Trouble with Civ2 D/Ls

[-Jrabbit]

I used to be able to play MGE succession games with the PC crowd by zipping the posted save and emailing it to my Mac (or alternately, downloading a zipped save directly), then unzipping it on the iMac using the Zip-It shareware that was recommended to me here.

That's not working.

I've moved from iMac to a G3 Cube, and from OS 9.3.3 (?) to Panther OSX.3.4.

Now the unzipped saves just turn up as bloated text files, not recognized by the game. They do not appear in the list of available-to-open games.

Why can't I get the Mac to "see" these as game files? Is there a filename issue? Is there an OSX issue? Is there some insanely simple solution to this that I've overlooked?

Can anyone lend some expertise and/or perspective?
Thx.

[FlameFlash]

No experience with it, but I'd happily try downloading it myself.

Are you unzipping it with the automatic double-click and it unzips feature in X.3 or are you using something to unzip it? That might be the proplem of it getting corrupted. Just an idea though.

[Agathon]

I imagine that the resource forks are fubared. Do these files have an extension?

If so, try adding the extension.

Otherwise, use Stuffit to compress and uncompress them.

[Insane]

There shouldn't be any resource forks involved here. The mac version doesn't expect to find any resources in the game files.

You might try dropping the save files on the "Civ II File Typer" application (here) and see if that helps.

Otherwise I'd guess that something (ZipIt?) is modifying the linefeed/carriage return characters... trying to "help" by automatically converting "text" files. Stuffit used to have a setting to turn off this "help", though I can't find it anymore in current versions.

[-Jrabbit]

I can't find the setting you referred to, Insane.
Will try the File Typer app tonight... How does it work?

[-Jrabbit]

Got one open using File typer just now.


How could I go so long without hearing of this awesome utility??????
Many thanks!!!!!!!

[Insane]

Glad to hear it worked for you.

File Typer is basically a stripped down version of the Scenario Converter. I whipped it up after someone asked about a version of the converter that did the conversion "in place" for converting PBEM games instead of completely duplicating the original scenario into a new folder.

The File Typer/Scenario Converter applications mainly add OS 9 style type and creator information to the files so the Civ II application will recoginze them in the file dialogs. They might also validate the linefeeds... I don't remember at the moment.

The Scenario Converter also does automatic conversions on the image and sound files. It's probably all documented in the Read Me files in the Stuffit archives.

[FlameFlash]

Say Insane, mind if I take a copy of that, give you credit, and post it on my site? I've been gathering Mac Civ related stuff for a while now just so I don't have to try and remember where I downloaded it from when I first got it.

[-Jrabbit]

Awesome utility, Insane. Simple and foolproof.
(Which makes it perfect for me... )

Thanks again.

[Insane]

Originally posted by FlameFlash
Say Insane, mind if I take a copy of that, give you credit, and post it on my site? I've been gathering Mac Civ related stuff for a while now just so I don't have to try and remember where I downloaded it from when I first got it.

You can post any, or all 3, of the files if you like. Or link to them if you want hassle free updates... not that I'm guaranteeing there will be any. I have no intention of re-organizing, or eliminating, my "site" in the near future.

-Jrabbit -- Simple and foolproof was the whole idea.

[FlameFlash]

Many thanks, will probably do both.