EB for Macintosh - questions & support thread

[Edwin@Feral]

ARGH frustrating. I had just finished explaining my progress getting EB to save games on the app store version when my post got lost. All I got back were a couple of lines.

Let me briefly recap:

Presently, the problem is that the App store version only lets you save in the designated "saves" folder in the RTW preferences folder. EB, however, has a different notion and has its own save folder. The app store version just won't let you save there.

Following Edwin, I am trying to make RTW run EB as if it were vanilla. This has meant merging the data folder in EB into the vanilla data folder. Then moving the custom/preferences/presets/saves folders from EB into the RTW preferences folders accessed from the startup menu.

This gets me as far as the faction selection screen, but as soon as I select and press the arrow, CTD. It is interesting that it crashes before you even hear the "steel upon steel" sound when you press the arrow... Could it mean that the problem is related to sound files?

Edwin suggested it might be missing files or incorrect paths, so I took some time to make sure things in the merged EB/data folder were where they should be, as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to make -show_err run on a mac.

I am a bit stumped now, and my illiterate thinking is that:

a) EB is asking RTW to look for some files where they would be if we were running from the EB folder - are there "master files" that tell EB where to look for resources?
b) RTW does not bother to look for certain files/folders unless it is running with -mod. When running with -mod, it evidently gives priority to the preferences/presets/saves/custom files in the mod folder rather than those in the preferences folder.

Two items continue to intrigue me: what does ebignoreList.txt in EB/Validation do? What about "sp game edu backup"? Why are those files there?

Anyone's wisdom and ideas would be very welcome. I know the Ferals are busy.

-show_err just needs to be added to the advanced options as written here. If a file is missing or cannot be found a dialog will appear with the details of what file cannot be found and where it was looking for it.

a) That's likely, it could be one of the modding files has hard coded links in it, I would perhaps use EasyFind (handy application) to look through all the text files for any file patches with EB in them.

b) On the PC all save games are saved in the game data folder! For the Mac we modified the main game (in the code) to save in the preferences folder however mods still use the other location, if you could get the game to use the containers folder this would be solved, however that's proving tricky to do without patching.

That said I just had a sneaky idea, I will try it later today if I have time.

Edwin

[Edwin@Feral]

SOLVED IT FOR MAC APP STORE!!!!

Hi All,

If you have the Mac App Store version do the following:

1. Install EB mod as usual and check it loads correctly etc.
2. Quit Rome and open the Rome preferences container folder using the button in the pre game about tab.
3. Copy (not a Shortcut it has to be copy) Rome (with the mod installed) into the Rome preferences folder in the top level.
4. Launch the game from inside the Preferences folder.
5. You can now save successfully with mods.

I will try and get this all cleaned up into the installer scripts but for now this method works. For those interested Apple sandboxing states you can only have Read/Write permissions for your application inside your application specific containers folder inside the Library folder. This folder is usually used for save games, preferences etc. By placing the entire game inside the folder as well it means the game has Read/Write permissions on itself which is required for some mods to work.

Simples ;)

Edwin

[Totoro]

SOLVED IT FOR MAC APP STORE!!!!

Hi All,

If you have the Mac App Store version do the following:

1. Install EB mod as usual and check it loads correctly etc.
2. Quit Rome and open the Rome preferences container folder using the button in the pre game about tab.
3. Copy (not a Shortcut it has to be copy) Rome (with the mod installed) into the Rome preferences folder in the top level.
4. Launch the game from inside the Preferences folder.
5. You can now save successfully with mods.

I will try and get this all cleaned up into the installer scripts but for now this method works. For those interested Apple sandboxing states you can only have Read/Write permissions for your application inside your application specific containers folder inside the Library folder. This folder is usually used for save games, preferences etc. By placing the entire game inside the folder as well it means the game has Read/Write permissions on itself which is required for some mods to work.

Simples ;)

Edwin

Brilliant. Technically, we are saving the game in the preferences folder. Thanks so much! Can't wait to get some of your other ports.

