Modding Q&A

[Vuldacon]

Fortis1... Not all colors on the 1st Four Rows are Civ Specific Colors that change so you could use some of them if needed. Otherwise, yes, you Block out the 1st Four Rows.

If the Unit is Crashing the game, my guess is that the Palette is incorrect. You probably know how to handle all Unit files: Civilopedia Large and Small, Text an Biq Entries therefore it seems to be a Palette issue.
Can you upload one of your Adjusted Flcs such as the default.pcx here... I will take a look at it.

Question... did the Original Unit Crash the Game?
Point me to the Original Unit and That might also help me to understand what is needed for you to accomplish what you want.

 

[CorvusFortis]

Fortis1... Not all colors on the 1st Four Rows are Civ Specific Colors that change so you could use some of them if needed. Otherwise, yes, you Block out the 1st Four Rows.

If the Unit is Crashing the game, my guess is that the Palette is incorrect. You probably know how to handle all Unit files: Civilopedia Large and Small, Text an Biq Entries therefore it seems to be a Palette issue.
Can you upload one of your Adjusted Flcs such as the default.pcx here... I will take a look at it.

Question... did the Original Unit Crash the Game?
Point me to the Original Unit and That might also help me to understand what is needed for you to accomplish what you want.

Vuldacon, thank you very much for the reply and help! I attached the file with .flc, .pcx and both palettes I tried to apply. I am 100% sure, it is the palette issue, because of the specific way the game crush (no messages, the unit box in the right corner appears, but no unit on the battlefield, and the game freezes). This is a conversion of a unit from Dawn of War game, so I tried to make a palette from zero. I did it literally dozens of times, and everything was fine. I am still not familiar with details on how the palette work, so may expect any stupid mistake from my side.

The one really strange thing is that I tried palette from 100% working unit (LMR's Piranha), but my unit still crushed the game with it. I have no ideas what is going wrong and at which point I corrupt the palette.

Once again, thank you for your attention!

 

[Vuldacon]

Fortis1... Nothing wrong with your palette. There was an Error in the Animation Timing that will cause Civ 3 to Crash.
If you do not have Flicster, I recommend you get it.

When you open your Default Flc with Flicster, it will give you the Error... see Image below. Simply click Yes and it is Corrected.

I removed all Civ Colors (Blocked Out with Green) including #59 and 61 that are not Civ Colors because those two colors would replace the Blue Civ Colors on the Back of the Unit... look at your Unit in the North Direction to see those Civ Colors on the back of the Unit. Otherwise I left all Non Civ Specific Colors in the top Four Rows in the New Palette.

The Zip File contains the New Default Flc, New pcx, Storyboard and New Crisis.pal Palette

Simply Load the Crisis.pal Palette using "Nearest Color Matching" to all Unit Storyboards then generate the New Flcs with the Flc Speeds you want.

Edit: I did not have the Large and Small Civilopedia pcx files but those are probably OK.
If you do not want to use the Palette, Storyboard or Default Flc I zipped, use the Palette You Zipped. It is OK, it simply has the Blue Civ Specific Colors on the Palette and that are on the Back of the Unit. Nice Looking Unit

 

[CorvusFortis]

When you open your Default Flc with Flicster, it will give you the Error... see Image below. Simply click Yes and it is Corrected.

Strange, but I don't get any messages when I load the ,flc. It starts normally. What can cause this error? Maybe, I don't use the latest version? I have build 17. When I have either wrong number of frames or resolution, the unit crashes on preview. But all is going fine for some reason. Though, in the file information Animation Time is 0.

And I did everything exactly like before. I create a blank .pcx file along with .FXM, with the exact same number of frames and resolution my animation has. Than I save my storyboard as .pcx file and replace a blank one with it, names matching exactly. Then, I open ,fxm with flicster and save it as .flc. Worked flawlessly for a couple of years.

The Zip File contains the New Default Flc, New pcx, Storyboard and New Crisis.pal Palette

Simply Load the Crisis.pal Palette using "Nearest Color Matching" to all Unit Storyboards then generate the New Flcs with the Flc Speeds you want.

Thank you very much! I was trying to keep the original jet engine's colors and I like the ones you added pretty much! I will credit you when I upload the unit.

Edit: I did not have the Large and Small Civilopedia pcx files but those are probably OK.

Yes, I am yet to make civilopedia. I tend to test if the unit works properly and then proceed to icons. I make icons with GIMP and usually have no problems.

Thank you very much!

EDIT: When I create .fxm, animation time is 0. When I load it with renewed pcx, it is still speed 0 and when I convert to .flc and load it, it is still speed 0. When I load my older conversions, they are speed 1600. Flicster don't give any error messages.

