News: WOTM 15 Pre-game Discussion

[ainwood]

I am running Warlords under Windows XP. I have BtS at Version 3.13. I have loaded the assets test game provided by AlanH without any problem.

In addition to Alan's questions, can you post details of where Civ4 & warlords are located on your hard drive under steam (ie. the folder structure?)

 

[LowtherCastle]

And I think the challenger setting is appropriate. Delaying BW is not that bad. Alphabet in 500 BC is probably optimum.

CS slingshot will be a bit more challenging, especially with Gandhi on Warlords. You might have to beeline writing and burn a GS on Maths.

 

[Balbes]

Just noticed no city razing, I'll be interested to see if anyone can get a conquest victory before reaching the domination limit.

Perhaps that's a variant for those expert warmongers around here...

This is a pangea map, right?
Pangea conquests tend to be quick, so the existing cities will be few and far between. You'd probably need to build some settlers to go over the domination limit.

 

[ArcadicGamer]

So i fell asleep at my keyboard..,

Specificly, warlords WOTM always give me the standard "the save file has been proteceted to ensure...." hit ok then i get a box that says "load failed" and the game closes

I just tried swapping the two .dll's in my warlords folder. d:steam/steamapps/common/Sid Meyers Civ 4 : Warlords
The is a .dll in the Assets folder under this folder, and a Dll in the Warlords folder under assets also.
The game would not launch, a first for me.

Tried just swaping the Civ4war/warlords/assets folder's .dll, the game would launch, but i still recieved asset warnings in HOF mod and failed to load the WOTM.

Tried just swapping the civ4war/assets folder's .dll. Same as directly above.

I may have a chance to try one more option, switching both the vanilla dll, plus both warlords dll's. I believe i only swapped 2 of the 3 in my original attempt.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

Just noticed no city razing, I'll be interested to see if anyone can get a conquest victory before reaching the domination limit.

Perhaps that's a variant for those expert warmongers around here...

No city razing will put a nice spin on it for the faster conquest victory. I'd imagine you have to hit most AI's at the same time in order to avoid long periods of the game where you are paying maintenance on the very distant cities.

My thoughts are that it will require a high level of mastery to get the conquest done quickly.

From experience, oasis maps have more land than you think so the dom limit won't be a problem.

 

[ArcadicGamer]

Ok no sucess. I have tried swapping just the 2 warlords dll, ether of the 2 warlords dll, all 3 dll in both vanilla and warlords.

However, i DID notice something about one of the files. The one within the civ4/assets folder from the d/l is 3.53 mb in size, while my native steam one is 5.34 mb in size. The warlords/assets dll is 3.68 mb in both the dl and the steam folder.

And so the info is there for the mods. My Civ4 works. It is installed @ d:steam/steamapps/common/Sid Meyer's Civalization iv and contains the folders Assets, cvgamecordll, miles, mods, publicmaps, resource, shaders, along with the shortcuts to where the game saves in my documents and some individual files.
Warlords is installed @ D:\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization iv warlords. The folder contains the following folders: Assets, cvgamecoredll, miles, mods, publicmaps, resource, shaders, warlords. and it includes a bunch of other individial files.

Everything is installed on the default location, as steam doesnt allow custom folder arrangement. All i can do is place Steam on the proper HD/partition and it will install the game as listed above. (this goes for any game steam installs)

 

[AlanH]

Ok no sucess. I have tried swapping just the 2 warlords dll, ether of the 2 warlords dll, all 3 dll in both vanilla and warlords.

Thanks for trying ... When you say *Three DLL files" - which three are you talking about? There will be a third one in the HOF Mod, or there will be a third one in Beyond the Sword if you have it. But there are only two involved in the changes I was proposing. Also, as I asked before - What form does the failure take? Can you load the HOF Mod and play a random game with it? Or do you get a Locked Assets error? Or does it just crash?

However, i DID notice something about one of the files. The one within the civ4/assets folder from the d/l is 3.53 mb in size, while my native steam one is 5.34 mb in size. The warlords/assets dll is 3.68 mb in both the dl and the steam folder.

