Silly little question about changing the base monetary gifts

[johnc214]

Ok this is a little silly, but I'd like to figure out something. I HATE having to hold the arrow buttons on the gold gift box (when donating/bribing foreign civilizations) for a minute or so to scroll from 100 gold pieces to say 30,000 gp. Is there a way to change the base from 100 gp to something else? Maybe I might have to decrease it sometimes, but at least I'd like a higher starting point! Any ideas? (Told you this way picky!)

[Martin Gühmann]

Open the diplomacywindow.ldl in your C:\Activision\CTP2\ctp2_data\english\uidata\layout s folder. There you will find these lines. minxval is the minimum value that can be selected in this gold box. maxxval should be now clear. And incxval is the amout of gold that will be added by each click. Of course you could play around with these other values in this code, but I think they won't help you.

    Spinner:CTP2_SPINNER {
        int    minxval    100
        int    maxxval    1000000
        int    incxval    100
        int    pagexval    500
        int    xval    100
        int    widthpix    97
        int    xpix    47
        int    ypix    40
        display:CTP2_STANDARD_FONT {
        } 

-Martin

[Peter Triggs]

Martin,

Have you tried playing around much with the UI stuff? Do you know if it's possible to add new buttons for example, or even new pages?

[Martin Gühmann]

For the UI components there is also a file that imports all the *.ldl files called:

C:\civ3_project\civ3_data\english\uidata\layouts\c iv3.ldl

I mention this, because it is important to know which *.ldl file is actual used.

At least the thing above must be the path on Activion's computer, for the CTP1 version. So we see here another reason why I don't play Sid Meyers Civ3. Activion already made it and they made also a sequel to it so we actually modding Civ4, so no need to downgrate.


But back to topic: So what you can do with these UI componets is to replace graphics, rezize them (that was done to the CTP1 trade screen. And maybe adding graphics if you only do it with strings. You can modify the min and max values with those spinners like I did it with the city size spinner in the cheat editor.

But had never any luck to add new buttons or new pages for example I tried to add on the select numbers of opponents screen to add new buttons so that you can start a game with more than eigth without modifying the userprofile.txt by hand.

So I added to this code some entries:

    Group {

        PlayerOne:POPUP_CHECKBOX {

            string    text    "str_ldl_3"
            int    ypix    45

        }

        PlayerTwo:POPUP_CHECKBOX {

            string    text    "str_ldl_4"
            int    ypix    75

        }

        PlayerThree:POPUP_CHECKBOX {

            string    text    "str_ldl_5"
            int    ypix    105

        }

        PlayerFour:POPUP_CHECKBOX {

            string    text    "str_ldl_6"
            int    ypix    135

        }

        PlayerFive:POPUP_CHECKBOX {

            string    text    "str_ldl_7"
            int    ypix    165

        }

        PlayerSix:POPUP_CHECKBOX {

            string    text    "str_ldl_8"
            int    ypix    195

        }

    }

} 

like PlayerSeven:POPUP_CHECKBOX

But there was no effect the game just ignores it. You could do a string search in the ctp2.exe: And you will find all the UI components that works like: ScenarioButton. So I guess adding buttons (if they are not in a list box) and adding new pages would require to rewrite the ctp2.exe. So what you have is difined in the ctp2.exe to do the fine work you have the *.ldl files that does make sense as you can write the *.exe first and finish the graphics later.

-Martin

[Locutus]

I can confirm Martin's findings. I've fiddled with the ldl files quite a lot both for CtP1 and CtP2. I've come to the conclusion that only small changes can be made, like the ones that Martin just mentioned. MartinTheDane's UI mod for CtP1 was an excellent illustration of what can be done with the UI. The things he did form pretty much the limit of what can be done: change graphics, resize stuff, rename stuff, move things around.

But even this last thing (moving things around) is limited according to Activision: I remember that at some point some Activisioner (Mr Ogre, IIRC) told us (the A-Team, IIRC) that we could move around some things in the city screen if we wanted to edit it but that some other things were probably fixed on their tab and would only crash the game if they were moved (FE you might not be able to move the specialist-sliders to the inventory tab - I don't know if this is actually the case but this is the sort of thing you should be thinking about). I never actually tried it but I'm sure (s)he knew what (s)he was talking about. The ldl files are really the only part of CtP that are truly limited in terms of customizability (apart from the exe and dll files of course)...

edit: test, please ignore