26-11-2001 00:39									#1
	UTILITY: CIV3BREED - Correct Starting Locations Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Oh No! 'Yet Another Editor'. Anyway, this little tool changes the starting locations, which it gets from a text file, and fixes map coverage. It's command-line based, because I made it for personal use. Well, decided to share it, because it seems to work. Enjoy!
Snippet from the instructions file:

quote: DESCRIPTION ----------------------------- CIV3BREED is a command-line tool for patching save files. It uses a text format C3B file which contains starting locations for all civs. It also has two variants of reveal map, with or without 'fog-of-war'.

	26-11-2001 12:57									#2
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Is this better than jimmyh's save edit utility???

26 people have d/led it...they should have an opinion...

	27-11-2001 01:13									#3
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I can't get the reveal map (-r) parameter to work. Where exactly does it fit in the the command? Other than that great work!

	27-11-2001 02:27									#4
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I'm glad you liked it! To reveal the map, pass the option -R , that is a capital R, after all other parameters.
Example:

quote: civbreed mysave.sav map.c3b correctsave.sav -R

This will reveal the whole map, including 'fog-of-war', but it's not permanent so when you move units, the squares around them will become 'fogged' again. It's good for checking that everything went ok, and to see what happens during the first turns of a game. Also to see how the A.I (maybe) cheats. I might release a new version tomorrow, with an option for a 'fogged' reveal only, and a revised instructions file.

	27-11-2001 04:41									#5
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I'm not sure why but I can't get this to work. Probably just because (despite what my friends may think) I'm not thatg good with computers. Anyway...

First thing, when I run the program, a little dos window thingy pops up with some text but then eixts almost immediately so I can't read what it says. Is this supposed to happen? Also, does the .c3b file need to be saved anywhere specific?

And just so you know what, "It doesn't work" means I've tried what you've said to do in a couple different ways, but no new savefile is ever created...

	27-11-2001 05:16									#6
	I don't have a c3b file? what the hell is it Increase the size of your Attachments

First off....what is a c3b file...I dont seem to have one .....

and could someone please just make a plain old editor that does all ths stuff we want it to without the archaic dance to get it to work.....anyone see the trainers for roller coaster tycoon....make one just like it....I would but I am just a accountant

later

	27-11-2001 05:41									#7
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To make a c3b file just open wordpad and save it as filename.c3b and as Text Document type.

	27-11-2001 11:11									#8
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Apparently I'm sorta slow myself. Other than the DOS window blinking and vanishing, I also don't understand the Alt-tabbing. At what point do I do this? You can't alt-tab in-game. Basically, I set up the .C3B file fine (located in the main civ3 folder), and I can save the game I want to edit... but at what point do these things meet each other so I can put beloved Germany in it's rightful home to rightfully crush the wrongful but rightfully placed French, Russians, etc...

GAAAAAAA!!! ahem. I will rename the first conquered Russian city after whomever can explain this to me! How does "Mortiosoburg" sound? Or "Timw1996haven"? Yes, it could all be yours...

	27-11-2001 16:39									#9
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Updated version released. From the text file:

quote: 0.4.6 ----- - C3B files now have new header. Format has not been changed in other ways. Old C3B files will work if you just change the header tag from [C3Bv044] to [C3Bv046]. It's there for consistency. - Fixed error messages. - Fixed file opening error that could occur in some circumstances, when it happened, the program would crash. - Added 'ask for files' when no parameters are supplied, which makes the tool easier to use. - Added reveal with 'fog-of-war' on. - Revised this file.

If you didn't have any luck with the old version, try this, it's easier to use. All you have to do, is to uncompress the file to your SAVES directory, edit the C3B file and then run the tool.

Attachment updated in first post.


Edit: I messed up something. A typo in the text file,
tag must be changed to [C3Bv046] not [C3Bv46] as the text file says.

	27-11-2001 19:51									#10
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quote: Originally posted by dannyevilcat Apparently I'm sorta slow myself. Other than the DOS window blinking and vanishing, I also don't understand the Alt-tabbing. At what point do I do this? You can't alt-tab in-game. Basically, I set up the .C3B file fine (located in the main civ3 folder), and I can save the game I want to edit... but at what point do these things meet each other so I can put beloved Germany in it's rightful home to rightfully crush the wrongful but rightfully placed French, Russians, etc... GAAAAAAA!!! ahem. I will rename the first conquered Russian city after whomever can explain this to me! How does "Mortiosoburg" sound? Or "Timw1996haven"? Yes, it could all be yours...

