Help with installing BUFFY

[Gumbolt]

Thanks to chris and lymond for helping packers. I did wonder it he had buffy installed twice.

 

[lymond]

Ha..I'd actually asked Pack about that at one point.

 

[Gumbolt]

Ha..I'd actually asked Pack about that at one point.

Great minds think alike. Haha

 

[Dhoomstriker]

(2) BTS With no Admin Privileges, Load BUFFY...

Is number 2 really not valid? I assume it isn't, but I can load and play games with locked assets, and this is how I used to load BUFFY.

I'm pretty sure that case (2) is not valid. It's best if we do not discuss why, because it probably has to do with HOF reloading-detection. So, given that assumption, of course you can play with the BUFFY Mod, Locked Assets or not, for your personal games, since the HOF doesn't prevent you from reloading but instead just informs the admins (in some way that we will not discuss) that you did reload your game.

The error message only occurs when I launch BUFFY or begin a new game.

Well, either way. It'll be irritating if I have to change the .ini file every time I need to play BUFFY now, but it's not the end of the world.

Is there an option to run the game as the Administrator account within your Steam settings for Civ 4? I'm not familiar with Civ 4 Steam, but there's possibly such an option in Steam itself for each game.

 

[Folket]

Try starting Steam as administrator.

 

[pomthom]

OK I have a problem with BUFFY and after trying to find the solution by myself on the forums I am left miserable and confused. This is the most relevant thread I've found so sorry if it's the wrong place...

I just bought a new PC running with Windows 8 (ok laugh it up) and have successfully installed Civ 4 Vanilla, Warlords, BTS 3.13 (CD versions), BTS patch 3.19, BUG and BULL. BUG + BULL are installed so that they are automatically ran when I launch BTS, I don't have to load them (is that running through CustomAssets? or stand alone? I get confused with the vocabulary).

OK. All of that has worked perfectly.​

I wanted to try my first BOTM so yesterday I installed BUFFY 3.19. The installation had no issue.

I created a Shortcut adding the command /mod= BUFFY.blablaxxxxx and launch the modded game.

I get the message "..blabla to work correctly for HoF...blabla.... run as an Administrator" (sorry no screenshots).​

No problem, I change the Compatibility > Run as Adminstrator check box and relaunch: no error. I say to myself "kewlz this is going smoothly!!"

So then I click Single Player > Load Game and chose the contender save of BOTM 70... and that's where the $ht hit the fan.

I get 2 in-game error messages that stay for a split of a 10th of a second so I can't read what they say. Through shrewd and repeated squinting I decipher that one of the message box says "Load file error" or something (you don't say...) and the other says "The file you are trying to open......xXxX.... blabla..... is protected." (the rest was too much of a pain to decipher)​

So.... I search the forums and understand that there seems to be a similar issue with Vista/Windows7 users related to rights and read only properties on the "Program Files > Firaxis" folder tree structure aswell as "My Documents > My games" folders. Following AlanH's link I change all that but still impossible to load the BOTM file.

I decide to do further tests and launch a game from scratch.

The game launches alright but I get red blinking messages telling me the game is not standard HoF or something and that if I'm thinking about submitting my crappy game I've got another think coming ​

Can someone make some sense in these symptoms and suggest I do something I've missed or ignored?

Hope it's not too much of a bother
Thanks!

 

[Gumbolt]

Are you running steam??
You installed ALL the software as administrator. Every patch, the game itself and bug mod 4.4?
You have already checked the compatability box on the bts exec file.
Yep installing the game in the correct directory helps. I created a game directory so i could give the administrator rights to the folder.

You have run the asset checker for buffy and posted the results?

My guess is somewhere you are not running game as administrator.

 

[pomthom]

Are you running steam??

Nope.

You installed ALL the software as administrator. Every patch, the game itself and bug mod 4.4?

