17-08-2004 23:23									#31
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quote: Originally posted by GoPostal Is ToT an expansion pack, like FW, or a full game? Also, is it true it uses animations, because the lack thereof is what makes civ2 so editable.

Ive never played FW, so im not sure. Its plays stand alone, so in that sense its not an xpack - but if you use it to play the original game, there are almost no rule changes, just different graphics. It comes with a two fantasy games and two sci fi games - all on multiple maps, so more than just scenarios for original Civ2. and additional editing tools, of course.

Yes it uses animations, but these can be turned off.

	18-08-2004 04:38									#32
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It is a full game - It was intended to be CIV2 on steroids.

But like an athlete that cheats - It got caught out!
And in CIV-ToT's case, it was it's lacklustre presentation that hurt it most.

But behind what some might think is a moribund and daunting program lurks some hidden diamonds.

The fact that with boosted graphics, extra units and events - It is a modders dream boat.

But again, it is a matter of taste.
People should ignore the hype, and try ToT out.
There are some good scenarios out there -
And if people decide to make the jump there will be more.

	18-08-2004 05:13									#33
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quote: Yer an officer an and gentleman!

Waitaminnit! This is Catfish you're talking about.

	18-08-2004 07:53									#34
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quote: Originally posted by Boco Waitaminnit! This is Catfish you're talking about.

You don't know how right you are.

quote: Originally posted by GoPostal Is ToT an expansion pack, like FW, or a full game?

My comment above about it being essentially a mod-pack may have been misleading. As LOTM and Curt say, it's a stand-alone game. However, it's basically an evolutionary design of Civ2 and IMO the original price tag wasn't justified.

quote: Originally posted by GoPostal Also, is it true it uses animations, because the lack thereof is what makes civ2 so editable.

You've seen ToT units posted around these forums before. They're 24-bit 64x64-pixel bitmaps. Never made an animated unit in my life – but the option is there if I wanted to.

quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark ...and additional editing tools, of course.

Actually, ToT has no editing tools at all.

Since it was mentioned earlier in the thread, I played around with Imperium Romanum last night. I'd converted it to ToT a couple of years ago, so I'll post it here. Since I'd fiddled with the original, I've had to sort of "unfiddle" with some of it before uploading.

Imperium Romanum ToT Conversion (0.99 Mb)
Imperium Romanum Sound Files (771 kb)

Edit: Oops, I realised I uploaded the wrong pedia.txt file - it's what happens when you're mixing and matching files which date back to 2002. Here's the correct file: Pedia.txt. I reuploaded the corrected scenario file as well.

Changes:

• mirrored some of the units to face left-to-right.
  
• edited the batch files to remove the superfluous pedia entries.
  
• included a dummy resource.spr to prevent issues with the one from the Original directory.
  
• removed replicated sounds – not required in ToT.
  
• Bernd used a number of graphics from ToT. I replaced these with the originals (better colour depth).
  
• transferred the wonder descriptions from pedia.txt to describe.txt – they were way too large and wouldn't fit in the Civilopedia window.
  
• I believe I half-heartedly began to edit some of the text; to what extent I can't really remember. Bernd's German -> English ain't so hot in some cases.

	18-08-2004 15:44									#35
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Excellent work, Catfish.

Another advantage of ToT (one of my favourites, actually) is the ability to give an individual sound file to each unit!

Also ToT supports stereo sounds.
(I could be mistaken here)

	18-08-2004 15:50									#36
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Well, it's about £4, so it is on my next amazon order (maybe)

	18-08-2004 16:12									#37
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OK, which of you MGE-only boys broke my computer? I haven't been able to access Poly since I posted this drunken thread, but it looks like it stimulated some kind of debate..

The real purpose, if there was one, of having this poll was to try and see if the myth about nobody actually owning ToT was true. Current standings indicate that 2/3 of an admitedly small sample do own ToT, so the 'no audience for my scenario' excuse holds no water. Let's face it, there are 20 or 30 of us regulars left anyway, so any civ2 scenario, whether FW, MGE or ToT has a pitifully small audience... As Phenix said, we aren't doing this for world recognition, we're creating stuff to please ourselves which a dozen or 2 other people can appreciate as well.

I think it's probably an understandable fear of the unknown that holds people back, but if you already use a text editor to write rules and events for FW/MGE then you are perfectly capable of designing a ToT scenario. If you want to use all the bells and whistles of ToT then that will admitedly involve a bit of a learning curve (I imagine!), but the point is, you don't have to initially. You can even change the interface appearance to standard civ if you don't like it.

As far as resources go, there are Catfish's terrain files and all other graphics can be easily modified from standard civ graphics, if you don't want to use animation.

In essence, you can design your standard MGE scenario with much better terrain graphics, larger events size and a few nice new rules flags and individual sounds for units without having to delve into the multi-map feature, sprite animation, or any of the other more complicated stuff.

