Anyway to change Civ default color?

[DeadDireWolf]

I wanted to play the French but when I started I was this hideous pink color. I can't figure out anyway to change your Civ color. Is there a way or are you just stuck with it like the last Civs. I also noticed ever time I played the Persians or Greeks I was green. Something to due with the same subculuture group they've mentioned? Dunno.....

[wotan321]

yes...and no

In Civ2 you could edit the Cities.gif and change the civ colors after you started a game. AFAIK, in Civ3 you gotta make your changes before the game begins.

Use the CivEdit program, and under the Civilizations tab, the default colors are provided for editting. Enjoy.

[Barnacle Bill]

Warning - color changes

Changing the color of civs in the editor may have a bug, and has been linked to crashes.

I did it once, and in that game I got a crash during the AI's turn after I ended my turn in 1700. If I went back a few turns to an earlier save, it still crashed in 1700. There are other possible reasons of which I am aware, but the color change is on the list.

[DeadDireWolf]

Thanks guys. I 'll test that out and see what happens.

[Roland Ehnström]

Well Barnacle, I don't think your crash was caused by the colors. I've had several crashes now, and I am playing with everything at default.

Sure, it MAY have been caused by the colors, but probably not.

-- Roland

[Nemo]

yes, changing colors DOES cause a crash (esp. when playing w/ 16 civs) even if each civ has a unique color. i have tested this out muliple times, and am continuing to test this, as i am ultimately trying to have the words in the diplomcacy screen match the color of the civ. (i dont know why this wasnt done by firaxis...i always get confused whtn the aztecs have dark green units but have lime green title, and the greek have dark green title, but lime green units; then when i am in the diplomacy screen i always mix them (and others like this ...e.g. rome and japan) up when clicking on them to talk...rather anoying, it is.

if i find a fix...i'll post

[RobC]

I've tried this several times, and it seems that if you use any of the first 17 or 18 colors it works OK, but if you use colors 19-31, it crashes the game immediately.

[DeadDireWolf]

to change which color? the unique or the other one (I forget what it's called I'm at work).

[Purple]

Originally posted by RobC
I've tried this several times, and it seems that if you use any of the first 17 or 18 colors it works OK, but if you use colors 19-31, it crashes the game immediately.

Good theory. The specified default and unique colors do fall into the first 17 available. I've tried switching some to other colors in that range and so far no problems.

I'll continue testing the others and report back.

[edited to remove misinformation]

[Purple]

Only colors 1-17 are "safe"

I did an almost complete reshuffling of the default (not unique) colors last night (I think I left the Greeks unchanged). I used only the first 17 colors in the editor. Any color higher on the list causes a crash if the corresponding civ is the human player.

I did not try to determine whether AI civs with the offending color would also crash the game, but I suppose it would be possible to assign the human a "safe" color and other specified civs a "bad" color and see if a crash occurs, but I wanted to play the game a little instead of diddle with the editor.

If anyone's interested, I can post the .bic with my revised color assignments. They are more logical, at least to me. For example, Russia is red, England is pink (traditional color on maps), Germany is black (anyone play Diplomacy?), US is medium blue, Rome is imperial purple, Aztecs are dark red (the color of blood), and so on.

In doing this I was struck by how awkward the editor made this particular exercise. I hope the patch will not only make available the other 15 colors, but replace the limited popup colors with a dialog box that allows any RGB specifications to be typed in.