Old question, new thread (sigh)

[Alinestra Covelia]

Yes, Mr President! Well spotted!

This is indeed the bigger brother to Earth1997. It's based on pretty much the same sort of concept and conceit but it should feature more of a round-the-table human multi player feel to it.

I'm also thinking of setting the whole game in mid-level state but naming the improvements, etc, as though they were much later in the game.

This would allow things like farmlands to become GM crops, harvestable with a tech called "Genetic farming" rather than "refrigeration" etc.

Meanwhile, time to continue my search on Google for ethnic icons.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I'm toying with the idea of using Apolyton's various "smilies" icons for the Democratic Neutral faces...

[Mercator]

I think many of the ideas you have that involve using utilities or house rules can be accomplished with Angelo Scotto's CSPL (availabe at http://coc.apolyton.net, http://cullivan.com/civ and http://www.civgaming.net/mercator/mapedit). That would require quite a bit of programming, though.

I think CSPL should be able to control trade routes based on treaties or attitudes between different civilizations (point 1 in your earlier post). It should also be able to change production to something that isn't available yet (your earlier point 3). Yaroslav's CivDip would be excellent for this, I guess, but that only works for MGE. CSPL could also address point 5b, by changing city ownership due to unhappiness.

For the Axis of Evil bases, you could probably use "hidden" cities (can be done by hex-editing). Such cities can not be conquered and don't display graphics, but still produce units etc. That would make the Axis of Evil unconquerable, but you could add a DestroyACivilization event which would kill off the "evils" when, say, Osama is killed, or all of their leaders.

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
2. Spritegen doesn't work on my copy of Civ2 ToT. I've tried running it and found that it brings up an error message saying that "comdlg32.ocx" is incorrectly registered. I was hoping to use spritegen to erase the telltale health bars above the Axis of Evil's Hillbase units.

Try typing in regsvr32 comdlg32.ocx in the Windows Run command. If SpriteGen still doesn't work, you'll have to download and install MapEdit (well, that's the easiest option).
If you don't want MapEdit, you can uninstall it again straight away. The comdlg32.ocx file will remain installed.

Oh, by the way, removing the health bar on a unit will make the unit appear on top of fortresses, rather that under the fortress graphic. Just so you know.

Originally posted by yaroslav
About 1, the easiest way is to hex-edit. Please feel free to send me an email with the file and the wonders you want to remove and I'll do it. However, as I'm not very used with TOT I guess I'll not be able to do it before weekend

See the Civ2 SAV/SCN file format thread for that. It's pretty empty still, but that information is already in there!

[Alinestra Covelia]

Awesome! Thanks, Mercator. I'll head on over and pick up those utilities as soon as I can get a floppy disk free. (Part of the problem with living on the lam is that I have to access computer labs for email and online access. Hopefully once I get a permanent address this should clear up.)

So right now I'm simultaneously messing around with the core rules, the scenario saves, and the graphics files.

One graphical problem is that there are only four "people" styles, even though there are six "city" styles. I think I could solve this by placing the Russians/Americans/EU as one people style, and giving the Chinese, Indians, and Islamic Neutrals each their own people style.

City wise, I've got separate styles for Islamic, Chinese, and Russian cities. The EU/American/Demo cities share the usual "Modern" cityset from vanilla Civ2. I'm finding it hard to locate any Indian cities, though. Maybe if anybody has a few screenshots of RoN T&P...?

Otherwise, just the usual arsing around for me. Oh, and lots of Capcom vs. SNK 2 on the GameCube. Can't do without that.

[Mercator]

Better make that two floppies.

[Case]

Re: Old question, new thread (sigh)

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
First things first.

1. I GOT MY MASTER'S DEGREE!!!11!!1!111eleven!!!!111!

Congratulations

Drat, now it's time for a job. I suppose...

I take it that you're saying that the university hasn't tried to headhunt you yet?

4. Now I have rediscovered something I dimly remember as "free time"

Heh. From my experiance, this 'free time' is going to freak you out. 6 Months after graduating from Uni I still get an urge to do homework and assignments on the weekends, and feel like a bludger for not doing this!

[Alinestra Covelia]

Well, 1 week from graduation, I feel a need to go forth and Minneapolize. Time for a 6 hour road trip!

Hopefully I will get to squat in an apartment with fast speed connection soon and this project can be done somewhat more efficiently. Until then, radio silence.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Ali C has moved into her last and most semi-permanent hideout. She has a high speed internet connection.

With any luck, this means that the work on the scenario should progress at a slightly faster rate.

But right now, she's off to go swimming.

In a pool.

So maybe not immediately then.

[Mr. President]

In a pool, as opposed to . . . ?

[Mercator]

The sea/ocean?

[N35t0r]

The bathtub?

As for the map, which one are you using?

I'm currently on the process of making a gigamap of the world, and would like to see some more in order to find the continet size balance that suits me the most...

[Alinestra Covelia]

Nestor, send me your email and I'll send you a .sav file.

Which reminds me, I have to send the .sav file to Yaroslav to have it re-Wonder-ated.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Okay, more questions:

1. Does anybody know how to set the Barbarian city style? I have a pretty neat little graphic that I would like to set for the Axis of Evil. (See Asian, in the graphic below.)

2. Does anybody have a good set of Indian cities? By Indian, I mean the people living in India, not American Indians. I'm thinking of the Taj Mahal and various Hindu temples and that style of architecture.

3. Does anybody have the basic template for the city walls (only) for the graphic below? I have a nice icon for Russian cities that I would like to use but I can't quite manage to draw the upper (rear) part of the city wall.


4. Just on a related note, if any of you have friends who are using SPSS (a quantitative analysis software package), don't let them install it on your computer! Why? Because it uses .sav extensions and redirects them to open them in SPSS. It tried to quantitatively analyze my Civ2ToT scenarios and the computer crashed!

[St Leo]

This lowly undergrad congratulates you. May Athena bless all your endeavours.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Thanks, St. Leo! Sadly I took the Professional project route, not the thesis route, so that means that I probably will not be able to continue into a doctorate. But then again, very few people bother getting a doctorate in Journalism.

On a more insistent note, does anybody have the skills to draw the city wall around the Russian city type (above)?

And also I would like to send out another call for Indian style buildings for the cities. I have checked the many excellent graphics showcases here (an outstanding idea) and have not yet found the suitable city style.