A moral dilemma

**Zarax** · March 12, 2016, 02:02 AM

Greetings my fellow players.
Although XC has long been silent due to Suppanut and myself being really short on free time it doesn't mean it's dead yet.
I recently bought RTW Steam version as I'm pretty sure it's going to be the only one around (along with the rare gold boxed set) and discovered it's not patched to 1.6 but rather 1.51, meaning many XC won't work with it.

As it's not possible to modify XC to work with a downgraded exe without butchering a great many features, so we are facing an unpleasant choice:

1) point the players to pirated files with the correct version (which is of course illegal), exposing them to potential legal consequences and malware risk
2) force patch the game through the installer exclusively IF a steam installation is detected, meaning that we can reasonably be sure the player already owns the game, however this means placing a lot of trust on what you install on your PC and may still be not acceptable from a legal standpoint in many countries.

Both choices will most likely impede multiplayer capability (although the original exe can be restored in that case) so that's another factor to consider.
As the matter is extremely delicate I don't want to reduce it to a poll choice but rather listen to your reasoning as it's a potentially unsurmuntable stumbling block in any possible future XC development.

I shall leave the choice on your wisdom.

**Outcast** · March 13, 2016, 11:22 AM

Can't we just patch it to 1.6 ourselves? If possible you could make 1.6 as a requirement for XC - want it, patch it
I remember there was a fail patch some time ago which made many mods unplayable, either on rome1 or medieval 2 and it seemed to be a problem of .exe file. I just downloaded it from gamecopyworld because it was their fault in the first place, if it can be done like that I don't think it will be considered as a piracy.

Also glad to hear that XC is still kicking, been waiting for ages for a new release.

**Zarax** · March 13, 2016, 11:46 AM

Regular patch 1.6 doesn't work with Gold or Steam versions, unless you put a cracked 1.6 exe on it, just like you did.
So basically the choice is that either we ask the player to do something that can be classified as piracy or we do it themselves.

**Outcast** · March 13, 2016, 01:26 PM

Now I see the problem, kinda tough yeah.

In my humble opinion I think you guys should ask us to do that. I just dont want mod having problems because of this nonsense and people should understand it
I'm myself fine with either as I have multiple installations of rome as some mods overwrite stuff

**Ferdiad** · March 21, 2016, 11:16 AM

Disregarding the legality of it I'm not sure TWC would allow you to point users towards getting the cracked exe.

"Promoting" illegal activity includes, but is not limited to:
Asking for someone else to commit an illegal activity (e.g., asking for a cracked game).
Assisting someone else in an illegal activity (e.g., linking to a site that distributes cracked games).
Encouraging or advocating an illegal activity, or portraying it as normal or acceptable (e.g., casually mentioning that you have pirated games/smoked pot/etc. as though this were normal and acceptable). Exceptions will be made for threads that are devoted to serious discussion of illegal activities in an abstract sense (e.g., about whether copyright law should be relaxed or marijuana should be legalized), on a case-by-case basis.

**Zarax** · March 21, 2016, 11:33 AM

Yes and I'm aware this very thread is already border-line.
That said, as we worked on XC for many years and it's a crippling issue for us.

**Ferdiad** · March 21, 2016, 12:43 PM

Well you could just state that the 1.6 patch is required with a note to steam users that this is required as well?

**Zarax** · March 21, 2016, 01:38 PM

Patch 1.6 cannot be installed over Gold or Steam, which by now make the vast majority of RTW installs around.

**DeathtoEgo** · March 24, 2016, 10:14 PM

Dude I'm pretty sure the Gold edition is fully patched considering it was released long after they stopped patching it. Rome is fully patched I think to 1.5, barbarian invasion 1.6, so there is no dilemma moral or otherwise.

**Zarax** · March 25, 2016, 01:29 AM

Except that it's not, it's patched to 1.5.1 and many XC features don't work with it, while they do if I put a 1.6 exe there.

**Suppanut** · March 26, 2016, 06:25 AM

Good news!, I could figure out how to play XC4 and XC5 on steam BI without losing anything. But method maybe a bit complicate for many.

1) Have XC installed (this part is what I and Zarax have to solve problem to our old installer to understand Steam registry a bit. But in nature it is completely the same as non-steam version, so those who have non-steam version installed before, you could just copy whole folder of old "XC" to same place in new location of steam RTW gold)
2) Run Steam apps
3) Choose "library"
4) Right click to "Rome: Total War" to open menu, then choose "Properties" (likely the choice on the bottom of menu)
5) Click "Set Launch Options...". A box will appear.
6) put "-show_err -nm -mod:xc" into the empty line without comment then click "OK". (you could put something else on it too. it is just like old time RTW attribute was.
7) Run game by steam, choosing the right platform as what you installed earlier as everything about horde only working on BI and could not able to run on RTW or ALX, ALX need to do seperately due to it treated as seperate program by Steam. Steam version could only able to access to BI through Steam app, that why we need to run it from there. (For those who play on RTW engine, you could run game through steam's Rome: Total War link and would still get the same end up to XC without problem due to nature of how it access through Steam server instead of directly to .exe in our hard disk.)
8) If you want to turn back to play vanilla, just go back to "Set Launch Options...." and empty the line.

Everything should be fine just like our old time.

Now I still running auto-game by it to test stability so I could say it is working.

For user of Alex version. Steam treated ALX as seperate program with seperate folder. (This is problem for me and Zarax again to fix our future installer to support Steam.) but the way to running our mod is still the same as how to do with BI but just do it on "Rome: Total War - Alexander" instead.

Still not yet really test on running RTW version of XC, so I'm not sure that we could run it through our old time shortcut or not. Although I think it suppose to as run .exe directly bring you to vanilla 1.51 (steam version of 1.5) no matter click it from RTW or RTW-BI in steam's RTW Gold folder. I think ALX version of XC suppose to able to do the same method as well due to nature of how .exe recognise program in steam. (But future testing are needed)

Edit:
I found way to create batch file to launch mod on steam under BI but much more complicate to generate by installer. I will wait for Zarax to see what he could do by this method.
http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...-and-Alexander