Civ3Peek
Version 0.50 12/17/01
by Charles Tyson (ctyson@encompass.net)

Installation and Configuration

Place CIV3PEEK.EXE in your Civilization 3 folder (the one that contains the rules file, CIV3MOD.BIC).  If your Civilization 3 folder has the standard autosave subfolder "Saves\Auto", that's all you need to do.

If the autosave directory has a different name or you want to put CIV3PEEK.EXE in a different folder, you must edit the CIV3PEEK.INI file to tell Civ3Peek where the Civilization program and autosave folders are.


Using the Program

Run Civ3Peek before you start Civilization 3.  It will look up the most recent autosave and display information in its 4 tabs:

  Research:  what technology each civilization is researching.

  Construction:  what each city is building, the number of shields accumulated, and the base number of shields needed to complete (depending on difficulty level, AI players may need more or fewer shields).

  City Info:  choose any city in the drop-down box to see a digest of its status city, including 
  1) its owner
  2) its construction project and progress toward completion
  3) what units are currently living in that city--conscripts are followed by a "-", veterans by "+" and elites by "++"
  4) what buildings already exist and their year of creation.  (Buildings provided to all cities by Wonders don't show up; captured enemy palaces do show up)

  Units:  shows the total army strength of any civilization.

You can view this information for any saved game by selecting "Spy on a saved game" from the File menu.

Start Civilization 3.  You should be able to switch between Civilization and Civ3Peek by pressing the Alt-Tab keys.  After any turn, click on the "Spy!" button to have Civ3Peek search for the latest autosave.


Program Notes

This is an experimental version of Civ3Peek and it may crash if there is anything unusual in the save game file.  I've only run it with the original release of Civilization 3.  There are no warranties, express or implied!  Use it at your own risk!!


Version History

0.30 dated 12/13/01:  Original release as "Civ3Spy"

0.40 dated 12/15/01:  Changed name to "Civ3Peek" because Don Laabs had already used "Civ3Spy".  Improved info in "City Info" tab and added "Units" tab.

0.50 dated 12/17/01:  Fixed problem in reading patched version of CIV3MOD.BIC.
