The Game-of-the-Month Mod Scenario

[viper275]

I love this scenario! It's loaded with bugs, especially involving civs like Spain, but it's still excellent!

 

[bluebox]

I love this scenario! It's loaded with bugs, especially involving civs like Spain, but it's still excellent!

there is a common 'bug' with spain. i suppose you playing v1.29, otherwise you would not complain about the Spanish.
the gotm add-ons for v1.29 require you a some point to make seven copies of "spain.flc" in the "Civilization III\Art\Flics" folder named 'spain1.flc', 'spain2.flc' just until 'spain7.flc'. this was done so to allow the use of an animated Ferdinand leaderhead, although it wasn't included in the downloads due to file size. my scenario handles this exactly the same.

what else bugs have you found? name them, please, so we profit altogether by an improved scenario.

 

[bluebox]

thank u all for the kudos.

highdesert, just had an idea that would be boring to discuss here. i will sent you a pm.

 

[AdrianE]

Great work. As a mac user, I really appreciate this.

I was playing with the Mongols and I noticed that Pikemen do not seem to be available to the mongols @ Feudalism. They were available in the GOTM and the treat game. Civ 1.29 on a mac is what I use, if that makes any difference.

I am approaching the time when I get to the unique units, so I'll test out HighDesert's issues.

Thanks again

Adrian

Edit: tested bombardment of units in cities/towns with mongol UUs. It worked OK. Ordu, Bagatur and Korchin were all able to hit units/improvements/population as expected.

 

[bluebox]

adrian, pikemen indeed are not available for mongols. i will fix that in a future release. nothing to do about it in in yr current game, sorry. You will have to wait until gunpowder to upgrade yr spearmen.
thank you also for testing, i haven't been able to reproduce highdeserts problems yet, might be a problem with one of the attacked units instead of the attackers.

 

[viper275]

I can't play as the Vikings, if I try the game crashes. I found a way to get around that, by going into the editor and making player 1 the vikings. I played the game but when I tryed to build the Unique Unit, it crashed. I tried a few more times and it still crashed. I'm playing this on vanilla Civ3 version 1.29f and I have patched it for GotMs.

 

[bluebox]

hi viper275, checked the scenario for problems with vikings, but couldn't find any errors. that of course does not mean that there cannot be an error though, but for now i play the ball back to you . i may ask you to check some files manually. following files need to be in the right place in your Civ3 directory to play the Vikings:

Art\advisors\Dal-Riada_Advisor.pcx
Art\Flics\Dal-Riada_Ancient.flc
Art\Flics\Dal-Riada_Industrial.flc
Art\Flics\Dal-Riada_Medieval.flc
Art\Flics\Dal-Riada_Modern.flc
Art\Units\galloglass (folder w/ Galloglass.ini + 7 *.flc's)

these are the basic files for the Vikings. other files are needed for full civilopedia support and the win screen, but should not cause an initial crash of the game in case they are missing.

make sure you swapped resources to gotm ressources, else any attempt to play a gotm game leads to a crash. the files are:

Art\resources.pcx
Art\resources_shadows.pcx

make a back-up of the original files if you haven't already done so and then replace them by the resources-files of the scenario.

if you cannot locate any irregularities we have to keep on working

 

[viper275]

GOTM won't work at all if I don't swap resource files? Strange.... Well I can't find Galloglass in my units folder. Dal-Riada wasn't there either. Are you sure these are in the GOTM patches? Mabye I just have to re-download them.

 

[bluebox]

take care you are dl the right packages - you are playing "vanilla" civ3 without ptw expansion, aren't you? then you need the "v1.29"-labeled packages. there is no "Dal-Riada" head and no "Galloglass" uu in the ptw add-ons because ptw has a generic Scandinavian civ. Know what I mean?

 

[asgard fleet]

dang thats looks like a great game

 

[Markus5]

I've installed the GOTM 21-25 package and that allowed me to play GOTM36 conquest version. That's over, and I'm not submitting results because I thought I had problems with the GOTM updates and restarted several times. So I had some cheats. Still, I looking forward to the other results.

