Replay Viewer

[Che Roriniho]

IIRC it doesn't go to Spring by default in vanilla, since it runs 2 turns per year. As it says Spring, which indicates that RTW was originally going to be 4 turns. Although, its been a while since I played vanilla.

(Funny when you realise how little you remember about pre-EB)

Oh, I see! That's really cool. I know what you mean about pre-EB though. Did Vanilla even have regional recruitment? IIRC you could only do that with mercenaries (oh, the GREEN! I always went with Brutii, so the mercenaries actually went with the rest of my troops...)

[Gaias]

IIRC it doesn't go to Spring by default in vanilla, since it runs 2 turns per year. As it says Spring, which indicates that RTW was originally going to be 4 turns. Although, its been a while since I played vanilla.

(Funny when you realise how little you remember about pre-EB)

See, this is where I get confused alot when you guys start talking about a game that was before EB. The game, from what I understand of people talking about it, was vaguely similar to EB but without all the good stuff. I think I remember the name of it was 'Rome:Total War', but don't quote me on that as I am only recalling it...

[Chris_]

Later on today i'm going to do a summary of progress made on deciphering the save game. I'm at work at the minute, but at lunch time i'll have more time.

Update : I lied, I figured something else out and was doing that instead of writing what i'd already done

[Chris_]

Just an update. Cities are basically done, all I need to find is tax level, but that shouldnt be too hard. Ports are also pretty much done, and I had an idea. I was wondering if the team had considered representing smaller towns with the port villages you get. I could move these villages independently of the docks themselves, so you could stick a shedload of ports somewhere inaccesible, and move the villages around the map.

Example ( I had to move Arretium and Roma's port villages at the minute )

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[V.T. Marvin]

That is nice - the map looks more lively with those villages around!

Just a question - why the fleet in Arretium docks has grey flag? Is it still actually Roman?

[Chris_]

I toggle banners for the screenshot - that fleet's banner must have been fading out as I took it. So it's nothing special.

[Chris_]

I should have something people can test soon (maybe sometime during the weekend). At the minute it's more of a savegame viewer, as I cant really start writing back to the file until I figure out everything in the savegame.

[Che Roriniho]

Just an update. Cities are basically done, all I need to find is tax level, but that shouldnt be too hard. Ports are also pretty much done, and I had an idea. I was wondering if the team had considered representing smaller towns with the port villages you get. I could move these villages independently of the docks themselves, so you could stick a shedload of ports somewhere inaccesible, and move the villages around the map.

Example ( I had to move Arretium and Roma's port villages at the minute )

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I want your babies. This could (to an extent) stop the constant moaning about certain towns being left out, as they're their, you just can't capture them!

[Tellos Athenaios]

Does you replay viewer parse the descr_factions_sm.txt file? Because if people have recoloured their factions (which apparently appears quite frequently with the Ptolies for better contrast -- a bit more orange-ish for instance; or with factions which end up separated from their original core provinces...) you Replay Viewer would 'miss' such changes.

Also, a short question: how is the tool invoked, currently? IIRC you had a tool which made a snapshot triggered on a user-action such as PrintScrn - the easiest thing would then be to do the following in your 'monitoring script' (Unix style; from what I vaguely recall so bear with me):

pid=fork();
switch(pid) {
case PARENT : wait_pid(..); break;
case CHILD : exec("replay_snapshot [args]"); break;
}

I suppose? (Executing your snapshot tool as a child process of the monitoring tool with applicable commandline arguments.) Then just name the generated map as snapshot_XXX.png or sth. (XXX being some kind of unique identifier, the most obvious being a date/time stamp.)

[Chris_]

Well the replay viewer kind of got merged into the savegame editor. At the minute it doesnt do recording of games, as I took it out to make the merge easier. The current build of the savegame editor is a windows forms app, which I was prototyping with. At the minute I'm converting it to a normal Win32 app.

Since it gets the information from the .sav file, at the minute you have to point it to one, which it then gets data from. At the minute it gets city/province and faction data, and generates a map you can save. I'm going to add a feature where you can tell it to to record a savegame - you specify the name. When the save file changes, it should pick that up and parse the save. Or, if that doesn't work very well, I can always go back to using a keyboard shortcut.

I plan to make an ebreplay format, which will contain playback data for the progression of the map. This should be much smaller than save files ( since they aren't compressed at all ). When opened in the editor, you would also be able to save map images.

I might split the replay viewer and the savegame editor, since the replay editor features are basically done, where the savegame editor is some way off.

At the minute it doesnt parse descr_sm_factions, but I can do that.

[Senshi]

As I statet in your Migration-Thread, the content your tool has now is totally sufficient for a first release and surely would be appreciated by many.

