Dom2 file formats

[Johan K]

Originally posted by Arralen:
pro:
Some folks could start working on "external", nation-specific AIs.
(I still wonder if you could write one in F77 ...)

con:
Some folks would start working on cheats and exploits to ruin multiplayer games ...
[/QB]

The problem with releasing info on the save files is that the 'con' part is very very much easier to do than the 'pro' part. Doing an external AI for Dominions 2 would be a humongous task. That said I believe the most common use for this info would be cheating.

[liga]

[quote]Originally posted by Johan K:

The problem with releasing info on the save files is that the 'con' part is very very much easier to do than the 'pro' part. Doing an external AI for Dominions 2 would be a humongous task. That said I believe the most common use for this info would be cheating.

Ok, I fully understand. I just only want to know if this informations are somwhere aviabile in the .trn and .2h and if possible to extract them (it will be really nice to have a small utility who could do that, a precompiled one, so no secrets could be obtained). Just something to run

info abysia.2h
info abysia.trn

and get something like

turn 4 on map Aran with mods A,B and C

I know that could be tedious for devs to produce this kind of utils (that the reasons why we are trying to have the files formats) but it will be really usefull becouse playing a lot of game by email sometimes is easy to make confusion with the .2h files recived and the .trn I have to send ...

and also it will be easy to use the utils to move the files and send in an automatic way ...

thank you anyway for this great game!
Liga

[Pocus]

there is still another possibility, which is to give the file format to some trusted individuals (a beta tester willing to code an utility for example).

[Innocence]

Originally posted by Johan K:
I believe the most common use for this info would be cheating.

Yes, that is in fact very likely. Plus, Illwinter might feel obligated to keep track of every single future change to the format, which isn't very flexible.

So in the end I guess that any utility reading the files directly will either have to be very simple (like extracting the turn number), or written by Illwinter, which is fair I guess.

However, that still leaves the possibility of an ASCII export feature. If Illwinter would implement this we'd have all the data we need and the file-security wouldn't need to be compomised.

Do Illwinter read these forums or should I rather mail them directly?

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Innocence:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Johan K:
I believe the most common use for this info would be cheating.

However, that still leaves the possibility of an ASCII export feature. If Illwinter would implement this we'd have all the data we need and the file-security wouldn't need to be compomised.

Do Illwinter read these forums or should I rather mail them directly?

---

That was Illwinter you were answering. The programmer side in fact (which reads all, but Posts rarely).

The game does do ascii dumps of some info. There is the stats dump...
Statistics for game 'Cradle_and_RandMod' turn 1
Abysia played this turn
Man played this turn
Ulm played this turn
Arcoscephale played this turn
Marignon played this turn
Pangaea played this turn
Jotunheim played this turn

And there is the scoredump, which is an html ascii file. At the top is...
Dominions II Scores, Cradle_and_RandMod turn 2
and then the numeric scores of the players as far as armies, forts, dominion, etc

As you can see, both files have the turn number in them. And both files exist because we asked. Its true that Illwinter is unlikely to offer a full dump but if we can show a real (safe) use for some info then we can probably get it added to one file or the other.

As I see it, the stats file is meant as info for the host and game management. The scoredump is more the place for player info about the game. So as far as I can tell it might work to request that the stat info also include map name and mod names.

Anything else? Something with a reason, short of dump it all and let me play with it. Im a hacker and would love it but I understand not getting it.

[ May 13, 2004, 13:31: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[liga]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:

The game does do ascii dumps of some info. There is the stats dump...
Statistics for game 'Cradle_and_RandMod' turn 1
Abysia played this turn
Man played this turn
Ulm played this turn
Arcoscephale played this turn
Marignon played this turn
Pangaea played this turn
Jotunheim played this turn

I know about that files and the options to get it ... but my problem is: I got 2 pythium.2h from the same player who is playing 2 different game by PBEM with me ... if I don't pay too much attention the 2 files go in the same directory (one will be called pythium.1.2h) and after taht I have no way to understnd which one is for which game ... so, I was asking if there is a way to understand each .2h file from which game comes and for which turn ...

anyway I know that there are more important problems/tasks for devs ...

bye bye
Liga

[Innocence]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
That was Illwinter you were answering.

