Modding Q&A

[ajb]

Thanks!

The more I think about it, I think I can limit this to AI, so human players won't see these restricted "eras" anyway.

 

[Android Assembly]

I'm looking at an old biq file - file explorer says it's about 38 kb.

When I open it in Quintillus's editor, save and close while making no changes, the size increases to 256kb.

I'm wondering if someone more technically skilled than me could explain why this happens.

 

[Civinator]

May be you have the bic (!) compression disabled ?

 

[ajb]

Does anyone know where the image for these buttons is located? As it is altered from the regular game I know it exists somewhere in the scenario folder but where????

I thought it might have been "buttonsFINAL.pcx" in the "Art" folder of my scenario, but nope, it's not that one. I've looked extensively in the "Art/Interface" folder too and nope not there. It is somewhere. . . button (especially one on the map) looks terrible, I need to polish, please help!

 

[Arexander]

That would be "consoleButtons.pcx" in Art/Interface

 

[ajb]

That would be "consoleButtons.pcx" in Art/Interface

Yep, that was is.

Makes sense for the buttons on the left side of the screen (15x15), but on the right side of the screen it's (13x13). . . .so the game shrinks the image a bit. I've done a bunch of visual edits to the game and don't think I've ever seen that, must have been an oversight by the game developers (they have "buttonsFINAL" which I'm not sure does anything, but it does have both the 15x15 and the 13x13 buttons in it.


Your help was much appreciated, thanks!

 

[WildWeazel]

Hello, first time in here! Does anyone know definitively if and how the Speed field in the unit INI is used or interacts with the speed in the FLC header? I saw some earlier posts where @Vuldacon was discussing FLC speeds but didn't quite answer this. We are trying to replicate animation behavior in C7 and dealing with some anomalies with certain units that are moving at very different speeds from Civ3.

 

[Vuldacon]

Does anyone know definitively if and how the Speed field in the unit INI is used or interacts with the speed in the FLC header?

WildWeazel... I am looking foreword to the answer as well.
The speeds other than the Normal settings used for Civ Units can be altered to have Units move at a different speeds but then the sounds also have to be altered to accommodate the end result... And That is all a trial and error Chore indeed!
You can take a look at the slower Units in EFZI2 Elite and see that those .ini Speed settings were adjusted for slower movement across the screen but I never found any definitive answer as to exactly how the settings should be adjusted other than lower numbers are slower.
There is also an interaction between the Normal and Fast Speed that makes a difference. Again Trial and Error Chore.

 

[ajb]

Does the reduce War weariness effect stack?

If I had several buildings which had "reduces War weariness" would that be stacked with each other? Would it stack with the wonder "reduces war weariness" trait too?

Thanks!

 

[Civinator]

War weariness in C3C works cummulative. In CCM there was a time when I had to reduce the number of buildings and wonders with these settings as they caused too much distortions to governments that should have a high WW.

 

[ajb]

Excellent, appreciate the feedback Civinator.

Thoughts on 1-2 improvements which reduce WW + one wonder which reduces WW for every city?

The structure would be such that only the largest cities would have access to the 2nd improvement to reduce WW. In my scenario, there are a lot of buildings which reduce hippieness, also luxuries never increase in value, so if you have one luxury or 10 luxuries, each is only worth one hippieness (rather then the typical, 1, 2, 3, 4).

Thanks again!

 

[tjs282]

Should be noted that the Wonder-effect "Reduces WW" is pretty much negligible: that's why there's usually no point dumping shields into Universal Suffrage in the unmodded game (unless maybe going for a 20K win).

For your anti-WW wonder, you'd probably be better off having it give a free anti-WW building in each town -- either (one of) your planned generic anti-WW building(s), or maybe an extra building that only the Wonder can provide.

If you're using the QuintEditor, you can also give the free-building effect to an SW(s) -- maybe ones which can only be built under the WW-suffering Gov(s).

 

[Android Assembly]

If you're using the QuintEditor, you can also give the free-building effect to an SW(s) -- maybe ones which can only be built under the WW-suffering Gov(s).

Only if you have Flintlock's EXE mod, because it patches that feature to work correctly for SWs.

