LotR28 - Random Rollicking for Returning Refugees

Corbeau's "absolutely no Babylonians, guaranteed" game crashes my regular edition with a "runtime error" in the main exe (with no more detail). Ouch.

Ouch indeed. That the game crashes instead of simply stating "invalid savefile" or something is really embarrassing. And that they apparently have no version number included in the savefile (or don't check for it) is outright amateurish.

Yeah. Crashes mine, too. I guess, for now, we have separate communities. The "deluxe" community and the "simple" group. Until they get this resolved. I'm flying out in an hour or so, and I'll think on the plane. For now, that seems like our only option, however. Which is a really sucky option.

Arathorn

LotR28, huh? I don't have Civ5, my computer would be unable to run it. Better save up for that laptop.

The game itself is looking amazing, love the graphics. Your game is looking interesting, I'll have to keep up with it. You guys are my source for Civ5!

I wonder if it's possible to downgrade a deluxe install to be compatible with standard edition by removing the Babylon assets. When I get home I might try installing Civ5 on my laptop and experiment a bit.

Can someone with the deluxe edition open a save from the standard edition (say, Arathorn's posted earlier in this thread), do ---nothing---, and then save again, and post it? I want to see what the difference is.

TheBB said:

Can someone with the deluxe edition open a save from the standard edition (say, Arathorn's posted earlier in this thread), do ---nothing---, and then save again, and post it? I want to see what the difference is.

Click to expand...

Attached.

Yeah... those are almost entirely different (assuming I'm looking at the "same" files). I was hoping the difference would just be cosmetic.

Thanks anyway.

Just lurking here..its clear the game doesn't "search for babylon" in the game file when it tries to load on a machine with the regular version. They are different files. Really not much different than if someone with only Warlords tried to load a BTS game.

Longer term if more DLC content gets released you could end up with multiple groups of people who are unable to play in SG's with one another.

I'm going to wait another 24 hours to see if we can get this resolved. I am wondering about Jaffa's "downgrade" possibility and playing around with his laptop and multiple installs. Yeah, it'll be a huge PITA, but I want to see if it works.

If not, I guess the LotR games will be non-deluxe until the thickheads at Firaxis get off their rears and fix it. I'd bet money that they did it to prevent people from buying a deluxe version and making a file with Babylon for their friends. Stupid DRM -- I hate it! (and it's peripherally, at least, associated with my profession)

Arathorn

Took a bit of reverse engineering...

but I managed to write a program that converts a save made with deluxe edition so that it can be loaded with standard edition.. here you go with the 2800BC save..

Will have to do some work before I can turn it into a tool that can be given away to a normal user thou... it currently requires running several programs in steps, and its past midnight here and work tomorrow.

Actually decided to just do it tonight...

its a perl script.. and it will most likely not work on games where Babylon is actually in the game.. and it wont work on any possible future DLC civs (would have to be adapted for each) .. so hopefully Firaxis will fix this in a future patch.

NB! there seems to be a bug in the program somewhere that sometimes trips away data that it should not.. and make the save not loadable in any version .. will find a fix soon and replace the file


(18:00 CET, Oct 05)File has now been replaced.. the new version should in theory be able to handle any DLC.. and in addition the script will also strip the huge amount of version strings that occurs in the save when you reload many times in a game (which is very likely to happen in a succession game)

Edit: made another new version.. see this thread for download:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=388937

Gyathaar said:

Actually decided to just do it tonight...

its a perl script.. and it will most likely not work on games where Babylon is actually in the game.. and it wont work on any possible future DLC civs (would have to be adapted for each) .. so hopefully Firaxis will fix this in a future patch.

Click to expand...

I think I might love you.

I think that I do love you.

Seriously, this save incompatibility is an order of magnitude worse than expansion save incompatibility. The problem is that those of us who paid for this "bonus" content can't disable it in order to play with vanilla versions (as far as I know). It'd be as if BTS had only one print run and magically erased your vanilla CIV disks upon purchase. Ridiculous.

Gyathaar, great work

does that mean i can actually continue from Corbeau's save? If so, got to go back and recall our plan and play tonight (+12 hrs)

Gyathaar,

YOU ARE AWESOME!!!!

Thank you!!!

We need to proliferate this tool all over. That is totally awesome.

We can play SGs again!! WOOHOO!!!!!

That news just made my emperor level 3-city culture Bollywood narrow win even more exciting.



Arathorn

Gyathaar, this is indeed awesome work. Reversing the save format so quickly and hacking a tool...fantastic! A community divide would have been terrible.

Reading all of this i realize the Tower of babel isn't in the game

Pre turnGiven the lack of units we have, I would go for settler, warrior, settler to at least be able to escort and fight
at the same time.

I will settle NE as we have a unit there to make sure our settler doesn't get ambushed.


Turn 31 - 2760BC
pottery is done, go for calendar, currently takes 10 turns
though our warrior is not totally healed start to move him towards our capital to make sure
we can use him as an escort, he spots more stuff, wine dear and sheep
worker moves onto silver

Turn 32 - 2720BC
settler done, warrior is 40 shields and spear 50
we currently make 7spt, thus 42 versus 56, it's clear we waste less with a warrior
but the production panel tells me its 5 turns for the warrior and 7 for a spear. Sth doesn't add up here
stick to warrior

move both warrior and settler
workers start to mine, takes 8 turns?

Turn 33 - 2680BC
settler moves, warrior heals


Turn 34 - 2640BC
zzz

Turn 35 - 2600BC
units move, workers mine


Turn 36 - 2560BC
since we almost reach the settle site, send warrior east to explore


Turn 37 - 2520BC
our second warrior is done, go for a settler, takes 8 turns
discover food galore in the northeast, plenty of wheat
settler reaches destination

Turn 38 - 2480BC
found Orleans, decide to go for a second worker, there are so many plots to improve, we better get one up
takes currently 35 turns, but I set city on growth, hence it will grow in 4 turns

wandering warrior spots ruins in the northeast

Turn 39 - 2440BC
the ruins give us



IT Oh Caesar is not happy with us, I pretend and apologize



Turn 40 - 2440BC
in the southeast we meet Warsaw
silver is connected, start with irrigation of the flood plains

IT Warsaw and India are allies now

Turn 41 - 2360BC
exploring the east

IT Great Library gets built somewhere, we get calendar


Turn 41 - 2320BC
Orleans has grown and worker is now down to 15 turns
we are plenty happy at the moment but the third city will push both happiness down as well as social policy limit up

settler will be done in 2, we should escort it with our warrior
I would start with some military next, we have to watch out for Roma and bust some barb camps too

we could also buy friendship with Venice for the food bonus which would allow for for better production

as for research, going for IW makes sense in my mind

Our land at the moment, the warrior in the east should continue to explore a bit

This save file was created with a deluxe install with the DLC\DLC_Deluxe folder removed from the Assets directory. Can someone confirm if it can be loaded in a standard install?

Also, how did we get to be on turn 42? How many turns are we playing?