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Igromania 1999 August
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UNCHEAT.TXT
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Text File
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1996-04-19
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6KB
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183 lines
╔══════════════════ DISCLAIMER!! ═════════════════╗
║ ║
║ THIS UTILITY IS TO BE USED AT YOUR OWN RISK!! ║
║ ║
║ AS WITH ANY UTILITY, BACK UP YOUR SAVED GAME ║
║ BEFORE RUNNING!! ║
║ ║
╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
SID MEIER'S CIVILIZATION II
UNCHEAT UTILITY DOCUMENATION
This is a quick utility that allows you to remove the
fact that you opened cheat mode from a saved game.
It doesn't have any effect on gameplay. It is useful
for hiding the fact that you cheated and maybe seeing
what your score would have been if you had played fair
when you conquered the world on diety level in 3800 BC
with a population of 60 million and had already been
reasearching future techs for the last 100 years.
If you're like me and you don't like "cheat mode" on
the screen in red letters when your game is over and
you would prefer to be able to cheat without getting
caught and punished, here is the utility for you!
You can now open cheat mode, cheat until your fingers
get tired, run this utility and never be penalized
for it when the game is over.
VERY simple to use.
Copy the uncheat utility into the directory where
games are saved.
At the DOS prompt, just type
uncheat filename.sav
where [filename] is the name of the game. You must
type the [.sav] extension. You can also specify a
path before the filename is desired.
If you forget this, just type uncheat at the prompt
and a reminder will appear.
After running, you will get one of three messages:
filename.ext was not found.
possible causes
(a) uncheat.exe is in the wrong directory.
Make sure uncheat.exe is in the same directory
as the saved game files. Alternatively, you
can specify a path before the file name.
example:
uncheat c:\civ2\saves\mongols\gk_b2000.sav
(b) the filename was mistyped.
Verify the spelling is correct. Be careful
you don't confuse the hyphen "-" with the
underscore "_" character for default names.
(c) the [.sav] extension was ommitted.
Make sure to include the extension.
cheat mode was not enabled.
possible causes
(a) cheat mode was never enabled. There is nothing
to alter.
(b) cheat mode was enabled and then turned back off.
Cheat mode must be enabled (the cheat options
not grayed out) for this utility to work. Try
turning cheat mode on again if you turned it off
when you finished using it.
success!
This means that you have opened cheat mode in
this saved game and the game has registered
your cheating. This has been erased and the
game now thinks you've been playing fair.
I have used this utility and never had any problem
with it. That is not to say you won't, so backup
your games first. I wouldn't expect any problems
though.
I don't plan on writing an editor or making a
version 2.00 of this utility. If someone spots a
glaring bug that causes your hard drive to be
reformatted without prompting you, I might write a
version 1.01. But if someone reports a bug that only
occurs after some highly unlikely sequence of events
such as when they use the utility in the year 0 AD
when a wonder was completed in that year and there
are only two civilizations left on diety level and
now they can't find a settler unit, then I would
say that person is out of luck unless he backed up
his game like he should have. After all, I warned him
twice in this documentation already.
Seriously, this game alters two bytes in the file, and
I don't expect any problems. I tested it before I
turned it loose.
For all you technical types:
Here are the bytes and changes made. Byte locations
are rigid; they don't change locations with changes in
parameters such as map or file size.
byte 0x0f If this byte starts with 0x3- then cheat mode
is disabled. Opening cheat mode causes this
value to be incremented by 0x80 to 0xb-. If
you then turn off cheat mode, this value is
returned to its original value.
example
before cheating byte 0x0f = 0x34
after cheating byte 0x0f = 0xb4
If byte 0x0f's value is 0xb- then this utility
subtracts 0x80 from it.
byte 0x14 This byte is incremented by 0x10 when cheat
mode is enabled. If byte 0x0f's value is 0xb-
then this value is also decremented by 0x10
when the utility is run.
example
byte 0x0f byte 0x14
before cheating 0x36 0x14
after cheating 0xb6 0x24
utility action subtract 0x80 subtract 0x10
I am curious what byte 0x14 is linked to in the saved
file; somewhere it is compared to another byte and the
result of this comparison is used to determine if any
cheating took place. I can't tell, so I simply check
byte 0x0f. If you cheat and turn cheat mode off then
this utility fails to recognize it.
If you find out what byte 0x14 is keyed to, let me know!
Have fun and remember, if you use this to show off your
playing skill to others, don't overdo it. Keep it
believable. I am curious how high of a score you can
get with it, so if you get a truly astronomical score,
drop me a note.
Enjoy.
-Steven C. Schultz
sschultz@crl.com