1.0.0.621: Game loads latest mod version although it's disabled

I have two versions of a mod I'm trying to test (Balance - City Development), v.6 and v.7. I have both versions in my mods directory. I have version 6 enabled and version 7 disabled in my "installed mods' interface. When I start a new game (also if I load a saved game), it is clearly loading version 7 despite it being disabled. I can tell because version 7 adds new buildings like an aqueduct, and reduced the happiness of colloseums from 4 to 3. I check the civilopedia for these changes and since they're there, it loaded version 7.

This bug is very annoying because it leads to a runtime error crash when I try to reload an old save game created with a version lower than 7 (version 7 apparently breaks backwards compatibility by adding new buildings). In order to load my older saved games, I have to remove version 7 from the mods folder. This is ridiculous, since I do a lot of modding and testing, and want to be able to to use either version on the fly as the design appears to support.

I'd be interested if anyone can reproduce this behavior, or has seen it with other mods. The two mods in question are attached below. I don't know if these are special somehow, or it does this for any mod out there. Although it shouldn't matter, I do have a lot of other mods installed, over 40, of which maybe 30 are enabled. They are mostly balancing and UI mods. This is not an issue of mod conflicts, just the game grabbing the latest version no matter what you tell it.

Yes, this is a very serious problem! I'm wondering if it's only for modders tho, and not people who download off modbuddy. Modbuddy deletes your old version I'm guessing? Because so far I have not had any complaints from people trying out my mod.

Slowpoke said:

download off modbuddy.

Click to expand...

You mean off mod browser, right? No, the browser doesn't automatically delete older versions, it lists all of them but lets you only enable 1 version per mod.

This problem may be more intricate and affect only certain kinds of mods. I think it's happening because in version 7 the mod started adding new buildings, and therefore setting the AffectsSavedGames flag and the MinCompatibleSaveVersion. but if I remember correctly, I tried turning both of these off and the behaviour didn't change.

Well the mod I'm using didn't add any buildings or units or anything complex. It started breaking immediately I'm guessing, I just didn't notice until version 4 because they were all value changes until then. Changing a value to a set value twice causes no difference. But add in an sql dealing with equations, and that's a different story.

This problem happens with all mods.

The only way to fix this if you happen to install a newer mod version (but not use it to preserve save game compatability) is to completely wipe all your mods and manually reinstall them in the correct order that the save initiually started.

It appears that the game will ALWAYS enable all mods installed even if they are set to disable in the menu (i.e. mods that would clearly conflict but you want to have for certain games), when multiple mod versions are involved.

Are you sure it's a problem with all mods? If it were, I would suspect there would be staggeringly more people complaining. Perhaps it is all mods, but only some computers? Or something strange like that.