CivConverter crashing

[PlutonianEmpire]

I'm trying to convert my MGE scenario to ToT, but for some reason, it keeps crashing, for the reason of "invalid syntax error".



Can anyone help?

[Boco]

I'm going to assume that you know very little about MS-DOS. That's probably incorrect, but it's easier for me to explain that way. Just be patient.

My guess is that Civconverter is choking on either your use of ' " ' or the spaces in the paths. You could avoid that by changing your directory ('cd' command) before invoking Civconverter to c:\...\plutorising. The "..." is my own abbreviation for your lengthy path. You'll need to spell it in full. Then you could run converter with:

"c:\...\Utilities\Civconverter\Civconverter" plutorising.scn

or 

c:\progra~1\microp~1\utilities\civconverter\civconverter plutorising.scn

My syntax may have a careless mistake, but the aim is to avoid spaces in the argument passed to civconverter.exe. By starting in the scenario's directory, the passed parameter is simply the file name with no prepended path. This assumes that all dll's etc needed by civconverter (if any) are found in directories in your PC's path.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for trying the upgrade

[Edit]Found this on Catfish's site:

Note: CivConverter will accept long file names, but it's not keen on spaces in the pathname. Including them will produce the following error message:

Error in opening Scenario File! Please check for existence of file and remember to use full path & extension

There are a number of options available here, but the simplest is to enclose the entire file pathname in quotation marks, eg, civconverter "c:\unzipped\red front\redfront.scn". If the scenario.txt file contains spaces, manually copy this file to the Converted directory.

Seems that you did this, and my advice above is likely wrong. My next guess is that your argument exceeded the character length allotted by converter to the parameter variable. If so, then my suggestion above should work.

[/Edit]

[Mercator]

I don't think that's the case either, because it seems CivConverter has already successfully converted the scenario file before it crashes.

It seems to crash with the Units.bmp.

Is it a 24-bit bitmap?

[PlutonianEmpire]

doesn't it need to be a 16 bit bitmap?

EDIT: Anyhoo, my scenario has a problem. As soon as my Empire's turn ends, the game crashes. Can anyone help?

http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=64653_PlutoRising.zip

1.52 megabytes

[Boco]

Um, would you believe that the last 10 lines of your readout didn't show on my PC?

My Units.bmp have a 16 million color depth (24-bit, right?).

Has control been ceded to another civ before it crashes?

[PlutonianEmpire]

Originally posted by Boco
Um, would you believe that the last 10 lines of your readout didn't show on my PC?

I don't get it?

My Units.bmp have a 16 million color depth (24-bit, right?).

Ahh. I get it now.

Has control been ceded to another civ before it crashes?

The scenario starts under the barbarian's turn. I started as the russians. then I switched to the Plutonian Empire. Works so far.

Then, when I switch control to another civ, then it crashes.

When I start the civ who's turn is after the Empire's, it starts up normally, but still crashes once the Empire's turn is over.

I uploaded it in case someone with 1337 hex-editing skills might be able to fix it, or something like that.

[Boco]

Your DOS box's last 10 lines indicate that Civconverter did indeed parse the complete scenario name. The last recorded successful operation was finding Units.bmp. Had I bothered to read and think about that, I wouldn't have posted all that stuff about the path.

If these are [Shift-F3] switches, it sounds like your crashes are not linked to tech advances. Does that seem true to you?

Do you have any engineers at work on Mtns in maps 2 or 3, or for that matter anywhere?

Can you switch to all maps as the Russians or Plutonians without crashing?

[Catfish]

Originally posted by PlutonianEmpire
I'm trying to convert my MGE scenario to ToT, but for some reason, it keeps crashing, for the reason of "invalid syntax error".

Try the following command line:

civconverter c:\progra~1\microp~1\civili~1\scenario\plutorising\plutorising.scn

I'd swear I'd tested spaces in pathnames before. Anyway, it seems that they're acceptable for file names (pathname must be within quotation marks), but not for directory names. Sorry, my fault. Looks like another update required.

Originally posted by PlutonianEmpire
Anyhoo, my scenario has a problem. As soon as my Empire's turn ends, the game crashes. Can anyone help?

