Several parallel installations

**Aradius** · July 04, 2009, 10:06 AM

Heya,

is there a way to have separate (parallel) installations of MT:W?

Thanks

**steviegall** · July 04, 2009, 01:27 PM

well i just got the game this week and im loving it(was up to 5:36 this morning playing it) and i have had seperate installs of different games over the years so ill try to explain it as clearly as i can

first off copy the original game file from here (C:\Program Files\SEGA) and paste it into a safe file location(my documents i use) in the sega file you will see the game file named "Medieval II Total War" make a new file called "A" or something like that beside the original game file and transfer/copy the original file from documents into that file

now go to the shorcut on your desktop copy and paste another beside the first right click and go to properties, youll see the file path in a box marked target,
it will look like this

C:\Program Files\SEGA\Medieval II Total War\medieval2.exe
modify it to this
C:\Program Files\SEGA\A\Medieval II Total War\medieval2.exe

then add whatever mods you wich to add to the file in A making sure to label the

presumeable you could do this as many times as you liked to have different mods installed by changing a to b and so on

**Gigantus** · July 06, 2009, 04:23 AM

is there a way to have separate (parallel) installations of MT:W?

Is there a reason to have separate (parallel) installations of MT:W?

**irishron** · July 06, 2009, 08:35 AM

Originally Posted by gigantus

Is there a reason to have separate (parallel) installations of MT:W?

There is a reason in M2TW, not all mods are mod foldered. I have four that way including mine. That is why my mod's download is only 145mb versus Broken Crescent's 696mb. I modfolder mine, it will be over 600mb easy because of the animation files.

**Gigantus** · July 06, 2009, 09:16 AM

Animation Files? Does that mean they are modded? If not then files like that can be unpacked and copied with a 10KB batchfile (see sample for Kingdom of the Scots).

That batchfile unpacks, deletes the geography files, copies from the kingdoms mod and then deletes everything that has been unpacked (in a different folder, not the original destination).

Personally it gives me a very uneasy feeling if I have a mod install into my root folder. Broken Crescent 2.0 is such a case. That is also the reason why I first install into a different folder (C:\Install). I keep files like the 'reduced city textures', 'new cities from agart' in the root so I can use them for all mods and the original game.

Moving a mod into the 'mods' folder only involves changing the BAT and CFG file, copying some data\text files and in rare cases some esoteric files. That will certainly occupy less place then a whole new instance of M2TW.

**irishron** · July 06, 2009, 10:46 AM

The animation files are modded because of the added factions and the unique units for them. The only three reasons I haven't gone to the trouble of a modfolder changing the .bat and .cfg to put it in the mods folder is not having the time to devote to doing it right, trying to keep down the size of the download, and I inherited this mod with enough snafus to keep me busy for a long time without having to deal with real life.

Remember when the modders started making new units and skins, the first thing they found out was the .exe couldn't read the modeldb in the mod's folder. With 1.2, it can BUT the rest of the animation files have to be included. If you don't the game complains about running out of video memory. Just tried it last week.

**Gigantus** · July 06, 2009, 11:17 PM

I inherited this mod with enough snafus to keep me busy for a long time without having to deal with real life.

That must be fun!

Animations - one change is enough, and those files are huge. But hey, nowadays the mods come in GB size, what's a measly 60MB? (Or was it more?)

**irishron** · July 07, 2009, 12:07 AM

My last mod upload was 145mb and still not modfoldered.

**Gigantus** · July 07, 2009, 04:27 AM

That's a baby! How much when it goes to school?

**Aradius** · July 07, 2009, 09:20 AM

The reason for my question was that I had a combined Kingdoms install with Broken Crescent, Stainless Steel and Pro Deo et Rege. When BC2 came out, I wanted to have a clean install, which meant I had to uninstall everything. Not much damage done, as I had no ongoing campaigns, but I wanted to avoid that situation in the future.

I have more than enough disk space. Why _shouldn't_ I have more than one install?

Anyway, thanks to steviegall - MT:W does work without registry entries, so I can happily copy away.

**irishron** · July 07, 2009, 09:23 AM

Originally Posted by Aradius

The reason for my question was that I had a combined Kingdoms install with Broken Crescent, Stainless Steel and Pro Deo et Rege. When BC2 came out, I wanted to have a clean install, which meant I had to uninstall everything. Not much damage done, as I had no ongoing campaigns, but I wanted to avoid that situation in the future.

I have more than enough disk space. Why _shouldn't_ I have more than one install?

Anyway, thanks to steviegall - MT:W does work without registry entries, so I can happily copy away.

No reason why not. I keep a clean one for my mistakes and they have been and will continue to be many.

**irishron** · July 07, 2009, 09:24 AM

Originally Posted by gigantus

That's a baby! How much when it goes to school?

At last count, 3.85gb uncompressed and still adding on.

**Gigantus** · July 07, 2009, 12:34 PM

@Irishron
Atta boy! You redoing every unit, inclusive of skins and animation?

@Aradius
I downloaded BC2 myself a few days ago and as usual installed it into my C:\Install folder. Did a quick adjustment (not more then 5 minutes) and then moved the whole lot into my mods folder. Been playing it ever since. Made it Kingdoms compatible while I was at it.

Why _shouldn't_ I have more than one install?

Because bad habits die hard. (Unless you have something from Steam - that is sudden death for those habits)