[Edwin@Feral]

Brilliant. Technically, we are saving the game in the preferences folder.

Correct, its a dirty solution but it works :)

Thanks so much! Can't wait to get some of your other ports.

Great :) We have Empire out now and Napoleon coming in a few weeks if you want more Total War :)

[Seoinin]

Hi Edwin. Just wanted to drop in and thank you for working so hard on a really niche issue. Also, general thanks to Feral for having great CS. I sent you guys an email asking about the phalanx bug and you were kind enough to shoot back a very specific answer, and even update me when the patch was ready. Top notch stuff.

quick question though: when you say "install EB as usual", under 1.3 MAS version, does that mean merging all the EB files into the Rome data folders etc? What further steps need to be done to get EB working like this, seeing as the MAS version now lacks the data.dmg?

[Edwin@Feral]

quick question though: when you say "install EB as usual", under 1.3 MAS version, does that mean merging all the EB files into the Rome data folders etc? What further steps need to be done to get EB working like this, seeing as the MAS version now lacks the data.dmg?

Mac EB mod download on the feral site comes with instructions inside the "Read Me FIRST!!!" document ;)

"Manual Install

Place the EB folder inside the in the following location "Rome Total War.app/Contents/Resources/Data/data/ folder and then use the "-mod:EB" (no quotes) in the advanced tab to enable the mod in the game. "

After you have done that move the entire application inside the containers as I described above. I have a working updated script here that does all this automatically but i have yet to package it and upload to the modding area as I have been busy on Napoleon Total War and other projects this week. Will try and get the upload done before the weekend if I get a chance.

Edwin

p.s. Thanks for all the kind words.

[Seoinin]

Mac EB mod download on the feral site comes with instructions inside the "Read Me FIRST!!!" document ;)

"Manual Install

Place the EB folder inside the in the following location "Rome Total War.app/Contents/Resources/Data/data/ folder and then use the "-mod:EB" (no quotes) in the advanced tab to enable the mod in the game. "

After you have done that move the entire application inside the containers as I described above. I have a working updated script here that does all this automatically but i have yet to package it and upload to the modding area as I have been busy on Napoleon Total War and other projects this week. Will try and get the upload done before the weekend if I get a chance.

Ah, I was looking at the pre 1.3 version of the mod! Thanks, that clears everything up.

[njohns99]

From what I've seen on this thread, I haven't run across a solution to this issue:

Before R:TW was updated via the MAS in May, EB was working perfectly fine for me -- however, after the update, the game will not launch EB at all.

I've looked through the files and everything is still in the right place. Even with "-mod:EB" entered into the Advanced tab, it still launches straight to vanilla R:TW. Barbarian Invasion will not even launch when selected.

I've toyed around with it a bit but I'm hoping there may be some other solution out there before I have to wipe everything and reinstall it. Any ideas?

[Edwin@Feral]

From what I've seen on this thread, I haven't run across a solution to this issue:

Have you read the posts? :p The last 5 or 6 posts if not the last few pages are all related to instructions on how to play on the MAS version (1.3) with step by step instructions. I have linked you to the posts and instructions below to save your fingers from scrolling :)

Before R:TW was updated via the MAS in May, EB was working perfectly fine for me -- however, after the update, the game will not launch EB at all.

I've looked through the files and everything is still in the right place. Even with "-mod:EB" entered into the Advanced tab, it still launches straight to vanilla R:TW. Barbarian Invasion will not even launch when selected.

I've toyed around with it a bit but I'm hoping there may be some other solution out there before I have to wipe everything and reinstall it. Any ideas?

If you have been "toying with it" I recommend you delete and reinstall even a single file out of place can cause a crash so to avoid issues caused by incorrect data a reinstall is prudent. Before deleting Rome I would backup any EB saves you have inside the EB folder. Once you have backed up your EB saves and deleted both EB and Rome follow the steps below to install.

Install Rome.
Download the latest EB mod from the Rome modding area on the Feral website.
Follow the manual install instructions from this post just above this one.
Follow the MAS specific steps you need to take in this post further up the page

Edwin

[njohns99]

Alright -- thank you. Am I just copying "Rome Total War.app" to the Preferences folder after I've installed EB?

