More Civs...........

[gidds]

I don't actually play the game, even in its base state, so I certainly don't have time to look at subtle extensions and adaptations, except as technical challenges.

The "something like PTW" exists, I think. It's Warlords

AlanH,

Found another idiot proof page for that 7za thingy, when downloaded its just drag and expand...

http://savefile.com/download/17121?PHPSESSID=23d2dac1ebca66050833431a6b19655c

Besides a weird pfenomonom when I am trying to open these adjusted flies YOU MADE )(It opens up Mac big bang 4 in a row, Being a Dell Account Manager Mac simply has to hate ME!)

So after half an hour work it finnaly seems to work people, all together with the Blue Marble......

Have to say one simple thing...

Thanks man! Thanks for the effort..

 

[AlanH]

Found another idiot proof page for that 7za thingy

That's EZ 7z, the application I mentioned that has a broken link from MacUpdate. Looks like you tracked it down, or they fixed the link.

Besides a weird pfenomonom when I am trying to open these adjusted flies YOU MADE )( It opens up Mac big bang 4 in a row ...)

What did I do? I didn't change any sound files, and I certainly didn't do anything that might have caused your Mac to behave badly.

 

[gidds]

That's EZ 7z, the application I mentioned that has a broken link from MacUpdate. Looks like you tracked it down, or they fixed the link.



What did I do? I didn't change any sound files, and I certainly didn't do anything that might have caused your Mac to behave badly.

Yeah, I think they fixed the link.....

Nah AlainH, you didnt do a darn thing man....Thats the Mac just not liking me..

In other words, the anomaly was there way B4..

But because of you the Gold edition works on my Mac..thanks again.

 

[awb]

Gidds: It's because for some strange reason, the default application to open XML files on some computers (including mine) is Big Bang. To open these files in another app (like TextEdit or Dreamweaver, etc.) just right click and select 'Open With'.

 

[AlanH]

Now I understand! I'd never heard of Big Bang - I thought I must have done something to the sound on your system!

I use BBEdit for all text editing, including XML files.

If you want to change the application you use for any file extension then right click a file of that type in Finder and select Get Info. Expand the Open with: section and select the application you want to use for that file extension. Click Change all ... to make that the default application for all such files.

 

[gidds]

Gidds: It's because for some strange reason, the default application to open XML files on some computers (including mine) is Big Bang. To open these files in another app (like TextEdit or Dreamweaver, etc.) just right click and select 'Open With'.

Got Ya...thanks..

Well Lads I have asked Rhye to come and help me with the 24Civ huge earth map. As he prob has one lying 'round its the logical thing to ask.

 

[Wyz_sub10]

Hi guys!

Wow. Awesome to see CIV Gold made playable for the Mac community!

There were a few bugs that I overlooked in 2.0, but I got most of them in 3.0. As I understand it, there was still a small problem with Tashunkewitko's diplomacy on First Contact (small spelling error - fixed), and there was a problem with the Togo tags.

I think those have been fixed and I'll be added a small 3.0 patch to correct them. The general diplomacy errors from 2.0 have been remedied in 3.0.

I would like to invite Mac users to the Gold development forum:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=217

I started a new thread for Mac-conversion specific issues, but of course you are invited to participated in all the threads.

 

[gidds]

Hi guys!

Wow. Awesome to see CIV Gold made playable for the Mac community!

There were a few bugs that I overlooked in 2.0, but I got most of them in 3.0. As I understand it, there was still a small problem with Tashunkewitko's diplomacy on First Contact (small spelling error - fixed), and there was a problem with the Togo tags.

I think those have been fixed and I'll be added a small 3.0 patch to correct them. The general diplomacy errors from 2.0 have been remedied in 3.0.

I would like to invite Mac users to the Gold development forum:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=217

I started a new thread for Mac-conversion specific issues, but of course you are invited to participated in all the threads.

Cool man..thanks.

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Downloaded after about 40 mins.
Decompressed with no problems using EZ 7z.
Dropped the resulting CIV Gold3 folder into ~/Documents/Civilization IV/Mods/
Fired up Civ4, Advanced/Load a mod/Restart

I've just downloaded Civ Gold3. I followed your instructions up to this point, Alan, but upon Restart the game froze halfway through the start-up. Does it just take a very, very long time to load - or is there something more serious afoot?

I'm new to using mods, so please treat me as if I were an idiot.


[EDIT: Just tried again. This time I got a load of XML errors, which I just clicked 'OK' through. I did manage to get the game to start up, however, and chose to play with Boadicea. At the end of this process, the game took me straight to the Tech Adviser window then immediately told me I had been defeated without a turn being played! Guess I need to get hold of BBEdit, right?]

