Here is my first attempt, on adding ADVANCES. I would greatly appreciate any comments about errors, omissions and cockups from the Great Gurus:

HOW TO ADD ADVANCES

You need to amend the following files:

In default/gamedata:

ADVANCES.TXT
UNITICONS.TXT

In english/gamedata (or whichever language you are using)

*GL_STR.TXT
*GREAT_LIBRARY.TXT

In default/aidata:

*ADVANCELISTS.TXT

Your custom graphic - if you use one - in default/graphics/pictures

(* optional - it will play without entries here)

First: add your advance to ADVANCES.TXT. As always the easiest way is to copy one of the existing entries and then change the various entries.

Here is one I prepared earlier:

ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY {

Prerequisites ADVANCE_RELIGION

Cost 350
Icon ICON_ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY
Branch 0
Age AGE_ONE
}

Prerequisites is the advance you must already have before you can do this particular one. Here I have added just one. You can have none, one, two or more. The Great Library will show your prerequisites in the Tech Tree.

Cost: this is how much science gold you need to do the advance, so in other words it dictates how long before you get the advance. Look at the cost of other advances in the age for which your advance is designed to get an idea of a reasonable figure.

Icon: this refers to the entry in UNITICONS.TXT which you must have (see below).

Branch 0: All the entries appear to need this although it appears to have no relevance now.

Age: The age in which you expect to get this advance. (How does this affect gameplay?)

UNITICON.TXT

As always you can copy an existing entry and then change it. For astronomy it would look like this:

ICON_ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY { FirstFrame "ASTRONOMY.TGA" Movie "NULL" Gameplay "ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY_GAMEPLAY" Historical "ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY_HISTORICAL" Prereq "ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY_PREREQ" Vari "ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY_STATISTICS" Icon "ASTRONOMY.TGA" LargeIcon "NULL" SmallIcon "NULL" StatText "ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY_PREREQ" }

Most of these statements (Gameplay, Historical, Prereq, Vari, StatText) refer to the Great Library. You do not have to have an entry in the Great Library. The game will play without them but the text that appears for the advance during the game (for example in the Science manager screen) will either not appear or show as XXX_XXX_XXX (not literaly - with the XXX replaced by the statement it is looking for).

LargeIcon and SmallIcon are always NULL. Movie is NULL here because you only need these for Wonders. FirstFrame does not seem to do much, but put it in anyway - make it the same as Icon

Icon: this is important - it is the graphic that will be shown in the Sciences Manager and Empire when you are doing it. If you do not have it the game may play until it tries to access the picture and then it will crash.

If you have your own graphic it must be in the same format as the other pictures: TGA etcetera (there will be another section on graphics). Place it in default/graphics/pictures

You can access graphics in CTP files (the pic555.zfs and pic565.zfs files) if you know what the name is. The file is still referred to as .TGA even though it is referring to .RIM. If you want to use the .zfs from another CTP game, say CTP1, you can put them in english.graphics/pictures - you would just lose the small .zfs files already there which do not appear to be very significant.

Tip: there is a fine library of graphics created by HARLAN that you can download from this site.

GL_STR.TXT

This file tells the program what you want to call your advance - otherwise it simply puts in ADVANCE_WOMBAT_MAKING or whatever you are adding. In my example the line is:

ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY "Astronomy"

Great_Library.txt

Well, you want to explain what this new advance is all about, don't you? Following my example you could have something like this:

[ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY_PREREQ]
Requires:
ATABASE_ADVANCES,ADVANCE_RELIGION>Religion
[END]

[ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY_STATISTICS]
Gives:
ATABASE_WONDERS,WONDER_STONEHENGE>Stonehenge
[END]

[ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY_GAMEPLAY]
Stars, the movement of the sun, the moon and the planets have always been a fascination to man.
[END]

[ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY_HISTORICAL]
The study of astronomy was ineluctably linked with religion. Scientists were scorned and scorched when first they suggested that the Earth was (a) round and (b) not the centre of the universe.
[END]

The PREREQ entry tells you what you need to do the advance, STATISTICS what you get once you have done it. The tags allow the Great Library user to click on a hyperlink to look up the subject. If you do not put them in the text appears, but without the hyperlink. Gameplay and Historical are the texts that appear in those sections of the Great Library, so you can show off your erudition and literary abilities.

So now you are off - except will your computer opponents know about these advances? Perhaps, perhaps not. To be sure you need to add them to the appropriate files in default/aidata/AdvanceLists.txt. The entry, in my example, would look like this:

Advance ADVANCE_ASTRONOMY

Keep at it though, it sounds really good.

I had a little problem accessing Hexagonian's guide, but now I have seen it I shall cease and desist the Great Manual Project. It's been done.

Felicitations and chapeau, as they say over here in France.

Two minor points:

I didn't know about it because the reference to it was in the CTP2 Creation forum and I was looking at this (Mods) forum. You need to have a bit of luck or post a message to find it. IMO such an excellent piece of work should be directly accessible from the Apolyton Modifications page, possibly divided up into sections and in HTML format. BUT it really MUST be referred to there, together with all the other information such as files and Activision info. It is a great and invaluable tool for beginners such as I.

Perhaps when we have got all Martin Guehmann's tags or statements identified these could be added as an appendix, also accessible from Apolyton's Mod page.

Btw I have been playing around with tile improvements. I have succeeded in getting canals and bridges, though the bridge uses the underwater tunnel sprite as I have not yet found the bridge sprite as used in the Samurai scenario. The canal is in the terraforming section and takes the place of making white mountains, as who would want to create white mountains. If hose are of interest I will post them here and let Hexagonian have details - though there are still a few mysteries I have yet to solve.

I interesting about the code for channels and bridges you should post it. We already talked about the terrain.txt and the tilimp.txt. I posted a new reply there:

../../Forum48/HTML/000159.html

-Martin