Ashes of Erebus (RifE's Follow-up) Download and Bug Reports

[Llewen]

Linux heads can be annoying at times. One of the issues I've experienced is having to delete and recreate wine prefixes (that's like the Windows install on Linux) when there are problems. Linux heads will tell you to just delete and recreate the wine prefix if something goes wrong, so much so that there isn't even a way to uninstall most stuff from a wine prefix. You are just expected to delete the wine prefix and recreate it. However, depending on what you install to that prefix, recreating a wine prefix can take hours, and remembering all the crap you need to install into that prefix can be a challenge. That's why I'm creating scripts to do it for me, where I can make a hard coded list of the stuff I want to install to a prefix, so I won't forget anything, as well as making it simpler to add or delete stuff, and allow me to just run the script, and let it run in the background.

I love Linux, and there are a lot of things that you either can't do in Windows, or are easier to do in Linux, but Linux is far from perfect. I've still got a lot to learn, but I went through similar crap with Windows. I've probably lost months, if not years, of my life, configuring and reconfiguring Windows, and uninstalling and reinstalling crap...

 

[Llewen]

I know I spent an awful lot of hours trying to get Civ IV to run well on Windows, all the way from Windows XP, up to and including Windows 10.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

From my experience it works perfectly with XP service pack 3. At least the original CD version does. I happen to have both sitting behind me actually. But yea, operating systems are far from perfect. Than again what can you expect from literally the most complex thing designed by a human mind with the widest possible set of hardware support requirements. As a programmer my self I am in awe by the amount of work it would take to make one, let alone get it to be decently reliable.

 

[Llewen]

So which is more challenging, the perfect operating system, or the self driving car?

I know, way OT. I'll try to find somewhere else to have that discussion.

Meanwhile my scripts to automate setting up wine prefixes are coming along nicely, and, more importantly, pizza tonight!

 

[PPQ_Purple]

So which is more challenging, the perfect operating system, or the self driving car?

I know, way OT. I'll try to find somewhere else to have that discussion.

Meanwhile my scripts to automate setting up wine prefixes are coming along nicely, and, more importantly, pizza tonight!

The operating system, hands down. Self driving cars really aren't that huge of a challenge all things considered. Yes, they are going to require a lot of labor to make them work but conceptually you are working with known hardware and to a known set of requirements. So it's just hard work. A lot of it of course. But just hard work none the less. An operating system literally has relatively unknown requirements, "must work on all hardware and support all software and be backward compatible with old stuff". It has to be all things to all people. Yea...

 

[Llewen]

And I figured out what the problem I was having was on Linux with the latest SVN. To get Civ IV working you need to install msxml3 into your wine prefix. That is also the case with AoE 14.11. However to get the latest build working you also need to install msxml4 and/or msxml6. That would be because blackimperator is presumably working on a Win10 machine that has those versions of msxml installed. So I'm good to go. I'm going to add this note to the wine appdb page so people can find it.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Glad to see you managed it. Have you considered doing some sort of instruction manual for people who need to repeat your work? Also, stay tuned for I expect (can't promise but will try) another new year release on my end.

 

[Llewen]

The information is available on the wine appdb, but I will see about doing a short linux readme in whatever format (odt?) the other readmes are in.

 

[Llewen]

Unfortunately I spoke too soon. It's still crashing when I end a turn. I'm giving up for now.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Have you considered just dual booting windows?

 

[Llewen]

Have you considered just dual booting windows?

I have no plans to install a full Windows version on any system under my control at this time, in any form. If I can't get something working with wine, I just won't run it...

What I need to do is log the errors and see if I can figure out exactly what's going on. I just haven't done that yet.

OR

Wait for an update to magically fix the problem. That sometimes works as well...

 

[Llewen]

With the old really good game I was playing on 14.11 I was able to go back a few turns, do things a bit differently, and it seems to be working fine now.

I do have a question though. With the SVN version, I should be changing the mod folder name to "Ashes of Erebus", should I not?

 

[black_imperator]

most definitely, yes

 

[Llewen]

I'm back on the smack. 14.11 works fine on Linux under wine, using the instructions on the winehq appdb. I thought that the game had become unstable, possibly due to recent driver updates on Debian testing, but it turned out that the problem was the Mekara battle sluga. As soon as you create battle sluga, the game becomes severely unstable. You can circumvent that by skipping the battle sluga and going straight to the war sluga.

However, the new SVN version presents the same kind of stability issues that 14.11 does with battle sluga, with some bonuses. There are xml errors that appear to be solved by installing msxml4 and/or msxml6, but there are other stability issues as well. I'm wondering if some of the dlls used in the SVN are compiled using some VC redist version that needs to be installed? Perhaps black_imperator can answer that question?

 

[Llewen]

Once I finish the amazing game I am in the middle of, I will tackle the SVN version with some seriousness and see if I can get it working. If it is running well on Windows, I should be able to. Like I said, it's probably something as simple as installing the right vc redist version. Hopefully it doesn't require a .NET version. .NET is the one thing that can present some real issues on Linux with wine.

 

[Llewen]

I got to the place where the old game started crashing and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. So I've taken another shot at SVN 340 (seeing as I don't care about the installer right now). It looks like I've got it working on Linux with wine. I did it by installing all three msxml packages, using winetricks, and installing all the vcrun versions from 2005 to 2017, again using winetricks. I don't really want to put that into a howto because I'd like to be a bit more specific and not be telling people to install a bunch of crap they don't need. Knowing what version of Visual Studio is used to compile the dll's would be helpful.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Just install all of them. Can't hurt. And it's basically what everyone does anyway.

 

[Llewen]

Regardless, I can't get the SVN to be stable. It ctd's just about every other turn, and this is at the start of the game. No error messages nothing, just straight to desktop. I have no way of knowing if it's the SVN version or my system. I did have problems with my last 4.11 game, but that seems to have been down to the Mekara Order civilization, which has been banned. We'll see how the next one goes. All this did lead me to create a script system for installing, updating and reinstalling wine prefixes that I am very happy with. I'm a noob scripter so that kind of stuff is fun, and hard on the head.

 

[Llewen]

Full disclosure, I have run games with as many as 40+ civs. Those tend to get dicey, especially in the late game, but they are usually playable.

 

[Andromenus]

I don't know if it's a bug. I have been playing this mod a lot since summer - 80% as a "good" player (Malakim, Elohim, Bannor I like) or 20% as a neutral khazad, meanwhile my game winnings are boring* (I research fanaticism / the order very quickly) and then with the Mercurians almost always have a military victory - especially if I get fire angels in the course, I can conquer one city after the other.

But I'm bored now - I now have the impression that I've never got Hyborem as an opponent. He just doesn't come into the world !!!!!!!

Today I started as an evil player (after the Pax Diabolis) he comes. But why never I see Hyborem as an enemy / with as an AI player? Mercurians and Infernals allways enabled (game options).

*Boring because Hyborem as enemy is never entering the "world of erebus" or "erebus continent" ...

with SVN Tool, I have the newest Version.


This was my first & important problem.

Second Problem - in one of my games I could conquer/derstroy Sidar Cities, but there is no way to clear the fog for more than 3-5 turns? Weird that the fog is coming back again. Maybe a better "WIND III" spell would be fine