Select, subscribe, enable and play a mod

whoward69

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Step-by-step guide on how to select, subscribe, enable and play a mod from in-game.

NOTE: Once you have selected and enabled your mod, you must still use the Mods Menu (step 10 below) to load a saved game or setup a new game using the mods - you CANNOT do it from the Single Player option of the main menu (step 1)

1) Start Civilization 5 and "Click to Continue" past the initial copyright dialog to get to the Main Menu
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2) Select "MODS"
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(You must be on-line to proceed, if Civ 5 crashes unexpectedly after this point see "Trouble Shooting - Crashes" below)

3) Accept the End User License Agreement (EULA) to get to the Mod Browser screen
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4) Click the "GET MODS" button, this will open the Steam Workshop overlay

(If the "GET MODS" button does nothing see "Trouble Shooting - Enable Steam In-Game" below)
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5) Locate the mod you wish to use, in this case the "UI - Next Turn Clock" mod, and click the green "+ Subscribe" button
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6) The button will change to "{tick} Subscribed", now click the "Click here to return to the game" link at the top of the screen (highlighed in magenta)
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7) You will return to the Mod Browser screen, and your subscribed mod will be listed (note, if the mod is large, or you are on a slow internet connection, you may see a "Downloading" or "Installing" progress bar - if so, you need to wait for this to finish)

At this point your mod is only downloaded, IT IS NOT PLAYABLE
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8) Click the faded out green circle (the Enable button) to the right of the mod, it will go solid green with a tick
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9) Your mod is now both installed and enabled for play. Click the big "NEXT" button
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10) The Mods menu shows you which mods are installed and enabled, click the "Single Player" option at the top of the list to start (or load) a game
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11) Select "Set Up Game" to start a new game with the mods



12) Set up your game as required, then click the "Start Game" button



13) Play your game, as you can see the Next Turn clock mod is working

Enjoy

Trouble Shooting

A) Enable Steam In-Game

If the "GET MODS" button does nothing but make a "thud" sound, you probably don't have Steam enabled in-game. There are two places you need to enable Steam in-game
1) Exit Civ 5
2) In the "system tray" (usually in the bottom right corner) right-click the Steam icon (you may need to click the double up arrow "show hidden icons" icon first)
3) Select "Settings"
4) Click on the "In-Game" tab
5) Make sure the "Enable Steam Community In-Game" option is ticked
6) Click the OK button to close the settings dialog
7) Right-click the Steam icon and select Library
8) At the top left of the screen there is a list of your games, right-click "Sid Meier's Civilization V" and select "Properties" (the bottom option)
9) Click on the "General" tab
10) Make sure the "Enable Steam Community In-Game" option is ticked
11) Click the Close button to close the properties dialog
12) Right-click on the Steam icon and select Exit
13) Restart Civ 5 and try selecting a Mod again
 
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What might cause this problem?
Impatience. From what I remember UP/VEM is huge. The download/install runs as a background task, which I doubt has the ability to restart if the user clicks away from the browser screen while it is running, so it probably just starts over from scratch.

Edit: Actually, at 885Kb, it's smaller than I remembered, but still big enough to make the "Downloading" and "Installing" bars appear on my fast connection.
 

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It's a big project but doesn't have many graphics or sounds. I think the problem was I uploaded an archive I'd zipped myself, instead of one zipped by ModBuddy. I guess ModBuddy's 7zip procedure adds something to the file other than just renaming it from 7z to civ5mod.
 
All the MD5 signatures would need to be correct, and I'm pretty sure those are set as part of the process that creates the .civ5mod file
 
So I figured this was the best place to ask:

When I update a mod because a new version was released sometimes the mod dissapears from the list of selectable mods. Nothing I do is capable of restoring this mod. Things I have tried are reloading the game, unsubscribing and resubscribing, removing dlcs and other mods.

Why is this happening and what can I do to restore it to a playable option?
 
