Error when launching

[absolutus]

hello there,

I'm one of those many people who seem to be running into trouble. first, here are the requirements from the "BEFORE YOU POST AN ERROR"_thread:

-I use windows vista
-RTW is version 1.5
-I got an older RTW copy without steam, and later installed steam for other games. RTW doesn't run through it, so I suppose I don't use steam for it. (though the launcher indicates 'Steam: YES')
-my install path is (F/Roma Surrectum

When I ran the launcher, selected my faction and hit 'Play Roma Surrectum II', I got the following message:

first, something along the lines of: 'An error occurred, please report the next three messages.'
so I wrote them down:

message 1: "You don't have Roma Surrectum II installed in the correct folder (F:\Roma Surrectum)"

message 2: "Engine: RomeTW-ALX.exe, Faction campaign: _modplay_Capua"

message 3: "In total: 'RomeTW-ALX.exe-mod:paly_capua-show_err'"

At the time I hadn't thought of it, but of course it wouldn't work, because i haven't got the Alexander mod. but it won't work with the the vanilla or BI either.

Thanks in advance, I've seen some videos and would love to play this game. cheers

oh lol that smiley shouldn't be there in my install path, whoops!

[Brusilov]

First of all - welcome to TWC.

The error indicates that you are trying to use the R:TW Alex exe when you only appear to have the R:TW Exe (from what you've posted).

What error do you get with the other exes? If it's similar then I'd check to see if the game folder actually contains the exes. If you're not playing through Steam then the launcher should not be showing that you're trying to use Steam....

The original install instructions for RSII (it does not have the swap factions in it) had some screen shots of what the game folder should look like before the install and after the install. Compare your game folder to it. The original install instrucions can be found: here.

[absolutus]

Well the weird thing is that it has simply given up on giving any errors - whenever I click 'Play Roma Surrectum 2', it asks whether or not I've selected my faction, and then nothing happens. None of the buttons I click trigger anything after that. The music keeps playing, but I even have to shut the launcher down using the task manager.

If i click 'edit preferences', it tells me it's "Unable to open file: F:\Roma Surrectum\preferences\preferences.txt"

so I compared my folder to the one in the thread you linked in your post, and I'm missing a bunch files, namely
-preferences
-custom
-saves
-temp
and some other things:
-rome_icon - Copy.ico
-cliffs_debug.tga
-corrected_regions.tga
-mss32.dll (but i could solve this by just copying it from my RTW, right?)

It might be I've missed something, so here's a pic of the folder:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I have another question but apparently I can't have multiple links in one post or something so it'll be in the next post.

[absolutus]

so does '-show_err' down there in the save bar mean anything? It has been there since that first error.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

thanks for the help.

[Brusilov]

The folders preferences, saves, temp etc are created when the campaign is launched. The preferences folder may be created when you change some in-game options prior to launching the campaign.

So, you won't be able to edit your preferences until they are created.

The mss32.dll etc file is very important - it's to do with the Miles sound system that the game uses. I'd copy the one from your R:TW install across. The mss32.dll file should have been there from your original R:TW install (the donor folder) so it seems as if you've not set that up properly in the first place. It could be an indication that the folder which you installed RSII on is not a 'working copy'. So until that is resolved you won't get RSII to launch.

The other three files you mention (icon.ico, cliffs_debig.tga and corrected_regions.tga) should have been set up when RSII was installed - so that's another pointer that something has gone wrong during the install process.

The easiest way to set up folders for R:TW based mods is to keep a clean 'working' copy of R:TW and simply copy that folder to a new location for each mod. This copy should be launched and you can set up your preferences in that one. The advantage of this is that when you copy the folder you will keep your preferences so no need to set them up each time. The only settings you will need to re-do are any key settings (as I play with 'minimal UI' I have keys set up for the game speeds as these buttons are missing from the 'minimal UI'). You could copy the 'keys.dat' file (which is in the preferences folder) from the version that you've set up.

The -show_err switch means that if the error is trapped by the program a message will be shown when you exit the game. Typically this is 'file missing' types of messages. Not all R:TW errors have a erorr message but it's a useful switch to have when they are trapped.

The -show_err switch is explained in the link that I previous supplied. It's under the 'launcher' heading.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Possible options are:

1. -show_err Will show error messages if the program crashes, worth doing
2. -nm No movies at start up
3. -movie_cam Allows playback of custom battles for getting nice screenshots or movies
4. -ne Runs in "windowed" mode, can be useful for multitasking, but note that game load up will freeze if trying to do use Bloom features in this mode.
5. -enable_editor Allows the battlemap editor to be run. Only useful if you know how to do this.
6. -ai Enables AI campaigns to be run

For the average player, -show_err -nm -movie_cam is more than sufficient

The -nm switch should be used as some installs have problems playing movies

[absolutus]

alright, I started all over again and downloaded kettleback's torrent, and I can successfully run RSII version 2.0. but I'm kind of lost as how to update it to 2.5.

I downloaded those two files (the 7z archive), and extracted them to my roma surrectum folder, but that didn't change a thing. I guess the question is: whereto do I extract those files?

PS: sorry for the late response, I thank you for your help