Can't load WOTM on Mac

[overholt93]

I have Warlords on a mac (OS 10.4.11) that I applied the latest patch to a year ago when it was released. (And again today just to make sure) I looked at the GOTM site, and WOTM10 looked like an interesting start so I was going to try to play it and then look at the spoiler threads.

I installed HOF-Mac-2.08.005 and made it my default mod. Contrary to the instructions, I had to put the mod in my ~/Documents/Civilization IV Warlords/MODS/ folder, not /Civilization IV/Warlords/MODS. I then downloaded the save file for WOTM 10.

When I try to open it, I get the "The Save File Has Been Protected to Ensure that Your Mod Files Have Not Been Changed" error. I downloaded WOTM 13 and 15 and had the same problem with them.

I just installed the vanilla 1.74 patch to make sure I had it and tried again, but that didn't help.

Any suggestions?

 

[AlanH]

Hmmm! I get the same error ... and I built the start files! It looks as if something changed between WOTM 13 and WOTM 14, as I can load up 14, 15 and 16 but not the earlier ones, which is worrying. Please can you check that you can load one of these more recent ones?

Contrary to the instructions, I had to put the mod in my ~/Documents/Civilization IV Warlords/MODS/ folder, not /Civilization IV/Warlords/MODS

The HoF Mod is only tested for operation in the Mods folder in the /Civilization 4/Warlords/Mods/ where your application software lives. I'm not sure if it would work properly in the ~/Documents/.../MODS folder.

 

[overholt93]

Hmm. It looks like the mod location was my problem. Now that I'm running the mod from the correct location, I can open games 14, 15, and 16 as well. I thought I checked that last night, but I must have only tried games 10 and 13 from the correct location.

I tried to open games 10 and 13 with version .004 of the mod, but that didn't work - the game just asked me to load version .005 and then failed.

Vanilla 1.74 was around that time. Could that have had an impact? I'll try re-installing without applying 1.74.

If that doesn't work, ... any thoughts? Besides play later games? 10 looks entertaining.

Also, any idea why "MOD = HOF-Mac-2.08.005" in my ini only works if the mod is in my /Documents... folder? Does having it as the default mod just not work for the mac?

 

[AlanH]

That default setting works fine for me. The only difference is that I have:

; Specify a Mod folder (Mods\Mesopotamia), '0' for none
Mod = HOF-Mac-2.08.005

Note the lower case in 'Mod'.

Your diagnosis is spot on. I suspected as much when I read your message, but didn't have time to test it before I went to work today.

I confirm that I can load up the WOTM 10 start file in the pre-1.74 copy of Warlords that I kept when I upgraded to 1.74. So the problem is that the 1.74 patch changed some files that Warlords sum checks. Not really surprising, as Warlords shares Assets with vanilla.

I'll try to diff the two installations and see if I can identify which files are significant.

 

[overholt93]

Warlords shares Assets with vanilla

It does?! I didn't know that.

It's good to hear that Civ works with multiple versions of the game. I'll try leaving my existing fully patched civ install alone and doing a new install of Civ in a different folder and patching it for pre-1.74 use.

Thanks for the help. I will definitely go back to WOTM 10 eventually, but since I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get earlier versions to work, I spent a chunk of this morning thinking about playing WOTM 15, and now I'm all excited about it.

My ordinary play involves the periodic reloading from save, so I think I'll play WOTM 15 to get a feel for the *OTM-style on a game difficulty I'm more comfortable with, and then hopefully be able to jump into WOTM 16 and get slaughtered before the deadline.

 

[AlanH]

Yeah, Warlords is an expansion, so it doesn't contain a complete new set of data. All the basic units and civs and world info definitions are the ones in the original game. Change them, and you change the Warlords Assets as well.

I left my system running a BBEdit diff between the pre- and post-1.74 versions while I went out this evening. On my return, it tells me the key vanilla files that were changed by the upgrade are:

Assets/XML/Units/CIV4UnitInfos.xml
Assets/Python/CvEventManager.py
Assets/Python.Screens/CvMainInterface.py
Assets/CvGameCoreDLL.dll
Assets/XML/GlobalDefines.xml

... plus some Civilopedia text files, and audio and graphics files that should not be sum checked.

The Asset check is sensitive to a single character change in one file, so this list is more than enough to screw it up.

Best of luck with your WOTMs I look forward to seeing a Mac entry. I don't think we've had one for quite a while.

 

[overholt93]

Best of luck with your WOTMs I look forward to seeing a Mac entry. I don't think we've had one for quite a while.

Really? That surprises me -- one of the things that's always impressed me about the whole *OTM team is that you've always been good about including the mac platform, even though the game publishers have not kept the games terribly in synch. I'll have to make an entry to reward your efforts.

