MapView 2.0 - Civilization 4 Editor

[Gr3yHound]

Is there a guide somewhere to making a map from scratch using mapview? Took me a bit of fiddling with the save in notepad to get it to actually run.

There isn't really guide, i just don't have the chance to try this on my ownatm Unbelievable ;D

Could you please describe what you needed to fix to get the map loading? It's definately not planned to have ppl fix the wbs by themselves after they saved it in MapView. I know about some important missing things, espcially the TeamId value for any kind of wbs files but the default civ4 file. But i guess i'm missing some "NONE" values aswell. I just don't have the time to go through the py file that does the saving those days.

Also, mapview seems to hitch a lot and drop update when laying tiles or moving / zooming. I usually have to click on the default tab and back to the map tab to try and fix it. Is there a solution to it? Is it due to using Vista64?

Hmm, i have it perfectly fluid and 100x100 maps usually run with 500-800fps in full view. I noticed some hitches sometimes but that's really rare and is often connected to the use of the selector tool. Clicking on tiles with units or cites might also cause spikes since the inspectors are rebuilt under some circumstances.

 

[kevinman4404]

Greyhound, I edited my maps (one with all sorts of strange resources and one without any) and both get a Read Error when I select the scenario/map in-game. Do you know what might be causing this? Could it be the civs?

I doubt this means anything but I opened the map, then selected the mod, then edited and saved. Could this have messed up the civs, or something?

EDIT: oh yeah, I saved it as vanilla, because i've been staying in that format for a while
EDIT: it seems it did mess up the civs, however I fixed them by copy pasting the first part of the notepad file from an older version of my map. I still get the error, so it must be a different problem

Thanks
Kevin

 

[Gr3yHound]

Greyhound, I edited my maps (one with all sorts of strange resources and one without any) and both get a Read Error when I select the scenario/map in-game. Do you know what might be causing this? Could it be the civs?

I doubt this means anything but I opened the map, then selected the mod, then edited and saved. Could this have messed up the civs, or something?

EDIT: oh yeah, I saved it as vanilla, because i've been staying in that format for a while
EDIT: it seems it did mess up the civs, however I fixed them by copy pasting the first part of the notepad file from an older version of my map. I still get the error, so it must be a different problem

Thanks
Kevin

I just reworked on the parsing / saving part and noticed some problems. I didn't include the necessary TeamId for bts/wl/colonization etc. yet but i got rid of some problems. I'll upload an updated version within the next few hours.

If you save a wbs with civ, load and resave with mapview under a different name you can use programs like http://winmerge.org/ to find differences easily. That way you can work out errors much faster until i get the saving 100% correct.

Greetings

Also: I'll probably include a first version of the teamreveal plugin and a new version of the editor this evening. Added a selection tool that will allow you to select whole landmasses with 1 click.

 

[Gr3yHound]

Bump for 2.0.5

Reworked on parsing/saving. Most of warlords/bts values are now understood.

Saving with any other extension then Civ4WorldBuilderSave will invoke the file beeing saved with all bts values.

Also included the TeamReveal Plugin. I hope you like it. I really needed to finish this since i don't have time for a whole week now. Thought i rather release it as it is then letting you wait another week.

 

[Gr3yHound]

By the way: Most of the features available for the TeamReveal plugin is available in the context menu that will pop up when you right click on the team-selection drop-down.

 

[Gr3yHound]

2.0.6

- Added update check for the application and all installed plugins at program start
- Fixed button description text at the box selector button.
- changed some other little things not worth to mention.
- added warlord specific saving procedure

 

[CarnivalBizarre]

Great util, a few suggestion though...

Mapview could not start because of missing zlib dll at first but reading here i found it, perhaps that should be included? Others might not bother if it doesn't start...

Scrollwheel zoom should be speeded up at least 5 times, maybe configurable, it's way too slow now.
And holding down your mousewheel and moving should pan the map, keep the space thingy if you like but the intuitive way to move about is holding the scrollwheel and moving...

