Macintosh Tech Support/Game FAQ

[mythusmage]

First, when will a Civ3 MacFAQ page get put up?

With that out of the way, a couple of questions for the MacFAQ.

1. Can you provide a list of Civ3 downloads (any type) on your downloads page that are Mac compatible?

2. What changes are necessary to make a download usable on the Mac?

I'm new, and I'm on dial-up (but after the latest example of my ISP's idea of customer support I'm seriously considering cable.)

Alan

 

[dojoboy]

Originally posted by mythusmage
First, when will a Civ3 MacFAQ page get put up?

You're looking at it.

Originally posted by mythusmage
1. Can you provide a list of Civ3 downloads (any type) on your downloads page that are Mac compatible?

I believe all graphics and maps that are compatible w/ the PC version of Civ3 (v1.29) should work fine.

Originally posted by mythusmage
2. What changes are necessary to make a download usable on the Mac?

Depends. What are you downloading?

Originally posted by mythusmage
I'm new, and I'm on dial-up (but after the latest example of my ISP's idea of customer support I'm seriously considering cable.)

Welcome!

Cable = [dance]

 

[AlanH]

Update on Tao's previous list of available Mac-compatible utilities:

My signature contains a set of links to some utilities that work on Macs - mostly OS X.

The older CivReplayViewer products work with VirtualPC.

 

[dojoboy]

How can I make one jpg out of 4 jpgs? I can take a screenshot of all four, but it looks like crap.

Also, how do you place more than one jpg attachment in your post?

Thanks.

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by dojoboy
How can I make one jpg out of 4 jpgs? I can take a screenshot of all four, but it looks like crap.

It all depends (as ever ). What applications do you have or are you prepared to get?

I decided to invest in Photoshop Elements, which is like the $600 Photoshop but costs about 15% of its price. Photoshop Elements can open multiple screenshots and you can copy paste from them into a new collage. It has a *lot* of functionality, and you need to devote a bit of time to getting to grips with the way it handles images and layers. So for casual use I would actually recommend GraphicConverter.

GC is available for download and you can run the demo to do the job. The demo has a 30 second delay during its launch. It's $35 to register and does a cracking job for what you want.

Its learning curve is also pretty short compared with Photoshop. Here's one I just threw together in GC by copying a couple of bits from a screenshot and saving the result as a .jpg. You can scale the images, copy/paste/crop/distort/recolor .....

Also, how do you place more than one jpg attachment in your post?

The one above was placed by uploading the file using the "Upload File" button at the bottom of every forum page. You get a dialog sequence like this (here's another one!):

The above sequence was, again, created as a montage in Graphic Converter using three screenshots. I had to convert the .png that command-shift-3 produced into .jpg before I could open them in GC. I did that by opening the screenshots in Preview and Exporting as JPEG. That may just be a problem with my copy of GC.

When you have copied a URL you can paste it into the text of your message in the format: <IMG>http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/your_filename.jpg</IMG>, but use square brackets in place of the angle ones I put here. You can see the entries in this post if you click its "Quote" button and look at the text I put in to link in the pictures.

HTH

 

[nini1972]

Currently I can't play any completed mod I've tried to download:

- Teturkhan TOT
- Thamis' Ancient Mediterranean mod
- Yoda Power's Medieval Europe

[mostly interessant mods...]

Sometimes I got an .exe, some others a .bix file: I did know that a .bix is only avaible to PTW owners, and ya know, I'm a mac user...

thx to all for answers
nini1972

 

[AlanH]

Of those three, as far as I can tell, Teturkhan TOT and Yoda Power's Medieval Europe look like they are PTW-only. They both mention BIX files and one explicitly specifies PTW. Thamis does publish a non-PTW version of his mod as a .EXE file, which is a Windows installer.

I've downloaded the non-PTW Thamis mod to see if there's any way to extract the data files from it. No luck so far. I can find the individual file images in the installer, but I haven't found a way to decompress them yet. If I could get over that step I could probably create an application that would "run" the installer on a Mac.

You could try contacting Thamis and ask if he can let you have the files as a zipped set without the installer, but he would have to find a way to get them to you. The compressed Thamis set is over 20 MBytes, way over the local upload limit, and most email systems don't like that sort of load. You'll probably need to find a mutually accessible FTP server somewhere if he's prepared to do it at all.

