Castles II: Siege and Conquest

[Vanshilar]

I've started a page about the file format for the game Castles II: Siege and Conquest. I have mostly figured out how to decode the save files and the file for the plots (LIB.CLU). However, what remains to be done now is to figure out what all the numbers actually *mean*. I've made some headway for both files, but there's a lot that I haven't figured out, so I'd like to open it up to other people who might want to take a look at it.

I'll be putting my notes down on the wiki as I have time. However, I'd like to ask what people consider to be more important for me to do first:

1. The save file format, to understand how to edit stats like number of current resources, number of army units, etc., or
2. The plot file format, to understand how the plots work.

I can do either. Both have things that I've figured out as well as things that I haven't. I'm not sure if there's a preference for one or the other though. What would people like to see first?

It's also my first time posting about the file format for a game (although there are several games that I can discuss) so the format may be a bit wonky until I figure out how to copy-paste from other game pages.

[MrFlibble]

Hello, and welcome to the forums! I haven't played the game much expect for some of the demo, but it's nice that you're doing the job of decrypting its formats!

I really have nothing to say on the priorities of your analysis though. I'd suppose that doing what is more likely to be easier first would be logical.

[Vanshilar]

Thanks! Yeah, one reason is because I haven't seen much help for the game online; there's a walkthrough on GameFAQ but it doesn't really get into much detail about how the game works. Yet I see people talking about how hard it is, whereas I find the game to be relatively easy, yet pretty fun. After a while I wanted to figure out how the game actually works, but wasn't able to find out much about it myself, so started digging into the game files.

I'll likely start with the plotlines, because I think that's where people (who perhaps have more of a programming/coding background) can be of more help. Although I've figured out how to decrypt the plot file, I don't know what a number of the instructions actually *mean*, i.e. how the game parses the different instructions to control the dialogue and the progress of the plot. I've figured out a good number of it, but there's quite a bit that I haven't figured out yet, and a number of them are just guesses.

Which brings up a question; I'd like to have people help look at what the different instructions might be, but I don't really know how to do this. In theory, I could post the contents of the plot file, but it's over a megabyte in size, and I don't know if that would exceed any page size limits on the wiki. Or I could post chunks of it at a time (say, dedicate a page to each plot), but as people figure out what different instructions mean, it would be difficult to update each plot with what the instructions.

The way I've been working on this myself is to have a really large Excel spreadsheet, consisting of the plot instructions (i.e. raw values in the file), my guess as to what they mean, and the displayed plot text (I've figured out what plot instruction means "display text X"), as three separate columns. Ideally, I could post it as one huge table, and as people figure out what the different instructions mean they could update the table using a search-replace method (i.e. if column 1 is X, then write column 2 as Y, where X is the raw value, and Y is the (human-readable) interpretation of what instructions those raw values mean). There are over 80k total plot instructions though, so it would be a huge table, so I'm not sure if this is practical.

Basically, I don't know if there's an easy way to crowdsource figuring out what the plot instructions actually mean.

[Vanshilar]

Hmm...so I've been updating the page with save game file format and stuff.

However, I'm also digging into the game mechanics itself. Is the file format wiki the appropriate place to put those details, or is there another place that's better suited for them?

For example, it turns out that despite what the manual says, all doors, towers, and walls take the same amount of time to build, differing only on whether you select "short" (which takes 19 progress points per piece) or "tall" (which takes 31 progress points per piece). Each castle point needs 10 progress points, i.e. a moat gives 50 points and requires 500 progress points. The manual says that round towers take longer to build than square towers, and thick walls take longer than thin walls, but they actually all take the same amount of time. Both short and tall keeps take 31 progress points.

Defensively, doors and thin walls receive 1 point of damage from each shot of a ballista or catapult. But towers, keeps, and thick walls seem to only have a 50% chance per shot of taking 1 point of damage, otherwise taking no damage. So I'm not seeing a difference between the two types of towers, and thick walls will last (on average, since it's random) about twice as long as thin walls. Because they cost the same and take the same amount of time to build, however, you should always build thick walls. The points of damage is the same as the progress points, i.e. 19 or 31.

So there's a lot of stuff like this that I'm finding as I use the save game files to look at the game mechanics. Where should I put this kind of info though?

[MrFlibble]

So there's a lot of stuff like this that I'm finding as I use the save game files to look at the game mechanics. Where should I put this kind of info though?

Perhaps it's time to start compiling a FAQ for the game?

[Vanshilar]

Perhaps it's time to start compiling a FAQ for the game?

Yeah as a long-term project I will probably write a walkthrough, since I don't think there's been a good one written for the game yet, which I found kind of surprising. Me being me, however, my walkthroughs tend to be more of an "owner's manual" than a "quick start guide", i.e. they tend to be in-depth and cover a lot of detailed information, and thus take a long time to assemble. For Castles II for example I want to get into stuff like how quickly does each type of unit move across the different types of terrain (which I've already done some testing on via modifying the terrain files), how does the combat system work (such as how many shots does it take for an archer to kill an infantry given different types of terrain, military rating, happiness, etc.), and other stuff that people tend to gloss over. Right now I'm looking at how the castle works.

So eventually there likely will be some sort of walkthrough. However, there's the matter of what to do with the information in the meantime. Also, I don't know what frequently-asked questions people actually have about the game -- certainly if people have questions about the plots or whatever, they can ask away.

[MrFlibble]

Well, many FAQs are just like that - collections of useful information about the game that the author found and/or obtained from other sources. You could make a general plan of what you want to include in the FAQ eventually, and then publish incomplete/work-in-progress versions (numbering them 0.1 etc.) as you go. AFAIK this is quite a widespread practice in this field.