No texts in main menu after loading mod

[cool3a2]

A user on an hungarian civ4 forum requested an update of an old vanilla mod. The goal is to get it to run with the latest version of vanilla civ4, not to update it for BtS. The mod is the XX century mod. There were the usual problems with communism, great dam and great palace that I have already solved. The mod loads without any error now, but I can't see any single text in the main menu, only the Civlization 4 label on the top, the animated earth in the background and some arrows indicating which menu entry is selected. At first I thought that this is because I started it with having german selected as language, but it happens with english as well. And that should really work... It seems to me that there are all english entries present in the xml (although there are a lot of additional entries) and I already reduced the overwritten entries to a minimum (to avoid that the menus texts get overwritten by empty tags). Just to make it clear: this hasn't been caused by my changes as there were no menu texts from the beginning on.

So, can anybody give me a hint? I think I read about this problem long time ago, so maybe someone knows the solution without any listing. However, if there is no suggestion about that till tomorrow, I'll upload my files then.

 

[Shiggs713]

you might want to check the res/fonts folder inside of assets and see if there is anything strange looking in there. You can probably even entirely delete it (the fonts folder) if its there and it might help. Not sure but thats all I can think of

 

[cool3a2]

I couldn't find the mentioned folders. I've just uploaded my files: click. There is another archive file where the civilopedia text files are placed. It contains files that came with the original mod package. There were several text entries in them that I all have copied into a single file. The reason for this is, that maybe this mod gets translated into hungarian and it is then easier to do so if all additional text entries are in one file. However, this shouldn't be the reason for my problem as it occured before I copied all those entries as well. I just wanted to make that clear to avoid anybody is wondering or wasting time by searching in the wrong direction.

I'll have a review of my files by my own later. For the moment I'd like to get some "distance". Sometimes you can't see the forrest because of all those trees (Germans say that to express that someone can't see the obvious things).

 

[Shiggs713]

well i glanced at it a bit. I'm not sure how its having a problem. I'm pretty sure no XML tags changed from 1.0 to 1.74 and (other than art) thats all you included.

I can tell you for sure that it'll only work correct in english. I'm starting to think your original civ4 files got corrupted... have you tried a normal run with no mods recently?

I'll try to take a closer look when I get off work.

 

[cool3a2]

I can tell you for sure that it'll only work correct in english.

Yeah, I noticed that. I already switched to english while I working on this.

I'm starting to think your original civ4 files got corrupted... have you tried a normal run with no mods recently?

Unprobable, if not impossible. I loaded the mod the old style, that means I first start default civ4 (where everything is as it should be), then go to the submenu, and select the mod for loading. After a restart there are no texts in the menu anymore.

I am also wondering why this could happen. You are right, there are just some additional unit and leader artworks, that's all. Nothing critical... There is nothing that could be at least minimally suspicious.

 

[Shiggs713]

well i just played around with it. I tried a few things and finally got it to work.

First off, you should NEVER have a globaldefines.xml in a mod

it should always be globaldefinesalt.xml that way you don't have to re-define everything that civ4 already defines. Any values you want to change, copy into globaldefinesalt.xml

go to the civ4 XML directory; C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Assets\XML

you will see a file named globaldefinesalt.xml, copy that and paste it into the folder where your messed up version of globaldefines.xml is (in the XX century mod's XML folder).

use winmerge or whatever you want to compare the original civ4's globaldefines.xml to the XX century Mod's globaldefines.xml, any VALUE's that are different, you will want to copy and paste into the new globaldefinesalt.xml

for example;

in the XX century Mods globaldefines.xml it has

<Define>
		<DefineName>START_YEAR</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>1873</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>

it is different then the original civ4's define, so you'll want to change it in the mod. To do so you will want to put that into your new globaldefinesalt.xml like so;

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- edited with XMLSPY v2004 rel. 2 U (http://www.xmlspy.com) by Bart Muzzin (Firaxis Games) -->
<!-- Sid Meier's Civilization 4 -->
<!-- Copyright Firaxis Games 2005 -->
<!-- -->
<!-- Global Defines -->
<Civ4Defines xmlns="x-schema:CIV4GlobalDefinesSchema.xml">
	<Define>
		<DefineName>START_YEAR</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>1873</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
</Civ4Defines>

if/when you find more defines that don't match, you'll keep adding, like so;

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- edited with XMLSPY v2004 rel. 2 U (http://www.xmlspy.com) by Bart Muzzin (Firaxis Games) -->
<!-- Sid Meier's Civilization 4 -->
<!-- Copyright Firaxis Games 2005 -->
<!-- -->
<!-- Global Defines -->
<Civ4Defines xmlns="x-schema:CIV4GlobalDefinesSchema.xml">
	<Define>
		<DefineName>START_YEAR</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>1873</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
	<Define>
		<DefineName>STANDARD_GAMESPEED</DefineName>
		<DefineTextVal>GAMESPEED_MARATHON</DefineTextVal>
	</Define>
</Civ4Defines>

(it changes the standard game speed as well)

once you find all these differences and add them to your globaldefinesalt.xml (that is inside your C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods\XX Century Mod 2\Assets\XML (folder)) then delete the original globaldefines.xml that is in the same folder and it should work.

If it doesn't then delete XX Century Mod configuration file (in the C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods\XX Century Mod 2 (folder))

I only say that cause I deleted both the config file and the globaldefines.xml file and it worked perfectly the first time. The only reason you can't just delete like I did, is cause you need to transfer the old defines back into the old mod.

Note*** do not change the version number define

That should do it.

Shiggs

 

[cool3a2]

Ah, thank you very much. Hmm... that's the problem if you have to update a mod made by someone else: you don't have any overwiev about all those changes he did. However, thank you for your help!