UTILITY: CIV3BREED - Correct Starting Locations

[Mortioso]

Oh No! 'Yet Another Editor'. Anyway, this little tool changes the starting locations, which it gets from a text file, and fixes map coverage. It's command-line based, because I made it for personal use. Well, decided to share it, because it seems to work. Enjoy!
Snippet from the instructions file:

DESCRIPTION
-----------------------------
CIV3BREED is a command-line tool for patching save files.
It uses a text format C3B file which contains starting locations for all civs.
It also has two variants of reveal map, with or without 'fog-of-war'.

[kittenOFchaos]

Is this better than jimmyh's save edit utility???

26 people have d/led it...they should have an opinion...

[Timw1996]

I can't get the reveal map (-r) parameter to work. Where exactly does it fit in the the command? Other than that great work!

[Mortioso]

I'm glad you liked it! To reveal the map, pass the option -R , that is a capital R, after all other parameters.
Example:

civbreed mysave.sav map.c3b correctsave.sav -R

This will reveal the whole map, including 'fog-of-war', but it's not permanent so when you move units, the squares around them will become 'fogged' again. It's good for checking that everything went ok, and to see what happens during the first turns of a game. Also to see how the A.I (maybe) cheats. I might release a new version tomorrow, with an option for a 'fogged' reveal only, and a revised instructions file.

[Lorizael]

I'm not sure why but I can't get this to work. Probably just because (despite what my friends may think) I'm not thatg good with computers. Anyway...

First thing, when I run the program, a little dos window thingy pops up with some text but then eixts almost immediately so I can't read what it says. Is this supposed to happen? Also, does the .c3b file need to be saved anywhere specific?

And just so you know what, "It doesn't work" means I've tried what you've said to do in a couple different ways, but no new savefile is ever created...

[lordcaesar]

I don't have a c3b file? what the hell is it

First off....what is a c3b file...I dont seem to have one .....

and could someone please just make a plain old editor that does all ths stuff we want it to without the archaic dance to get it to work.....anyone see the trainers for roller coaster tycoon....make one just like it....I would but I am just a accountant

later

[Timw1996]

To make a c3b file just open wordpad and save it as filename.c3b and as Text Document type.

[dannyevilcat]

Apparently I'm sorta slow myself. Other than the DOS window blinking and vanishing, I also don't understand the Alt-tabbing. At what point do I do this? You can't alt-tab in-game. Basically, I set up the .C3B file fine (located in the main civ3 folder), and I can save the game I want to edit... but at what point do these things meet each other so I can put beloved Germany in it's rightful home to rightfully crush the wrongful but rightfully placed French, Russians, etc...

GAAAAAAA!!! ahem. I will rename the first conquered Russian city after whomever can explain this to me! How does "Mortiosoburg" sound? Or "Timw1996haven"? Yes, it could all be yours...

[Mortioso]

Updated version released. From the text file:

0.4.6
-----
- C3B files now have new header. Format has not been changed in other ways. Old C3B files will work if you just change the header tag from [C3Bv044] to [C3Bv046]. It's there for consistency.
- Fixed error messages.
- Fixed file opening error that could occur in some circumstances, when it happened, the program would crash.
- Added 'ask for files' when no parameters are supplied, which makes the tool easier to use.
- Added reveal with 'fog-of-war' on.
- Revised this file.

If you didn't have any luck with the old version, try this, it's easier to use. All you have to do, is to uncompress the file to your SAVES directory, edit the C3B file and then run the tool.

Attachment updated in first post.


Edit: I messed up something. A typo in the text file,
tag must be changed to [C3Bv046] not [C3Bv46] as the text file says.

[Peoux]

Originally posted by dannyevilcat
Apparently I'm sorta slow myself. Other than the DOS window blinking and vanishing, I also don't understand the Alt-tabbing. At what point do I do this? You can't alt-tab in-game. Basically, I set up the .C3B file fine (located in the main civ3 folder), and I can save the game I want to edit... but at what point do these things meet each other so I can put beloved Germany in it's rightful home to rightfully crush the wrongful but rightfully placed French, Russians, etc...

GAAAAAAA!!! ahem. I will rename the first conquered Russian city after whomever can explain this to me! How does "Mortiosoburg" sound? Or "Timw1996haven"? Yes, it could all be yours...

Well, I downloaded it and tried it, and it worked brilliantly!

First of all: Make a pure text-file as described in the readme. For the coordinates of the starting locations of the different civs, use the Civ3 map-editor, load the map/scenario you want to play, and look for all the possible start locations on the map. Write down the correct ones for each civ. Put these coordinates in the text-file. Give the text-file a .c3b filetype.

Start up Civ3 and load the scenario map you want to play on (some Earth map I imagine), and choose the civ you want to play - and enter the game. Do not play any turns yet! Save instead!
Alt-Tab out of the game if you have it set up in a way that allows this, or exit the game if you can't.
Do NOT run civbreed.exe by double-clicking on it! Open a DOS-window, and go to the directory where the executable and the savefile is. Once there, type 'civbreed savefile.sav yourfile.c3b correctsave.sav' - where savefile.sav is the file you just saved your starting game as, yourfile.c3b is the file with the civ correct coordinates in, and correctsave.sav is the new saved game with the correct starting locations in.

Now go back to Civ3 and load game. Choose the correctsave.sav that you just produced, and voila! Your civ should be in its correct location, and so should all the rest!

It worked for me, so just ask if you're having more problems.

Cheers

[Deathwalker]

In the C3B file if you only have 7 civs playing what do you included in the file?

[Mortioso]

Deathwalker: Preferred method is to use the map.c3b file and edit it to contain locations for all 16 civs. If you only play with 7 of them, the utility will know which are in game, and thus place them at the correct locations.

In reality you could use 0 0 as coordinates for civs you don't use, or simply ignore changing those lines. But the lines must exist even if the corresponding civ is not in game.

Peoux: It's should now be possible to double-click the utility, because it asks for filenames if they aren't supplied as parameters. It's fixed in 0.4.6. Just put everything in SAVES directory and it should work. Your described method was the initial one, but I think the new one is easier. Thanks for that good step-by-step How-to though, I guess my explanations are a bit messy. Must be the all the programming.

[ajbera]

Will this work in Windows 2000? Win2k has no native DOS environment, so I'm just wondering...

[Mortioso]

It uses Win32 console application target and should work with all Windows versions commonly used.

[dannyevilcat]

"Mortiosoburg" indeed!(or Mortiosograd, since it'll be Russian) and also a "Peouxbourg" somewhere in the heart of France...

Ahhh I have nothing but profound gratitude to both of you. Panzers rejoice... yes... Moscow is that way...

Thanks people!