Basic information

[PaulWilliams]

As a newcomer to this forum I am extremely impressed by the effort and inventiveness that is to be found among CTP fans. I want to do something too, but where to start? What is needed is an introduction to basic principles, which I would be prepared to write once I understand them ...

For example: I want to add a new GOODS to the game. Let's say, to make it easy, one of the goods from CTPI. I can see the two files I need to adjust, but what about the sprite? Someone said the sprites from CTPI are still around. Where? What are they called? Is there such a thing as a sprite viewer?

I want to add a unit. Let's say Tom Davis' chariot. He says to amend the files. Which files...? How?

I want to add a building. The sewer system mentioned in a topic elsewhere seems a good idea. But where can I find Hexagonian's orginal instructions?

Hope someone out there doesn't mind helping out a beginner.

[PaulWilliams]

Oh yes - aand I have always thought bridge building would be a good idea. Low and behold there IS a bridge (in Alexander the Great scenario). How would one go about including this as a tile improvement linked to a technology?

[Martin Gühmann]

I noticed that some goods sprites are not used. May be this are the missing goods of CTP1. But I don't know it really, because I didn't implement them, yet.

I only know that the unit sprites are still in the ..\ctp2_data\graphics\sprites\ folder.
The CTP2 unit sprites are called like:

GuXXX.spr

The CTP unit sprites are called like:

GuXX.spr

Unfortunatly there is no sprite viewer, that would help us very much.
There is only an sprite creation tool by Activision, it can be downloaded from Apolyton.
The game itsself is our sprite viewer. You can screen capture the graphics.
Usual I put the city and goods graphics on an pure black terrain. Just add an special terrain to the terrain.txt.

he first to lines of the new terrain must be:

TERRAIN_SPECIAL3 {
TilesetIndex 27

-Martin

[hexagonian]

Building instructions in the Hospital and Drug Store thread in the CTP2 General Forum

Use cut and paste from existing .txt files to make your alts...

[PaulWilliams]

Thanks for the replies. Hexagonian has got me going. Now, about that Bridge sprite:

If I understand it correctly, a sprite done just for a scenario would be in the scenario subfolders. That bridge in the Samurai scenario isn't there. So where is it?

What is the naming convention for tile management sprites?

[Hannibal Ad Portas]

Hi

If you open up my SPQR scn (available in files Database) you will find
in it Wheat/Grain/Gold/silver/Tin/Copper/Fish goods along with Marble
and amber that are unused in the game,the files you want are goods.txt
goods id txt and unit icon along with the graphics in graphics/pictures
look at these to see how to add your own.Terrain txt/tile improvement
are also quite intresting things to look over.

Hannibal
SpenNick@aol.com

[Martin Gühmann]

If I understand it correctly, there are no sprites fore terrain tiles and terrain improvements. The graphics fore these things are stored in the gtset555.til in the ..\ctp2_data\default\graphics\tiles\ folder.
I have no idea to get the graphics out of this file or how to modify this file. Therefore I know no mod which adds terrains and terrain improvements without the help of Activision. May it help you if you play with the TilesetIndex in the terrain.txt. I found the TilesetIndex for rivers and huts.

-Martin

[PaulWilliams]

Thanks for the replies - I have a got a bit to be going on with now!

Couple of additional questions to you Civilisation Wizards:

(1) What is an icon? Well, I understand the role in uniticons.txt for, say, a building. Add one of Harlan's graphics and it shows in the bottom panel when the building/advance is being built. But what use for goods? I now have some goods from CTP1 now in the maps, but have just used icon references to existing goods rather than create new ones and it seems to work.

(2) Where are all the TGAs? Uniticons.txt refers to them all the time, but while there are some in the graphics/pictures folders, and of course I add Harlan's TGAs, I cannot find many of the others. I thought they might be in one of those RFZ files, so I got the utility and decompressed, only to find they are full of RIM files which are ... what?

[PaulWilliams]

Martin: what were the number for rivers and huts?

And how do people add huts to their scenarios?

