Modmakers Guide: Common Crashes, Glitches, Errors, and AI problems

[korn469]

I have ran into many things that causes Civ3 to crash, lockup, or something just as bad, I am also sure that other mod makers have ran into problems I have yet to encounter. Though as of now there isn't any conclusive list of these problems, so many mod makers are needlessly stumped by crashes other mod makers have already discovered, this will be a guyide to those thing. I'll start with some common things I have encounted, and I please hope everyone else will share things that break the game.

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Crashes
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*DataIO operation System Error: CNSL
this happens when you load a save game that you have added new buildings to with Gramphos's multi tool, save game are not compatable with a civ3mod.bic that has a different number of buildings

*Changing the entertainer to require a tech
this causes the game to hang without warning whenever the AI attempts to switch one of their citizens to an entertainer

*Playing a modded civ3mod.bic that has added units
if someone has used the C3MT to add new units to the game the player must create the appropriate unit files in the civ3/art/units folder, if not the game will crash when one of those units are built

*Changing the Civ's colors
this has a work around, and firaxis promised to also fix this, but as of now selecting anything but the original 16 colors will cause the game to crash when you first start

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Glitches
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*Playing a modded civ3mod.bic that has added units
even after adding the unit files the player must add in a new units_32.pcx file to the game that has added unit spaces, otherwise the units in the build queue will experience problems, most notably the settler's picture will disappear and the worker will now have the settler's picture

*Playing a modded civ3mod.bic that has added units or buildings
even after creating the proper unit files and adding the units_32.pcx file you must update the civilopedia.txt, and the pediaicons.txt to have many of the pictures and the text to display correctly

*Government Specific Wonders do not work as advertised. If you make a wonder government specific and a player builds it, when they switch governments it will disappear from your list of buildings but its effects will remain in effect

*Free buildings from wonders cannot be used as a prerequisite for other buildings. Additionally if you set a building to require a wonder it can only be built in the same city as the wonder, while this is useful in certain situations and should remain in the editor, there should be a way so that if you have the wonder you can construct the building in all of your cities. Additionally, free culture buildings from wonders don't show up in the cultural advisor screen, the additional culture point per city does, however. One last problem is that free culture buildings from wonders don't get the 1000 year culture bonus.

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AI Problems
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*giving a unit the build road command
unless the AI has all available terraform commands, and has its AI set to terraform it won't build roads

*making a great leader like unit
to gain the leader AI, a unit must be able to both hurry improvements and build armies, if you give a unit only the ability to build armies and set its AI to army, instead of changing into a great leader it will only set in the city (this was an attempted work around of the pre 1.16f situation where the editor couldn't allow the mod maker to determine if a building needed a victorious army or not

this is just a short list for now, i will go back and look for other problems we encountered in working on the blitz mod and add those, but i am sure that other mod makers have ran into other limitations, and please add those! the more items on this list the easier it will be to discover why your mod is having problems

Gramphos could you top this? please

[Gramphos]

Very useful thread.

About changing of civ's colors:

It is possible, if the attached file is unzipped in the Art\Units\Palettes directory.

[SpencerH]

giving a unit the build road command unless the AI has all available terraform commands, and has its AI set to terraform it won't build roads

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "all available terraform commands". I've added "build road" to the Roman legions with no problems. Perhaps I had all terraform commands available?

[MonsterMan]

Great post, Korn

You should get in contact with civ3.com to host your list in their new section.

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by SpencerH
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "all available terraform commands". I've added "build road" to the Roman legions with no problems. Perhaps I had all terraform commands available?

Did the AI use the unit to build roads?

[SpencerH]

I would have prefered to be able to move legions on roads faster than other foot units (which was in part why the Romans built the roads, to rapidly move their armies). I settled for allowing them to build roads and fortresses. Since that Mod we've had two patches and I've had to reload CIV3 (twice?) so I kind of lost track of it and I dont know if the AI used that command.

[korn469]

ok i added the problems with free buildings from wonders, free culture buildings from wonders, and government specific wonders

please if you have encountered more problems in the editor add them here so i can make them part of the guide

[Worthingtons]

If you add 25 or more icons in the resources.pcx file, they wont show on the map.

[lockstep]

At least some of the small wonders effects (e.g. 'increases army size') work only for the first wonder that uses them.

[WesW]

Let me get this straight.
If a gov't enables a building, then the building and its effects disappear correctly when you change out of the gov't.
If a gov't enables a wonder, then the wonder's effects disappear but its culture remains when you change out of the gov't.
The problem is when a gov't-specific wonder enables a building. When you change govt's, the effects of the buildings remain?

Btw, nice sig Lockstep.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Korn,
You mention that gov't specific wonders don't work as advertised, but what about government specific small wonders and improvements-do their effects disappear after you change governments?

The_Aussie_Lurker

[korn469]

WesW

apparently government specific buildings disappear but their effects do not, like if you had the statue of liberty for democracys and it had the same effect as longevity, when you switched to communism it would still work but it wouldn't be there

if a government enables a building, like a library then you can't build universities, because buildings enabled by a wonder don't count as prereq buildings, and then you can't build them either

The_Aussie_Lurker

improvements disappear, and i am not totally positive about small wonders

[Elucidus]

Another thing I noticed if you give the "hidden nationality" to a scout (land unit with 0 attack/defense) the computer will try and attack it, but instead just end up on the same square as your scout. And this happens a lot.

