Anyone tried -ian (debug mode) with Gold Edition?

I ve been trying this several times but the path is just not accepted.

Has anyone managed to get this to work with Gold Edition?

I went in on debug mode tonight with Gold Edition and it worked fine.

I was trying to help the AI out with a number of factions that seemed to be bankrupt due to AI bugs. Believe it or not the only one beyond repair was the Italians. They never built any trading posts and are over $45K in the hole. No matter what I do there is no way they can recover before time runs out.