The Name Change Game

[Tropicana21]

Ok, im just kinda wondering if there is a .dat file where you can change the names of the random tropican names the computer gives out?

[CafeDave]

Tropicana21, this is something many of us have longed for in the past, but unfortunately, the secret is locked somewhere deep in the data files of Tropico.  There are only two .dat files in the data directory, one for unit type and the other for building type.  I believe someone has broken down their contents somewhere on the forum, but I have tried to hack unit and building name changes there without effect.  The character names must be in one of the .xdt files and you need to be a brave soul to try to hack into them.  Most likely it's all coded in hex anyway.  So in short, no.  

[CafeDave]

Good news!  I'm wrong!  There is a way to change names and places.  I had tried to look at the files before but never had any luck.  But I had to go back and look today.  There is nothing in the data files at all, in fact, I think they might be music files or something.  Rich??

But the Tropico.exe file is where the names are stored.  If you go in with a hex editor, you can see the following stuff near the bottom of the files at these addresses (version 1.06 file):

City Names: 0017:7E80-8040
Editor Conditons:  0017:AEA0-EAF0
Dictator Names:  0018:1AA0-20C0
Character Names:  0018:7790-8D20

There is also some other interesting stuff on cheat codes, wav file names and even a hint of a scenario translation program.   :-/

The names look to be strings of 8 to 12 characters long and should work if you keep them to that.  I changed Che Guevera to my name and changed Clyde the cow to Chris, and it worked!  You need a good hex editor to do this, I don't think Wordpad would cut it.  I use Hackman  

[Rich ¥Weeds¥ Nagel]

Hiya Dave,

The "XDT" files that are in your DATA2 folder are all of the (proprietary compressed <aaarrgghhh>!) music that's in the game. The "PK2" files that are in the DATA folder are all of the graphic resources and the sound effects (excluding Tropico chat).

And yes, you're correct, you can carefully edit the names with a hex editor in the EXE. I had thought about writing a crude QBasic prog to change them, but Poptop release patches too often for me to keep the utility up to date and working <G>.

Oh and yes, you would not wanna try the editing with Wordpad <G>. You'll be re-installing Tropico straightaway <G>.

El Presidente Ricardo

[Tropicana21]

Wow you guys are totally amazing! All my people have totally Un-Tropican Names! It's so much easier when you have Joe Blows running around your island. Thanks alot, you dudes are cool.

Tropicana21!!!

[Chris]

Chris? Thank you Dave. I'm homored to be the first character you changed.

[robbo]

u would chris  

i'm glad dave didn't rename it to me. Then there would be allsorts of trouble, mainly with a full blown coup on his island.  

[robbo]

btw, tropicana21 welcome to the board

hope you enjoy your stay here

[BlueWaterFodder]

Howdy guys. Are you doing something different than just right clicking on the Tropicans name and changing the name? Is this a way to change all the default names of the Tropicians right from the start?

Here's something I picked up somewhere here in the forums that I like to do. I usually go in at the start of a game and change the name of a young boy to my name so I can track him and see how he does. Once I did this and he (I) grew up to be a dock worker with a party on wife who couldn't keep out of the bar, and a couple of brat kids who had zero respect for me. It was like deja vu.     j/k  It was cool though to watch me. I do this with friends (and bosses) too. Guess where the bosses end up?  Heh heh.