is there a way to increase the city limit?

[Vigor]

I would like to keep painting the map.

I'm thinking game files might be able to be edited though I haven't played with any yet.

If I don't find a way to raise the city limit I will need to destroy cities to build new ones on better terrain. I wish I had known what the city limit was in advance. It looks to me like the limit is around 44? I should know soon enough as I am about to get the founding father that exposes all cities. I suppose I could probably see in the foreign relations advisor too.

[Dr.Desty Nova]

I wouldn't think so no, it's down to the technical limitation of the time, it's hardcoded if you will. So apart if you want to rewrite the whole game....

Top of my head the limits are as follow: City 38, unit you own on the map 256, total units 1024.

[Vigor]

I would be happy to have the job of rewriting the game(or writing new, similar games). I've figured out about half of what is in the save files so far and I'm still working on it. I was hoping to hack the caps but I'm pretty sure they are in the game file not the sav file.

Are the developers still alive? Does anyone know what language they wrote the game in?

I would also like to adjust the cap on wagons and warehouse expansions.

[Dr.Desty Nova]

Originally posted by Vigor:

I would be happy to have the job of rewriting the game(or writing new, similar games). I've figured out about half of what is in the save files so far and I'm still working on it. I was hoping to hack the caps but I'm pretty sure they are in the game file not the sav file.

Are the developers still alive? Does anyone know what language they wrote the game in?

I would also like to adjust the cap on wagons and warehouse expansions.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/327400/discussions/0/3032600513504368026/

Basically, game it's written in C and Assembly.

Save file you can edit with an hexadecimal editor and there is some txt files you can edit (via notepad I guess).

You can find info here[dledgard0.tripod.com] and here[dledgard0.tripod.com] have fun ^^

[Vigor]

You sure know a lot about past efforts and forum topics. The 1st link (dledgard)might be useful it contains info I haven't figured out yet. I kind of wrote my own hex editor that displays things as character or decimal after trying to use a hex editor to figure stuff out. A hex editor is just too hard to use unless you're a machine lol. I can just look at a decimal number and know if they are changing single bits, if 2 bytes are actually a single integer or if a string of bytes is actually characters. Some of the data in this file is stored as 4 bit numbers. I had to write my own conversion functions to extract those.

Maybe I will write a little program that eliminates the stockade at a city of the user's choosing. If I did though I'm guessing I couldn't post it here.

[Vigor]

I am stumped on one big thing.

In my current play through where I am saving at the beginning and end of each turn to supply my sav file inspector ammunition, the Dutch have a priv that just can't be beaten. I mean, I have beaten it, once sending it back to Europe but it has sunk a bunch of my privs. After 3 or 4 of them I started saving and testing it statistically.

I have Drake and am on the attack which should give me about 2:1 odds if not better. (depending on how the %boost is calculated)

In the first trial of 20 attacks that I recorded, it damaged me 6 times, sunk me one time and I damaged it 13 times. At that point I was thinking it looks like maybe nothing is wrong. The problem is, it has already sunk a bunch of my privs (3-4) and has sunk me 5 of 6 times in a row when saving and attacking. What this does prove is that the RNG isn't broken by the sav. In other words, the next new RNGenerated isn't stored in the save file so that the result would always be the same. RNG is working.

Then, I gave up on statistically analyzing it then it sinks me again...

I do another run of 20. This time I was sunk 6 times damaged 9 times and damaged it 6 times. At this point I started looking for answers.

During the 2nd run it was on sentry, I determined that by using my save file inspector. I don't completely understand the fort/sentry data yet but I am pretty sure it was on sentry, not fortified. So, I pulled a priv up to it to get the "slipped past" then ran back to the city hoping that it would chase me. It did. I verified with my inspector that it was not on sentry and ran a few trials. It sunk me every time. (5 trials i think)

I don't understand all of the unit data yet but except for the last 4 bytes and bytes I know the function of, it looks just like mine. The last 4 bytes are strange. Usually they are all at 255 which, in these sav files normally indicates a negative number. In other words, the 255 bytes are normally part of a multi-byte integer that is negative. These 4 bytes can change when a unit nearby moves.

I also theorized that maybe it was carrying soldiers, dragoons or arty. It seems to me I have been bitten many times by ships that shouldn't stand much chance of beating me, then I see it drop off a load of dragoons. The problem is, I can see that it is carrying nothing with my inspector. If it were carrying combat units, they would show up in the unit list.