 

[Gr3yHound]

Mapview could not start because of missing zlib dll at first but reading here i found it, perhaps that should be included? Others might not bother if it doesn't start...

Oh, somehow i didn't include it. Reuploaded the current release with the dll.

Scrollwheel zoom should be speeded up at least 5 times, maybe configurable, it's way too slow now.
And holding down your mousewheel and moving should pan the map, keep the space thingy if you like but the intuitive way to move about is holding the scrollwheel and moving...

Noted, i'll include your ideas in the next release.

 

[MacGyverInSpace]

Plug in request/suggestion: A tool to replace all of one unit type with another
A tool to replace a civ with another...

I'd like this to make converting maps from one mod or scenario to another a lot easier.

 

[Gr3yHound]

Plug in request/suggestion: A tool to replace all of one unit type with another
A tool to replace a civ with another...

I'd like this to make converting maps from one mod or scenario to another a lot easier.

The replacements sounds usefull. I think i can do that.

What would the civ replacing do? I mean you can change civilizations when you change the mod to a mod that contains the civilization you want.

 

[Faille]

There isn't really guide, i just don't have the chance to try this on my ownatm Unbelievable ;D

Could you please describe what you needed to fix to get the map loading? It's definately not planned to have ppl fix the wbs by themselves after they saved it in MapView. I know about some important missing things, espcially the TeamId value for any kind of wbs files but the default civ4 file. But i guess i'm missing some "NONE" values aswell. I just don't have the time to go through the py file that does the saving those days.



Hmm, i have it perfectly fluid and 100x100 maps usually run with 500-800fps in full view. I noticed some hitches sometimes but that's really rare and is often connected to the use of the selector tool. Clicking on tiles with units or cites might also cause spikes since the inspectors are rebuilt under some circumstances.

I know longer have the issue with the lag with the latest version. Not sure if you changed something or if it was on my end, but thanks!

 

[Faille]

few minor things.

When I create new map, the window dialog has the ok cutoff the buttom and I need to resize it to select it. Also would it be possible to have some default standard sizes we can click on?

When I open a file the default filter is the vanilla game save format. Any chance you could make this all valid civ4 map types?


thanks!

 

[Spartan117]

Wow this seems great. However I was wondering if I can cut portions of a map. Example.. if I have a file of europe and wanted to expand the map by 30 tiles horizontally. Would I be able to do something like that with this utility. I read around but didnt notice anything mentioning what I am referring to. Thanks.

 

[Skitters]

Please forgive my ignorance, but after downloading the file is there a preferable place to extract the files too?

Does it need to be extracted within the (default) Firaxis/Civ 4 folder for example, or should I just create a new folder totally seperate from that?

Apologies for the probably very noob-like question!

 

[Gr3yHound]

few minor things.

When I create new map, the window dialog has the ok cutoff the buttom and I need to resize it to select it. Also would it be possible to have some default standard sizes we can click on?

When I open a file the default filter is the vanilla game save format. Any chance you could make this all valid civ4 map types?
thanks!

I'll try to work those 2 things out soon ;D

Wow this seems great. However I was wondering if I can cut portions of a map. Example.. if I have a file of europe and wanted to expand the map by 30 tiles horizontally. Would I be able to do something like that with this utility. I read around but didnt notice anything mentioning what I am referring to. Thanks.

resizing will come soon

Please forgive my ignorance, but after downloading the file is there a preferable place to extract the files too?

Does it need to be extracted within the (default) Firaxis/Civ 4 folder for example, or should I just create a new folder totally seperate from that?

Apologies for the probably very noob-like question!

doesn't matter, just extract the files somewhere ;D

 

[Zen Blade]

Gr3yhound,

I just ran across this editor... and a few questions. I acknowledge that I have not read the entire thread, but I did read about half of the thread.

1. FAQ... is there an FAQ file included in the download? I didn't see one. Although I did read your first post FAQ. I would recommend including one within the mapview folder, or at lead a readme file.

