Goal: Make it so Raise Volcano works on water.

Motivation: I'd played a character quite some time back with Chaos and Nature spellbooks entirely so I could make new land with volcanos then make it better with Change Terrain, even if doing so was extremely expensive and slow and I'd lose the game in the process of doing it.
Lately I came back to the game-- totally different computer and operating system-- and tried to do this again... not remembering that it doesn't work.

TIL: That I can open up game files with Vim, enter a :%!xxd command to turn it into viewable form, edit things, then use :%!xxd -r to turn back to a run-able form. That people on this forum have figured out where the hex values are for many simple numerics (things actually displayed as numbers in-game), but figuring out the hex values for various properties and functions has turned out to be much slower going.
Also, that there have only been one or two unanswered questions involving the spell around the forum (or at least as far as my search said).

Queries:
1. Is the SPELLDAT file even the right place to be looking for the targeting properties of the Raise Volcano spell? Or is it some special case in the "cast an overland spell" code?
2. Does MoM keep track of the changes made by these spells the same as it does normal terrain or is there some sort of "overlay" or "special properties of a tile" system?

I am enquiring as to whether there are any players who might be interested in playing in PBEM 66.

The pertinent information (settings and so on):

Our brains work in funny ways. I cannot even count the times I have seen the name "Ed Beach" in Firaxis-related articles and media and never once did it cross my mind that this could be the same Ed Beach who designed one of the more famous grand strategy wargames, Here I Stand and a well-known series of American Civil War wargames (yawn). Yet it is. Beach led the design of both Civ V expansions and previously worked on Civ III: Conquests, there have been no announcements of any projects he is involved in recently, and he skipped participation in Beyond Earth and Rising Tide, which makes it as good a bet as any that he is busy plowing away at Civ VI. With that in my mind, I thought it could be interesting to look at the two grand strategy board games he designed, just as a fun speculative exercise in guessing what we might see in the next installment of the Civilization series.



First of all, Beach as game designer is no Zynga hack. His two grand strategy games: Here I Stand and Virgin Queen, hereon in referred to my their acronyms, are heavy in theme, mechanics and time required to actually play them out. HIS and VQ deal with state-building, war and religion in early modern Europe — a time when the three concepts were inseparable from one another. HIS covers the period from 1517, the year when Martin Luther nailed his theses to the Wittenberg Schloßkirche, to 1555, the year of the Peace of Augsburg, in which the Protestant princes of the Holy Roman Empire secured the right to both practice Lutheranism privately and make it the official faith of their land. Cuius regio, eius religio was the principle, albeit the choice in religio was rather limited — the peace also confirmed Calvinism and Anabaptism as heresies, banned in the Empire. Of course, now that I know that it was this Ed Beach that designed Gods and Kings, Wittenberg's presence on the list of city states makes that much more sense.

1555 takes us to the start of the next game, the Virgin Queen, named after the most famous ruler of that period. VQ proceeds until 1598, the year of the Edict of Nantes, passed by the king Henry IV of France. This enacted toleration of the Huguenot, French Calvinist, faith, in his kingdom — even as Henry of Navarre himself abandoned the Reformed faith for the purposes of coronation, famously proclaiming that Paris is worth a Mass.

None of the above is incidental to Beach's game design; even though the players are, loosely, the leaders of their respective kingdoms and empires, the religious conflicts are at the very heart of both games, making a contest for the congregation's hearts as crucial as the military conflict between kingly armies. However, different players face completely different situations — as could be expected of the leaders of England, France, Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman sultans, all of whom are playable in both games. The situations are incredibly, almost impossibly assymetric. The Ottomans have no stake in the religious conflict, apart from the fact that it weakens their immediate enemies. For the Protestants, on the other hand, almost nothing but the religious conflict matters — in both games this faction starts with no forces on the map and no territories, all of them have to be converted, before Protestants get to participate in the "traditional" 4X activities at all. In HIS, the conversion battles take place in HRE, in VQ they move westwards to Low Countries and France.



How is such thematically deep topic and the assymetric positions managed? Well, thankfully, Beach didn't have to create a system of scratch, but could rely on fairly tried and tested approach for thematic strategies — the card-driven system. A set of example cards for HIS are given above, as you can see they cover actual historical events and convert them into the language of mechanics. But they are more than thematic events, they form the very fuel of the game. Each card has an action point value on it, and when taking his round, rather than use the card for the event, the player can use it for its action point value to conduct standard actions — build troops, hire mercenaries, move troop formations, fortify areas, engage in religious struggles, colonize the New World and, in VQ, patron artists and scientists. As far as I know, VQ is the only game which lets you take a part in the development of world literature by sponsoring the work of Shakespeare.

