Post your Steam questions here!

[Superteale]

I have question for you gentlemen out there;
I have ETW on steam, but I have yet to get a message regarding patches. How do I know wich patches steam has applied and how do I change steam`s auto-download settings if I want to turn the autopatching on or off?

[lugh]

I have question for you gentlemen out there;
I have ETW on steam, but I have yet to get a message regarding patches. How do I know wich patches steam has applied and how do I change steam`s auto-download settings if I want to turn the autopatching on or off?

My Games -> Right click on Empire, choose Properties. The updates tab is what you're looking for. Not sure how to pull the version number of your current install though, sorry.

[Vlad The Impaler]

my ESET (nod32) security programe is seeing steam as a virus. without deactivating the antivirus and firewall I cannot play Empire

[Babblearossa]

my ESET (nod32) security programe is seeing steam as a virus. without deactivating the antivirus and firewall I cannot play Empire

did you try the tip from typing 'eset steam' into google and clicking "I'm feeling lucky"?

[Vlad The Impaler]

I deactivated the checking for steam but is seeing somthing inside of steam as a virus

crypt 32. win or something like that

I have no viruses on my comp and is a clean copy of xp

[pevergreen]

What antivirus is this, and what is the exact message?

[Babblearossa]

I poked around the steam forums, ESET seems to pick up a lot of steam apps as viruses due to the heuristic scanning and how steam compresses them. The only solution I saw was to exclude the steam folder from scanning.

[Jimmytwohand]

Does anyone know if i can i still play the demo while downloading the full game via steam please? Bought it last night with the whiskey goggles on not realising it would still be downloading now, ridiculous download speeds for a game this size...

[Babblearossa]

Does anyone know if i can i still play the demo while downloading the full game via steam please? Bought it last night with the whiskey goggles on not realising it would still be downloading now, ridiculous download speeds for a game this size...

They go into different folders so yeah, you should be able to.

[Jimmytwohand]

Cheers dude. Didnt actually manage to test it as couldnt find the demo folder. D/L finally cracked the dizzy heights of 100kbs so got it a bit quicker than i thought.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

ETW worked fine for week to 10 days, but now ctd's whenever I hit "grand campaign." As this is about the only aspect of the game I really play, this is a problem.

SB-FXi driver updated, same prob. Re-install from Steam, same prob. Uninstall, reinstall from box, still same prob.

Sent note to Steam, none of their suggestions worked -- uses NFTS already instead of FAT32.

Note out to Sega.


Is this a steam issue or a game issue? If game, what do I do? If steam, what do I do? Tried apothecary, but zero response.

[Babblearossa]

removing the empire config stuff fixes something that sounds like what you're describing.

on xp it's here
C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAMEHERE\Application Data\The Creative Assembly\Empire
on vista it's somewhere like
C:\Users\YOURUSERNAMEHERE\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Empire

apparently the uninstall doesn't remove this directory, and it's the one with config data that can go wonky.

remember to copy your saved games out of there if you want to keep them.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I will give that a shot. I thank you (regardless) for taking the time to help.


To all appearances, wiping that directory out and forcing it to be recreated seems to have solved the problem nicely. Thanks!

[quadalpha]

I've been out of the loop, but I'm having a problem when I tried to start ETW again after a few months. It's all updated, but when I click the launch button in Steam, the little "Preparing to launch" box pops up for a second and then disappears, and nothing else happens. Ideas anyone? I suppose I can always redownload and reinstall, but that would be a pain.

[Lord Nelson]

Heres the problem, I have downloaded empire and it will let me into the road to independance bit of the game no problem. As soon as i attempt to go into the grand campaign, thats when problems occur. I always get that message saying it has stoped working and windows is looking for a solution etc. I have updated my drivers (I think) and I thought that was the problem but why would it let me into one bit and not the other if this was the case. I have tried updating steam defrag the lot.

Im wondering if anyone else has had this problem or what they think the solution might be.


Any help would be much appreciated.

[Braden]

Necro post resurrection!!

Basic question. I have bought a second hand copy, retail boxed version from eBay but STEAM will not allow installation as the game code has already been registered.

Suggestions? Apart from the obvious one of contacting the seller for said info.

[huggisscra]

Great, now people are botting for this title. Means my efforts of actually working for it were in vain.

[Ishmael]

Hi folks,

My game hasn't been updating properly since the last patch/mandatory DLC download. On steam it states that the game is at '0%-updating' but never progresses- it's downloading something, as it managed to blow half my monthly download limit when I wasn't watching it . I posted this issue over in Apothecary, and a nice fellow suggested to restart Steam a few times, which helped temporarily (it went back to 25% complete) although I couldn't download it as my download limit was used up. Unfortunately, now that I can download it, restarting Steam is doing nothing. Does anybody know how I can solve this-I can't play without the patch, and its getting kinda frustrating.

