What you can do with hex-editing

[AGRICOLA]

In an earlier thread on this forum (Can a destroyed Wonder be hexed back to life? started by curtsibling), Harry Tuttle voiced his opinion that

You know, it would be really cool if someone could make a compendium of what can be hexed...

I spent a bit of time on this and was surprised at how much can be changed by using the various cheat menus without needing to resort to hex editing.

Here are the unexpectedly few things that, as far as I know, can be accomplished only by hex-editing a game or scenario file.

1. Wonders - destroy, revive or move to another city.

2. Units - change number of charges on pre-charged settlers/engineers.

3. Terrain - add river to a terrain square.

4. Cities - remove food trade route

5. Technology - change the number of accumulated flasks

6. Civilizations - change diplomatic status (peace, war etc.); change reputation of a civilization

7. Global - delete or change level of global warming; change turn number or level of difficulty in mid-game; remove cheat flag

Please post any corrections, additions or comments. As I'm completely unfamiliar with the specialized CIV II edit software that has been developed there may be too many items on the list.

I'll revise the list in due time.

[rmsharpe]

Re: What can be done with hex-editing

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
In an earlier thread on this forum (Can a destroyed Wonder be hexed back to life? started by curtsibling)

Yes, it can, and I did it for him for Vendetta 2.

Here are the unexpectedly few things that, as far as I know, can be accomplished only by hex-editing a game or scenario file.

Some of them can be done through cheat mode, I've gone through them below.

1. Wonders - destroy, revive or move to another city.

You can destroy a wonder by destroying the city (after all units in the city have been destroyed by pressing Ctrl-Shift-D) under the cheat mode. Shift-D will delete the city.

2. Units - change number of charges on pre-charged settlers/engineers.

I don't understand what you mean here.

3. Terrain - add river to a terrain square.

Yes, this must be done through a hex editor.

4. Cities - remove food trade route

This can be done through CivCity, a popular utility used to modify .sav and .scn files.

5. Technology - change the number of accumulated flasks

This can be done in cheat mode. Go to Cheat, select Edit King, choose which civilization, and select Set Research Progress.

6. Civilizations - change diplomatic status (peace, war etc.); change reputation of a civilization

Similar to research, you do the same thing but instead of selecting Set Research Progress, you select Edit Treaties.

7. Global - delete or change level of global warming; change turn number or level of difficulty in mid-game; remove cheat flag

Yes, this must also be done through a hex editor.

Hope I covered all bases okay.

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by rmsharpe

2. Units - change number of charges on pre-charged settlers/engineers.

I don't understand what you mean here.

If you put an engineer or settler to work (usually irrigate, mine or transform) and "wake" them before the work is completed, they retain the number of turns they have worked. Then, if they are put to work on another project the retained turns count towards the completion of the new project.

A very simple example would be that, if an engineer starts to irrigate a square on turn 1 and is activated at the beginning of turn 2, it can then be moved to a new location where it will by itself immediately complete a 2-turn project such as build a fortress, an airfield or a RR on plains or grassland that already has a road.

There is a current thread, "precharged engineers???" by boychuk in CFC's Civ2 - Strategy & Tips forum that deals with this in some detail.

[Cifer Almasy]

Ah well... ehm could one of you guys help a little?
I got a problem.
In the working progress of my scenario which shall be stackable I didnt realize the need of an urban terrain with a high defensive bonus under every single city´s square to balance the relation of defence to all the fortesses outside.
I have placed about 20 citys yet but 2 of them got wonders inside and deleting them would make them lost, also I micromanaged every single one of it yet.

My request would be, if one of you could perhaps be so gentle and hex edit a "glacier" terrain under every existing city in my save (it really are not much citys yet). That would be too kind!

[Cifer Almasy]

Oh sorry... the save:

[AGRICOLA]

You have 32 cities. I assume you would want all of them on a glacier. Have you considered that this might do some very unpleasant things to the food supply of the smaller cities.

I've looked at the cities and most have very few improvements. The easiest way to do what you want would be for you to use the cheat mode to to raze them, change the terrain, rebuild and add the improvements. It shouln't take more than 5 minutes per city. Don't worry about the lost wonders. The attached file has been hex edited so that they have not yet been built in London or Berlin.

This is one situation where hex-editing terrain is not the easiest way.

Good luck with your scenario.

[Cifer Almasy]

Thanks a lot!
Well Glacier will be renamed "City" or "urban" or else and have a higher # of food of course.
And dont worry about the improvements- I hadnt finished setting improvements inside most of the citys.

Many many thanks one more time.

[yaroslav]

I'll add this to global:

To slow/accelerate the tech rate of a civ.

You can do it easily by changing the number of tech byte, discovered by great hex-editer SlowThinker.

I modified the famous, excelent Imperialism 1870 v2 of Exile because some players were finding it to go too quickly and Exile said that high tech paradigm values caused problems. I increased number of techs of all civs (except barbarians) so now the research is a slot slower.

[Mercator]

Re: What can be done with hex-editing

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
3. Terrain - add river to a terrain square.

This should be common knowledge by now... You don't need to hexedit this. It's even in the Hints, Tips & Guides subforum:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66105

[rmsharpe]

Maybe he doesn't want to fool around with crazy coal, goofy graphics, and the rules.txt

[Panda]

You don't need to hexedit terrain under a city either: just amend the rules.txt so that terrain can be irrigated to turn into Glacier (or whatever) in one turn. Then create settlers for those civs in those cities, irrigate, then disband. Simple.

[Harry Tuttle]

Thanks for bringing this up again Agricola. I thought a very good statement on what can be done with hex editing would be useful to all scenario creators, old and new.

Mercator, speaking of civ2 hacks, anything new with the auto file swapper?

[AGRICOLA]

@rmsharpe

Originally posted by rmsharpe
Maybe he doesn't want to fool around with crazy coal, goofy graphics, and the rules.txt

Thank you, but you're giving me credit for knowledge I do not have. I'm sure that Mercatore Uno is right in saying that

Originally posted by Mercatore Uno
This should be common knowledge by now... You don't need to hexedit this.

I really have no expertise in the more esoteric tricks of the scenario designer's art. The posts on this thread have been a real eye-opener to me.

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
Mercator, speaking of civ2 hacks, anything new with the auto file swapper?

Ahem... It's been done since the last time I posted about it. But all sorts of personal problems have prevented me from writing the documentation, so I haven't released it yet... But thanks for reminding me... That doesn't mean I will actually finish it now, though.

[Harry Tuttle]

Ahhhhhh! What if I ask really nicely?