Tutorial: adding new terrain tiles with hex editor

I am giving this a try. Does this Hex editor have a 15-day trial? I wonder what I will do if after 15 days I wish to edit more maps.

 

Yeah HexCmp is shareware with 15 or 30 day trial. Since my trial ended long time ago I switched to Notepad++, it's free and IMO the best text editor there is, with hex support of course.

 

Notepad ++ is an excellent program and is also very good as an xml editor.

 

My Hexcmp's trial perriod is ended. I download Notepad++ but it works differently and I dont'understand. There is someone that can halp me to use this program? Thanks

 

Thank you, Embryoded, for this good tutorial
I've tried this in my new mod about the vendean wars in France (1793-1796)

Just some details:
-you need a uncompressed biq file to make the changes with the editor
-you write "02" at the point 7 in the xls file, but it's "20" to put LM terrain on


I tried to create LM coasts terrain. This new terrain is clearly identified as LM terrain in the editor. However, LM coast part in the editor, is still not active. So I can't modify the characteristics of this new terrain. I guess that's because I did not create a pcx specific to this terrain?
I do not know what form should have this file, and which civ3 files must be changed. I hope you can give me some guidance ...
Thanks a lot

 

That's because the landmark coasts are already included in other files. You'll find them in lxdgc, lxpdc, lxggc, lxpgc and lxtgc in the Art/terrain file. If you mean coastal waters, look in lwCSO.

To anyone: is it possible to get LMRoads/Railroads? LMrivers? or LMVolcanoes? I'd give anything for that. If so, I've got a biq I'd like someone to hack for me.

 

AFAIK which LM terrain is available is hard-coded. Roads/RR & rivers are overlays anyway - not terrain.

LM Volcanoes would be handy. Personally, I don't understand why there is LM Sea, but no LM Coast.

 

Thank you Balthazar, i'm going to try this
And yes, i think it's possible to have LMVolcanoes.

 

If you're successful, please post the results.

 

Do you mean roads/railroads allowed on LM-terrain or LM-road graphics?

If you need a biq with a LM-coastal terrain and all other missing LM-terrains, embryodead gave such a biq to the Civ-community. This biq of course also contains LM-volcanoes.

 

Thanks, Civinator. In spite of having it bookmarked I had forgotten that the zip included the BIQ. I should have reread the whole thread before being erroneously pessimistic.

 

Of course it's possible, I showed an LMVolcano in the tutorial
It is not possible to have a different graphic for it, however, just different name/stats.

You don't need / can't create any new PCX files. They are all already there. Modifying how LM coast tiles look is possible but won't be nice because of how terrain blending works, which is why I suggested using overlay resources instead.

If you can't edit the new terrain's characteristics, it means you missed the first step - "Enabling new LM Terrain" in the tutorial. I recommend doing what Civinator suggested - downloading my HexPak and importing the terrain rules from my Landmarks.biq into your own biq. That'll force you to redo some of your stats, but you'll have all LM terrain enabled.

LMRoads/LMRailroads, as in roads/RRs with different stats/look, are not possible.

 

Edit: after re-reading this thread, I realized that just importing the Landmarks biq rules wasn't enough; I still have to edit the hex file. So I downloaded all of the tools described, and got hung up on the very first instruction in the calc file.
It says, "1. Open the BIQ in a hex editor and search for the “TILE” string (not hex string)" I'm looking for volcanoes, and the little chart says that is "AA", so my question is:

I swear that once I get this, I'll stop asking dumb questions.

 

Balthasar,
Yes, importing BIQ rules only enables the terrain in the editor, the actual placing of tiles should be done using the hex editor.

Two fixes for your problem, apply both:
1. Make sure the BIQ is uncompressed (turn off View->Options->Compress BIC files in the Civ3Conquests editor, and save).
2. When looking for "TILE", use string search, not hex search. Both HexCmp and Notepad++ have that option in the search box.

 

Oh and one more thing since I didn't read it carefully earlier. The "AA" will be on the right side (the left is side is the address), but the only thing you should use search function for is "TILE" string. To find specific tile location use the stylesheet - once you enter all the values, it'll show you the exact address where the "AA" you're looking for is located.

 

Sorry to bump but I have a couple of questions:

1. Is it possible to have Tundra Jungles in the same way as you can have Plains Jungles? Because this would be mighty useful for me to represent Taiga!

2. Does the above statement mean that the graphical representation in the editor is the correct one, and not the named one? Stupid question, but I don't want to go around making mistakes!

 

Yeah should work in the same way. Simply change the desired tundra tile to a jungle using my stylesheet. Doing this you only change the "overlay" value of the tile, while the "base" value remains the same - in this case tundra. The tile will be now treated as jungle in terms of rules (or LM jungle if you set the LM byte).

The graphical representation is the correct one. The names on the map etc. are correct as well, it's only the terrain menu that is mixed up.

 

I'm not sure the names on the map are correct - When I hover the mouse over LM Mountains (graphic), it tells me they're LM Flood Plains (name), but I feel safe that it counts as LM Mountains...

Thanks for your help!

 

is there anything like this for Civ3 plain?

 

Sorry if this is a huge bump, but I have been away for a few months.

What I would like to know is if there is any way to make a different terrain type be the base terrain. If I don't want grassland as the base terrain type for all the pcx files. Can we use this editor to make, say, desert the base terrain type. I could (or have) gone and edited the pcx files to have desert and grassland switched. Would this be possible? Just curious here, it's not really a big deal.

Also, from VC's question up above, I was wondering about how one goes about making jungles over plains or tundra. I had an idea about changing the jungle graphic to the forest and then forest graphic to that of rocks and boulders. The "forest" could then represent an avalanche or rock slide. This way, I could use the Plant Forest worker action for units that "cause rock slides", not to attack, but slow down enemy troop movements through narrow parts of terrain where wheeled units have only one path through mountains.
Sweet? I think so!

However, the plant forest feature would only plant normal forest, not LM forests. I guess I could swap the pcx files for them, having the normal forests be piles of rocks or ice and the LM forests look normal.

Is there anything I am missing here? Would this work?

Oh, and can you really make LM pine forests in addition to the normal LM forests?