[BTS] News: BOTM 191 starts 7April

[Tonny]

Interesting start. Will it be Workboat or Worker first?

 

[mr. Y]

Hello all.
Returning player, after a _long_ time.
Never really stopped playing civ4 (hey! Best game ever!) but BOTM has been years, maybe even a decade.
I'm trying to load the savegame but I have trouble.
I successfully downloaded, installed and loaded the MOD but I get this message:
"The HOF will be unable to save settings. Games played will NOT be valid for submission ... blablabla (...) Please use a user account with admin access. (For Vista user) blablabla".

Uuuuh... Vista users?

Anyway. I wanna play. Really badly. I need it. If I can't, I'm gonna kill a puppy and it's gonna be on you.
What do I do?

Sincerely, me.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Hello all.
"The HOF will be unable to save settings. Games played will NOT be valid for submission ... blablabla (...) Please use a user account with admin access. (For Vista user) blablabla".

Uuuuh... Vista users?

Anyway. I wanna play. Really badly. I need it. If I can't, I'm gonna kill a puppy and it's gonna be on you.
What do I do?

Sincerely, me.

Welcome to the GOTM!

Yeah, the reference to Vista is a bit of an out of date, but it's exactly the same thing in Windows 10. The usual reason for seeing this error is that the game doesn't have access on your computer to save the competition-related data that we need to analyse your game when you submit it.

To solve this problem, you need to give admin permissions to Civ Beyond the Sword. The easiest way to do that is to find the BtS executable file that actually runs the game. It'll be the file called Civ4BeyondSword.exe, and it'll be in whatever folder you installed Civ in, in the Beyond the Sword subfolder. Right-click on this file in Windows explorer and select Properties. Then select the Compatibility tab, and make sure that 'Run this program as an administrator' is selected. The image is what it looks like on my machine (I used the Change settings for all users button to do it for all users, but you don't normally have to do that).

By the way, once you've done that, you'll find that whenever you start the game, Windows will pop up a dialog confirming that you do want to run it. That's fine - Windows will always do that for a program that has admin permissions.

 

[mr. Y]

Hey.
Thanks a bunch for the reply.
I did everything you recommended.
My OS does ask me if I'm sure I want to run this program when I start it, so I am running it with admin rights.

Now, when I try to load the save, I get this friendly message: "The save file you have selected is protected to ensure that the assets in your mod folder have not been changed.".
And after that, nothing happens.

Any more ideas?

 

[lymond]

Any more ideas?

What type of media is your Civ IV and where?

Two things I would check/perform:

1) On the root folder for BTS under programs, or the root for Civ IV if everything resides under that folder. Right click > Properties> Uncheck "Read Only"> Say yes to all subfolders. Do the same for any Civ IV related top level folder under My Documents.

2) Do you have any other mods installed in Custom Assets or are you running the BULL DLL? (Blue Marble should not matter) Or otherwise have you jacked around with the Custom Assets folder or any regular assets?

GOTM saves have the Lock Modified Assets option turn on which means that assets have to match from the source setup to the target setups.

If you have a Steam version of Civ IV, then there are other issues to discuss.

 

[Anysense]

Now, when I try to load the save, I get this friendly message: "The save file you have selected is protected to ensure that the assets in your mod folder have not been changed."

It means your assets folder is different from standard version. That would happen if you have mods altering the contents of assets folder or different version of Civ. Steam should work properly if you check 'beta', at least in theory, in practice it may take a lot of messing around to make it work.

Another currently available version is GOG. It has its own problem with windows registry, @Noble Zarkon can help you there.

And make sure you did what Lymond says in his 1).

 

[mr. Y]

If you have a Steam version of Civ IV, then there are other issues to discuss.

I do have the Steam version.
I unchecked the read-only checkbox for C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization IV Beyond the Sword and everything under it.
I did the same with C:\Users\Marco\Documents\My Games\beyond the sword, but that did not seem to have an effect. When I open up the Properties again, the checkbox is again in this state which is neither checked nor unchecked. (black square).

I had the BUG Mod installed. But that is not a Mod that I can easily turn off. So I uninstalled it.


The status now:

-When I start the game, it gives me the message "Do you want to allow this app (...) to make change to your device (...)"
So I am running it as Administrator.

- When I load the BUFFY-3.19.005 mod, I still get the HOF Mod Error popup. ("The HOF will be unable to save settings. Games played will NOT be valid for submission...")

- The application restarts, loads the mod, and when I try to open the savegame I get "The save file you have selected is protected to ensure that the assets in your mod folder have not been changed." and nothing happens next.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Sorry you're having such trouble. Unfortunately the Steam version can be quite tricky to get to work with the BUFFY mod. Have you tried the instructions on this page for puttnig an old BUFFY compatible Steam version on your computer? There's also a bit of info on this thread

 

[lymond]

Please ignore DS”s second link as it has nothing to do with the steam version.

DS’s first link mentioned is very important though. Mods will not work unless the beta version is installed.

My recommendation is a fresh install. Uninstall via Steam. Then delete all civ iv files and folders in programs and documents. Reinstall and follow the instructions DS linked to revert to the beta.

important: Do not run BTS from the Steam Library. Always run from BTS executable as if the game was not a steam game. ( you just need the Steam app running )

Run bts once and close.

Do the things we mentioned earlier with run as admin and read only. (The read only check box will still look filled after doing this ...that is normal)

Install BUFFY as admin.

 

[mr. Y]

Hmkay, so.
I tried the following:
Changed my Steam version to beta.
Now it tells me when I want to load Buffy: Mod Error: Mods\ods\BUFFY-3.19.005\ is an invalid mod directory, ignoring.

So, somehow CIV thinks there is an extra folder layer called ods.
I decided to try creating this ods folder and copy the whole BUFFY-3.19.005 folder to \Mods\ods.
Now it loads Buffy. But when I load the savegame it tells me that Mods\BUFFY needs to be installed, and it restarts.

Now I'm going to read the message that has just been posted while I was typing this.

EDIT: Okay, so wipe everything and start from scratch. Hm. I'll try that, but not today.
Thanks for all your tips. I'll report back after I've tried a clean install.

 

[lymond]

Make sure the buffy install is pointed to something like:

c:/ programs/steam/common/bts/bts/mods

if it does not see that path automatically


Do not jack with files and folders...that is not the answer

 

[Anysense]

Now it tells me when I want to load Buffy: Mod Error: Mods\ods\BUFFY-3.19.005\ is an invalid mod directory, ignoring.

I solved this problem by setting up a shortcut to start Civ with BUFFY using this example as a template
Target: "C:\program files\steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization iv beyond the sword\Beyond the Sword\Civ4BeyondSword.exe" mod=\Fall from Heaven 2
Start in: "c:\program files\steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization iv beyond the sword\Beyond the Sword\Mods"

Use your actual path to BTS and replace 'Fall from Heaven 2' with BUFFY-3.19.005 and it should work.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

These things are really difficult to configure, at least on Mac. It took me months - and a lot of Feedback from generous folks from Here - to install buffy and such on my laptop so I can play BOTM. Now my old laptop is doing, I was trying to repeat The procedure on a newer one and cannot get it to work ;( so my BOTM playing days maybe nearing an end

on a more positive note, BOTM is a lot of fan, I am very glad I perservered, so keep trying good luck!

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Spoiler threads, please.

 

[Deckhand]

Spoiler threads, please.

whoa, I was really late with these! sorry