EBII on linux

[kertase]

Hi,

So I am trying to make the mod work on the linux port installed trough steam.

By installing next to the kingdom mods and using --features.mod=mods/ebii after modifying all names with uppercase letters to lower case all but battles seem to work fine. Battles will make the game ctd somehow. It seems that it is impossible to get the logs.

By converting all .bik Videos to .webm the Faction videos work too. But The game intro video does not load.

I’ll look if I can fix the battle ctd but I do not know where to start.

Cheers

K.

Edit: in the file descr_misc.txt only the line following works for loading custom video
fmv_title fmv/nuke.bik. Editing to the right name fixes the missing startup video.
Still no Logs and ctd while loading Batttle. Auto battle works fine, campaign map works fine. @mods/ebii/ebii.cfg works without the option ‘disable_file_cache = 1’ which causes a ctd at loading game.

[Ibrahim]

You're in luck--I'm also a linux user :clown:

This is a problem which I'm afraid cannot be fixed readily: it's universal to total war games I have from Rome: total war on wards--even using WINE (It's actually because of the Total war series that I even have a dedicated Windows partition....If it would have worked on Linux perfectly, I'd have gone over alltogether, since I know my modding utilities will work on Linux)

I suspect it's a problem with the file format being incompatible with Linux. An alternative format will have to be found (as you did with the videos): problem is, I don't know what such a format would be.

EDIT: btw, which version of Linux do you use? Ubutu? Mint? Fedora? I know some versions are better than others with certain programs (pain in the rear IMO, but one must live with it...)

[kertase]

I am using Manjaro an Arch based distro, Actually a port of medieval 2 was released by feral interactive this year, and everyone who has the game on steam can use it on linux now. Empire has also been released by them earlier.

I have tried to make EBII, SS6.4, WotN, Folcomtw3 work. All launch after some easy modification(see end of the post), SS6.4 works fine you can use the settings .exe with wine to change campaign and settings, wotn works fine too, EBII & Falcom crash on loading battles.

So basically how do you make a mod work on the linux port? Change all file and folder names to lower case so if the mod is rared or ziped it is easy just unpack it in the mod folder using

unrar -cl x {foo.rar} or

unzip -LL {foo.zip}
If the mod is packed in a .exe, extract it with wine to the mod folder (use wine executer not wine installer), then run in bash

find ./ -depth -print0 | while read -d $'\0' SRC; do DST=`dirname "${SRC}"`/`basename "${SRC}" | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`; if [ "${SRC}" != "${DST}" ]; then [ ! -e "${DST}" ] && mv -T "${SRC}" "${DST}" || echo "${SRC} was not renamed"; fi; done
or zip it and unzip it like before.

To make the videos work run in bash

for f in ./*.bik; do echo "Converting $f"; g=`basename $f .bik`; ffmpeg -i $f -crf 1 -b:v 10M -codec:a libvorbis -b:a 128k $g.webm || echo FAILED; done’
in the fmv folders. You may have to edit the descr_misc.txt to make the startup video work.

Load the mod with --features.mod=mods/mod_folder_name or @mods/mod_folder_name/config_file_name.cfg.

Personally I extract my mods to a own folder and use ln -s to link it into the mods folder.

[Ibrahim]

Awesome! Might give it a go :beam:

Didn't know about the dedicated linux install for m2tw. Will look into it.


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[z3n]

One of our guys figured it out, we are thinking of creating a tool which renames the files to lowercase as well as creating the banners the exe looks for (and cause the crash) not at my computer so I can't post yet but I will update the post with the full details later.


Actually I will just mention him. gosam

[gosam]

Sorry guys, I wasn't around for a while.
You seem to have got most of it figured out. To avoid the crash you need to copy no_banner.mesh from share/data/mods/ebii/data/banners to share/data/data/banners (yes outside of the mod's folder).

[Julianus]

Any Mac players here?
Haven't tried installing EBII on my Mac steam version M2TW yet but I'm kind of worried it might never work.
Because I've tried Stainless Steel and never managed to make it past the loading screen.


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[Gigantus]

I have absolute no clue about Linux but this observation might come handy (from another discussion):



I've just tried deleting the settlements/ folder and the siege battles work now.

Could this have to do with the entry of packagedb.txt?:

; List of directories to search for packages
.\settlements
Maybe the 'directory up' coding is different in Linux?

The banner folder issue could be caused by the way the path is entered in descr_banners_new as well, a related issue ('directory up' coding) I would think:

"banners\textures\faction_banner_f_sweboz.texture"


In 1648 we actually had to enter an absolute path (instead of the default relative path) for our custom mesh files to be read, but then that mod was throwing all kinds of curve balls:

"mods\1648_2\data\banners\main_spear.mesh"

[z3n]

For the mac users follow the instructions in this thread (later posts)
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?727068-EBII-(v2-1b)-for-Mac-ALMOST-works-but-not-for-battles

[M3m3nt0]

There will be an "easy" (for *nix noobs like me) way to make EBII work on Linux in version 2.2?

Inviato dal mio ASUS_Z00AD utilizzando Tapatalk

[z3n]

1) To avoid the field battle crash you need to copy no_banner.mesh from share/data/mods/ebii/data/banners to share/data/data/banners (yes outside of the mod's folder).

2) Delete your settlements folder in share/data/mods/ebii/data

3) Play