Leaderheads - HELP NEEDED

[matros]

Hi everybody

I've created a comparison chart for Civ leaders in all 4 games. You can check it out here> http://www.civleaders.szm.sk/
I already talked to Thunderfall, about posting it on Civfanatics, after BTS is out (to include the new leaders), and he likes it...but...

But I couldn't find pictures of leaders from CivII anywhere on the internet and I don't have a copy of it , so if someone could please help me get those pics, I would be very grateful

Also if you have any comments or ideas to make it better, please, share it

 

[Sub]

There really aren't any leader heads in Civ II. When you're in diplomacy, you're basically talking to an ambassador. It's not even the ambassador's head, it's his whole body.

 

[Mercator]

What game have you been playing? There are leaderheads in Civ2. Just so long as you turn on the diplomacy background.

I'm a bit lazy and not currently on a computer with Civ2 on it, but you can get them yourself with a little handiwork...

1. Download and unzip Resource Hacker: http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/
2. Download part 4 of Cedric's MGE patch and extract the mk.dll file.
3. Open mk.dll in the Resource Hacker. GIFS 220 through 261 are the leaderheads. Save them all to GIF files.
4. Open them up in an image editor and remove the magenta border and make the cyan bits around the edges (in some of them) transparent... Or whatever other editing you want to do, since I see the pictures on the website are all square.

 

[Virulent]

If I recall they used actual photographs or paintings and drawings of the leaders in Civ II. The diplomacy room had a picture of the leader on the wall with an animated herald to interact with.

Nice site BTW.

 

[matros]

What game have you been playing? There are leaderheads in Civ2. Just so long as you turn on the diplomacy background.

I'm a bit lazy and not currently on a computer with Civ2 on it, but you can get them yourself with a little handiwork...

1. Download and unzip Resource Hacker: http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/
2. Download part 4 of Cedric's MGE patch and extract the mk.dll file.
3. Open mk.dll in the Resource Hacker. GIFS 220 through 261 are the leaderheads. Save them all to GIF files.
4. Open them up in an image editor and remove the magenta border and make the cyan bits around the edges (in some of them) transparent... Or whatever other editing you want to do, since I see the pictures on the website are all square.

Thanks Mercator, I'll try to get the pics this way. BTW I updated the page with all the new BTS leaderheads... Hammurabi looks coooool

 

[matros]

Ok, I updated the page with the civ2 leaders pics. I'm not sure if I got all the pics right and I couldn't find any French leaders but besides that, IT IS DONE

http://www.civleaders.szm.sk/

 

[Mercator]

You got the pics right.

Nice comparison, by the way.

Hmmm, you're right... Strange. Resource Hacker repeats the Greek leaders where the French should be.

Here they are:

 

[matros]

Thnx again Mercator, I updated the page with the French pics, and I also added info about number of civs and leaders in each game...

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

Can you replace the leaderheads in the mk.dll file with others if you have a custom tribe?

 

[Mercator]

Yep, you can. Just make sure they're the right format (GIF 87a), and have the same color palette and dimensions... And keep a backup in case things go wrong (or if you want to revert back to normal)!

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

And be forewarned: the replacement file must also be of the same or lesser filesize. In my experience, that means making concessions in the quality department.

...And matros: great site! The whole series lined up like that brings back some fond memories... and a peek into Beyond the Sword. Thank you!

 

[Mercator]

And be forewarned: the replacement file must also be of the same or lesser filesize. In my experience, that means making concessions in the quality department.

Actually, that's only the case when using GifX for classic (16-bit) Civ2 DLLs.

That's because GifX isn't a proper NE (=16-bit) resource editor and can only overwrite the original images with no extra room to spare. Resource Hacker *is* a proper PE (32-bit) resource editor, so it can make the necessary changes to the DLL headers to allow a larger size resource replacement.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Thanks for that! My day just got 10 times better.

...Why do I always get the inferior program??

 

[Mercator]

Oh, and to clarify: Resource Hacker only works for 32-bit files, so it doesn't work with pre-MGE Civ2.

GifX is the best available tool for classic Civ2. I had a look at a few 16-bit resource editors I found, but none of them seem to be able to do what GifX can do.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

And be forewarned: the replacement file must also be of the same or lesser filesize. In my experience, that means making concessions in the quality department.

...And matros: great site! The whole series lined up like that brings back some fond memories... and a peek into Beyond the Sword. Thank you!

That's OK. This would be AWESOME for making scenarios and GOTMs with custom civs.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

Mercator--thanks for the tips. I just swapped out the male leaders I wanted to change and it works GREAT!

I'll do the females and a test run tomorrow (I just play on Chieftain to weaken the AI and build Marco Polo as fast as possible).

 

[Mercator]

Excellent. And you're welcome.

Can you change the French leaders too without ruining the Greeks (since that seemed to go a bit funny in ResHacker)?

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Oh, absolutely. I did so myself, and it ran perfectly. Appearantly, it's a mistake in the mk.dll for MGE, not ResHacker. The Greek leaderheads DO appear as the French in-game.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

Yep, and I have vanilla Civ and used GifX so the French leaderheads were right anyway.

 

[Catfish]

It's a just shame about the ultra-crap palettes used by many of the images stored in those DLL files.