CIV2
PBEM DIPLOMACY UTILITY
Program and Spanish
Translation: Javier Muñoz Kirschberg
French Translation: Vincent
Frachebourg
What
is this utility for?
This utility allows
agreements between human players in a Sid Meier’s Civilization II e-mail game. For those of you
that don’t know what Civilization 2 is, I only can say that Sid Meier’s
Civilization 2 (by Microprose) is, in my humble opinion, the better game ever
made! You lead a tribe from the ancient time to the success – or the failure.
Civilization 2 has many versions; one of them, Civilization 2 Multiplayer
Edition (also know as Ultimate Civilization 2) allow multiplayer games by
Internet (IP games) or by e-mail.
If you don’t know
how to play Civ2’s PBEM games, I encourage you to visit Apolyton or Civfanatics
PBEM forums:
o You can
offer/demand a city or a group of cities.
o You can
offer/demand gold.
o You can
offer/demand technologies.
o You can
offer/demand some kinds of maps:
§
Territory map: Only the terrain of the other player
(you won’t see the cities or the units)
§
Cities map: The terrain and the location of all cities
known by the other player
§
Units map: The terrain and the location of all units
known by the other player
§
Complete map: The terrain, units and cities known by the
other player.
§
Foreign map: You can ask a player for the terrain,
units and cities that he/she knows about a third player.
o You can sign a
cease-fire, make peace or sign an alliance treaty.
First of all, a Civilization
Multiplayer Gold Edition game (there is a patch on the internet that morph
other versions of Civilization into the multiplayer edition. You can download
them from http://www.civfanatics.com).
PC-Windows
USERS: You need JRE (stand for Java Runtime Environment). You can download
it from
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/download.html
The file that you need to
download is circled in this screenshot (I hope that Sun will provide a direct
link in the future):
MAC USERS: You
need at least MAC OS X in order to run this application. I hope that in the
future I could offer you a special version that will run on MAC VIII and MAC
IX, but I don’t know for sure. Blame Apple for support Java only on MAC OS X.
You must look for JRE at the Apple webpage.
How do you install/run the
program?
MAC
users: There is a link to a little utility that transforms JAR files in
double-click applications:
http://homepage.mac.com/townsend/programs/jarappbuilder.html
First of all, play you turn on Civ2, press Ctrl+N and
save it, as you always do when playing PBEM games. AFTER saving the file,
please load the utility. You’ll see a window like this:
In this window you can select your language (currently, the
utility supports English, Spanish, German, Italian and French). After you press
the Next button, you’ll see an ‘Open File’ dialog. In this dialog you must
select the file you want to load
In the next screen, you
select what civ you are playing with:
After selecting your civ, you will be in the main
diplomatic screen:
In this screen, you can
make/view barters and set you password. In the next sections we will see the
details about these three options.
First of all: setting the
password.
In order to make or view
barter, you need to setup a password. The password is stored into the savegame
file, so you only need to setup it one time for each PBEM. To do that, simply
select ‘Set/Change Password’ and enter your password. The program will ask you
for confirm it.
Making barters:
To make a barter, select make barter. After entering
your password, you must select the civ you want to send the barter to:
After pressing the Ok
button, you’ll be in the second diplomatic dialog, where you can offer/demand
maps and cities:
Press the OK button to
confirm, and you will see a save dialog like this:
Save the offer and send
the file to the barter-receiver.
Viewing barter:
If you want to open a barter that you have received from
another player, you must do it BEFORE loading your turn on Civ2! Open the
savegame file that you have download from the forums or received by email and
open it as described on “How does it work?”. Then, select View barter in the
main diplomatic screen, enter your password and load the barter (.dat) that
other player has sent to you:
You’ll see something like this:
You can press Ok button to accept the offer, or cancel to
deny it. After this, you can move your turn in Civ2 as usual.
Technical info (See it if you
have a problem)
- An offer
renders itself obsolete after a turn.
- If you
demand/receive a tech that stands for a government, the program will ask
you whether you want to launch a revolution – or not!
- The utility is
password-compatible with older versions, but not offer-compatible.
- If you
demand/offer something that the other civ already has, the offer will be incorrect,
but you won’t notice it (so you can’t use the program to know what techs
the other civ has). But, if you open an embassy with the other civ, the
utility will notice it, and you will have all the information, so it’ll be
impossible to you to do an incorrect barter.
Please notice:
Credits and Thanks:
-
Markus Kraus von Güntner (aka Galvatron)., for the excellent
translation to German and Italian (Thank you, guy!)
-
Vincent Frachebourg
-
All my beta-tester: Henrik () for the MAC support,
José Eduardo Pellón Arana (a.k.a Kramsib in the Apolyton Forum!) for roman scen
test, Stephen Knapowski (aka cbnn25, The
king of BUMP) for colonies test, and Gerben van Veen (aka germanos) for his
good ideas about unit exchange.
-
Manolo Palma (a.k.a Waku in the Apolyton Forum!),
Jesus Balsnide (aka JB), Javier Arriaga (aka jasev), Alfredo (aka Alf), Juan
(aka Fiera) and all the Spanish gang on Apolyton, for their continous support.
-
Allard H.S. Höfelt, for his excellent “Hex-edit”
document.
-
Microprose for this fun game
-
Sun for, Java, the prettiest language ever, and also
for a good environment, “Forte”.
-
My dog! I don’t know how many program-related problems
I had solved while I go out to walk with my dog!
-
Units interchange (it’s almost done, BTW)
-
Natural disasters simulation
-
Improve security
History:
2.1 Minor upgrade:
*
Problems with gigamaps corrected.
2.0 Second version:
* A
better code
*
Cities and map support
* Tech
bug corrected (your progess will be saved when you receive a tech you were
researching)
*
Revolutions (you can launch when you receive a tech that involves government)
*
Default file name for barters
* Error information
is much better now
*
Money-check is now out (for colonies PBEM)
1.2 Minor upgrade (not published):
*
French Version added
1.1 Minor upgrade:
*
Italian Version added
*
German Version added
1.0 First Public release!
* Added
work-around for many bugs!
*
Offers are now correctly obsolete
* You
can not sign a cease fire, peace or alliance if you already have this treaty.
0.2.1 Second Beta Version
– release 1
* Some
typos on manual corrected
* Added
button remove coded
* Added
a link for MAC users
0.2 Second Beta Version.
* New
and improved diplomacy screen
*
Multilingual support
*
Security loop closed: You can’t now view offers that aren’t directed to you