Weird Data 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 gMemphish or gGreat Generalh or gApostolic Palace.h

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_BULIDING_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ft 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fs not EVERYTHING from BtS, but itfs enough to be noticeable during game play. Granted, it doesnft affect the game in any way, other than to inconvenience me when the message gTXT_KEY_EVENT_1 has happened in Rome.h I have no idea what just happened or why some of my buildings were suddenly destroyed. Itfs just annoying, considering I love the Civ franchise and canft 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fm 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!

[Virulent]

After uninstalling did your remember to clear out any Civ IV related directories from program files and /my documents/my games before reinstalling?

Also is your version of Civ IV and BtS the same language?

[Panag]

patch or no patch (!) reboot or not after uninstall ? install ?

do you want to use a checker and double check ?

[Panag]

try this assets checker and post the results

[snoopy369]

Probably a bad install, but it could be a language problem - what language is your Windows in vs your Civ?

[DanInJapan]

Thanks for the quick replies, everyone.

On every re-install, I deleted any remnants of the previous install, manually removing files & folders that were left behind. I also rebooted my computer after every uninstall and reinstall. Didnft seem to help.

I tried installing in various permutations, Civ IV w/patch + BtS w/patch, Civ IV w/patch + BtS wo/patch, Civ IV wo/patch + BtS w/patch, etc. But no luck.

What Ifm wondering is if not having Civ: Warlords installed is causing the problem, although I canft see why, since Warlords wasnft listed as a prerequisite for installing BtS. Can anyone tell me if they have BtS installed without Warlords problem-free?

Both Civ IV and BtS are English versions bought in the US.

My OS is Windows XP, Japanese version, but the language default is set for English. The different language operating system might be the root of this all, but that doesnft makes too much sense to me, since Civ IV works just fine. Also, Ifve never had any problem with previous Civs as a result of English software being run on my Japanese system, so Ifm baffled here. But who knows? That just may be the problem here.

At any rate, I'm going to run the assets checker this evening and get back to you with the results.

[Hauptman]

What ever it is, it seems to be effecting your posts here. Are you presently in Japan, Using a japanese KB?

All your apostraphes appear as a box and an "f" to me. Perhaps it's related?

[Hauptman]

Originally posted by DanInJapan


My OS is Windows XP, Japanese version, but the language default is set for English. The different language operating system might be the root of this all, but that doesnft makes too much sense to me, since Civ IV works just fine. Also, Ifve never had any problem with previous Civs as a result of English software being run on my Japanese system, so Ifm baffled here. But who knows? That just may be the problem here.

At any rate, I'm going to run the assets checker this evening and get back to you with the results.

In case you're not seeing it...

[snoopy369]

BtS does not require warlords, certainly.

I think it is your OS language that is the problem; IIRC japanese Windows uses double-byte characters, even running in English primary, which could cause an issue. I don't know why it is only sometimes an issue; but I've seen reports of this with other asian language Windows.

I'll see if I can find the solution somewhere...

[snoopy369]

Try adjusting 'unicode' to American English... that's the only suggestion i've seen that actually worked, in trolling the various forums. I presume by 'Unicode' they mean in the Advanced portion of the language settings. (There is potentially a difference between "English - United States" and any other english, as well... not sure, this is not an area I have a lot of expertise in).

Edit: You might also benefit from this fix (from http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=134169 ):
a) Update your XML parser from MS ('msxml3.msi'); you should probably not use the one he linked but look for a newer one (as this is almost certainly the problem as to why BTS and Civ4Vanilla are different). Reboot after installing.
b) Clear your cache (start the program with shift depressed, until you see Initializing XML (Uncached))
That may fix the problem as well...

[DanInJapan]

Snoopy369,

You're my hero! Updating the XML parser with Service Pack 7 from Microsoft was just the ticket I needed. Everything works fine now. Thanks a ton for your experience and help!

[snoopy369]

No problem, glad it works!! I had xml parser issues back in the day as well (XML 2.0, not 3.0)