Tides of Conquest campaign tool - new version with Bronze Age scenarios and icons out April 21 2023

[MarkShot]

Thanks. I did that and still got the same error.

[MarkShot]

Nijis,

Here is what I did to fix this. I read the thread you gave me.

There was a suggestion to delete:

C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Apps\2.0

Instead I renamed the original directory as it said that deleting it would break other applications.

Once I did that, it installed and I got to the blue screen application. (I believe my original installation may have been corrupted by NORTON. Even though I cleared the problem through NORTON, I think the corruption was now already written to the disk. I think if I knew what entries to clean up, then I could probably reset the install.)

When I renamed the directory which was the same as effectively purging everything. The installer worked.

I then when back to see what was created in the 2.0 directory. I turns out that the entry in 2.0 and 2.0\Data were randomly generated directory names. So, I was able to rename the original 2.0 directory back and merge in the two randomly create directories. Hopefully, whatever applications which were previously installed will continue to work. (Meaning that this did not alter some global setting for the my system.)

How might I check that other application still works? (I looked and I cannot tell what if any applications this corresponds to.)

I suppose given what I know now, I could to do a system partition disaster recovery and manually clean up the old install, but I don't think it is worth the effort.

The shortcut for your application contains no path. So, something implicitly knows where find it.

Obviously, the installer for these ".NET?" applications is not very robust as it should start by cleaning up.

Again. Thanks for your time.

[MarkShot]

Whenever it click on save current campaign it simply crashes (drops out of the application). I suppose it is going to create save game file in the directory specified?

Sorry, to bother you again.

[MarkShot]

Nothing gets written to:

C:\Users\Administrator\Saved Games

[Nijis]

Hi Markshot - thanks for going through the trouble to resolve all of that! It does look like the Monogame installer is not very robust. I'll read up on that and see if I can configure it differently.

Re saved games, some players have found they need to manually create the file path: "The way I solved the saving crash was by just manually creating the file path - I went to my documents, created a folder named SavedGames, then created a folder named Fog_Campaigns inside there, then created a folder named Player0 inside there."

On my computer, the entire path looks like: C:\Users\Steve\Documents\SavedGames\FoG_Campaigns\Player0

[MarkShot]

Nijis,

I will give that a try. Thanks.

[MarkShot]

I manually created the path and that did not resolved the problem.

Is there a debugging log somewhere? I looked for one, but couldn't find it.

Directory not found?

No write privileges?

Invalid character in file name?

Almost ...

[MarkShot]

Okay, it is working now.

The installer create a file directory ...user\SavedGames\...

I ran Microsoft's process explorer and while spying on it, I say that there was not "documents" in the path.

[MarkShot]

WARNING - Fixing the install failure by renaming and merging directories will break other programs:

There was a suggestion to delete:

C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Apps\2.0

You probably have a corrupted install. The safe way to fix this is find the 2 directory trees that pertain to ToC and remove them. That will reset everything. Look for the filename/foldername string "fog" off the given C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Apps\2.0. The specific program which failed this morning iExplorer, an iDevice utility. It was not a big deal and I only needed to re-einstall as all settings were still found in the registry.

BUT BE WARNED.

[MarkShot]

Nijis,

I spent about 4 hours yesterday playing with TOC. I didn't fight FOG2 battles, just fudged the results.

I would like to discuss with you offline.

My background:

(1) First computer game was Lunar Lander on a PDP-8 long before Atari's Pong.

(2) First computer programming was with card decks and working in assembly and machine language.

(3) Currently, retired CTO (Chief Technology Officer).

I have PMed an email address.

---

ToC is truly one of the most inspired 3rd party game utilities which I have ever seen. Partly, because it is already a game in its own right. It is way more than a mod or campaign generator.

[MarkShot]

Oh, one more warning about avoiding corrupted installs.

DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN PRIOR TO RUNNING SETUP TO PREVENT YOUR SECURITY SOFTWARE FROM HALTING THE INSTALL. THIS MAY INVOLVE A LOT MORE THAN SIMPLY TURNING OFF YOUR SOFTWARE. I TURNED OFF NORTON, AND IT STILL HALTED THE INSTALL. ONCE THE INSTALL IS PARTIAL, YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE PROBLEMS.

[Nijis]

Thanks for the kind words, and for bringing all your experience to bear on it. I'll prioritize trying to figure out ways to fix the install issues.

Sending my email.

Just to confirm, the install itself will not interfere with any programs (although it might be tricky to fix once corrupted). Following the earlier suggestion to fix the install by renaming directories is the danger. That is correct? I'll post notes accordingly.

[Nijis]

A new version is up, this time using the Unity game engine. It should have improved graphics and hopefully will not encounter some of the Monogame version's installation problems. More notes shortly.

300CECloseup.png (311.98 KiB) Viewed 4118 times

[Lebo44]

I have never used this tool but it looks great on the last screenshot!

[Nijis]

Thanks! Let me know if you have any issues installing or getting it to work.

[ObeseMonkey]

Do you have any plans to add dates for the new Medieval game? Had a lot of fun using this for FOG2

[Nijis]

Glad you enjoyed it! I'll definitely update for Medieval. The starting realms where all your likely enemies have army lists might be limited to the northernmost states of Europe until the southern Europe/Byzantium/Islamic armies are added.

[toska]

Are there game instructions anywhere?

[Nijis]

Hi Toska - the Unity (3d map) version doesn't have an instruction document, but there's in-game Help. Once you start a game, the Help button is in the middle of the top.

Note that you need to right-click on the Help topics. Any cyan line in the game has help text available if you right-click on it.

Let me know if you have any specific questions on how to get things to work!

[kronenblatt]

Very nice tool, Nijis! Will really come handy when wanting to play SP with some sort of context.

A question I have is which settings that can be made? For example, if I want to limit the distance between nations that can become allies. Currently, alliances are being between countries too far from each other for my taste.

Also, I need to run as administrator to make the ToC work. Otherwise, it just freezes at the map and only the map (nice map though! )

Keep up the great work!