CAESAR III MODEL FILE EDITING FAQ
By Dennis L. "Fox" Doucette (
[email protected])
For Windows 9x
Version 1.0
October 29, 2001
|============================================================================|
|This FAQ is Copyright 2001 by Dennis L. Doucette. It is licensed to anyone |
|who wishes to use it, provided that person gains absolutely no financial |
|reward from its use. It may not be packaged on a floppy disk, CD-ROM, or |
|otherwise distributed through means other than download in text-only format |
|over the Internet. If you wish to convert this document to HTML, please |
|inform the author via email. The author reserves the right to reject any |
|conversion attempt if it does not fit standards of simplicity and |
|compactness for ease of download (i.e. if it contains anything other than |
|target links and font formatting---no graphics, sounds, music, or content |
|not otherwise created by the original author outside of the use of links and|
|font tags. The latest version of this FAQ can ALWAYS be found at |
|
http://www.gamefaqs.com (Ga me F A Q s---this line is for authenticity, as |
|many pirate FAQ sites use a find and replace. The URL should match the word|
|save for the spaces.) |
|Caesar 3 is a production of Sierra and Impressions Games. Copyright |
|information for the game itself can be found on the package and in the game |
|documentation. If you don't HAVE the game package because you pirated the |
|game from a warez or other illegal hacking site, you are a sick, disgusting |
|person and should be drawn and quartered. |
|============================================================================|
|=================|
|TABLE OF CONTENTS|
|=================|
1. Revision History
2. About C3_Model.txt (READ BEFORE EDITING)
3. Building Tricks
a. Building Cost
b. Initial Desirability
c. Desirability Step, Size, and Range
d. Number of employees needed for building to function
4. Housing Tricks
5. Using C3_Model as a Difficulty Setting Editor
6. Coming Sooner or Later
|===================|
|1. REVISION HISTORY|
|===================|
Version 1.0 (10/29/01): First edition. Lots of websites have provided
information about how the model editor works, but nobody's really given any
good ways to USE that information. This FAQ is the first definitive word on
how to make that file work for you!
|===========================================|
|2. ABOUT C3_MODEL.TXT (READ BEFORE EDITING)|
|===========================================|
C3_Model.txt is the file contained in the Caesar3 directory of your hard drive
when you install the game. It governs the rules of the game (similar to any
rules.txt file in other sim/strat games). By editing the file, you can lower
construction costs, change the number of employees required by a building,
increase or reduce the desirability of buildings or objects, and generally
wreak utter mayhem upon the world of Caesar 3.
The problem with all of this customizability (is that a word? MS Word says so
so I guess it is!) is that you can do some serious damage to the game as it
runs. You can destroy a neighborhood's desirability, make your citizens run
like hell for the exit to the Road to Rome, and otherwise completely destroy
your city as it collapses under the weight of an impossible rules
configuration. The moral of the story is to use this file with caution, and
avoid using outrageous values for the editor numbers.
|==================|
|3. BUILDING TRICKS|
|==================|
First off, what the building numbers mean (a-f stand for columns from left):
a. Building Cost
b. Initial Desirability
c. Desirability Step
d. Desirability Step Size
e. Max desirability range (must be <= 6)
f. Number of employees needed for building to function (exceptions below)
Anything beyond F is there for purposes that Impressions Games seems unwilling
to discuss other than saying that those values don't affect the game in any
way but may crash it if you try to change them.
|=================|
|3A. BUILDING COST|
|=================|
The cost (in denarii) to build that structure. For walls, roads, and
anything else of which more than one tile at a time can be laid in a line,
cost refers to one tile of that structure. For example, a theater (2x2
structure) costs a flat 50Dn to build, but a 2x2 stretch of garden costs
48Dn (12Dn per tile x 4 tiles = 48Dn total).
|========================|
|3B. INITIAL DESIRABILITY|
|========================|
The effect on desirability in the tile the building occupies. This is
positive for good stuff like statues and gardens, and negative for bad stuff
like forts and gladiator schools. Simple, right? This forms the basis for
some more advanced calculations, which I describe below.
|======================================|
|3C. DESIRABILITY STEP, SIZE, AND RANGE|
|======================================|
In order: How many points up or down the desirability goes as you
get further away from the structure, how many tiles away you must be before
the step goes into effect, and the maximum range of desirability the building
has irrespective of the previous calculations. No building can have an effect
on desirability that extends more than six tiles from the building itself.