 

[Vuldacon]

Fortis1... Get Flicster Version 1.1.0.18 Product Version 1.01.0018 and that will correct your problems.

You did nothing wrong concerning your procedures... Maybe due to Flicster Version or some temporary Glitch.

Generally To make a New Palette: I am Using Paint Shop Pro 9
1. First change the Storyboards to 16 Million Colors.
2. Flood Fill the Frame Lines with Black , Flood Fill the Backgrounds with the Black 0,0,0,
3. Using the Rectangle Tool copy the entire Smaller Storyboards needed that have different colors (Ctrl+C) and Paste them onto the Default or Largest Storyboard with a Floating Image (Ctrl+Shift+E) so you can place the images without overlapping the other Storyboard images... left click to set and Right click to finish. (Note that you place the Background Color in the Background and Fill Properties Box so it will Not Copy when you Copy and Paste the Storyboards)
4. Remove (Change to Black 0,0,0) all Civ Colors, Background and Shadow Colors so only the Unit Colors Remain.
5. Reduce Colors to 160 Colors.
6.Open the 160 Color Palette (Shift+P) and Take a Screen Shot (Alt+Print Screen), Paste as New Image (Ctrl+V)
7. Save the 160 Color Palette Image as a .bmp for use to copy colors from for the New Palette... Use Pedit or what you prefer.

It will help you to make some Basic Unit Palettes: One that only has the Civ Colors, Smoke and Shadows Shades and One that has the Smoke and Shadow Shades with the Civ Colors Blocked Out (Top four Rows of Colors Changed to Pure Colors that are not used in most Units such as Pure Green, Red, Yellow, etc... These Palettes have all 160 Unit Color Slots empty = Black 0,0,0 so all you do is add the 160 Unit Colors to them when making a New Palette for a Unit.
You can make several Palettes to help you when Making Units such as Unit Palettes with All Smoke and Shadow Shades on them, Unit Palettes with Only Smoke Shades, Only Shadow Shades or Palettes with any changes that you might want to help you with various Types of Units.
Note: Using PSP, you will probably first need to save the Palettes as PSP Palettes then Change the extensions to .pal so they Open in Pedit.

Note that you can analyze the Jet Engine's Colors and add those Colors to the 16 Million Color Default Storyboard using a Large Square Brush size... about size 40. The Size will help keep those colors when you decrease Colors to 160 Colors because when we Reduce Colors the Colors are used based on the % of them compared to all colors needed for an image. IF any desired Colors are not seen when you reduce Colors to 160, go back and add the needed Colored Squares or make the ones you added Larger and reduce again.

Here is a procedure you can use for the Crisis Unit:
Combine the Run with Jet Engine Colors and Default Storyboard when making the Palette, You will need to use the extra Non Civ Specific Colors that are in the top Four Rows of Colors for the Default, you will have an extra 30 colors and this Unit Needs those Colors.
Note: Using the Default Palette I Made, change the 160 Unit Colors to Pure Black 0,0,0 and save that Palette as something like Start Crisis Palette.bmp.
1. First Remove all of the 30 Remaining Colors that are on the Top Four Rows of the Default Storyboard by changing them to Pure Green then change the Default Storyboard to 16 million colors.
2. After analyzing the Colors you want for the Jet Engine Colors (I assume the Run Storyboard), save those few Jet Engine Colors temporarily as a .bmp image so you can add them to the Default Storyboard. (Those Colors can be the Same Civ Specific Colors of the Original if wanted and they will not be Civ Specific because those same colors will Not be in the Top Four Rows of the Civ Specific Colors on your New Palette).
3. Using the Default Storyboard, Flood Fill the Frame Lines with Black 0,0,0, Flood Fill the Background with the Black 0,0,0,
4. Remove (Change to Black 0,0,0) all Background and Shadow Shades so only the Unit Colors Remain. Normally you also Remove any Civ Specific Colors but in this case they are already Removed so change the Green Color to Black 0,0,0.
5. Reduce Colors to 160 Colors.
6.Open the 160 Color Palette (Shift+P) and Take a Screen Shot (Alt+Print Screen), Paste as New Image (Ctrl+V)
7. Save the 160 Color Palette Image (Crisis Colors) as a .bmp for use to copy colors from for the New Palette... Use Pedit or what you prefer.
8. In Pedit, Open your Start Crisis Palette and Fill in the 160 Unit Colors with your Saved Crisis Colors.bmp Image. Save that Palette for your Unit.
9. In PSP, Load Your New Palette to all of the Unit Storyboards (Use Nearest Color Matching). Save those Storyboards.
10. Use Flicster to view the Storyboards and make the Finished Flcs.