That's very strange! I wonder if that may mean that the Warlords and vanilla DLLs are merged in the Steam version.

And so the info is there for the mods. My Civ4 works. It is installed @ d:steam/steamapps/common/Sid Meyer's Civalization iv and contains the folders Assets, cvgamecordll, miles, mods, publicmaps, resource, shaders, along with the shortcuts to where the game saves in my documents and some individual files.
Warlords is installed @ D:\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization iv warlords. The folder contains the following folders: Assets, cvgamecoredll, miles, mods, publicmaps, resource, shaders, warlords. and it includes a bunch of other individial files.

Well, there's a major difference. In a DVD installation there's a "Warlords" folder inside the "Sid Meyer's Civilization IV" folder, and that contains everything that you describe in your "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization IV Warlords" folder. That's why the zipped folders I created look the way they do. That difference may be enough to make the HOF Mod fail.

Everything is installed on the default location, as steam doesnt allow custom folder arrangement. All i can do is place Steam on the proper HD/partition and it will install the game as listed above. (this goes for any game steam installs)

Moving it to C: probably makes no difference.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Cooo! My favourite out of all the all-land maps (and probably the only all-land map that I actually like)! I've been looking forward to playing such a GOTM for a fair while. Thanks guys!

Very amused to see a pre-game discussion that focusses almost entirely on the dll's and stuff, and if you're lucky you can catch the occasional glimpse of comment on strategy for the actual game.

 

[Thrallia]

lol its my least favorite, mainly because of the number of times I have played this map for the HOF.

 

[Conquistador 63]

I never played Oasis but have just played a HOF Gauntlet game as Gandhi. I am tempted to start playing it now but that would require sending ongoing GOTM24 to the recycle bin.

About the game itself, I think I'll go for space. I plan to settle in place and cottage-spam the capitol, if I can find another decent site for a GP farm.

 

[Thrallia]

C63, you don't have to...you could just save the current .DLLs in a different folder so you can play this game. When you finish GOTM24, you'll need to do that anyway for HOF games once you start this game.

Denniz said we had to have the old DLL in order for any games we play to be eligible for the HOF.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

My bet is metals will be a ways away...

 

[Thrallia]

metal will be rare, as it usually is in Oasis games. I believe Iron will be more common than copper though.

 

[ArcadicGamer]

1.Thanks for trying ... When you say *Three DLL files" - which three are you talking about? There will be a third one in the HOF Mod, or there will be a third one in Beyond the Sword if you have it. But there are only two involved in the changes I was proposing. Also, as I asked before - 1b.What form does the failure take? Can you load the HOF Mod and play a random game with it? Or do you get a Locked Assets error? Or does it just crash?

2. That's very strange! I wonder if that may mean that the Warlords and vanilla DLLs are merged in the Steam version.


3. Well, there's a major difference. In a DVD installation there's a "Warlords" folder inside the "Sid Meyer's Civilization IV" folder, and that contains everything that you describe in your "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization IV Warlords" folder. That's why the zipped folders I created look the way they do. That difference may be enough to make the HOF Mod fail.

4. Moving it to C: probably makes no difference.

I'm no good at seperating these questions and answers, so i'll number them

1. When i mean 3 .dll files i mean the vanilla dll, and the two dll's in the warlords folder. (the vanilla one is duplicated and the warlords one is there also) I have tried almost every combination of the 3 .dlls except for chaning the vanilla folder's dll and the warlords dll in the warlords folder.
1b. Failure is an asset warning when playing a HOF game. I can still PLAY it, but i cannot get rid of the asset changed error. WOTM gives me the pop-up box and it closes Warlords with a Load Failed message.

2. It would seem that the Warlords folder has civ4 doubly installed, or requires the assets to be there instead of another folder.