[Martin Gühmann]

The river number is:

TilesetIndex 34

And the number of huts is:

TilesetIndex 33

Now I have to explain what are huts exactly CIV1/2 players know it. In CTP1/2 huts are ruins. If you look into the risk.txt you will see this term used used for ruins.
For example one line:

BARBARIAN_HUT_CHANCE 0.00

Now an example of the uniticon.txt:

ICON_ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS { FirstFrame "UPDP022.TGA" Movie "NULL" Gameplay "ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS_GAMEPLAY" Historical "ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS_HISTORICAL" Prereq "ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS_PREREQ" Vari "ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS_STATISTICS" Icon "UPDP022.TGA" LargeIcon "NULL" SmallIcon "NULL" StatText "ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS_PREREQ" }

I think "Icon" is be used for the bottom panel when the building/advance is being built. UPDP022.TGA is not the image for ADVANCE_ADV_INFANTRY_TACTICS actually it is the german leader photo which is not used in the game. The function of "Movie" is a little bit different to CTP1. In CTP1 there was an animated Great Library. This feature could be turned on an off. If the animated Great Library was disabled, there were shown pictured instead of the animations. These pictures were be defined under "FirstFrame". This entry is for also for the Great Library in CTP2. In this example the german leader picture is be shown in the Great Library. Of course it is smaller as the tech pictures, therefore it is stretched to to make fit it in the image box. In CTP2 the "Movie" entry is for the wonder movies only wonders have movies. Maybe this entry allows modmakers to implement advance movies that are played if you discover an advance.
I think "Gameplay", "Historical", "Prereq", "Vari" and "StatText" are entries referring to GreatLibrary.txt. "LargeIcon" and SmallIcon" are for cheateditor and unitmanager.

Now an example of a good:

ICON_GOOD_ARCTIC_MOUNTAIN_ONE { FirstFrame "UPGP018L.TGA" Movie "NULL" Gameplay "TERRAIN_ARCTIC_MOUNTAIN_GOOD_ONE_GAMEPLAY" Historical "NULL" Prereq "NULL" Vari "NULL" Icon "UPGI18.TGA" LargeIcon "NULL" SmallIcon "NULL" StatText "NULL" }

There are "FirstFrame" and "Icon" defined. I suppose "Icon" is used for the trade screen.

Now to your second question:

First the game search for tga files. Is there is no tga file in the picture folder the game will search for an equivalent rim file in the zfs files.
For example if there is no upap107l.tga file in the picture folder the program will load the upap107l.rim file. RIM files are picture files but this format is unknown to us. We have no rim file viewer or rim to tga converter except the game itsselef. I recreated all the tech images by screen capturing as tga files. My tga files are only two bytes longer as the equivalent rim file. Therefore my conclusion these files are not less uncompressed as my uncompressed 16bit tga files, just an unknown format.

[PaulWilliams]

Martin:

Thank you indeed for your very full reply. But as one door opens ...

I have just completed the balls-aching task of checking the first 300 tile numbers by placing the requisite numbers in the TileSetIndex line in tileimp.txt. Curiously I have different numbers to you, so what is going on?

Tile no 33 was half an airbase (that is in fact not used in the building of the airbase tile improvement but should be.) Tile no 34 was one of the fortifications (temporary) of units.

I found the ruins on tile nos 150 (henge) and 151 (stones). I found a ruined hut on tile no 160. Unfortunately many, many of the numbers after the first hundred just produce a blue outline (of the sort which when put together make frontiers. So far I have not found rivers, the huts in the Samurai scenario or the bridge. However, as these are clearly tile improvements (you can't cut and paste them) logic dictates that they must be there somewhere.

Now there are, of course, two tilesets. So are we looking at different sets if we have different numbers? And if so, how? But then again the tileset numbers for terrain (1 to 27) clash with those in tileimp.txt so _they_ must refer to the other tileset. Is your 33 and 34 from that set? So where are you changing the humbers to get them?

Incidentally I have also found all the makings for the space module still there plus some really strange things that look like space mines and tank traps!

I got the Goods Sprites from CTP1 and moved them across (renumbering of course) though now I've got Hannibal's scenario as well. Gosh there is going to be a lot of commerce - though I ass-u-me that even if you define goods 3 and 4 the randomly generated maps will only use the first two????


