Using Excel as a design tool

[Boco]

Merc, I've made most of your suggested edits. Thanks for the help.

Btw, how does "bitmask for goodie huts" in @COSMIC work?

[Mercator]

No idea what Marrick did, to be honest... I just tested a bunch of values myself and then wrote a little script that generated the full list.

HP value list... On the left the number you'd enter in the rules.txt, on the right the value Civ2 would end up using.

You should probably allow one negative value in addition to these in case someone somehow gets some use out of that. -1 will do, which translates to -10 hit points then, or perhaps 13 (becomes -126 hit points) if you don't like allowing input of actual negative numbers. All negative numbers kind of have the same effect anyway.

Rules.txt value		Real hit points
1			10
2			20
3			30
4			40
5			50
6			60
7			70
8			80
9			90
10			100
11			110
12			120
26			4
27			14
28			24
29			34
30			44
31			54
32			64
33			74
34			84
35			94
36			104
37			114
38			124
52			8
53			18
54			28
55			38
56			48
57			58
58			68
59			78
60			88
61			98
62			108
63			118
77			2
78			12
79			22
80			32
81			42
82			52
83			62
84			72
85			82
86			92
87			102
88			112
89			122
103			6
104			16
105			26
106			36
107			46
108			56
109			66
110			76
111			86
112			96
113			106
114			116
115			126

The goodie hut bitmask gets no special treatment in OpenOffice. I can just enter whatever I want.

[Boco]

Thanks!

I was unclear. There is no limit for the Goodie Hut entry because I'm clueless about appropriate settings.

Do you know what does the bitmask does in Civ2? What are functional settings for it? Or is this info that is really stored in the SAV file rather than read routinely from Rules.txt?

[Cyrion]

Your rules file loads perfectly now!

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Boco
I was unclear. (...) Do you know what does the bitmask does in Civ2? What are functional settings for it?

Ah... I'm not sure what it does or how it works. I never checked. Judging from the comment the rightmost 4 bits correspond to the 4 maps (right-to-left) and the left 4 bits don't do anything.

I would guess it is used to determine which maps get goodie huts and which don't on random-generated maps for the special games. E.g. when you play a Sci-fi game, only the Funestis and Orbit maps have goodie huts on them.

I think it's only used on start-up, together with the @SECONDARY_MAPS data... which, coincidentally, seems to be missing from the spreadsheet!

[Boco]

Oops!

[Cyrion]

I gave a good look at your file, Boco, and I have to say it is really amazing work!

Would it be much work to add a "load rules" button so that one can work from an existing rules file?

[Boco]

Sadly, it would. At some point, I'd like to put this one to use for my own scenario, which has lain stagnant for too long.

Is your current version pretty far removed from the one you posted here?

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by Boco
Sadly, it would.

Too bad... But not a major problem!

Is your current version pretty far removed from the one you posted here?

My current version isn't so far that altering your file would be too inconvenient, so I'll use it when I start modifying the rules again after the current playtest!

[Harry Tuttle]

Boco,

Recently I've been fooling around with something similar to your Excel workbook. Can you post your latest version? My goal is to go from MGE, ToT > Excel > MGE, ToT, Freeciv.

- HT (Bill)