	18-08-2004 16:18									#38
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quote: Originally posted by our_man I wouldn't design scenarios for it myself though. It doesn't seem as user friendly as MGE and it's complexity would require far more work investment.

O-M: from tinkering a bit with a ToT version of Hannibal's War which had been converted from MGE, there isn't anything to worry about; I'm sure Tech, Boco and Catfish would be able to advise with the more complicated stuff.

	18-08-2004 16:26									#39
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quote: Originally posted by Boco What kind of beer?

Bass bitter finished up with a couple of Bushmills IIRC (which I don't really)

quote: I found a bottle of McEwan's that's tasting pretty good. Btw, did you read that beer can cause gout?

I know, and smoking causes cancer but I'm sad to say I do that as well..... McEwan's eh? I've never really learned to appreciate Scottish beer

quote: ToT oozes with potential, but reaching that potential does require a lot of effort. In fact without all the utilities, tips, and art posted on the forums, it'd be pretty daunting to make a ToT scen. So lotsa thanks to Tech, William Keenan, Merc ("read the d**n readme before posting!"), Gothmog, that ManU diehard, Wobbegonefish, and the rest of you. Not to mention the event discussions of Yoshi and Wobbegonefish over at CivFan.

Well you hit the nail on the head there D. - the resources are all available.

BTW, you'll have to explain the Cat/wobbegonefish reference

	19-08-2004 05:39									#40
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Catfish goes by Wobbegong over at CFC. Once after beers, I thought it was clever to concatenate the two. Between Wobbegongfish and Gentleman, he gets no respect on this forum.

quote: IIRC (which I don't really)

Complexity seems a major issue with ToT. But remember, you can simply do what you do for a MGE scenario, but with a deeper palette. No law says you must fill the event stack, use the additional event commands, use a impxx.bmp for every improvement, etc.

	19-08-2004 08:54									#41
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quote: Originally posted by curtsibling Another advantage of ToT (one of my favourites, actually) is the ability to give an individual sound file to each unit!

IMO, one of the best features of ToT is the "tribe may build" mask in the @UNITS_ADVANCED section. It can really help simplify the tech tree, because you can restrict the production of specific units to specific civs without having to use the tech tree to do it. It means different civs with different sets of units can share many more techs.

quote: Originally posted by curtsibling Also ToT supports stereo sounds. (I could be mistaken here)

You're right, but I'm pretty sure all of the older versions do, too. I hope that's the case 'cause I recently told someone else as much over at CFC.

quote: Originally posted by Boco Catfish goes by Wobbegong over at CFC. Once after beers, I thought it was clever to concatenate the two.

Just as well you didn't throw in Bullbuggerer.

	19-08-2004 16:43									#42
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quote: Originally posted by curtsibling Bladdy heck - I just converted Dictator to ToT... Blimming superb tutorial - Nice one, catfish!

I guess that means I'm out of a job.

quote: Originally posted by Catfish Something else: unlike earlier versions of Civ2, air bases in ToT lack the railroad flag. This may require edit/s to the map.

That's not true. Airbases never had the railroad flag, but they use the city flag. That city flag is what caused the problems. It caused airbases to act like cities. So airbases, just like cities, would get a free (rail)road and irrigation upgrade (remember how you could also get an extra food if you built an airbase on a hill). In ToT that bug was fixed.

	19-08-2004 17:18									#43
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quote: Originally posted by Catfish IMO, one of the best features of ToT is the "tribe may build" mask in the @UNITS_ADVANCED section. It can really help simplify the tech tree, because you can restrict the production of specific units to specific civs without having to use the tech tree to do it. It means different civs with different sets of units can share many more techs.

I agree, that mask is a real winner.
Just like the 'twice removed' feature invented by Gothmog, only coded...

Sadly I could never get that feature to work -

Any chance of going over how you got it to work for you, Catfish?

	19-08-2004 17:20									#44
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quote: Originally posted by Mercator I guess that means I'm out of a job.

You could make my Bitterfrost II map!

(j/k)

	19-08-2004 18:12									#45
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quote: Originally posted by Mercator I guess that means I'm out of a job.

You don't get off that easily. You're a regular here. I'm not. I seem to always get sucked in to these damned ToT vs MGE debates, though.

quote: Originally posted by Mercator That's not true

…and you're the one who sets the record straight when we get it wrong.

quote: Originally posted by Mercator (remember how you could also get an extra food if you built an airbase on a hill)

Nope, I don't. That's how long it's been since I used FW and I was only ever a casual Civ2 tamperer back then – still am, really.

quote: Originally posted by curtsibling Any chance of going over how you got it to work for you, Catfish?