[This message has been edited by PaulWilliams (edited March 23, 2001).]

[Martin Gühmann]

Paul:

In fact we are talking about different tings I meat the TilesetIndex in the terrain.txt not in the tileimp.txt. I was talking about terrains not about tile improvements. I added terrains up to TilesetIndex 54 but the last terrains were only pure black terrains.

I also try to define goods 3 and 4. On random generated map I have also the problem that these goods didn't appear. Maybe this can be adjusted in the const.txt but I didn't tried it, because I want to make a mod which will use the sprites of Nordicus alternative goods for CTP1. But as I saw this goods in the game I saw that the shaddows of these goods are missing therefore I want to remake them.

-Martin

[Martin Gühmann]

Now I played also this game up to TilesetIndex 500 in tileimp.txt.
I found also some strange things like an orbit satilite. I also found forcefields, the space tile improvements of CTP1 and city walls. There were the normal city wall and the genetic and diamond city walls from CTP1. And I wondered as I used the CTP1 genetic and diamond sprites why they used also these city walls. But I don't know how to create an city sprite that uses these city walls.

-Martin

[Martin Gühmann]

In the last hours I played a little bit more with this stuff, to figure out to get to know the maximum TilesetIndex number that can be used in the tileimp.txt. It is TilesetIndex 927. If you try to set per chaeteditor an tileimprovement with an higher number as 927 CTP2 will crash to your desktop. I only tried the last numbers. I saw something that is really not a tileimprovement. 923 is the unit cargo box and 924 is the star which idicates that an army consist about more than one unit.

-Martin
[This message has been edited by Martin Gühmann (edited March 24, 2001).]

[PaulWilliams]

Thanks for giving me the top number - I was dreading having to go upto several thousand!

Curiously I cannot replicate Martin's tile 33 and 34 in terrain.txt - I get a black square. Martin, what is your methodology?

And, as you have done up to 500, what did you get between 300 and 500?

If it interests people we can put together a list: here is mine upto 300:

1 Generic Building site
3 Bldg ... (i.e. first stage of building farms 1)
4 Bldg ... (i.e. second stage of building farms 1)
5 Farms 1
6 Bldg ...
7 Bldg ...
8 Farms 2
9 Bldg ...
10 Bldg ...
11 Farms 3
12 bldg ...
13 bldg ...
14 Mines
15 Bldg ...
16 Bldg ...
17 Mines 2
18 Bldg ...
19 Bldg ...
20 Mines 3
21 bldg ...
22 bldg ...
23 Trading post
24 bldg ...
25 bldg ...
26 Mall
27 Nature reserves
28 bldg ...(nat resr)
29 bldg ...(nat resr)
30 Listening posts
31 (blue button)
32 Air base
33 (1/2 air base)
34 (temp fortificn)
35 Radar
38 (temp fortificn2)
50 Bldg (rig/port)
52 bldg ...
53 bldg ...
54 Usea mines1
55 bldg ...
56 bldg ...
57 Usea mines2
58 bldg ...
59 bldg ...
60 Usea mines3
61 bldg ...(interim stage for all fishing)
62 Fishing1
64 Fishing2
67 Fishing3
70 Sonar buoys
71 bldg ...
72 blgg ...
73 Port
74 Bldg ...
75 Bldg ...
76 Rig
77 bldg ...
78 bldg ...
79 Obelisks
80 Bldg ...
81 Bldg...
82 Fortiications
100 u/water hut or space building
102 bld 1 ...
103 bld 2 ...
104 space mine 1
105 bld 1 ...
106 bld 2...
107 space mine 2
108 bld1...
109 bld2 ...
110 space mine 3
111 bldg1 ...
112 bldg 2...
113 space food1
114 bldg1...
115 bldg2...
116 space food2
117 bldg1...
118 bldg2...
119 space food3
120 (star/space mine?)
121 (bld 1...)
122 (bld 2...)
123 (spce tunl/fence?)
150 ruins henge
151 ruins stones
152 large fut wall
153 small fut wall
154 town shield
155 town shield
156 town shield
160 ruined buildings
200-217 Road
300 (probably to 317) Rail