Jackal.txt on the CD (has interesting code)

[mactbone]

For everyone who has the game look at the Jackal.txt file. It has some interesting stuff which I will partially put here.

#NET_LOBBY_PASSWORD_QUERY
#xs 320
#caption Set password?

Yes
No

#NET_LOBBY_INPUT_PASSWORD
#xs 320
#caption Enter session password

#NETCONNECT_CREATE
#xs 320
#caption Host Multiplayer Game
#editbox
#itemlist
Enter game name:
Enter your name:
##Optional password:

#NETCONNECT_JOIN
#xs 320
#caption Join Multiplayer Game
#itemlist
Enter your name:

#NETCONNECT_NEED_SESSION
#xs 320
#caption NOTICE
^^Game name required. Please try again.

#NETCONNECT_NEED_PLAYER
#xs 320
#caption NOTICE
^^Player name required. Please try again.

#NETCONNECT_MAX_PLAYERS
#xs 200
#caption Create Multiplayer Game
^^Choose number of players allowed

#NETCONNECT_PASSWORD_SET
#xs 320
#caption NOTICE
^^Password protection has been set.

#NETCONNECT_SESSION_NOT_FOUND
#xs 320
#caption Game Not Found
#button Try Again
No game was found.

#NETCONNECT_SESSIONS
#xs 440
#caption Pick Game to Join
#button Refresh

For those that don't understand, this looks like code for multiplayer games. Any good programmers out there that can fiddle with it

[mactbone]

Oh, wow, as I was looking at it again I saw this line.

#CDNOTFOUND
#xs 320
#caption Sid Meier's CIVILIZATION III
#button Retry
The Alpha Centauri CD-ROM was not detected. Some game features
will not function without the CD in the drive.

Notice the bold part?

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Civ 3 compatible withSMAC?

[Orlando]

There was a blurb from one of the designers in an interview that they explored the possibility of carrying over an Alpha Centauri victory over to the Alpha Centauri game, but they abandoned the idea.

This could be a remnant of that.

[Earthling7]

This is plain bizarre.

I wonder if CivIII, just like CivII was, is ready for MP. Maybe they are just waiting to release the XP.

Just speculating... but SMAC?

Time for Yin to rant

[Andrew1999]

I thought there would be some embryonic MP code buried in Civ III. The question now is how embryonic and how buried? Even if it was beta-grade (or even alpha-grade) there would be people interested in playing it.

[Gramphos]

As I said, the MP strings would be ready as in Civ2 and Colonization.

[squid]

Sounds like just a case of them sloppily tossing files on the CD, and tosing in one too many.

Doesn't mean a thing.

[Grim Legacy]

Yeah the mention of SMAC doesn't reek too hopeful. Just old mess I tell ya.

[Petek]

The Alpha Centauri folder on my hard drive contains a file named Jackal.txt. It's similar to what was posted here.

[mactbone]

I thought I heard that they were taking some code from Alpha Centauri, so maybe this is partial mplayer code that they were going to adjust. Anybody seen other code to support this?

[Darkknight]

CTP2 came with unofficial PBEM and Hotseat multiplayer. It was leaked after the release by a programmer the line you had to edit to get both these in the game maybe Firaxis is doing that if so tell us please!!

[dexter4dxm]

i doubt it darknight. this seems similar to the release of civ2. if you went into the text files and read everything, there were plenty of multiplayer-specific entries, however multiplayer was not in the game.
looks to me like they copied all the multiplayer code from SMAC and started using it for Civ3...

[Wittlich]

Actually, I'm glade that this "hidden code' has been discovered. I'm hoping that this is an indicator that Firaxis worked with the MP option during the development...and will release the MP version of Civ3 later.

I can hope at least!

[mactbone]

Has anyone been able to find any other code that mentions mplayer?

I found some more interesting stuff in the text folder. This one was in the "play the world" txt file.

; Play the world
; text strings for the main menu
; Created: D.E.



#PTW
EXIT
MAIN MENU
Get the Game of the Week
Get the Game of the Day
View Scores
Exit
Your Current Score:

#PTWERR_SERVER_NOT_FOUND
Cannot find the Server or communications error.

#PTWERR_BAD_USERNAME
Bad username, please re-enter or create a new account.

#PTWERR_BAD_PASSWORD
Password incorrect, please try again.

#PTWERR_UNDEFINED
Undefined error. Server returned something unexpected.

# ; This line must remain at end of file