Beyond the Sword does not recognize Worldbuilder files

[JimBos]

Hi all,

I have been playing Civilization 4 using a Complete Edition one disc set. Originally I played on a laptop and most mods worked fine. However, several months ago, Beyond the Sword stopped loading mods; I would chose my mod and when the game restarts it never comes back.
I looked in the files myself and noticed that what should be called "Worldbuilder Save" showing a Civ 4 icon is now a "Wordbuilder Save" with a Windows icon.
Oddly, when I went into the program files of the game and looked at the public maps of the mods which come with Beyond the Sword (i.e. Rhyes and Fall, Crossroads of the World, etc.) and the public maps (Earth 1000AD, etc.), I found that they too were now Worldbuilder Saves. However they work just fine.
So I tried to put a mod into the program files for kicks and, despite the file type issue being the same for native and foreign mods, the Civ mods I downloaded continued to fail!
Recently, I got a new computer and the problem did not change. This computer is much more powerful and runs Civ 5 and Skyrim spectacularly, so I know it must be the game. Also, the public maps of Warlords and Vanilla are still Worldbuilder Save files with Civ 4 Icons and mods work fine with them.

If anyone has any advice, I would appreciate it greatly. I hope I don't have to buy a new copy of Civ. Thank you in advanced!

 

[isenchine]

First, in BtS, the maps are .CivBeyondSwordWBSave files. They have a different extension than vanilla or Warlords and for Windows, they are considered a different type of files than .CivWarlordsWBSave for example (even if there are no real differences).

It looks like Windows has associated the .CivBeyondSwordWBSave with the wrong programme (that's why you don't have the Civ4 icon anymore). Try right-clicking on one and select "Open with...", then select BtS as the program and tick the "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" box. This should restore the icon.

The mod might not load directly properly though. Try through BtS again.

There might be other issues. Like the mod unzipped in two nested folders for example (...Beyond the Sword\Mods\XYZMod\XYZMod). Directly under the Mod's folder, you should typically have an 'Assets' folder.

It's not clear from your post if you can still load official mods like "Crossroads of the World". I'm assuming that you are correctly patched to 3.19.

In any case, it's not a question of performance of your computer. But it might help to know what is the other Mod you're trying to load.

 

[JimBos]

Sorry I didn't make it clear before: all official mods and scenarios which came with Beyond the Sword work perfectly.

That's an amazing explanation, I understand now and I managed to change the file type to CIVBEYONDTHESWORDWBSAVE, which has the icon.

I am trying to run three mods--Caveman2Cosmos, Giant Earth Map, and Ethnic Artstyles (I don't remember if that's the official name but it's a mod which changes the graphics for most units and cities). EDIT: I am not trying to run these mods all at once or blending two or more together, they are all run individually, if that helps.
Ethnic Artsyles works flawlessly, but C2C and GEM do not. (notice that Ethnic Artsyles did not come with any scenarios/publicmaps/privatemaps while C2C and GEM do) When I chose them, the game closes to restart, flashes black, and doesn't come back. This happens regardless of where they are put into (I have tried both the "My Games" mods files and the Program (86x) files). The official mods and scenarios still work.
Also, when I clicked on the CIVBEYONDTHESWORDWBSAVE file, the game loads but goes to the main menu, rather than straight to the scenario setup. I don't know if that info helps.

Thank you for the help you have given me already. I could not find any info on this and you are very knowledgeable on this subject. Thank you so much.

 

[isenchine]

OK, if Ethnic Artsyles works for you, your case is not desperate!

C2C is a huge mod so it may take a very long time to load (up to 15 minutes I've read). Since they have a very active sub-forum, you could try to get an advice there.

GEM should not be a problem. I don't have an answer for the "clicking on the map leads you to main menu" as I've never read about it. I'll download it and try to see what could be the problem.

Edit: the maps in GEM do not specify that GEM should be used as a mod. Therefore, you have to load GEM as a mod and then select a map, otherwise, you are lead to BtS menu. I suppose that you have the right version for BtS 3.19 as there are versions for Warlords and for Vanilla.

 

[JimBos]

Well, that's very good news to hear.

I will go to the C2C subforum for more info.

I'll also re download GEM for kicks to see if anything changes.

Thank you so much for your help. I'll post in this thread if any more improvements come. I'd like to ask the mods not to delete this thread because I could not find any information about this anywhere (especially since looking up "beyond the sword worldbuilder save problems" can lead to so many subjects). If this is the only thread dealing with this problem then I'd like to keep it up.

 

[isenchine]

No worry, they don't delete threads. In the meantime, I posted an 'Edit' in my last post that you might have missed.

 

[JimBos]

Alright update:
Everything is now working fine.

The reason why GEM and C2C weren't working was because my Beyond the Sword wasn't fully patched, despite the game saying that there are no new updates available.

Thank you so much for your help and I hope this thread helps anyone else in who was in my position.

 

[isenchine]

Good!

I asked you if BtS was patched to 3.19, but in a sense, I don't understand that a "complete" edition is not fully patched!