TMIT's Guide to Strategy & Tips Series Map Creation

[Ignorant Teacher]

I guess this is the right place to post this question. If it isn't, I apologize. Do you know how I should edit the WB file for ongoing games? I mean, not in 4000BC but later. I really messed up the WB save for this thread. How should it be different? Thank you.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You can define a start year, but I'm not sure if you can set dispositions so easily, and I think it also resets things like GPP, which AFAIK isn't defined in the WB text...in other words getting a WB save to replicate a non-starting save could be quite difficult...

 

[r_rolo1]

It is not hard, it is simply impossible WB saves don't have slots for GPP in cities, neither for food and build bars in cities and the tech bar . And there is also the annoying feature of the assignement of religions...

Really, the best you can do is change the starting date ,as TMIT said. But unfortunately the WB saves are very limited for what you want to do.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Thank you guys!

 

[dalamb]

way cool, thanks! The only modification I would need then is change the playable CIV!

You'd still need to fix the problem wherein the warrior/scout starts in a random location, wouldn't you? That requires turning off the WB cleaner flag for deleting units -- but then at lower difficulties the AI gets to keep its extra units if you did the game creation at higher-than-Monarch.

At present I suspect the only way to get everything to work "right" for LHC, NC, etc is:

• Use WBclean turning off the units and civs option.
• Edit by hand to delete the AI units and set PlayableCiv.

@TMIT: did you perhaps mean to delete everything between BEGINUNIT and ENDUNIT? I think I just blanked out those specific begin/end lines in the Boudica NC XXX game, and you commented that I'd done it wrong.

 

[r_rolo1]

You can still clean ALL the units and then use the previous WB quicksave ( that is done for every load of a game ) to get the location of the human units ( copy/paste ). That is what I normally do for the LHC

 

[dalamb]

In my case I've just thought of a basic approach to deleting just the AI begin/end units and remembering the players, via a macro in my favourite editor, Emacs.

Of course the best solution is to get the author to update the WB cleaner with a few more "game-series-friendly" options eg "select single playable civ" and "delete all units but the player's".

 

[r_rolo1]

Well, the app is java and should be easily moddable... *tries to remember where the java manual is...*

 

[dalamb]

I'm an intermediate-level Java programmer, but I don't think the sources have been posted anywhere.

 

[r_rolo1]

Well, anyway, it should not be too hard to make something like that app. If we think well, it is simply a load function and a handful of macro-style stuff wrapped in a interface....

 

[dalamb]

I checked and Anita hasn't been active since Nov last year, so I imagine she's not going to be able to give us the original sources.

I have a bit too much on my plate to start right away, but by the end of August I was hoping to get back into some Java programming, mostly for fun.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@TMIT: did you perhaps mean to delete everything between BEGINUNIT and ENDUNIT? I think I just blanked out those specific begin/end lines in the Boudica NC XXX game, and you commented that I'd done it wrong.

No I just take out begin and endunit. AFAIK I didn't see that done in NC Boudica...but I forget already what the issue I saw was .

The video shows exactly how I do it and it seems to work that way. Of course completely deleting the entire thing from beginunit to endunit will also work similarly, it's just more work.

 

[r_rolo1]

It is also cleaner and makes the file smaller

 

[dalamb]

Hmm. My local copy of NC XXX Boudica has two begin/end unit pairs, both for the initial units for the Celts so they'd appear in the same locations for everyone as in the screenshots. The rest of the former unit blocks have blanks instead of begin/end. But, I did post a bad one initially and replaced it with what's now my local copy, so you may have seen the first one.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hmm. My local copy of NC XXX Boudica has two begin/end unit pairs, both for the initial units for the Celts so they'd appear in the same locations for everyone as in the screenshots. The rest of the former unit blocks have blanks instead of begin/end. But, I did post a bad one initially and replaced it with what's now my local copy, so you may have seen the first one.

Probably. During that time period I was on the forums a LOT so probably noticed/DL the map soon after posting.

 

[dalamb]

For NC XXXI (Charlemagne) I decided to swap Charlie with another leader whose starting position and neighbours I liked better. After several goofs I finally figured out how to do it -- I think!

1. Delete the BeginUnit/EndUnit blocks and edit them out like TMIT said, or use the WBcleaner's "clean up units" feature.
2. Find the line StartingX=n,StartingY=m for both leaders in their respective BeginPlayer/EndPlayer blocks and swap them.
3. Figure out where you want your starting warrior or scout to go relative to the starting settler, e.g. i units east and j units north (negative for west and south, respectively).
4. Find the BeginPlot/EndPlot with x=n+i,y=m+j. Just before the EndPlot, insert a BeginUnit/EndUnit block for your initial unit. You can either find one or use this one (for a scout: change SCOUT to WARRIOR if your civ doesn't start with hunting):

   	BeginUnit
   		UnitType=UNIT_SCOUT, UnitOwner=0
   		Damage=0
   		Level=1, Experience=0
   		FacingDirection=4
   		UnitAIType=UNITAI_EXPLORE
   	EndUnit

You don't need to place a settler, since one will get created at the startingX/Y anyway (at least, if you've edited out the units; don't know what happens if you don't).

My initial goofs involved moving units with the World Builder and not realizing I needed to change StartingX and StartingY, which led to my moved units starting on top of the Other Guy's in his original location.

 

[cas]

I'm getting ready to host NC XXXII in the next couple of days. I have a question regarding the starting techs and different levels.

I created the game on noble. For creating a separate Monarch wb file, do I just need to add archery to each civ (other than player civ) ?

How do I figure out which techs to add for immortal+ wb ? Does it vary by civ ? I've never looked that close into starting AI techs for each level.

cas

 

[dalamb]

TMIT has a guide as to what to do, but the minimal work to get a usable all-difficulties scenario is:

1. Download and run the WBcleaner, leaving all options checked.
2. Edit the WB save file with any text editor to turn "PlayableCiv=1" to "PlayableCiv=0" for all civilizations but the one you want to have people play.

There's more work if you want to have the starting warrior/scout in the same position every time.

Spoiler the more work :

Turn off the "clean up units" flag in WBcleaner, then delete everything between BeginUnit/EndUnit for all units but the player civ's (the ones with UnitOwner=0).

 

[VinceV]

After successfully opening a map with Wordpad and changing a detail in it, then what format do you save it as? I have the options of 'text document', 'unicode text document', 'rich text format' etc. Can you just change the "open with" properties later and set it to use Civ4?

 

[r_rolo1]

You should save it as a WorldBuilder save, OFC , otherwise the game will not run. Best thing to do is simply overwrite the original WB save from where you started, if you are using a text editor that doesn't allow you to choose the extension of the saved file.