I followed the instructions to allow me to create GOTM scenarios or play GOTM-style random games. When I start Civ3 vanilla 1.29f, everything is fine until the first turn, then it crashes. If I restore the civ3mod.bic file, then it works just fine, but not as a GOTM-style game, of course.

I assume that I've screwed up the installation in someway, but I don't know how to debug it. Any ideas?

Is there a release or zip file with all the updates and setup for GOTM-style random games? Something extra simple. You know, save everything in your Civ3 folder and drop everything in the zip file on top.

Oh, what the difference between Worker and eqWorker? A question in case I get GOTM-style random games to work.

===
OK. Based on subsequent comments, I'll try to swap resources.

It is interesting to note that starting a scenario from the gotm.bic file in the GOTM36 directory fails in the same way. This isn't an error detected by Civ3 itself, this is a program fault.

I've got some other ideas, too. I'm pretty busy with real-world stuff, so I might not get back to this for a while.
===

===
Swapping resources did the trick!
Thanks!
===

 

[mad-bax]

The eq_worker is the worker you and all the other civs get at the start of the game. No-one can actually build them. They do exactly the same as a normal worker but they are given a nominal shiled value of 40. This is so that if you buy or sell an eq_worker the trade rate will be about 100g which is the same as PTW. All subsequent workers will be of the usual variety and will trade at around 25g.

The civ3mod.bic file needs to be left alone. The GOTM.bic file by bluebox should be placed in the scenarios directory. You start the game with the Scenario option, set your parameters and off you go.

If the game crashes, it normally gives you an error message first. Very often this is a pediaicons failure, but can be other things. If you continue to get crashes, post the error message and that will be an indicator of what you will need to do to fix it.

Good Luck

 

[AlanH]

hi viper275, checked the scenario for problems with vikings, but couldn't find any errors. that of course does not mean that there cannot be an error though, but for now i play the ball back to you . i may ask you to check some files manually. following files need to be in the right place in your Civ3 directory to play the Vikings:

Art\advisors\Dal-Riada_Advisor.pcx
Art\Flics\Dal-Riada_Ancient.flc
Art\Flics\Dal-Riada_Industrial.flc
Art\Flics\Dal-Riada_Medieval.flc
Art\Flics\Dal-Riada_Modern.flc
Art\Units\galloglass (folder w/ Galloglass.ini + 7 *.flc's)

these are the basic files for the Vikings. other files are needed for full civilopedia support and the win screen, but should not cause an initial crash of the game in case they are missing.

@Bluebox: Are you aware of the Vikings problem that reared its head in a recent GOTM? It turned out that there was a dormant error lurking in the GOTM BIC from way back, which had the file path for the Viking leaderhead pointing to the top level directory instead of to /Art/Flics/. Players were able to solve the problem for that game by manually moving their Viking leaderheads into the top level Civ3 directory. But I think Ainwood has now fixed it for future gotms.

You might want to check the file path in your BIC.

 

[bluebox]

welcome, marcus! I am convinced we can solve your problem pretty quick.

I've installed the GOTM 21-25 package and that allowed me to play GOTM36 conquest version. That's over, and I'm not submitting results because I thought I had problems with the GOTM updates and restarted several times. So I had some cheats. Still, I looking forward to the other results.

Too bad, sorry. but I remember I had to discard my first game for similar reasons.

I followed the instructions to allow me to create GOTM scenarios or play GOTM-style random games. When I start Civ3 vanilla 1.29f, everything is fine until the first turn, then it crashes. If I restore the civ3mod.bic file, then it works just fine, but not as a GOTM-style game, of course.

as bad-max pointed out, you can play these random games from the scenario folder. the option to swap the civ3mod file is an advanced option, every user should be careful with it and read the warnings in the readme. it's the way i set up my vanilla civ3 folder, it works, so I explained it in the documentation, but the users shuold be careful with it.
Obviously, marcus, you did it right - especially backing up the civ3mod file! so, there should be no problem with that.

