Mac Civ 4: How bad is it? "Seeking refund" may be the next step.

[bjorkmann]

Thereby making it difficult to do when under major time pressure, as is always the case when you have to get the software out in order to pay the bills.

Which is basically what I just said. We are in agreement. They don't want to do it, and probably an economic incentive is behind that desire. There's a big surprise.

Not to mention the fact that it can easily take a HUGE amount of time to track down everything that needs changing. This is not some small project here.

Define "HUGE". If it means "not very long" then we're totally on the same page. We clearly disagree on how long it would take to locate and fix places that load or reference system resources by filename. There are also much easier ways to do it than that, depending on the shape of the codebase, but we'll leave that as an excercise to the reader.

 

[Brad Oliver]

Okay, we can argue about the definition of a bug all day, but my position is that anything that prevents me from playing this game on my Macbook Pro (be it a bug or a design decision) is an exceptionally bad call and if it were done in the Windows market, this problem would be a) embarrassing for the developer and b) fixed quickly.

The PC version of Civ4 does not work on a case-sensitive filesystem.

Blizzard used to have this problem with StarCraft. They no longer have it with any of their games in this platform (and they have never complained about it being too hard).

It's not really an issue of being difficult (not sure where this came from), but one of compatibility.

Civ4 performs checksum calculations on all of the data files it uses. Some of the XML and Python files are part of this, of course, and they contain filename references that are not case-sensitive-saavy. Changing these data files would make the Mac version fail these checksum fixes and cause problems with multiplayer games.

 

[bjorkmann]

It's not really an issue of being difficult (not sure where this came from), but one of compatibility.

Civ4 performs checksum calculations on all of the data files it uses. Some of the XML and Python files are part of this, of course, and they contain filename references that are not case-sensitive-saavy. Changing these data files would make the Mac version fail these checksum fixes and cause problems with multiplayer games.

Right. That seems pretty reasonable then.

So is this going to be noted in the support pages? And is a visible statement going to be made in the system requirements so that people who have a case-sensitive file system don't make the mistake of buying a game that won't work on their machine?

 

[Brad Oliver]

So is this going to be noted in the support pages? And is a visible statement going to be made in the system requirements so that people who have a case-sensitive file system don't make the mistake of buying a game that won't work on their machine?

Dunno - that's not my area. I'll mention it though.

 

[alphaomega]

... but I can honestly say the percentage of users who request support for case sensitive file system support in our games is so low as to be almost unmeasurable - out of the combined hundreds of thousands of units sold of OS X games I've been involved with, less than a half dozen requests.

Thats risible. In Germany most of my friends have case sensitive file systems as a standard (out-of-the-box), like me. I did not change anything on my file system and, thus, could not play Civ IV.

Glenda, please add me to your list of case-sensitive-file-system-users, and increase to "more than half a dozen".

Please admit, that the error is also a result of poor programming directives/guidelines.

 

[Brad Oliver]

Glenda, please add me to your list of case-sensitive-file-system-users, and increase to "more than half a dozen".

But are we to more than 6 yet?

Please admit, that the error is also a result of poor programming directives/guidelines.

As stated above, we can release a fixed Mac patch that breaks network games with the PC but works on case-sensitive file systems. However, I'm thinking there are definitely more than 6 people that care about that.

Seriously, yeah - it's a problem, but not one that's likely to be fixed in Civ4 any time soon.

 

[ancestral]

Why not try this solution:

1. Open Disk Utility. Select "New" -> "Blank Disk Image…" and give it a custom size (the Civ IV folder is about 2.5 GB? Make it 3 GB and you'll be fine).
2. Give the disk a name and save it as read/write.
   
3. Mount the disk by double-clicking on the file.
   
4. Click on the mounted disk image in Disk Utility and select the Erase tab. Under volume format choose "MacOS Extended (Journaled)". Click "Erase".
   
5. Mount the image if it has been ejected. Copy the Civ IV folder onto the image in the Finder. This may take a while.
   
6. Make an alias to the Civ application in the image or just put it in your dock. And you should be done.

The only thing that may be preventing this from working is if the preferences and files written in the documents folder's civ4 folder also need to be in the non-case-sensitive format as well. (If so, you could always try making an alias to these folders back onto the disk image.)

Edit: AlanH, is it purely coincidence that Taylorg, rjbs, jcap, bjorkmann, and alphaomega all created accounts on the same day as making their first post on this same thread, and only posting in this thread and no others, all of whom having the exact same argument?

 

[AlanH]

I see no coincidence. Someone has a case sensitive file system, and can't run Civ4, so they come here and complain.

If other people have the same problem, they are likely to Google the subject and find an existing post here, or simply come here in the same way as the first poster. If they want to add their voices to the complaint they have to register. None of them are likely to post anywhere else around here, as they can't play the game.

 

[alphaomega]

Edit: AlanH, is it purely coincidence that Taylorg, rjbs, jcap, bjorkmann, and alphaomega all created accounts on the same day as making their first post on this same thread, and only posting in this thread and no others, all of whom having the exact same argument?

Oh god, how weird theory . And I am from Mars too.

Maybe the situation is so weird? What software company can produce such a gross mistake? Few. With how many programms this bug exists? Few. How many people are looking for a solution, after the game has been launched (in Germany) just recently? Many.

Sometimes, people should think simple and easy, instead of too smart and pseudo-sophisticated, please.

 

[AlanH]

What software company can produce such a gross mistake? Few.

I think this subject has had enough discussion. Brad has pointed out that the case sensitivities existed in the Firaxis version, where Windows users are unaffected. So it wasn't a bug there. The case inconsistencies cannot be eliminated without breaking cross platform compatibility between the Mac and PC versions, so there isn't a bug on the Mac platform either, just an uncomfortable fact of life for a minority of Mac users. I really don't see any point in further discussion.

Moderator Action: Subject, and thread, closed.