WINE and CDemu

Previously I posted about installing software/game with different CD/DVD ISO images in WINE. But this method does not work in some installation ISO images. Because these installation will detect for the CD/DVD. The method above does not solve the problem because the installation does not detect the CD/DVD.

Recently, I found a better solution. It is CDemu. It is similar to DAEMON Tools in Windows. It will emulate the optical disc drive in Linux. As a result, it will produce /dev/sr0, /dev/sr1, and so on. Because it is a virtual CD/DVD, thus we have to load the image. It can be easily loaded by using gcdemu.

Once the image file is loaded, we have to mount the image as root. I mount the image to /mnt/cdrom. Then, in WINE, run the winecfg, then it will automatically appear the CD-ROM in Drives tab. In my case, it is E: drive.

Now, I run the installation from WINE, I can detect the image as CD/DVD.

Traditional Chinese (BIG5) in the LANG=zh_CN.UTF8 locale

Recently, I tried to play Tecmo Koei Sangokushi 12 PK Traditional Chinese version (三國志12威力加強版繁體中文) on WINE using PlayOnLinux. It works fine, but there is a problem that is the game can only be run in LANG=zh_CN.UTF-8 locale instead of zh_TW.UTF-8 locale (there are some reasons behind). As a result, if I enter some Chinese characters using fcitx, the output will be converted. Such as 一 becomes 珨. This is because when using fcitx in the zh_CN.UTF-8 locale, the character will be encoded as zh_CN.UTF-8. However, because the game itself is Traditional Chinese, the output will be encoded as possibly BIG5. This can be proved by using iconv with the following command,

echo "一" |iconv -f utf8 -t gb18030|iconv -f big5 -t utf8 #results 珨

Therefore, I need to convert this faulty character back to the character I intended. Thus, the iconv can be used to reverse the result by following command,

echo "珨" |iconv -f utf8 -t big5|iconv -f gb18030 -t utf8 #results 一

Because the game does not allow copy-paste, I can only solve this problem programmatically by creating a(n) fcitx module with the iconv. The module is available here.

The fcitx module I created works partially satisfying. It still has a problem which I cannot solve. I am not sure what is the root problem, either iconv, fcitx, WINE, the game itself, or other reason. That is, some of the Chinese characters such as 自 and 何 are not able to be entered and result question marks (?). (This is solved, read UPDATE below.)

Note: In order to use the module, that is to convert the GB18030 to BIG5 (yet still UTF8), because BIG5 is Traditional Chinese, that means we need to enable the “Simplified Chinese To Traditional Chinese” module in fcitx. Then only input the Traditional Chinese characters will work. Such as entering 會 instead of 会. Because BIG5 does not have the character for 会, but 會.

Sangokushi 12 PK Traditional Chinese in WINE problem with zh_CN.UTF-8 locale

Because of the question mark problem as mentioned above, I can only give up playing the game with WINE. There is no choice but only to play the game with Windows in the VirtualBox which works fine in the Chinese (Taiwan) locale.

Update (2014-06-18): With the latest version of Wine 1.7.20 and fcitx 4.2.8, after using the module, all the words can be encoded as BIG5.

Cave Story (Doukutsu Monogatari) cheat in Linux

I tried to find some good games in Linux, since there is not much game development in Linux. Recently, I played Cave Story. The drawing is looking old, but the storyline is good, just like an expected Japanese game. And there are 3 different endings.

The game is not easy to play. So, I finally, try to game hack it using GameConqueror. Then, these are the memory address:

81c8614    HP 
81cce84    Polar Star / Spur Lv 
81cce98    Missle Lv 
81ccea4    Missle bullet
81cceac    Fireball Lv 
81ccec0    Bubbler Lv 
81ccecc    Bubbler bullet
81cced4    Blade / Nemesis lv

Unfortunately, GameConqueror cannot save and open the address list.

Still need to follow a game guide so that you will not miss any secret from the game.

KOEI Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the real world

I like to play KOEI’s game, especially Romance of the Three Kingdoms (San Goku Shi). It is related to the real world management.

When playing the game, we need to first build a kingdom. Then, the player should found that, if the kingdom has only one character (officer), the kingdom can do nothing, because each character can do only one task (or limited tasks) for each month. Even the character has maximum status values: intelligence 100, war 100, politic 100, charisma 100, though the character is useful, the kingdom itself is useless. Thus, the player needs to recruit more officers to work for the kingdom.

For recruiting the officers, there is a problem. It is difficult to recruit good officer. Because some of the good officer is already work for other kingdom. Simply recruiting any officer also has a problem, especially there are some useless officers. Recruiting these useless officers does not help much in a small kingdom. This is because they cannot work for the kingdom, they cannot contribute anything. Yet, the kingdom need to pay for the officers every month.

To increase the income of a kingdom, the kingdom must have lands, then the officers need to develop the land for economic growth to earn money seasonally; or to develop the land for farming to increase the food supply for every year. Therefore, in order to make a kingdom strong, the kingdom must develop to get the income. Yet, the features of the land is also important, because some of the lands are not fertile. This is exactly same as the real world, that is why some of the country are rich of resources, yet the other not.

One of the feature of San Goku Shi I like is the compatibility value of each character. This is a hidden value, one can only see it with the character editor in Power-up Kit. The value range is from 0 to 149. When the two characters has the compatibility values which are close, they are easily to get together, and 0 is close to 149 as a cycle. So, Cao Cao is 25, Liu Bei is 75, and Sun Quan is 125. Their innate enemies are the value Yuan Shao (almost 100), Dong Zhuo (almost 0), and Liu Biao (almost 50). Therefore, a kingdom will always has a group of people which has similar compatibility value. This is exactly same as the real world, that is why people are normally divided into groups with the similar characteristic.

Therefore, a kingdom, not only needs the lands for the resource, good officers to work, and also the opportunities. They are important factors: 天（时）、地（利）、人（合）.  With these factors, the player can build a strong kingdom.

我喜欢玩“光荣”的游戏，尤其是“三国志”。“三国志”和现世的管理系统是息息相关的。

游戏开始时，我们首先需要建立自己的势力。玩家必定发现，若新势力只有一位武将，那个势力几乎一无所能，因为每个武将每月只能做一件工作或有限的工作。纵然武将的各项能力全满，也对势力无济于事。因此，玩家必须录用更多的武将。

关于录用武将，也并非易事。因为优秀的武将，早已为其他势力效劳了。随便录用武将，尤其是那些一无是处的武将，对势力也没有贡献。因为这类的武将，办事不利，而且还要发薪资给这些武将。

要增加势力的收入，土地是必须的。玩家可利用武将来发展商业等等，提高每季的收入；或是发展农业，提高军粮的收入。因此，若要让势力变强，就必须增加势力的收入。并且，土地的发展度是必须的。因为有些地方非常难发展，尤其是那些小都市。人口不够，不能增兵，等等。这和现世是一样的，有些国家天然资源富裕，而一些落后。

“三国志”里，有一项特点是我非常喜欢的，就是武将的“相性”。这是隐藏的数值，使用“威力加强版”才能看到这数值。数值是从0到149。当两位武将的相性值接近，那么两个武将就容易接近。曹操的相性是25，刘备75，孙权125。他们的天敌是袁绍（大约100），董卓（大约0），刘表（大约50）。因此，势力总是会把武将归类，所谓物以类聚，人以群分。正如现世一样。

因此，一个势力，必须有丰富的地方资源，优秀的武将，还有把握时机。这正是重要的因素：天时、地利、人和。藉着这些因素，玩家才能建立强盛的势力。