What about new utilities?

[CivPartisan]

Wow,

We've got a lot on the table here today and I think we need to sort it a bit.

A) The .dll's are a tricky thing...I will not tell anyone that this is an easy job...Techumseh...I've ran into all kinds of problems with the display of colors in the .dll using the GifXtractor program...perhaps I'm not very good at it, but I have used it for a couple of scenarios.

B) By the way, thanks for the good comments and interest in this thread...But I think it is really because this is a long standing point of interest for all civ players and we need get this out...

C)

Cedric has only ripped off Microprose and Hasbro by creating patches that illegally upgrade or downgrade your civ2 version.
He created a patch which can upgrade Civ2 classic or downgrade Civ2 ToT to Civ2 MGE. He also created a patch that upgrades Civ2 classic to Civ2 FW.

Mercator, technically all modpacks and scenarios are in fact, illegal by that definition. However, Cedric's patch does follow a NORM that has been established BY modpacks and scenario authors. In effect, modpacks are essentially an upgrade of Civilization to some other modified version. Playing a modpack on different versions than the one produced is an upgrade or downgrade of sorts. Microprose no longer offers support for all Civ II products that it has produced (even though a new publication of Civ II ver. 2.42 has been released). Cedric did the Civ II community a favor by working very hard to provide this support just as other modpack and scenario authors do. TECHNICALLY, I would call his work the "Civ II: MGE" modpack for classic civ, CiC, FW, and ToT.

GET THIS OUTSTANDING UPGRADE HERE:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ2cedric.shtml

D)

In any case, if anyone would make a "patch" that would downgrade MGE to FW, you would simply get FW, which means NO multiplayer.

Maybe Cedric's work isn't done yet...he could probably do the patch relatively easily. Don't forget, FW has all those really excellent scenario editing tools that DID NOT come with MGE. A call to Cedric has come.

E) Maybe it is possible to run a separate program that makes modifications for cracking city and unit limits in a .sav or .scn file by utilizing cities from another civ...who knows for sure. For now, let's not say "impossible" because I have learned in life and in civ..."anything is possible."

I think there are some good editors out there for the a number of different files...I'd like to see a manager for events files and be done with all these batch files....something like what the modpack manager does but a little more versatile for users.

These comments are OUTSTANDING! I invite others to give their opinion or add more ideas here

John

 

[techumseh]

Originally posted by JValdezToo
A) The .dll's are a tricky thing...I will not tell anyone that this is an easy job...Techumseh...I've ran into all kinds of problems with the display of colors in the .dll using the GifXtractor program...perhaps I'm not very good at it, but I have used it for a couple of scenarios.

If colour display is a problem, you can solve it by pasting the new image into the old one, and then reinserting it with the gifxtractor. This ensures that the new image uses the standard Civ2 palette.

 

[willemvanoranje]

In PSP I save the palet of a standard civ2 gif file and then load it again in the new gif. Sometimes the colors are changed a bit ugly, so you might have to do some small painting.

 

[CivPartisan]

What would be nice is if some upcoming graphic professional made an editor similar to the one that comes with Fantastic Worlds but...one that has a lot more versatility and power...

You know, while we're are at it...a sound generator would be nice too! hahaha

John

 

[Mercator]

Originally posted by JValdezToo
Mercator, technically all modpacks and scenarios are in fact, illegal by that definition.

No they're not. Microprose designed their game so that people could make scenarios. Scenarios are made by Civ2 fans and require a full version of Civ2 to be played. They are in no way "upgrades" to Civ2, the game engine remains the same. Still, the rights are with Microprose, so charging for a scenario would be illegal.
In contrast, Cedric's patches allow people who bought one version to change to another version, which they didn't buy.
Generally speaking, I don't have much problems with software piracy, but for Civ2 I'm principally against it.

But talking about utilities... I'm close to releasing an update to MapEdit (no shocking changes). Does anyone have any suggestions I might squeeze in, bugs I have to solve or otherwise interesting info?

 

[techumseh]

Jorrit, I love Mapedit, and use it on many projects I work on. If you could make a terrain-replacer function, it'd be swell. So If you could replace all the forest, for example, with tundra with just a click. Is it doable?

 

[Peregrine]

What Techumseh said!

 

[CivPartisan]

Microprose designed their game so that people could make scenarios. Scenarios are made by Civ2 fans and require a full version of Civ2 to be played. They are in no way "upgrades" to Civ2

Mercator, you are absolutely right! "Microprose designed their game so that people could make scenarios." Microprose did not design Civ II to have the following files tampered with:

Graphics:

city.gif
civ2art.dll
cv.dll
intro.dll
mk.dll
pv.dll
ss.dll
tiles.dll

These files are not part of the Fantastic Worlds scenario editor.
Tampering with these files constitutes changes that can be looked at as an upgrade (hopefully if it is good enough ). A lot of people have changed these files for their scenarios and modpacks (yes, I am among those derelect pioneers )

These files are not read in the scenario directory as changes when the scenario is selected. That is because these files have to be in the MAIN Civ2 directory-- just like a patch.

In contrast, Cedric's patches allow people who bought one version to change to another version, which they didn't buy.