Oh, hehe!

Something with a reason, short of dump it all and let me play with it. Im a hacker and would love it but I understand not getting it.

Ditto, and if you know Stars! you know what kind of info I'm looking for - no more or less info than what the current player knows.

Also, dumping should be a player action, not an automatic job (or it could be done via a command line option).

ASCII dumping should be done to sepearate filesnames, like:

'gamename'-world-'nation'-'turn#'.txt
=all world data from players PoV (shrines, provinces, fortresses, garrisons etc.)
Example: genesis-world-jotun-5.txt

'gamename'-units-'nation'-'turn#'.txt
=all unit and army data, army composition, unit afflictions etc.
Example: genesis-units-jotun-5.txt

'gamename'-orders-'nation'-'turn#'.txt
=current orders given to which units, build orders etc.
Example: genesis-orders-jotun-5.txt

All in all, every piece of info available to the player in-game, dumped in ASCII format.

(Afterthough: Actually, if the regular savefiles were named uniquely like above there'd be no problem idetifying which jotun.2h file belonged to which game. 8.3 length filenames have long been made obsolete by any modern OS)

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Johan K:
The problem with releasing info on the save files is that the 'con' part is very very much easier to do than the 'pro' part. Doing an external AI for Dominions 2 would be a humongous task. That said I believe the most common use for this info would be cheating.

The "right" way to do things is to have the game files (.trn, .2h, ftherlnd) signed, rather than encrypted, to make it possible to read them, but not change them.

As in, have most of the files be in a public knowledge format, with a fingerprint appended. Then have the dom2 program refuse to use files that don't have that fingerprint, or that have the wrong fingerprint. That way, one can examine the contents of files if needed, but only the game (or programs that know the fingerprinting validation mechanism, which means programs that Illwinter makes) can create/modify these files in such a way that they can be used.

That would also remove the incentive for people to figure out how .2h files are encoded (which, if they manage to do it, will let them cheat, even if it's not the primary motivation for trying to figure it out). From looking at the god files (yeah, I tried to figure the format myself, but didn't try very hard), I don't think the files are encrypted, just not in a publicly described format (it's pretty easy to figure out which byte describes the nation, etc). This, IMHO, is the worst solution.

Edit: formating

[ May 14, 2004, 12:46: Message edited by: PhilD ]

[Innocence]

Originally posted by PhilD:
The "right" way to do things is to have the game files (.trn, .2h, ftherlnd) signed, rather than encrypted, to make it possible to read them, but not change them.

But then anyone could read another players data without needing his password. This would be cheating too.

[alexti]

Originally posted by Johan K:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arralen:
pro:
Some folks could start working on "external", nation-specific AIs.
(I still wonder if you could write one in F77 ...)

con:
Some folks would start working on cheats and exploits to ruin multiplayer games ...

The problem with releasing info on the save files is that the 'con' part is very very much easier to do than the 'pro' part. Doing an external AI for Dominions 2 would be a humongous task. That said I believe the most common use for this info would be cheating. [/QB]

---

I'm not sure how the information exchange is organized, but in principle, tampering with the 2h and trn files should not be a problem. trn essentially contains the projection of the world state for the specific nation and 2h contains player's instructions on what to do. As long as the server verifies logical validity of 2h file, the scheme is well protected.

If for example, the cheater modifies trn file to increase his earth gem treasury to 500, so that the client will allow him to summon 20 iron dragons, the server will check the command and discover that somebody is casting 20 iron dragons when he only has 10 earth gems (which is known to the server independently from trn and 2h files). The same thing would happen if the cheater has modified his 2h file.

So the only problem here is somebody getting information from other player's turns, but this can be prevented by encrypting the files with some standard method using the password as a key, so that only the person with the correct password can get the information.

Of course, this mechanism is not necessarily easy to implement