[LorDBulA]

Just to show off

211BC

My Roman Army and allied cities/tribes:

roman cavalry eqvites consvlares Count:1513
greek skirmisher akontistai Count:5449
roman infantry hastati Count:2142
italic general campanian cavalry Count:124
samnite infantry spearmen Count:701
italic infantry bruttian Count:1101
roman cavalry camillan eqvites Count:3
dacian missile peltastaithrakioi merc Count:486
roman infantry hastati early Count:66
roman infantry principes early Count:44
hellenistic infantry illyrian pirate Count:1095
hellenistic cavalry illyrioihippeis Count:101
roman infantry polybian triarii Count:1059
roman skirmisher velites Count:1194
hellenistic general lonchophoroi Count:1056
hellenistic missile cretan archers merc Count:811
hellenistic infantry thureophoroi mercenary Count:189
greek infantry misthophoroi hoplitai Count:252
greek skirmisher peltastai Count:604
generic ship penteconterai Count:130
generic ship liburnes Count:52
roman cavalry polybian eqvites Count:140
hellenistic cavalry thrakioi hippeis merc Count:95
roman missile accensi Count:171
roman infantry principes Count:2174
samnite infantry spearmen merc Count:126
hellenistic infantry hoplitai merc Count:370
greek skirmisher peltastai mercenary Count:1041
celtic skirmisher cavalry curepos Count:14
roman skirmisher leves Count:211
celtic infantry gaemile liguriae Count:749
roman infantry camillan rorarii Count:80
generic ship trireme Count:104
celtic general neitos Count:982
hellenistic infantry illyrian thureophoroi Count:381
germanic infantry bastarnoz swaiut Count:322
celtic infantry lugoae Count:720
celtic missile iaosatae regional Count:120
greek missile toxotai Count:120
greek infantry taxeis hoplitai Count:160
celtic missile sotaroas merc Count:434
iberian infantry light caetratii Count:3080
iberian infantry light milites Count:1200
iberian missile northern skirmisher Count:871
iberian cavalry equites cantabrii Count:300
generic militia Count:800
celtic infantry gaeroas Count:1809
celtic infantry enoci curoas merc Count:1133
celtic infantry mistophoroi keltohellenikoi Count:249
greek infantry lucanian spearmen merc Count:566
hellenistic infantry massiloi hoplitai merc Count:160
samnite infantry swordsmen merc Count:196
iberian infantry loricatii caetratii Count:32
galatian infantry kluddolon Count:162
celtic infantry curoas Count:145
iberian infantry scortamavera merc Count:56
iberian infantry scutarii merc Count:142
iberian infantry dunaminaca mercenary Count:141
iberian infantry roscaithrera regional Count:153
italic cavalry campanian Count:39
hellenistic cavalry prodromoithrakioi merc Count:24
generic ship covered liburnes Count:52
iberian skirmisher celtiberian Count:240
iberian missile balearic slinger mercenary Count:117
Total men: 38353

Ptolemy empire:

hellenistic infantry kleruchoi agemata Count:3170
greek skirmisher akontistai Count:1047
hellenistic infantry thureophoroi Count:1673
greek infantry kleruchoi hoplitai Count:9793
greek infantry thorakitai Count:1481
eastern infantry nizag gund Count:790
eastern cavalry light generic skirmisher Count:100
hellenistic infantry iudaioi taxeis Count:1791
hellenistic cavalry generals bodyguard 3 Count:1483
african infantry nubian spearmen Count:2330
hellenistic infantry machimoi phalangitai Count:6045
hellenistic infantry pantodapoi Count:1831
arabian skirmisher tribal levies Count:1422
arabian infantry redsea axemen Count:1465
african infantry ethiopian swordsmen Count:337
arabian infantry ethiopian spearmen Count:570
hellenistic infantry hoplitai Count:594
eastern infantry katpatuka zanteush Count:200
eastern missile syrian archers Count:480
african infantry machimoi Count:757
hellenistic infantry heavy pezhetairoi Count:1212
galatian infantry galatikoi kleruchoi Count:746
hellenistic missile cretan archers Count:13
greek skirmisher peltastai Count:1069
hellenistic cavalry machimoi hippeis Count:143
arabian missile arab slingers Count:44
arabian missile cavalry tribal levies Count:100
hellenistic cavalry lonchophoroi Count:100
hellenistic infantry red sea hoplites Count:375
steppe missile hallatamtithanvare Count:160
generic ship penteconterai Count:52
generic ship tetrere Count:49
hellenistic cavalry successor hetairoi Count:100
greek missile sphendenotai Count:120
eastern missile eransahr arshtbara Count:23
eastern cavalry medium generic Count:100
Total men: 41765

[Chris_]

Looks like we're both making progress. I made a game just now where the AI plays every faction.