I assume that I've screwed up the installation in someway, but I don't know how to debug it. Any ideas?

i assume the installation is o.k. something else took my attention. you say you did play gotm36 though you haven't submitted. gotm36 uses standard civ3 resources. the mod needs the gotm21 resources. you probably have to swap resources!
one more file operation here's how it works: you find the gotm resources in '...\Civilization III\art\resources storage' folder.
1. open one of the folders named 'gotm21 plain (resources icons without any additional info), gotm21 w blips (resources show values on the map), or gotm21 w smilies and blips (icons show values and luxuries are indicated by a smilie).
2. pick the the two files from the folder you would like to see in-game and copy them to the '...\Civilization III\art' folder. you will be asked to overwrite the existing files resources/ resources_shadows (If you get no warning you are copying to the wrong folder ).
3. in the 'resources storage' there is a folder named 'original civ3' that contains the original resources (obviously ). use the described steps on this folder to swap back to original resources, later, e.g. to play classic gotm37!

Is there a release or zip file with all the updates and setup for GOTM-style random games? Something extra simple. You know, save everything in your Civ3 folder and drop everything in the zip file on top.

no, sorry, at least not for pc. if you are a mac user, there is a complete modpak of the gotm thanks to AlanH (look at his signature). for pc, this goal hasn't accomplished, yet, though it would be very helpful.

moreover, the gotm mod scenario I provide in my zip is not 'official'. there are the different gamepaks and add-ons from the gotm staff (gotm21 to gotm25). these add-ons enable you to take part in the classic gotm competition and play games along with PTW users.
On top of that, you can put my gotm mod scenario. it provides a scenario file (and some additional stuff for it). with this mod you can play your own scenarios and random games with the stuff of the gotm staff.

about automatization: there are many gotm players who set up their gotm mod in different ways. providing my gotm mod scenario files in the way I do gives the most transparency of what is happening to their installation. automatization would be nice but is more likely to mess up custom set-ups. as you may want to make back-ups of several files, an 'extract to folder' archive would not work - it would have to be an installer and atm i am not capable to create it. moreover, an installer for pc would not work for maccies.

if you face more problems please feel free to post!

bluebox

 

[bluebox]

@Bluebox: Are you aware of the Vikings problem that reared its head in a recent GOTM? It turned out that there was a dormant error lurking in the GOTM BIC from way back, which had the file path for the Viking leaderhead pointing to the top level directory instead of to /Art/Flics/. Players were able to solve the problem for that game by manually moving their Viking leaderheads into the top level Civ3 directory. But I think Ainwood has now fixed it for future gotms.

You might want to check the file path in your BIC.

thanks, alan, for your concern! checked it. the file path for Einar is correct so he's not getting headless .

btw, what about marcus' suggestion to include the gotm_mod scenario file to your installers after I am finished with the update?

 

[AlanH]

thanks, alan, for your concern! checked it. the file path for Einar is correct so he's not getting headless .

btw, what about marcus' suggestion to include the gotm_mod scenario file to your installers after I am finished with the update?

I could certainly do that on my Mac installer, though I assume it won't help Marcus, as I assume he's on a PC? I wasn't involved in teh PC installers, though I'm looking at whether I can help with them.

 

[bluebox]

I could certainly do that on my Mac installer, though I assume it won't help Marcus, as I assume he's on a PC? I wasn't involved in teh PC installers, though I'm looking at whether I can help with them.

sure, it would not be helpful for marcus, but I believe he got his gotm installation right. but the bigger share of gotm_mod users are mac-players, aren't they? or, at least, it is of greater value for them.

 

[AlanH]

sure, it would not be helpful for marcus, but I believe he got his gotm installation right. but the bigger share of gotm_mod users are mac-players, aren't they? or, at least, it is of greater value for them.

I've no idea what the relative usage would be. There are roughly equal number sof Windows and Mac players submitting vanilla GOTM entries each month, but I don't know whether these are also your customers.

You can see the stats on versions played in GOTMs here.

 

[Markus5]

GOTM-style scenario is great except for one thing: civ colors.
It seems like I get civs with the same colors, and civs with unit colors different from border colors.

I'm sure I've messed something up. Any ideas where to look?

 

[AlanH]

You, and others, may be interested to know that you can now get a complete installer for this mod, including all the files, in one package at this thread. Its primary purpose is to configure Civ3 1.29 for current GOTMs and SGOTMs, but with three simple file swaps after you've run it you have a complete GOTM Mod set-up.