Samson's modding questions

[Samson]

And no, @r16 , I still had to remove the sudden obliteration of all of a clan's towns when their leader unit dies

Sengoku scenario is such a mix of super fun and super tedious. I think next time I play it I'll just mod away all the assassins and stuff.

Is there a guide to modding the scenarios? There are a few minor changes I would like to try.

 

[tjs282]

Is there a guide to modding the scenarios? There are a few minor changes I would like to try.

The Civ3 Creation&Customisation forum has a modding-FAQ thread, plus multiple tutorials.

Chances are that whatever you want to do, you can find the needed info there. Using the Firaxis Conquests Editor is also reasonably (mostly) self-explanatory.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yeah, modding Civ3 is incredibly easy (but tedious) once you sit down and actually try. The only complication is palette editing, which in the year of our Lord 2022 is an absolute pain in the ass to do properly as the software requirements have been obsolete for almost twenty years and all the old recommended programs are gone into the abyss.

Palette editing (as long as you are talking about map stuff, such as cities, resources, terrain - I don't know about units which at any rate also use civ colors) isn't that difficult tbh, you just need to know what you are doing Any program (I use the free Gimp) will allow you to save in 256 colors and arrange the two last as transparency (which is what civ pcx graphics have).
There are a few guides for that in the Civ3 forum, mostly ancient (even one of my own from - iirc- more than 12 years ago! Maybe even 15)

That said, having to save in 256 colors can and will create issues, if your file wasn't drawn from the beginning with reasonably common a palette... Which is why in Civ3 it is very rare to see different custom-made city sets saved in one custom file (because they have more than 256 colors when combined, resulting in loss so as to fit in).

 

[Samson]

The Civ3 Creation&Customisation forum has a modding-FAQ thread, plus multiple tutorials.

Chances are that whatever you want to do, you can find the needed info there.

I have had a quick look, but I am failing to find what I am looking for. A search for "faq" on the C+C forum does not come up with anything obvious as a starter. There are loads of guides, but they are more "how to solve this problem" rather than "how to make you first edit/hello world mod".

Using the Firaxis Conquests Editor is also reasonably (mostly) self-explanatory.

I guess I could just give it a go. I may be able to figure it out. I want to make small changes. I think all Conquests should start with more workers, to help the AI, and I would like to try some with higher VP limits, particularly the Age of Discovery Conquest.

 

[Kyriakos]

I have had a quick look, but I am failing to find what I am looking for. A search for "faq" on the C+C forum does not come up with anything obvious as a starter. There are loads of guides, but they are more "how to solve this problem" rather than "how to make you first edit/hello world mod".



I guess I could just give it a go. I may be able to figure it out. I want to make small changes. I think all Conquests should start with more workers, to help the AI, and I would like to try some with higher VP limits, particularly the Age of Discovery Conquest.

If you post in the forum, it is certain that many will answer any questions you have
The editor should be the only tool to use, if you don't plan to create/change actual external files (unit graphics, map graphics etc). You can add units with some in-editor coding (which is boring, but easy).

 

[Takhisis]

I have had a quick look, but I am failing to find what I am looking for. A search for "faq" on the C+C forum does not come up with anything obvious as a starter. There are loads of guides, but they are more "how to solve this problem" rather than "how to make you first edit/hello world mod".

There are some interesting tutorial videos by a certain Pelo McSoy.

 

[tjs282]

I want to make small changes. I think all Conquests should start with more workers, to help the AI, and I would like to try some with higher VP limits, particularly the Age of Discovery Conquest.

Setting the number of starting-units (for an epic-game-type .biq on a randomly-generated map) is simply a matter of altering one value per starting-unit in the Editor, under the "Difficulty" tab (IIRC). The only minor speedbump here is that for modding-flexibility, the starting-unit boxes aren't conveniently labelled "Worker" and "Settler", but rather "Unit type 1" and "Unit type 2" based on the listing-order of the .biq's units (i.e. under the "Units" tab in the Editor) — and I can't remember offhand whether the "Unit type 1" is the Worker or the Settler.

But for a Scenario (i.e. a mod including a set map), you can add any units you like to any tile on the map, with the proviso that (I believe) all units on any given tile have to have the same nationality/"Owner".

