Civ2 Beakers Counter

[Bloody Monk]

The Monk uses a box powered by 1.3Ghz chip purchased during Christmas, 01. So it is 15 months old; not new, but also, not yet a boat anchor. I also run WinXP, which I suspect does a better job of handling/supporting "old" programs.

ST, the three saves I initially used to test drive your "counter" were all from ad years, so I didn't see the <-> sign used in bc time. Good job!!

Monk

[Scouse Gits]

Looks good ST

SG[1]

[SCG]

Originally posted by Bloody Monk
The Monk uses a box powered by 1.3Ghz chip purchased during Christmas, 01. So it is 15 months old; not new, but also, not yet a boat anchor. I also run WinXP, which I suspect does a better job of handling/supporting "old" programs.

ST, the three saves I initially used to test drive your "counter" were all from ad years, so I didn't see the <-> sign used in bc time. Good job!!

Monk

Ah, XP does do a much better job emulating older programs than my ME does (i also have a 1.3 GHz machine)... When i get off work, I may try a couple more tests. I also have located a spare HDD, where i may try an OS reinstall on just to be sure.

[Bloody Monk]

One thing I am wondering, SCG. Are your other progams, etc, working without problems?? If so, it is less likely that ME is the problem, right??

Have you tried uninstalling/reinstalling CivII in safe mode?? Hope you get it worked out.

Monk

[SCG]

Originally posted by Bloody Monk
One thing I am wondering, SCG. Are your other progams, etc, working without problems?? If so, it is less likely that ME is the problem, right??

Have you tried uninstalling/reinstalling CivII in safe mode?? Hope you get it worked out.

Monk

actually, Civ II 2.42 is the only one i'm aware of showing any anomolies, other than those dos programs which often don't run in ME. in fact Civ II MGE has been very accurate - i spent 1 month as the demo game trade advisor and there were no problems whatsoever with commodity lists, and i got rather detailed at times with freight

[SCDARS]

I don't like the idea this could be applied to multiplayer saves. Knowing your opponents' current research progess can make a big difference if you're racing for wonder techs

Could you simply let this tool check if there are multiple human players --- preventing the use of it in mp games (i.e. when more than one human is in play)?

[War4ever]

yes, exactly how does this work...do i have to insert numbers or does it detect automatically...

more specifically, in MP games, what happens if i have no ciites and i get techs from huts...

are you saying i need to save each turn? once each time i discover tech..

sorry i tried to read this quickly but seem to have lost the general train of thought

if this program does what i think it can do, it would be a big help in micromanaging beakers etc..

as for mp games and knowing you opponents tech prowess...

[SlowThinker]

I supposed that .mp and .sav files have a different format? And so that Beakers Counter cannot be used with a MP game.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
I supposed that .mp and .sav files have a different format? And so that Beakers Counter cannot be used with a MP game.

I wanted to say
.net and .sav files have a different format

[SCDARS]

That is not true for sure. Of course a .net save of a multiplayer game could have more options enabled which are pretty useless in sp (sim game f.i.), but the general format doesn't differ between multiplayer and single player saves. It just differs between the versions vanilla civ 2.42, cic, FW, MGE or ToT - and still not in the first blocks about civ info.

[SlowThinker]

You are right. I simply renamed a file from .net to .sav and everything works: cheat mode, Beakers Counter...

So I will add 2 warnings: 'more than one human player' and 'AI color chosen' so that a player don't get an unwanted information by mistake. I will also allow .net files so that you can use the program in MP games and needn't to rename files.

[SlowThinker]

What is a better english? 'Beakers Counter' or 'Beaker Counter'? I know SG[1] named his program 'Hut Finder'...

[SCG]

i'd probably lean to beaker counter, but probably could go with either...

If i were to split hairs, I'd say a beakers counter is the display that shows how many have been accumulated, while a beaker counter would be a person or program that does the counting.

[SlowThinker]

Version 0.3 (probative)

I tried to add a function that allows you to see a map with all specials when you are running Civ2.

Instructions to use:
First you have to find out the seed number (shortly 'seed'). (See Location of Huts for details about relations between hut and special positions and a seed. There is 64 different seeds, so 1=65=129 etc., in other words you need to know only seed mod 64.
(mod is modulo: x mod y = RemainderOf(x/y))

If you know a hut coordinate then I suggest you to run Hut Finder ). It gives you only seed mod 32 (I will call it HFseed); HFseed may be used with Beakers Counter and positions of huts and specials will be revealed correctly. but types of specials (fish/whale) may be wrong sometimes: then add 32 to HFseed.
(For specials type you can also use math I wrote in Location of Huts )

After you found out the seed number enter a name of a file that you want to use as a 'Seed File', the seed number and click the Accept button.
Then go to Civ2 and load the 'Seed File'.
Be sure you chose your civ color/number correctly!
Notes: Unrevealed terrain has continent number set to 0. If the Game File is Reloaded automately then the Seed File is rewritten automately also.

I am sorry I didn't repair some small bugs, I will do it later, but probably not the next week. I hope it is usable now. But be careful, some unknown bug or an unknown behaviour of the .sav format might reveal an unwanted information for you.

Edit: This version had a serious bug! Throw it.

[SlowThinker]

7 downloads... how does the 'Seed file' work? Any problems, any bugs?

I have no problems here.