New HOF Mods Released!

[Denniz]

DynamicSpirit means security for the competition, not for your computer. Clearly, granting a third party fan-made mod (with deliberately untold functionality) admin rights on your computer is not something Microsoft would champion! Unfortunately, if you have the steam version of BTS things seem to get even worse, as it seems it may be necessary to grant Steam itself admin rights (BTS fails to launch if it is marked 'run as admin') which is a bridge too far for me at least.

I understand people's concern with computer security. For the record: We do not collect any personal information with the HOF Mod. The HOF Mod has been out around two years now without any problems. Hopefully our track record counts for something.

 

[FiveAces]

I tried using the new vanilla mod last night and in the middle of the game the oddest thing happened - when I opened the city screen, instead of the normal view with info panes on the left and specialists on the right etc, I saw what looked like a minimal interface screen with only the top and bottom bars visible. In the middle instead of the left and right panels it was just more visible tiles around the city. I wasn't able to change specialists, or even tell how much happy/health the city had... Unfortunately I didn't think to take a screenshot

Anyway, I fixed it by turning the specialist stacker off, so maybe that bug hasn't entirely been fixed yet?

 

[Denniz]

I tried using the new vanilla mod last night and in the middle of the game the oddest thing happened - when I opened the city screen, instead of the normal view with info panes on the left and specialists on the right etc, I saw what looked like a minimal interface screen with only the top and bottom bars visible. In the middle instead of the left and right panels it was just more visible tiles around the city. I wasn't able to change specialists, or even tell how much happy/health the city had... Unfortunately I didn't think to take a screenshot

Anyway, I fixed it by turning the specialist stacker off, so maybe that bug hasn't entirely been fixed yet?

Do you have a save?

 

[FiveAces]

Do you have a save?

No, I didn't think to make one since I fixed the problem that turn and the autosave will have been replaced since it happened mid-game. The final save was submitted as #13238, maybe you can open that and turn the stacker back on to see if the problem comes back - you'll know when you open the city screen. I'd do it but I'm at work right now.

If not I'll play another game tonight or tomorrow and see if I can replicate the problem.

 

[Mesix]

The initial save should have been submitted too, no? Maybe the problem is present in the intial save.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Same thing had happened to me as well, in one of my recent submissions. I turned off specialist stacker and it was all ok. To be honest, I really don't value that part of the mod too highly. Maybe I am missing something?

 

[BakeliteRules]

tried to get an answer on another forum thread but no response. I am extremely frustrated at with the new BTS Mod for BOTM. I have a vista SP-1 laptop and I get the classic warning addressed in post #2. I have tried everything to fix this and am very frustrated with the lack of coherent help for someone new to this process. I was eager to try more of the "game of the month" games but having spent 2 days trying to load BOTM-(9) and getting the warning I am about to give up. It appears as though if you aren't an experienced gamer with more than extraodinary computer skills Civ Fanatics doesn't care if you participate. I have given the Civ folder complete admin rights and even created a new user with full admin rights (what a pain since you are basically starting over) with the same results. I have Vanilla, Warlords, And BTS disk version but beginning to think this sight is only for extreme gamers and maybe I should move on. Any step by etep things I can check or try would be appreciated other wisw I guess I will have to quit playing the GOTMs

 

[Denniz]

tried to get an answer on another forum thread but no response. I am extremely frustrated at with the new BTS Mod for BOTM. I have a vista SP-1 laptop and I get the classic warning addressed in post #2. I have tried everything to fix this and am very frustrated with the lack of coherent help for someone new to this process. I was eager to try more of the "game of the month" games but having spent 2 days trying to load BOTM-(9) and getting the warning I am about to give up. It appears as though if you aren't an experienced gamer with more than extraodinary computer skills Civ Fanatics doesn't care if you participate. I have given the Civ folder complete admin rights and even created a new user with full admin rights (what a pain since you are basically starting over) with the same results. I have Vanilla, Warlords, And BTS disk version but beginning to think this sight is only for extreme gamers and maybe I should move on. Any step by etep things I can check or try would be appreciated other wisw I guess I will have to quit playing the GOTMs

I am sorry that your experience has been so frustrating. Vista has created a lot of problems. I sounds like you still need to set each of the Civ4 exe's to run as admininstrator. You can change them by right-clicking on the exe in windows explorer, select Properties, and click on the Compatability tab. The privilege level box is at the bottom.