Well, I downloaded it and tried it, and it worked brilliantly!

First of all: Make a pure text-file as described in the readme. For the coordinates of the starting locations of the different civs, use the Civ3 map-editor, load the map/scenario you want to play, and look for all the possible start locations on the map. Write down the correct ones for each civ. Put these coordinates in the text-file. Give the text-file a .c3b filetype.

Start up Civ3 and load the scenario map you want to play on (some Earth map I imagine), and choose the civ you want to play - and enter the game. Do not play any turns yet! Save instead!
Alt-Tab out of the game if you have it set up in a way that allows this, or exit the game if you can't.
Do NOT run civbreed.exe by double-clicking on it! Open a DOS-window, and go to the directory where the executable and the savefile is. Once there, type 'civbreed savefile.sav yourfile.c3b correctsave.sav' - where savefile.sav is the file you just saved your starting game as, yourfile.c3b is the file with the civ correct coordinates in, and correctsave.sav is the new saved game with the correct starting locations in.

Now go back to Civ3 and load game. Choose the correctsave.sav that you just produced, and voila! Your civ should be in its correct location, and so should all the rest!

It worked for me, so just ask if you're having more problems.

Cheers

	27-11-2001 19:54									#11
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In the C3B file if you only have 7 civs playing what do you included in the file?

	27-11-2001 21:36									#12
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Deathwalker: Preferred method is to use the map.c3b file and edit it to contain locations for all 16 civs. If you only play with 7 of them, the utility will know which are in game, and thus place them at the correct locations.

In reality you could use 0 0 as coordinates for civs you don't use, or simply ignore changing those lines. But the lines must exist even if the corresponding civ is not in game.

Peoux: It's should now be possible to double-click the utility, because it asks for filenames if they aren't supplied as parameters. It's fixed in 0.4.6. Just put everything in SAVES directory and it should work. Your described method was the initial one, but I think the new one is easier. Thanks for that good step-by-step How-to though, I guess my explanations are a bit messy. Must be the all the programming.

	27-11-2001 22:14									#13
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Will this work in Windows 2000? Win2k has no native DOS environment, so I'm just wondering...

	27-11-2001 22:36									#14
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It uses Win32 console application target and should work with all Windows versions commonly used.

	28-11-2001 04:58									#15
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"Mortiosoburg" indeed!(or Mortiosograd, since it'll be Russian) and also a "Peouxbourg" somewhere in the heart of France...

Ahhh I have nothing but profound gratitude to both of you. Panzers rejoice... yes... Moscow is that way...

Thanks people!

	28-11-2001 11:16									#16
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

What happens if you leave a civ out of the c3b file? Does it leave the starting location alone in the game save file? Can I leave any or all of them out?

	28-11-2001 14:31									#17
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In short: You cannot leave any line out of the file or things will break. The way it works now is only with complete C3B files that have 17 rows; the header tag and locations for 16 civs.

Check my reply to deathwalker 5 posts before this one.

	28-11-2001 18:40									#18
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Well, I found out that if you leave a line out, it sets that civ to start at 0,0, which is in the water, heh, settlers look funny starting there, and can't move or do anything.

What I'd really like is for it to only patch the locations of civs I want to move. I may not know the starting locs of all the civs, and I may not want to move them, so if it would ignore civs that aren't in the file, leaving them at their default locations, that would be great.

	28-11-2001 19:26									#19
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quote: Originally posted by gnomos Well, I found out that if you leave a line out, it sets that civ to start at 0,0, which is in the water, heh, settlers look funny starting there, and can't move or do anything. What I'd really like is for it to only patch the locations of civs I want to move. I may not know the starting locs of all the civs, and I may not want to move them, so if it would ignore civs that aren't in the file, leaving them at their default locations, that would be great.

And crash into another civ that is moved to there?

	30-11-2001 23:38									#20
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Mortioso,
how do you handle the Map and FOW for the starting positions?
(Do you handle it? (I've not tested your tool))

	01-12-2001 07:40									#21
	The Phantom Zulu Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

OK, started a game on a huge world map, 16 civs, with this tool. I must have misentered the zulu coordinates because they just disappeared on the histogram the 1st turn. Weird thing is, midway through the middle ages, the greeks offer me communications with the zulu. i accept, and talk with shaka, who has no techs, money or cities. But, i can still trade maps with him and such. Weird. Next time I'll be a bit more careful entering coordinates.

