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As most of the screenshots, concerning the multiple leaderheads of CCM, were lost by the closing of the SOC site and I received a request about writing something about this multiple leader system, here we go about using multiple leaders of a civ in a Civ 3 game:
I never liked the idea in the civ series of immortal single leaders that also exist long before their existance. Why to start with an immortal Bismarck or Lincoln in 4000 BC, nearly 6000 years before their real appearance? Why to identify with a single leader (that often enough was a mass-murderer) and not with the civ, that had to live with special leaders in their history? This new focus on the Civ series opens the path for the appearance of several era-specific leaders for a civ in gameplay. It also allows to make use of wonderful single-era leaderheads that can be combined with other leaderheads of other eras.
These are the steps to include the multiple leader system in CCM:
A. Graphics:
1. The round advisor graphics:
For the round multiple leader-advisor-graphics many different images from different leaderhead-sets with different palettes must be combined to a single, good looking image. Here it is frequently useful, to combine the graphics by setting them to 16 Mio colours and than reducing the combined advisor graphics to 256 colours. Remaining colour distortions must be cleaned up manually.
Attached are some screenshots about some combined advisor graphics of Persia, Poland, Germany, Britain, Maghreb and Indo-China:
2. Flics:
Add the era-specific flics of the different leaders of a civ to the folder Art\Flics and set the name of these flics in the editor as the flics you want to use for that civ in a certain era.
3. Races Icons and leaderhead images cannot be changed during gameplay by the game itself. CCM here uses flags of the civs.
B. Textfiles:
1. Setting of additional leadernames in the editor by using the boxes "Title" und "Name" in the settings of a civ:
One or more names of the rulers (depending how long the name is) are written in the box "Title" in the civ-register of the editor and the other names in the box "Name" of the civ-register. The missing titles must be corrected by changing the text files, especially the diplomacy.txt. The leadernames in the title- and name-boxes must be long enough to stop the wrong autoformating of the text by the editor. Names that are not interrupted by spaces are not separated randomly by the editor. That´s why I sometimes used a point between two parts of the name of a ruler to connect them.
It seems, there is a kind of rule for the editor autoformating the text in the leader´s "title" and "name" boxes. The editor always trys to list the entries in these two boxes in columns. If there is a short entry in the title box, the editor tries to add the first entry of the name-box in the first line of that column. If the entry is longer, the editor puts the name in line 2 of the column and starts with one (or two) space-holders in that line. In that line the editor also tries to autoformate two words until breaking to the next line. A space between two words forms a new word for that autoformating while another sign (like a point) between two words makes the editor see it as one word. To avoid problems of collission between text and graphics by too long names, there should not be used more than 3 different leadernames (two by long names).
I made the 31 entries in CCM fitting in the correct columns in the advisors and the starting screen by try and error. The number of letters can be counted in these entries until the editor does the next autoformating break in the text of these two boxes, so I think if somebody has the time to count the letters to the next break of the editor in autoformating the text, such a rule can be formed.
Attached are some screenshots done by that setting in early versions of CCM:
Era 1:
Era 2:
Era 3:
The multiple leaders must not only fit correctly to the diplo-screen, there are other screens (like the player setup), where the proportions must be correct. There are hardcoded situations, where there are interferences between the texts of long leadernames. Therefore the multiple leadersystem of CCM was streamlined. The rulers now only have the simple name ... well: Ruler. Ruler of Greece, Ruler of Egypt and so on. The title box in the editor stays empty and the name box simply contains the name Ruler. This setting allows a far more easy handling and the use of all 4 possible different leaderheads for the 4 different eras in Civ 3 as there is now always enough place for them in the screens of Civ 3.
Attached is a screenshot with the old and the new setting of the ruler names in the editor:
To inform the players of CCM, who have forgotten the names of the leaders, these leaders are now listed in the civilopedia entry for that civ - and the best, these entries are now linked to other civilopedia-informations about those different leaders. So CCM can provide the player with much more information about each of these leaders as it was possible with the conventional race-civilopedia-entry. The links to the information about the different leaders (names and history) in CCM are done to unit entries of the civilopedia to have enough options to do them. I demonstrate this with Egypt as an example:
2. Cleaning up of the textfiles of the mod/scenario:
In all textfiles (especially the diplomacy and the script file) the names of the leaders or the placeholders for their names must be removed. This is a lot of work when doing this first, but in English, these files are still available by my mod CCM and can be used as a base for other mods and scenarios (what can save a lot of time for you). As said above, concerning the different leaders, it also can be useful to draw links to the civilopedia about the names and history of these leaders.
