Save File Format

[Huzurdaddi]

So I'm *thinking* about making a replay viewer and to do that I need to figure out where the province ownership information is in the ftherland files. So I was wondering if you would *ahem* ( I don't know how to ask for this ), uhm, release the, ahem, save file headers so I can see if this would be an impossible task.

I understand that this kind of stuff is kept in house by the devs and never released to the community for various reasons, but the devs at Illwinter seem to be cut from a different cloth so I thought what the heck.

[Huzurdaddi]

*sniff* no file format loving? *sigh* ok.

*sniff*

[Kristoffer O]

Hmm, sorry I didn't reply.

I'm not sure what you want to do. What is a replay viewer? Battle replays? Turn replays? Whole game replays?

[Huzurdaddi]

Well the 1st thing I would want to try out would be a way to display from the ftherland file which country owns which provinces. From that I should be able to generate a representation of who owns what.

If I ever got that to work I'm sure I would ask for more

[Jack Simth]

Have you tried puzzling it out with a hex editor? (e.g., write down the population, ownership, and province # of several provinces with province numbers right next to each other (e.g., 23, 24, 25, 26, ...), then search for the segment of the ftherlnd file that has numbers corrolating to those values (province number might not be present except as an implied array index; it is acceptable if that number is missing while you search); any other information about the province can be helpful as well - scales are recorded in the order they are displayed from left to right; "good"-side scales are negative (e.g., productivity 3 is -3 (single byte), while sloth-3 is 3(also single-byte))) then looking for some programmatical way to identify that section?

[Gandalf Parker]

I had requested that the score.html or status file (which are already options in dom) be extendable to the game writing out province numbers and ownership.

Im seeing in my minds eye a game using a map generated by dommap in two flavors. A normal play map, and the same seed used to generate one with no colors except water and land (and borders). I can already do a script routine to drop color into the provinces but I have no easy way to know who has what provinces.

Id like to see a running game with its own web directory. Screen shots, movies of major battles, an AAR blog or wiki, updated scores done in charts which match what you see in the game (already possible), a view available of the map being used, AND a thumbnail page showing the advancements of each nation in small maps which can be clicked on for a closer view.

Hmm if its too much game info then the daily info could be stored with only the info 3-days old actually being added to the display.

[Huzurdaddi]

Have you tried puzzling it out with a hex editor?

Well reverse engineering is far harder than just asking

[Jack Simth]

Huzurdaddi said:
Well reverse engineering is far harder than just asking

...but it can be a lot more fun, and you don't need to rely on the generosity of strangers.