Examples of desirability numbers and what they do:
A garden that has an initial desirability of 6, a step of -1, a step size of
1, and a max range of 2 tiles:
|=====|
|44544| As you can see, the negative step value means it trends toward having
|45554| less effect on desirability as you get further away from it. For
|45654| objects with a negative initial desirability, the step is usually a
|45554| positive number, as the desirability penalty gets lower as you get
|44544| further from the undesirable structure.
|=====|
Consider the market, which the manual claims has a negative effect on
desirability for stuff that's too close to the market, but a positive effect
on desirability for houses that live a little bit further away. How do they
accomplish this? With an initial desirability of -2, a step of 1, a step size
of 1, and a max range of 6. Graphed out (numbers close to the market are
negative, and out beyond the zeros are positive):
|=============|
|4444444444444|
|4333333333334| See what I mean? Houses within 2 squares of the market have
|4322222222234| their desirability dragged down by the market being too close
|4321111111234| by, while houses six squares away have their desirability
|4321011101234| actually INcreased by being close (but not too close) to the
|4321012101234| marketplace. In addition, the market trader walks by
|4321011101234| rather frequently, insuring that the house with the higher
|4321000001234| desirability out on the outskirts has a good chance of also
|4321111111234| being provided with food, pottery, and other necessities.
|4322222222234|
|4333333333334|
|4444444444444|
|=============|
Now let's consider the example of if you mess with the numbers a bit. In this
example, we'll be discussing an object (let's say it's a prefecture), but
instead of giving it a negative step, we'll give it an initial desirability of
1 (that's positive one), a step of 2, a step size of 2, and a max range of 6.
|=============|
|7777777777777|
|7777777777777|
|7755555555577|
|7755555555577| See? In direct opposition to common sense, a building that is
|7755333335577| already something that people want to live near, but they
|7755333335577| would just LOVE to have to walk a little extra distance to
|7755331335577| get there. In the case of a prefecture, they'd rather have
|7755333335577| the prefect walk some extra distance to put out a fire in
|7755333335577| their house. I never said that model editing had to make
|7755555555577| sense!
|7755555555577|
|7777777777777|
|7777777777777|
|=============|
The practical upshot to this? By editing building desirability, you can
either completely change the paradigm of what you want to put your houses near
(which may allow you to place more prefects and engineers), make it so that
everything on the map is desirable (note the warning below!), or eliminate the
desirability factor entirely when this trick is used along with some tricks in
the Housing section (chapter 4).
WARNING! If you set the building desirabilities too high, you'll run up
against a built-in "kill switch" in the game. In the Caesar3.com message
board, a poster named "Beamup" raised the possibility that the desirability
of a given tile is a one-byte string, and as such can only read values between
-127 and +128. If you raise the desirability of any tile higher than 128, you
run the risk of having the game model subtract a multiple of 128 from the
tile's value, thus creating a value over which you have no control, and which
may end up falling WAY below zero, turning a plot of land that should have
been a palace block into a plot of land ill-suited even for tents. The thing
is, efforts to fix this problem (placing plazas, gardens, other things that
make land more desirable) may end up making it worse by cascading the effect
to the point where desirability is determined more at random than by design.
