More civs

Epicraft

Chieftain
Joined
Sep 20, 2008
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Hi I've never looked into mods for Civ2 before but I one thing I've wanted since I was about 12 was to be able to play this game with a greater number of civalisations involved simultaneously in the game, as opposed to the cap at 7. Has this ever been achieved?
 
As far as I know it is impossible. 8 is the highest 3 digit binary number (111) and, given the very little I know about computer programing, I would hazard to guess that the programmers allotted 3 digits per unit to indicate the civ to which it belongs. 8 gives 7 civs plus the barbarians. It would be something hardcoded into the game, just as 255 is the max limit for cities and the highest 7 digit binary number (1111111).

It is certainly possible that I am wrong, however.
 
I seem to remember a thread long ago discussing how to permit the barbs to be played as a civ. Probably was in scenario building tips or something like that. Beyond that, I can't recall anything on the topic.
 
As far as I know it is impossible. 8 is the highest 3 digit binary number (111) (...)

You're thinking along the right lines, but your explanation is incorrect. The maximum isn't 8 because they're using 3 bits (bit = binary digit). It's 8 because they're using 8 bits (= 1 byte).

For example, each map tile holds information on which civilizations have discovered it (to determine what each civ's discovered map looks like). The same goes for which civilizations have discovered each technology.

To be able to do that, you need a toggle for each civilization. They're only using one byte for that, so that's why the limit is 8 (7 + barbarians).

Most of these things aren't limited by the number of bits, but by the number of bytes.


In contrast with civilizations, cities don't need this toggle business, so it works as you said.

Though 255 is the highest 8 bit number. And you can put 256 numbers in 8 bits: 0, 1, 2, ... 255. The reason the max is only 255 after all is because one number is used for the mysterious "NONE" city. ;)
 
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