MOD usage for dummies?

[Amickiew]

Hi all, I'm brand new to the mod side of Civ4. I'd like to make use of some of the really nice looking mods the community has designed, however I'm having a rather difficult time learning how to use them properly.

All of the information I'm seeing in the various threads throughout this forum has been way over my head, leaning more to the advanced/designer level than the newbescent user I am.

The mods I am interested in did not include installation instructions, & the Civ4 manual is pretty vague. I see various directories in the main Civ4 installation location, as well as seemingly duplicate entries in my documents folder. I tried winging it & dropping the files into locations that seemed appropriate based on the pre-existing files in various directories, but as one might have guessed I did it wrong because it's not working, and here I am.

I've clicked through the pages in this forum, am I over-looking the tell-all idiots guide? Can someone please clue me in to where this invaulable resource is located?

Thanks in advance!

[DougM]

not sure if this will help

mods should go into your Civ4CustomMods directory. If you've unpacked them properly, you should have a directory structure looking something like this:

_Civ4CustomMods\ModName\Assets\...

with assorted folders and files under assets. There will probably also be a file called ModName.ini in the ModName folder.

Then you have to change your _Civ4Config to have this:

; Specify a Mod folder (Mods\Mesopotamia), '0' for none
Mod = Mods\BigMaps

Here's my BigMaps mod for example. Let me know if the above doesn't work for you with it (this mod just changes the size of the maps to be somewhat bigger. try playing continents on duel, you should get a 44x44 map):

[Amickiew]

That did the trick!

That's exactly the guidance I needed - thanks so much!

Ultimately there were 2 things in the way:
1) There isn't really a _Civ4custommods folder. That's merely the name of a shortcut, which actually goes to a folder named 'Mods' in the 'my games\civ4' folder. Designers like you know this, but it's not intuitive to the new user. So before your post I was looking for something that apparently doesn't exist.

2) My Civ4 config file actually had TWO "; Specify a Mod folder" entries in it. I'm not sure if this was an error during patching. I had been editing the 2nd entry, & of course the game was reading & abiding by the 1st entry which was still set to '0'. I only discovered the other entry on accident, deleted it, & all was well thereafter.

Thanks again for your help

[Edmund Fogg]

This is a quite helpful thread.
I think I understand, but a couple questions

1. Downloaded mods go in the My games mod folder not the Mods folder that has the Firaxis made mods, the one in the Program Files/Firaxis/etc?

2. Does going to the main menu, clicking advanced, clicking load a Mod, ever work to load a mod?

3. One can run only one Mod at a time? There is no way to list two mods in the config file is there?

[DougM]

Originally posted by Edmund Fogg
This is a quite helpful thread.
I think I understand, but a couple questions

1. Downloaded mods go in the My games mod folder not the Mods folder that has the Firaxis made mods, the one in the Program Files/Firaxis/etc?

2. Does going to the main menu, clicking advanced, clicking load a Mod, ever work to load a mod?

3. One can run only one Mod at a time? There is no way to list two mods in the config file is there?

1. yes, downloaded mods go in the my games/civ/mods folder.

2. I believe this only works with the built in civ mods.

3. Yes, one mod at a time, because there's no easy way for them to resolve conflicts automatically.

[Edmund Fogg]

Thanks for those answers.

My current problem is that when I try to load a save game (of a game that supposedly used a mod) the computer asks to restart Civ. I say yes. And then it goes into endless loop. restarting, then asking to restart again.

Anyone had that happen before? What have I done wrong?

[Amickiew]

I've only encountered that when trying to load a 'stock' saved game after activating a mod. Disabling the mod allows me to resume using the old saved game.

I imagine the same may apply to attemping use of a save game originally created via a different mod than the one currently in use.

I've no idea if there are work arounds for it, other than making certain which games were created using which mods.

[DougM]

Originally posted by Edmund Fogg
Thanks for those answers.

My current problem is that when I try to load a save game (of a game that supposedly used a mod) the computer asks to restart Civ. I say yes. And then it goes into endless loop. restarting, then asking to restart again.

Anyone had that happen before? What have I done wrong?

I believe what you want to do is to make sure that you load the correct mod before loading any savegame created while using that mod.

[Edmund Fogg]

That makes sense. I am not sure the mod loaded correctly when I started the game I was trying to reload, since I had not altered the Config file.

I shall try again from scratch with all of this good advice.

thanks

[Edmund Fogg]

Turns out I had my mods buried too far down. When mods are extracted they are put in a master folder. You need to get rid of the folder so the first subfolder and the config file for the mod both sit in the MODS folder, if that makes sense. SO
should be mods/abbamouse16/assets
not
mods/abbamouse16/abbamouse16/assets

[Amickiew]

Doh, I remember addressing that scenario once. There are so many variables for the new user, it's easy to end up with 2 or 3 things that prevent your mods from running right, instead of just one.

Glad ya figured it out!