VP-limits for a .biq can be altered "permanently" using the Editor, but I believe you can also change them per game, by clicking on the "Game Limits" box on the setup-screen where you choose your Civ (below the picture of your chosen Leader — or in the Sengoku Conquest, the clan-flag).

 

[Civinator]

I guess I could just give it a go. I may be able to figure it out. I want to make small changes. I think all Conquests should start with more workers, to help the AI, and I would like to try some with higher VP limits, particularly the Age of Discovery Conquest.

Samson, you make a lot of in my eyes very good posts in the CFC OT forums. This said, I am delighted, that you also have some interest in Civ 3.

For modding biqs of the conquests in C3C, an additional hurdle in modding Civ 3 must be taken into account, as here the C3C default settings are disabled:

VP-limits and other settings of Conquests/scenarios coming with C3C cannot be changed when starting a game as it is in standard C3C games.
Here you can only see the settings of the conquest/scenario, but you must accept these settings in that screen (demonstrated by a screenshot of the AOD conquest with the missing buttons for changes):

The special settings of the conquests (and the scenarios) coming with C3C must be changed in the editor. Here the special settings in the Conquest biq for Conquests/scenarios in the scenario folder of the editor overwrite the normal settings in the C3C editor. Therefore, if you want to change something in the C3C Conquests biq "6 Age of Discovery" you have to go into that biq with the editor to the scenario registry => Scenario Properties => and here in the detail you want to change (in this case Victory Point Limit) - and don´t forget to trigger the accept button and than save the new biq:

For setting more workers, you can select this starting unit and can set the number of starting workers up to 25. This can and should be done for every single civ (player) in that conquest.

Samson, if you have problems here, I can create a biq of the AOD Conquest for you with the changes you want to have.

 

[Kyriakos]

And it should go without saying, @Samson , that if you mod the Sengoku scenario, you HAVE to use my own Japanese cities

 

[Samson]

Since I have my own thread I had better post. I shall just put what I did:

After people said just try the editor, I did. In only a couple of minutes I made the changes to the AoD conquest I wanted (as highlighted by Civinator above) and everything worked as expected. I thought this is amazing, what tool is so intuitive that it allows you to do exactly what you want with no instructions? Amazing, as if Civ 3 needed any more amaze Also it seemed to work well, in particular the native american civs seemed to get going much quicker making them more of a chalenge to the european civs.

I did have some problems/issues, if anyone has any feedback:

My second try was the Fall of Rome scenario, I wanted to make it Regicide instead of "loose 4 cities and die". I made it regicide in the Scenario properties, and selected "Automatically place Kings". However it did not give me king units, and I could not see an obvious king unit in the Starting Units list. Is there an easy way to make this change?

I also added workers using the method above, but it added them to a tile on the other side of the map to the rest of the units (I tested with the Vandals, and the workers were added in Turkey). How does one specify where the units go?

Am I changing the rules somehow without knowing it? In the AoD scenario I had a reasorce appear for the first time ever (a spices popped up in about Seattle). In the Sengoku scenario I removed the Regicide but added in the Shogun unit specifically, and the first time the Shogun fought another civ he got a promotion to Grandmaster, and the second time got a great millatry leader. It could be random, but would be quite a coincidence.

And it should go without saying, @Samson , that if you mod the Sengoku scenario, you HAVE to use my own Japanese cities [IMG alt=""]https://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif[/IMG]

View attachment 636651

Linky?

 

[Civinator]

Samson, the easiest way would be to post here your zipped (or rared) biqs, so we can see what you really had changed. Setting a path to a destination for units (here workers) in Civ 3 is more difficult than it is in Civ 2, as in Civ 3 there is no "GoTo-event" existing.

 

[Kyriakos]

Linky?

Here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/five-culture-medieval-sets.634617/

Just unload the contents to the Sengoku/Art/Cities (check that all the files are there; it may unload them as their own folder, though iirc it does as files). By default the Sengoku/Art/Cities would only have the asian group, but after this you will have all 5 cultures so it can checked immediately if they were installed as individual files.

Regarding the matter with workers spawning away from your other units, the most basic (tedious but certain to work) solution is to just manually place the second worker in the starting position of all civs.