Modding Q&A
- Thread starter Oni Ryuu
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- May 5, 2005
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And to add to Vuldacon´s answer: Vuldacon made some very nice additional buttons like the garrison button that you can find here, replacing the "build radar tower" button with a garrison for scenarios with an ancient theme:
register... I have not noticed New Buttons uploaded, however there are different Buttons that have been made for different games.
I have several different Buttons I made for EFZI2 Elite for example.
You can make your own if you understand how.
I have several different Buttons I made for EFZI2 Elite for example.
You can make your own if you understand how.
I really like your garrison button it's exactly what I needed. I’m using it to cover three icons used for special artillery units stationed in forts, and it seems like a perfect fit.
However, I’m anticipating that an issue might come up. When I replace these icons, the change will affects all artillery units that use the bombard ability, not just the specific ones I intended. Is there any way to separate or assign different icons to different types of bombard capable units? Also, where are those located? I’ve checked all the text documents under Buttons and NormButtons, but nothing shows up.
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The plan would be for each faction group to have their own specialists. I know from the star trek mod, ~20ish or so seemed to be successfully be used by the various factions. . . I'll have to do some more testing it seems.
Will report back with my findings.
Will report back with my findings.
Specialists:
Ok, so I figured out how specialists work, such that we can now have a maximum of 44 (42 verified).
Key details:
Details:
Ok, so I figured out how specialists work, such that we can now have a maximum of 44 (42 verified).
Key details:
Will NOT work for the standard game going through the 4 tech periods (eras).
- You know thinking about it this might actually work in the standard game. . . assuming the pattern for era 4 holds for the other eras.
- Might work, for scenarios with factions limited to certain eras for the purposes of increasing total cultures.
- For the specialist columns Far left columns (1 and 6) is the first era, Far right columns (4 and 9) is the 4th era. Haven't tried this, but it might work.
- WILL WORK for scenarios where everyone starts in the same era and stays there (like my Star Wars Mod, all factions have access to all 4 eras from the start).
- MUST have at least one specialist producing +1 Luxury for each faction, or else all speciates after that won't work!!!
- Specialists in popHeads.pcx, must align with the specialists in the editor. The 8th specialist in the popHeads.pcx MUST be the 8th specialist in the editor.
Details:
- First 16 rows contain the small heads used for producers (farmers/miners in the base game --i.e. the ones who work the tiles next to your city) (First RED box).
- Next 5 rows show the base specialists in the game (ORANGEbox).
- You need to expand the size of the specialist file (popHeads.pcx) to a much larger size 500 x 4100 should be fine (copy the initial image so you can paste if you stretch the original small heads).
- Next 3 rows after the initial standard specialists can be new specialist (yellowarrow).
- name your 3 speciates in the editor and indicate the technology (if simply for faction flavor, then make them tied to a faction tech.)
- Next 4 rows need to be the 2nd culture groups small heads -- this replaces the 2nd culture groups small heads from the initial 16 rows at the top. (GREENBox).
- These must be in the following order:
- row1 (25) - Happy citizen;
- row 2 (26) - Content citizen;
- row 3 (27) - Sad citizen;
- row 4 (28) - Revolting citizen.
- ensure this is the proper citizen for the max era in your scenario (from rows 13 - 16 if all 4 eras are available.)
- For the editor, you MUST make numbered specialists with an unobtainable tech. Otherwise, you'll have access to the producers, and they will look like that. Simply label the specialist by the row name (so the specialists above, would simply have an unobtainable tech -- so no one will ever be able to use these specialists -- and be called: 25, 26, 27, 28 -- probably easiest to label them the row they are on).
- These must be in the following order:
- Next 9 rows can all be specialists (yellowarrow).
- name your 9 speciates in the editor and indicate the technology (if simply for faction flavor, then make them tied to a faction tech.
- Next 4 rows need to be the 3nd culture groups small heads -- this replaces the 3nd culture groups small heads from the initial 16 rows at the top. (GREENBox).
- These must be in the following order:
- row1 (38) - Happy citizen;
- row 2 (39) - Content citizen;
- row 3 (40) - Sad citizen;
- row 4 (41) - Revolting citizen.
