Experience issues installing Buffy with a steam install.
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Hey Imploding. I'll address some things here and then try to help you with the Steam installation.
First of all, this:
the crappy Steam "powerspray" install.
Is not a "thing". There is no Steam "powerspray" install. With the exception of the "Dropbox" thing, which has nothing to do with Steam or any CIV IV install, those locations are all legitimate for Steam or non-steam.
Document\My Games - Civ IV always has folders installed here - most games do. This is where things like Saves file are located and Custom Assets. Mods are NOT to be installed here even though there is a "Mods' folder.
Steamapps\Common\..... - This is the main location of the CIV IV or BTS installation..well, all Steam main game folders are here. However, note that the
main BTS folder actually looks like this :
D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's
Civilization IV Beyond the Sword\
Beyond the Sword
Note that there are 2 "BTS" folders. A high level and lower level BTS folder. The lower level BTS folder is the Main folder. The higher level folder is there for the Steam version to make BTS standalone, as it contains the vanilla Civ IV assets needed to run BTS (disk and non-Steam versions are different in this regard...Steam version of BTS does not need vanilla CIV IV installed at all..it runs "standalone"). The Mod folder in the lower level BTS folder is where mods would be installed.
Appdata..... - All versions of CIV IV and most any games, or programs really, install some folder here. In case of CIV IV the game cache is located here. You would never touch anything here, except maybe to delete the game cache, and this location has nothing to do with Steam.
Firaxis Games.... - This is not related to Steam or the Steam installation of BTS. The only reason this location likely exists is that in the past you had run a non-Steam version of Civ IV. This location is completely irrelevant to the Steam installation. (you can delete this if you wish and probably would be best. When Civ IV is uninstalled it often leaves these folders in place)
Dropbox - Has nothing to do with Steam or Civ IV. I believe Dropbox is a online file storage website, so my assumption is this location on your machine is used to sync (upload/download) files and folders used with Dropbox. In other words this location can be ignored entirely for the purposes here. My guess is that this location came up in your search as it contains like save files you were storing.
Okay, the Steam installation itself:
The steam install of BTS does require something special that you may not be aware of. A few years ago, Steam created their own "version" of IV when the Gamespy MP servers closed, to incorporate their own MP service. Problem is that they changed some of the game assets, which conflicted with a lot of BTS mods. Most mods simply don't run properly or at all with that version. Steam fixed this by creating a "Beta - original" release version, to revert the game back to the original assets. A step must be performed in Steam to activate this version, as follows.
1) Right click on BTS in your Steam Library
2) Go to Properties
3) Go to Betas tab
4) from the drop down list select "Original Release - Unsupported".
5) Steam will basically reinstall the game to that version.
However, I might suggest that before you do this step, do a clean install of BTS. Uninstall the game, and then completely delete all the folders you listed above, although Dropbox is irrelevant so does not matter what you do with that. I recommend this in case something odd had been changed by you for whatever reason, and the fact that there are remnants of a prior non-steam installation. Just wipe clean. Oh..to clarify..just delete the Civ IV or BTS related folders. Don't delete AppData or My Documents themselves. That Firaxis folder can be delete entirely though.
Also, a couple of other important things once you have BTS installed properly.
1) Always run BTS from the executable. Never from the Steam library. In other words, run the game like you would before you used the Steam version. You may already do it this way anyway.
2) If on Win 10, set compatibility mode to Win 7. This seems to be the best mode to run the game. If you don't know how to do this, right-click on the main BTS exe > Properties > Compatibility > check "Run this game in Compatibility Mode for" > select Win 7 from the drop down. Also, on this tab check "Run as Adminstrator", which is actually quite important.
3) For BUFFY you need to make sure you perform Steps 1 and 2 from the Vista Fixes page on the HOF site here:
http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php?show=vista
This step is essential for any version of BTS (steam or non-steam) to get past those HOF error messages.
Lastly, I like to create shortcuts to run mods. You can do this by right-clicking the main BTS exe and select create shortcut. Right-click on the shortcut and click in the "Target" field. Press the END key on your keyboard so the cursor moves to the end of the text there. Press space bar once for a space and then paste in the following text:
mod="BUFFY-3.19.005"
click OK button to exit.
Rename your short cut by adding something like BUFFY to the end to identify it. Now you simply use the shortcut to load BTS and BUFFY at the same time. Viola!
Hope this helps and please let me know if you have any questions.
edit: Just to be clear, as I don't think I was explicit above, BUFFY or any standalone mod would be installed in the Mod folder here:
D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's
Civilization IV Beyond the Sword\
Beyond the Sword
exploit is just necessary, please re-add it towards 004 and 005.