Errr I didn't install anything "as" administrator I reckon. I only checked the compability box on the BTS exe file. I didn't patch BTS 3.17 and went directly to 3.19

You have already checked the compatability box on the bts exec file.

Yup.

Yep installing the game in the correct directory helps. I created a game directory so i could give the administrator rights to the folder.

Well I did give Full Control to all users... shouldn't that be enough?

You have run the asset checker for buffy and posted the results?

Not yet, I thought this could be useful if you installed uninstalled several times and stuff. Will do.

My guess is somewhere you are not running game as administrator.

Hmm OK

 

[Gumbolt]

Every bit of software I installed as administrator. Including Buffy and bug. This could be your issue. Can't be 100% sure. Whenever I load BTS or buffy it shows as administrator.

Maybe giving full controls to each user is enough. Someone else can comment on this. I suspect not.

You really do need to do everything in a certain way to make buffy work. It's not helped with so many people operating different versions of windows. I currently use Windows 7. i used to use vista a few months back.

There can be custom asset issues if you install bug and Bull. Worth seeing page 1 of this thread. See fix Kossin suggested. The poster also had messages pop up too fast to read. I bet it is your custom assets. Try this before doing any reinstalling.

 

[Doshin]

I'm pretty sure that case (2) is not valid. It's best if we do not discuss why, because it probably has to do with HOF reloading-detection. So, given that assumption, of course you can play with the BUFFY Mod, Locked Assets or not, for your personal games, since the HOF doesn't prevent you from reloading but instead just informs the admins (in some way that we will not discuss) that you did reload your game.

Yes, I figured as much. I suppose that I can always create a new game with locked assets, and ask one of the HOF staff to take a look to see whether it could be submitted (which I seriously doubt... but you never know).

Try starting Steam as administrator.

Is there an option to run the game as the Administrator account within your Steam settings for Civ 4? I'm not familiar with Civ 4 Steam, but there's possibly such an option in Steam itself for each game.

I can assign the privilege level to "Run this Program as an Administrator" by selecting 'Properties' in Windows, but it does nothing in relation to BUFFY. I can't see an in-Steam option to this effect.

Steam, BUFFY, and BTS are also all installed under Program Files, e.g.:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization IV Beyond the Sword\Beyond the Sword\Mods\BUFFY-3.19.003

So I'm not experiencing the same issue as Packers.

I haven't tried ChrisShaffer's user directory fix, because I have a work-around that at least works, even if it's not ideal. I don't want to lose that as well.

 

[Folket]

Did you try starting steam as administrator? I know other games that I get problems with unless I run steam as administrator.

 

[pomthom]

Every bit of software I installed as administrator. Including Buffy and bug. This could be your issue. Can't be 100% sure. Whenever I load BTS or buffy it shows as administrator.

Maybe giving full controls to each user is enough. Someone else can comment on this. I suspect not.

You really do need to do everything in a certain way to make buffy work. It's not helped with so many people operating different versions of windows. I currently use Windows 7. i used to use vista a few months back.

There can be custom asset issues if you install bug and Bull. Worth seeing page 1 of this thread. See fix Kossin suggested. The poster also had messages pop up too fast to read. I bet it is your custom assets. Try this before doing any reinstalling.

It was the BULL vs BUFFY dll thing! All is well now thanks man and thanks kossin for the explanation

 

[Doshin]

Now it's running fine, no problems despite no changes.

I guess it's just temperamental. We should compile a list of possible "solutions," on the assumption that some combination of these should solve most people's problems.

 

[Gumbolt]

Now it's running fine, no problems despite no changes.

I guess it's just temperamental. We should compile a list of possible "solutions," on the assumption that some combination of these should solve most people's problems.

A list of issues with solutions would help many users on this forum. Especially breaking it up into steam, buffy, buffy and bull.

 

[GKey]

Solved in the end!

