Xefjord
Prince
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2015
- Messages
- 386
So I bought the complete edition of Civilization 4 a few days ago on steam. I have had Civ 4 sense it came out. But only on disc and without any of the expansions (I still had it installed as well). So I figured I would just get it on steam now so I could play multiplayer with my friends via steam. I also play a lot of Japanese games and my system local was set to Japanese. So buying Civ 4 on steam gave me three different games to download. Civ 4, Civ 4 warlords, and Civ 4 BTS. I figured I would download Civ 4 BTS because it was the latest expansion and probably came with all the previous stuff (I am low on hard drive memory so I was not going to download the entire other two games if BTS came with everything.)
Upon finishing downloading BTS I encountered an error upon startup. It was related to my XML and was talking about certain lines end tags not matching their start tags. I had no idea what this was and I was a little worried. But the game started anyway and worked fine. However I noticed whenever I went to a custom game and tried to start a match. A few of the options names were like TEXT_KEY_ then lots of other full caps words (Normally related to what the text said before) with lots of underscores. My first assumption was to verify the game cache, something was wrong. I verified the game cache on steam, but to no avail. I did a quick google search on this issue, but all XML errors seemed to be about unrelated problems (Civ not starting, graphics issues, or whatever) so I figured it was just a poor install and reinstalled Civ 4.
Well the issue never went away. I reinstalled Civ 4 and I still had TEXT_KEY_ ect. I tried playing a game and I realized the game played fine, but there was plenty of other stuff called TEXT_KEY_ ect within the game world as I was playing. Like the Espionage button (Which I don't even think I could click Q_Q) and diplomacy with other civs. So I looked into the issue in more detail and encountered a few problems similar to mine... only a few. And I tried to use some of their solutions (When there was ones, I saw numerous forums where no one responded how to fix things) One solution was that the System Local had to be in English (United States), that made sense and when I looked at the XML errors, I know in a few of the places it showed there error it showed /Spanish. So I can rightfully assume it might have something to do with my Language settings. I switch to English Local, nothing happens, I verify game cache, nothing, so I just reinstall the game under the English Local. The problem is still there.
Finally I start getting annoyed, so I go to reddit in search of answers. I guess the Civ reddit page is really popular at the moment, because from the moment I made my post it was washed away out of view. I only recieved a few messages, and they were all kind of like "Oh hey, thats weird. Hope you find out how to fix it." One guy tried to be helpful, but suggested "If this is a common steam issue, then surely there is a mod for it. Check the steam workshop for civ 4"... Well there is no steam workshop for Civ 4. I then figured maybe there was still some files on my computer that the Civ 4 installation was referencing that was corrupted. So I went to my documents, and my steam folder, uninstalled Civ 4 (And I uninstalled the disc version when I noticed it was there) I deleted the whole game folders for Civ 4, beyond the sword, ect in both My programs and my documents. I even went into the control panel and made sure things were uninstalled. I then downloaded Civ 4 BTS and it did not fix the problem. I heard I might need to start Civ 4 as administrator. I tried that, no fix. I tried INSTALLING Civ 4 as administrator, still no fix. Then I went to my XML folders manually and deleted them, I tried verifying game cache and it still didn't fix my issue.
After that I wondered about just going to the XML files manually and opening them in Notepad and fixing the issues myself. But there is so many error XML files and they seem extremely difficult to navigate. I was not able to do it. I figured there must be a more practical way to solve this problem. (I also think I saw someone caused problems with their Civ 4 when they screwed around with their XML files)
After exhausting all my resources and absolutely failing to find tech support I decided to come here, I know you all play these games a lot and are a lot more knowledgeable about this stuff than I am. I really want to play Civ 4 very very badly and don't really want to refund this game. How do you all suggest I handle this problem? If need be I can give my Skype and share screens to have others see the problem first hand and help me fix it. I just can't seem to fix it on my own off the knowledge I have currently.
I checked the technical support sticky on here but the XML problems addressed did not seem related to the XML problems I have now. And the XML parser linked that is supposed to fix the problems can't even be opened. I heard we should download the BTS patch and that might fix it. But whenever I activate the .exe it says I don't have BTS installed and it can't patch my game.