I've never run into any problems with this one – works solid. It's section A of the advanced unit fields. The values are reverse programmer notation which means you read them from right to left. There are 8 flags, one for each civ, starting with civ 0 (barbarians). 1 = can build, 0 = can't build. In the example below, only civs 1, 6 and 7 would be able to build that unit – even if all civs possessed its prerequisite tech. If the human player can't build a particular unit you will see a red "You cannot build this unit" displayed in the Civilopedia description. Look in the Original game rules and you can see that everyone can build everything – as you'd expect.

code:
@UNITS_ADVANCED
11000010, ...

	19-08-2004 20:14									#46
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Cheers, man!

I will try it out, it will be useful for some scen ideas I have.

	21-08-2004 05:22									#47
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Here's another tip for those looking to convert FW/MGE scenarios:

ToT allows units to face the direction in which they move (left or right anyway), so there's one thing to remember when converting unit graphics. A left-facing unit will always appear to move BACKWARDS! All units.bmp graphics should be adjusted to face either front or right in order to eliminate this disconcerting effect.

	21-08-2004 05:25									#48
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Good advice!

The facing directional unit movement is another of ToT's little neat touches.

	21-08-2004 06:26									#49
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With Mercator's Sprite tool, you can make a unit with 6 facings, or animate it if you're really nuts.

	21-08-2004 09:38									#50
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quote: Originally posted by Kull All units.bmp graphics should be adjusted to face either front or right in order to eliminate this disconcerting effect.

Mirroring units so that they face left-to-right was mentioned earlier in the thread.

quote: Originally posted by techumseh With Mercator's Sprite tool, you can make a unit with 6 facings, or animate it if you're really nuts.

It's 5 actually, 3 of which are mirrored, effectively giving a total of 8.

Example: Frames 2, 3 and 4 are mirrored.

	21-08-2004 17:12									#51
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How do you implement these different views into the game?

I take it that the sprite utility takes care of the technical side of things?

	21-08-2004 18:25									#52
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Say, you mighty ToT Gods, I do own Test of Time as well as MGE but I have to admit I do not know ToT really.

If there would be a decent scenario editing tutorial I would definitely try a ToT scenario as well ... *hint*

	21-08-2004 18:52									#53
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quote: Originally posted by Catfish and you're the one who sets the record straight when we get it wrong.

Naturally.

quote: Originally posted by curtsibling How do you implement these different views into the game? I take it that the sprite utility takes care of the technical side of things?

That depends on your definition of technical.

To implement different views, you'd need to use CivSprite. All 5 views of all 81 units (in the static.spr) are exported to different images. All you have to do then is replace those default graphics with your own and import them back again.

Not too complicated, but not very user-friendly either.
I should really make a new and better sprite utility, but I'm too busy lazy.

	21-08-2004 21:45									#54
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There are dozens and dozens of these graphics in the Talon Soft games -West Front, East Front and Rising Sun. Could they be rapidly converted using your utility, Merc?

Attachment: tsimage.gif
This has been downloaded 70 time(s).

	21-08-2004 22:11									#55
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Not quite "rapidly", but copy-pasting them into a 64x64 magenta bitmap will get you most of the way. CivSprite would do the rest.

Judging from the facing directions it looks like those units were made for hexagonal tiles though. So they wouldn't face exactly the right direction in Civ2. You'd have to decide which of those images you'd want to use for the 5 different facing directions (N, NE, E, SE, S)

	21-08-2004 22:35									#56
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@Merc:

If the program exports out a Bmp for editing purposes, then that is workable.

And if the program rewrites the file with the new info
for you, that is about as user-friendly as I would need.

	21-08-2004 23:17									#57
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It does both and is easy to use. It also spits out a mask for each frame that allows you to incorporate the individual civ colour on the unit graphic, which is handy for diferentiating generic units.

	21-08-2004 23:24									#58
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I seen examples of the unit masks on Catfish's site.

Very dandy too - His multi-colour units look great.

Coloured generic units would be awesome for implementation in some units in my current projects!

Is it only CivSprite that can enable this feature?

If so, I must acquire a copy ASAP!

	22-08-2004 17:43									#59
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I actually have TOT but I can't use since I bought it 2 years ago. For some reason, it keeps crashing midgame due to a problem with the civ2.exe.

I really don't want to have to buy TOT again, it cost me nearly $20 If anyone could e mail me a copy of the civ2.exe, I would be very grateful. Thanks

PS: Thought I should mention this. I don't have a TOT disc anymore- it got fried from sitting in the sun for too long. What I do have is a copy sitting on my harddisk. Thats why I can't reinstall. Just my luck

	22-08-2004 19:04									#60
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Why not order it via the net? - It's pretty cheap!



Another option is to download No-limits ToT...

This cool utility patch recreates CIV2.exe.

And removes the pop and gold limits!

Give it a try!