Blooming Insane Problem!

[curtsibling]

And it's not just me!

I have noticed a seriously wahck bug in MGE recently.
As I was modding away at Kaiser, I reloaded the sav files to check changes...

To find the cheat menu was still active - or seemed to be.
The cheat button was in the build menu and all cheat commands where active - from a clean .sav load!

I loaded a non-scenarion save file from the CIV2 main directory - same thing happens!

The cheat menu appears - this is mad!

Is there some problem with any MGE text files?

Anyone else had this happen?

Advice would be most welcome...

[AGRICOLA]

Yes, I know how to fix it.

The source of the faulty toggle problem is within file "CIV2" in the CIV II folder. That's "CIV2" and not "civ2" with Civ icon.

If you are having a problem with the cheat toggle:
1. Use hex editor to make sure that all cheat flags are off in your save.
2. Delete the existing CIV2 file.
3. Start a new game and save it. The program will have created a new "clean" CIV2 file.
4. Get rid of the new game.
5. Load save. It should be clean.

[JohnPC]

also if cheat mode is enabled in ur autosave it will still believe u have cheat mode in a normal save u load

[Eivind IV]

What is in fact a hex-editor? I've always wondered about it, but never dared to ask...

[curtsibling]

@AGRICOLA: I will try it...

But it seems to happen across all saves in all games...

[AGRICOLA]

@Kobra

A hexadecimal editor allows you to view and modify the hexadecimal numbers that contain the information stored in a file.

The hexadecimal system is base 16 with the following digits 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F so that F = 15 and 10 = 16 in decimal numbers that we normally use.

For example the word CIVILIZATION is stored as the following string of hexadecimal numbers:
43 49 56 49 4C 49 5A 41 54 49 4F 4E.

If you use the hex editor to change the 43 to 56 you will see VIVILIZATION when you open your text file. Similarly, you can modify any stored numbers.

If you are interested, there are two free downloads I can recommend.

FRHED - a very simple editor that I prefer to use most of the time

AXE - a more sophisticated editor that has a very good file comparison facility that can be helpful in unraveling the mysteries of a save file.

A Google with FRHED or AXE plus HEX EDIT should locate download sites.


@curtsibling

Yep. Those are the symptoms of a really buggered up CIV2 file.

[curtsibling]

It must have messed itself up, as there is nothing I could have done to influence the civ2.exe...

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
The source of the faulty toggle problem is within file "CIV2" in the CIV II folder. That's "CIV2" and not "civ2" with Civ icon.

I was not referring to civ2.exe but to CIV2, a DAT file.

[AGRICOLA]

Are you in a position to do some minor hex editing on the CIV2 file? If so, there is a much easier way to clean up your problem than what I have outlined.

[bka]

Hi Agricola - interesting those Hex-decimal numbers, but I don't understand why C in Civilization is 43? Could you plz. enlighten me? (and others perhaps)

[AGRICOLA]

All letters and symbols (including letters that are not part of the English alphabet) have been assigned unique hexadecimal numbers and are stored in the form of these numbers. The numbers I have shown for CIVILIZATION are for upper case letters, the numbers for lower case are different.

Working only with the letters in CIVILIZATION (in bold print) you can see the sequence of numbers for the capital letters of the whole standard English alphabet.

A = 41
B = 42
C = 43
D = 44
E = 45
F = 46
G = 47
H = 48
I = 49
J = 4A
K = 4B
L = 4C
M = 4D
N = 4E
O = 4F
P = 50
Q = 51
R = 52
S = 53
T = 54
U = 55
V = 56
W = 57
X = 58
Y = 59
Z = 5A

There probably is a very good reason why A was assigned hex 41 (decimal 65) but I have no idea what it might be. I suspect that the numbering system dates back to the days of the earliest computers, 50+ years ago.

Perhaps one of the many highly computer literate people who frequent this forum can give you a better answer.

[curtsibling]

@AGRICOLA:

I will give anything a try to fix the problem -

What do you advise?

[Mercator]

Really, the best way to find out about hex-editing is to get a hex-editor and see for yourself.

The first thing to remember is that we're talking about computers here. Computers can only work with numbers! In fact, for computers, everything works in binary, zeroes and ones. So, to let computers work with letters as well, you have to map them onto numbers. ASCII (dates back to the 60's) is one such mapping and it uses the number 65 for the letter A.
The reason hexeditors work with hexadecimal rather than decimal numbers is because hexadecimals are easier to convert to binary.

@Curt: I don't think this is really a problem. I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, but this sounds like a very old and known bug. Civ2 has a problem "forgetting" about its last game. Another example is the city list for instance. If you start a game as the Romans, build Rome and then decide to start a new game (again as the Romans), your first city will then be named Veii. Civ2 forgot to reset the counter in between.

Simply restarting Civ2 will fix it.
If AGRICOLA meant deleting the civ2.dat while still playing civ2, that probably addresses the same problem.

[AGRICOLA]

@curtsibling
First close any Civ game you may be running. Then delete the CIV2 DAT file (not civ2.exe) from the Civ 2 folder. Start a new Civ 2 game in 4000 BC, play 1 turn and save. Check that there is a new CIV2 file in the Civ 2 folder. Delete the game you just saved. Start up Civ 2 and load one of the messed up saves. It should be OK.

Alternately, again close down Civ 2, and use your hex editor to open CIV2. Change byte 15 to 60 and byte 16 to 50. If your editor is set to show 16 bytes per line, these are the last two bytes on the first line. Overwrite any other text in the file with zeros. Save. Start up Civ 2 and load one of your messed up saves. It should be OK. If not, get back to me.

[AGRICOLA]

@Mercatore Uno

Beautiful explanation, much better than mine.

I have experienced Curt's problem. No matter what you do, you simply cannot get rid of the cheat menu being on. The usual procedure a year ago was to uninstall Civ 2 and then install it again. This worked just fine but was a laborious way of getting a clean CIV2 file. The ways I have suggested seem a bit easier.