- These must be in the following order:
- Next 9 rows can all be specialists (yellowarrow).
- name your 9 speciates in the editor and indicate the technology (if simply for faction flavor, then make them tied to a faction tech.
- Next 4 rows need to be the 4th culture group (pattern repeats as above).
- Next 9 rows can all be specialists (pattern repeats as above).
- Next 4 rows need to be the 5th culture group (pattern repeats as above).
- Next 9 rows can all be specialists (pattern repeats as above).
- NOTE: I've not verified this is in fact true, I only know for sure the 8 rows of specialists I have work, and and 3 more above don't (the game simply won't load). Only once I got this screen grab did I notice, the 9 specialist pattern, so I'm assuming it will hold true for the last specialist section.
- You cannot go past the 42-44 specialist limit! The game will crash. There doesn't seem to be any performance impact for the (36) specialists I'm using in my game. As all factions have access to only 3 - 6 specialists, you can see nearly all specialists used at some point (There are city planets in my mod which can have more than 100 citizens, not sure how frequently specialists are used in more regular sized cities -- might be only hippieness (+1 luxury) ones.)
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I ended up getting a freeze on turn two during the AI's turn (didn't have debug on at the time).
Since then, I've been trying it in debug mode playing several turns for several factions -- I don't seem to be able replicate it, everything is fine.
Is it possible on a heavily modded scenario it may occasionally go bad but more or less be stable? Should I keep on trying to replicate this issue? Any suggestions as to how deep I should go?
Since then, I've been trying it in debug mode playing several turns for several factions -- I don't seem to be able replicate it, everything is fine.
Is it possible on a heavily modded scenario it may occasionally go bad but more or less be stable? Should I keep on trying to replicate this issue? Any suggestions as to how deep I should go?
Freeze is still happening, not consistently on the same turn, sometime if I load the turn again I can get the game to proceed, seems to crash when taking a city (though, like I said I can load the game, and even if the same city is taken by the same unit, the game progresses as normal).
Any suggestions?
As an update 2025-08-28, I don't have "preserve random seed" on, so there never has been a game ending crash -- tested multiple factions combined turns ~300 one of which was to turn 100 before I just stopped. Crash happens when the AI takes a city, if I load, the AI can take the same city with the same units without issue -- investigating the city and the units which take the city, I can't see anything obvious.
Possible to have something like this just happen every now and then and the scenario continue to go? I'm 99% complete would like to release, but don't wan someone to be near the end and then have a game ending crash -- will continue to test.
Any suggestions?
As an update 2025-08-28, I don't have "preserve random seed" on, so there never has been a game ending crash -- tested multiple factions combined turns ~300 one of which was to turn 100 before I just stopped. Crash happens when the AI takes a city, if I load, the AI can take the same city with the same units without issue -- investigating the city and the units which take the city, I can't see anything obvious.
Possible to have something like this just happen every now and then and the scenario continue to go? I'm 99% complete would like to release, but don't wan someone to be near the end and then have a game ending crash -- will continue to test.
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Ok, so now the scenario produces a game ending freeze. This is the first time I noticed the game freeze not on a city capture but on units destroying each other.
There is nothing wrong with the unit models, as these are old units with no recent modifications -- the units are not near any restricted terrain, there is nothing unusual about their battle. Only thing I can think of is one of the factions is new and it's possible the diplo text may be screwed up. . . would that cause a crash?
There is nothing wrong with the unit models, as these are old units with no recent modifications -- the units are not near any restricted terrain, there is nothing unusual about their battle. Only thing I can think of is one of the factions is new and it's possible the diplo text may be screwed up. . . would that cause a crash?
Further details:
Units boxed in red are attaching units boxed in yellow. Their turn is right after mine (more or less).
The image "Freeze Issue Death" is when the yellow boxed unit is destroyed the game freezes.
My attempt to solve:
-Unit models are old, no meaningful changes since the previous version of this scenario (also I tested this isn't the case, just to illuminate)
-Removed a resource generated from a building (related to the EXE mod) -- no idea why that would be a problem, and it wasn't.
-Heavily modified diplo text, so swapped it out with the original CIV diplo (from conquests) no change.