 

[BakeliteRules]

Denniz- Thanks for the help. don't know if I am making progress or not. I changed all three CIV IV .exe files as you suggested. I then tried the GOTM-(9) download. It got as far as loading Mod (3.17.001? I think) then it crashed saying CIV has stopped working Any thing else to check. I tried to take a print screen of the crash specifics but unable to copy into paint. Will try again

 

[BakeliteRules]

denniz=Not sure if I am uploading attachment right but this is the screen results at CiV BTS crash

 

[Denniz]

Alot of the time a crash means a bad patch install. You might want to try reinstalling the patch. If you used the in-game advance menu to patch, you will find it in your My Games folder. (i.e. My Games/Beyond the Sword/Patches). The is an asset checker program you can download to check. http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php?show=assetschecker

 

[DynamicSpirit]

tried to get an answer on another forum thread but no response. I am extremely frustrated at with the new BTS Mod for BOTM. I have a vista SP-1 laptop and I get the classic warning addressed in post #2. I have tried everything to fix this and am very frustrated with the lack of coherent help for someone new to this process. I was eager to try more of the "game of the month" games but having spent 2 days trying to load BOTM-(9) and getting the warning I am about to give up. It appears as though if you aren't an experienced gamer with more than extraodinary computer skills Civ Fanatics doesn't care if you participate.

It's not that, it's more to do with - all these games are run by volunteers and we don't always have time to look into every problem that occurs. Often if a post hasn't been replied to, it's because the people who read it don't know what the answer is and so leave it on the assumption/hope that someone else will know. The HOF forum is probably a better place than the GOTM forums for unusual technical difficulties specific to the HOF mod, since this is where the guys who wrote the HOF mod hang around (We just borrow it for GOTMs...)

At the moment I certainly hope your problems can be fixed so you can participate in the next BOTM, but right now I can't think of anything beyond what Denniz has suggested, and trying to reinstall the patch.

 

[BakeliteRules]

Downloaded mod again, It still will not load and CIV stops working as before. Tried the Assets checker and it came up with 160 errors couldn't find CIV apparantly. The directions say to download the assets checker to a temp file. Does it need to be in the Firaxis folder?. Still trying to figure this out but pretty much tried everything I can think of with no luck. I will see if I can find out anything more on the HOF forum, but I am pretty sure I have read most everything related. Anyway Thanks guys for your help, it looks like participating in GOTMs are not in the cards for me.

 

[Methos]

Downloaded mod again, It still will not load and CIV stops working as before.

Did you also re-install the patch as was suggested by Denniz?

Tried the Assets checker and it came up with 160 errors couldn't find CIV apparantly.

Can you please send the text file that is created by the assets checker to hof.civfanatics@gmail.com? Let us look it over so we can get a better idea of what the problem is and so that we can better help remedy this problem.

The directions say to download the assets checker to a temp file. Does it need to be in the Firaxis folder?

No. You can place it in any folder you want to. Just make sure that both files in the zip are placed in whatever folder you put them in. The checker knows where to look to check.

Again, what would help the best is for you to send the results of the checker to us at hof.civfanatics@gmail.com so we can look at the problem. Thanks!

 

[BakeliteRules]

OK I will send. I reinstalled mods for vanilla, warlords and BTS. Asset tracker now says vanilla and warlords are OK. BTS still with 48 errors. sending per instructions

 

[BakeliteRules]

Sent asset traker file. If I Uninstall and reinstall BTS are there any Hidden or registry parts to delete in addition to the uninstall? I may try that as a last resort. I hate to as Mod 3-13 works as advertized just not 1.17.001

 

[Methos]

Sent asset traker file.

I've replied back to you. When you reply back to me, can you please let us know if you have Vista (I forgot to ask in the email)? Hopefully we can get this resolved quickly so you can get back to playing BOTM and of course HOF!

 

[whb]

It's not that, it's more to do with - all these games are run by volunteers and we don't always have time to look into every problem that occurs. Often if a post hasn't been replied to, it's because the people who read it don't know what the answer is and so leave it on the assumption/hope that someone else will know. The HOF forum is probably a better place than the GOTM forums for unusual technical difficulties specific to the HOF mod, since this is where the guys who wrote the HOF mod hang around (We just borrow it for GOTMs...)

It's also, I'd suggest, that making the mod require fiddling with settings that most users don't understand was strategically not the best idea. The mod writers are necessarily technical (they can program a mod in C++) and motivated to mucking about with parts of their computer software that ordinary users do not touch (they were motivated enough to write a mod). However, the mod now effectively requires players also to be both technical and motivated in order to be able to participate in the community games. The community of players has been partially reduced from "those who love playing Civ" to "just the techies who have nothing better to do than debug Windows Vista on a Friday night".

That's a very different kind of subgroup, and I'm not convinced it is representative of players as a whole. It's no longer "I came 25th out of the best Civ players", but "I came 25th out of that odd subset of Civ players who are also Vista administrators and have a significant computing background." And so, for that reason, I've fallen out of the "motivated" category, and won't be playing any HOF or GOTM games until the whole mess (pardon the harsh phrasing) is sorted out.

I worry that other players may think the same, not tell you about it, and just quietly leave the playing community.

 

[BakeliteRules]

Methos- I am using Vista (SP-1) on an HP Laptop. Have had no problrms with any of the other mods for BTS, Warlords or Vanilla until 1.17.001 thanks for trying to help figure this out.

 

[Denniz]

@BakeliteRules, have you re-installed the BTS Patch 3.17? That is what I was trying to get you to do.