I'm looking forward to making a mac entry. I'm finding that the enforced constraints on play make the game more interesting. I'm hoping to finish 15 this weekend and make a post about it before it's _too_ ancient history.

 

[AlanH]

To round out this discussion, I should point out that you can always play old G/W/BOTMs, regardless of your HoF Mod or the version of software you have installed (as long as it is the right expansion pack).

Simply download the WorldBuilder save from the Results page for that game, put it in the appropriate /Saves/WorldBuilder/ folder and load it up using Play Scenario in the main menu.

 

[overholt93]

That's good to know. Thank you. I'd hoped that was available somewhere, but I didn't know where. And I hadn't poked around in the results threads because I didn't want to get any spoilers. I may be too late to actually submit the game, but I want to develop good habits.

 

[pjdodd]

Help. I get the same error message and have the Mod in the correct location. What's wrong with the files? What should be where?

i have the MOD for Mac set as the default and EVERY save file I've downloaded tells me that the file is locked.

Also, why does every attempt to load the WOTM file result in the program exiting to the desktop?

I'm running the HOF Mod .005, on Mac 10.4.11, Warloads 2.08 patch.

 

[AlanH]

Which version of vanilla do you have? To run the current WOTMs you need to have vanilla version 1.74, as well as the last patch for Warlords 2.08 (NOT 2.13) and HOF-Mac-2.08.005.

 

[pjdodd]

Thank you for your help. Installed the latest Civ IV patch and all is hunky dory. It's a cretinous piece of PC-style thinking that you need to update CIV IV Vanilla AND Warlords expansion, even on the Mac, to get a Warlords game open. But it now works. Thank-you again.

 

[AlanH]

Not cretinous PC thinking, I'm afraid. Blame me, if you need a whipping boy.

The problem is that we have to lock the GOTM start files down to a set of "Assets". For WOTMs, those Assets include the vanilla Assets folder and the Warlords Assets folder, since Warlords is an expansion, and uses both sets. Those Assets folders get updated, of course, whenever a new patch is released.

When I build a set of Start files for Mac players I do so on a combination of versions that is likely to be installed and available to the majority of users. It's either that, or I have to produce multiple file sets (one per player class, of course) to cover all the possible different combinations. Given that there are, at most, only one or two Mac players per game, creating six or nine different start files doesn't seem like good use of my time! So, I go with the most recent (at the time) freely available versions of each of the base and Warlords components.

So, be warned. The next WOTM will require vanilla v1.74 and Warlords v2.13.

 

[pjdodd]

Nuts. Can you stick with Warlords 2.08 please? Pretty Please? With an intel 24" iMac on top? (I have one of these and they blow away anything PC people can show off).
Slightly different topic...I've just finished the WOTM 15 game, and lost badly and will keep playing. I've written up my disaster and posted it with images to my own web site. Where can post the link?

 

[AlanH]

Can you stick with Warlords 2.08 please? Pretty Please?

Why? 2.13 is a free upgrade which I'm sure most players will install. I refuse to publish two versions of all three start start files just for one or two Mac players! If you need to keep a 2.08 installation to play old games then just make a copy of the Civ4 application folder and call it Civ4_Warlords 2.08 or whatever. Then apply the 2.13 upgrade to the other one.

Where can post the link?

The obvious place is in the final spoiler for that game.

 

[da_Vinci]

So the Mac dual install does not require renaming two different folders, like the PC dual install did (something in My Games and something in program files, IIRC on the PC)?

dV

 

[AlanH]

That's correct.

The Mac version just keeps one set of "My Games"-style folders for each variant of the game - actually in /Users/<user_name>/Documents/, where the .ini file, saves and user-installed mods are kept. Any Warlords executable that you run accesses the /Users/<user_name>/Documents/Civilization IV Warlords/ folder to find saves etc.

 

[da_Vinci]

That's correct.

The Mac version just keeps one set of "My Games"-style folders for each variant of the game - actually in /Users/<user_name>/Documents/, where the .ini file, saves and user-installed mods are kept. Any Warlords executable that you run accesses the /Users/<user_name>/Documents/Civilization IV Warlords/ folder to find saves etc.

Interesting to learn a bit about how the other side lives!

dV

 

[AlanH]

So, be warned. The next WOTM will require vanilla v1.74 and Warlords v2.13.

I've relented

WOTM 17 on a Mac will require the same configuration as WOTM 16 did: Warlords 2.08 plus vanilla 1.74 plus HOF-Mac-2.08.005.

The changes in HOF Mod 2.13 when I came to look at it were too extensive to port and test in the time I had available, so it will have to wait for the next game..

 

[Thrallia]

so you've got till May 22nd till you need to update