If I move my entire M2 directory to an external hard drive, can I still play from it?

[gazastripclub]

Hi! First post here. I've been playing M2:TW for years now and recently been playing Darth Mod. I play it through Steam which may cause problems. It's a good mod but I'm sick and tired of all the CTD errors from doing random things like taking Milan by Jihad, killing too many members of an enemy royal family, etc. It's very buggy and almost unplayable before I even get to year 1200. Third Age also crashes for sieges but the fixes I looked up seem difficult.

So I want to restart with a clean slate, but move the whole directory to an external hard drive so I could still play my saved games if I want to or if I find the proper file fix for them. Can I still play from it? Will it cause problems with Steam or will Steam just no longer detect Medieval 2 on my hard drive and act like it's uninstalled?

I will reinstall the game through steam on my primary hard drive and try other mods like Stainless Steel.

Thank you! And thank you to the modding community for all your hard work!

[Gigantus]

It will help if you primary installation is outside the program files directory, due to virtual store issues - not sure if that is possible with Steam (unless Steam is installed outside as well). If your base installation is identical to the previous install (from the M2TW directory down) then you should not have problems using your old saves.
Seeing that you can have unlimited mods installed (simply copy Steam's medieval2.exe file and rename it to kingdoms.exe to play mods straight from the desktop shortcuts) I am not sure why you want to re-install or move to another drive\directory - unless you have hard drive space issues.

[gazastripclub]

Ok thanks! What do you mean by unlimited mods? Won't they conflict with each other, especially if the launcher exe gets renamed or moved and whatnot?

[Gigantus]

Every mod (with exception of the 4 default kingdom campaigns) has it's own BAT file that calls the mod's configuration (CFG) file and then launches the games executable file. As long as all mod files are in their own directory they will never interfere with each other.

Some of the older kingdom mods do not have the BAT that can launch Steam and disk versions - hence the advice to copy and rename the medieval2.exe which is the easiest way to handle this. I don't have steam nor do I ever use the launcher (why do three steps if one is enough?) so I can't give advice on how that would work.