A lot of substance in VQ and HIS is greatly abstracted and streamlined. There are only two types of land troops — mercenaries and regulars, and you buy them at a fixed rate of one strength point for one action point (mercenaries), or one strength point for two action points (regulars). There is only one type of resource in the game, the action points on your cards, which you draw to your current hand size and the start of the turn — the more cities you have under your control, the bigger your hand size, reflecting access to a bigger resource base. On top of this high-level of abstraction, the games provide an incredible level of historical theme and detail, limited only by the amount of text that can be printed on one card. Separate bits of cardboard are used to track multiple stories, related to characters, places or events.


England player's sheet for VQ.

What can be said about these games, without diving much deeper into them? First of all, these are unflinchingly heavy and multiplayer experiences. They take little account of the "mass market" and are clearly aimed at enthusiasts. Of course, the publisher of these games is not Firaxis and Beach is unlikely to be choosing the company's marketing policy — but still, choosing Beach as the designer does potentially hint at the direction chosen for the product. If Firaxis wanted to release a more developed Civ Online Play by Facebook game, they would have turned to someone else.

On the slightly less positive side, these games are a mess of what wargamers call "chrome", little bits of rules that apply to a highly specific section of the game, rather than following from the general design. HIS and VQ are almost all about chrome, the Ottoman Sultan skipping a round of governance for the pleasures of the Harem, or the English having to worry about Mary, Queen of Scots stirring up trouble. No reasonable system could integrate events so diverse and specific into something abstract, so Beach, quite rightly, doesn't even try. Only English have the "Mary" problem, it has specific rules applying only to it, and nothing remotely similar can happen to other players, all of which have to worry instead about their own specific problems and their associated rulesets.

Coming back to the positives, despite all that has just been said, Beach manages to produce games which are balanced. The tricks he uses for this are numerous and include varying the demands for achieving victory — imagine Louis XIV in Civ having a higher "Legendary" cap for his cities to make up for a great number of culture-positive events he has unique access to. This has problems of its own, of course. In one VQ game I played, Catholic France was only a few points of winning the game at the very end, even though it controlled not a single key city in its own territory, everything has fallen either to the Protestants or Spain. This they managed by successfully marrying their royals all over the place (successful* marriage yields victory points for everyone, but more so for the French side) and by being avid sponsors of the arts and sciences. Both activities yield victory points which cannot be taken away ever, and potentially allow winning in circumstances which resemble nothing like victory. Of course, this is perhaps not so different from the Space and Culture victories in Civ in any case.

I have to say I am excited. If Ed Beach is the lead on Civ VI, I am pretty sure that, whatever happens, we will see something very different from the series. Where Soren is a master of tight mechanical design, something he confirmed with Offworld Trading Company, Ed is the lord of historical storytelling through the gaming medium. I would expect Beach's Civilization to be messy and overwrought, yet engrossing and enjoyable. He just has the chops to throw up a salad of mechanics and fuse them into something that plays well, even competitively. I just hope that he would have kept the multiplayer aspect of it all in mind.

*You guessed it right, there is a bunch of separate mechanics governing whether a marriage agreement between players results in a successful marriages. Some couples are unhappy, some wives die in childbirth, it's all there in the rules.

I can't get a youtube video to embed using the button provided in the forum interface. How is it supposed to work?

Reply with quote to see the code for what I'm trying here, it's not working, can you make it work?

Rules and settings:

Settings:
Erebus Continents
Large
Immortal with Increasing Difficulty Challenge
EitB v. 11.1
No Tech Trading
All Unique Features
All victories enabled except Religious (for everyone else)


Opponents:
Clan
Malakim
Svart
Ljo
Kurios
Lanun
Doviello
Calabim

1. We must cast all six rituals, in order. Samhain - The White Hand - The Deepening - Stir from Slumber - The Draw - Ascension. We may only have two conquests before Ascension - one after the White Hand, and one after Stir from Slumber.
2. We must build a Temple of the Hand in every city unless it already contains >50% tundra/snow/ice tiles. May build them in that case but not required
3. We aim to win by Domination, while thwarting any other victory attempts.
4. We've got to build Wilboman at some point.
5. Play as though we were agnostic - no religions!

Roster (and also the playing order):
Aurorarcher
DaveV
Jalepeno
Mardoc
Qgqqqq

Here's the starting position:




Depending on what warrior/scout revel I'd settle either 1S of the silk (where scout is at the moment) or 1SE of silk on the hill.

After moving Scout/Warrior:




A) Settling on the hill gives us:
- Corn + 3 freshwater grassland pre Mining.
- 7 grasshills to mine later + the defensive bonus for the capital
- maximum 23 hpt (palace + center + 7 mines).

B) Settling on the grass gives us:
- Corn + 4 freshwater grassland pre Mining.
- 6 grasshills, no defensive bonus
- max 21 hpt (palace + center + 6 mines + one plains tile)

I think I'm leaning towards A. I like the defensive bonus and the extra mine.

On the other hand our happy is rather high even without any resources (7 with Enchantment mana + CHA) so one extra freshwater early could make sense to choose B, faster growing is what is needed early anyway. It would also give our workers more to do before Mining (other than roading). We do need mining rather early eventually for the silks though.