At one point I loaded up my own soldiers in a run of statistical stat data gathering and it still kept beating me, I just didn't save that data but I think we split wins and losses fairly evenly (yet on paper I should have won a lot more)

I AM playing on Viceroy but this isn't my first time playing on viceroy. In my other viceroy game I dominated the seas mercilessly. It didn't seem to me the battles were skewed in any way during that game.

3 theories left...

generals - what if Drake is not the only general/founder that improves combat performance? What if all of the military advisors effect combat performance? It would make sense if they do. I am suspicious of this because my first (this is the 3rd) game on Viceroy, the spanish ground troops were mopping me up. I was losing nearly every battle even when I should win easily. It occurred to me that I had no military advisors and I was pretty sure spain had multiple(drake for sure). I got military advisors and my luck improved. (I don't remember why I thought they had more military adv). And in my first game (beginner) I was winning nearly every ground battle vs the Dutch late in the game though losing most earlier in the game. Spain and France combat results were closer to my expectation of what they should be. I'm not kidding here I probably worked down 30 dragoons until captured, and lost a single set of horses from one dragoon in that time. Something was very wrong with how combat was playing out. I spent probably 40 game turns preparing for that battle by getting the cities nearby to max warehouse, max horses and loaded with troops. I had all 5 military advisors.

handicap - The dutch are down to 2 ships, the godmode priv and a damaged merchantman. With my sav file inspector I can see that they have a bunch of dragoons on the docks in europe. They just can't get them past my privs. So I am wondering if that force in europe or the relative weakness of the dutch colony (down to 2 arty, 1 city, 2 dragoons and 1 soldier) is resulting in some big modifier to combat performance. I only see 1 problem with this. I seem to be doing fine on land vs the dutch. It is just this one ship that is beating me up.

tide of war - perhaps there is some mechanic that flows back and forth like a tide. In real war it would be that you tend to win more while morale is high and lose when it is low so victories might be strung together until a turning point where you get a string of losses. A tide would explain all of it.

Or, I could be experiencing a "perfect storm" where several game mechanics just happen to be working against me all at once. But this priv has been at it for about 40 game years now and the dutch don't even have drake.

I have read multiple posts where people are complaining about similar issues while trying to find answers as to why this is happening. People offer explanations and insist they are right but I am skeptical.

[Dr.Desty Nova]

Honestly, I'm amazed at how dedicated you seem to be.

However, you don't seem to realize you are re-inventing the wheel.

It's a nearly 30 years old game. As far as I now, every question you asked (and try to bruteforce answer from the game) has already been answered for like 10+years

The issue with naval combat and the "invincible privateer" for exemple.

"Long experience playing Colonization indicates that there is a weighing factor in naval combat which is based on how heavily your navy outnumbers your opponents navy. The bigger your navy is, the greater the chance your ships will lose in combat. What's more, ships don't just lose more, they lose harder - your ships are much more likely to be sunk.

Interestingly, though, this weighing factor only seems to be applied when your ships attack other ships. If other ships attack you, combat proceeds as normal.

The only real solution to this is to keep your navy reasonably small; two or three privateers and one or two frigates." info from here[civilization.fandom.com]

I would also point out that I'm no programmer expert or anything, just some "old" internet sleuth whith google and 20years under the belt playing this game on and off.

Re-inventing the wheel can be interesting as a learning experience in his own right, if you really want to achieve your aim, of let say increasing the city limit, you may want to dig into already available ressource before jumping into the fray head first.

You may find useful info suh as " that DOS version uses some proprietary compression system (MADSPACK 2.0), but Windows version keeps everything in uncompressed DLLs,"

A quick google search taught me that it was a subject already sort of debated on civfanatics forum (your best shot at getting answer imho) here[forums.civfanatics.com]

[Vigor]

Reinventing the wheel is actually amongst my goals. It seems to me the wheel has become broken. Modern games keep getting worse and worse. I blame a lot of it on balancing measures or lack of balance when you actually need it. I actually found this game while looking for an old game that was among the greatest games I have played. I couldn't remember the name, thought I found it, bought it and this game came with it. Sid M Pirates was not the game i was looking for, yet, I am amazed by this game that came with it. It is a great game. At the time I was thinking of playing a tour of old great games. Instead I found a new(to me) great old game.

Over 20 years ago I went to college to be a programmer but didn't want to work in programming at the time. I wanted to make games specifically, if I were to work in programming. Over the years I lost my programming abilities. Windows versions rendered all of my programming environments obsolete and unusable. Until that point (10 years or so ago) I wrote computer programs all the time for all sorts of reasons.