Use the desirability trick at your own risk!
|===========================================================|
|3D. NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES NEEDED FOR THE BUILDING TO FUNCTION|
|===========================================================|
Or in other words, how many of your little plebes will have to abandon all
hope of being promoted to patricians because there's work to be done. Two
caveats before you go around making all your buildings need no labor because
you want more villas:
Most buildings that produce walkers (markets, temples, engineering posts,
prefectures, theaters, and the like) need only one employee to function,
because the frequency of walker generation is expressed as a percentage of
total employees for the building. An example is an engineer post, which
normally requires five employees. If it's staffed with 4 plebs, then it will
send out a walker 4/5 as often (80%) as it would at full employment. If you
go into c3_model.txt and change the number of employees required to one, then
you've created a binary calculation: Either the post is staffed or it isn't,
and it will either send out walkers at the full employment rate or it won't
send out any walkers at all. This calculation goes for any building that
doesn't apply under the industrial calculation below.
Industrial buildings (Raw material producers and processors) operate on a
fixed production rate per employee per year. For items that don't need to be
processed into anything else (marble, fruit, and meat, to be exact), the rate
is .48 cartloads per employee per year. For items that do need to be
processed (timber, olives, clay, iron, and grapes), the rate is .96 cartloads
per employee per year. Wheat is also grown at the higher rate because, as the
manual states, it's a "more efficient" crop with which to feed your populace.
For processed items that require raw materials (furniture, oil, pottery,
weapons, and wine), the rate is the same .48 cartloads that "finished raw
materials" produce. Note that warehouses, docks, and other industrial
services that don't actually produce anything can function at full power with
only one employee because they're not governed by the rate rule.
Consider the advantages of a rate-based system. If you want to create raw
material producers that supply five workshops instead of two, amp up the
required number of employees to a 2.5 : 1 ratio of raw material employees to
workshop employees. Using the multiplier, you'll see that the suppliers now
produce 24 cartloads a year at full employment, while the workshops still
produce the same 4.8 cartloads with their initial ten employees.
There's another advantage to rate-based production. If you want your vital
city services to operate at perpetual efficiency, the best way to do so is to
have them require one employee apiece. Fully staffed, there will always be
walkers out patrolling your city and getting the needs taken care of. The
obvious problem is that so few positions to fill naturally creates a lot of
unemployment. Why not put all those extra plebs to good use fueling your
city's trade economy or keeping everyone fed, wined, potted, and furnished?
If a labor shortage comes up, you can slow down production by setting
"Industry and Commerce" to the lowest priority under the Labor Advisor. Since
any new production will be handled by those shortage workers, you'll never
again have to worry about unemployment. Or, if that's not good enough for
you, you can slowly ramp up the settings of how many employees certain city
buildings require, thus making it possible to fine-tune the settings,
especially in a finished city where you know exactly how many jobs you need to
create to bring everything into exquisite balance. Add to that the fact that
supercharged workshop and farm production creates one hell of a nice export
business, and you'll see just how many Denarii you can cram into your city's
vaults, all the while keeping taxes pretty damn close to zero, making your
citizens idolize you as a god!
|=================|
|4. HOUSING TRICKS|
|=================|
Services alone do not a city make. People have to live somewhere, and the
front steps of the Senate do not count as housing! If you want your houses to
really take a super jump into massive evolution, look here for a bunch of ways
to do this!
There are a lot of intimidating-looking numbers in that housing list, but
thanks to this chart (compiled from various Caesar III fansites plus the
Impressions Games forum), you can now know what all those numbers do...and how
to make them work for you instead of against you.
In order from left to right, the Housing numbers mean:
1) The Desirability level below which a house will devolve
2) The Desirability level required to evolve a house to the next level
3) How much entertainment a house needs (a long and involved calculation)
4) Water needed (1=well water, 2=fountain access)
5) Number of gods house needs access to (cannot exceed 4 because of bug)
6) Education needed (1=school or library, 2=school AND library, 3=all forms)
7) Market access (1=needs trader to bring food, 0=forages for its own food)
8) Barber access (1=needs access to barber)
9) Bath access (1=needs bath house, 2=also requires doctor and surgeon)
10) Number of foods required (<=3 because of bug)
11) Pottery required? (1=yes)
12) Oil required? (1=yes)
13) Furniture required? (1=yes)
14) Wines required? (if 2, at least 1 must be imported)
15) Crime increment (explained below)
16) Crime base (Impressions says this doesn't do anything...BULL!)
