Sadly you cannot edit any of the campaign maps just all the others.

There is no way you can edit a saved file using the map editor, but undoubtedly there is somewhere in the file the information that triggers collapse. You can try to find out where and edit the file using a binary (hex) editor. I don't know how to do it in detail, but in principle it could be done like this. There is no specific tool developed that does it for you.

THANKS. That's very helpful.

But I guess that's too hard a job for me, a software engineer may accomplish.

I will go on test on hand. Now it seems stable for 60 years,
but the curve of the distribution of resident age is still not flat enough. I have to leave the millitary facilities unstaffed when the cyclical labor shortage comes.

I will do it again with fewer labor needed and hope it become an eternal, fully-connected city without gatehouse (except in walls).

IMO, Caesar III will be much easier if Romans impove the efficiency of their education system, there are schools and academies everywhere in my city just to achieve 100 culture rating.

[This message has been edited by whisperwind777 (edited 11-26-2007 @ 11:02 AM).]

Why do you not then place education as the lowest labor priority? Provided buildings have at least 1 worker, they still count towards providing citywide coverage.

Quoted from whisperwind777:

IMO, Caesar III will be much easier if Romans impove the efficiency of their education system

Are you saying that you'd like Caesar III to be much easier? Why?

As health and education system share the same labor priority, my city will soon get apart if the lowest priority is given.

IMO, CAESARIII should increase difficulty in other ways, for example, bad city mood, starvation and crime leading to more negative effects, hospital coverage being significant, death rate having a similar function as tax rate. Too many schools and academies is dull to me, I would rather prefer school and academy cost 2 times the money and labor while doubling coverage. And I think ghost is something unbelievable and should be canceled as nobody is immortal, my city produced 1 ghost after 120 years even under average health rate.

By the way, my city has every rating 100, unemployment 2%, tax rate 7%, wage 50, no house under grand insulae, while hearing "I give this city 8 out of 10"! Where is the other 2 marks? They used to give my city full mark when every rating was lower and someone lived in house under small casa.

[This message has been edited by whisperwind777 (edited 11-29-2007 @ 06:48 AM).]

It is not clear to me what your question is Whisperwind, if there is any. Are you referring to comments made by the people when you click on them? As far as I know people on the streets are even worse than advisors, better use your own judgement. Guess that is not entirely restricted to Caesar III.

I very much doubt the game was intended by its makers to be run for 100+ years (nor for cities to have populations much over 25,000), yet players have run it for the best part of 2000 years. As far as I know, no-one has yet found a way to completely overcome the ghost problem, although it can be minimised.

Warning - always back up game files before making alterations

The data for special events is stored in a .sav file the same way as it is stored in .map file. The problem is that the .sav file uses a lot of compressed blocks which vary in size so the location of the special event table can change with every save.

As far as I know, no offset is stored in the file. The game seems to find things simply by doing things in a certain order so that the file pointer is picked up wherever it was left by the last op. I don't think it would be difficult to write a utility which traces from one block to the next until it arrives at the special event table and I might take that on one day.

In the meantime, if you don't mind using a hex editor (frhed is a good free one) there is a slightly easier way to navigate. The .sav file contains a bit of text which, unless it has been changed when the map was originally edited, says 'Brief description' (the career 'Valentia' .sav says 'Assignment 6A') followed by another chunk which begins 'Brief description for players ...'. If we are lucky, it will contain the word 'brief', so we can use the search function of frhed to locate it. If the text has been edited we will have to find it manually by scrolling around the area maybe 15-25k from the end of the file.

Having located it, place the cursor on the first character of the text string. From that point, you will find the following information at the following decimal offsets:

offset
868  1=gladiator revolt
872  year revolt occurs (relative to starting year)
876  1=change of emperor
880  year change occurs
884  1=sea trade problems
888  1=land trade problems
892  1=wage rises enabled
896  1=wage cuts enabled
900  1=water contamination
904  1=iron mine collapses
908  1=clay pit floods

So the one whisperwind777 is interested in is the last one. If, for example, the text string starts at byte 10355, move the cursor 908 bytes forward to 11263, change the value there to 0, save the file and never have another clay pit collapse.

Some will see this as cheating, but in ww777's situation he simply wants to run a finished city for a long time without nuisance interruptions.

[This message has been edited by Trium3 (edited 07-01-2008 @ 09:37 AM).]

Just a question along with this... What is IMO?

IMO=in my opinion

Thanks Trium3 but I can't download frhed from your link!
I cannot open the webpage.

I would try Hex Workshop instead.

