Prettying up the game little by little

[Vaximillian]

I’ve been tinkering with tomekum’s tileset recently, mostly for own amusement and also to fiddle with pixel art a little bit.

So far I’ve:

tweaked the city tile a little bit (his uses secondary team colour for the flag, I made it use the primary colour instead with a bit of secondary);
touched up team colour ownership underline for certain units;
revisited the fortified/city walls tile (he omits it completely because of the ownership now being an underline rather than background, I reused the original shield icon for it);
made white things white again (the colour that is intended in the palette to be white is interpreted by the game as light blue, hence the famous blue settler wagons, cannon barrels, and ship sails);
and drew some icons anew (catapult completely from scratch, musketeer recreated from Colonization’s soldier, and cavalry and knight drew anew based on the shape of Colonization’s horse). Oh, also gave the phalanx a shield because it looked kinda dumb otherwise.

Here, have some screenshots of what I’ve done and have been working on:
(spoilered because of large resolution images)

Spoiler :

I’ll probably redraw the other soldiers from scratch down the line; my thinking is militia will be a guy with a spear, phalanx is a guy with a spear and shield, legion is a guy with a sword and a shield; cavalry is a guy on a horse with a spear, knight is a guy on a horse with a sorta jousting lance and heavy armour, and I haven’t thought of a distinctive appearance for the rifleman that would distinguish him enough from the musketman—maybe I’ll keep him kneeling with his gun like the vanilla game does?

Cavalry and knight are also differentiated by the colour of the horse—the earlier horseman rides a brown horse, the later knight rides a white(-ish) horse because white horses are more prestigious and cooler.

This is where I have some questions to ask the community.

Firstly, I’ve run into a palette issue (not gamebreaking but still annoying): it appears that the game uses a different palette in the Civilopedia compared to the actual game (screenshot in spoiler).

Spoiler :

For some reason, the “non-standard” colours that work fine in game are reinterpreted as magenta in the Civilopedia. Again, not critical but annoying. Which palette do I edit to fix this? These tiles use sp257.pal.

Secondly, is it possible to edit names of units? I know that lists of city names are hardcoded, but maybe there’s a way to rename, for instance, phalanx into spearman and legion into swordsman? Civilopedia entries seem to lie open in blurb*.txt but I don’t know about the units.

I guess this is it for the time being. Thanks!

 

[rhaul]

Secondly, is it possible to edit names of units? I know that lists of city names are hardcoded, but maybe there’s a way to rename, for instance, phalanx into spearman and legion into swordsman? Civilopedia entries seem to lie open in blurb*.txt but I don’t know about the units.

I guess this is it for the time being. Thanks!

It is quite simple, with a hexadecimal editor you simply have to replace the name of the units by typing the new ones.

The txt should also be changed so that you can access the text of the civilopedia.

 

[Vaximillian]

It is quite simple, with a hexadecimal editor you simply have to replace the name of the units by typing the new ones.

The txt should also be changed so that you can access the text of the civilopedia.

It worked, thanks for the pointer!


Now to also change the Civilopedia entries to match, will be piece of cake.

Interestingly enough, it seems that unit names are stored in the current save and aren’t updated when the exe is edited. Good thing there’s JCivED. City improvement names, on the other hand, are updated instantly. (I changed MarketPlace into Marketplace, RailRoad into Railroad, and SpaceShip into Space Ship or Spaceship depending on the space; are there more examples of egregious CamelCase elsewhere other than GoTo?)

 

[darkpanda]

Hi there,

The palette problem is interesting, I will take a look.

For unit names, they can be changed in the savegames (SVE files), and also inside the CIV.EXE binary directly, as described by rhaul.

Anyways, very good and fun work, happy to see that PIC modding is used

Feel free to suggest improvements you'd like to see in JCivEd to ease your work !

