46thCharlemagne
Chieftain
I played Civ 3 when it first came out, for several years and did a lot of personalized modding. Now, many years later, with my main PC out of action (dead), I'm back to Civ 3 on my dumpy laptop. Using a Steam copy I bought, Windows 8.1.
My first question is about the screen resolution problem for the editor. When you open the "Edit Rules" window the bottom of the window is cut off, and no matter what resolution I set the screen to, it is still cut off. You cannot click and drag the window further up beyond where it already is, obviously cannot resize it, and I do not have a second, CRT-type monitor to switch to. Unfortunately with the modding I'm trying to do (for units especially) I MUST be able to access the small "Unit Abilities" scroll window near the bottom (and it'd be nice to have access to all the other editing tools near the bottom of the many tab screens).
Amusingly, last night I figured out enough workarounds so that I have almost full capability with that scroll window. The first key was in figuring out what all of those unit abilities are, the exact name used for each and the order in which they are listed (which has changed between the versions of civ 3 and patches; looking online for the list of those abilities I found only ancient initial lists, not what Civ 3 Gold shows). I actually somehow recalled last night, from 13 years ago, that the last two traits on the list are Lethal Sea Bombardment and Lethal Land Bombardment. Why I must know what they all are, in the order listed, is so I can select what's off the edge of my screen, like feeling for your shoes and socks in the dark, you know what it is you're manipulating even though you cannot see it. This ties in with selecting abilities by pressing the key for the first letter in the ability's name.
Also I just found that I could click into that scroll window, unclick whatever I just selected, so that now when I roll my mouse wheel the unit abilities list is what is scrolled through, instead of the units available. By scrolling down as far as possible, then left-click & hold, dragging the window up off the top of the screen as far as possible to at least momentarily see more of the damn window on the bottom, I was able to see all the abilities, in order, except those last two about bombardment.
Combined with these key aspects above, I know that when you type the first letter of a unit ability, e.g. to get to "Rotate Before Attack" you just press R a few times until it selects that ability from the list.
All of THAT above, plus using Ctrl+left-click and Shift+left-click, I am able to finally do all the ability selections needed to duplicate certain units such as Battleship, and then alter it a little as a UU alongside the generic version which all other civs will use, using the same icons, animations and so on. I refuse to accept having a unique battleship for Germany that moves into the enemy's tile before attacking and fires perpendicular to the target's direction, haha!
Whew! Didn't mean to blather but for the past two weeks that is what I've been dealing with while trying to make my mod how I want it. I'm a bit proud to have come up with all the workarounds and tricks necessary to be able to fully access that freakin' abilities field! I was settled on just stealing a bunch of UU's from other civs and modding them for my civ, but very disappointed I had to do that.
OKAY, greenhorn, what's your main question???!!!
Just tried to start my mod and on turn #2 it says the game is over, asking if I want to keep playing.
I have set victory conditions to conquest only.
It doesn't matter if I build my first city right where I start or tell the settler to skip that turn.
No Regicide, no Elimination. Might be relevant but I deleted all those annoying King units clogging up the units list in the editor, along with the entries in the PediaIcons folder. I don't see how this would matter since I have not selected Elimination of Regicide or Mass Regicide.
Any help on this problem would be appreciated, as well as if anyone knows of a solution to the screen rez problem.
Thank you, fellow fanatics.
My first question is about the screen resolution problem for the editor. When you open the "Edit Rules" window the bottom of the window is cut off, and no matter what resolution I set the screen to, it is still cut off. You cannot click and drag the window further up beyond where it already is, obviously cannot resize it, and I do not have a second, CRT-type monitor to switch to. Unfortunately with the modding I'm trying to do (for units especially) I MUST be able to access the small "Unit Abilities" scroll window near the bottom (and it'd be nice to have access to all the other editing tools near the bottom of the many tab screens).
Amusingly, last night I figured out enough workarounds so that I have almost full capability with that scroll window. The first key was in figuring out what all of those unit abilities are, the exact name used for each and the order in which they are listed (which has changed between the versions of civ 3 and patches; looking online for the list of those abilities I found only ancient initial lists, not what Civ 3 Gold shows). I actually somehow recalled last night, from 13 years ago, that the last two traits on the list are Lethal Sea Bombardment and Lethal Land Bombardment. Why I must know what they all are, in the order listed, is so I can select what's off the edge of my screen, like feeling for your shoes and socks in the dark, you know what it is you're manipulating even though you cannot see it. This ties in with selecting abilities by pressing the key for the first letter in the ability's name.
Also I just found that I could click into that scroll window, unclick whatever I just selected, so that now when I roll my mouse wheel the unit abilities list is what is scrolled through, instead of the units available. By scrolling down as far as possible, then left-click & hold, dragging the window up off the top of the screen as far as possible to at least momentarily see more of the damn window on the bottom, I was able to see all the abilities, in order, except those last two about bombardment.
Combined with these key aspects above, I know that when you type the first letter of a unit ability, e.g. to get to "Rotate Before Attack" you just press R a few times until it selects that ability from the list.
All of THAT above, plus using Ctrl+left-click and Shift+left-click, I am able to finally do all the ability selections needed to duplicate certain units such as Battleship, and then alter it a little as a UU alongside the generic version which all other civs will use, using the same icons, animations and so on. I refuse to accept having a unique battleship for Germany that moves into the enemy's tile before attacking and fires perpendicular to the target's direction, haha!
Whew! Didn't mean to blather but for the past two weeks that is what I've been dealing with while trying to make my mod how I want it. I'm a bit proud to have come up with all the workarounds and tricks necessary to be able to fully access that freakin' abilities field! I was settled on just stealing a bunch of UU's from other civs and modding them for my civ, but very disappointed I had to do that.
OKAY, greenhorn, what's your main question???!!!
Just tried to start my mod and on turn #2 it says the game is over, asking if I want to keep playing.
I have set victory conditions to conquest only.
It doesn't matter if I build my first city right where I start or tell the settler to skip that turn.
No Regicide, no Elimination. Might be relevant but I deleted all those annoying King units clogging up the units list in the editor, along with the entries in the PediaIcons folder. I don't see how this would matter since I have not selected Elimination of Regicide or Mass Regicide.
Any help on this problem would be appreciated, as well as if anyone knows of a solution to the screen rez problem.
Thank you, fellow fanatics.
