Not sure if anyone still plays this, but rather frustrating bug

[HayRoss]

I play a game, I start as Yang, wait until the Pirates are available to play, play as them for a while, save my game, load it up again, and it loads me in as Yang with no option to go back to the Pirates. It appears that I can only play expansion civs by playing the whole game in one sitting because saving switches me back to who I started as. Is this common and can I fix this?

 

[DarkLunaPhantom]

If you enable cheatcodes (by setting CheatCode = chipotle in BTS civ4 config .ini file), you can use ALT+Z to change to any civilization during the game so you could do that after loading. (However, this might mess up your difficulty level if it isn't Noble or possibly some other things.)

 

[Pfeffersack]

(...) It appears that I can only play expansion civs by playing the whole game in one sitting because saving switches me back to who I started as. Is this common and can I fix this?

There is another way to play them (start the game in the Expansion Era), however you have to sacrifice then playing the game from the very beginning (means everyone starts with a certain level of tech e.g.)

 

[Lord Meire]

There is another way to play them (start the game in the Expansion Era), however you have to sacrifice then playing the game from the very beginning (means everyone starts with a certain level of tech e.g.)

You can ignore the penalty by picking Pirates from the civ list while the era is set to Expansion and then switching the era back to Arrival before you start the game. It should appear to switch you back to a random civ but when the map loads you'll still be Pirates.