Alternatively, if you have a PC or VirtualPC you should be able to install it there and then grab the files it creates and copy them via network or desktop or CD-R to your Mac. You would then have to put them all in the right locations in your CivIII application folder. I can extract a list of the file names and locations if that would help. The list is visible in the installer.

 

[nini1972]

Thx Alanh,
I choiched to drop my mod greed, and I turned to GOTM...

I tried to download GOTM 21 [Minoian Melee];

I tought I understood all of the instructions but... ... finally I came out with one of those creepy .exe docs, into the pack [the whole GOTM modifications from GOTM 16 till 21 - 5,61 Mb] as in the queue of 6 different downloaded files - the last was an .exe doc... ... and I can't open it.

Please all of you Mac-civers lighthoused and enlighted people, tell me how to install GOTM 21 materials...

thanks a lot
nini1972

 

[tao]

Originally posted by nini1972
Please all of you Mac-civers lighthoused and enlighted people, tell me how to install GOTM 21 materials...

Follow the link in this thread.

 

[Trixter]

If you already have installed everything you find linked in the middle of this page, then you only need the final gotm21_mac setup files you'll find here .

 

[nini1972]

thanks a lot, tao.

 

[nini1972]

thanks a bit more,
trixter

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by nini1972
I tried to download GOTM 21 [Minoian Melee];

I tought I understood all of the instructions but... ... finally I came out with one of those creepy .exe docs, into the pack [the whole GOTM modifications from GOTM 16 till 21 - 5,61 Mb] as in the queue of 6 different downloaded files - the last was an .exe doc... ... and I can't open it.

Please all of you Mac-civers lighthoused and enlighted people, tell me how to install GOTM 21 materials...

thanks a lot
nini1972

What's wrong with just using my 10.2 GOTM installer? This is exactly why I produced it. Or are you running OS9 or OS 10.1.x?

 

[nini1972]

What's wrong with just using my 10.2 GOTM installer? This is exactly why I produced it. Or are you running OS9 or OS 10.1.x?

I'm running Civ III under OS10.2, but - sorry - I'm new to GOTM, so I completely missed your Installer.
Just referring to Tao's and Trixer's clues, I hope those are enough: I'm not at home so I can't test it. Didn't know about other stuff.

thanks
nini1972

 

[AlanH]

If you follow the GOTM Installer link in my signature you'll find a post in the Mac Tournament forum with a link to the full installer for GOTM 23. If you download that and run it, it will fix whatever is wrong with your current installation and you should be able to play GOTM 21, 22 and 23.

It's a standard Mac installer that puts ALL the files right where they need to be, and it really is MUCH easier than trying to work out where all the files go. The standard downloads also contain some errors which are repaired in my installer, so you don't have to find and fix those either.

All being well I shall produce a small add-on installer for GOTM 24 as soon as the GOTM team release the extra files, and that will update your GOTM 23 installation to GOTM 24. I'll update my installer post with a new link as soon as that happens.

 

[Trixter]

Sorry, AlanH. Wasn't sure if the correction of errors (like the Galloglass->Cataphract folder name change) in the standard d/l left previous GOTMs playable and don't have the time to test it at the moment. Will send future GOTM-newcomers your way... ^^

 

[nini1972]

thanks a lot alanh

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by Trixter
Sorry, AlanH. Wasn't sure if the correction of errors (like the Galloglass->Cataphract folder name change) in the standard d/l left previous GOTMs playable and don't have the time to test it at the moment. Will send future GOTM-newcomers your way... ^^

As far as I am aware my full installer will set any Civ3 v.1.29 installation up correctly to play GOTM #21 through #23. It is fairly brutal - it just copies all of the GOTM-specials into your installation, so as long as you haven't corrupted or over-written any of the standard files it should fix everything else.

All of the add-ons for the GOTM are backwards compatible to earlier games, except the resources.pcx and resources_shadows.pcx files. You need to swap those two files to play previous GOTMs (#20 needs a special pair, previous games use the factory-standard files).

 

[tao]

I updated my AppleScripts to switch in and out GOTM configurations. You find them in this thread.

 

[Toasty]

Few n00bie questions, played the PC version and finally bought Mac copy after switching in July:

1. How can you get to the Startup Dialog Box after selecting "don't ask again"?

2. Where can I download 1.29b?