Quiet Desperate to play EBII

Hello all,

I'm a long time lurker in the forums and a firm fan of both EBI and EBII. I used to play EBII 2.01 on my previous system and after a nonrelated format, I was not able to play anymore for although everything seemed working, the end turn times were tedious for me. I have also noticed that advisor popping up on top left in campaign to inform about colonnist stuff has no text unless I clicked on it, disappearing immediatly after my click in 2 seconds. There was no problem in battles though. After updating my video drivers and restoring EBII to 201 with a clean EBII reinstall, I realized that the problem was not related to unofficial CAI BAI or new EDU but something gotta do with EBII itself. Three days of heavy forum lurking I thought I'm better off with a retail copy of M2TW to skip possible steam related issues alltogether.

Today I've bought the M2TW Gold Edition from a local store and by the time the install wizard asked for cd key I was cursing because the original retail game that I had had 15 digits of cd-key wherein the install asked for 16. I said it and proceeded with a cracked key, used a patch to up it to 1.5 and had a cd required error. I applied a torrent crack and it still didn't work.

It looks like as if I've exhausted both my legal and illegal resources and paid for the same game twice without getting EBII working. Below are my system related stuff, I'd appreciate any help possible..

PC:
Lenovo Y510P
Intel Core i7-4700MQ @2.40GHz 2.40GHz (it writes twice on my computer right click properties)
8.00GB RAM, 7.73GB usable
Integrated Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 card and a NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M card, used to run M2TW with Nvidia using the latest 350.12 driver.
System is 64bit Windows 8.1, UAC, firewall and antivirus disabled.

As for software I own both a steam and a retail M2TW Gold Edition (which is a weird one, possibly related to overall pettines of my country Turkey when it comes to control or counter software related scamming industry)

Where did you install the game to? Not Program Files, I hope? The shorter the path, the better, mine is on D:\M2TW\mods\EBII\

When it was working properly with steam install I had no idea about program files installation being problematic so it was at program files but my non working next install was outside program files at C/steam. Do you think because of some funny windows feature that new non programfiles steam path was being problematic? Should I give it a shot at installing the steam version in program files just like before? The thing is I've already downloaded the game some 3 times and my internet limit is almost upon me..

If you are trying to install with steam I think you are stuck with steams native directory (I don't use it though so someone else might know better). As for the physical copy that is what you should try installing to C:\M2TW or whatever you want to name it. You sure you didn't miss a digit on the retail key? Either way the gold edition should come with 1.5 shouldn't it? Try reinstalling from CD, using a crack if necessary (assuming you really do have a legitimate copy and again triple check the key that came with the game first) and then try running the game and see what version it comes up as. If not 1.5 then you have to be careful that the 1.5 patch you install is for the regional version that you bought. If you still get no cd errors google search m2tw no cd patch and try a few different ones if you have to. But no matter what let me know what version your gold installs to as I'm curious now.

I finished the gold edition install. As for the missing digit I added the number 1 to the end of the cd-key and it worked.. When I launch Britannia campaign I see in options menu that it's 1.4. When I search for regional patches (1.4 to 1.5) for a turkey one, nothing pops up. Do you think I should write to Sega and ask them about it, maybe telling them about the missing digit too? Would other country patches work?

Originally Posted by Barnabas

I finished the gold edition install. As for the missing digit I added the number 1 to the end of the cd-key and it worked.. When I launch Britannia campaign I see in options menu that it's 1.4. When I search for regional patches (1.4 to 1.5) for a turkey one, nothing pops up. Do you think I should write to Sega and ask them about it, maybe telling them about the missing digit too? Would other country patches work?

Is your Gold Edition actually specifically a Turkish one? Have a browse through the lower part of the first post of this thread with details of all the regional patches. The options there for 1.4 to 1.5 appear to be US, UK, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Direct2Drive/Gamefly Digital Download or Amazon Digital Download.

Yeah I noticed that my retail don't fit to any of the categories above. My retail backcover has everything in Turkish. I checked from google and it looks like they translated an english version. On the front cover it says it comes with a Turkish user manuel which is a booklet in turkish about how to install etc.. It's from a Turkish software company which I think is the distrubutor of the game in Turkey because the company's logo is also on the front cover. It looks too spesific and professional to be scam and the cd case had the aluminum shiny protection thingy that I ripped. The setup of the game was in english btw.

Is there any way to check which version is the turkish version from the software itself? When I search online, even on m2tw official forums I see that everyone has a pirate copy other than steam copy people so no one looks as if they have an idea related to regional patch..

Originally Posted by Barnabas

Yeah I noticed that my retail don't fit to any of the categories above. My retail backcover has everything in Turkish. I checked from google and it looks like they translated an english version. On the front cover it says it comes with a Turkish user manuel which is a booklet in turkish about how to install etc.. It's from a Turkish software company which I think is the distrubutor of the game in Turkey because the company's logo is also on the front cover. It looks too spesific and professional to be scam and the cd case had the aluminum shiny protection thingy that I ripped. The setup of the game was in english btw.

Is there any way to check which version is the turkish version from the software itself? When I search online, even on m2tw official forums I see that everyone has a pirate copy other than steam copy people so no one looks as if they have an idea related to regional patch..

Sounds like the Turkish software company has just repackaged an English-language version of the game. Any way to tell if it's the US or UK version, perhaps? When you run Kingdoms, is there an About or similar option that might tell you?

Just checked. No, there's nothing of that sort inside the game. I also noticed that I have a M2TW launcher inside the game folder which opens the official launcher. It also can't connect to internet although there is no firewall problem or something, but it can launch the M2tW or any of the installed campaigns. Also I noticed that the kingdoms exe and M2TW exe are seperate. In my steam version it was not so probably it's a copy prior to CA merging the exes..

Do you think I should write to CA about the situation?

Originally Posted by Barnabas

Just checked. No, there's nothing of that sort inside the game. I also noticed that I have a M2TW launcher inside the game folder which opens the official launcher. It also can't connect to internet although there is no firewall problem or something, but it can launch the M2tW or any of the installed campaigns. Also I noticed that the kingdoms exe and M2TW exe are seperate. In my steam version it was not so probably it's a copy prior to CA merging the exes..

Do you think I should write to CA about the situation?

I mean when you launch the game, is there an about button that might tell you more?

I can't say anything on the executables; I'm not at home so I can't check. I bought my Gold Edition in 2009 then left it in a drawer til last year, but updating it was pretty easy (because it's an EU edition).

You can email CA, but they might take a long time to respond. I don't think they really care about their old games, nor about people modding them.

I got the idea of right click on M2TW on desktop and properties - details and I saw that on the language part it said english united kingdom so I applied the official UK 1.4 to 1.5 patch and it said it was patched succesfuly. Now when I try to run any of the kingdoms campaigns I get wrong cd error from both of the discs and when I run M2TW vanilla from the launcher or the M2TW exe the game runs. The weird thing is that on game menu options I see that my game version is 1.3 : / How can a patch to upgrade 1.4 to 1.5 downgrade the game to 1.3 with success? Weird ..

I learned that M2TW stays 1.3 even after the patch and it is only kingdoms exe which gets patched to 1.5. After a search on twc forums I understood that many people have the same wrong cd problem and they suggest a no cd fix. I got the link from a guys post about the problem, applied the fix and now I have 1.5 working.

Can you tell me what I need to do next now because I'm really scared to mess it up again. I have a M2TW exe, another kingdoms exe and a launcher exe. I remember the time when we used to install EBII as one of the campaigns but I'm not sure if it's still like that or not..

I can play EB 202 perfect now. Thanks for the support.

woohoo!