[Edwin@Feral]

Alright -- thank you. Am I just copying "Rome Total War.app" to the Preferences folder after I've installed EB?

Yep follow the instructions and you should be fine.

Edwin

[njohns99]

Success! I guess I didn't realize there was an updated version of the mod on Feral's website but not on the EB site.

Thank you so much for the help. Looking forward to Napoleon!

[Edwin@Feral]

Success! I guess I didn't realize there was an updated version of the mod on Feral's website but not on the EB site.

Thank you so much for the help. Looking forward to Napoleon!

I guess I need to remind them of the new location when I updated it for 1.3 :)

Enjoy!

Edwin

[colemadi]

Hi edwin,

First off thanks for all your great work on this. You really have helped (unknowingly) a computer fool like me to get the most out of the game. Just a could of queries.

Firstly for multiplayer. I have the cd version of the game but in games ranger I can participate in games but cannot host. The gamesranger for app doesn't work for me, is there something else I need to download?

Secondly viz. The fourth age mod. It immediately ctd after the load up screen when I run it. i have downloaded loads of other mods and many of them have done this and only a couple of them (e.g the greek wars) worked. Is there something specific I need to do? I just unpack them and slot them into the rtw data file at present and away it goes?

Thanks for your time.

Diarmuid (colemadi)

[Edwin@Feral]

Hi edwin,

First off thanks for all your great work on this. You really have helped (unknowingly) a computer fool like me to get the most out of the game. Just a could of queries.

Firstly for multiplayer. I have the cd version of the game but in games ranger I can participate in games but cannot host. The gamesranger for app doesn't work for me, is there something else I need to download?

That is a port forwarding issue with your router and GameRanger. Let me try to explain.

A host (server) need to be contactable directly by the client players. Being a client only requires you to be able to send out messages to the server (and get reply messages). To be a host (server) you need to not only be able to get reply messages but also accept direct messages. If you are behind a home router these messages need to be forwarded to the right local machine.

For replies that easy as it has the sendersID on the packet but accepting direct messages no sender ID is listed so your modem does not know what Machine on your network to pass the messages onto. Port forwarding rules or more modern modems with automatic port forwarding have made this less likely to happen but depending on your setup and other machines on the network it can occur.

Forwarding port 16000 to your Mac using router settings will usually allow you to host. If you are interested here is some extra reading :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_triggering

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_forwarding

Secondly viz. The fourth age mod. It immediately ctd after the load up screen when I run it. i have downloaded loads of other mods and many of them have done this and only a couple of them (e.g the greek wars) worked. Is there something specific I need to do? I just unpack them and slot them into the rtw data file at present and away it goes?

Thanks for your time.

Diarmuid (colemadi)

I ported Fourth Age mod and the hosted version on our mods area works perfectly in Rome 1.3. Remember Fourth Age is a Barbarian Invasion mod as I recall so make sure you Rome set to Barbarian Invasion mode before trying to play.

Edwin

[xiniria]

Hi Edwin,

First of all sorry for my bad english,

I own the MAS version of the game and I'd like to tell you that you and Feral did an amazing work on this game to make it playable on Mac.
I'd like to install EB so I followed your last instructions, installed EB in Rome Total War.app/Contents/Resources/Data/data/ and then I have to copy the application in the preferences folder, but I didn't understand if you mean the one that opens when I hit the "Open Preferences Folder" button (which is called "Rome Total War") or the one that is called "preferences" and which is inside the "Rome Total War" folder, or another folder. I tried to copy the app in the two folders but it didn't work in the two cases.
Thanks once again

[sabermammoth]

Greetings,
I'm running into a rather unusual problem when starting up the latest EB game. The game starts up normally and gets me to the main menu and allows me to click single player. But whenever I click on the EB campaign button (i.e. to send me to the faction selection screen) a notice pops up saying "Please select an option from the menu" Basically it seems like this button is not working as all the other buttons (custom battles, load saved game, etc...) work fine. Please help so I can get back to playing the wonder that is EB for Mac!!!
Best,
Nathaniel

[thirst]

Hi
I downloaded the installer but whenever I click on EB main campaign it says "please select an item from the list"
I have tried multiple things to get it fixed but it won't work
please help.

