Dale/Snoopy PatchMod (Bug-fixes and more)

[moriety]

Hi you two,

Thanks very much for making the patch, for free, that Take Two cannot be bothered with.
(Still, TakeTwo are well known for treating customers as an irritant).

My problem is this: I've downloaded the patch, began a new game and the game correctly restarts for any save: the problem is, when it restarts the game is still the vanilla version!

I have these paths are creating the "Mods" folder:
1) PatchMod_1.07
this leads into:
2) PatchMod (folder) as well as PatchMod_1.07.ini and PatchMod_1.07.ini.bak
clicking on this PatchMod folder then leads into:
3) 3 folders: Assets, CvGameCoreDLL and PublicMaps. It also contains the PatchMod.ini file (configeration settings)

So any idea on when I am doing wrong? (I did read all 11 pages to see if anyone else had this problem, but nobody else seems to.)

Regarding Galleons and treasures: in the original game it worked fine as you could actually save up money as the king only demanded a tax raise, not money every twenty turns.
In this version however the King demands upto 80% of any money you save, or demands a tax increase about every 3 turns in the marathon game, thus eliminating the point of accumulating (saving gold) wealth entirely.

A single treasure is really not enough to buy a single unit, and as TakeTwo has also broken the "hurry colonist" bit of the game by charging upto 10x the cost of actually purchasing the same unit that simply isn't an option anymore either (For those of you who wonder I think it took 10 years to train a farmer in a Uni' in the original- flat rate, masters took 20 I think). At the moment, to hurry the lumberjack will cost me 15,000 gold, whilst I can simply buy one for 1,800.
Take two:.......doh!!

They have also managed to destroy the education system that worked so well in the original: I have a converted native studying his farming degree, it will take him a mere 246 of 900 turns to learn his trade, in game years, his degree will take 82 years to complete.....meaning at minimum university start age (19) he will be at least 101 years old before he can actually get his first job to practice his trade.

Saying that, I do like the fact that you cannot train veteran soldiers, the Civ system works excellently in this version I feel. (Trying to get liberty above 50% is quite another matter however- nearly all 14 towns are at 100% whilst, after deleting 50% of all my working colonists, the liberty slider is stuck at 43%, and it ain't going up.
It really needs to be linked back directly to liberty bell production alone, as in the original, rather than the number of colonists you control as it currently is: again TakeTwo have effectively broken a good working system in the original)

Oh well, time for another massacre of good working citizens just to get that slider over 50% so I can finally see just how good "all the king's men" really are....

Anyway, enough of my moaning!

Toby

[Dale]

Hi Toby,

Welcome to Poly.

From the sounds of it, PatchMod isn't working on your machine and I know why. You say you have a PatchMod_1.07 and then a PatchMod folder inside it. Please move the PatchMod folder and all its contents to the Mods folder (where the PatchMod_1.07 folder is). You have one layer too many.

[moriety]

Hi mate,
Thanks for the welcome! I did actually use to be a member of this site for a few years between Civ 2 and III as we all waited

I'm not doing what you are stating correctly however as it still either gives an invalid load message or just loads the game after re-starting as a vanilla game.

Currently I have it set up like this:

1) Programme Files ->
2) 2K Games ->
3) Fireaxis games ->
4) Sid Meiers Civilization IV Colonization ->
5) Mods ->
6) PatchMod_1.07 (click this to get):
7) All the other bits: the 3 folders, the two .ini files and the .bak file.

This crashes the load.

Where am I going wrong? I've been trying different combinations since you posted, but none seem to work!
Will it not work with a vanilla save? Saying that, when I do get a working re-load screen, I don't see the version posted as you said we will? (ie: v1.07 posted on the front-loading screen)

As I'm a bit stupid with 'puters could you write the click-throughs I should see on each click-through of the folders as I guess this is where I'm cocking-up?

I so want revenge for the "Enclosure Acts" of Parliament which stole our land and gave it to the Parliaments/Crown favourite people in England, now I can't even declare independence! bah! Humbug!

Sorry to be such a Thomas P-a-i-n-e.....

[Dale]

You won't be able to use vanilla saves, or old saves with PatchMod and after moving the folders. If you start Col, go Advanced --> Load a Mod and select PatchMod does it reload with the Mod's details top-right?

Then if you start a new game, you should have PatchMod enabled things (easy to tell, use a missionary on an Indian village and you should have a success percentage)? If so it's installed right.

[moriety]

Cheers mate,

But is the current set-up correct?
It currently crashes upon loading my save- no problem if it's only because it's vanilla: I'm really trying to ensure that in my next game it will start playing using the patch you made- Without your patch working I doubt I'll play again as so many things have been broken in this sequel.

I posted now, in advance of my next game, to ensure I start with your patch properly working- I don't want to short-cut directly to your link untill I know it's properly working- What is the earliest sign in a new game that I'm playing with your patch? as when I started my current game it did begin with v1.07 on the screen I'm sure, but I saved over a vanilla game-save rather than making a new save and it never saw it again- but that was two weeks ago and I don't know if it appears once only, or even if I'm correct; I simply cannot remember.

I really don't wish to play another vanilla game again!

Sorry again Dale,

And thanks for the patience mate!

Toby

[Dale]

If you have moved the three folders down one level (in your install to the PatchMod_1.07 folder) and it says the mod's name in the top-right, then it should be loaded fine. You won't be able to use old save games.