I think it's basically the defensive bonus + extra mine (A) vs extra farm early (B). For very early game B is better obviously.

Thoughts? Going to play my set of 20 turns later today.

Teching is quite obvious I think: Agri -> Cal -> Crafting -> Mining for the first 4.

So my wife bought me Civ5 for Xmas a year or so ago. I never got around to installing it, but finally am deciding to do so. I never even had a Steam account before now, and it appears you need one just to install this game.
But I have a problem. When the install asked for the activation code that is on the pamphlet in the cd case for the game, Steam tells me that it is already used by another Steam account. So did someone somehow steal my activation code before I could use it? And if so, anyone know what I can do now? I suppose I'll be needing to contact Steam directly, but just figured I would ask here as well (especially since today is Sunday and I certainly won't reach anyone at Steam today) to see if anyone else has had this issue or know of anyone that has.

Two things have come to my attention recently. First, from watching youtube, a lot of you play with the music on. This seems strange to me, seeing as Master of Magic's music loops endlessly and plays the same tune over and over again. Especially in combat, it just drives me nuts. I turned the music off back in 1995 and never looked back. If I want music, I'll play mp3s in the background, or I'll just play silently. It's not a big deal for me. But some of you like it, which leads me to my second point.

Second, those of you who DO keep the music on, you use the horrid Soundblaster music. Why, why, why? Dosbox includes support for Roland MT-32 and General Midi. Both of these options are far, far superior to the bleeps and bloops of the Soundblaster. Please, do yourself a favor and enable this in the sound settings. You don't need a $400 card to enjoy the superior sound of midi music any more, the sound support should work in dosbox automatically.

1) Run INSTALL.EXE

2) Select Roland MT-32 or General MIDI. As far as I can tell, there is no difference in the sound. Maybe someone with a golden ear can tell us which one is better. You don't need to click configure card or anything, just click OK.

Insert text here when I'm not driving

This thread is meant for communication between players who need a sub for a turn or series of turns, and for global subs to post when they will cover one of those turns, or when they are playing turns that are in danger of not rolling.

This is the IT and tech thread for Pitboss 27. The initial post for this thread will have all game setup information, and the rest of the thread is to be used for resolving technical issues when the game is running.

Please reserve this thread for technical issues.

Game Rules and Settings:

Server: pitboss.watto.no:2058

Game tracker: http://www.civstats.com/viewgame.php?gameid=2889

Claim your civ: (the password is sirian)

Game Host unified tech thread (for all Caledorn hosted games):
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthrea...pid=494726

Host: Caledorn
Admin: BRickAstley (The Black Sword [and maybe one more] as sub/vice admin).
Map maker: German Joey & BRickAstley
Starting date: When the map and picks are done.
Mod: RtR mod 3.0.0.4
Leaders/civs: 'PB13' Method - Random roll - Players have 2 chances to pass - Can't pass 3rd roll. All passed leaders/civs come back to rerolling rounds.

Difficulty: Monarch
Speed: Normal
Vassals: off
TT: off
Map Trading: off
Huts: on
Events: off
Barbs: on
Espionage: on (only passive)

Diplomacy: "Pitboss-AI-diplo"

• You can make any offers for any item the trade window allows you to make.
  
• Any trades offered to another player are treated as valid trade offers.
  
• You my not communicate using: chat box in diplomacy window, unit names, city names, outside communication, in game chat, anything else in this vein.
  
• You may not gift units to another player.
  
• City trades are now disabled by the mod (city names still visible).

• Peace time or when you're not planning to start war: play as soon as you are able, no need to worry.
  
• During war preparation turn (at least 1 turn before) and during war, double moves are not allowed. When you declare on your opponent (and then end turn), he must complete a turn before you can play another one.
  
• When going to settle a city, and you see that another player has sent out a settler in the general vicinity as well, you must attempt to alternate turns, to avoid double moving someone to claim a city site.
  
• If there is a situation not covered above, where a player gains a clear and 'underhanded' advantage over another player in an area of contention due to a double move, that situation can be appealed to the game admin, who can determine if the game needs to be reloaded or is fine to carry on at his discretion.
  
• If there is a problem with play windows making it impossible to observe a turn split, or a tangled web of wars that need to be straightened out for turns to be practically played, please PM the game admin for assistance resolving the situation.

• This version of the mod disables city trades. Cities are still viewable in the diplomacy window, but are 'redded' out as in single player games, and are therefore unable to be selected into the active trade window.
  
• Turns, at least in the first 100+, will be played within a 26 hour period. Anything not played will be covered ideally by a roving sub, either set up beforehand or just taken over. If you and the lurker-helpers miss, you miss. If you think you might have time of possible missing turns, please leave plans in your game thread. This is necessary to keep the game moving, because with such a large roster, pausing for everyone will kill the game.