Happy Modding

 

[CorvusFortis]

Holy Moly, 18 build fixed the bug and all is working fine. Vuldacon, I cannot express my gratitude enough. I knew, that there was another FLICster build, but since the link in original thread was working and I never had problems with 17, I never bothered to search. Now I found your upload of all FLICster files in the database and it fixed evertyhing. Thank you once again for all your time and effort to help me.

 

[Vuldacon]

Fortis... You are Very Welcome and glad to help a fellow "Modder". That is what many of our members do and it benefits us all such as the Games You make.

Ah Yes... "a picture tells a thousand words"
Tutorials are difficult to wade through because they all require more words to "show" needed details for those who do not know them and even with very detailed explanations of procedures other things can happen or be different that cause more difficulties for the reader.

I remember reading through the Long Tutorials when I became a member here. Quite time consuming but necessary. Most of the Tutorials I have made are Very Long because I tried to convey more details and some differences in with the Basic Tutorial. If everyone already knew the programs used in a Tutorial, the Tutorial could simply state step by step Procedures with no explanation and that would be short and simple to read and accomplish. My advise to people is wade through Tutorials and learn not only what will accomplish the Task but will allow you to do it easier and faster from a real Understanding. Then through extrapolation you can use any Program you prefer and even make different procedures to accomplish the same things.

It is important to know what is needed to get the end results wanted... even when there are additional procedures necessary to get the same end result because something is not exactly the same as was used in a Tutorial.

We have to understand and know how to "trouble shoot" differences because there is no panacea for procedures that will cover All situations for the various Graphics Tasks. Different Graphics Programs are also problematic if we do not know how to extrapolate and apply the Tutorial information to a different Graphics Program. Examples are GIMP, Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop, Paint.net, etc...

Suffice to say that I am sure the members who have made "How To" tutorials wanted to help and hope that their information can be used to accomplish a task.

Once we understand the Programs we use and the Basics of what is needed to perform a task, we can easily accomplish what we want... even with differences.

 

[Predator145]

Do Anti Air Improvements stack? If I were to add a "Flak Tower" with Air Attack 4 on top of the SAM Battery would they increase the chance of shooting air units down? Or would one just kick in if the other has been destroyed by bombing?

If an Improvement is obsolete, does it still stick around in the building queue? If yes, is there away to make it go away?

 

[Nanuk]

Is there a way of limiting what terrain the AI will build roads on? I originally made all worker units wheeled and set terrain I didn't want roads on as impassible for wheeled units, but now I'm trying to figure out how to build *some* improvements on those terrains. The AI has problems using worker units that don't have all worker actions enabled, so have specialist workers is hit and miss for everyone not the player.

Would setting roads (commerce) bonus to 0 do the trick, or does the AI still plop roads on this terrain? I'm trying to avoid having a map covered with roads and railroads. I wish there was a way to limit railroads as well, so you still see some roads and railroads could be more strategic.

 

[Nathiri]

Is there a way of limiting what terrain the AI will build roads on? I originally made all worker units wheeled and set terrain I didn't want roads on as impassible for wheeled units, but now I'm trying to figure out how to build *some* improvements on those terrains. The AI has problems using worker units that don't have all worker actions enabled, so have specialist workers is hit and miss for everyone not the player.

Would setting roads (commerce) bonus to 0 do the trick, or does the AI still plop roads on this terrain? I'm trying to avoid having a map covered with roads and railroads. I wish there was a way to limit railroads as well, so you still see some roads and railroads could be more strategic.

Setting commerce bonus to 0 on the terrain stops roads being built on that terrain. I believe that would stop railroads too since roads are a prereq generally. Same goes for irrigation and mines. Like, you can set tundra as irrigatable if you increase the food bonus. There is a graphic file for tundra irrigation in the game files which goes unused most of the time.

 

[Nanuk]

Setting commerce bonus to 0 on the terrain stops roads being built on that terrain. I believe that would stop railroads too since roads are a prereq generally. Same goes for irrigation and mines. Like, you can set tundra as irrigatable if you increase the food bonus. There is a graphic file for tundra irrigation in the game files which goes unused most of the time.

Thank you. Took a long break from the mod in general, but when I got back into it focused almost entirely on new units instead of the scenario. So I forgot a lot of info since I failed to document it the first time. The first several weeks back was also wasted on frustration after frustration in trying to design the perfect map in a 256x256 confine. Trying to make it so Europe and the Middle East wasn't so tiny to allow more room for civs and cities, but that warped the map and I was never happy with any of the results. So many do-overs. Finally I gave up and imported Yoda's beautiful map, converted all the land to the same tile, and then heavily modified it to fit the scope of my mod. Working great so far. Should've done this before. Part of my frustration with this process actually caused me to give up and take a long hiatus several times. Anyways, now I have to remember mechanics and ways to get the AI around its simplicity.