Thanks!

[pevergreen]

go into where you installed steam.

copy the steamapps folder to somewhere safe

uninstall steam

reinstall steam

copy steamapps folder back in.

You'll have to 'redownload' all your old games, but it detects them there and doesnt download anything.

I've had instances where a single game just stops working overnight and it took me 5 reinstalls of steam to get it working.

[Ishmael]

Ah, thanks pevergreen-that fixed it.

[t1master]

do you need the disks to reinstall on a different computer? or does steam allow you download from their server?

[pevergreen]

Thats the beauty of steam. Any game you have against your account on steam can be redownloaded from anywhere in the world at any time, you just have to login.

Having the discs will just speed it up (if you have slow internet) or just reduce the amount you need to download.

[t1master]

so say i rebuild my pc or wipe my hd, all i gotta do is log into steam and i'll have all my games there waiting to re-install? sounds sweet.

[barwiel]

Hi guys, I have bought the dvd version of Napoleon total war (retail), which unfortunately requires online registration with Steam. My stationary PC internet is really slow (I have a faster connection on laptop) and I have been waiting for more than 2 hours now since starting that damned steam "activation wizard". Any of you know how many megabytes it must exchange with Steam until it finally verifies my cd-key and register this game? I would be most grateful for an answer.

[Tomisama]

You have probably figured it out by now, but for the record if you have dvd version of this game, you do not have to download it.

Be sure you read the instructions, because the download can take 5 hours, the upload fron disc is less than a half an hour to 45 minutes, if I remember right.

You will need to have a Steam account, and Steam will find the game and list it is all.

Good Luck!

[barwiel]

Thanks for replying. Yes, I have figured it out by now, although the solution ended up to be quite "extreme". But what I meant in my previous post was that Steam requires you to download updates for itself as well as for the game before you can go into the "offline mode". So asking about the amount of data exchanged I meant this. How I went around this? Well, I took out my hard disk, visited my good old brother, downloaded all the neccessary stuff using his internet and started again in the offline mode. What were the lessons I've learned? They were two actually: 1. Steam is a piece of crap that can prevent or seriously impare your ability to play the game you have legally bought (although my rage also goes against sega and CA who didn't provide any solution for customers without a fast internet connection) 2. It's nice to have a brother with fast internet living nearby :)

[pevergreen]

What were the lessons I've learned? They were two actually: 1. Steam is a piece of crap that can prevent or seriously impare your ability to play the game you have legally bought (although my rage also goes against sega and CA who didn't provide any solution for customers without a fast internet connection) 2. It's nice to have a brother with fast internet living nearby :)

The percentage of customers without an internet connection is low. So having to verify it that way is not a lot of trouble. Steam is a great platform, but if you ignore all the other benefits:

1. No more secuROM etc
2. Decent Multiplayer servers

Two easy improvements over the last set of TW games.

[barwiel]

I don't mind having to verify the authenticity of a game by internet. But I should be given an option of not having to update steam or a game "online" if I don't want to (btw, the option of not updating is "just a delay in updating" as I have recently learned from Steam's "support"). Just check the cd-key or whatever they check, and voila. I think Steam is very inflexible in this area. Perhaps after such changes a number of the now potential customers without a decent internet connection would buy the game and let them make more money. But it's just my opinion, not based on any hard data. You seem to know better.

[pevergreen]

I don't mind having to verify the authenticity of a game by internet. But I should be given an option of not having to update steam or a game "online" if I don't want to (btw, the option of not updating is "just a delay in updating" as I have recently learned from Steam's "support"). Just check the cd-key or whatever they check, and voila. I think Steam is very inflexible in this area. Perhaps after such changes a number of the now potential customers without a decent internet connection would buy the game and let them make more money. But it's just my opinion, not based on any hard data. You seem to know better.

Don't dismiss your opinion that fast.

As I understand it, the steam installation is:

Install the game from your DVD/s. Steam then registers the fact you have the game and adds it to your profile (having already checked the CD key). From there, cloud support stuff is uploaded, if the game has it, and then before the game will launch, steam will verify the integrity of the files and update. No matter when you install it that will happen. If you install a year after release, bad luck, you have to be up to date and so sit through the patches. If its on release day, you still have to do it (Yes, I had to wait for a little patch to download on the release day of E:TW)

It has a number of benefits, and to those who have a setup where internet access is hard to come by/limited/not on their gaming computer, yes, steam is not the greatest thing in the world for them. But its not the worst either. I'd rather have steam than secuROM.

[barwiel]

Well, maybe after all it isn't that bad. It does make you think more creatively before you start the game, in order to make it work.. Then it pays off when you finally start playing the game and you can manouver your armies more effectively. And BTW, I love Napoleon:Total War. Just finished-off Kutuzov near Prague with one swift thrust by the Old Guard:)