Finally I attache a screenshot from a current CCM test-play with different era-specific leaders in the eras 3 and 4:
I never liked the idea in the civ series of immortal single leaders that also exist long before their existance. Why to start with an immortal Bismarck or Lincoln in 4000 BC, nearly 6000 years before their real appearance? Why to identify with a single leader (that often enough was a mass-murderer) and not with the civ, that had to live with special leaders in their history? This new focus on the Civ series opens the path for the appearance of several era-specific leaders for a civ in gameplay. It also allows to make use of wonderful single-era leaderheads that can be combined with other leaderheads of other eras.
These are the steps to include the multiple leader system in CCM:
A. Graphics:
1. The round advisor graphics:
For the round multiple leader-advisor-graphics many different images from different leaderhead-sets with different palettes must be combined to a single, good looking image. Here it is frequently useful, to combine the graphics by setting them to 16 Mio colours and than reducing the combined advisor graphics to 256 colours. Remaining colour distortions must be cleaned up manually.
Attached are some screenshots about some combined advisor graphics of Persia, Poland, Germany, Britain, Maghreb and Indo-China:
2. Flics:
Add the era-specific flics of the different leaders of a civ to the folder Art\Flics and set the name of these flics in the editor as the flics you want to use for that civ in a certain era.
3. Races Icons and leaderhead images cannot be changed during gameplay by the game itself. CCM here uses flags of the civs.
B. Textfiles:
1. Setting of additional leadernames in the editor by using the boxes "Title" und "Name" in the settings of a civ:
One or more names of the rulers (depending how long the name is) are written in the box "Title" in the civ-register of the editor and the other names in the box "Name" of the civ-register. The missing titles must be corrected by changing the text files, especially the diplomacy.txt. The leadernames in the title- and name-boxes must be long enough to stop the wrong autoformating of the text by the editor. Names that are not interrupted by spaces are not separated randomly by the editor. That´s why I sometimes used a point between two parts of the name of a ruler to connect them.
It seems, there is a kind of rule for the editor autoformating the text in the leader´s "title" and "name" boxes. The editor always trys to list the entries in these two boxes in columns. If there is a short entry in the title box, the editor tries to add the first entry of the name-box in the first line of that column. If the entry is longer, the editor puts the name in line 2 of the column and starts with one (or two) space-holders in that line. In that line the editor also tries to autoformate two words until breaking to the next line. A space between two words forms a new word for that autoformating while another sign (like a point) between two words makes the editor see it as one word. To avoid problems of collission between text and graphics by too long names, there should not be used more than 3 different leadernames (two by long names).
I made the 31 entries in CCM fitting in the correct columns in the advisors and the starting screen by try and error. The number of letters can be counted in these entries until the editor does the next autoformating break in the text of these two boxes, so I think if somebody has the time to count the letters to the next break of the editor in autoformating the text, such a rule can be formed.
Attached are some screenshots done by that setting in early versions of CCM:
Era 1:
Era 2:
Era 3:
The multiple leaders must not only fit correctly to the diplo-screen, there are other screens (like the player setup), where the proportions must be correct. There are hardcoded situations, where there are interferences between the texts of long leadernames. Therefore the multiple leadersystem of CCM was streamlined. The rulers now only have the simple name ... well: Ruler. Ruler of Greece, Ruler of Egypt and so on. The title box in the editor stays empty and the name box simply contains the name Ruler. This setting allows a far more easy handling and the use of all 4 possible different leaderheads for the 4 different eras in Civ 3 as there is now always enough place for them in the screens of Civ 3.
Attached is a screenshot with the old and the new setting of the ruler names in the editor:
To inform the players of CCM, who have forgotten the names of the leaders, these leaders are now listed in the civilopedia entry for that civ - and the best, these entries are now linked to other civilopedia-informations about those different leaders. So CCM can provide the player with much more information about each of these leaders as it was possible with the conventional race-civilopedia-entry. The links to the information about the different leaders (names and history) in CCM are done to unit entries of the civilopedia to have enough options to do them. I demonstrate this with Egypt as an example:
2. Cleaning up of the textfiles of the mod/scenario:
In all textfiles (especially the diplomacy and the script file) the names of the leaders or the placeholders for their names must be removed. This is a lot of work when doing this first, but in English, these files are still available by my mod CCM and can be used as a base for other mods and scenarios (what can save a lot of time for you). As said above, concerning the different leaders, it also can be useful to draw links to the civilopedia about the names and history of these leaders.
Finally I attache a screenshot from a current CCM test-play with different era-specific leaders in the eras 3 and 4:
