Edited Wires.sym

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Dragoon.
Posts: 175
Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2003 6:08 pm
Location: Rio Grande do Sul

Edited Wires.sym

Post by Dragoon. »

I downloaded WiR 3.2 sometime ago with Pac War.
After playing Pac War for a halve year I decided to try out WiR.
Like Pac War a game with great strategic deep, but also like Pac War a
sure way to suffering and self-torture while you are learning the game.
However, I was very disappointed about the HQ function.
Because the color contrast between highlighted and non highlighted units is quit poor.
After finding out that GREDIT.exe is a tool to edit these icons and the way use it, I fixed this issue for me.

In this forum I found Richard W. Dionne Alternative Icons and WiR 3.3.
A good and impressive work. The only problem is that the zoomed in icons were still using the old color scheme.
I continued his work by editing the zoomed icons,.

Actually, I only changed the color of the zoomed ground tiles from sand yellow to a dirt/green.
On top I did some small modifications.
1. The border color of highlighted units was changed from bright blue to a more dark water blue.
2. The color of the HQ letters on HQ units was change from black to white for more visibility.
3. The icons of non zoomed cities titles was somehow missing streets? They have now streets.
4. Changed the color of fin units to much a darker grey color in contrast to the German units.
5. Edited zoomed rail lines cons a bit modified. You will probably not notice the change.
6. Gave zoomed cities icons a bit more coloring and rearranged the houses.

To install download the Zip-file below and extract it in your WiR directory.

The Zip includes the wires.sym (zoomed and normal map tiles and on map unit icons), wiret.sym (zoomed map icons),
three example GIF images showing the map in normal view, zoomed in and one picture showing the unit icon.
A primitive desktop icon for WiR and this text as rreadme.txt.

I used Richard W. Dionne Alternative Icons as base.
Copyright 2002, Richard W. Dionne.

For editing I used GREDIT.exe. There was no documentation how to use it or what this
program actually is. Took me 1 hour of experimenting to find out how it works.

If you want to edit the icons located in the *.sym files yourself, here what I have found out.

What is found where?
Air1.sym =Aircrafts icons
Tank1.sym =German tank and gun icons
Tank2.sym =Russian tank and gun icons
Wires.sym =Zoomed and normal map tiles and on map unit icons
Wiret.sym =Zoomed map tiles

PZes.sym and PZet.sym are remains of the original WiR and not longer used I think.

Start GREDIT.exe
It is a DOS program. It works on W2k and you will not see right now much.
Press Shift+R than type the file name and enter to load the icon file of your choice.
If you are running GREDIT.exe from a different directory that your WiR install folder you need to type the full path!

For now load Wires.sym.
What you see. In the upper part you see a collage of all icons stored in the file. Below on the left side are 2 small boxes and 1 big one.
The big box is were all painting is done. The upper small box previews how it will
look later in the game. The small box below of shows the current paint color.

To pick an icon from the collage use the following keys I, K, L and M.
When you have the cursor over the icon use SHIFT+G to load it.

With the arrow keys you can move the brush in the editing area.
The keys Home, End, Page Up and Page Down are used for diagonal movement.
To move the brush without painting over a pixel press O to toggle painting On/Off

To select a color press the keys from 1 to 0. Use Shift to get more choices.
Some colors look exactly like other but they behavior is different (explanation below).
When you have played WiR before, you have already noticed that the map change its color based on the current weather. With the Z key you can do this too.
GREDIT.exe starts in "Clear" weather mode.
Press one time for Rain/Mud, a second time for Snow, a third time for Blizzard and a forth time back to Clear weather again.
When you have two colors that look in Clear Weather the same,
they will look different depending on the current weather. For example the color SHIFT+4 and color 5.

When you load GREDIT.exe the first the color palette may look strange. Just press 4 times Z to fix it.

After you are done painting press SHIFT+W to update the icon collage.
Notice it will update the icon on which the cursor is currently over.
You can use this to copy one icon from one place to an other.

When you want to edit several Icons at once press SHIFT+V to enlarge the cursor in the collage area.

When you are finished press SHIFT+S to save. Type the file name and press enter.
Notice if this file already exists it will overwrite it without confirmation!!!

Hotkey List

SHIFT+R = LOAD FILE
SHIFT+S = SAVE FILE

SHIFT+V = CHANGE CURSOR SIZE
SHIFT+G = LOAD CURRENTLY SELECTED ICON/S IN THE PAINTING BOX
SHIFT+W = UPDATE SELECTED ICON/S IN COLLAGE WITH CURRENT ICON/S IN THE PAINTING BOX
Z = CHANGE WEATHER COLOR PALETTE

I, K, L, M = MOVE CURSOR

ARROW KEYS = MOVE BRUSH HORIZONTAL, VERTICAL

HOME, END,
PAGE UP,
PAGE DOWN = MOVE BRUSH DIAGONAL

O = TOGGLE PAINTING MODE ON/OFF
NUMBER KEYS = SELECT COLORS
SHIFT+NUMBER = MORE COLORS

SHIFT+Q THAN
ENTER = QUIT



After that I have some questions about the game.
Actually I quite overwhelmed at the moment
I wanted to play the '41 Campaign from the Russian side, but I don't know how I should setup the defense.
Maybe someone can give me some pointers.

Should I immediately move with the units from the Moscow, Orel, Kharkov and N.Caucasus HQ
to the Leningrad Kiev Railroad line? Placing them in the addicting Wood, Swamp hexes or better
on the Railroad hexes?
What is with the units from STAVKA, RVGK, T.Caucasus and Volga HQ? To the Leningrad-Kiev Front,
or better form with them already the second line?

Last question for the Soviets. What to do with the extra HQ's?
I was planning to place them near the Leningrad-Kiev Line so that each HQ has not more than 4-5 Corps
under control, all within 5 hexes. In addition, I wanted to give each HQ 3 extra unit as reserve.
Is this OK or bad, and does it matter which HQ I take. Makes it a difference if I use Kalinin, Steppes
or maybe Don HQ?

One question about the Germans.
How where should I place the 1. Div. Corps in the rear area to fight partisans?


If someone have written something like the PACIFIC WAR PLAYER CHECKLIST and TACTICS (version 11)
from Byron Inglesh please tell me where to download it. This checklist was so good that it cover with one exception every question I had.
The only one thing missing was the fake Monsoon in Burma Bases
from 1. March to 31.May. At first a really painful discovery.

Dragoon

The Matrix server seems to have problems. I couldn't upload the Zip file.
I uploaded it to a GeoCities account.
http://www.geocities.com/strange0012001/

Edit: New download link. Since my English skills improved by a small margin from the time I made this post, I used them to improve readability of this said post. For a good laugh checkout the readme.txt for an unedited version.
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?3b8tb9cpxqu9hcm
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JagdFlanker
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Location: Halifax, Canada

Post by JagdFlanker »

Excellent Job! It's nice to finally see the Shock Armies seperately in the summer. But the 1 detail that tops all others is the blue border on units that have moved or have orders plotted - it's shortened my turn time considerably! I will note, however, in my current game as Sovs the 89th Army is colored red like a Shock Army. Nice work!
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Dragoon.
Posts: 175
Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2003 6:08 pm
Location: Rio Grande do Sul

Re: Edited Wires.sym

Post by Dragoon. »

Flanker Leader wrote:Excellent Job! It's nice to finally see the Shock Armies seperately in the summer. But the 1 detail that tops all others is the blue border on units that have moved or have orders plotted - it's shortened my turn time considerably! I will note, however, in my current game as Sovs the 89th Army is colored red like a Shock Army. Nice work!

Glad to hear that I'm not the only one that has his problems with the coloring of highlighted units :-) About th 89th Soviet Army think this is more a OOB problem. :-(
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K62
Posts: 1102
Joined: Fri Jun 07, 2002 3:34 am
Location: DC

Answers!

Post by K62 »

>>I wanted to play the '41 Campaign from Russian side, but I don't know how I should setup the defense.

A mainly river line running Dnepropetrovsk - Kiev - Smolensk - Rzhev - Demyansk - Leningrad should hold out well against the AI.

>>Should I immediately move with the Units from the Moscow, Orel, Kharkov and N.Caucasus HQ
to the Leningrad Kiev Railroad line? Placing them in the addicting Wood, Swamp hexes or better
on the Railroad hexes?

Yes, but you want to leave a few weak units behind to cut off German supply lines. For the main line: it should be continuous, as much as possible behind rivers and then through the rough terrain you mentioned.

>>What is with units the STAVKA, RVGK, T.Caucasus and Volga HQ? To the Leningrad-Kiev Front,
or better form with them already the second line?

Against the AI they should go on your MLR. Against human opponents you'd better have 1 or 2 lines behind that as well :D

>>As last question for the Soviets what to do with the extra HQ's?
I was planning to place them near the Leningrad-Kiev Line so that each HQ has not more than 4-5 Corps
under control, all are within 5 hexes. In addition, I wanted to give each HQ 3 extra unit for reinforcement.
Is this ok or bad and does it matter which HQ I take. Makes it a difference if I use Kalinin, Steppes
or maybe Don HQ?

The only difference between front line HQs is their leader. So you only want to actually use in the fighting those for which you can spare a good leader (at least rating 5 for the Soviets in '41). You can place the rest on the east side of the map to train your air force.

