Thomas' Mod - Compatibility testing

[chucknorris]

Moderator Action: These posts were extracted from the Mac Modding Index into their own thread


I had a PC hated it, but for one thing, the games... so I bought a mac and now I have bts, and I'm noticing there are virtually no mods for mac bts. I worshiped one Mod... Thomas war, it had it all... tons of civs new eras, marvels, techs, religions and pedia enters like a history book. Now I want to know if it is possible to make it work on my mac,
what are the differences? anyone can help me? or, what do I have to learn in orden to ake it avaliable to mac?

 

[AlanH]

Hi, welcome

Thomas prides itself on not using a custom DLL, so there's one plus point. Have you tried it?

I'll download it and have a look, but the standard problems are either graphics files that crash on a Mac, or XML files with bad characters. You can find lots of examples around this forum, and the normal approach is to use TextWrangler (free) to "Zap Gremlins" in failed XML files.

 

[AlanH]

I've downloaded Thomas' War, zapped a gazillion gremlins in ten XML files, and then I get a Load Error:

GFC Error: Failed to initialize the primary control theme.

I have no idea what that means, but it seems to be fatal. There are no obvious error messages in the logs, so I don't know where to go from here.

 

[Xyth]

I've downloaded Thomas' War, zapped a gazillion gremlins in ten XML files, and then I get a Load Error:

GFC Error: Failed to initialize the primary control theme.

I have no idea what that means, but it seems to be fatal. There are no obvious error messages in the logs, so I don't know where to go from here.

Just remembered where I'd seen this particular error before. There is discussion of it in another mod's thread (World of Legends). From the sounds of it it's due to some interface changes in the mod requiring the path to the mod being exact, and of course on a Mac this will be different.

Here's the relevant thread: LINK. Post 149 is where the author mentions this. Maybe Thomas War uses a similar component? Hope this helps you track it down.



EDIT: Just saw this on the Thomas War download page:

GFC error: failed to initialize the primary control theme

First, make sure the mod is installed in the right place.

It should be installed in the main BTS mods directory (default path usually something like program files/firaxis games/sid civilization iv/beyond the sword/mods) NOT the MODS directory found in My Games.

Second, the mod folder needs to be named Thomas' War as the game checks folder names. Please do not change the name.

If neither of the above work please post in the thread for additional assistance.

Sounds like the exact same thing as World of Legends.

 

[AlanH]

Thanks Xyth. Short-sighted modder strikes again! I'll look into it asap.

 

[AlanH]

The mod loads up without the above error if I put it in the /Applications/Civ4/BtS/Mods/ folder.

However, when I try to start a game, it fails. The error message is:

CvLSystem Load Error
CvLSystemLoadError: Unknown attribute class: Attribute.

No other clues in the logging system, and a Google search on this site doesn't bring up any useful clues. Further investigation continuing.

 

[Xyth]

The mod loads up without the above error if I put it in the /Applications/Civ4/BtS/Mods/ folder.

However, when I try to start a game, it fails. The error message is:

CvLSystem Load Error
CvLSystemLoadError: Unknown attribute class: Attribute.

No other clues in the logging system, and a Google search on this site doesn't bring up any useful clues. Further investigation continuing.

From the name I'd guess it related one of the files in Assets/XML/Buildings. They're named stuff like Civ4CityLSystem.xml and CIV4PlotLSystem.xml and handle how city and improvement graphics are displayed. They're notoriously easy files to mess up unfortunately. I stay well clear of them. If it is one of these a good person to talk to (other than tsentom1 himself) might be Geomodder, the author of Cultural Citystyles. Maybe he's seen a similar error before.

 

[AlanH]

Yes, I tracked down those two files using BBEdit's multi-file search. They seem to be the only ones containing the word 'Attribute', but it appears in a total of 16738 lines in those files. A big haystack! I'll try contacting the author first, I guess.