A Question...

[Shadowstrike]

Is there any possible way to hack the saved game file so that technologies that civs have can be removed in FW? Can this be done as an executable file for use with an events change? I'm back to the ideas stage and I was just wondering if this was possible....

[Eternal]

I'd be very interested in this as well... There's probably A WAY to do it, if my brother managed to do it with the hideously organized Imperialism files... the question is... who WOULD do it?

[Gothmog]

Why not use the "edit technologies" in the cheat menu? I'm not sure why you'd want to do a hex edit. BTW it is possible to hex edit the technologies. The locations are shown in Allard's hex edit document.

[MacGyver]

I think he wants to remove techs during a scenario, so that a civ has a tech one turn but loses it the next, as is possible in ToT.

[KaiserIsak]

What was the result of the imperialism hacking? Did u manage to create a scenario or something?

[St Leo]

Yeah, they did.

Society Eternal Imp Page
Frog Army's Imp Scenario Page

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

[Eternal]

By the way, there's also a program to switch around countries so that minor nations can be great powers. Do to imperialism engine, you need a main port on the sea to use ports, but my brother made a scenario where Spain replaces Sardinia and it starts out well enough. I haven't gotten around to uploading those however.

[Shadowstrike]

Anyhow, back to the original question, except with a small difference.

In ToT it is possible to set up a "chain" of events, which allow you to let the player choose to make a choice from the science menu, then have a result happen due to the player's actions, and remove the technology afterwards. I'm wondering if this is possible with FW. Could somebody edit the saved game file so that after a specific tech is researched, it is then removed from the civilization who researched it after events have given the affected Civilization something for researching this technology?

The order things would go in would be like this:

1) Civilization selects "Summon Beast" as next technology to research.

2) Civilization finishes researching "Summon Beast".

3) Events create x Beast units in the civilization's capital.

4) The technology "Summon Beast" is removed from the civilization who researched it, and bvecomes availble for research again.

Now my question is, can step 4 be done through hacking into the saved game file? Could it be done to only specific technologies?

If the answer is no, I'll have to change the scenario to use ToT instead.

[Kull]

The answer to #4 is "Theoretically Yes". That's because Allard's Hex Edit manual will be able to identify which bytes indicate that a particular tech is either being researched or is already known. So the data is there. And if it can be seen, it can be changed.

Now for the tough part. What kind of program can you write that will do this automatically, DURING the game? It will be easy enough to generate a text message that says something like "Salem Witches discover Beast Summoning! Save your game as X.sav, run program "Y" and restart."

The $64 question is, does anyone know how to write program "Y"?

[Shadowstrike]

Exiting the game, running the program and coming back wold be tedious, but still possible. During the game... is it even possible?

[DarthVeda]

quote: Originally posted by Shadowstrike on 01-02-2001 04:56 PM In ToT it is possible to set up a "chain" of events, which allow you to let the player choose to make a choice from the science menu, then have a result happen due to the player's actions, and remove the technology afterwards.

Didn't I pioneer this concept?

[Shadowstrike]

Yeah, except that you never told me how this would work.... And I think I've figured it out more or less... One small thing Darth, how did you make it so that certain things can't be built without enough money?

[DarthVeda]

quote: Originally posted by Shadowstrike on 01-03-2001 03:04 PM Yeah, except that you never told me how this would work.... And I think I've figured it out more or less... One small thing Darth, how did you make it so that certain things can't be built without enough money?

You can expect your improvements to go up in smoke.

[DarthVeda]

Actually I'm working on this at the moment... so once I figure out a system that works (I have a couple of ideas), I'll put up the first two parts of the scenario to my playtesters.

[Shadowstrike]

If you're thinking of the ChangeMoney action, it won't work. By it nature, ChangeMone will only bottom out at zero.... But knowing you, you've probably found an ingenious way around it.

Anyone up to the challenge of making prgram 'D'? (See Kull's post)