[sabermammoth]

Hi Edwin
First of all, I like to thank you so much for your support and CS that has allowed me to play EB on the mac in the past. Also, congrats on the successful release of Napoleon TW for mac. I was hoping that I might ask for a minute of your time to fix a EB mac issue that many people still seem to be having (based on my own experiences and several numerous posts in this thread). I am referring to my previous post where I mentioned that I was able to get the EB mod started but was unable to start a new campaign as the phrase "please select an item from the list" would pop up. I have looked through this entire thread and tried each and every solution to no avail (including reinstillation, replacing imperial_campaign files with barbarian_invasion) etc. . . I am running a digital download copy of the game downloaded from feral although I was having this problem with my CD copy as well. Please Help if you can!!!
Thanks!

[Edwin@Feral]

Are you using the new mod link from here?

I fixed that a while ago as I recall.

http://downloads.feralinteractive.com/mods/rome/

Edwin

[sabermammoth]

Oh alright! I'll reinstall and let you know what happens!
Thanks again!

[sabermammoth]

Hmm something still seems to be wrong...

[sabermammoth]

My RTW vanilla stopped working for a bit but I think I fixed it

[sabermammoth]

Hi Edwin,
Ok I figured out why the vanilla wasn't working, i still had -mod:EB in the advanced options but not EB mod installed. Woops! So I got the vanilla Rome Total War to work at version 1.3! The problem I am still encountering however is whenever I run the rome_mod_setup.command (downloaded from your link) or the rome total realism setup.command or even the EB setup command, I get this message
*******************************************
* Welcome to the Rome Mod Installer *
*********** 1.3.0 ***********
*******************************************

************************************************
** Checking Rome is installed in Applications **
************************************************

***********************************************
** Please upgrade to Rome v1.3 or later **
** This script only works with v1.3+ **
***********************************************

So basically although my RTW version is 1.3 (information obtained through right-clicking on RTW and clicking "get info" although when i go in the game, it does not show a version in the bottom corner, but in the options menu it shows "ver 1.6" in the upper right corner. Therefore, I have no clue what the problem is! I cannot initiate any of the mod installations since they claim that I haven't updated, but I cannot update because the game seems to think that my version is 1.3 already! Please help!
Let me know if you need any screenshots or my computer specifics and Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

[jtrent82]

Greetings all. First off, thanks to Edwin for working on this. Second, I'm a computer moron so please speak to me as such. Third, apologies if my question has been answered elsewhere. I can't get EB to launch. I've tried to run the mod setup, and I didn't get any error messages, but the process took about 15 seconds instead of the 15 minutes the video suggests.

************************************************
** Checking Rome is installed in Applications **
************************************************

***********************************************
** Check if RomeData is already Read Write **
***********************************************
/dev/disk3 Apple_partition_scheme
/dev/disk3s1 Apple_partition_map
/dev/disk3s2 Apple_HFS /Volumes/RomeData
touch: readwritecheck: Read-only file system
logout

[Process completed]

I've tried to do a fresh install of RTW with no effect. I've tried manually copying the EB files into RomeData, but it acts like the folder is write protected, and I'm not sure how to change that. I've tried rebuilding my data image, nada. I have RomeData, EB, and RomeModSetup all mounted. I'm using the "-mod:EB" command in the advanced options and I have RomeShell enabled. No matter what I do, the game starts up in vanilla. Am I missing something? Like I said, I'm a moron, so I'm sure it's something obvious. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

EDIT: Yes, this is a problem. The mounted RomeData image is read only. How can I change that, or am I SOL?