Some of the earliest signs of using PatchMod:
- Can't declare war on a fellow European in the first 20 turns
- Treasure takes 6 berths (not 1)
- Horse prices in Europe are tripled from game start

That will indicate whether it's working properly or not.

[moriety]

Ok mate,

I'll erm, try it, still not certain that I've got the correct path/s: put it this way: I can put in the electrics for a 26-storey building, but just don't ask what the comm's cables do, even if I had to use degree-level maths to decide where they can be routed or simply cannot be for many reasons.... (Magnetism for starters only)

It really is a different world. I hope you understand that I'm a bit lost in this world, and always happily have been.

If the paths I've pasted are wrong please let me know for my third game, but first I'll finish this vanilla game even if it means I have to slaughter every colonist in order to get the independence bar over 50%.......this means I have to re-install your patch again in order to play the first decent game of it.

What's happening on the education system and the amount of times the King demands nearly all your money and an upto 5% tax rate? I worked out that my tax, if I acquiested every time, would be 100% before 10% of the game was played, colonies would never have existed in real life, and thus the entire mechanics is designed to make it unplayable. Take Two cocked-up with RRT3 and they show no sign of stopping the destruction of another of the masterpieces that began the gaming revolution in the first place......all three of which were Sid Meier games (IMHO of course!).

Oh dear, I've gone on a rant- This is the only one I'll do as I've got it off my chest now. Promise. Roll on the EA take-over!! sack the lot of them! (Can I buy shares in Electronic Arts?)

Toby

[Dale]

Hehehe.... seems the common complaints of all players of C4C.

As for your analogy, give me the data cables and I can split subnets, private networks and other crap (even voice) down that single cable you spent 3 hours on the maths for.

Yes, the paths as you stated above are correct. After you dropped those three folders down one level.

[Hermann the Lombard]

If you want the game to default to PatchMod you need to edit the ColonizationIV.ini file located just above ...\Saves in the \MyDocuments default path (not the \Program Files path).

The relevant lines would read:

;Specify a Mod folder (Mods\Mesopotamia), '0' for none {the default}
Mod = Mods\PatchMod

In my case I keep the alternates commented out so I can switch back and forth readily, so I also have the following lines:

; Mod = AgeOfDiscoveryII
; Mod = 0

I just remove the semi-colon & space from the front of the mod I want and put them in front of the one I don't want.

If you really want to improve the game, try the AgeOfDiscoveryII mod. PatchMod is several steps in the right direction to improve vanilla rather than really change the game.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Thumb up for AoD II

[moriety]

Heh! Dale,

For us; any comms cable must be kept well apart from mains- complex fomula's explain why, but in essence it boils down to magnetism. Your mention of electronic cables shows me I made the right choice.....

About the education system: In my marathon vanilla game it only takes about 20 graduates before the game is giving the crazy study periods- and the more Uni's you build the worst it becomes overall I think.
Is there any chance to restore the original set times Col had?
If not mistaken it was something like this:
Farmer- 10 turns in Uni, 15 at College and twenty at school.
Master xxx- 30 turns at Uni?

I still own the original game so I could try to install it to check stuff if needed, if it will work on XP processor speeds.

[Dale]

Moriety if I could suggest using Age of Discovery instead. It takes PatchMod much further and fixes a lot more stuff (like education) as well as restoring some old favs from Col1 (like fortress ship bombarding) and adding in a lot more new stuff (like Pirates).

[moriety]

Ok mate,

That will be my next game then!
My independence slider is currently stuck at 45% in my vanilla game but I'm testing to see if adding Colonial troops effects the slider right now.

Thanks again for your free and tireless work on behalf of us fans, it is appreciated,

Toby

PS Dale: Did you re-balance price falls in the European market for the Marathon game? It is very hard to earn money in this varient as prices tend to fall if you sell over 300 units of a single product, and given the native tribes have very limited funds, combined with an abundance of natural resources in each colony, you have no need to buy anything back from them. (I do a standard player game I guess in which I have two specialists working to produce each of the 4 commodities, with 3 masters serving each commodity group), turn-around times to Europe mean you always sell more than 300 units of each product once full production is in operation).
Silver- you still only have to sell more than one nano-gram for the price to begin it's straight forward fall to 100 gold like in the original game- yet it was Silver that made Spain the power-house of Europe, and led to the introduction of privateers from jealous nations like my England. There must be a better way to model the value of silver.......(than storing it in wagons and selling it all on one single transaction as I suspect most other players also do!

[Supr49er]

Welcome to Apolyton moriety.

[moriety]

Thank you for the welcome Supr:
I do love the beer glasses image!

I just started to play the AoD II game and am seriously impressed. I did get one unpassable crash though, but identified the fault: Sitting Bull went to declare war on me and the game crashed before the diplo' screen came up, or crashed because of it.

To try to understand the cause I deleted all units near to my colonies, including other European units at sea, no further crash, as he'd declared war the turn before (I reloaded to avoid this random as it was too early in the game), and I think I've correctly assumed it to be the cause?

One thing- I've looked at the Xml file to try to allow the galleon to carry 6 treasures- but can't see what to change as iberthsize doesn't appear. That said, the king's demands are far less frequent in Dale's game and the galleon accepts 3 treasures so I think that's a pretty good balance achieved there- should keep all players happy, including me!
(I really just wanted an excuse to look at the files to see how they look)