Demo V1.1 Released! (Download and Troubleshooting)

[fatsheep]

We are glad to announce the enhanced demo 1.1 (download link at bottom of this post).

Changes include:

- Reskins for many of the Gondor units (though still WIP)
- New music
- New voiceovers (still WIP)
- Entirely new Harad units (including the mighty Mûmakil!)
- Recoded unit stats (still WIP)
- And a few other minor changes that should enhance your pleasure!


In addition to the Team itself of course we'd like to thank:

Yoel A. - this guy did a great job at short notice with the Haradrim voiceovers.
Justin R. Durban - for the use of his music
Vercingetorix - for developing the PAK Extractor (and repacker)
Creative Assembly - for making a great strategy game
The Modding Community - coz they're all such great guys

And J.R.R. Tolkien of course, the true Master of Middle-earth!

Installation Instructions

Please read this whole document before you begin installation.

1. Prepare a clean (i.e. unmodded) copy of R:TW 1.3 on your PC. You can do this in one of two ways:

(a) install R:TW 1.2 and download and install the 1.3 patch which is available from Sega at http://www.sega.com/support/support.php?it...pport_romepatch (scroll down past the 1.5 patch to the 1.3 patch - it has been reported that the 1.5 patch works with the demo but this has not been extensively tested). Note that the patch will look for the path ending in "Rome - Total War" so if you have changed that fodler name you will need to change it back (this works for all installations you may have on your PC).

(b) install the BI Expansion and your 1.2 R:TW will automatically be patched to 1.3

2. Once patched copy your entire game to another folder. For example:

Original installation: C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War

Example copy location: C:\Program Files\Activision\Fourth Age - Demo

3. Rename or delete the events.dat file in the Fourth Age - Demo\Data\Sounds folder (note that this file may have a different extension depending on your file-association set up; but it is NOT the same as events.idx which should be left alone.

4. Rename or delete the Dump0000.m1v file (this too may have a different file extension depending on your computer setup) in Fourth Age - Demo\Data\menu folder

5. Remove all subfolders in the Fourth Age - Demo\Data\world\maps\custom folder

6. Remove all subfolders in the Fourth Age - Demo\Data\world\maps\battle\custom folder

7. Download (if you have not already) and run the demo 1.1. When the path name comes up, type in the name of your new copy's path, e.g. C:\Program Files\Activision\Fourth Age - Demo

NOTES

Preference.txt

If the first attempt to play the game fails, make sure the condition "FIRST_TIME_PLAY:" is set to FALSE in the preferences.txt file. You can find this file in the root directory of your new copy of 1.3, though it is in its own folder (called "preferences") if you have the Expansion version of 1.3

Sound Option

Some players have noted a freeze on unit selection traceable to sound settings. The game was tested in-house under Miles 2D, another setting may cause problems it seems. Thanks to Dracop for giving us the heads up on this.

BI Users

This demo may render your BI that shares the same installation unplayable. We have not tested this as it was developed in the stand-alone 1.3. However, you should take these steps to have any chance of BI working thereafter:

* BEFORE installing the demo you must copy the (vanilla/unmodded) 1.3 descr_mount.txt file (found in the Rome data folder) to the bi\data folder
* AFTER installing the demo you must copy the (modded) descr_transition_screen.txt file from your Rome data folder into the bi\data folder.


What if I have version 1.0 of the demo, can I install over it?

Yes, there should be no problem with that. Remember you should still follow the instruction to remove the historical battles (if you forget to do this you can do it afterwards - you will see two Poros battles in your files: remove folder in lower case that begins "Battle_" rather than "THE_BATTLE")

What if I am using version 1.5 of R:TW?

It is reported that it still can be installed and will work - I've not tested this myself though and I suggest you do not do it as it may overwrite certain new files connected with the battlemap which wil likely cause problems in the future - or you can make a backup of the file (it can be found in the packs folder and is called patch_1.pak).


Demo 1.1 (final version) download link:

http://files.filefront.com/4thAgeDemo1_1ex...;/fileinfo.html

-Palantir

[DEMETRIOUS II]

Is this only custom battles or is there a playable campaign and map?

[Lusted]

Custom battle only.

[fatsheep]

Custom Battle + Historical Battle (Crossing of Poros).

-sheep

[Hooy]

Problem fixed, broken RTW installation disk xD

[Leo4444]

will this work with bi 1.6 or rtw 1.5 ? If not will it work if i install 1.3 over it

[MasterOfNone]

Hooy and Leo,

Please read the instructions. It is clear from your posts you have not done so or have greatly misinterpreted them. The demo is not for BI.

[JustSomeGuy]

When I loaded it up, it told me some idle ballista animation was missing or something. Am I doing something wrong?

[MasterOfNone]

Never had that reported before. The ballista animations were not touched; did you install to a clean copy of RTW?

[Hanny]

Useing 1.5 build with no mods, i get a "mount error in database" error on loading, is this a known problem?.

[Amroth]

Yes, this usually happens when clicking on a wrong shortcut. Try going to where you installed the mod (Activision/RTW) and make a new shortcut from the RTW.exe. Hopefully it should work now, but please post if it does not.

[Hanny]

Yes, this usually happens when clicking on a wrong shortcut. Try going to where you installed the mod (Activision/RTW) and make a new shortcut from the RTW.exe. Hopefully it should work now, but please post if it does not.

Intresting, so its a pathing problem then that your aware of and know how to solve. will look at it this eve and post tomorrow if that does resolve the problem.