Bringing back lost wonders

[Eivind IV]

How do I do it, bringing back lost wonders? Agricola has done it many times for me, but I would like to know how to do it myself.

[AGRICOLA]

You're not asking for much, are you? Just an easy to understand 30 second course in hexediting.

1. Download a hexeditor. Frhed is freeware and what I use most of the time but there are others.

2. Get used to hexadecimal notation. i.e. Decimal 33 = HD 21 etc.

3. Download Mercator's HEXEDITING COMPENDIUM from Poly.

4. Reading it, you will soon find the following paragraph:

Bytes 266-321 [ for MGE and FW only ] **
All 28 wonders have 2 bytes of information for them, so in
total the block for all wonders is 56 bytes long:
FF FF The wonder has not yet been built.
EF FF The wonder is destroyed (city where it stood is not stored).
otherwise the number is the city ID number. 00 00 the first city
built, etc.

5. In the screenshot from Frhed, bytes 266 - 321 have been
highlighted. The bottom line [grey] shows both decimal and
HD offsets of the beginning and end of the highlighted block.

6.
Wonder 1 - FF FF - Not built
Wonder 2 - 45 00 - In City HD 45 = City 69
Wonder 3 - 2C 00 - In City HD 2C = City 44

7. You can destroy a wonder, restore it or change its location by changing the 2 bytes that summarize its status.


** For TOT, download Catfish's TOT HEXEDITING COMPENDIUM from his Cave.

P.S. Could I please have some feedback on any problems with the appearance of this post. The boys gave us two 22" LCD displays for Christmas and I've been trying to make my @#$%^& thing work properly so smilies don't look look like someone squished them and readers don't have to use the slide bar to read a line. Bigger ain't necessarily better.

[McMonkey]

Looks fine on a 19" monitor. I had to consider the same thing when making titles and introduction text for scenarios.

[Mercator]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
P.S. Could I please have some feedback on any problems with the appearance of this post. The boys gave us two 22" LCD displays for Christmas and I've been trying to make my @#$%^& thing work properly so smilies don't look look like someone squished them and readers don't have to use the slide bar to read a line. Bigger ain't necessarily better.

That's probably more likely a browser issue than a monitor issue. Can you post a screenshot?

[yaroslav]

Mercator,

I wish to take this hex-editing thead as an oportunity to thank you for the undue credits you give me with doing "most of the update" of the hexedit document. I have just downloaded it from your site. Thanks a lot for the great work and for putting all together , but YOU did most of the work, I guess, because you are the one keeping the document up to date.

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by Mercator That's probably more likely a browser issue than a monitor issue. Can you post a screenshot?

It's a problem with the screen resolution setting.

Because the new monitor has a max resolution of 1680 x 1050 pixels, I rammed my age old 800 x 600 resolution up to the max 1280 x 1024 pixels available in Display Properties/Settings. This completely, and I mean completely, made a mess of fonts and other things in Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, MS Word, Notepad, MGE and TOT. A TOT city screen that almost fills a 22" (55.88 cm for you non-US types) screen is not a pretty thing. The bloody icons appear bigger than the originals.

After much @#$%&?! and vainly trying to make everything legible and looking good, I admitted defeat and cut back the resolution to 1152 x 864. Eureka! Everything went back to looking the way it should.

[N35t0r]

Yeah. It's a problem with aspect ratio. 1280x1024 has a 5:4 aspect ratio. Your 22" is 8:5, so trying to fit a 5:4 image in there will result in one axis being stretched. Basically, you should stick to resolutions which have the same aspect ratio, or very similar... As for you being unable to display up to the max resolution, what video card do you have? I know nVidia allows you to configure nonstandard resolutions somewhere, and I'm sure ATI does as well. If you don't have your latest video drivers, you should get them, and maybe you'll be able to ramp up to 1680x1050

[Mercator]

Originally posted by yaroslav
I wish to take this hex-editing thead as an oportunity to thank you for the undue credits you give me with doing "most of the update" of the hexedit document. (...)

While I did most of the editing, you were responsible for most of the new hex-editing information. That's what I'm crediting you for.

Don't be so modest.

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
It's a problem with the screen resolution setting. (...)

Ah right, yes, I see...