Cheers

 

[darkpanda]

For some reason, the “non-standard” colours that work fine in game are reinterpreted as magenta in the Civilopedia. Again, not critical but annoying. Which palette do I edit to fix this? These tiles use sp257.pal.

Looking at some Civilopedia code, I also notice references to SP256.PAL... Does this help ?

Note that Civ often loads multiple PAL at the same time (typically when showing diplomacy meeting screens, with different PALs for background, leader and government, although those PALs are embedded in the PIC files).

 

[Vaximillian]

Looking at some Civilopedia code, I also notice references to SP256.PAL... Does this help ?

Oh, this is curious. I’ve been using sp257.pal for sp257.pic because I was sure that these two are intended to be used together. I’ll try applying sp256.pal to the tile sheet and see if something changes.

…Also, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know anything about palettes, but don’t the two look completely identical?

Did “Import PAL palette file” with sp256.pal on the right, with sp257.pal on the left, chose “Substitute palette colors” for both.
I just don’t get it.

Also as an aside, my previous reply in this thread took 10 hours to be approved by the moderator, this is really not encouraging newcomers to post on the forum, sigh.

 

[rhaul]

(I changed MarketPlace into Marketplace, RailRoad into Railroad, and SpaceShip into Space Ship or Spaceship depending on the space; are there more examples of egregious CamelCase elsewhere other than GoTo?)

Precisely I am interested in knowing if something can be done with the "goto" to be able to separate it. Hopefully Darkpanda can give us a solution.

Also as an aside, my previous reply in this thread took 10 hours to be approved by the moderator, this is really not encouraging newcomers to post on the forum, sigh.

Don't worry, it's just at the beginning.

 

[Vaximillian]

Precisely I am interested in knowing if something can be done with the "goto" to be able to separate it. Hopefully Darkpanda can give us a solution.

Yeah, thankfully there’s just enough space to turn “GoTo” into “Go To” in the exe but I can’t turn “Sail” into “Caravel” because there are literally these four characters available for the entry. Changing it in the save every time isn’t really a solution.

Also, hilariously, I assumed at first that the headers in the blurb files need to be kept original, and wondered how I broke the pedia because it straight-up skipped the edited entries. Turns out that the headers have to match the names for the units as specified in the exe, and so I just needed to change *PHALANX and *PHALANX2 into *SPEARMAN and *SPEARMAN2 respectively:


So, I’ve done a bit of drawing for the early soldiers and this is what I’ve come up for now (top is vanilla—I just copied and pasted the legion’s shield onto the phalanx, bottom is mine):


And this is how they look in game:


Of course this is an early pass and I’ll keep making changes until I’m fully satisfied with the result (being perfectionist in all the wrong places can do that) but this is a stepping stone indeed.
(for example, I already swapped the turqouise on the spearman into a light grey for a more metallic colour; will probably make the spear black where it doesn’t clash with the soldier to make it more visible too)

 

[rhaul]

Well yes, I just did the test with "goto" and indeed there is no problem.

Regarding the civilopedia, as I already told you, you have to put the exact name that is in civ.exe, both units, constructions and technologies.

Regarding the new mosaics, I like them a lot but the pose of the lancer (phalanx) does not convince me, I prefer the lance resting vertically on the ground, and thus, by the way, it would be even more different from the militia.

About the sail darkpanda will surely help you (by the way I would learn too), since you have to shift bytes, anyway, keep in mind that the history of the caravels is different and you will have to change all the text of the civilopedia.

 

[darkpanda]

So you no longer have the magenta thing in Civilopedia then ?

Didn't look further yet into SP256.PAL vs SP257.PAL, or "Sail" vs "Caravel". For the latter, just know that CIV.EXE uses a kind of compression that makes it often hard to extend the size of small strings, eventhough the "uncompressed" version ov CIV.EXE has all the necessary room to put long names for everything (units, leaders, cities, civ names, advances, buildings, etc.)

