Let's Play the (failed) Installation of Europa Barbarorum
Hello everyone...
Well, after trying and failing to install a working copy of Europa Barborum on my computer yesterday evening (at time of writing), I decided to devote the next day (today at time of writing) to trying again, this time with every possible safeguard I could think of against a possible corrupted installation in place. I also took screenshots of exactly what I did along the way so that I could produce this, a blow-by-blow written and visual account of downloading and installing every aspect of Europa Barborum version 1.1 in the famous "Let's Play" style, which, I hope, will allow you eagle-eyed EB fanatics out there to spot what went wrong...
First of all, after ensuring that every trace of both Rome and EB were erased from my computer, I decided to do a disk cleanup...
...and a deletion of the remaining temporary internet files (disk cleanup doesn't clear the browser history, you see)...
...before shutting down the computer and booting it back up again...
Indeed, I decided that I was going to do this (that is, shut down and reboot) after every single step, major and minor. This, I have to say, greatly increased the amount of time this whole project took...
With my disk clean and my cache clear, my next order of business was to totally and unambiguously eliminate the possibility that I had a corrupt version of any of the four main "downloadables", that is, EB, it's patch and the two RTW patches. With this in mind, I first created this rather appropriately named folder on my desktop into which I could download the necessary files...
I also decided that I was going to download EB and its patch from the same place (and indeed the two RTW patches from the same place as well). However, I don't have the ability to download the torrent version, the versions from filefront don't work (indeed, I can no longer download .exes from filefront at all because they simply will not download as .exes, thus rendering them unusable) and I didn't want to download some "eDonkey client", which left Org FTP as my only option...
So, I proceeded to download EB 1.1 from Org FTP, whereupon I discovered that this particular file is apparently courtesy of Mizus.com... This didn't mean anything to me, though, I've just included it here for the sake of completeness...
The download itself seemed to go off without a hitch... I also made sure the computer did absolutely nothing else whilst downloading...
With that done, it was time for the second shutdown and reboot...
...and then it was time to download the EB 1.2 patch, also from Org FTP and once again courtesy of Mizus.com...
Like last time, the download itself was left completely to its own devices and seemed fine once it finished...
I, of course, followed this up with another shutdown and reboot...
Well, that's EB, but where to get two the RTW patches? Softpedia came up as the top result on Google searches for both the 1.3 patch and the 1.5 patch, with upwards of 200,000 downloads for each and a rating well above four stars...
At this point, I found myself shrugging and thinking to myself, "I suppose it's as good as anywhere else" and hit download, whereupon I discovered that this version of the 1.3 patch apparently comes straight from the Creative Assembly's puppeteers, SEGA...
Figuring that this was a good thing (or, at least not a bad thing), I proceeded to download the file. Smooth sailing once again...
And with that, some more S&R...
The 1.5 patch, the last of the four "downloadables", came next. Following my policy of getting both patches from the same place, I once again looked to Softpedia...
Unlike with EB and its patch though, it seems the 1.5 patch had a different source from the 1.3 patch, the file itself apparently coming from the Softpedia website itself, whereas the 1.3 patch had supposedly come from SEGA...
As much as I thought this seemed odd, however, I still downloaded the 1.5 patch from Softpedia and, as with the others, it seemed fine...
...and aside from one last round of waiting for my computer to get the lead out of its pants and finish booting up, that was it for downloading the "downloadables"...
Next, it was time to extract those RTW patches... You may have noticed that the download prompts for them listed them as "unknown file type". This is because the usual generic extraction software that came with Windows on this computer apparently became corrupt or somehow uninstalled after I installed and uninstalled WinRAR one too many times (I've occasionally needed it to extract the odd .RAR file, but couldn't keep it because of how it turned the icon for every last .ZIP file into a hideous stack of books I simply couldn't bare to look at). I can, however, still extract such files perfectly well with 7-Zip...
Which I proceeded to do...
...before, well, you can probably guess... Yeah, I know, call me pedantic...
With the computer freshly booted once more, I checked on the extracted folder, which seemed fine...
...before doing the same with the 1.5 patch...
Ok, call me really pedantic... Call me whatever you like, just don't call me late for dinner...
As with 1.3, a quick check after boot-up showed a 1.5 patch folder that seemed in working order...
Finally, it was time to install RTW...
