Seeking advice for El Aurens v2

[AGRICOLA]

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.
A. Einstein

I'm living proof of that. Duh? About the only software that I did not try to use to open the Guide was IE. As suggested, IE opens it perfectly. It is a splendid compendium of writing as well as illustrations. Reading the text and looking at the maps answered just about all my questions about the conflicting interests and the Byzantine politics of the Near East in the early part of the 20th century. The Guide provides great background for the scenario as well as a most useful summary of the military campaign that took place.

Originally posted by Boco Perhaps the greatest remaining language hurdle is the use of Arabic in @Terrain. If there is an accessible glossary, would Arabic remain a problem here?

I don't think so. Your suggestion would remove guesswork as to what the equivalent English terrain names are. Although the only term that I am familiar with is wadi, the Arabic terms for basic terrain types are not much of a problem. It's the more esoteric descriptions which cause me to scratch my head. A glossary would definitely be a great help.

It would also be both useful and interesting to have a thumbnail description of some fascinating unit names like Geçici Grup (Gruppe? German? or Groupe? French?) and the difference between Asien Korps and Orientkorps.

Judging by the extensive reference list, you must have a Koh (singular? plural?) of highly interesting background information.

[our_man]

Judging by the extensive reference list, you must have a Koh (singular? plural?) of highly interesting background information.

Definitely. One of the things I enjoyed most about El Aurens was the detailed pedia entries for, well, almost everything.

[Boco]

Fairline and I regularly bust each other about our respective sad afflictions for obscure history.

Geçici grup = provisional group. The Turks were masters at putting together scratch formations that could hold their own. I've since learned that karma is the more likely adjective to use for provisional. The Turkish has been largely dropped from EAv2. I couldn't remember half of the names myself, and the other half was probably chock full of incorrect grammar. Turkish has the complexiestiful concatenation of suffixes that I've ever come across.

Asien Korps was the reinforced German brigade that fought in Palestine.

Orientkorps was the AH equivalent. It was organized but was diverted to Albania before it ever deployed. The only AH troops that served were some artillery batteries and supply troops.

Thanks to techumseh's suggestion, those who persist in invading the Levant are likely to see more of the AK and OK. Dissing the French may also end up making the Sykes-Picot Agreement obsolete. It's a science wonder (Copernicus?). Knocking it out would really hurt research, which means fewer reinforcements. Kinda makes sense since a lot of those reinforcements were diverted from Salonika or France. Just have to see whether that consequence is too harsh.

Thanks for the ideas!

[Boco]

Hexedit question

Okay, next roadblock. I want to give Apollo to a small city on map1 before the game begins. Being lazy, I don't want the map revealed. How do I hex it in? Can a whiz show me the place and value?

Here's a screen dump of the city, Kas, with the x,y coordinates at the top left.

[Boco]

Occasionally I listen

I tried to improve the city screen based on comments by Agricola and example by Allard (AH, if that's too blatant a rip, PM me and I'll take them out). Here's a screenie that's been edited to compress the dimensions.

Agri, if you post your city resource icons, I'll put them in Icons as an alternative set.

[Mercator]

Re: Hexedit question

Originally posted by Boco
The file is very hard to maintain, and will probably be replaced. Which is better htm, rtf, or xls?

Not XLS! Make it either (simple) HTML, working on all recent browsers, or RTF.

Originally posted by Boco
It appears that you are in the majority regarding the Mercator meter on the health bars. No other scen uses them. Back to the drawing board on that.

You have my permission to stop using it.

Originally posted by Boco
Okay, next roadblock. I want to give Apollo to a small city on map1 before the game begins. Being lazy, I don't want the map revealed. How do I hex it in? Can a whiz show me the place and value?

Here's a screen dump of the city, Kas, with the x,y coordinates at the top left.

The city coordinates are irrelevant, it's the city index number that you need. You get that number by counting how many cities come before Kas in the savegame's city section. Enter that number at offset 956 (that offset's in decimal, it's 3BC in hexadecimal), and change byte 957 to zero.