 

[Vaximillian]

Regarding the civilopedia, as I already told you, you have to put the exact name that is in civ.exe, both units, constructions and technologies.

I did a dumb and misunderstood what you’ve written there. Now I know better, haha.

Regarding the new mosaics, I like them a lot but the pose of the lancer (phalanx) does not convince me, I prefer the lance resting vertically on the ground, and thus, by the way, it would be even more different from the militia.

What if instead of having him hold the spear vertically he held it at about 60 degrees? This way the feeling of the spear’s length is preserved but he also stands more steadily (and of course I realised that he has to rest it on the ground because he is holding it with one hand).


and as a silly thing, what if I flipped the sprites because, well, most humans are right-handed, and so would hold their weapons in main hand and shield in off-hand and I dunno

anyway, keep in mind that the history of the caravels is different and you will have to change all the text of the civilopedia.

Not an issue, already done:

So you no longer have the magenta thing in Civilopedia then ?

Sadly, this is not the case:

Applying sp256.pal instead of sp257.pal changed nothing, the magenta is still there. I just chose to focus on things I can actually solve with my skillset, that is text and icons and things not involving coding.

 

[rhaul]

First of all, I had a doubt about how you managed to separate the GOTO, I had to move a byte, but I don't know if you did the same.
I also wanted to ask you if you have looked at editing the graphics of the leaders that appear in diplomacy, my idea was to include a Spanish leader to make a mod with the civilization of Spain (french for Spanish).

Regarding the mosaics, I love the new pose of the spearman, much better than the vertical spear, but you are right, most of us are right-handed but also in the western world we are used to looking at the texts (and surely also the images) from the left to the right and, looking at a unit to the left can be made even more awkward than watching a spear being left handed. Try it playing and you will surely have that feeling.

With the change of the caravel I have nothing to object to, I am Spanish, with this I say everything, in fact, at least 2 of the 3 ships used by Christopher Columbus in the discovery of America were caravels, the third is unknown if it was a caravel or another type of ship.

 

[Vaximillian]

First of all, I had a doubt about how you managed to separate the GOTO, I had to move a byte, but I don't know if you did the same.

I probably did exactly the same as you, moving the 00 byte after the GoTo inside it and replacing it with a space:


This is what the Napoleon sprite sheet looks like:

Just needs the basic face and a set of slight varieties for emotions. Very editable but I’m very much in doubt of my artistic capabilities to give it a try.

Yeah, this is also why seeing the icon face left feels awkward and unnatural—exactly because of the left-to-right information perception. It was moreso a concept, and I flipped these back after testing them. The vanilla human units all face right. (on the other hand, artillery pieces and ships all face left, as does the caravan, but at least the latter may be interpreted as specifically foreign and exotic because of that; siege weapons and ships are probably just an aesthetic choice and doesn’t carry any deep meaning) (then again, I could redraw my icons again to move the shield behind the soldier’s body to put it in the correct hand but this would obscure the shield and prevent the easy recognition of the graphical design of the units; I’ll just keep it the way it is; on the other hand, my horseman and knight already face right and hold their lances in their right hands because I didn’t design them around their shields)

Exactly—the game mentions the Age of Discovery when describing the sail unit, and when we think of the Age of Discovery, we think of the caravel. That, and frigates are also sailing ships, it doesn’t feel specific enough to me to call the early ocean-going ship with such a generic name.

 

[rhaul]

I probably did exactly the same as you, moving the 00 byte after the GoTo inside it and replacing it with a space:

If you skip byte 00, you create a small error, so it is not advisable to do that. You just have to look at the orders in the settlers and you will see that the pillage is doubled

I'm not a graphic artist either, but I'll look at it calmly in the future.

 

[darkpanda]

Sadly, this is not the case:

Applying sp256.pal instead of sp257.pal changed nothing, the magenta is still there. I just chose to focus on things I can actually solve with my skillset, that is text and icons and things not involving coding.

