Legend of Cao Cao English Version

[Lady Wu]

Sept 13, 2010---This post has been modified to include the most recent release.

Legend of Cao Cao is a turn-based strategy game (akin to Fire Emblem) released by Koei in 1998. As it was never released in English, we have translated the game into English (from the official Chinese release) and making the patched version available here.

There are currently no plans to update the game. Feel free to post suggestions about the translation and the presentation, but unless you've found a gameplay bug I'll most likely not deal with it.

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LoCC.zip

The one file to rule them all. Unzip into its own folder and run LoCC.exe.

(For those of you who have download this file before today and who haven't downloaded the "Nov 17 patch" yet, you may encounter problems while saving in-battle during the Battle of Tong Pass. You'll need this: Nov 17 patch.)

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[shameless plug]If you enjoyed this game, why not try The Legend of Lu Bu, considered the most classic mod in the Chinese LoCC community?[/shameless plug]

[Lady Wu]

This will get you all the way up to the fall of Dong Zhuo and to Cao Cao preparing to fight the remnant Yellow Turbans at Qingzhou:

R_04.EEX

This is a partially hacked data file. It'll give you the battle names, the power attack lines, and retreat dialogue in English:

Imsg.e5

Make sure you back up the original files first, as always!

[Sun Gongli]

Thanks, Lady Wu! Does this mean I can stop trying to get used to LoCC's clunky editor now?

[Lady Wu]

Thanks, Lady Wu! Does this mean I can stop trying to get used to LoCC's clunky editor now?

What editor? Are you also translating the game? (Actually, if you know how to use the editors, do you want to help hacking the non-dialogue files?)

R_05.eex

(Sorry, skipped an S file.)

[Lady Wu]

Was mucking around with the exe.

Ekd5.exe, English hack version 1.0

This gives you menus in English. But not much else...

[James]

Lady Wu! You’ve done a wonderful job!

Thank you sooooo much!



[i]Click on an item to equip it. I clicked on the book I received (it was one of the moon letter awards that appeared in the first battle) to equip it to Cao Cao. You can use the 'next' button to switch between officers so you can give other people new moon letter gear as well.


Click on a dude to assign them to a slot.
More on this when I actually do something interesting in this menu. Or maybe someone else will fully elaborate on this window. Plunge!

[Taishi Ci 2.0]

For the Plunge screen (Plunge into battle?) the darkened officers are mandatory for that battle, and the others are optional. The arrows on the tiles show how many units you have to take, so you have to use at least that many people; the blank tiles are for if you want to bring more officers than you are required to. The buttons in the corner sort the officers. I hope you know what OK and Cancel do.

Edit:

Played a bit with the translation. Looks good so far.

"Working" means I tested it, not that the ones not listed don't work.

Working Camp Dialog
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Everything so far works, but pre-Hulao, Li Dian's last line has a stray "g" in the corner of the box.

Working Critical Quotes
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Cao Cao, Xiahou Dun, Xiahou Yuan, Cao Hong, Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu.

Working Death Quotes
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Zhang Bao, Zhang Liang, Guo Si, Li Jue, Li Su, Lu Bu, Xiahou Dun, Xiahou Yuan, Cao Ren, Yu Jin, Cheng Pu, Huang Gai, Sun Jian, Tao Qian.

Duels
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Guan Yu/Hua Xiong: Works, no problems.

Zhang Fei/Lu Bu: Works, but on Lu Bu's last line, the side of the box has some misc. symbols on it.

Guan Yu/Lu Bu: Works, but on Guan Yu's first line, the side of the box has some misc. symbols on it.

Misc.
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Noticed some awkward lines:
"That's what every man of the emperor's thinks." Could be: "That's what all the Emperor's men think"?
"The fortune of the Han is ended." Could be: "The fortune of the Han has ended/is over."?
"It's only this way would Yuan Shao be willing to provide money for the cause." Could be: "This is the only way Yuan Shao..."?

"Defeat Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang" goes off and wraps around the screen. I guess it can't be helped, though, unless you want to try a smaller font?

At the end of the Yellow Turban's battle, when Lui Bei says "We can worry about the future when we get there", there is a stray "n" in the corner of the dialog box.

In the Chapter 1 title, Chapter 1 is untranslated, although "The Hegemon" is in English.

In the menu screen, when you click a button the first time and Cao Cao talks to an officer, it is untranslated. However, when Cao Cao says "Let's go" after deploying, that is translated. You probably knew this, just pointing it out.

At Sishui pre-battle, when Cao Cao says "... to fight well, we will be viewed more highly by others.", there is a stray "y" in the corner of the dialog box.

Before battles, on the tile-background sceen, it's blank now. Is it supposed to be this way?

