hex editing .MAP file from saved game

[Adamos]

Hi everyone,

i am new to this site and admire what some members do (etc really great terraform editor, which i can´t use, cause of being newbie here).

I was wondering, how to hex-edit resources in saved game. I found out it is in .MAP file, not in .SVE file, but i wasn't able to find anything about that file. It looks like a mess to me. .SVE file is well organized and you can learn anything about it, but .MAP file makes me crazy Mostly saved maps in various games do not vary in size. This grows as game continues and totally changes inside even after tiny change in the game. Nothing like 8 bytes per tile or something like this. I really like hex-editing, but this is too much for me

Do anyone has some hints? Thanks a lot.

 

[MountainMn10]

MAP file is compressed using RLE and LZW encryption. The program Terraform edits these files.

 

[Adamos]

Thanks for information, compression makes sense. That's why it looks like garbage to me And it is possible to decompress the file?

But from what i learned more, special resources are not stored one by one in .map file. There is just map pattern (terrain) and positions of specials is calculated by formula. I don't know, how TerraForm works, but i used CIVMAP30 (made by same author), where you have to change civ.exe file, so that it reads specials from external file.