Can I please get help w/ the World Builder?

[fluxcapacitor]

The World Builder has got to have one of the most un-user friendly, worst interfaces I have ever seen for any program. All I want to do is open up Rhye's Earth18civs map and change it to like 7 or 8 total civs. I'd also like to know how to change the leaders for any given Civ. I've read the modding manual pdf and added the "chipotle" line to the config file. And even better I've screwed w/ the map in the WBS for 45 minutes and cannot figure out how to add/delete civs. I know you can enter "erase" mode and erase a civ's city and unit, but as far as I can tell this doesn't remove them from the scenario. Also, if I enter the WBS as soon as the game starts in 4000 BC, why do all AI civs already have their first city? Is this the way the game handles AI civs starting points?

If anyone can offer assistance on the above I'd be really grateful.

[Locutus]

You can't add civs in the WB. The number of civs and their leaders are fixed when the map is first created. Normally when you start on a new scenario you have to set this when you first start the game. To change this afterwards, as you want, you have to change the WBS, the savegame that the WB creates. To do this, open PublicMaps/Earth.Civ4WorldBuilderSave (or whatever it's called in the final release) in a text editor and add in a new civ. To do this, take the first empty Player entry:

BeginPlayer
	LeaderType=NONE
	CivType=NONE
	Team=9
EndPlayer

And give it the same data that the other civs have, so something like this:

BeginPlayer
	LeaderType=LEADER_ISABELLA
	CivType=CIVILIZATION_SPAIN                         
	Team=9                         
	PlayableCiv=1                         
	StartingX=0, StartingY=0                         
	Handicap=HANDICAP_NOBLE                         
EndPlayer

As you can see, the leader is set here as well, so you can change it here for other civs if you want. To figure out the starting position of a civ (StartingX, StartingY), start the map in the game normally, hit Ctrl-Z to reveal the entire map, go to the plot you want the civ to start in and keep the Shift button pressed while you hover over the tile with your mouse: a lot of info for the tile will be dipsplayed in the bottom left, including it's coordinates. Note that you must also set the starting techs manually, do this is the team section at the very start of the WBS file, at the first empty BeginTeam-EndTeam entry.

Also, if I enter the WBS as soon as the game starts in 4000 BC, why do all AI civs already have their first city?

That's because the human player is usually the last player to have his turn, so when you start your turn all the AIs have already made their first move (and since everyone usually starts in a fair starting location that means they could immediately found a city).

[fluxcapacitor]

*EDIT*

THANK YOU!!! After reading your other reply to the guy who wanted to edit the earth map, I finally got it. It's really not that difficult but I do think all of this should be accessible thru the interface when you set up your game.