>>A last little Question about the Germans.
How should I and where place 1 Div. Corps in the rear areas to fight partisans?

Crossroads.


>>If someone have written something like the PACIFIC WAR PLAYER CHECKLIST and TACTICS (version 11)
from Byron Inglesh tell where to download it.

AFAIK nobody has written something as large and comprehensive for WiR. But why don't you learn more about this game and write it yourself :p :) ;) In the meanwhile you might find Dave's site useful.
"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak" - John Adams
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JagdFlanker
Posts: 707
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2003 9:18 pm
Location: Halifax, Canada

Post by JagdFlanker »

I checked that PacWar checklist, and having messed with PacWar after playing WiR a lot, I would say Pacwar is so large and complicated that a checklist is gonna almost be necisary up until you'v gained a vast amount of experience. WiR looks complicated at first but really once you'v played 1 game on each side you'l have the gameplay pretty much figured out. The whole game comes down to the 1 front line. I find WiR is layed out MUCH better because when you single left click on any Army or HQ, it shows you on screen how many units are inside w/o having to right click, which makes it much easier to keep track of everything at a glance. I REALLY want to play PacWar, but finding out which airbase has what or what's in a Task Force is at least a couple clicks away, plus usually a lot of manual map scrolling. It wouldn't be so bad if there wern't so many ports and airbases to look in! but that's why PacWar is so good - but still it's too bad you can't see what any port/airbase has at a glance with a simple left click! it'd be soooooo much easier to manage! But if you'v already played PacWar, WiR will almost be a breeze to learn in comparison.
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Rasputitsa
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Post by Rasputitsa »

Thanks for the tutorial on how to use GREDIT.exe, I have made some small modfications to the unit icons which make WIR look better for me. Along with some map editing (not as extensive as Possum, but just some additions and realignment of railways) it is nice to be able adjust the game in this way. Thanks again for taking the time to share the info. :)
"In politics stupidity is not a handicap" - Napoleon

“A people which is able to say everything becomes able to do everything” - Napoleon

“Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress" - Napoleon
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Dragoon.
Posts: 175
Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2003 6:08 pm
Location: Rio Grande do Sul

Post by Dragoon. »

Rasputitsa wrote:Thanks for the tutorial on how to use GREDIT.exe, I have made some small modfications to the unit icons which make WIR look better for me. Along with some map editing (not as extensive as Possum, but just some additions and realignment of railways) it is nice to be able adjust the game in this way. Thanks again for taking the time to share the info. :)
I liked to share it. No one deserve the same pain to learn it as i suffered it. :rolleyes:
However, when you done your edditing to the files upload them somewhere. Possible I and other like them and we will plaz with your Icons. :)


K62

Thanks for your answers. This will help me to deploy my forces better.
My front was actually looking a bit, well improvisied.
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Dragoon.
Posts: 175
Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2003 6:08 pm
Location: Rio Grande do Sul

RE:

Post by Dragoon. »

Out of some strange nostalgic mood twist I recently played this game again.
If there is an other poor soul ouT there playing this game, and find the map icon coloring difficult I re-uploaded my icon modification. Obviously GeoCities is no more.

http://www.mediafire.com/?3b8tb9cpxqu9hcm
yarrow
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2011 2:03 pm

RE: RE:

Post by yarrow »

If there is an other poor soul ouT there playing this game
yes there is [:D] ( why poor? )

I used gredit to change moved units 'frame' colors from this light blue ... eye killer [:)]
to darker one ( 3rd color in gredit )

the problem however is ...
that gredit do not allow me to replace colors with my own
selectable are only 16 'default' palette colors ( keys 0-9 and shift 1-6 )

I would happily make those russian army icons look more brownish
so, they will better contrast with grayscaled german corps

I already tried iconmap 10 which ( in theory ) packs / unpacks between
wires.sym and 16 colors .bmp
unfortunately with no success as now

wires.sym packed back with modified bitmap shows no difference in the game

I even tried to replace colors with very contrast ones - like orange - to see if it works

I didn't used any programs like Photoshop
I just hexedited 4 bytes in palette section of bmp file itself
to be sure of no palette bit depth changes / conversions

the only bytes changed in .bmp file ( extracted by iconmap itself )
are those 4 bytes at 0x56 hex adress
difference IS visible => if this .bmp is viewed with any graphics viewer

and yes ... I DID select ... color set ( to wir-normal )

any info is welcome
yarrow

ps.
does anyone know the exact internal structure of wires.sym file?

for example first 4 bytes are:
00 20 ( 512 - x dimension of image ) 60 00 ( 96 - y dimension of image )


ps2.
happy new year 2013
with WIR of course [:D]

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