Request to CA to publish savegame structure

[Lord Gnome]

I would be very happy to see the savegame format too!

For those who think it's impossible for CA to document the format and protect their source I would point out that CIV3's file format(s) (mapfiles and save games) have been known for a very long time without any damage to Activision's intellectual property - and with considerable benefit to the CIV3 community in terms of utility's to modify savegames/maps and utilitys which provide extra monitoring of in-game diplomacy etc.

Having said all that I'm pretty sure at least some of the CIV3 formats were reverse-engineered by the CIV community... but if CA did give us the format I am convinced it would do them no harm and the TW community (and therefore the TW franchise) a huge power of good. Even just some general pointers/hints as to the layout would be a huge boon to those of us who are interested...

[R3dD0g]

I would like to see the save format.

I'm very displeased with the way that the faction members are displayed in the tree format. It's a neat idea and very pretty eye candy. But, it's not really useful for deciding which family members in far flung settlements would be put to better use back in the capital where they could gain retinue and be sent to other more desperate provinces.

If I could see a list of family members with sortable columns for age, command, influence, retinue, etc it would be much more useful than the side scrolling (uggh) family tree.

If I had the savegame structure, I could build this spreadsheet.

[RedKnight]

Weekly bump.

At the moment, I would really like to know the savegame structure, so I could make an applet that tells which family members are best for what. So many of them have bad (or good) trade modifiers etc. hidden away in their traits that the management and influence bars are near meaningless - for so many governors, the only useful way to tell who is really good, is to move them out of a city and see what happens. (And even then, it only tells you how well they work for that city - different populations, farms, trade, etc. make a difference.) If I knew the savegame structure, I could write an applet that rates the family members according to their overall skills.

And so I entreat CA to kindly reply as to whether they think they might ever release the savegame structure and/or an applet to read/write it. If it's simply beyond what's possible, you could let us know.

Otherwise, as seen in this thread, many of your most loyal fans would like to make your own product even better, in multifarious ways - if only you showed us the key. Please consider this request and let us know. We all greatly appreciate that you're working on the 1.2 patch right now, and more power to that. If someone could say a word on whether the savegame architecture is a possibility or simply not possible, it would save me, at least, from wondering about it more. And possibly many more players.

And as always - thanks for your great game! One company can only do so much - they can't make the best game and meet every player's request. Still, methinks that this specific issue is worthy of a reply.

Anyone else interested in using or abusing the savegame, please tack on why you'd like to get your hands on it, in a show of support for how the user community would add to CA's product at little expense on its part (perhaps - we don't know if it's realistic for them to be able to tell us its specifics).

[tombom]

I'd like to get my hands on it so I can make utilities for it. Probably would be far beyond my knowledge though.

[Zild]

Mods can be a great bonus to any good game. I can't really see how they'd be all that bad...

It has my support, if anyone cares.

[Tamur]

This thread has been buried for nearly two years: I'm assuming that no such answer(s) surfaced, besides ShellShock's RomeSAGE. However, I thought I'd at least bring it up and ask if anyone knows of progress on this front.

[Caius]

Yeah that would be cool - and tack on a "allow campaign battles be replayed"

Not allow battles to be replayed, but if we have an allow to save the campaign battles, that would be better for the PBeM's, those files are lower than 200 KB