Personal Techniques

[St Leo]

Use this thread to share the time-saving methods you have developed over the years. Here's one of mine to start this off:

-For scenarios that change terrains around, the best way to make the map is to create a category in the Modpack Manager expressly for that purpose and simply copy the terrain*.gif files into it's folder

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St. Leo
http://ziggurat.sidgames.com/
http://www.sidgames.com/forums/

[DarthVeda]

Books. The more the merrier. Helps in making unit graphics and doing last second research. I currently have 43 out from the library for Kyokujitsu.

[Panda]

Plan ahead.
Get the map right before you place any cities.
Get the cities completed before you place any units.

I've found a speedy technique for converting pictures into sprites (now that I have Adobe Photoshop).

Paint Shop Pro is not very good at resizing .gifs. Photoshop is no good for palletes, so I use both. Edit the picture in PSP to get rid of the background, then apply the Civ2 unit pallete. Save and load in Photoshop. Work out what the reduction factor will be, then zoom out to reach it rather than re-size. Back in PSP, start a screen capture, and capture the reduced size image in Photoshop. Edit the sprite for final touches.

Here's an example. Two images: the left one took me weeks of work resizing in PSP; the right one took roughly half an hour using the above method.



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"The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on"

[BeBMan]

With Cross&Crescent I begun to use more and more scanned images for improvements and wonders. Sure, thats no new idea (there´s a SLeague design tip about this), but I´ve seen not many scns using this. But its simple and fast. There are a lot of images for historic scns in the net, so all you have to do is scale them down and then sharpen them. Some corrections with your graphics software - done! Best thing after scaling is that nobody realizes that the most of the available images show only ruins... However, I don´t use this technique for my units.

Edit: Andrew, just read your post. I think for resizing it´s better to convert a pic into 24bit. Then resize (better results) and reconvert into 8bit gif. I use it with PhotoPaint, works perfectly.
[This message has been edited by BeBro (edited July 27, 2000).]

[DarthVeda]

Scanned units are Satan's gift to the Civ2 world. I find self-drawn units to be much more fulfilling and better looking. Most don't take over an hour to create.

[Evil Capitalist]

quote: Originally posted by DarthVeda on 07-27-2000 11:11 PM Scanned units are Satan's gift to the Civ2 world. I find self-drawn units to be much more fulfilling and better looking. Most don't take over an hour to create.

I agree. However I'm an atrocious artist, and Scanning is about the only way I can get good looking units. Anyway, there are some 3d models around which look pretty good.

[Prometeus]

quote: Originally posted by DarthVeda on 07-27-2000 11:11 PM Scanned units are Satan's gift to the Civ2 world. I find self-drawn units to be much more fulfilling and better looking. Most don't take over an hour to create.

Hmmm... i'm not sure about that, DV...
Anyway, while scanning i use the mixed tecnique: first you have to grab ( or scan ) an interesting picture, then resize that pic and modify/redraw wrong details.
This way, i was able to turn the male pornstar Rocco Siffredi into a savage naked celtic warrior...

Another tecnique i use often is "collage": first grab parts of pics, then collect them together into a new one ( this way i created a Sassanid mounted archer ).



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[Gothmog]

To save time, learn some of the shortcuts keys. The ones I use most are shift + F1 (create unit), shift + F3 (set human player),
Ctl + shift + F8 (Repeat terrain change). The last one is not documented, but it's handy for irrigating and road building!

When creating events, I only do a few at a time and then test them to make sure those work. Then I feel confident I'm not repeating mistakes. It saves a lot of hair pulling later.



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There is no tiddle-taddle nor pibble-pabble in Pompey's camp.

[Evil Capitalist]

While we're on the subject of shift F8, am I the only one who does the entire map with irrigation for the sake of completeness?
BTW, I agree, always plan.

[Fast_Eddie]

shift-D to destroy cities. By far the handiest thing in the game (next to cnt-shift-F8).

This is probably the 10th time I've posted it, and there's always at least 1 guy who's never heard of it.

[DarthVeda]

I used to fully irrigate maps. I don't do it anymore. It's an exercise in tedium and often isn't necessary if you've got a map that's well built without huge tracts of similar landscape.

[DarthVeda]

Shift-D destroys cities? Shiiiit, I was doing it the hard way!

[Shadowstrike]

quote: Originally posted by Fast_Eddie on 07-28-2000 07:02 PM shift-D to destroy cities. By far the handiest thing in the game (next to cnt-shift-F8).

You can also use this to destroy units in the game even if that unit is move 0.

[Allard HS]

I also mentioned it 20x before but for the sake of being complete:

when cheat menu is toggled on:

Y: reveal/cover map
ctrl-shft-T: council cheat (useless)

[St Leo]

You can also use this to destroy units in the game even if that unit is move 0.

Ctrl+Shift+D is better for destroying units as it takes care of the whole stack at once.

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St. Leo
http://ziggurat.sidgames.com/
http://www.sidgames.com/forums/