Ahhhh....yes, I see now...This is true. Very true in fact that it allows people to change versions, but--

Does it make it piracy if everyone owns the game already?
Is a downgrade piracy? Doesn't it also standardize the 'Civ community' so everyone has the same version? I thought it promoted the purchase of Civ II when MGE is not available in a player's geographic area? As I understand it, this patch cannot be used without Civ II or ToT. We need to know the answers to these questions first...

Generally speaking, I don't have much problems with software piracy, but for Civ2 I'm principally against it.

Sorry Jorrit, and please take no offense, but this is the only part I disagree with. I do not agree with software piracy ever (getting a commercial program for free without paying for it impacts the jobs of people). Players have to PAY for Civ II before they can use Cedric's patch. No one can deny that. And Cedric does not charge for his patch. I'll start another thread to get other opinions, but I still think Cedric's patch is a good thing. If it isn't, well...I'll talk to TF.

John

 

[CivPartisan]

I suppose if I don't make Mercator mad enough to crack me over the head...he might do what Techumseh said!

John

 

[Mayhem]

What? You can do anything you want to if you own the game. You can modify it and create even a better game if you want it. The problem is if your prophet from it, that's wrong.





It's a free country, look it up.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Originally posted by willemvanoranje
In PSP I save the palet of a standard civ2 gif file and then load it again in the new gif. Sometimes the colors are changed a bit ugly, so you might have to do some small painting.

Trouble with the dll gif's is that many of them have different palettes. New ones might be acceptable by civ2, others will cause it to crash.

 

[Morten Blaabjerg]

Originally posted by Mercator
I'm close to releasing an update to MapEdit (no shocking changes). Does anyone have any suggestions I might squeeze in, bugs I have to solve or otherwise interesting info?

It'd be cool to combine it with MapCopy, i.e. build in some easy way of extracting a map from a .scn or .sav file, make changes, and then reinsert it into the file once one is done with the changes.

 

[Mercator]

I'll reply to the patch "issue" in the other thread, if you don't mind... I don't want to clutter this thread.

I suppose if I don't make Mercator mad enough to crack me over the head...he might do what Techumseh said!

Well, that would require quite a bit more.

techumseh, Peregrina and JV, I'll see what I can do about your request. I have plenty of suggestions from the first release. What you suggested was one of the ideas I had jotted down myself too, which makes it more likely that it will happen.

MB... That IS a good idea, but especially reinserting will require quite a bit of work to program... And I'm not sure if I want to work on that (considering that I should be doing much more important things than Mapedit in the first place )... And also simply because there already is an application out there that can do it.
But now I think of it, maybe I can somehow incorporate MapCopy into MapEdit, only providing a graphical interface to it, so to speak. That would save me from doing all the dirty work, and it'll make MapCopy more attractive for people not too comfortable with DOS.

 

[CurtSibling]

Mighty Mercator,

Would it be possible to extract maps from ToT games to use in MGE?

or the other way round?

 

[Mercator]

Sure... But do you want me to put that in MapEdit?

I might be making an extraction routine, and if I do, I'll make sure it's version independant, so MapEdit would then be able to load the map from any Civ2 version's map, savegame or scenario... But it wouldn't be able to save maps into savegames or scenarios (except if I add that MapCopy "link").

If anything of this will actually make it into the new MapEdit in progress, I don't know. You'll see when I release it. (the sooner, the worse, it seems )

 

[CurtSibling]

Global map extraction would be cool!
I await the new version eagerly!

 

[Winterfritz]

Cracking the unit and city limits are excellent ideas. But IMHO the best thing to crack would be the seven civ limit. Having more than seven (and a half) civilizations would make civ2 about ten times better, IMHO.

 

[CivPartisan]

WinterFritz,

I positively absolutely agree. There needs to be more than seven civs. Someone must do this. This would change everything. If we could get that it would make a lot more things possible with scenarios. Think of what it would do for WWII scenarios?

As I fear though, the 7 civ limit might be in the backbone of the game...please let there be a technosurgeon skilled enough to make this happen.

John

 

[Mayhem]

Possibly making the Barbarians able to be civilized, ie have the ability to settle and build improvements would allow for that 8th civilization. And would greatly increase the realisim of the game.

You wouldn't have to make up some fake civilization like the north atlantics and south western pacific allied alliance.
But this would require a facelift of the entire game, from dlls to executables.

 

[oryx]

Originally posted by JValdezToo

A) The .dll's are a tricky thing...I will not tell anyone that this is an easy job...Techumseh...I've ran into all kinds of problems with the display of colors in the .dll using the GifXtractor program...perhaps I'm not very good at it, but I have used it for a couple of scenarios.

The reason you'd have problems with colors in the leader portraits (mk.dll) is that they use a strange palette. The palette problem is tricky but I think I've got a handle on it. The leader portraits use a 99 color palette. The first 32 slots are a gray scale from black to white. The next 64 slots are an optimized color palette. The last 3 slots are the transparent colors (pink, cyan and 1 other). The 157 slots in between are not used. You can make a decent palette if you have a palette editor. I don't know of any freeware like this. I got a palette editor as a throw-in with some multimedia authoring software.

Otherwise you can extract any of the existing palettes from the gifs you extract from the dll and apply that to the new image. Pick one that would be closest in coloration to the new image.

You're not limited to using the same palette as the image being replaced.