17) Prosperity cap (explained briefly below)
18) Population limit (per tile of house)
19) Tax multiplier (explained below)
20 and beyond) These numbers are utterly meaningless...don't change them.
The long version of those meanings:
1) If circumstances cause the desirability of the land to fall, the house will
devolve (urban blight)
2) Self-explanatory, really. Build up the desirability by building gardens,
plazas, and other pleasant stuff, and the house will move on up.
3) The best way I have to explain this is that frequency of visits by walkers
connected to entertainment structures, plus the presence or absence of a
hippodrome (circus), plus the coverage percentage of all entertainment
facilities in town, expressed as a percentage of what these numbers would
total out to "in a perfect world" (i.e. if everything had full coverage and a
horde of walkers kept everyone constantly at top level).
4) This actually makes a good regulator for your workforce. Set plebe housing
to require no water at all, then set any housing of villa or above to require
well water. Then, when you want to evolve a Grand Insula into a villa, simply
dig a well nearby. You can do the same thing with wells vs. fountains if you
like.
5) How many different temples need to send a walker past a house? It can't be
all five, because for some reason the simulator won't recognize coverage from
more than four gods (i.e. if five priests walk by, the fifth one doesn't count
for anything).
6) Academies only matter if this number is set to three. Schools and
libraries are more important to the average citizen, which makes sense when
you consider that it's pointless to build high schools if nobody completes the
eighth grade!
7) Put another way, if this is set to one, the house "eats". If it's set to
zero, the game will say "Tent dwellers provide their own food from the
surrounding countryside", even if the house is a Luxury Palace! However, if
you're playing a scenario where Rome doesn't supply wheat, the walkers will
still say "This city needs more food" or words to that effect, even if the
housing doesn't require it. I believe this may also contribute to discontent
among the rabble, but since my cities always have excellent prefect coverage,
I've never had a good chance to test the hypothesis.
8) Self-explanatory. Binary calculation, so either the house needs a barber
or everyone walks around looking like a cross between the guys from ZZ Top and
Cousin Itt from the Addams Family.
9) Why they didn't treat Doctor coverage separately, I'll never know, but it
shouldn't matter much because making sure everyone's healthy should be a major
priority of any good governor. Plagues suck.
10) Variety in the diet is important (unless you set it otherwise in the file,
in which case everyone can live on bread or fruit or whatever it is that you
decide you want your people to eat.) Note that if you've set houses to
require that food be taken to them by market traders, the game isn't going to
take too kindly to having to figure out if houses are getting all zero of the
foods they require. There's a bug in the game, similar to the religion bug,
that makes this number cap at three even if you're producing all four
different kinds of food (wheat, fruit, vegetables, and meat/fish). Note that
if Rome provides wheat, then wheat will be ALL your citizens get, so if you
want a house to evolve to a certain point, you'd better set that point to only
require one type of food, because that's all it's getting.
11-13) More binary calculations. Either houses need these things brought to
them by markets, or they don't. Your choice.
14) Remember, if a house requires two types of wine, at least one if not both
vintages must be imported. If you grow grapes and also import grapes, the
wine produced by your wineries is considered to be of only one vintage, not
two.
15) Every certain number of clock cycles, the likelihood of a house rioting is
increased by this number. Set it to zero if you want a fairly peaceful
populace, more (but not much more than four) if you want South Central Los
Angeles. Leave the original numbers alone if you want the likelihood of crime
to be inversely proportional to the quality of the house.
16) This number determines where the cycle starts as far as likelihood of a
house to erupt into angry disorder. Don't set it to zero or a negative number
or you'll likely cause a math error in the game.
17) Prosperity is determined as follows:
Prosperity cap times number of citizens in the house, totaled in with the
number from all the other houses in the city, then divided by the total number
of citizens in the city so that the average is weighted based on how many
people live in each type of house. This number improves "over time" and
cannot increase by more than a certain number (I'm pretty sure it's five) each
year. The actual amount by which Prosperity increases is some sort of
calculation with which I'm not familiar, but it tops out at that weighted
average after a given length of time.