So, I have time and need programming practice if I am gonna get a job as a programmer. I still desire to write games. This game is worth studying IMO. I don't have any particular goal. I set new goals day by day and hour by hour. I may end up building a mimic of this game or maybe I will feel inspired to drop the game alltogether and write a game of my own.

As for the answer to the invincible priv... I only have 5 ships, 3 priv, 1 cara 1 gall. The Dutch have 1 priv 1 merc. That is hardly an overpowered navy. This old answer might just be wrong, though it may also be somewhat right, but part of a larger set of mechanics.

Also, in my 2nd viceroy game I had a big navy, 8-10 privs, lots of caravels, galleons, 3 frigates or so and nothing seemed off. Why? Well I didn't play long enough to completely close off access to europe from the other powers. I stopped playing when i decided to inspect the sav files.

After writing my previous post I felt the "handicap" theory explains everything best. It would explain this old theory too. If you dominate the waters too much, settlers won't be able to get to the new world from europe. That might provoke balancing measures, i.e. to prevent a human player from complete failure, the game might employ tactics to make their last remaining ships able to survive and deploy their colonists. It would also make it more difficult for a player to wipe out all of his opposition.

[Dr.Desty Nova]

Regarding the "invincible privateer", I'm fairly sure the old answer is still valid, The
rng is weighted in favor of AI if you overpower the navally. The thing is, it's not absolute and the base RNG mechanism is bugged from the start so yeah you may very well not feel it if you got an extra lucky string of win result.
You can also get around it by manipulating the rng with save scumming, changing the fight order, trading,....

As you said, it is a great game. And that exactly why people digged into it for years after it's creation.

Regarding the rest, well, it's a matter of opinion I guess. I too tend to prefer old game over modern game but it would be silly to say that all modern game sucks.
There is a reason as to why modern game are much different from the old one and it's mainly because they can.
Not all is good but the good stuff would have made any gamer from the 90s loose his mind.

[Vigor]

I'm not saying all modern games suck, I can name a few decent ones, though, in comparison to older games they tend to suck. Modern games tend to have an awful lot of graphics (because they can) with very little to no game behind them. Inside they are empty, where old games, that couldn't do much graphics, had to create "a game", a virtual environment that was fun. Many, new games amount to nothing but repetitive grind with no real purpose while looking at the pretty graphics. Most new games have extreme balancing issues (if multiplayer) where they are bound and determined to make everyone equal at the finish line (except there isn't a finish line because they keep moving the goalposts). The better you do, the more the developers SABOTAGE you = balancing. But then those same games are likely to be pay to win! So the formula becomes, pay to be the winner OR serve as fodder and beware: don't think of any ways to outperform your class or you will be punished. Then even when you find a good game, the developers are likely to wreck it in the next update. The state of the gaming industry is simply depressing.

That being said, of the last 20 or 30 games I've played
World of Tanks was a good game until they started giving every new tank too much firepower.
Battletech was a good game (at least the first one) though it had plenty of issues.
All of the Total War games i've played have been very good, little to complain about.
If you want to pay a lot, PS4 and XBox have some good ones. I forget the name of one game i liked a lot but you had a mercenary company and it was a FPS where you infiltrated bases, spied, scouted, assaulted targets. It was single player but could be played multi (i never did) Or Call of Duty was a great game.

Now, looking at the list of good games I just wrote, it is almost all first person games. Unfortunately, strategy is the genre I prefer. I really doubt battletech is good as a multiplayer game. I never played it multiplayer. I can't think of a single good multiplayer strategy game that is new. For single player strategy the list is short. For Role playing, I don't know of a single good game any more. Neverwinter was ok until the developers wrecked it 2 years ago.

[pavelbel]

Hello!

The city population limit is 32 and cannot be adjusted because the arrays describing colony's inhabitants' proffessions and occupations have strictly 32 bytes length, 1 byte for each colonist.

UPD: Oh, now I see it's not what you asked about. You talked about total colonies count limit, not colony population limit. Can't say anything about former problem.

Here's my utilities for working with Colonization SAV files: https://github.com/pavelbel/smcol_saves_utility.

The utility smcol_sav_editor can remove fortifications (from colonies you want to disband) and upgrade warehouse level above 2, but you must still pay for it with hammers and tools. Each warehouse level gives you +100 storage. The level is capped by 4, but you can edit it in settings file and set even to 255.

BTW the utility enc_decode_sav can convert SAV files to text (JSON) format and JSON back to SAV, so you can edit almost every detail of a saved game by hand.