The crash on the first turn is a CivConverter bug. It's described at the end of the conversion guide (section 5). Hex editing of the SCN file is required. This one's Angelo's fault.

Anyway, being the kindly soul that I am, I've fixed it for you (attached). I performed a few other hex editing fixes while I was at it, namely removing the unit build transporter orders and the two animation lockouts, and clearing the casualty lists. If you want to make further edits to the scenario, load it as a saved game, ie, Ctrl+L and enter "plutorising.scn", minus the quotes. Save the game and use that as your working file.

Originally posted by PlutonianEmpire
doesn't it need to be a 16 bit bitmap?

Whilst ToT renders in 16-bit colour (15-bit actually) and the official graphics are saved as 16-bit bitmaps, CivConverter requires 24-bit bitmaps. Both Angelo's readme file and my conversion guide (section 2) state this. Not reading the docs: well that's your fault.

Originally posted by PlutonianEmpire
I uploaded it in case someone with 1337 hex-editing skills might be able to fix it, or something like that.

That would be me, of course.

[Boco]

Have you made any discoveries about this mystery table beyond what's in section 5.2?

[Catfish]

No, I haven't really done any game engine testing since around Christmas. I believe the coordinates listed in the tables are locations for things like attacks and various settler tasks. An example: at one point during the testing of WotR, I had some units attack a specific city on the first turn. Further edits were made to the scenario and to my annoyance, the units began to ignore this city and instead go for another further away. I couldn't figure out why this occurred. I zeroed the table for that civ. They now always attack the nearer city first. It was as clear cut as that. No other edits were made.

BTW, I kind of lazily skimmed this thread and missed Merc's comments. I can confirm that spaces in the pathname produce the 'The syntax of the command is incorrect.' error. CivConverter seems to be able to locate the scenario directory but then proceeds to crap itself once it starts converting the graphic files.

[Boco]

Could this mean that orders for units (squares?) is limited to 64 per civ?

[Edit]Nah, probably not, but I'm confused about the relationship of these tables with the Units Information table. [/Edit]

[Boco]

[Edit2]Are the "unit build transporter orders" a result of one of these 64 square tables getting corrupted? Or did you find it in the Units Info Table (but how did it get there?)?[/Edit]

[PlutonianEmpire]

I just totally forgot, the plutonian empire techs, (except plutonianism), are PlutonianEmpire-specific. can you hex-edit that too, please?

EDIT: I know it's just a civ-slot thingamajig. it's a figure a speech.

[Catfish]

Originally posted by Catfish
An example: at one point during the testing of WotR, I had some units attack a specific city on the first turn. Further edits were made to the scenario and to my annoyance, the units began to ignore this city and instead go for another further away. I couldn't figure out why this occurred. I zeroed the table for that civ. They now always attack the nearer city first. It was as clear cut as that. No other edits were made.

I forgot to add that the coordinates for the second city were present in the table. Those for the first weren't. I should've replaced the coordinates to see what would happen. I've probably got an old save lying around somewhere.

Originally posted by Boco
Could this mean that orders for units (squares?) is limited to 64 per civ?

[Edit]Nah, probably not, but I'm confused about the relationship of these tables with the Units Information table. [/Edit]

I figure individual orders in the units table are determined by the goals listed in these tables (the MoveUnit event probably overrides them), but I don't know how the goals are calculated or how exactly orders are assigned to individual units. In other words, I've got nothing really to offer here.

Originally posted by Boco
Are the "unit build transporter orders" a result of one of these 64 square tables getting corrupted? Or did you find it in the Units Info Table (but how did it get there?)?

No. Yes. It's just the result of writing a section of the units table from the original file directly to the converted file without realising that there was a difference in the way ToT numbers its orders.

Originally posted by PlutonianEmpire
I just totally forgot, the plutonian empire techs, (except plutonianism), are PlutonianEmpire-specific. can you hex-edit that too, please?

Done. You might remember the example in this thread over at CFC. BTW, did CivConverter work correctly using the command line I provided?

[PlutonianEmpire]

Who in the world downloaded it 4 times before I did? :P