When I update a mod because a new version was released sometimes the mod dissapears from the list of selectable mods. Nothing I do is capable of restoring this mod. Things I have tried are reloading the game, unsubscribing and resubscribing, removing dlcs and other mods.

Why is this happening and what can I do to restore it to a playable option?

I wish I knew. It's being reported more and more as an "error" with my mods (when it's clearly a system issue), but I just can't get it to happen.

I suspect you'll get the "de-facto" response of "delete your cache" but that's a pretty drastic, last-resort, measure - and not something to do in the middle of saved games.
 
Well, guess what, one of my subscribed mods finally "failed" during update!

It would seem that if you have an update/download in progress (and you may not even realise it is happening as the "in progress" bars can be off-screen if you have many mods installed) and exit the Mod Browser screen (the one with the list of installed mods) then the process can be aborted and become "stuck".

In this case, if you know what you are doing, locate the file "C:\Users\{USERNAME}\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\cache\Civ5ModsDatabase.db" and open it with SQLite (if you don't know what that means, you don't know what you are doing - so see below) and execute the SQL statement
Code:
DELETE FROM SteamWorkshopSubscribedFiles WHERE State='Subscribed';
save the change, exit SQLite, restart Civ, go back to the Mod Browser screen and be patient while the mods update.

If that last paragraph was random jibberish, make sure you have no in-progress games that you want to continue and delete the Civ5ModsDatabase.db file. Restart Civ, go back to the Mod Browser screen, be patient while the mods update and then re-enable all the mods you want to play with.

You use these notes at your own risk as saved/in-progress games may be trashed - you have been warned!
 
I looked at the troubleshooting instructions for accessing the mods and the Steam Community is checked as shown for both settings and in the properties of the game. However, I still cannot access the Steam from within Civ V. How do I upload my mod?
 
Hi there guys, this is my first time posting but been a follower of the site for a while. I have never downloaded or installed any mod for any civ game. Some of the stuff I see on Steam looks awesome though(no limit to XP for killing barbarians etc.) I have a Mac and when I load Civ 5 Gods and Kings I don't even have an option for mods like what is displayed above. I have "subscribed" so a couple mods, I believe I need to have the option to click mods from the main page in order to enable them, but I am kind of stuck. I ran across a forum for changing the code for MAC's to show, I think I followed the instructions well but nothing happened. Since I have never done it before maybe I did it wrong? Any help would be appreciated. Faster air combat animations and some other things would be greatly appreciated.
 
Thanks who. After posting this I stumbled across the Mac forums and found out that I'm just out of luck when it comes to mods and macs. I guess I need to boot with windows in order to play them. Thanks!
 
I subscribed to a few mods and when i check my MODS folder there's nothing there except a mod i downloaded ages ago. any tips?
 
I can't get mods to dowmload via steam. i'v checked all the settings and still no MODS, Please help... I checked to see if Steam client is ip to date, it is. I followed the troubleshooting guide above. I am subscribed to; Civlization-Nights, Legendary Earth Mod, Buildings - Upgade System, UI -Enhanced Demographics, Extended Eras, and a few others. Nothing is or has been downloaded into my Mods folder... What am I doing wrong...
 
Thanks for the guide
For some reason step 7 fails (list remains empty)
Any ideas ?
(legit non-corrupt install including all DLC + G&K)

Make sure you are "online and enabled" in both places mentioned in Troubleshooting A and also check post 8 - it may be that a previous attempt to download got "stuck"
 
Yes they are (now :lol:).
It still does not work.
I give up.
Is there a way to download mods outside of this disfunctional interface ?

Edit: loaded the game again, went to the mods menu just in case, and without doing anything else... here was the mod downloading !
I guess the interface is difficult to setup, a bit unreliable, but in the end eventually works...
Anyways thanks for your help.
 
Has anyone discovered a solution to make the game remember which mods are enabled after you quit and reboot? Before the "fall patch", this problem didn't exist.
 
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