[curtsibling]

Boco, do you still need those cities I promised before I sunk under a ton of University work?

I am looking to clear my to-do list and those Arab-cities are on the first rank.

If you can tell me what you need, I will try and get the to you this coming week.

[Boco]

Thanks Merc, with those instructions I was able to fix it in 30 seconds.

I still kinda like the meter. It looks good in River War. It may take a little more heckling to have me remove it. I'll just put a simpler alternative under it in the Units.bmp.

Does RTF support hyperlinks? Mouseovers? If not how difficult is it to write html mouseovers?

Curt, thanks much. Let me think it over. What you've already posted is 90% there. For gameplay, I'm thinking of showing some of the terrain under the smaller cities. Perhaps also some color coded roofs for the civs: blue vs. burnt orange. I'm undecided about how to depict city walls.

Oh yeah, Cairo is still unique.

There isn't a huge rush. I'd like to spend some time on River War.

Another question. There are about 2 dozen minor cities that follow a more or less standard improvement building sequence: city walls, market, courthouse, superhighways, libary, aqueduct, and capitalization. Where are the sequences stored for the autobuild choices?

[Boco]

Are lines like these too cheesy?

[Edit]
Btw, it was (is?) a particularly painful sport.

SKAB - Shin Kicking Association of Britain
[/Edit]

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by Boco Agri, if you post your city resource icons, I'll put them in Icons as an alternative set.

I'll do it sometime this Saturday.

We're visiting and I'm using a Stone Age laptop that is linked to the Web by the lousiest, most intrusive, self-advertising ISP imaginable . . . . . AOL. I wouldn't pay a nickel a year to use it.

[fairline]

'Give the Turks some clog pie'. Really?

I like it - adds to the atmosphere.

[curtsibling]

Boco - Tell me what you need, when you decide...

Right now, I can work on one single city for Cairo,
or would you like the usual series of four sizes?

PS
I agree with fairline, the events add great atmosphere!

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Boco
Thanks Merc, with those instructions I was able to fix it in 30 seconds.

Splendid!

Does RTF support hyperlinks? Mouseovers?

Not that I know of. WordPad wouldn't support it in any case. And the main point of using RTF rather than Word is so that people without Word can also use it...

If not how difficult is it to write html mouseovers?

I haven't really done any dynamic HTML in ages...

Where are the sequences stored for the autobuild choices?

In CITYPREF.TXT... From the 2.42 patch readme:

Customizing autobuild
---------------------
You may customize the domestic advisor's city improvement
picks for the autobuild if you wish. Create a file in your
Civilization II directory called CITYPREF.TXT. The first line
should be:

@AUTOBUILD

Each succeeding line contains the name of a city improvement in
the order you want to build them. You don't have to list every
city improvement, but each improvement must be spelled -exactly-
as it is in RULES.TXT. (For foreign language versions, use the
exact spelling from RULES.FRE or RULES.GER as appropriate.)
Your domestic advisor will then choose improvements from this
list provided that technology is available and the city is
otherwise eligible to build them. If nothing on list is available,
the advisor resorts to his normal algorithm.

The military advisor will make his picks as usual. However, you
can order him never to build "defensive" type units by inserting
the line @NODEFEND at the beginning or end of the CITYPREF.TXT
file (don't put it between the @AUTOBUILD line and the list of
improvements).

An example file is below:

@NODEFEND
@AUTOBUILD
Temple
Marketplace
Library

The file is reread every time you click the "AUTO" button on the
"What shall we build?" menu. If you wish, you can alter your
priorities over the course of a game without reloading.

[AGRICOLA]

@ Boco

Originally posted by Boco

Agri, if you post your city resource icons, I'll put them in Icons as an alternative set.

Here's a zip of ICONS fom Riverwar with the resource icons that you requested.

[Eivind IV]

My copy of v.1 is mysteriously disapeared. Browsing through your web site I couldn't find it either. Where can I get it?