compatibility

[Scouse Gits]

Originally posted by duke o' york
.... Or the specifications I chose were really odd.

I rather fancy it's the USB2 Crusader Spear Sharpener that's causing the delay - I got mine separately from 'Crooks R Us'

[Bloody Monk]

Not the hyperdrive module for instant arrival on AC??



Monk

[Ming]

I loaded Civ MP, and then installed the latest patch on my new machine running XP, and I've had no problems with the game. However, I did need to make some changes and open a port to be able to host games.

Otherwise, I haven't run into any of the problems being mentioned... and it was a pleasent surprise since I was expecting the worse.

[duke o' york]

I went for the lances with the crusaders, but maybe because I asked for the buy one, get free ironclad special offer, it may take a while to reach Leeds by canal. Apparently it "shipped" on Saturday, so I'm expecting it this week - which is handy because my girlfriend has the week off and can collect it at home.
Speaking of my girlfriend, I love her. And for an extra reason this week. We were out in York on Saturday and we went into Virgin to get her brother a CD for his birthday (Verdi, if you must know). On the way out, she pointed at the stand in the doorway showing their sale items - directly to Civ 3 for £20. I've already got it, but it's on long-term loan to one of my friends because it doesn't work on my girlfriend's PC, but it's the thought that counts!

[Scouse Gits]

Marry the girl quickly - before she escapes!

[duke o' york]

Not a bad idea - if a bit expensive.

Right, I'm back in the techie thread for more advice. Fortunately, I already had the Indeo codecs installed already, which is a boon, but now have the opposite problem to delana. I have installed MGE, and everything is fine, but it won't let me play unless I've got the CD in the drive. I've tried uninstalling it and reinstalling the different versions (compact and normal installations) a few times, but every time I go to start the game it asks me for the CD. I managed to install it fine onto my girlfriend's PC when she was on holiday, and didn't need the CD, so what has happened here? This is XP home, by the way, and not her Windows 98.

[edit] Oh yeah, there's another enormous problem. Well, not enormous, but really irritating. I loaded up the Sailing game to make sure that everything was working all right, and to take stock of the situation before playing my turns, and since there isn't a number keypad, it took ages to work out how to make units move diagonally. Since I didn't want to confine myself to just playing Silly Rules games, I tried to work out which keys would be used. Using the number lock and the keys indicated for the keypad didn't work, and eventually (after plenty of reloads so as not to spoil the game ) I found that the diagonal directions are on the keys immediately above the arrow keys. But not in any decent order! So Page down is diagonally right and downwards, and End is diagonally up and left. Or something. Is there anyway that I can change the set-up of the keys for movement as the mouse takes far too long? I don't want to lose any of the keys that actually do something, so I definitely don't want to press b to move a settler and end up founding a new Middlesbrough. Other than learning which keys go where (which I fear I may have to do anyway), what can I do about this? [/edit]

[Bloody Monk]

I believe, duke, that you have to have the CD to start MP but once started you can play w/o the CD. It may be that any CD will do if you have saved all the files to your HD. Apparently the game is coded to check for a CD before it will start. I may not be remembering this part exactly, but someone will know.

You don't have a numeric keypad on your new special order computer?? I think you have three choices. Continue with whatever that is that you described; create some keyboard shortcuts that are more convenient; or, try to attach a standard keyboard to your new one.

Good luck.

Monk

[Mercator]

MGE has always needed a CD. I bet you had installed a no-CD patch earlier.

About the keys, there's no way to change them... PgUp, PgDn, End and Home should correspond to the four corners of the numpad (the keys there usually also mention those names). In that order that would be: Upper-right, lower-right, lower-left, upper-left.

And you've tried the numeric pad with Num Lock both on and off, I hope?

Just checking, do you know that you can move your units with the mouse by clicking and holding? If you hold the mouse button for a little while, the cursor changes to the GoTo function. Of course we all know GoTo is flawed, but it works wonders in short "bursts".

X-Post

[duke o' york]

I know about the mouse - I even said that it took too long.
I guess that I'll just have to persevere with learning which keys go where. I mentioned using the number lock, but this just menas that you can't use the build city or fortify unit keys until they're unlocked - it doesn't move the unit.
Thanks for your help though!

[Old n Slow]

Oh gee, there IS another alternative -- I've seen new keyboards for as little as $3 American.

[rah]

Originally posted by Mercator
MGE has always needed a CD. I bet you had installed a no-CD patch earlier.

If you had a no-CD patch and then ran one of the update patches, you have to run the no-cd patch again.

[Scouse Gits]

My laptop allows full movement with numlock on - but yes it screws up the rhs of the keyboard...

Stu

[Scouse Gits]

... and I believe the CD check looks simply for an optical drive that contains :civ2\civ2.exe this file need not contain anything of interest..

Stu

[duke o' york]

I've got one of those flash drive thingies that I use to stick .savs on from 'poly. If I copied the .exe file onto that, would I be able to play without the CD?
Will the computer check for the CD periodically, or is it only when you first turn it on?
I'll probably grab the no-CD patch anyway, while I'm here.
Thanks everyone.
I'm not planning to get a separate keyboard though.

[Mercator]

It only checks at startup, although Civ2 does seem to slow down on occasion on moments when it would usually try to access the CD (e.g. to play wonder movies or play a music track). Most notably when you start up a game, it tends to kinda hang for a second or two.

I'm not sure if that flash drive will work, but there's no harm in trying. You'll have to adjust the civ.ini though. And if the flash drive isn't too big, you can simply create an empty file called civ2.exe on it too, as SG implied (no need to waste several megs of space).