I run Windows 7, and Civ 4 should be patched to the version Steam starts you out on when you download it. I think that is the most recent patch?
(Another note is when I had the CD version of Civ 4 installed. Everything ran flawlessly. So I don't think my computer is incapable of running Civ 4. I have good enough system specs to run Skyrim on High with no problem)
Upon finishing downloading BTS I encountered an error upon startup. It was related to my XML and was talking about certain lines end tags not matching their start tags. I had no idea what this was and I was a little worried. But the game started anyway and worked fine. However I noticed whenever I went to a custom game and tried to start a match. A few of the options names were like TEXT_KEY_ then lots of other full caps words (Normally related to what the text said before) with lots of underscores. My first assumption was to verify the game cache, something was wrong. I verified the game cache on steam, but to no avail. I did a quick google search on this issue, but all XML errors seemed to be about unrelated problems (Civ not starting, graphics issues, or whatever) so I figured it was just a poor install and reinstalled Civ 4.
Well the issue never went away. I reinstalled Civ 4 and I still had TEXT_KEY_ ect. I tried playing a game and I realized the game played fine, but there was plenty of other stuff called TEXT_KEY_ ect within the game world as I was playing. Like the Espionage button (Which I don't even think I could click Q_Q) and diplomacy with other civs. So I looked into the issue in more detail and encountered a few problems similar to mine... only a few. And I tried to use some of their solutions (When there was ones, I saw numerous forums where no one responded how to fix things) One solution was that the System Local had to be in English (United States), that made sense and when I looked at the XML errors, I know in a few of the places it showed there error it showed /Spanish. So I can rightfully assume it might have something to do with my Language settings. I switch to English Local, nothing happens, I verify game cache, nothing, so I just reinstall the game under the English Local. The problem is still there.
Finally I start getting annoyed, so I go to reddit in search of answers. I guess the Civ reddit page is really popular at the moment, because from the moment I made my post it was washed away out of view. I only recieved a few messages, and they were all kind of like "Oh hey, thats weird. Hope you find out how to fix it." One guy tried to be helpful, but suggested "If this is a common steam issue, then surely there is a mod for it. Check the steam workshop for civ 4"... Well there is no steam workshop for Civ 4. I then figured maybe there was still some files on my computer that the Civ 4 installation was referencing that was corrupted. So I went to my documents, and my steam folder, uninstalled Civ 4 (And I uninstalled the disc version when I noticed it was there) I deleted the whole game folders for Civ 4, beyond the sword, ect in both My programs and my documents. I even went into the control panel and made sure things were uninstalled. I then downloaded Civ 4 BTS and it did not fix the problem. I heard I might need to start Civ 4 as administrator. I tried that, no fix. I tried INSTALLING Civ 4 as administrator, still no fix. Then I went to my XML folders manually and deleted them, I tried verifying game cache and it still didn't fix my issue.
After that I wondered about just going to the XML files manually and opening them in Notepad and fixing the issues myself. But there is so many error XML files and they seem extremely difficult to navigate. I was not able to do it. I figured there must be a more practical way to solve this problem. (I also think I saw someone caused problems with their Civ 4 when they screwed around with their XML files)
After exhausting all my resources and absolutely failing to find tech support I decided to come here, I know you all play these games a lot and are a lot more knowledgeable about this stuff than I am. I really want to play Civ 4 very very badly and don't really want to refund this game. How do you all suggest I handle this problem? If need be I can give my Skype and share screens to have others see the problem first hand and help me fix it. I just can't seem to fix it on my own off the knowledge I have currently.
I checked the technical support sticky on here but the XML problems addressed did not seem related to the XML problems I have now. And the XML parser linked that is supposed to fix the problems can't even be opened. I heard we should download the BTS patch and that might fix it. But whenever I activate the .exe it says I don't have BTS installed and it can't patch my game.
I run Windows 7, and Civ 4 should be patched to the version Steam starts you out on when you download it. I think that is the most recent patch?
(Another note is when I had the CD version of Civ 4 installed. Everything ran flawlessly. So I don't think my computer is incapable of running Civ 4. I have good enough system specs to run Skyrim on High with no problem)
Which files do you have there?
