Joan cannot play the French ???

[knacki]

As I said in another thread, I cannot patch my french Civ3 version to 1.29, seems to be a common problem, ok, but then I can't play GOTM
So, finally since I've bought conquest, I think "Now, that's nice, I can play GOTM on PTW, coz it's already the proper version !"
Guess what : I cannot open the save on my french version of PTW, because of the french folder names.
Seems like I'm screwed, dammit, this month no french will play the french...

[AlanH]

It's a very poor design by Firaxis. The unit names are built into the starting save as English unit names, but your French software has French folder and file names. I think it might be possible to create dummy copies of your unit xxx.ini files and folders and change the file and folder names to the English versions. Then the game might play OK.

I've played with an idea for an automatic utility to do this. It would examine the English unit names in a GOTM start file and compare them with the equivalent unit names in another langauge version of the software to create a translation table, and then produce the file and folder copies that are needed. If it could be created it would work for any language version. If it were produced in Java, or as a web application in php, it would also be able to adapt Mac versions. But I don't currently have time to do it myself, and I don't have any foreign software versions for testing If anyone wants to take up the idea and implement it I'll be happy to provide more details of how I think it could work.

[ainwood]

There is an automatic utility to rename the english files to french ones. I posted the link in the 'other' thread.

Edit: Link is Here. I suggest you read the rest of the thread about precautions with this: I haven't tried it, so I can't guarantee that it works!

[knacki]

that for sure is good news, finally.
Still, I won't be able to submit my game, too bad...
Damn, french sucks... I have to get the english version !

[AlanH]

Originally posted by knacki

Still, I won't be able to submit my game, too bad...

Why?

[knacki]

If I understand right, this tool performs modifications on the save file to translate every unit, improvement, maybe tech names from english to french, so basically I play on a french save, which means that if I submit my game, it will be impossible to open my save on an english version...
Or am I totally meesed up in my brain ?
I'll try when I'm home, but still I prefer to have the english version (the worst thing is that with my conquest CD I could install the english version, but not on a french version of vanilla, for the same path/directories names reasons...)

[AlanH]

Originally posted by knacki
If I understand right, this tool performs modifications on the save file to translate every unit, improvement, maybe tech names from english to french, so basically I play on a french save, which means that if I submit my game, it will be impossible to open my save on an english version...

Ahah, I see! I was thinking of a utility to provide a translation the other way, which seems to me to be the easier way to do it. If the existing software does what you say then you are right, it could be a problem for us to verify your save, and it would also create a very dangerous precedent to allow edited save files.

[cybergogo]

Originally posted by knacki
If I understand right, this tool performs modifications on the save file to translate every unit, improvement, maybe tech names from english to french, so basically I play on a french save, which means that if I submit my game, it will be impossible to open my save on an english version...

I live in Paris but have the UK version, so I have no problems with unit names.
However, a friend of mine had the FR version and had to manually copy and translate each folder containing the units.
If I understand correctly AlanH's idea, it's about translating folders in English, so that the save file in English can find the units.
And it is not about changing the save file...

@ Knacki (max? ) - try translating the name of the folders and the name of the units to the English equivalent. Then the save file in English will be able to read the folder names and the unit files.
You can find all the English names in the pediaicons.txt file that comes with the save file for GOTM31.

Oh, and don't forget to copy all the french folders and files.

I know, it seems to be a very long thing to do, and probaly the game will crash anyway a couple of times, but you should try it because the game is quite good.

Good luck!

[ainwood]

That utility doesn't change the save file=> it only changes the folder names and perhaps the pediaicons references.

[Detlef Richter]

I've done it with my German Version and it was a very big cake of work.
But now after many many reloads, it works fine.

[knacki]

Well, thanx for the advice, I hope it's just a path pb, coz' if it's more (such as smthg with the exe or other data files all this work for nothing ... according to Detlef Richter it should work, though, we'll see !)
Another interesting thing : after installing my french version, I load an english save (downloaded here, can't remember which one....) and basically the game was in french (advisors messages, etc...) but every unit, improvement in the city view queue were in english, so I think there must be some langage info in the saves. Not sure, but...

[AlanH]

That's correct. The game file contains data about all the units and buildings you can produce, plus names of cities, citizen types, worker tasks, unit actions ...

The problems arise when the software uses those names to try to find images or text details in the external files. If it can't find files or folders or pediaicons.txt or civilopedia.txt entries with the same names then it crashes.