's example is absolutely correct for MGE. Upper bar represents city color and one pixel for shield. However, the color palette is so narrow one need to change it dozen of times before the game can actually recognize it. Colors with less saturation very often end up gray. It's the most annoying thing about MGE. Apparently TOT has different layout wasn't aware of that too

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi elmenhorster,

As Erika's research and mine discovered, MGE and ToT handle civilization colors a little differently.

As it turns out the reason I was having trouble is that during testing I was always making and saving the change to the civilization colors in the cities.bmp file and then simply reloading the game from within the scenario. ToT seems to be a little more temperamental when it comes to the tribes color, whereby you have to QUIT the scenario first and THEN reload it to see if any changes you may have made to the cities.bmp file took effect.

It took me a little while to figure it out but it works fine now.

 

[tootall_2012]

Hi all,

When working on the Second Front conversion, I read the following in Captain Nemo scenario page on the Scenario League:

"The game engine is Civ2, Fantastic Worlds version. A version playable in MPGE is also offered, however there are playability issues in MPGE as the game must be played in "Hot-seat" mode and AI moves are not shown on screen. In FW this mode is not necessary since the human player can have control of multiple Civilizations in a "normal" game."

Does any one know if it is possible to assign multiple civilizations to a single human player in ToT. If not through the game engine can it be done through hex editing?

I certainly be interested to hear if anyone knows.