playing gotm from Italy

atov

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 23, 2003
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5
Location
Italy
dear civfanatics,

i would like to play gotm but i've experienced some problems.

i've bought civ3 (and ptw) in italy and the installation program does not ask me in which language i'd like to play. so it installs only in italian.
the problem is that the directory names are in italian language and your files (but even the conquests i've bought in uk) fail to find "art/units/settlers" because the directory has another name!!

if I install conquests in italian (the installation program give me the choise) everything go well.

do you know if there is some way to install your files?
(i'm also considering to buy civ3 in english but it seem a nonsense to me...)

I've also written to atari support but till now i've received no answers.

Thanks.
 
The GOTM initial save files contain references to "Warrior" and "Settler" and other units in English, but, as you say, your software contains files and folders named in Italain. This is the case for any save file created by an English version of the Civ3 software, and I would have problems trying to run a save file created in your version. In order to make GOTM playable with an Italian version of Civ3 it would be necessary to create the start files using an Italian copy of Civ3, and then we would need a French version, and a German version and ...

We do have a lot of GOTM players from non-English-speaking countries, but I imagine they all run English versions of Civ3 to do so. I think an effort was made to create a French version a while ago, but it was not found possible to do so every month.
 
So.... It appears that the GOTM can't be played in the italian version?

Can you install an english language version of conquests? If so, then it should also install an english language version of Play The World. You should be able to use this version of PTW for the Game Of The Month.... :hmm:
 
thank you very much for answers,

it appears to me that the only way i have to play gotm is to install the civ3 english version!

so, do you know some web site where i can buy it (even used)? do you think infogrames will give me a free one, considering that i have an original italian copy?

thanks again.


bye.
 
... oh, i've forgotten...

i cannot install conquests in english mode because it does not work (the changed directory name crush the game).

i guess it's my civ3 italian version...

thanks anyway
 
the atari support wrote to me that there is no chance: if i want to play in english mode i have to buy an english version of civ3...

so i bought an used one from ebay and i've installed the gotm add-on.

everything is going well and i'm playing gotm27.

if someone else playing with localized version of civ3 wrote to the forum, the only answer is to buy a english version. even if it's hard to understand why infogrames (or whoever...) had to change some directory names.
sigh!

Anyway, i'm really having fun playing gotm and, with this english version installed, i may also play mods, scenarios etc. etc. Even if I have two original copies of the same game!!
 
I don't know if there is some internal references to the names but I fixed the anda warrior problem in the Mongol GOTM by changing the names.
 
Originally posted by barbslinger
I don't know if there is some internal references to the names but I fixed the anda warrior problem in the Mongol GOTM by changing the names.
Unfortunately the whole problem *is* the internal references to the unit names inside the .SAV file. Fixing one incorrect unit file name, as you were able to do, is a whole different kettle of fish from converting the entire game installation to be compatible with the GOTM file. There are unit names all over the game installation that must be converted from Italian to English in order for the GOTM file to run, and units may not be the only problem. Atov is in the best position to tell us, but for example, I suspect the Civ names and building references may be changed to Italian as well.
 
the first problem was with the settler unit cause the program searched for the directory path "art/unit/settler". i tried to change the directory name but the program crashed a minute later. i thought that there was some internal reference when, for example, the settler is display on the map or something like that.

so i wrote to the atari support asking for instructions but they tell me that there is no way: the localized versions of the game are different. so i surrender.

however it's true that atari support have no interest in solving the problem... so they sell one copy more ;)

i did not try to check every .ini files nor to change the name of every italian directory name. i will install the italian version on another pc and take a look...
 
The minimum you need is to create an "English" copy of each unit directory with the unit name in English, and change its .INI file name to the English. After that you may have trouble with Art/Civilopedia/icons/units file names, and with pediaicons.txt
 
I thnk that the best thing to do is suffer the loss and purchase the English version.

I think that it is pretty poor that the foreign language versions have different directory structures and names. Shows a lack of foresight on Atari's behalf as they have provided a way to Mod the game but you can only mod "your language" seems pretty silly to me.

The only languages that I would of thought would bea problem is Chinese and other Asian languages as they have different characters in their alaphabet?
 
I'm playing the german version and did the following: I created a folder with the (original) english name of the unit, copied the german (you would have to take the italian) unit.ini into this folder and renamed it to the english name. Then I opened the unit.ini and redirected all the referrences to the german folder where the files are.
Example for Settler (german=blue, english=green)

Create a folder "settler".

Copy "siedler.ini" into this folder and rename it to "settler.ini".

Open the new "settler.ini" and add a "..\Siedler\" in front of every file reference. The result is for example "..\siedler\settlerrun.flc".

All you gotta do is take my example and replace the german parts with italian names(whatever they are like).
When the gotm-zipfile contains new units, check the .ini-files for references to english standard units and change these in the way described above.


Hope I was able to help you.
 
schmiddi's approach works in some cases but and what he outlines is the basic process.

The real solution is to copy the "german".ini file and folder and leave the alternative language filename in place with only an ini.file inside the folder.

You need to rename all of the animation and sound files to be the English language names and then point the "german".ini file pointers to find the english named assets.

The basic files should all be in English names ALL the time. This means all the animation and sound files should always be the same names for all versions of the game no matter what country or language they are in.

The key point is that the basic animation and sound files must exist in every game version with exactly the same name.

The unit names found in folders with xxxxx.ini files can be differerent as long as the basic frame work can always be found.

You will find numerous examples of this in the GOTM game files that should be transparent to you as the player. (EG.. the wander = the scout, the junk sounds = the carvel sounds, the muslim caravel sound - the caravel sounds, etc.) This is not a hard concept to visualize once you have a clear perspective of how the game should have been delivered to the customers who paid for it.

The name of the mid-level manager at infogrames/atari or Firaxis who made the decision to change the base files names, without recognizing that all games and scenarios from all other language versions would not work, should be published in the gamer's hall of shame so that we will all permanently know not to hire this person (these persons) ever again.

It would be possible for someone knowledgeable to create a game "autoinstaller" that would copy and rename all the base files correctly and this autoinstaller would be a download size of less that 500kb. The fix download would not actually be downloading any new files other than the revised xxxx.ini files that will make all the german or italian or french or portugese or russian or piglatin games just a transparent extension of the base game. (Just as they should have been from the beginning).
 
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