[Che Roriniho]

Looks like we're both making progress. I made a game just now where the AI plays every faction.

Sweet... That would be good for the faction progression thread if you managed to do the replay viewer.

[paullus]

wow, that AI Ptolemaic army is actually structured really well. Nothing screwy, I'm so happy!

[Rodrico Stak]

Woah! That's amazing that you've been able to figure this all out! I would have been reduced to banging my head on the keyboard long ago.

[Che Roriniho]

Any news Chris?

[Senshi]

Hey, Chris, don't give candy to the hungry lions if there is no meat to follow!

Especially, if the supply of candy suddenly stops for more than a month

Hope the project is not dead

[Chris_]

I'm not dead, just been really busy at work. Project is also not dead, although I haven't done too much on it recently. I'll try and do some on it when I can, as things should get a little less busy soon.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Project been uploaded to the _>>insert secret EB material source here<<_ already?

[Senshi]

What happened to this one? I'd hate to see this one die :( , I'm absolute eager to get this! As said, even a simple beta release with only the handful of features it has now would be awesome

[Chris_]

I uploaded what I had so far (the program that loaded and saved map images) here. It doesn't make replays, although it's something I'd like to get round to doing. Work has kind of pushed most other things aside recently though, which is why I've been absent.

The viewer uses a really early version of save game loading, and sometimes doesn't read files. Most of the time it's ok, and if a file can't be read it can normally read it again after a few turns have been played.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Could you share a source code version, pretty please.

[Senshi]

A really really big THANK YOU.

Nobody expects it to be perfect, considered no one has come close to what you achieved up to now at all ;)

It's just natural that good ol' Real Life manages to stop our planned activities so no worries there either...


Is it possible the Viewer is incompatible with EB 1.2 or with the Alexander Minimod package?

I get this error with both my savegames, will test further...

************** Ausnahmetext **************
System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Der Index war außerhalb des Arraybereichs.
bei EBSaveGame.U.ReadInt()
bei EBSaveGame.SaveGame.City..ctor(Boolean fromFile)
bei EBSaveGame.SaveGame.LoadCities()
bei EBSaveGame.SaveGame.LoadFromFile()
bei EBSaveGame.SaveGame..ctor(String filename)
bei EBSG.MainForm.loadToolStripMenuItem_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
bei System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.RaiseEvent(Object key, EventArgs e)
bei System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem.OnClick(EventArgs e)
bei System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleClick(EventArgs e)
bei System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e)
bei System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEventInteractive(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)
bei System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEvent(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)
bei System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea)
bei System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripDropDown.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea)
bei System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
bei System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
bei System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
bei System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.WndProc(Message& m)
bei System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripDropDown.WndProc(Message& m)
bei System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
bei System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
bei System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

[Chris_]

It's possible. It was made with EB 1.1 and RTW/BI, since I dont have ALEX and 1.2 wasn't around at the time. Also, I didn't understand the format as much back then, and so was relying on things which I later found to be incorrect.

If anything it's more likely that Alex would be causing problems, as EB doesnt alter the save format.

I might be able to make some time to carry on working on the whole savegame business soon too, and I should do a better job this time round.

[Shadowwalker]

First I like to thank you, Chris, for making this and sharing it with us.
For me it runs without serious problems (CTD) with EB 1.2, although there are of course some things not working:

(1) "units" and "options" folders are blank, the same for all options under "Queues"
(2) saving (map images work, savegames not)

But even in this very early stage of progress it is quite obvious that this can grow into a very powerful tool to edit campaigns. I'm looking forward to see more.

[Chris_]

Yes, the only section that works mostly is cities, but not all of that. I wasn't exactly sure how units worked when I made it, so thats why they are empty. Also, to reliably save an edited savegame I need to know the whole format really. I can make edits, but without complete knowledge of the format, this usually requires me to manually snoop around inside it a bit.

[Gaius Sempronius Gracchus]

Wow! and then, what happened to this? Has there been any more work on it?

[vartan]

Wow! and then, what happened to this? Has there been any more work on it?

Chris hasn't been on the Guild since January. I suppose you can hope he'll be back, or if you or anyone knows about the way savegames work and can read their code then perhaps we'll see a progression. I wish I knew.

[Chris_]

Yeah, real life kind of got in the way, with University and everything. I can see if I can dig up what I had, I know it's somewhere on my computer (or backup). I also don't have RTW with me at the minute, I would have to go and pick it up.

Edit - I bought RTW on Steam. Cheaper than a train ticket back to my parents' house, I suppose.