Can I use the BUG mod? YES!

[AlanH]

You have to tell it to go away in the System tab. Uncheck the "Options Shortcut Reminder" checkbox.

I've just noticed that they haven't updated the version info in that tab!

Note that this is the only shortcut definition text that I modified for the Mac to refer to Command instead of Control. There are other references in various places where you need to use Command key, not Control.

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Got it. Thanks, Alan!

 

[OscarWildebeest]

About 100 turns in, and suddenly the action buttons have disappeared from the bottom of the screen and I can't promote! I've quit and I'll see if the restart helps.

 

[AlanH]

Let me have a save if it's repeatable. I didn't do any extended play testing, but can't imagine why that would happen.

 

[OscarWildebeest]

On restart, I'd lost the interface completely! Am attempting to attach the save now.

 

[AlanH]

You've tripped over a Python v2.4 construct that gets executed when Great People get involved.

Attached is a modified copy of GPUtil.py. Unzip it and use it to replace:

~/Documents/Civilization IV Beyond the Sword/MODS/BUGMod_4.1/Assets/Python/BUG/GPUtil.py

You should then be able to load your file and continue the game.

I'll feed the change into the BUG team.

Python 2.4 introduced options for reverse sorting of lists that fail in Python 2.3. I've done a global search to look for similar problems elsewhere, and not found any more.

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Alan: it works (but of course you knew it would). You're a star, as always. And may I say how exciting it is for me on a personal level to be a play-tester, albeit an unofficial one!

 

[AlanH]

That's the kind of pioneering spirit we need around here!

Keep on testing

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Now, if they could combine the BUG Mod and Varietas Delectat... but apparently that's what the BAT Mod does (among other things), and I read that's not Mac-compatible.

[EDIT: No doubt Xyth is working on it now, though... ]

 

[Lachlan]

Ultimate combination should be Varietas Delectat + BUG MoD + Blue Marble + Leaders of Varietas Delectat + Immigration Mod + Barbarian Civ Python Version + Real Epic + some others possible little mods for increasing historicity and my dreams should be realized...

Too Much ?

Oh My God !

----------

OFF Topic :
I discovered that my Civ 4 BTS runs better on 3.19 Mac BTS, on my iMac, in two days it has one week...

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Don't worry, Lachlan, people will get round to it. You'll have your dream mod before the next arrival of Carcosa.

 

[Lachlan]

"Carcosa" ? What is it

Same sense as "Saint Glin-Glin" in metropolitan french

 

[OscarWildebeest]

"Carcosa" ? What is it

Oh, sorry, I forgot - you're a cultist of Nyarlathotep not of Hastur.

Carcosa

 

[Xyth]

Now, if they could combine the BUG Mod and Varietas Delectat... but apparently that's what the BAT Mod does (among other things), and I read that's not Mac-compatible.

[EDIT: No doubt Xyth is working on it now, though... ]

Making a few preliminary steps, yup.

Btw, BUG and Blue Marble are perfectly compatible. I've had both running from Custom Assets just fine without any trickery needed. They also work fine with Blue Marble in Custom Assets and BUG as a mod.

VD and Blue Marble also coexist happily in both these configurations too.

VD and BUG together is the issue, which is odd given the only file they share is identical in both. I have BUG installed as Custom Assets atm and it turns out that ANY mod launched, including the standard BTS ones, will cause BUG to fail and you're left with no interface at all! It's looking for an .ini file and can't find one. I shall experiment and see if I can find a solution.

The other option is of course to merge BUG and VD together as a mod. I've not tried this yet as I'd prefer a Custom Assets solution but I'm beginning to suspect that a merged mod is an easier and more sensible way of doing this.

I'll also download BAT and see if I can get that going. It seems to me that the reason BAT was failing on Mac was due to the BUG part and now that we have a working BUG (many thanks to AlanH and EmperorFool) I'm hoping we can get BAT running too. After all, BAT is just BUG+Blue Marble+VD+some other mods; it makes sense to follow this as a base rather than making a parallel one.

Lachlan: doesn't the Immigration mod have a .dll? Some of those mods you've listed would be great to get going but I think it's important to have a good "unaltered gameplay" base to work from first. We'll get there, the community here is awesome, I've missed it

 

[AlanH]

What's the attraction of a CustomAssets solution? I'm genuinely interested.

 

[Xyth]

What's the attraction of a CustomAssets solution? I'm genuinely interested.

Well I was hoping that way I could have BUG available for any mod or scenario I played (Firaxis or otherwise), just like Blue Marble.

In other news, I've had a look at BAT and decided I'm not going to bother with it. This is because some parts of it I personally dislike (the flag changes), the biggest parts of it we already have (Bug, VD and Blue Marble), but mostly because it sounds like a new version of VD is due in the not too distant future that's going to incorporate a bunch of stuff that BAT has (and more besides). I think it will be better to follow that than BAT.

So in the meantime I'll keep working on a BUG+VD+Blue Marble solution.

 

[Welnic]

If you play a game with a mod, then a save from that game also has to be played with that mod. If you want to play along with a posted game on the forum, almost all of which don't have any sort of mod loaded, you can't play with a mod. Since BUG, Blue Marble, and Varietas Delectat don't actually change the game play, just the GUI, terrain, or other graphic elements it is perfectly reasonable to play a posted game with all of that goodness. If you can get everything that you want to work in CustomAssets, then you can play other people's saves and they can play yours.

If you go on from there and start changing the gameplay, then that might as well be a mod since you need all of the mod components to play the game anyway. In that case the challenge is to get everything thing to work together, it doesn't really make any sense to try to get it to work in CustomAssets.

 

[AlanH]

Thanks. Points well taken.

My ulterior motive for asking is that, as a result of my experiences with getting BUG running, I was considering resurrecting my drag and drop Mod Installer and trying to provide a more comprehensive Civ4 version. So I need to understand how comprehensive that should be.

Most mods can be installed simply by copying the complete mod folder into one or other of the two /Mods/ folders. Similarly, Blue Marble just gets dumped into CustomAssets in one shot. Most Mac users hardly even need a Mod Installer to do this for them.

At the other end of the spectrum, taking something like BUG and installing it as a CustomAssets mod means splitting it up, renaming folders, and putting them in different places. I'm sure this is something that some users would appreciate an installer to help them with. However, the philosophy of Mod Installer was to provide a generic method for installing *any* mod, avoiding the need for mod makers - mostly Windows users - to create and maintain Mac installers for their work. I'm not sure it's feasible to provide a generic solution for mods like BUG, but I'll give it some thought.

 

[dr_s]

Are there directions somewhere for installing BUG in CustomAssets? I read the page here about installing BUG as a "main" mod, but it's too terse for me to figure out.

Edit: Assume I don't have anything special in ~/Documents/Civilization IV Beyond the Sword/CustomAssets if that makes it simpler.

 

[s.bernbaum]

I agree with dr_s. I just downloaded the new BUG mod and all the related web pages and instructions. The instructions don't seem to apply to this version of the mod. The zip file contains neither a CustomAssets folder nor an .ini file of any sort. The zip file contains four folders: Assets, Info, PrivateMaps, and UserSettings. Do we just install these in the main BTS folder in Documents? If so and nothing else has already been installed is there any reason to save the original Assets folder which contains four empty folders?

Or should all the contents of the zip file go into CustomAssets instead?