Well, it's kind of irritating. Is it Steam or Windows 8 or both?
After years with WinXP I am with Windows 8 now (Once you get rid of Metro with either Start8 of Classic Shell, it's ok actually).

Now I get the same error window as previous users.

And same warning, when starting new BUFFY game without anything wrong in settings screen.

Uninstalled BTS and Steam from C:\Program Files (x86). Created new folder on drive E:\Games\ with all permissions and installed Steam and BTS there.
I run as Administrator but just in case granted Full Control permission to Everyone to Steam folder and sub-folders.
Cleared this stupid Read Only attribute in folders properties (which comes back on its own BTW).
Made the same with C:\Users\...\Documents\My Games folder.

Buffy path:

E:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization IV Beyond the Sword\Beyond the Sword\Mods\BUFFY-3.19.003

looks perfectly right.

Did not help.

Even more, there is only 1 login on my PC - administrator - and it's me, but ok, I go to compatibility and check run as Administrator.
Then, in game I go to Advanced -> load mod -> BUFFY 3.19.003 and get this nice thingy:

You get this, after applying any of run as Administrator, or Run this program in compatibility mode for: Windows XP Service Pack 2 / 3.

Hilarious (NO)!!! Either Steam closing BTS to slowly, or Windows 8 starting BTS too fast, but indeed, new game process try to start while previous process haven't yet been terminated. This happens with trying load any mod, not just BUFFY.

What did I miss? Cuz right now I consider to just download non Steam version of Civ4 Complete from Torrent. After all I paid for this game long ago, but can not use it properly for some stupid reason. BTW there is minor problem with Steam version where double clicking save file in windows explorer does not know what to do with the file, you need specify open with path to BTS.exe, then it will open the game but you will need to load save manually.

While typing this post I applied Run this program in compatibility mode for: Windows 7 as last resort.

And it worked!



I hope this will help future generations.

 

[Gumbolt]

That reminds me...my config file gets replaced with a default config file every so often while I'm playing civ. Do any of you know how to prevent that from happening?

Trying to help one of our new team players. Any ideas???

I read somewhere you could set file to read only but this does not appear to resolve the issue from what I have read.

 

[haphazard1]

I have the same problem as chessplaya. Every so often when I start Civ IV/BTS my CivilizationIV.ini file gets replaced with a default version of the ini file. This is not game breaking -- I can just quit out, replace the ini file with a copy I have saved, and then start up again. But it is highly annoying since the default goes back to the "Mod=0" line without BUFFY and thus I have to quit to reload the mod properly.

Windows 7, Civ IV and BTS installed locally (not from Steam), set to run as administrator. No mods other than the standard ones that come with the game, plus the BUFFY mod from here at Civ Fanatics.

It doesn't happen every time, and I have not been able to figure out a pattern to the times it does happen.

Anyone have any ideas why this would happen?

 

[lymond]

Well, the config file issue is not a Buffy issue. I have the same issue from time to time and it is annoying. I know other folks have had this issue as there was some discussion that came up in a thread in General not long ago.

I'm fairly certain that no one has identified the cause of the config reset nor is there any resolution.

What I've done to alleviate the pain some is to save off a copy of the config file (with desired settings) to another location. Then copy it over the reset config file.

Generally, I usually know almost immediately when the config file has been reset as BTS does not load straight to the main menu due to the "no intro" setting. Also, I use my nickname in the config file to replace the default name (my real name) that apparently defaults from the computer name. However, point 2 is really only noticeable when you start your own game and not so much if you are loading up a save you did not create.

My suspicion is that it relates to a newer version of Civ that my online vendor acquired 2 or 3 years ago. There's other issues with that version like not being able to load a game directly from a save file. I find it interesting that this issue does not appear to happen to everyone.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

I am pretty sure the config file reset happens when Steam updates. I've made a copy of my config file that I keep entirely outside the Steam folder so I can replace the file when it happens.

 

[lymond]

Folks have this issue with no Steam involved, including me and the dude above