Utility for playing scenarios in hotseat!!!

[Silica_Pathways]

Our wishes have been fulfilled, Gyathaar has made utility that allows playing scenarios in hotseat!
The idea is simple - create singleplayer game, save the first turn and then use the utility to convert some savegame's AI players that u want to human players.

Here's the description and quick 'how-to-use' from utility's creator Gyathaar himself:

To limit the use for cheating, it will only work for a game from the first turn of a game, and only if there is no admin password, and the no cheat flag is not set.

unpack the zip file into a dir of your choice (you need the zlib1.dll there too)

Create a single player save you want to convert, take note of what number in list the civs you want to make playable are.. first choice on list is number 0, and is what is normally played by humans except in scenarios.

start a command line shell (Start -> Run -> cmd )
cd to the dir you made and run:

hotseat "path to savefile you want to convert" list of civ numbers to make player playable

Eg: hotseat "c:\civ4\saves\mysave 4000BC.Civ4SavedGame" 1 5

this will convert the 2nd and 6th civ in the list into human playable (1st one is number 0).. the numbers can be from 0 to 18, where 18 is barbarians..

the converted file will be outputted as hotseat.Civ4SavedGame in the same dir as the hotseat.exe, so you will have to move this file to the hotseat save game folder and you prolly want to rename it too afterwards.

All the thanks goes to Gyathaar, i just did bit of testing and made this thread Enjoy

Note: Don't try playing barbs - the game will just froze.

*edit* Removed old version. Check next post for the new one.

*edit2* ABOUT DESCRIPTION ABOVE - description is about version 1.0, there will be new one posted, when i'll test the current version.

 

[Gyathaar]

Made a new version that is slightly more userfriendly... (in addition to taking command line options like before it also prompts you for filenames and so on )

This version also allows converting files to pbem saves, so I changed the name for the util to saveconvert.

It seems that for mods that normally require you to restart the client to load them, you have to open the saves by doubleclicking them, else civ4 crashes during the restart (atleast for me)


version 2.1 removed after 57 downloads
version 2.2 removed after 422 downloads
version 2.3 removed after 31 downloads

v2.1: updated to work on earth1000AD saves.
v2.2: added ability to change victory conditions and dificulty levels.
v2.3: bugfix for issue where utility sometimes created corrupt saves.
v2.3b: repacked the file as a zip file instead of a rar file

 

[Raider62]

Is there a way to change victory conditions??? I only want Conquest. When I restarted it had all the conditions. any work around?

 

[Gyathaar]

Is there a way to change victory conditions??? I only want Conquest. When I restarted it had all the conditions. any work around?

Hmm.. no sure.. I will have to look into that

 

[Raider62]

Thanks tried worldbuilder but couldnt find anyway to change the conditions. Other that that, Thanks so much for making this fix. It was great till I saw the victory conditions. Anyhow I am sure there has to be a way to make it just conquest and then it will be perfect!!! Thanks again !!!

 

[Gyathaar]

Added options to change the victory options..

Also added ability to change the difficulty levels for each civ.. notice that an AI playing at settler difficulty will be harder than an AI playing and noble (and an AI playing at deity will be easier)

 

[Raider62]

That totally rocks. I put this fix right up there with Hark's memory fix!!! Thanks a lot Gyathaar!!!!This totally changed my opinion of Civ 4. Was having tech issues but screw it can live with them for now. Thanks again man that is awesome work.
You should get an award for making this fix, workaround, miracle. lol thanks again

 

[Asjo]

Yeah, I enjoyed this as well, although you might want to change the guidelines after the new version. Took me 30 minutes to figure out. Actually, I was close to giving up, only to find that I had used the wrong drive letter to specify where the file was.

I know it can be a fine line to walk, but I would really like the ability to change all AIs to human players and then change this back (which can be done with 'retire' in main menu as I understand), and then change the game to a single player game so that you can save it as a scenario. I understand this provides a possibility of cheating in hotseat, but it would really be priceless to the ones making scenarios, especially if you end up in a situation in the game where you find the perfect opportunity to make some changes to improve the game or make it into a good scenario. Or, say, you play a game with your mate, but his must discontinue his participation. This leaves you is a very vulnerable position as he was your trusted ally, and now you still want to continue this great game, but know you will die instantly without some reinforcement.

The use of this tool would be much greater with a few changes, given a few loopholes. However, I find that there must be some way to mark games so that you can know whether you partner has cheated.

 

[kevjm]

The instructions weren't that clear, haven't actually got it to work yet... please, clearer instructions, thanks

 

[Gyathaar]

Sadly i am really bad at explaining stuff like that, and putting time into making a userfriendly interface is even further from what I can do...

Probably easiest if some other user who has figured out how to use it explains how to use it

 

[Robo Magic Man]

Wait, can't you just open the .py file of the scenario in notepad, change singleplayeronly=1 to =0, load the scenario as a mod, and then play multiplayer and edit game options from there? Why is a program needed?

 

[Gyathaar]

For direct IP, Internet and LAN multiplayer games you can do that..

But for hotseat and PBEM there is no option to load a scenario file when you start up
(If you try to load a mod first, then hotseat and PBEM will be greyed out)

 

[Asjo]

Gyathaar, what do you think of the suggestion I made? Is it impossible to think of such modifications to the tool? Or maybe that is something I should ask Crash757 about?