Here is a pic. Look closely and you will see what I am talking about:

[Alcatraz]

Question about terraforming and the AI:
If you check all of the terraform functions, you can then set the AI to use terraform strats. If you then uncheck one or more terraform functions, the Terraform strat box remains checked but greys out. Will the AI then use the strat because it's checked or not use it because it's greyed out?

[Elucidus]

I noticed that myself, however I didn't test it...anyone esle try it out?

[Alcatraz]

More questions:
What happens if you flag a wonder to give every city a building, but you don't yet have the tech to build the building?

What happens if you switch governments while building a gov't req'd wonder?

What happens if a wonder gives every city a gov't req'd building?

Why oh why can't I flag a unit to only operate within it's nations borders?

[Alcatraz]

New glitch: Set a wonder to give every city a coastal installation, and every city gets it, on the coast or not. That harbor sure looks funny in the middle of the desert....

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Alcatraz
New glitch: Set a wonder to give every city a coastal installation, and every city gets it, on the coast or not. That harbor sure looks funny in the middle of the desert....

It's like the Hoover Dam giving hydro plants in every city on the continent, near a river or not ...

[Elucidus]

I believe that is to represent the power of the hoover dam. Those cities gain something from the Hoover Dam. The other cities gain nothing from having a harbor. They can't build ships, so they can build veterans, etc...

[Alcatraz]

nope, but cities near the ocean but not ON the coast are getting the increased food benefit from the harbors.

[Elucidus]

True, but that is only a minor side-effect.

[Thrawn05]

Great thread, it's making me consider what could be causeing my game to crash with what I edited it with.

So far, I havn't seen anyone say anything about changing the leader face animations to cause a crash. I made my own *.flc files (basicly, 1 frame picture, and is used for both forward and backwards animations) and with out warning, the game will crash. Sometimes I can just restart the game and continue onward, other times I just have to start a new game.

Has anyone else get into making leader faces?

[Elucidus]

I have seen a problem with adding new units with the icon for what is currently being built in the city view screen. It seems that the icon is derived from what is in the flc files. Maybe default flic.

For example I use the canoe flc and use the galley's icon, because I couldn't get the one I made for the canoe to work. Well, low and behold when I am building a canoe the canoe's icon appears there and not the galley.

The thing is, sometimes the icon is completely off. Sometimes a B2 is displayed in place of a spearman. It is just really weird. I wish I knew exactly where it got those icons.

Also I seem to be having a problem any icons to the units32.pcx. I made the icons in the file. Heck for the fire galleyt, I just copied the galley and added a streak of fire to the front and anytime it tried to display the icon, the entire game crashed to the desktop.

Anyone have any insight on any of these.

Thanks.

[Father Beast]

I noticed that when I set the "not needed for era advancement" flag on all the ancient techs, the middle ages techs were immediately available, as expected. but, the ancient age techs were unresearchable.

[Imp. Montezuma]

Well, v1.21, cracked civ3edit, huge map, up to 31 civs, extra UUs, moddings. Right-click on any tile ->Property... CRUSH!!!

[Elucidus]

Also, I think I saw this mentioned earlier, but governors are stupid unless they are set on Food. They will let cities die. I don't mean ones from war either, ones that we built. That is dumb.

Anyone know how to change the base city tiles food output? That would clear a lot of things up.

[Amesjustin]

Originally posted by Rothy
If you add 25 or more icons in the resources.pcx file, they wont show on the map.

My mod has 30 resources and they all show up and work fine! I have tried several configurations and have never had a problem!

[thamis]

A common error in self-made maps in CIV3 is that the game just exists on certain events:

I had the following problems (with no solution):

- Exchanging maps
Whenever the map that I got contained a certain part of the world, the game just exits.

- AI builds improvements
I got the message "The Greeks are building Hanging Gardens". I click "OK" -> exit.

Strange...

Here's one I found the solution to:

If you include sound files with a wrong bitrate, the game will exit whenever it attemps to play them!

[Pythagoras]

Whatsup, I tried adding a 'pioneer' unit - a modded settler using your tutorial. (uses a copy of settler graphics) However when I attempted to select the unit to build Civ3 crashed and went to the desktop.

[Krayzeenbk]

Hello everyone...

I installed Womok's terrain mod and it worked perfect... then I noticed that it was not displaying some forests (it just displayed bare grasslands). So I saved the game, exited, and copied/pasted forests into the spaces that should have had them (I used the original grassland forests.pcx for reference). Then, I loaded the game in civ3 and.... illegal operation.

I replaced grassland forests.pcx with Womok's original, and it still crashed. Then I replaced it with the civ3 pcx, and still the game wouldn't load.

Then I started a new game, everything seemed to work fine... I right clicked some terrain just to check if it's forest or grassland, and at about the third right-click the terrain box that appeared had no 'X' in the upper-right corner (what does that have to do with grassland forests.pcx?!). The next turn, as soon as the science advisor popped up asking you to select your first research target, the game exited to the desktop.

Firaxis has created some fantastic barriers for modders...