Can you randomize the computer personalities?

Albert B · December 18, 2000, 10:05

I've thought about this from time to time when playing but I haven't been able to find any information about it. In Civ I, you used to be able to hit either CTRL+R or ALT+R, I can't remember which, and it would randomize the personalities of the computer controlled civs. Once I became pretty good at winning my games, I used to always do this at the beginning of every game so that I wouldn't automatically know the goals of a given civ just because I knew what country they are. Instead of knowing that the Mongols or the Zulus would build monster army's if given the chance, you might find this trait in the normally peaceful Indian culture.

I don't want to just adjust a text file or anything like that, I want it to choose randomly, if possible. It makes embassies be a little more important or at least more fun than just using it for a chance to trade.

I figure you probably can't do this since I've found no mention of it before but hopefully someone will know something that can be done.

(ps. this and the often mentioned review map are the two things I really miss from civ I)

Thanks,

Albert

Scouse Gits · December 18, 2000, 10:43

As far as I am aware it has not been done, but it would be a trivial little program in just about any programming language to modify at random 21 triples of numbers in a text file (rules.txt) ... Any takers, if not I might just give it a whirl over Xmas ...

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor
"The Great Library must be built!"
"A short cut has to be challenging,
were it not so it would be 'the way'." - Paul Craven

Albert B · December 19, 2000, 01:14

Good idea, I never thought about writing my own program to do it. I was looking for an 'in-game' option. I'll have to look into to it. Thanks for the idea.

Blaupanzer · December 23, 2000, 22:37

Scouse Gits,

Go for it. I look forward to your results. Wonder if we will see any difference in advancement distribution based on scrambling their proclivities?

Albert B · January 11, 2001, 22:48

Ok, I finally got myself to sit down and make the effort to do this. The zip file can be found here.

No more knowing the attributes of you AI opponents just because you know which civ it is.

The zip file includes a lame readme file, the executable, a bat file that will call it then launch civ2 and a copy of the original rules.txt named rules.old.

The bat file will actually copy your existing rules.txt to rules.dat the first time it is run.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know.

Thanks,

Albert B

Scouse Gits · January 12, 2001, 06:12

Thanks Albert B - dowloaded successfully - will try out later...

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____________
Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor
"The Great Library must be built!"
"A short cut has to be challenging,
were it not so it would be 'the way'." - Paul Craven

Julius Brenzaida · January 12, 2001, 07:39

Another great idea !
Nice job !

I'll give it a try tonight.

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Oh Man, when will you understand that your greatness lies in your failure - Goethe

donwebb · January 20, 2001, 02:43

quote:

Originally posted by Albert B on 01-11-2001 09:48 PM
Ok, I finally got myself to sit down and make the effort to do this. The zip file can be found here.
The zip file includes a lame readme file, the executable, a bat file that will call it then launch civ2 and a copy of the original rules.txt named rules.old.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know.
Albert B

Sorry, I'm from the side of the aisle where people think an autobat.exe is the CEO of the company that makes Batmobiles. Is there a way of incorporating part of your randomizer into a temporary rules.txt file for use on my Mac G3? Or perhaps as a separate file I can install and de-install manually? Just curious.

Albert B · January 22, 2001, 10:11

quote:

Originally posted by donwebb on 01-20-2001 01:43 AM
Sorry, I'm from the side of the aisle where people think an autobat.exe is the CEO of the company that makes Batmobiles. Is there a way of incorporating part of your randomizer into a temporary rules.txt file for use on my Mac G3? Or perhaps as a separate file I can install and de-install manually? Just curious.

I don't have much experience with macs but the main program if called rules.exe. When it is run, it reads rules.txt and creates a file called test.txt which actually has the new randomized values. If you can run the executable then you should be able to rename the test.txt file to rules.txt then use it. The other part of the program is just a batch file that runs the exe, creates a one time copy of your rules.txt file for future reference and then copies the new rules.txt file over the old one. If you want, I can email you just the executable 'rules.exe' to see if it works for you. Let me know. Also, if there is something I don't have straight about how the mac would use this, let me know and I'll try to help if I can.