Weird Interface Glitch in BtS

[DaninJapan]

I hope someone out there can help me with this. I just got Beyond the Sword (Yeah, I know. I know. I'm way behind the times), and I installed it. It runs fine, EXCEPT many pop-up box, Civpedia entries, and event descriptions that have something to do with the Beyond the Sword updates appear as code, starting with TXT_KEY_ ..., rather than as a proper name, like “Memphis” or “Great General” or “Apostolic Palace.”

For example, if I try to look up information in the Civpedia about, say, Stables, what I get in lieu of the word "Stable" is TXT_KEY_BUILDING_STABLE

If I try to look up information about, say, the Roman leader Augustus, what shows up as his name is TXT_KEY_LEADER_AUGUSTUS

In the Civpedia, under the subheading Hints, hints number 67-72 show up just as that:

TXT_KEY_HINT_67
TXT_KEY_HINT_68
TXT_KEY_HINT_69
TXT_KEY_HINT_70
TXT_KEY_HINT_71
TXT_KEY_HINT_72

See what I mean? I can’t even tell you what the hints are. All I can describe them as are numbers because all that shows up is the code and number for what hint is SUPPOSED to be displayed there.

At first I thought the problem just might be limited to just the Beyond the Sword expansion, or possibly my not having Civ 4: Warlords installs, then I noticed that while the Specialist Great General only shows up as TXT_KEY_SPECIALIST_GREAT_GENERAL, the special experience upgrade, Morale, specifically offered to units attached to a Warlord, is displayed properly in the Civpedia. WTH?

Civs that show up weird are the Carthaginians, the Celts, the Koreans, the Ottomans, and the Zulu and the various news units attached to those civs. Oddly, the Viking Berserker shows up weird too, although everything else to do with the Vikings is fine.

The list goes on and on. Mind you, it’s not EVERYTHING from BtS, but it’s enough to be noticeable during game play. Granted, it doesn’t affect the game in any way, other than to inconvenience me when the message “TXT_KEY_EVENT_1 has occurred in Rome.” I have no idea what just happened or why some of my buildings in Rome were suddenly destroyed. It’s just annoying, considering I love the Civ franchise and can’t get this installment to work properly.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled from the original Civ 4 to Beyond the Sword several times, and I have patched the game up until 3.13.000. I’m running Windows XP SP2, my drivers and Direct X are up to date, and my computer meets all hardware specs, not that that should have anything to do with it.

Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[ori]

Welcome to Civfanatics

Do you have a non-latin character windows?

 

[DaninJapan]

D'oh! Yes, I'm running on Japanese Windows. Didn't think to mention something so obvious earlier. Thanks for pointing it out. So, since it is Japanese Windows, could this explain the weirdness? And if so, how can I fix it?

 

[ori]

there have been numerous reports on problems like this with non-latin (i.e. asian) Windows versions. I believe there were some attempts at fixing this. I don't have time right now to search for those threads - if you are impatient just do a search in old threads. Otherwise I'll look for them tonight - if I don't post again by then please remind me

 

[DaninJapan]

Ori,

Problem solved! Turns out I needed to update my XML Parser with Version 7 at the MS website.

Instructions from another poster told me to:

a) Update my XML parser from MS ('msxml3.msi')
b) Reboot after installing.
c) Clear the game cache by starting it with shift depressed. The loading graphic displayed the message "Initializing XML (Uncached)"

And it worked. Thanks for the time and consideration you gave to this problem. I appreciate it. Now I'm off to go play some unambiguous Civ:BtS. Thanks again!