Civilization III BIC file format (2nd thread)

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Krayzeenbk
My 4.01 bics are somewhat encoded... ?

You can select to not compress them in the options for the editor.

[Gramphos]

Updated first posts

[GIDustin]

Would it be possible to post the new 1.14f BIX format as well?

[Gramphos]

It's just so mush work involved doing it. Might do
it later.

[Mercade]

Excellent document, Gramphos. Would you happen to have this information in a downloadable document form for easy off-line reference?

[stormbind]

Hi,

What do I use to view/edit the binary? Can someone recommend a basic editor?

I opened the uncompressed *.BIC in notepad and saw the unit names in text but they were followed by strings of YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

[Gramphos]

UltraEdit is one editor you might use, but there are many of them just search for hexeditors

[anarres]

Sorry if this is a threadjack, but I am looking for information about the structure of data in the active memory.

I have from CFC user SpiderZord the offset information for all the different datablocks (one for tiles, another for civs, etc), and I know each tile is 4 bytes, each city is 8 byles, etc.

What I was wondering if the structure of data in these binary blocks is likely to be the same as it is in the BIC file. If not, does anyone here know the structure of the info in memory?

[Chieftess]

I'm also wondering the same, but for the save file. I'm having lots of trouble even finding the save file data.

[pdescobar]

I'm planning on writing a couple scripts, mostly for personal use, for automated generation of documentation and a combat calculator which will extract information directly from a BIX file. Is there a list of the differences between BIC and BIX format anywhere? If not, I suppose I can feel my way through myself, but any tips would be much appreciated.

[pdescobar]

OK, I've been moving forward with my project. I'm using 3 sample BIC/BIX files as I go to test things: standard vanilla 1.29f BIC, standard PTW 1.21f BIX, and modified DyP 1.10xBeta05 BIX. Some comments and questions I've come upon:

- The BIC File Indicator for a BIX is 'BICX' instead of 'BIC '

- In the BLDG section, the posted format has a 4-byte long for "Naval Defense Bonus" What is this? There is no corresponding entry in the editor ("Naval Power" and "Naval Bombardment Defense" are separate propterties) and in the standard BIC/X the only improvement which has a non-zero value here is Coastal Fortress which has '50' I assume the name comes from the civilopedia entry which claims the coastal fortress has "50% defensive bonus against naval attacks." Does this actually work though, since a naval unit can't directly attack a city (it can bombard but that should be covered by the 'Naval Bombardment Defense")? Or does this refer to a defense vs amphibious assault?

- In the BLDG section, PTW added a flag for "increased trade in sea squares" which is obviously not listed on the posted format. It appears to occur right after the "increased food in sea squares" flag.

- In the BLDG section, has anyone determined what the 64-byte "Description" section is?

- In the PRTO section, there are always a number of units repeated at the end of the list. For example, in my vanilla BIC there are 11 units which reappear after the "last" unit in the editor. In my PTW BIX there are 12, and in my DyP BIX there are 15. Has anyone discovered why this is?

- In the TERR section, the posted format lists this: "4-long-number of possible resources" followed by "3-byte-possible resources (binary)" I believe that the 3-byte section is actually a variable size equal to the previous value divided by 8 and rounded up. For example, in vanilla there are 22 resources and 22/8 rounded up is in-fact 3. However, in DyP there are 40 total resources and that binary section is 5-bytes long (40/8 = 5)

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by pdescobar
- The BIC File Indicator for a BIX is 'BICX' instead of 'BIC '

Indeed. I've been planning on posting the BIX format for long, but never got around to it.

- In the BLDG section, the posted format has a 4-byte long for "Naval Defense Bonus" What is this? There is no corresponding entry in the editor ("Naval Power" and "Naval Bombardment Defense" are separate propterties) and in the standard BIC/X the only improvement which has a non-zero value here is Coastal Fortress which has '50' I assume the name comes from the civilopedia entry which claims the coastal fortress has "50% defensive bonus against naval attacks." Does this actually work though, since a naval unit can't directly attack a city (it can bombard but that should be covered by the 'Naval Bombardment Defense")? Or does this refer to a defense vs amphibious assault?

As you say Costal fortress has it set to 50. However, it's never been editable by the editor, and I'm unsure if it has any efect in the game. It might be (and probably is) something left over from earlhy development, where it could have been possible for ships to actually attack cities ala Civ2, and not just bombard. But the only way to figure out if it has any effect is to run many tests with marine attacks and compare to combat calculator results from with and without a 50% defense bonus.

- In the BLDG section, PTW added a flag for "increased trade in sea squares" which is obviously not listed on the posted format. It appears to occur right after the "increased food in sea squares" flag.

Probably, I have however not investigated the exact meaning of flags.

- In the BLDG section, has anyone determined what the 64-byte "Description" section is?

In Vanilla Civ3 v1.07f that field was in the editor, and it's an outdated field no longer used as all text is moved to the civilopedia.txt

- In the PRTO section, there are always a number of units repeated at the end of the list. For example, in my vanilla BIC there are 11 units which reappear after the "last" unit in the editor. In my PTW BIX there are 12, and in my DyP BIX there are 15. Has anyone discovered why this is?

They are related to the other strategy for unit (-1 if first strategy/not multiplie strategies) value. The repeated units have non -1 at these value, which referes to the first same unit.
Each unit entry has one strategy set. And if you select more than one strat in the editor tghere will be more than one entry for the unit only differing at the AI strategy. (Kind of strange way of using a bitmask if only one can be set at a time, but it has something to do with the AI... Of cource it would be better to have a number for the strat instead.)

- In the TERR section, the posted format lists this: "4-long-number of possible resources" followed by "3-byte-possible resources (binary)" I believe that the 3-byte section is actually a variable size equal to the previous value divided by 8 and rounded up. For example, in vanilla there are 22 resources and 22/8 rounded up is in-fact 3. However, in DyP there are 40 total resources and that binary section is 5-bytes long (40/8 = 5)

100% correct conclution. I'm sure I've known this for long. guess the document is a little more outdated than I knew.

[pdescobar]

Thanks for the reply Gramphos, particularly on the multi-strategy unit thing; I'd have never figured that one out on my own. I've done some testing on the coastal fortress issue. The "50% defensive bonus against naval attacks" has no effect on amphibious assault in PTW 1.21f, so the only possibility I can see is the one you refer to: that it is legacy from a pre-release version of the game where naval units could attack cities and is now meaningless.

And if there is anything I can do to encourage you to post the BIX format, just let me know

[roudoudou77]

SAV and BIX format

is there a tool that can compress/uncompress the SAV and BIX files ?

by the way, what kind of compression is used for SAV and BIX format ? is it like gzip or a special compression scheme created by Fireaxis ?

thanks

[Gramphos]

The compression used is PKWARE Datacompression library, and it can be decompressed using this tool.

(I don't have time to describe it, and it's totaly unsupported, and all of that...)

I taqke no responcible for damage this too may caue to anything, and you download and use it at your own risk.