	01-12-2001 18:19									#22
	Inflate your Upload Space

Gramphos, yes I do handle the map. Location + ONE square each direction is uncovered, and no sight is calculated. Did you mean more specific details?

This handling is weak in theory, 'what if' there are more changes that has to be done, not so apparent as changing TILEs and UNITs. Who knows? I can't afford Real Life to be replaced by Hex Workshop for the moment.

Idea:
Why use definition files at all for earth based maps? I was thinking about using a sorting algorithm for placing starting locations, that would be rather easy to implement and that would work in nearly all cases, without the need of definition files.

ixnay
Can you confirm that you misplaced the Zulus, take a look at the C3B file if you still have it. Anyone else had any problems later in game?
Sometimes when I've been playing on unmodified maps, and killed the enemy's first settler but leave their worker untouched they are still not defeated.
Maybe the Zulus spawed next to a barbarian encampment..

Waiting for the patch.
Meanwhile I'm working on a graphical map loader using OpenGL, just for the fun of it.

	01-12-2001 18:32									#23
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quote: Originally posted by Mortioso Gramphos, yes I do handle the map. Location + ONE square each direction is uncovered, and no sight is calculated. Did you mean more specific details?

That is good enough. I just wanted to know if you made any sight calculations or not.

quote: This handling is weak in theory, 'what if' there are more changes that has to be done, not so apparent as changing TILEs and UNITs. Who knows? I can't afford Real Life to be replaced by Hex Workshop for the moment.

Yes, I know, but it seems to work quite well just changing the UNIT and TILEs data, so why look into the other stuff?

quote: Waiting for the patch.

So do I

	02-12-2001 03:12									#24
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Went back and looked at the coordinates I have - turns out I placed them directly on top of a barbarian tribe. Whoops.

	06-12-2001 09:49									#25
	Increase the size of your Attachments

I'm a computer idiot and can't seem to do this correctly. Sad, I know. Can someone post a large or huge good world map with correct locations for 8-16 civs?

	06-12-2001 18:05									#26
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quote: Originally posted by golakers I'm a computer idiot and can't seem to do this correctly. Sad, I know. Can someone post a large or huge good world map with correct locations for 8-16 civs?

Check out Marla's Map. It uses Civ3CopyTool for placing the Civs, and not CIV3BREED, but it has the correct locations

	07-12-2001 04:18									#27
	Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Originally posted by Gramphos Check out Marla's Map. It uses Civ3CopyTool for placing the Civs, and not CIV3BREED, but it has the correct locations

Nothing against Civ3CopyTool, but CIV3BREED is more handy and easy for me if I only like to correct the starting points of the races.

	07-12-2001 18:30									#28
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quote: Originally posted by Dreifels Nothing against Civ3CopyTool, but CIV3BREED is more handy and easy for me if I only like to correct the starting points of the races.

Yes, I understand that. The thing is that Marla's map incledes a file for C3CT, and if you don't know how to use CIVBREED it is easier to use, but I think that it is harder to make the files for C3CT, as you have to know how the FOW shall be.

	08-12-2001 21:39									#29
	Unoffical v1.09 using Mortioso's CivBreed rather than Civ3CopyTool Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

The Zip attached below contain's Marla's 1.085 Map and Mortioso's CivBreed 0.45 Utility.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Extract files to your Civilization directory
2. Start new scenario game with Marla's Map
3. Save game as "FIX.SAV"
4. Run the file "RUN_THIS.BAT" in your saves directory
5. Load up "FIXED.SAV"
6. Play!

My apologies to Gramphos I crawled all over your Civ3CopyTool thread, installed numerous VB runtimes and OCX files and it still would not work on my XP system so I decided to find a better way

EDIT: Removed... see here - http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...30&pagenumber=1 - for the latest version (Now a self-extractor/installer!!!

Last edited by Vonotar on 12-12-2001 at 17:12

	12-12-2001 12:43									#30
	Re: UTILITY: CIV3BREED - Correct Starting Locations Got spare money?

One problem I have with ti. Until now I always used 16 factions, but now, as I tried to play with 14 only (no American and no French), I get *always* the Zulu in England and the other being inthe line jump one start point forward and there are 12 factions only.
I tried both, take a c3b file with all 16 factions and with 14 only. Both the same result.

If I compare it with the pop down faction list in the settings window, then the failure starts where the 1st in the list (french) is not selected. All before that are placed right, all later are wrong and England isn't set.

How to generate a sav with right positions if not all 16 factions are used?