At Yingyang, when Lu Bu appears and says his line, there is a stray period in the corner.

[Lady Wu]

Stray letters all squished! Thanks!

"Defeat Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang" goes off and wraps around the screen. I guess it can't be helped, though, unless you want to try a smaller font?

Yeah, I need to figure out how to squish the font size. This one I could reword as "Kill Zhangs Bao and Liang" or something, but there are other cases that don't work as well. Battle descriptors, like "Battle of Yingchuan", need to be a few font sizes down (as you'll see with longer battle names). It should be in the exe when I can find it.

In the Chapter 1 title, Chapter 1 is untranslated, although "The Hegemon" is in English.

"Chapter 1" is in the exe. (How silly is that?)

In the menu screen, when you click a button the first time and Cao Cao talks to an officer, it is untranslated. However, when Cao Cao says "Let's go" after deploying, that is translated. You probably knew this, just pointing it out.

Yeah. When you're equipping/buying/selling, the dialogue is in the exe. The exe is really unforgiving in line length, so I may have to revert to early ROM-hack translation speech. I need to figure out what to do with item names, too (you get at most 5 ASCII characters per item name. Eep!).

Before battles, on the tile-background sceen, it's blank now. Is it supposed to be this way?

How do you mean? Screenshot please?

Thanks so much James and Taishi. I can't trigger all the dialogue and events on my own, so it helps to have extra pairs of eyes to look out for stuff!

I'm not going to touch the exe today. I must have mucked around with it too much yesterday and it started to chew up my save files (James, did you figure out what was going on? Did things clear up when you used the original exe?).

[James]

For the Plunge screen (Plunge into battle?) the darkened officers are mandatory for that battle, and the others are optional. The arrows on the tiles show how many units you have to take, so you have to use at least that many people; the blank tiles are for if you want to bring more officers than you are required to. The buttons in the corner sort the officers. I hope you know what OK and Cancel do.

Inside joke! In the poorly subtitled translation of Great Conquest officers scream, “Plunge!” when charging into battle—never something that might make sense like, “Charge!” You simply must watch this DVD if you get a chance. You will appreciate gems like, “I accept with gladness!”

Yeah, I need to figure out how to squish the font size. This one I could reword as "Kill Zhangs Bao and Liang" or something, but there are other cases that don't work as well. Battle descriptors, like "Battle of Yingchuan", need to be a few font sizes down (as you'll see with longer battle names). It should be in the exe when I can find it.

Defeat Zhang Bao and Liang
Defeat the Zhang Brothers

In the Chapter 1 title, Chapter 1 is untranslated, although "The Hegemon" is in English.

"Chapter 1" is in the exe. (How silly is that?)

Yeah. When you're equipping/buying/selling, the dialogue is in the exe. The exe is really unforgiving in line length, so I may have to revert to early ROM-hack translation speech. I need to figure out what to do with item names, too (you get at most 5 ASCII characters per item name. Eep!).

I guess even SHelm is good?
MBean! (Are there multiple beans? 1Bean, 2Bean; ABean, BBean).
HrseW

Thanks so much James and Taishi. I can't trigger all the dialogue and events on my own, so it helps to have extra pairs of eyes to look out for stuff!

You’re welcome! Plenty of harassment yet to come!

I'm not going to touch the exe today. I must have mucked around with it too much yesterday and it started to chew up my save files (James, did you figure out what was going on? Did things clear up when you used the original exe?).

I’m going to take another swing at it soon! Right now I’ve got to siphon through all the routine house-tasks (and health tasks!) that the bloody elves have stopped doing for me.

[Lady Wu]

I just noticed something weird. I'm playing with my English hacked exe, and the descriptors of the saves go weird during battle (James, this may be our problem last night). When I'm saving in camp, the location overwrites the descriptor of the previous save. So, if I'm in the camp during the scenario "Raising an army - before Sishui Pass", and I save over a game called "Battle of Yingchuan, round 1", the name will come out as "Raising an army - before Sishui Pass". But if I'm in the Battle of Sishui, round 4, saving over "Battle of Yingchuan, round 1", it comes out as "Raising an army - Battle of Sishui Pass -Battle of Yingchuan, round 1". I don't know what causes this, but this may be the thing that corrupts the files after several recursions.

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Regarding names and items: the descriptions of the items and tactics, as well as the mini-biographies of the characters, are in Imsg.e5. That file contains a generous amount of blank space (not infinite, but way more than just an extra byte per item, unlike in *cough* ekd5.exe *cough*). I was just thinking that even if I don't hack the exe, I could just put the item name and description in those little boxes populated by Imsg.e5, and people can just right-click on the item/character to get the relevant info.