One thing I don't understand.

I found the string "Assignment 6A" in Byte 120695.
And I found the position which identifies "clay pit collapes" in byte 121603. Am I correct?

[This message has been edited by whisperwind777 (edited 08-09-2008 @ 02:43 PM).]

I had no problem opening the page or downloading the zip file with the executable and help files in the download section at the bottom. Maybe your browser is blocking access? As Trium says, any hex editor will do the job.

Did you follow the exact instruction of Trium, ie did you move 908 bytes from the position of the text string? The idea is that you use a relative address. The number he gave was only an example. There is also a utility from Caesar Jan (?) that will translate the compressed save files into uncompressed files and back, so you don't have to look for the text string, but can directly use an absolute address.

[This message has been edited by joshofet (edited 08-09-2008 @ 02:43 PM).]

Well if it's a relative address then I think I have made it. I just tested the new .sav file for several years and no flooded clay pit ever happens.

Thanks to all of you.

Hi whisperwind777,

Yes, that should be it. If the initial 'A' of 'Assignment 6A' is at the address you state then the clay-pit flag is 908 bytes after that. As I said, the actual address varies with every save because the size of the compressed blocks which precede it vary.

While you're here I wanted to congratulate you on your cities. You do an immense amount of detailed planning, you really have walker behaviour totally sussed and it's an education to study one of your cities and fathom out how it all works. It takes quite some doing to allow Grand Insulae access to wine and provide exactly enough desirability in the right places to get them to GI without tipping them over to villas. It also takes quite some doing to have all roads connected, including to the entry and exit points, even with gatehouses never mind without. And to keep them running for hundreds of years on top of all that is just incredible.

I'd like to express my gratitude to your praise.

I think the hardest part when I designing these cities is to build the compact city as a whole. When I was making my first attemption Valentia, I planned the entire city on paper. I realized that if I wanted to gain maximun efficiency, I must drop the idea of any seperated block.
You may check how the chariot rider patrols to confirm.

Later on I did the Caesarea, and the designing work on paper was trickier, I spent much time considering to link the 3 parts of the city together -north coast, central lake and west lake in the valley.

After those two, Tarsus and Massilia won't be too hard. I did not do much paper work for these. I came to know how things would work before I made a plan.

Finally I want to congratulate on your Tarsus as well, you handled the wheat importing very well. I suggest you try more loops and less spur roads so you will use less prefects and engineers.

[This message has been edited by whisperwind777 (edited 08-09-2008 @ 05:07 PM).]

I know this is a dead topic bump and the request is quite outdated considering the age of Caesar 3... but would someone PLEASE make a trainer to shut off the random mine/clay pit collapses. This method is only good until you save the game again. Then the game turns the flag back on and its back to the drawing board.

I had a go at figuring it out, but to find the address that manipulates the flag at the changing DMA memory address in a debugger requires good reverse engineering knowledge and I am a noob.

[This message has been edited by lakecityransom (edited 06-11-2010 @ 05:33 PM).]

Hi lakecityransom, welcome to Caesar III Heaven.

Why do you want such a "trainer"? Even if you take decades to complete a mission, there will only be a modest number of clay pit floods or iron mine cave-ins. And if you start with a City Construction Kit map, you can edit the .map file as you please before starting.

Hi, I know this is my first post, but I've known about this site since way back in the day. I just came back to revisit it.

I only play the campaign. The only real challenge I find is to get over the initial problems and get a steady flow of income. After I defeat that, I usually just let my modern day computer blast through for awhile and earn some money and build a decent city. I know this was not the intention, but I know I am capable of meeting the standards by either way, so I prefer to just save up some money and do it more quickly.

edit: sorry I jumped the gun, can said editor be used to resolve the problem in campaign mode, even after re-saving?

[This message has been edited by lakecityransom (edited 06-11-2010 @ 06:29 PM).]

Quoted from lakecityransom:

can said editor be used to resolve the problem in campaign mode, even after re-saving?

If I understand your question, the answer is no. The editor only handles .map files (which are started in the City Construction Kit), not .sav files (saved games). We don't have access to .map files for the "career" missions.

lakecityransom - sorry I wasn't here when you passed through, but if you're still around:

I'm surprised that you say the flag resets after you save the game, for that is not my experience (nor have I seen that reported). I'm also puzzled by your reference to changing values in memory (which would be way beyond me) - my instructions in reply #9 refer to hex-editing the .sav file directly - as far as I know any subsequent save will retain the edited setting (provided, of course, you reload the edited save).