Matrix Games Forums

After yet another game has come crashing down, version 4.XXX, I am wondering if anyone has actually completed a game using this newest version.

I am thinking I have to switch back to 3.02 until the newest version is stabilized.

What is the opinion of the forum? Should I give up on 4.XXX or will 3.02 be just as frustrating and unfinishable?

I have a game going slowly on, that has lasted since more than 1 year ago. We have been "upgrading" versions, to 4.4.1. We have had some problems none game stopping. However they seem to increase now with this last version.

I am playing another game as well and we had so many problems with the last versions that we have had to downgrade to 4.2.2, where we have an acceptable number of bugs, acceptably "easy" to solve.

craigbear wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 2:24 amWhat is the opinion of the forum? Should I give up on 4.XXX or will 3.02 be just as frustrating and unfinishable?

Speaking only for myself and our group (6 player PBEM AAR) 3.2 (beta) is the latest version that's playable to the bloody end. Even with this version some game file editing capability is preferred but not sure if necessary. Though retrograde of game from 4.x to 3.2 may require some editing of trade agreements due to the extra field added in 4.x.

My honest assessment is that 3.2 (beta) with a user friendly game file editing tool MWIF could achieve near full if not full MWIF functionality expected by many/all so many years now past. Including half map scenario functionality and up to 6 player PBEM capability. Creation of such a tool in my opinion could be achieved by a team of 6 to 12 devoted fans of varying skills in a year or so.

Thank-you for the reply.

I noticed in reverting that I had a problem with the trade agreements as well... how might these be edited to work properly? I ignored my way through that phase by clicking on the trade agreements menu item, but I wonder if that will cause a glitch in future unless I remedy the extra field.

craigbear wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 2:30 am Thank-you for the reply.

I noticed in reverting that I had a problem with the trade agreements as well... how might these be edited to work properly? I ignored my way through that phase by clicking on the trade agreements menu item, but I wonder if that will cause a glitch in future unless I remedy the extra field.

We're out of town on vacation these last two weeks. Will be back late Saturday. I'm away from my notes and trade agreement examples for 3.2. But will post them when I get back. Bottom line is that the trade agreements are fairly easy to retrograde to 3.2.

Thank you. My current game has run into an endless load when I try to bring up the production screen... I suspect the trade agreement may be the cause.

craigbear wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 7:30 am Thank you. My current game has run into an endless load when I try to bring up the production screen... I suspect the trade agreement may be the cause.

Well hopefully the following will help you fix that. The next three posts will also be included in A Layman's Guide to Successfully Editing the MWiF Game File as part of that every continuing/growing guide.

Trade agreement info is around line 10,000 in your game file.

To locate this info search for line 44,-1, which you'll encounter at least one before you find the right section. The correct section is outlined in red in the below screen cap (lines 9988-9993). The first value of the last line (9993) in that section is the number of trade agreement (12). All other lines (9988-9992), as far as I can tell, are constant and thus provide the key for finding the trade agreement section.

The trade agreements themselves are down a bit further (outlined in red, lines 10055 - 10066) with one trade agreement per line. In 4.X each trade agreement (i.e., line) consists of 11 fields. In 3.X and lower each trade agreement consists of 10 fields. My understanding of these fields are:

4.X trade agreement field definitions:
(1) BPs given
(2) Oil given
(3) RPs (Oil + Non-Oil) given
(4) ?
(5) ?
(6) ?
(7) Country ID (CID) of sender
(8) CID of receiver
(9) ?
(10) ?
(11) 0=mandatory, 1=temporary, 2=one-turn only.

Note in my example that the Spain to Germany trade is showing as 1-turn only. Not only am I going to convert this from 4.4.1 (beta) to 3.2.0 (beta) but I'm going to fix this trade agreement and make it Mandatory.

To retrograde I edited the game file and changed 4.4.1 on line 1 to 3.2.0

I then loaded this retrograded game file in 3.2.0 (debug) and saved it. Below is what the trade agreements now look like. Note that when 3.2.0 saved that the 11th value was truncated (i.e., deleted), which fouled up the trade agreement statuses and in this example made them all mandatory. But I've seen cases where the status was blank for one or more agreements at this point because the value in field 10 (4.X) was some other value than 0, 1 or 2.

So to fix the agreements for this 3.2.0 (beta) retro-grade file, I edited the value in field (10) to the correct value for each agreement (i.e., 0=Mandatory, 1=Temporary, 2=One Turn). Note for flavor I changed the Vichy to Germany agreement from temporary to one turn only in addition to fixing the Spain to Germany agreement.

Note that the more sporty editors can also delete and add trade agreements. However if you do make sure that you change the number of active agreements (in our example, first value on line 9993) to match the number of trade agreement (records/line).

3.X Trade agreement field definitions:
(1) BPs given
(2) Oil given
(3) RPs (Oil + Non-Oil) given
(4) Oil given
(5) Non-Oil given
(6) BPs given
(7) Country ID (CID) of sender
(8) CID of receiver
(9) ?
(10) 0=mandatory, 1=temporary, 2=one-turn only.

rkr1958 wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 11:42 pm

craigbear wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 7:30 am Thank you. My current game has run into an endless load when I try to bring up the production screen... I suspect the trade agreement may be the cause.

Well hopefully the following will help you fix that. The next three posts will also be included in A Layman's Guide to Successfully Editing the MWiF Game File as part of that every continuing/growing guide.

Also, if the number of trade agreements in the above example which is 12 (line 9993) doesn't match the number of trade agreement records (lines 10055 to 10066) then this will cause your game/production screen not to load properly and send the game into an infinite loop.

Thank-you... did the edits and everything's working swimmingly. Game saved!!!

Glad to see you've added this to the modding thread. Great job!

I am at 1943 J/A in one game using the latest version. crossed fingers!