[euknemarchon]

Hi,

Thanks for all the work put in on trying to make this work. Unfortunately, I cannot make EB work. I am using MAS and have followed the instructions closely. I

o deleted everything—including preferences and the application
o downloaded and installed a fresh copy of RTW from MAS
o downloaded a fresh copy of EB from the Feral site linked above
o made sure RTW runs correctly
o copied the EB folder from the dmg into Rome Total War.app/Contents/Resources/Data/data
o attempted to run EB by opening RTW and placing -mod:EB into the advanced box (with the check)

After all that, everything loads as if I'm running RTW normally except that clicking on "Imperial Campaign" gives me the error that I need to select an item from the list and a new "Provincial Campaign" option appears, which contains a working version of the vanilla RTW campaign.

I tried to fix the problem myself by trying some things in response to what I've read but don't completely understand:

o used chmod to set permissions on everything inside of Contents folder to 777 (sudo chmod -r 777 Contents) (did nothing)
o went ahead and copied the .app folder into the Preferences folder, which I accessed from the "Open preferences folder" button on the launcher (did nothing)

So, what am I doing wrong? Any help would be appreciated.

I can make screenshots if desired.

[edgaraurelius]

Hi,
After all that, everything loads as if I'm running RTW normally except that clicking on "Imperial Campaign" gives me the error that I need to select an item from the list and a new "Provincial Campaign" option appears, which contains a working version of the vanilla RTW campaign.

+1 to everything euknemarchon said. Did a fresh install of RTW from MAS and got the fresh copy of EB from Edwin's link above, pasted EB into Rome Total War.app/Contents/Resources/Data/data/ and I got the same vanilla loadout and same Imperial Campaign error.

[Augustus Caesar]

Hi there,

I bought a new MbP last week and today I bought the Rome:Total War gold edition from the mac apple store, then downloaded the EB mod with the links provided from the EB site:

I started up the mod scrip thingy and this is what i got:

Last login: Sat Sep 14 15:57:25 on ttys000
unknown-a8:bb:cf:08:f9:80:~ $ /Volumes/RomeModSetup/Files/RomeModSetup.command ; exit;
************************************************
** Checking Rome is installed in Applications **
************************************************

****************************************
** ERROR OCCURRED **
** Please check you have installed **
** Rome into your Applications folder **
** and that you have admin privileges **
****************************************
logout

[Process completed]

I dont understand?
My game is in applications
I am an admin?
Why does it not work

I am totally unfamiliar with Macs and have 0 tech intelligence. PLEASE HELP!

[Davil]

Hello Edwin@Feral. Thanks in advance for all of the help and good info in this thread. I've been trying to get the mods working on my mac for two days now, and nothing. Tried all the old stuff and new stuff. Not sure if I have failed too many times, and have just gone braindead by now. It looks like everything loaded correctly (although it only took two seconds to load) but when i go to the preference folder I dont see anything. What am I missing? I appreciate the help.

Last login: Wed Sep 18 21:26:33 on ttys000
Bennos-MacBook-Pro:~ bennocooper$ /Users/bennocooper/Library/Containers/com.feralinteractive.rome/Data/Library/Application\ Support/Feral\ Interactive/Rome\ Total\ War/Barbarian\ Invasion/RomeModSetup_AppStore.command ; exit;

*******************************************
* Welcome to the Rome Mod Installer *
*********** 1.3.1 ***********
*******************************************

************************************************
** Checking Rome is installed in Applications **
************************************************

***********************
** Version 1.3 found **
** Mac AppStore **
***********************
mv: rename Rome Total War.app to /Users/yodigga##33/Library/Containers/com.feralinteractive.rome/Data/Library/Application Support/Feral Interactive/Rome Total War/Rome Total War.app: Permission denied
ln: Rome Total War.app/Rome Total War.app: File exists

***********************************************
** Rome AppStore Ready for Modding **
** Alias setup in Applications **
** Application moved to inside Preferences **
***********************************************

logout

[Process completed]


I checked the Preference folder and I dont see anything.

[Sebastianus V]

Hi, I finally managed to get EB working on my MAC and its really great!! But I cant save campaign games! Its really frustrating....Neither the Autosave works...Any help?