Modding Q&A

I was wondering if there was any way to 'turn off' culture in a scenario?
What I want is that every town has a culture as their BFC (so they can work tiles) and that's it.
Is that possible?
 
I was wondering if there was any way to 'turn off' culture in a scenario?
What I want is that every town has a culture as their BFC (so they can work tiles) and that's it.
Is that possible?
Yes, but only in a scenario with pre-placed towns. Check out the Rise of Rome conquest's .biq as an example.

You'd need to set each pre-placed town's Cultural value under the "Tile Properties: City" tab (Culture >10 gets you a full BFC, >100 gets you a 3-tile radius), and check the Scenario Property box "Retain Culture on Capture" so that borders don't collapse if/when towns change hands. If you don't want the borders expanding further, you'd also need to remove the Culture-points from all buildings. And to reduce AI confusion, turn off the city-governor option 'Build Culture' for all tribes.

For an epic-type game where you build new towns I don't think it's possible to give each town a set Cultural value on founding (not with the Firaxis Editor, anyway).

You could maybe fudge it by things like Culture-producing buildings which go obsolete within a certain deadline after they become buildable, and/or tribe-specific Wonders that place a Cultural building in each town (but that will also go obsolete, so that towns stop amassing Culture when the Wonder-provided building disappears), or by using the Sacrifice mechanic, but all of those methods are much more unpredictable.
 
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That's what I was afraid of.
Yeah, I've been thinking of buildings ... or just culture expansion in general but I don't see many options in the editor.

I want to make it a game mode. Like a civ1 clone, but in civ3.
Civ1 doesn't have culture, but worked tiles / BFC are out of bounds for other units.

Or I make a Civ1 with culture. Hm.
 
That's what I was afraid of.
Yeah, I've been thinking of buildings ... or just culture expansion in general but I don't see many options in the editor.

I want to make it a game mode. Like a civ1 clone, but in civ3.
Civ1 doesn't have culture, but worked tiles / BFC are out of bounds for other units.

Or I make a Civ1 with culture. Hm.

Yeah you'd have to have negative culture buildings if in an epic mod. So after building culture, you'd then lose it gradually but maintain the border expand? Only way it would work if your city required different tiers of buildings as it grows. The upper tiers would reduce culture but it would be necessary to make the city build the upper tiers in order to progress in the game. It wouldnt be a complete restriction on culture with any method I think though.
 
Has anyone ran into a size limit for the Units32.pcx file? The template I'm using is 463x7927 pixels in size, but I feel like I'm gonna go over 10,000 vertically by the time I'm done.
I've never added that many units, but Civ tends to have limits that are powers of 2.
I was wondering if there was any way to 'turn off' culture in a scenario?
What I want is that every town has a culture as their BFC (so they can work tiles) and that's it.
Is that possible?
You don't need culture to work tiles. You can just remove culture from all improvements and wonders.
 
How to make a location more appealing for AI to attack? I mean, in my scenario AI faction simply refuses to a certaion city group. It has exactly the same units/resources/buildings as other similar groups, but utterly ignored. Anything I can do to fix that?
 
Thank you for the reply!

I have only two resource types in the mod, unfortunately, and AI has one of them from the start, The second is already in the city. Does the quantity matter here? Will it be attracted by more of the same resource? Or maybe create some kind of ghost resourse which only AI has access to?

I could lower defences further, but I am afraid, that the cities will be overrun to easy. They already have just single defensive unit per city.
 
Thank you for the reply!

I have only two resource types in the mod, unfortunately, and AI has one of them from the start, The second is already in the city. Does the quantity matter here? Will it be attracted by more of the same resource? Or maybe create some kind of ghost resourse which only AI has access to?

I could lower defences further, but I am afraid, that the cities will be overrun to easy. They already have just single defensive unit per city.

They like to pillage either way. Do you have an AI only faction?
 
Yes, it is AI only.

I decreased defences and they seem to be interested in a location a bit more now. I will try experimenting with it.

I also disabled pillage for most of the units, because roads are very important.

EDIT: Found an interesting solution. I made a copy of my defensive unit and made it invisible and put in the location I want to be attacked. But now AI is TOO dedicate to take over it and kills weaker units in attempts to take over it.
 
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Is it possible to add more eras to tech tree ?
No, the amount of eras is hard-coded. But you can crowd more techs in and edit the background images to fit.
You can also have tech trees specific to one faction or group of factions.
How to make a location more appealing for AI to attack? I mean, in my scenario AI faction simply refuses to a certain city group. It has exactly the same units/resources/buildings as other similar groups, but utterly ignored. Anything I can do to fix that?
Give the target location phantom resources that require an unobtainable tech and, preferably, those resources could allow that AI to build something that also requires an unobtainable tech. The AI can ‘see’ any resources that are already placed (hence why in the epic game they just happen to have taken all the oil on your continent) so it will try to attack the place to secure the resources because it cannot reason that it will never get them.
 
^For an example of faction-specific techs, imagine Escape from Zombie Island but with four eras instead of one.
 
No, the amount of eras is hard-coded. But you can crowd more techs in and edit the background images to fit.
You can also have tech trees specific to one faction or group of factions.

Give the target location phantom resources that require an unobtainable tech and, preferably, those resources could allow that AI to build something that also requires an unobtainable tech. The AI can ‘see’ any resources that are already placed (hence why in the epic game they just happen to have taken all the oil on your continent) so it will try to attack the place to secure the resources because it cannot reason that it will never get them.

Thank you, Takhisis! I managed to direct AI where I need with combination of weaker defensive units and invisible units. But I will try phantom resources next time. I happen to have a block tech in my scenario, which AI don't have enough time to research before the game ends. I will assign some kind of phantom resource to it and make it a requirement for some kind of super-unit or building. Should work.
 
Do you know how to open .flc files using Flicster or similar software, Fortis1?
 
Not directly. You export the .flc animation file to a separate image that looks like a storyboard, edit the palette, then compiled the file with the new palette back into an .flc with a different colour scheme.
 
Open the Unit Storyboard in your Graphics Program...You edit the Unit Palette with the Program.
If I understand what that you only want to eliminate the Civ Colors, You change the Civ Colors to another Color such as Green, Red, Yellow, etc... then save the Palette. Then Load that New Palette to your Unit using Nearest Color Matching.

The New Palette will not have Civ Colors so it will apply the Nearest Color to the Civ Colored areas of the Unit.

There are of course other things you can do such as Color the Civ Colored areas first as you want them then make a new Palette and save then load that to your Unit... Depends on what all is needed to accomplish what you are wanting.
 
Not directly. You export the .flc animation file to a separate image that looks like a storyboard, edit the palette, then compiled the file with the new palette back into an .flc with a different colour scheme.

Well, that's not the problem. I know, how to edit it, I just want, well... civ-colored areas become not civ-colored without changing the color.

If I understand what that you only want to eliminate the Civ Colors, You change the Civ Colors to another Color such as Green, Red, Yellow, etc... then save the Palette. Then Load that New Palette to your Unit using Nearest Color Matching.

Yes, that's what I want to do. Do I need to replace 4 first raws with non-used color? I tried filling them with red (255, 0, 0 which is not used in the unit), but the unit still crashed upon spawning.

EDIT: Hmm, found out, that it crashes with civ-colored palette too. Will try with another unit.

EDIT2: I am completely at a loss now. No matter which palette I apply, the unit keeps crushing. Never had such problems before.

EDIT3: I fresh-installed PSP5, which I use to apply palette. Could it be, that I forgot some settings, and now fresh install messes up the palette? I make palettes with PEdit, than load them with PSP5.
 
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