3.13 patch doesn't see that I have BTS installed

[Emperor_Norton]

I bought a cheap copy of BTS from Ebay. When it got here, I discovered it was the Russian edition. But I could install the English version with it.

I did so, and ran it and all seemed well -- I can get to the initial main menu; I adjusted my resolution and some game options. Before starting a game, I downloaded the 3.13 patch.

But, when running it, it says something much like "No previous version of Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword detected. You must install Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword first."

About this build yields:

Civ Version: 301
Save Version: 300
Build Version: 3.0.0.91 (74697)
Build Date: Thu Jun 28 11:37:52 2007
Build: FINAL RELEASE
Mod Name: none

Is this an effect of having installed from a Russian edition DVD? Is there anything I can do?

thanks.

 

[ori]

if it was the russian edition there would have to be lots of people who bought it without knowing on this forum
The patch sometimes does not work properly. There have been indications that this might at least be partly due to cracked versions not working. If you are sure that you have a genuine one you might want to try uninstalling BtS completely (including any remnants of it in \...\My Games\ and \...\Application Data\My Games\ after uninstalling). Then make sure Vanilla is patched to 1.74 (BtS should have done so, but that might have failed if Vanilla was not patched to 1.61 previously). Then install BtS again and patch directly to 3.13 without installing 3.03 in between.

 

[Emperor_Norton]

I'm not dealing with downloaded versions if that's what you were suggesting -- I own real copies of Civ vanilla and BTS (albeit the Russian edition of the latter.) It is the case that the first time I tried installing BTS, I had a no-cd cracked .exe for vanilla in place, but I put the original back for all future attempts.

I've been removing BTS, including deleting the folders you said, between each try, and nothing has worked. BTS installs by default to Program Files\Civilization IV - Beyond the Sword. I tried changing it to install under Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization IV... that resulted in the game crashing on trying to run it, and Windows offering to send an error report to Microsoft. I tried using 'check for updates' from within BTS, and my computer hung completely, not even responding to alt-ctrl-del. (Exact directory names above may be off a little -- I'm on a different computer now.)

I'm at a loss.

 

[ori]

the install path you quote is weird. It could be due to differences in the russian version though. The standard install path for Civ 4 is \program files\firaxis games\sid meier's civilization 4 and for BtS it is \program files\firaxis games\sid meier's civilization 4\Beyond the Sword
what does the error report say?

 

[Emperor_Norton]

I couldn't reproduce the errors I had before -- I now think my system went kind of insane due to the repeated installations and deinstallations.

After rebooting and installing again, under Sid Meier's Civilization IV/Beyond the Sword, I could check for updates. It downloaded it, ran it... and complained it couldn't find Beyond the Sword.

I learned to my surprise that this Russian edition apparently doesn't have Safedisc -- I can run it without the DVD in the drive. (But it's not a burned DVD; it's printed with a convincing cIV top side; the case has a hologrammatic sticker with Cyryllic on it -- it's hard to imagine anyone could turn a profit with a counterfeit this good, so I'm still taking it to be authentic.)

I'm guessing that it's the lack of Safedisc that's causing the patch to not recognize my BTS. I'm off to write Firaxis support.

 

[Emperor_Norton]

Doing some web searching, I see that there are Russian-edition-specific patches for lots of other games. I bet I simply need a different version of the patch specific to the Russian edition.

I also don't see any sign that there have been any patches for any Russian editions of any cIV games, so I may be SOL. Feh.

 

[Fairestyarrow]

Argh! We are in the same boat. I bought a couple of cheap copies for my husband & I. We can play LAN games with each other ok, because neither of us can use the 3.13 patch. However, we can't play online with our friends, as they have installed the patch, and we cannot. I've even tried translating russian forum pages.

Do let us know if you find a solution. my best idea right now is uninstall/install.

 

[Emperor_Norton]

Nothing I've tried has worked. I've been exchanging some email with Firaxis tech support. I'll post here if anything useful comes of it.

 

[Emperor_Norton]

I saw this thread and this today and checked my registry. My Russian DVD was making entries under Civ4BGame and not any of the ones mentioned in these threads. So I added the registry entries from the former thread and the 3.13 update executable ran and said everything worked!

Unfortunately, running BTS and asking 'about this build' tells me it's still 3.01 (and the Civilopedia doesn't show the 3.13 values for an attack sub.)

 

[Emperor_Norton]

Getting closer, maybe. After adding the registry entries from the thread mentioned above, and running the 3.13 patch, I found that the patch was writing all the new files to C:\Windows, for no apparent reason. If I copied the files and directories from there to my BTS install directory, then trying to run BTS gets "Enter the right DVD", despite that the unpatched installation didn't ask for a DVD at all, and that I had my installation DVD in the drive.

If it weren't for the copy protection, it might be working now.

 

[DarkAmen]

I had the same problem - I could play BTS but when I tried to patch said it could not find the install of the game.

Strangely when I tried to uninstall it on add/remove programs it was not listed.

So I put BTS in the CD drive and because it is installed I used explorer to run the setup again.

This seemed to cure the problem.