I tried to get BlueMarble and Servo mod to work but no avail. Anyone have any luck with gettig any of them to work?

Haven't tried any mods yet but I have DL'd some YourPlanetHere.Civ4WorldBuilderSaves. They load quick and work well.

I tried to get BlueMarble and Servo mod to work but no avail. Anyone have any luck with gettig any of them to work?
How did you install them, BlueMarble in particular?

BlueMarble is an .exe, and so is SevoMod. That's why you guys are having so much trouble installing them.

I plan to adapt my Drag and Drop Mod installer (see my sig) to support Civ4. I have also agreed with Kai, the author of BlueMarble, that we will cooperate to bring his mod plus my installer together to make BlueMarble easily installable on the Mac.

My part of the deal awaits the arrival of Civ4 on UK shores. I believe it was last seen avoiding icebergs in the North Atlantic. I have Kai's BlueMarble file set ready to test it with, so within a week or three you should have that mod, at least.

Much appreciated Alan H.

Is there any hope of persuading the Windows Modders to provide simple data archives rather than self installers? Where would one start? It shouldn't be any more work for them.

(And I must say, I am surprised as the use of self-executing self-installers for what is got to be pretty straightforward addition of files to a well defined folder structure. This is particularly so given the general distrust of .exe files and their potential for virus distribution.)

I agree. I can't understand why they use .exe files either. It may be a throback to the early days of Civ3, when mod files used to have to be scattered all over the disk to get them to work, and they've never got out of the habit. Another possibility is that a lot of users really are very scared of touching the file system themselves.

I made a plea for zips in the Civ3 forums a while back, when Civ3 Complete for Mac was just released, on the basis that we represent a new "market" for their old mods. However, I saw no responses to it. Please feel free to ask again in the Civ4 forum. Maybe you can make a more impassioned case as a potential mod user ... which I am not.

Personally, I think that .exes have more pros (a higher chance of the mods ending-up in the correct locations) than cons (mac compatability, need to update the .exe for new files etc).

For the GOTM installer, getting files in the correct place was a nightmare - although, ironically, that was somewhat due to the .exe installer requiring people choose where to install them. :eek:

Personally, I think that .exes have more pros (a higher chance of the mods ending-up in the correct locations) than cons (mac compatability, need to update the .exe for new files etc).

For the GOTM installer, getting files in the correct place was a nightmare - although, ironically, that was somewhat due to the .exe installer requiring people choose where to install them. :eek:

I guess we're not asking for hand-holding here but simple accessibility. Maybe there are difficulties getting all the files in the right place with a simple .zip. But at least we can try. Having them all wrapped up in a .exe is a "Do Not Enter - You Are Not Welcome" sign for us.

I mean - I believe there are even people here who if merely given access to the underlying files and a list of what goes where could put together a Mac installer.

We're not asking for people to go out of their way to help us - just that they don't completely exclude us in the first place. It's not a case of either a .exe or a .zip but providing both. Nobody will be any worse off - Windows users can still use .exe to their heart's content.

I guess we're not asking for hand-holding here but simple accessibility. Maybe there are difficulties getting all the files in the right place with a simple .zip. But at least we can try. Having them all wrapped up in a .exe is a "Do Not Enter - You Are Not Welcome" sign for us.

I mean - I believe there are even people here who if merely given access to the underlying files and a list of what goes where could put together a Mac installer.

We're not asking for people to go out of their way to help us - just that they don't completely exclude us in the first place. It's not a case of either a .exe or a .zip but providing both. Nobody will be any worse off - Windows users can still use .exe to their heart's content.
I recognise that - but to be completely honest, I doubt many people making mods even consider this issue for mac users - ignorance rather than exclusion.

One strategy may be to petition the main mod-makers to make the source available in zip format and .exe format - mod makers generally like their efforts to have maximum exposure, and from that perspective, being accomodating to mac users makes good sense.

The exception being Civ4 mods with DLLs, for which there is no easy way of porting across (is a Mac SDK likely?)

(is a Mac SDK likely?)
Not while the Mac version of Civ4 is a monolithic application. The Windows SDK generates a CvGameCore.DLL file that is used in place of the default game code. This concept doesn't exist in the Mac version.

I would be wary of downloading Blue Marble if you guys are having trouble running the game by itself, it is a beast on your computer usage, it takes my PC settings from High to Low.

There is a low res version of BlueMarble. Dunno how it compares for hardware usage or as eye candy.