 

[ajb]

Perfect, so one Wonder WW and 2 WW building improvements will help but not completely remove WW. All I wanted basically -- just reduction so the AI can still fight, but not complete elimination of WW.

Many thanks!

 

[ajb]

I have a number of special buildings which auto-generate units. The AI rarely builds these and after they do, they seem to be the first buildings destroyed when the economy goes down.

The buildings have maintenance as I want them to be expensive to utilize -- question is how to I ensure they are attractive enough so the AI will keep them and not disband (as they can't be small wonders)?

 

[Nathiri]

I have a number of special buildings which auto-generate units. The AI rarely builds these and after they do, they seem to be the first buildings destroyed when the economy goes down.

The buildings have maintenance as I want them to be expensive to utilize -- question is how to I ensure they are attractive enough so the AI will keep them and not disband (as they can't be small wonders)?

In default civ3, you can use flavors to increase the chance as well as add other benefits like culture or happiness. There are certain flags which the AI find more attractive. With C3X, there is also perfume which further increase the likelihood of the AI building them.

 

[Theov]

I have a number of special buildings which auto-generate units. The AI rarely builds these and after they do, they seem to be the first buildings destroyed when the economy goes down.

The buildings have maintenance as I want them to be expensive to utilize -- question is how to I ensure they are attractive enough so the AI will keep them and not disband (as they can't be small wonders)?

• let the buildings generate a small amount of culture - then the AI will love it more.
• Do the units require upkeep? That may lead to the AI going bankrupt.

 

[robotlincoln]

Hi, I'm trying to create a set of techs that are civ-specific at the beginning of the game that allow access to specific bonus resources (wheat, rice, cattle, pigs, maize, etc.). I'd like them to be tradeable, so that these bonus resources gradually spread across the map, simulating the diffusion of cultivated plants and animals across the globe.

I've tried making these techs no-era and not required for era advancement, but the no-era flag makes it impossible to trade them. Any suggestions?

 

[ajb]

Thanks for the responses Theov, Nathiri -- Culture and happiness -- will look into that. Issue is the improvement gets built often enough, but they seem to destroy it not long after. Scouting their special cities I see them in the production que (1-3 turns to build) then 20 turns later I scout the same city and they are building it again, leading me to think they delete it. Perhaps I need to give the AI some bonus income somehow.

 

[ajb]

Hi, I'm trying to create a set of techs that are civ-specific at the beginning of the game that allow access to specific bonus resources (wheat, rice, cattle, pigs, maize, etc.). I'd like them to be tradeable, so that these bonus resources gradually spread across the map, simulating the diffusion of cultivated plants and animals across the globe.

I've tried making these techs no-era and not required for era advancement, but the no-era flag makes it impossible to trade them. Any suggestions?

I had something I was thinking of a while back, might be of some use for you.

Have a resource on the map "fertile land" or something like that, then give the various nations or culture groups (whoever you want to eventually be able to produce a particular resource) a unique tech -- ensure the tech is set to no era and preset the techs in the beginning of the scenario for those factions.

Have that tech be required + some other tech or whatever makes sense for you to to be able to build some building, have the building thanks to the EXE mod build the resource you want. Have the resource you want be tradable, have all other factions that aren't the faction that has the the tech have a building that is made obsolete by that original tech, have them build something else. . . .

Example to better illustrate:

Resource "fertile ground" is scattered randomly through the map.

Rome has unique no era tech "ROMAN Wine"
ROMAN wine tech + access to fertile ground (either in the trade network or locally whatever you decide) allows you to build a vineyard.
EXE mod is customized such that the improvement "vineyard" produces the resource "wine".
Trade "wine" with other factions.
Other factions have an improvement "Winery" which requires the resource "wine"
EXE mod is customized such that the improvement "Winery" also produces the resource "wine".
The improvement "Winery" is obsolete by the tech "ROMAN Wine" thus, only non romans produce it.
Now "wine" initially exists only with Rome, but over time everyone would produce resource "wine" once someone trades it with them.

Make whatever modifications to this chain you want, but this would spread everything. Perhaps it might make sense to have "animal husbandry" or something like that have Mongols and some other steppe peoples have access to "grazing pastures" and then have them slowly share horses with people through stables or something similar.