Looking at the unit graphics, I see that all colors used for units have indexes below 15 (included), except for 45 (beigeish color for skin).

What indexes do your updated units use ? That would probably be a good pointer for debugging.

Also, SP256/7.PAL covers those low indexes, while at the same time you will have ICONPGA.PAL loaded, which contains colors for Civilopedia graphics of the units.. There is some color range override, that could also be the reason why you have this bug.

Lastly I understand that you hacked the unit graphics to make them transparent, but using the "transprent" color for background could create a collision with Civilopedia screen handling of colors, if it was designed to use transparency...

Hope this helps, I didn't go further yet.

Keep up the good work

 

[darkpanda]

I probably did exactly the same as you, moving the 00 byte after the GoTo inside it and replacing it with a space:


This is what the Napoleon sprite sheet looks like:

Just needs the basic face and a set of slight varieties for emotions. Very editable but I’m very much in doubt of my artistic capabilities to give it a try.

Yeah, this is also why seeing the icon face left feels awkward and unnatural—exactly because of the left-to-right information perception. It was moreso a concept, and I flipped these back after testing them. The vanilla human units all face right. (on the other hand, artillery pieces and ships all face left, as does the caravan, but at least the latter may be interpreted as specifically foreign and exotic because of that; siege weapons and ships are probably just an aesthetic choice and doesn’t carry any deep meaning) (then again, I could redraw my icons again to move the shield behind the soldier’s body to put it in the correct hand but this would obscure the shield and prevent the easy recognition of the graphical design of the units; I’ll just keep it the way it is; on the other hand, my horseman and knight already face right and hold their lances in their right hands because I didn’t design them around their shields)

Exactly—the game mentions the Age of Discovery when describing the sail unit, and when we think of the Age of Discovery, we think of the caravel. That, and frigates are also sailing ships, it doesn’t feel specific enough to me to call the early ocean-going ship with such a generic name.

I've also considered "prrof-of-concepting" a new leader graphics, with accomodating animation, but there's an added complexity that the "animated area" (are of the main leader graphics which gets overdrawn with smaller alternative leader faces) has a different position for each leader, and I am 99% sure this position is hard-coded in CIV.EXE, although I couldn't locate it yet.
Without being able to change this position, one can only chose an existing leader graphics and adapt the new leader face so that animated area exactly match the original leader animated area.

 

[Vaximillian]

@rhaul you are absolutely right:

I never pillage, so I would have never discovered this otherwise. Oops! Guess I’ll have to bring the awful GoTo back for now.

@darkpanda 18, 36, 62, 230 display as magenta, 232 displays as red, 25 displays as grey, 45 displays correctly as you mentioned. The transparent colour is index 0 and wasn’t it there in the sheet all along? For the fortress icon and the resource icons and so on.

Do I understand correctly that I’ll need to make sp256/7.pal and iconpga.pal match?

Re: leaders, does it mean that the edited sheet must exactly follow the original? As in, one may only draw within the areas I covered black here, and not go outside?



Meanwhile, I tweaked the units a little, flipping all icons so that they look to the right, redrew the “sail” that stands in for caravel, and made the “frigate”’s masts longer and brown:

Not much done but at least it’s something.

 

[rhaul]

I'm going to test my translation that I recently made some changes that need to verify that there are no errors. If you want you can upload the file of the edited images you have and I'll try it that way.

 

[Vaximillian]

The modified tileset? There you go, it replaces sp257.pic and ter257.pic (the latter is tomekum’s edited terrain).

 

[rhaul]

Thanks.



It is clear that it is already a matter of personal taste, but for example I miss the tips of the spears, and it also strikes me that the ships are significantly smaller than the human units, or the very image of the city of London that if it is true it is a small city (low level), when it is bigger the mosaic would not be in accordance with its size.

There are many more things that do not finish convincing me but of course, we are talking about personal assessments and the tastes of each one would enter.