2. Copy/cut/paste.... I just tried to use this function, and it seems to work.
So, am I correct to think that the landmass of one file could be pasted into another file, without difficulties?

3. Layers... If I have a base map of X by Y, and I paste in a layer that is X+10, Y+20, when I merge the two layers together, I still have a base and a layer (separate). Will the extra height/width of the layer be cut off?

4. Mod files... So, when I opened the WBS file, certain units and certain lines of the WBS were not recognized... "unknown or unexpected" Is this a problem, or will these units reappear in the game? Either way is fine, I just want to know at what stage does using your program comes in...

5. Using a WBS file that supports more than 18 players... Has anyone tried this with your program, should it work?

thanks,
I look forward to taking a crack at this thing later,

-Zen Blade

 

[Gr3yHound]

1. FAQ... is there an FAQ file included in the download? I didn't see one. Although I did read your first post FAQ. I would recommend including one within the mapview folder, or at lead a readme file.

That's probably a good idea, i think i'll include the FAQ from now on.

2. Copy/cut/paste.... I just tried to use this function, and it seems to work.
So, am I correct to think that the landmass of one file could be pasted into another file, without difficulties?

Yes, should work w/o any difficulties.

3. Layers... If I have a base map of X by Y, and I paste in a layer that is X+10, Y+20, when I merge the two layers together, I still have a base and a layer (separate). Will the extra height/width of the layer be cut off?

Yes, the base layer is still defining the boundaries.

4. Mod files... So, when I opened the WBS file, certain units and certain lines of the WBS were not recognized... "unknown or unexpected" Is this a problem, or will these units reappear in the game? Either way is fine, I just want to know at what stage does using your program comes in...

Please post the wbs in question. MapView does not restrict maps to certain units. It just restricts the format of the *.wbs. If you get an unknown or unexpected line message this means
a) the keyword is not understood.
b) the keyword appears at an unexpected place.

Usually units should somehow look like.
BeginPlot
....
BeginUnit
....
EndUnit
EndPlot

It's not expected to find BeginUnit between BeginCity or EndCity or such.

5. Using a WBS file that supports more than 18 players... Has anyone tried this with your program, should it work?

You can feed mapview with *.wbs files that include 48 teams/players. But when you create a new map only 18 players/teams will be generated. You can add more by hand and it will still work with mapview.

 

[kevinman4404]

I have been having problems with Civ4 (I can't even open it anymore... not even once... after reinstallation too)

Anyways I was reinstalling everything civ4 so I moved my mod over to my desktop, reinstalled the game, and then put it back in the BTS mods folder. However, this time around, Mapview isn't recognizing that it's in there.

Is there something I must configure/how could I fix it?

ps. I will release all my graphics when I'm done (though admittedly I'm way too lazy to do any GUI, I just want my maps to look pretty) a lot of mods use a few of the extra bonuses i use

Kevin

 

[kevinman4404]

OMG this is so silly...

Anyways I figured it out as Mapview was loading, I saw the directory was off. It was guessing My Docs/application data/civ 4.

For some BIZARRE reason civ 4 installations no longer ask me where to install (WHY?) and then install it to that application data folder. So I had to install, move, patch and install warlords, move warlords and the patch, patch and install BTS, move BTS and the patch, then install the BTS patch, and move the patch. Then even Mapview thinks the directory should be in the application data folder. It is most strange.

But anyways my civ4 is obviously totally messed up... at least I can continue on my map

 

[Faille]

Turns out I still have the lagging issue that I need to switch to default tab and back to my map to clear up. Things just stop responding and stop redrawing as I add more features, but I can still click them down, and after switching to default and back, the changes will appear.

Also got this error
20:07:25: Unknow or unexpected line(224): RandomizeResources=true

I manually added that option and it just adds random resources to the map. Not sure if its specific to bts or not though.

Some features would like to see. Open recent files list. just handy to have but not urgent. Likewise a test map function would be nice, just a click to automatically load civ4, the applicable expansion or mod, and then load the map.