18) Multiply this number by the area occupied by the house (for houses that
can be either 1x1 or 2x2) for population. For houses at Large Insula and
above, this number is a straight figure for the entire house.
19) Tax multiplier times tax rate (from the Financial Advisor) times number of
people in the house equals amount of Denarii collected from that house each
year. Setting this number real high can make you very wealthy on a 1% tax
rate. Setting it too low will force you to rely on trade to break even.
The practical application of some of this stuff is quite interesting. If you
set your tax numbers high, you won't have to worry so much about trade. If
you change the population numbers for each kind of house, you can either
create plebe housing that is jam-packed with employees or patrician housing
that is bursting at the seams with lazy rich people. You could also create a
"suburban sprawl" feel by creating a lot of houses that don't house very many
people or an "urban pack" feeling that could lead to some REALLY high
population counts and densely-packed neighborhoods. You can completely
eliminate the need to create industry for any reason other than trade and
satisfying the Emperor's whims. You can also make it possible (even if you've
made absolutely no other alterations to the file) to have villas and palaces
in a scenario where Rome supplies wheat. Remember that even though a house
may not require something, your city in general might (temples, for example),
so use this with caution and a little trial and error with the actual game.
Also remember that crime (and fire) are going to happen whenever your citizens
get unhappy with you for any reason, so you can't exactly eliminate the need
for prefects, nor can you eliminate the need for engineers or city services
that affect your other ratings.
Maybe the warnings are best laid out this way: C3_model.txt editors are not
real. They're cartoons. Some of the things they do could cause you to get
hurt, arrested, possibly deported. To put it another way: Don't try this at
home.
|==================================================|
|5. USING C3_MODEL.TXT AS A DIFFICULTY LEVEL EDITOR|
|==================================================|
C3_Model.txt is not just for cheating or "fun factor". You can also use it to
create homemade difficulty settings. The easy way to do this is to increase
all the cost numbers by a fixed percentage (or decrease them) or make housing
require more stuff in order to evolve past the lower levels (for example, any
house more evolved than a small tent requires food, instead of needing food to
evolve to small shacks). You could also make the scenarios themselves more
difficult by lowering the prosperity caps on houses by 10 or 20 percent, thus
forcing you to evolve your housing a lot higher in order to clear the scenario
requirement. You could lower the tax base, forcing you to trade for more of
your city's income. Try increasing the employee requirements on city services
to force you to keep your workforce at a higher percentage of your overall
population. Make industry more productive...or less so. Make houses evolve
easily by easing up the desirability requirements, or make it more difficult
to create good housing by requiring far more desirable land (bearing in mind
the 128 limit). Make it so that once a house hits a level of evolution, the
only thing that will devolve it is having services cut off (in other words,
set all the devolve numbers to -127). Use your imagination, and if anyone
wants to make their c3_model.txt files available for download, simply email me
the URL for your website where the file is stored. If I like what you've done
I'll include your site in any revisions I make to this FAQ. Have fun! Just
remember that if you're using the c3_model.txt file to make the game
ludicrously easy in order to complete the campaign scenarios, that IS cheating
and you should be able to beat the game cleanly (i.e. using either the
original c3_model.txt file that came with the game, or using the file to make
the game more difficult, because beating a more difficult challenge will leave
no one questioning your skills.)
|=========================|
|6. COMING SOONER OR LATER|
|=========================|
In truth, I don't really have any immediate future projects in mind, but I'm
certainly thinking of writing a FAQ for Civilization III when it comes out on
October 30th. I've also written several other FAQs for GameFAQs:
NCAA Football 2000 (PSX)
Railroad Tycoon II (PC/PSX)
NCAA March Madness 2000 (PSX)
Triple Play 2001 (PSX)
Any revisions to this FAQ will probably be in response to any e-mail I receive
either clarifying anything I've omitted, correcting any errata, or adding
reader suggestions.
-END-
