Everything about Hex-Editing - UPDATED

[Allard HS]

My guide with everything about hex-editing from a while ago has just finished a great update. All forum posts about new discoveries since then have been added, the newest version of Jorrit's guide on map-hex-editing has been completely copied, and some very useful info on resource editing (for DLL and EXE files) has been added.

Be sure especially not to miss that last thing. (It's in chapter A, near the end of the document).

It's all written using Word XP, but I think you can also read it in older versions of Word.

[Jacobite1688]

Very good, Allard! I was just talking about this document in another thread.

[Jacobite1688]

BOOO! It crashes out Word '98 when I try to read it. Any suggestions.

[Mercator]

Brilliant!

Download the Microsoft Word Viewer from microsoft.com. That works fine for me (since I don't have Word at all):

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q165908

[SlowThinker]

The 17th byte of the TECHNOLOGIES & MONEY part of each civ holds NumberOfAcquiredTechs+1 (starting techs are not included).

(works with MGE)

[Jacobite1688]

An astute discovery!

[yaroslav]

Hello, great work Allard!

I think that when you wrote:

"byte 89-100 Technologies. B (11) bytes long.
To explain how the bytes work, an example of the first technology byte:
.... ...1 : 1st technology
.... ..1. : 2nd "
.... .1.. : 3rd "
.... 1... : 4th "
...1 .... : 5th "
..1. .... : 6th "
1... .... : 7th "
In the next byte are the 8th-14th technology. Note that for some reason
the .1.. .... is left out. This is not the case in each of these bytes, though.
I don't know why. Though it's fun to know how it works, it is much much
easier to set techs using the cheat menu.
NOTE: This is very useful, however, for giving the Barbarians certain
technologies. You might want to give them Guerrilla Warfare,
for instance.
NOTE: All techs are: FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FD. (Excluding
user defined techs. Adding those makes it ...... FF instead of
...... FD)."

It does not apply to MGE. In MGE I believe that bytes reach 102th and that all bits in all bytes have a mean (no .1...... exception)

[Xin Yu]

Allard, there is a flag at the 6th byte of city block
.... .1.. can build hydroplant

Also, there should be a block right before wonder info for advances with regard to which civs discovered them. Each byte represents one tech. A 00 means no civ has this tech, a FF means every civ + barbarian have this tech.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted in HEX-EDITING (hex-edit.rtf)
byte nr. 20
...1 .... cheat penalty/warning
.1.. .... scenario file (no effect really)

I think there is an effect: techs are open (scenario) or one third is rotately made impossible (standard game).

[SCDARS]

Do you think it would be easy to eliminate all huts by a program? Since all huts are set by the seed, it would seem likely to me that the status of all huts (tipped -or active) is collected in some part of the file and not attached to each of the map tiles' entries, right?...

[Henrik]

I thought you could allready eliminate all huts simply by using the cheat menu?

[SCDARS]

Of course you can, but I was asked by some people if there is an easier way to do this for multiplayer (having the host enabling the cheat menu is not what everybody likes). But the cheatmenu option should make it easy to find the location of those bytes.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by Henrik
I thought you could allready eliminate all huts simply by using the cheat menu?

Do you mean to go in the scenario mode, to turn huts off, then save into a .sav file? I tested it (for Early Landing Comparison Game #1 ), but if I remember correctly, I had a problem with that byte 20 (I think the cheat mode was left) and I had to hexedit it manually.

[SCDARS]

If you use "turn huts off", obviously in the 2nd data block of the map 0F is replaced by 00 in one entry each 6 bytes. My first uneducated guess is: All tiles are set to have been owned by the Barbarians and a hut is considered tipped if one civ owns its tile (in the 6th byte).
Moving a roman warrior to one tile changes its respective value to 10, using a Babylonian unit switches it to 20 etc. -- which seems to support this theory.
Can someone more experienced comfirm this?

[Mercator]

You are correct. Setting ownership to barbarian is how the goody huts are cleared.

If you're interested in the details of the map structure, look here or in Allard's hex editing doc.