3. I might be reading it wrong, but this seems to be the primary issue. But are you saying that my CIV4W folder is equal to your Warlords folder, or that my warlords folder equals your warlords folder, only that it is in the same general CIV4 folder as vanilla. (god that is a mess to read)

         Steam                             Standard
XXX/Civ4W/Warlords         =         XXX/Civ4/Warlords
                                    or
           XXX/Civ4W          =          XXX/Civ4/Warlords

4. I would try, but my C: is for XP and small programs only. Not enough space to try. However, its most likely not the case unless the HOF mod needs to look into anything saved on C like the saves under "my documents" However, others besides steam users would most likey have a similar issue.

 

[da_Vinci]

There are civ 4 files under my games and separately under Firaxis games in a standard install:

Check this post:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5705771&postcount=16

and this thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=232115

to see if that has any useful insight into your problem.

Maybe post a screenshot of your windows explorer file structure?

dV

 

[AlanH]

Thanks. Now I understand.

I hadn't spotted the fact that "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization IV Warlords" is a complete duplicate of "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization IV" plus "Warlords" added to it. So that means the only main folder we are interested in for this exercise is "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization IV Warlords" together with its sub-folder "Warlords".

Steam 				Standard
XX/Civ4W/		=	XXX/Civ4/
and
XXX/Civ4W/Warlords	= 	XXX/Civ4/Warlords

A. Which DLL was the one that is much bigger than mine?

B. It sounds as if you can play a random Warlords game with HOF-2.13.001 loaded?

Note to da_Vinci: The Assets involved here are only those in the Steam path, the equivalent of your \Program Files\Firaxis Games\ path.

 

[ArcadicGamer]

A. I made a huge typo now that i see it. the file is 0.01 mb different, not 2.xx. The vanilla asset for Steam is 3.53.
The vanilla asset from DL is 3.54.

but in a key file such as this, every byte counts.

B. Yes, i can load the mod and play custom game with locked assets, but i get the "this game is not valid for HOF use....assets....contact HOF staff" warning when the game loads. I could play it to 2050 AD and win, but i would show as being modded in a submission it seems.

Something i dont know if i pointed out yet in this thread. I can play vanilla whit my vanilla asset @ 3.53mb (default steam asset) without asset warning. (i recently submitted GOTM 23) I havent tried changing it and playing a HOF game to see if both assets work.

Since it seems that GOTM 25 will need the modified asset also, can you produce a test save of both warlords and vanilla to see if it is purely a Steam directory asset issue? If i can load a vanilla test save we can narrow our search.

I just had a minor revelation on the issue while rambling. Perhapse my BTS folder contains the patched asset from BTS, since it is setup the same way as the warlords install. Yes. Within by CIV4BTS folder (again a copy of your base CIV folder) my asset is 3.54 mb. Testing...

 

[ArcadicGamer]

I just had a minor revelation on the issue while rambling. Perhapse my BTS folder contains the patched asset from BTS, since it is setup the same way as the warlords install. Yes. Within by CIV4BTS folder (again a copy of your base CIV folder) my asset is 3.54 mb. Testing...

Test Failed. While my BTS folder contains the 3.13 version dll, the 3.54 mb, moving it to my warlords install doesnt work. Moving the warlords asset from BTS to warlords doesnt fix anything ether. Having both moved, still asset warnings.

IMO, its ether something besides the dll thats different that the assetchecker doesnt catch, (one which was ran in the HOF forum) or its this patch/mod specific. Although i do not remember too well, i seem to recall being able to play HOF games in 2.08 and 1.62. I think it was the 3.13 patch that allowed me to play vanilla GOTM's and HOF again. It also stopped me as showing modded in multiplayer games, vanilla, warlords and bts included in that. Point i'm trying to make about it is:
Something in the 3.13 patch corrected how assets were handled in vanilla. Otherwise i wouldnt be playing GOTM 23 or 24. Its gotta be something within the warlords folder that is causing the error, besides the .dll.

Bedtime, my head hurts.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

lol its my least favorite, mainly because of the number of times I have played this map for the HOF.

Hmmm, don't you get to choose your maptype for HOF? Couldn't you choose another one?

 

[Thrallia]

I could, but I was attempting one of the gauntlets, and the gauntlet required aztecs and oasis