Sxn game compatibility issues

[Grigor]

I have encountered a problem - or rather other people in the 2.42 succession game have a problem - my save games cannot be accessed by the other players on that inferior equipment. I have Civ II Mac - the credits say only copyright 1996 - and I have never been able to access MGE games, but I have never had trouble on my end with regular 2.42 saves. Does anybody have any light they could shed on this?

[finbar]

Do you have the patch? I think the latest was 1.1.

[Grigor]

Finbar - sorry for the delay in answering - after three weeks I gave up looking for a response.

No, as far as I know I do not have the 1.1 patch. The get info utility doesn't show version 1.1. What would the patch do if I found it and installed it? Would I be able to have other civvers play my saved games? It doesn't seem to be a problem at CivFanatics, where the savegames are sent by email.

It's all a quandary to me.

[finbar]

When you say you haven't been able to access MGE games - do you have the MultiPlayer version of the game? Or the original Single Player version?

[Grigor]

I have the original single player version. When I try to load a geme saved in MGE format I get the "file not a saved game" message. I can load 2.42 saves, but whe I try to post my saves nobody else can read them. I can, however, load themmyself off the Apolyton site.

All suggestions are appreciated.

[finbar]

Mmmm. 2.42 was, from memory, the last patch for the PC version of the MultiPlayer version of Civ. 1.1.1 was the last patch for the Mac version of the MultiPlayer version. Both versions needed the equivalent patches installed for total compatability.

But you have the SP version of the game, which explains why you can't access MGE - Multiplayer - games. It's different software. And, I'm no software expert, but it's probably why the 2.42 PC players can't read your saves. They have Multiplayer software trying to read your SP software.

Your best bet would be to switch to the Mac MultiPlayer version. You'll be able to access - and play - MGE games. And everyone will be able to read your saves. You'll need to look around but Mac Multiplayer is still out there. If you can't find it, I have a spare copy.

[Smash]

There is no compatiblity issues.You,the MAC user,must go that extra mile for dumb PC people.

You know how a PC .sav looks?..a simple white "dog's ear" file?..well you must make the mac .sav into one of those.

This is not the best way or easiest way, I'm sure, but I would take my mac .sav and compress it with dropstuff.Then decompress with stuffit expander making sure to set "remove mac resource fork" in settings.This would leave me with the plain white "dog's ear" .sav.Then I could just use mac zip to compress it and it was ready for PC use.They could do the same in reverse,but don't expect many PC users to have a clue or a notion

[Henrik]

Imho the removing of the resource fork isn't necesary (it sure isn't in .net files, infact, I doubt the sav files really have a resource fork ).
You just need to make sure the ".sav" extension is there.

[Grigor]

Smash - thanks for the info, and I would love to try it. Where is the control panel to disable Mac formatting in Stuffit Expander? All I can find is unrelated stuff in the Preferences window.

And simply stuffing and unstuffing does not work yet.

thanks.

[JJJ]

Is there any way to do it the other way around? IE, change PC saves to mac saves?

[Henrik]

We can load PC saves just fine...

I've never had any incompatibility problems loading trying PC saves or when PC people tried to load my saves (never did anything special to my saves either, they just worked for the pc people).

[Smash]

I had never had any problems either until Grigor and Narz posted saves that were twice the size they should be.Something has changed in MAC OS I assume.I can't think of any other explanation...unless...there are some MAC civ2 copies that are different.I have a noton there is some obscure setting somewhere that needs to be changed.