 

[AlanH]

I did that testing very early in my Civ4 investigation career. Since then I've discovered that a lot of mod XML files can be fixed just be adding or editing the first line. If there's no XML header line then add the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

as a new first line. Some files may have:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

but have been edited to be invalid utf-8 files, in which case the 'utf-8' may need to be changed to 'ISO-8859-1'.

If all the above fails then BBEdit or Text Wrangler can be used as the final blunt instrument to Zap Gremlins, as described in my earlier post.

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Ooooooooohhh..........kay...

My mother is the proud owner of a MacBook, but is almost clueless as to how to use it. So I regularly get calls from her asking me for help. The trouble is, she doesn't know the correct terminology for anything, so much of my advice just goes over her head.

In this case, Alan, you are me and I am my mother (so to speak).

Actually, it's not quite that bad, because I understand the principles of what you're saying. What I'm not sure about is (a) whether the files can just be edited in any text editor (like the aptly named TextEdit) or whether I need to acquire a specific XML editor like BBEdit; and (b) exactly which of the XML files I should be editing (although the second attempt to load did throw up a lot of errors in the text files, so I can start there).

Sorry to test your patience, but I hope this dialogue will be useful to other people who, like me, lack the relevant experience and understanding.

Thanks!

 

[OscarWildebeest]

Sorry, ignore (a) - I see from awb's post above that I can use TextEdit.

[EDIT: I have gone through all the XML files in the Text folder, and amended <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"? to <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> so I hope there'll be nothing else to do, unless you can recommend something. We'll get there.]

 

[AlanH]

A) BBEdit isn't being used for its program editing capabilities here. Its extra ingredient is that it possesses the magic "Zap Gremlins" command, which wipes out the illegal character codes in any text file with a single bound. This isn't available in TextEdit, so you have to plough through the text looking for strange characters, I guess, and deleting them all manually. Of course, I haven't tried it in TextEdit, so I may be maligning it.

B) As you say, all teh ones named and shamed by the error messages. Or you can start with the ones in /XML/Text/ folder. That should get most of them, then let Civ4 pick the others out for you.

 

[Welnic]

You can download a demo version of BBEdit at barebones software. I used that to fix the Warlords version CivGold3. You are talking about the vanilla version, aren't you? Try to load it after you changed the first line and then note the files that you need to change. Then open those in BBEdit and chose Zap Gremlins. You can get fancy when you do that and replace the bad characters with something that you can search for later and then go try to figure out what to replace it with. Usually it is something like replacing an é with an e. Or you can just replace the bad stuff with nothing or a space. Just about all of the bad things that I found were in Civopedia entries, so it is not a big deal.

 

[OscarWildebeest]

I was thinking about downloading BBEdit, but since I have TextEdit already in place I wondered if it was really necessary. I've been looking at the XML files and I can see what sort of thing needs to be done - sure, it may be more tedious using TextEdit but I'll give it a go.

I think I can take it from here, but I'll come back to you when I've tried out the results of my editing. (May not be until Monday.)

Thanks to you both!

 

[Welnic]

Well, just as a test I went back and checked on the files that I changed. I ended up looking at GameTextInfos_Gold2.xml. There were 34 changes in there. Doing this using TextEdit would mean loading up the game, writing down the error and where it is, then changing it in TextEdit. And I'm not sure if the error message from the game actually includes the line that it happened on correctly. And some of the errors in the this file actually occurred at character 10333 in one of the lines. And you really don't know what you are looking for.

In doing the Warlord version, I have gotten bogged down in trying to replace the bad characters with something equivalent while documenting the changes. This has turned out to be a huge task. But just deleting them using Zap Gremlins is really easy. I wouldn't even think of doing this using TextEdit.

 

[AlanH]

I think you may be making it harder work than necessary. Most failures *should* be fixable by adjusting the header line. That's what tells OS X how to read the characters, which are not incorrect in themselves, they just don't match the declared file type.

If you really have to change the text itself, and you aren't worried about maintaining the translated text content, there's probably a quicker option than finding all the bad characters. Since they are mostly in the non-English text, you *could either replace that text with the English versions, or maybe just delete the non-English versions entirely.

 

[Skippy_Kangaroo]

Is a nicely cleaned up version of CivGold available for use by Mac users? (So we don't all have to individually zap gremlins etc.)

Perhaps in a more common compression format as well so the process is painless.

 

[Welnic]

There is a version for warlords. You need to get the stock version and then replace a couple of groups of files that I have massaged, there are links for those in this thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=196171

I might do the same thing for the vanilla version.

 

[Skippy_Kangaroo]

I might do the same thing for the vanilla version.

That would be greatly appreciated as I have not shelled out extra for Warlords at this stage. If it's all packaged up in one place that would be great. Probably best to post it in the Mac thread over at the GivGold development forum if you do manage to get it all together.

(I'm still waiting for a patch to fix some of the remaining issues with Vanilla before I consider handing over more money.)