The expansion has me confused

[Forward Observer]

Ok, I got the expansion and it installed just fine. I let it add the 4 icons to my desktop for the 4 campaigns, and they all work.

The problem is when I try to start up the original game using the expansion disk. I get a message to insert the correct disk.

I can run the original game with the original disk, but is that right?

I assumed that the new Kingdoms disk would be all I need to run the game since it lists the grand campaign in its start up menu. That's the way the old Viking expansion worked.

Also by starting the main game by putting the original disk in, I notice that there is no hot seat mode available. This mode is available in the Kingdoms campaigns just not the grand campaign the way I am getting the game to start. The manual says the hot seat mode is now available for the main campaign, so something seems wrong.

Anyone have any ideas?

I know the most likely thing someone is going to recommend is to uninstall everything and re-install, but I was hoping to avoid that if possible.

Confused
F.O.

[Atreides]

In Medieval totalwar I there was an simular problem. You should be able to play your regular campaign with your expansion CD.....

[Jack Lusted]

You can only play M2TW with the M2TW disk. Likewise you can only play Kingdoms with the Kingdoms disk.

No Kingdoms features were added to the grand campaign.

[icek]

You gotta be kidding??? The game is splited into 4 applications?

[Jack Lusted]

4 seperate icons yes, they all use the same .exe though.

[icek]

4 seperate icons yes, they all use the same .exe though.

Now you get me even more confused, i read in other forums that you can decide what campaign you want to install and we have only one app for all with such option?

[Jack Lusted]

Yes the installer lets you decide what campaigns you want installed, and they all have their own desktop icon, but they aren't seperate applications, they all run using the same executable file.

[Daveybaby]

Presumably different data sets are installed (or not installed, if you so choose) for each campaign.

As for the disk validation thing - i guess there's no way the original game could have known what the expansion disk would 'look like' - but even so it would be nice if the next patch fixed it so that you could play the grand campaign with the expansion disk (as well as adding some of those alluring new features to the original campaign).

[Jack Lusted]

Presumably different data sets are installed (or not installed, if you so choose) for each campaign.

Correct. Different variations on the unit balancing, different building files etc. This allows for more variety in the gameplay in each campaign.

[RTKBarrett]

Its a disaster for the mp community lusted... alot more unhappy faces there than ever before now

[Forward Observer]

You can only play M2TW with the M2TW disk. Likewise you can only play Kingdoms with the Kingdoms disk.

No Kingdoms features were added to the grand campaign.

Well, at least I after reading your answer, I realize I don't have a problem and am relieved that I don't have to re-install, but it also means that the manual is in error since it clearly states that the Hot Seat mode is available in both the Kingdoms expansion and the grand campaign.

As I mentioned before, at least in my situation, this is not the case for the grand campaign. It's no big deal for me, but it was what led me to thinking I had a problem.

Thanks for the response and clarification.

F.O.

[Bob the Insane]

I find it helps to think the the new campaigns in terms of official mods... Just like another other mod it run is the same application but it need to be started with the extensions relivent to that particular mod...

[Husar]

I think this sounds a bit cheap to be honest, I'd have preferred an in-game menu to choose the campaign you want to play, no matter how it's programmed, just load the sdata you would load at gamestart when the campaign is actually started. I always wondered why some games load a lot of data to show the main menu anyway.

I was actually hoping for a much more integrated concept but guess that was futile, this approach should also make it harder to get addon units into the grand campaign since it sounds like you'll have to copy all the new data dn since the data is compressed into larger files you can't just copy the files etc.

[sapi]

I think this sounds a bit cheap to be honest, I'd have preferred an in-game menu to choose the campaign you want to play, no matter how it's programmed, just load the sdata you would load at gamestart when the campaign is actually started. I always wondered why some games load a lot of data to show the main menu anyway.

Yeah. I suspect that someone did some research from a user's point of view, and found that physiologically, people are more willing to wait for data to load at the beginning as they are when they've just hit the big red play button

I was actually hoping for a much more integrated concept but guess that was futile, this approach should also make it harder to get addon units into the grand campaign since it sounds like you'll have to copy all the new data dn since the data is compressed into larger files you can't just copy the files etc.

I'm pretty sure that Caliban was suggesting that any compilation of the Kingdoms campaigns/grand campaign would require each to be unpacked separately and merged

[Ferret]

...it clearly states that the Hot Seat mode is available in both the Kingdoms expansion and the grand campaign.

F.O.

you can do hotseat on the grand campaign, you just need to add two lines to your preference file

[Husar]

Well, I was hoping to just be able to add some of the new units to the export_descr_building.txt to be able to build them in the grand campaign. The way they did it now I guess it would require the game to look into all mod folders to find the data it needs. And no, I don't mean load all mod folders before the main menu.

Though it should be possible to add this as an option maybe, if the game can't find a model or texture in the normal folder, it just goes looking through the available mod data in the appropriate mod folders, would make things so much easier and depending on how the game is programmed, shouldn't be too hard to add.

Is there even an unpacker/packer available to merge the data files?

[FactionHeir]

you can do hotseat on the grand campaign, you just need to add two lines to your preference file

Its not the same though. The preliminary hotseat that the grand campaign has is not complete and lacks certain functionalities (i.e. fighting defensive battles etc). The kingdoms hotseat alledgely is supposed to be better, although that might just be marketing and not true.