My destination folder? C:\Rome - Total War... That's it, none of that "C:\Users\User\*Insert various nonsense here*\Rome - Total War" (yeah, the account name on this computer is "user", even though it has full admin privileges) claptrap this time, just C:\Rome - Total War, nothing more, nothing less...
"OK, here goes nothing..." I thought. Well, not exactly... Even when using my old copies of the RTW patches and the overly-complex "C:\Users\User\*Insert various nonsense here*\Rome - Total War" destination folder, RTW has always worked perfectly well on this computer... Anyway, once it was installed...
yeah, that... Rebooting and then ejecting and reinserting the disk, the autoplay menu displayed correctly...
Testing the game out with the initial "prologue" battle, I found all the various scripts and triggers in the initial tutorial battle seemed to be working fine. I also noticed, to my immense satisfaction, that the little messages following a unit's morale and stamina levels that tell you what is effecting a unit's morale were not being displayed, as is correct for a freshly installed and unpatched copy of RTW.
With my testing finished, it was time to install the next patch, correctly leading to a "properties" screen on my "RomeTW.exe" that looked like this...
I get shut down! But I boot up again!
I then installed the 1.5 patch, taking an extra screenshot of the installation process...
Logging off LCARS menu system...
Let's check that properties window again...
Yep, that looks right... And indeed, with the 1.5 patch now installed, I went back into RTW and discovered that the little morale adjustment messages were back. "Glad to have the general in the unit", it said... "Panicked by artillery fire", it said... "God the random unit selection AI for custom battles makes some shitty Roman armies", I said...
OK, that seems to be working, time for Alexander (as, had EB decided to work, my next objective wouldn't been to get it working with Alex.exe)...
One installation later...
Alexander seemed to be working fine as well, with the opening "montage" with that dull documentary-esque narrator fully functional and everything seeming to work as it should. Again, this is no different fron several other occasions where I have tried and failed to install EB...
OK, well, at that point there was only one thing left to do, so here really goes nothing...
The installation itself seemed to go smoothly, with this being the result...
I don't know... It looks alright to be, but then I really have no idea... Well, let's try that "ValidateInstall" thing...
Fair enough... But upon searching my computer for the word "Validation" (without the talking marks of course), I discovered that, in actually fact, no .txt file by that name was created whatsoever... That, I thought, was not a good sign, particularly as other failed installs of EB had previously done the exact same thing on my computer (that is, had a Validater that wouldn't actually Validate)...
With my hopes that this would be a successful installation fading fast, I none-the-less placed by RTW disk back into the tray and attempted to start EB, at which point this familiar image popped up on my desktop...
...and then vanilla Rome: Total War 1.5 started up... Yep, opening the "EB Play" application opens up vanilla RTW on my computer... I'm as confused as you are. I tried opening EB from both the Start menu shortcut and direct from the application within the RTW folder, but both simply opened vanilla Rome...
At this point, I knew I was going to put all those screenshots I'd taken to use (had the installation succeeded, this Let's Play never would've seen the light of day) and I felt a mixture of deep disappointment at yet another failed attempt and also a faint hope that my minute attention to detail might allow one of you to spot what went wrong... And speaking of that minute attention to detail, I did mange to turn up one piece of potential evidence, entirely because of that attention...
What you see above is what happened when I attempted to use the Validater from the Start menu, rather than from the RTW folder... Compared that to what happened when I ran the Validate straight from the RTW folder (I know, I already posted this pic, but I think this could be important, so I'm providing the image again here for direct comparison)...
Tell me, do the error messages that popped up on the Validater when I tried to run it from the start menu mean anything to any of you? If so (or even if they don't), what do you think going wrong with my attempted installations of EB and how can I fix the problem? (again, an earlier attempted install lead to exactly the same result you see in this Let's Play) As it stands, I'd really like to play Europa Barbarorum again, but if I fear it may never happen... I fear I may have to give up on this mod, much as I had to give up on the original RTW on my old computer (which, after one too many uninstallations and reinstallations, refused to install a working copy of even the original game straight from the disks)...
Regardless of wether you can help me or not though, I sincerely hope you got something out of Let's Play the (failed) Installation of Europa Barbarorum and that it wasn't just a waste of your time...
Yours with wish to play EB again
-Captain Trek
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Originally Posted by Arjos
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