 

[r16]

landmark terrain should be making a difference . lf you have tiles without that yellow diamond you could set their commerce thing to 1 or 2 , while the regular terrain is 0 ... ı think ...

 

[Civinator]

I used the methode to set the commerce bonus to 0 on landmark terrain to stop building roads and railroads on that terrain many years ago in the map for the WW 2 scenario SOE (Storm over Europe). The reason for doing this, was to create many "microzones" for producing different units by different combinations of resources in small autark trading nets on the map (no air trade allowed). Other reason were to break the infinite railroad movement, even to "slow down" the movement when using roads and the controlled use of Industrial Sprawl graphics. The optics for the broken railroads (that in reality are roads) were a little bit covered by resources on that LM terrain, that are looking like railroads (so these resources cannot fill out the complete terrain tile). The borders of the microzones are marked by using railroad signals that are stopping trains (here I had only found useable graphics of German railroad signals).

Here is a screenshot about one of the biggest microzones of the SOE map, the microzone of Kharkov. The combination of the strategic resources heavy industry, coal and oil storages in that microzone per example allows the construction of T-34 tanks. (LM terrain is shown in the editor by the yellow "diamonds" placed on that tile):

One problem of the methode to use LM terrain is, that damaged units are not healing on that terrain. For my WW 2 map this is great, as it simulates, that on these terrain tiles, units are "out of supply". Unfortunately the AI is not always aware of that fact.

If you want to read more about the SOE map, you can do it here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/storm-over-europe-soe.454785/#post-11287696

 

[Nanuk]

I have considered using landmark terrain in my mod, but I wasn't sure how the AI would handle it without doing lots of testing. I was considering using LM sea for trade routes (or at least, faster movement over large distances since the world map is so big), but I am now considering to keep the Americas split from the rest of the world, and instead use specific resources for each hemisphere. This way if you establish a foothold in the Americas, you can only build American units, and if you are in Europe you can only build units for that region. So if you want homegrown units that may be better quality, you'll have to bring them over, but if you're in a pinch you can recruit locally. However, though each civ will have access to generic units from that region, they'll be of poorer quality than if the Civ native to that region built them. This will create the effect of poor quality local forces for occupations/nation-building, or at least can be roleplayed as the puppet units being less hardcore than the native versions. The plus side is they'll be cheap (no unit support cost required) and quick to recruit (less training time) and will not require population to build.

I'm unsure how the AI will handle this or even if they will be limited by it. I have heard the AI sometimes builds units it isn't supposed to have access to. I suppose my mod won't be ready for a while so I will play around with it in controlled scenarios. Good to know about the healing bug. What happens to LM woodlands when workers chop them down? Does the base terrain turn to default grassland or does it turn to LM grassland?

 

[Civinator]

What happens to LM woodlands when workers chop them down? Does the base terrain turn to default grassland or does it turn to LM grassland?

It turns to default grassland. That´s why in SOE this worker job is disabled to throw the scenario not "out of balance".

 

[Captain_Jack]

Gentlemen, I am making a game for a future Game of the Month competition and am trying to create a unique unit for the Spanish. I think I have it working properly, but there are some things in the editor that I don't understand and I cannot make the Help feature come alive on my computer so I don't know how to find out the answers. Maybe one of you know or can help me out.
I intend the unit to be a Caravel with upgraded offensive abilities available only to the Spanish. I used the Man-O-War as a template and changed availability to Spain only. I added transport capability but left the original Man-O-War icon and Civiliopedia entry intact. I clicked the Unload flag, but only because it was clicked on the Galleon and other transport units. A photo of the screen is below. Does anyone see any problem with this?
(The game is a Deity level and I can't survive long enough in trial games to use the unit effectively. It does work well in a trial game set at Warload level just to see if there were issues.)
Thanks for your help!

 

[Civinator]

Captain_Jack, if clicking directly on the Civ3ConquestsEdit icon in the C3C mainfolder, the help function is working outside the C3C editor (at least on my pc).

Here you can see the prerequisites of following naval strategies:

As your new unit has a transport capacity of 3, the unload action is needed for the use of the AI naval transport strategy, if the transport of 3 units is intended. If the naval transport strategy is intended for AI civs, the naval transport strategy in the editor must be activated, too (what it isn´t yet).

With a doubled AI strategy for this unit, it is the question, if this will be used correctly by the AI. As far as I know, none of the C3C naval units has both naval strategies enabled.

 

[Captain_Jack]

Thanks for your help. It's tricky.

 

[tjs282]

I'm not sure what your question is?

But if you also intended the unit to be capable of offensive bombardment (as indicated by your having given it a Range>0), then you'll need to check that "Special Action" flag as well.

Edited to remove now-irrelevant suggestion

 

[Laurana Kanan]

Moderator Action: Four posts moved to Modding Q&A.