How to ease the making of spoilers ?

[Socrates]

Recently I got a HD crash, and I lost all data on my current games : screenshots, precise logs and of course the saves (which I won't ask to my opponents because that's too heavy and quite useless anyway). This lead me to think that keeping precise spoilers is somewhat a hard task. So far I was writing down various events of the game in a text file (foundation of cities, what they produce, discovering of techs, deals with AIs/humans, etc...), and I was taking screenshots of important events. I now find it boring to do.

I'd like to know if there is a utility available that can automatically keep track of what happens in the game, turn by turn, at least something that is quicker than writing down in a text file. Because I can't remember all the things that happen in many games, and opening several saves to see what happened and when is also boring.

Also, maybe a better program than Paint for screenshots is available ? The main issue I have with Paint is that it's difficult to cut'n paste large pictures (because of the tool bars).

[Shabbaman]

MS paint? I use paint shop pro.

[grs]

www.irfanview.com is imho the best free software for taking and viewing shots. It does not have any painting functions though. You can also use gimp http://www.gimp.org/, which is a free, semi professional graphic program.

[Pastorius]

Irfanview!!! Gimp is much more complicated.

Would you believe me if I say that I keep my spoilers here, and here only - meaning that I immediately upon turn play post here whenever I have something to add.

Which is also the reason why my spoilers seldom have comments by other people, probably because the quality isnt all that, as a result of not keeping text files like other people do


might I add [:p]

[Socrates]

What I want for screenshots is a program where I can select a rectangle as large as the full screen (MS Paint doesn't allow it, except for the full screen maybe), and with a bit more effects, like transparency, etc... I still want to be able to "paint", ie. to add text or geometrical objects, etc...

What I want for keeping logs is a program where I only have to click on a few buttons to say "Writing discovered" or "Warrior in Paris", and that would keep all those data in an easy-to-see-and-extract file. Maybe such a program exists for Civ3, and maybe it can even update the data file without any work from you.

[Socrates]

quote:Originally posted by kryszcztov

What I want for screenshots is a program where I can select a rectangle as large as the full screen (MS Paint doesn't allow it, except for the full screen maybe), and with a bit more effects, like transparency, etc... I still want to be able to "paint", ie. to add text or geometrical objects, etc...

I found a free program that looks promising, it's called PhotoFiltre. You can find it there : http://www.photofiltre.com/
It is working well for all kinds of basic operations and also has some effects, cool. [cool] It's a bit different from MS Paint, but I'll get used to it, and at last I can copy-paste portions of the image that are greater than the current image window. [thumbsup] I took the latest pic for the ISDG game with it tonight.