Also, here is the simple way to use the tool:

First, open command prompt by typing 'cmd' in the run menu

Go to the directory where you have Civilization IV and run saveconvert.exe

Once you start saveconvert.exe simply write the path to your CIV IV single player savegame. Placing the savegame on the root of your c-drive or something the like would be the easiest thing to do as you would only have to type a very short path.

Now, put '1' for hotseat. Just press enter next if you don't want to enter a name for the hot savegame created (thus it will be hotseat.civ4savedgame in the Civ IV folder) - if you do put a name, remember the .civ4savedgame file extension. Then choose the civlizations you want to change into human players. When you are done changing AI's into human players just press enter and the process is done and the file is created.

 

[Silica_Pathways]

Or maybe that is something I should ask Crash757 about?

As i stated above, i did only testing and made this thread, nothing else. I just don't have skills to make (or edit) such utilities myself.
Btw, nice to see some comments and suggestions coming up, i knew people will like this utility

 

[mathphysto]

I'm having trouble with the output of the utility for a scenario that requires a restart when run. When I load the converted save file, I get a load screen (as normal) before arriving at an empty title screen (w/ Earth in the background and big Civilization IV up top). It then just sits there doing nothing, with no text boxes, menus, or anything else. It does this whether I try loading it by double-clicking on the file (as suggested above) or by going thru the menus as normal.

I should note that if I run the saveconvert but do not change any AI to humans, the outputted save file runs normally - so the problem only occurs when I try to have multiple human players (which is obviously a problem for us trying to play hotseat!)

Any suggestions?

 

[Gyathaar]

I'm having trouble with the output of the utility for a scenario that requires a restart when run. When I load the converted save file, I get a load screen (as normal) before arriving at an empty title screen (w/ Earth in the background and big Civilization IV up top). It then just sits there doing nothing, with no text boxes, menus, or anything else. It does this whether I try loading it by double-clicking on the file (as suggested above) or by going thru the menus as normal.

I should note that if I run the saveconvert but do not change any AI to humans, the outputted save file runs normally - so the problem only occurs when I try to have multiple human players (which is obviously a problem for us trying to play hotseat!)

Any suggestions?

Sadly I have no clue why this is happening.. you get the exact same behavior as when I try to load the save directly.
For me however it works if I doubleclick save.. I also think it works if I first load that scenario i single player, then go back to main menu, then go into multiplayer->direct ip, and then try to load the hotseat game.

Hopefully the next patch will have more support for playing scenarios in hotseat so you wont have to struggle so much with this

 

[Asjo]

Gyathaar, ignoring my comments, eh?

 

[Gyathaar]

Gyathaar, ignoring my comments, eh?

Its just that the marking of saves would be a lot of work since the only way I can think of is adding a message in all the players event logs

 

[Asjo]

Allright, just noticed that you hadn't answered my question the first time around. Since this is volountary work, you have already done plenty. I see a lot of potential in the idea, but, of course, if there is no way to work around it without putting up hours there's not much to do.

 

[SweetBoy19]

Heyyy

It's perfect

Thank you Gyathaar!

Firstly I had some problems about make it work but the most because I did mistakes about writing well the folder direction

It's really simple:

download the Gyathaar's zip file and save for example in a folder into "my documents" then when you save single game to convert to hotseat, save it in this folder

then run cmd and type there: cd C:\Documents and Settings\.....\My documents\folder name (which contains the unziped Gyathaar's files and the single game map to convert) then intro

PD: the \.....\ would be usually the computer's user name, but it depends on the computer and in the windows language, and also the whole direction may be diferent, for example, my windows is in spanish, then i have "Mis documentos" in the place of "My documents", to know perfectly the folder's direction, make visible the direction bar like if it was internet explorer, and then go to the folder, and copy the same direction in cmd after cd, also in my computer when I run cmd, it is already on C:\Documents and Settings\..... and I just have to type the continuation, but to be more sure write the whole direction WITHOUT any writing mistake, if it says some error, I'm sure it must be for some unsawn writing mistake

and in the next line type: hotseat Single game saved game.Civ4SavedGame 1 2 3 (1 2 3 would be 4 players playing: 0 (single game already playing) + 1 (player 2) + 2(player 3) + 3 (player 4)

PD: if your saved name is for example: Albert then --> Albert.Civ4SavedGame + 1 2 3 ... (which you want to convert to humans, note that 0 is first player, 1 is 2nd player, etc)

in this example there would be 4 human players playing in hotseat + IA players if you made the map for more players who will be computers

if you want only 2 players, then only type 1 after saved game file:
hotseat Single game saved game.Civ4SavedGame 1 [/I]

I explained it in the longest way because if somebody never used cmd it is not that easy, but when you are used to cmd then you will be fast


The unique problem I see in hotseat is all of my friends want to be last player because the last is the unique who can see the computer's movements, and if some computer attack first players or invade city, they can't see what happened, and in their turn they might see some city lost

but this problem was already in Civ 3

anybody know if there is some option that make other players see what's happening after last human player turn??

PD: puedo traducir la explicacion es español si no lo entendeis