-Heavily modified scrip text, so swapped it out with the original CIV script (form conquests) no change.
-Heavily modified labels text, so swapped it out with the original CIV labels (from conquest) no change.
-Heavily modified Civopedia and PediaIcons, I haven't swapped this out as CIV seems to be rather good at throwing errors if there are issues here -- been working with forever would be shocked if it was here (as the game works and all new adds are always tested).
What is true:
It is turn 63.
These two factions are at war with each other.
It is the red boxed faction's turn.
The Red boxed faction is NEW and fills slot 28 or 29.
---However, I don't think it has to do with the added faction as there were other freezes in other games involving old factions which are slots 1-7 in the game. . . they however, didn't break the game as loading up again the game would continue as always (even if the same city was taken).
I've read about a divide by zero issue with diplomacy. Trying to figure out how do I eliminate this -- or figure this out?
Any ideas as to what this could be? I really need to solve this problem now that I know it's a game ending one. . . would like to release 4.0 of this scenario.
Units boxed in red are attaching units boxed in yellow. Their turn is right after mine (more or less).
The image "Freeze Issue Death" is when the yellow boxed unit is destroyed the game freezes.
My attempt to solve:
-Unit models are old, no meaningful changes since the previous version of this scenario (also I tested this isn't the case, just to illuminate)
-Removed a resource generated from a building (related to the EXE mod) -- no idea why that would be a problem, and it wasn't.
-Heavily modified diplo text, so swapped it out with the original CIV diplo (from conquests) no change.
-Heavily modified scrip text, so swapped it out with the original CIV script (form conquests) no change.
-Heavily modified labels text, so swapped it out with the original CIV labels (from conquest) no change.
-Heavily modified Civopedia and PediaIcons, I haven't swapped this out as CIV seems to be rather good at throwing errors if there are issues here -- been working with forever would be shocked if it was here (as the game works and all new adds are always tested).
What is true:
It is turn 63.
These two factions are at war with each other.
It is the red boxed faction's turn.
The Red boxed faction is NEW and fills slot 28 or 29.
---However, I don't think it has to do with the added faction as there were other freezes in other games involving old factions which are slots 1-7 in the game. . . they however, didn't break the game as loading up again the game would continue as always (even if the same city was taken).
I've read about a divide by zero issue with diplomacy. Trying to figure out how do I eliminate this -- or figure this out?
Any ideas as to what this could be? I really need to solve this problem now that I know it's a game ending one. . . would like to release 4.0 of this scenario.
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- Joined
- May 5, 2005
- Messages
- 10,146
Game stopping freezes in my eyes are one of the worst problems in modding Civ 3 and to detect the reason of the freeze in many cases is like searching for the needle in the haystack. Long ago freezes delayed the release of CCM 1 for more than one year.
In most cases freezes are triggered by pathfinding errors of units. Have a look if the movement of the attacking unit could be restricted by surrounding terrain and may be, if the unit wants to move into a terrain that is not allowed for that unit.
In one case during the betatests of SOE, the complete team searched for the reason of a freeze for more than one month. It was a lousy Italian tank that was shrinked by a member of the team and that made problems during the game.
As you found the situation when the freeze occurs, you could replace the involved units by different units (give different units the names of the involved units and take the involved units out of the game by renaming them a little bit) and see if the freeze still is occuring. In that case have a look in the surrounding terrain. If the units can enslave, this could be an additional source of problems if the enslaved unit is not allowed on that terrain.
Good luck!
In most cases freezes are triggered by pathfinding errors of units. Have a look if the movement of the attacking unit could be restricted by surrounding terrain and may be, if the unit wants to move into a terrain that is not allowed for that unit.
In one case during the betatests of SOE, the complete team searched for the reason of a freeze for more than one month. It was a lousy Italian tank that was shrinked by a member of the team and that made problems during the game.
As you found the situation when the freeze occurs, you could replace the involved units by different units (give different units the names of the involved units and take the involved units out of the game by renaming them a little bit) and see if the freeze still is occuring. In that case have a look in the surrounding terrain. If the units can enslave, this could be an additional source of problems if the enslaved unit is not allowed on that terrain.
Good luck!
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