American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Gentlemen,
Can anyone help me how to create a magic disc for the BG series that allows all titles without cd exchange? I am new to the file structure of those series and tired of swapping cds.
Thanks

Fld. Lt Ozgur Budak
3rd Bird's Division
II Carroll's Corps
Army of Georgia

Hi Ozgur,
It's quite simple and works for both the Talonsoft and HPS games.
1. Somewhere on your hard drive create a folder for each game title. This folder must have exactly the same name as the game folder on the original game cd (e.g. BGN, BGG, Battleground Chickamauga, Campaign Corinth, etc.).
2. Next, simply copy the executable files for each title from the original cds to the corresponding newly created folder for each title. You don't need any of the other files on your new disc.
3. Write these new folders/files to your new disc and you are ready to go.[8D]

[url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.r.barlow/acw/acw.htm"]General Antony Barlow[/url]
[url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.r.barlow/aoc/XXAoC.htm"]Army of the Cumberland[/url]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Antony Barlow</i>
2. Next, simply copy the executable <u>files</u> for each title ...
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Actually all you need is the main game executable, i.e. BGS.EXE etc. [:)]

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
Reserve Artillery, AoS

If you go to Links Express, there is a link to this topic near the bottom (copied below). Gives you the step by step details.

http://garyned.tripod.com/Disk_Copy.htm


General Jeff Laub
Union Chief of the Army
ACWGC Cabinet Member
http://www.geocities.com/laubster22/UnionHQ/

Actually this thread is from the experimental stage where we still tried to figure out which files could be safely deleted.

The three steps General Barlow describes are correct.

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
Reserve Artillery, AoS

Here's instructions on how to make a single cd that will allow you to play all your games from it. The below works for all HPS game series, like the ACW, NAPPY, Panzer, etc. and will work for all BG (Talonsoft) series, although SOME of the BG games do not work for SOME people.

The way I have done it follows. I have 30+ games on one disk and it is only taking up 230 MB. Basically there's room for every Tiller title that will be coming out for years to come.

Create a Working Folder on your hard drive.
Drag and drop all of your game folders into it. (Including the BG series, also)
Make sure each game folder is named EXACTLY the way it is shows on the cd (Caps, abbreviations, spacing, etc.)

Go into each folder and delete all .bmp .doc .hlp .wav files. Then you MAY delete all SUB-FOLDERS.

In the Main game folder, delete all files EXCEPT any EXE game file. (For instance: CPI.EXE, CP_START.EXE, CWCAMP.EXE, CWEDIT.EXE)(Example is from Campaign Shiloh) (For the BG series, leave BGG.EXE, BG_START.EXE, CWEDIT.EXE and the similar files in other BG games)

Then burn your cd. Make sure all the game folders are at the root of the CD, don't grab the working directory with them inside of it, as that won't work. Do not FINALIZE the CD and you can add any new HPS game that comes out.

I keep the working folder intact once I am done, that way when a new game comes out I just have to repeat the process for that one title and I can burn a new cd.

It's great not to have to swap CD's anymore!!

Actually, it does work for Talonsoft titles. You simply ADD the BG series games to your working folder you made for the HPS titles, Copy your game folders into the WORKING Folder say BGG, BGS, BGN, BGBR, and leave the executables (example: BG_start.exe, BGS.exe, etc.) in the folder for each game.

<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
General, Commanding, Army of Ohio

ACWGC Cabinet member
</b></font id="gold">

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Ernie Sands</i>
<br />Here's instructions on how to make a single cd that will allow you to play all your games from it.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Ah, Ernie ... in how far is this easier than what Antony has already described? [:I]

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
Reserve Artillery, AoS

Still being stuck in the Dark Ages at home (i.e. a Pentium 3 with no CD burner [V]) and with my employer taking a very dim view of anything at all recreational on my office computer (I manage security and thus I'm supposed to model good behaviour [:I]), is there any kind soul out there who'd be willing to burn one of these disks for the HPS titles for me and mail it off, for some sort of compensation?

I have all the HPS ACW Campaigns, as well as HPS's Waterloo, Wagram, 1812, French & Indian Wars. My hope is that this can be done by just burning from your own single start up disk, as opposed to having you do all the work to set one up (which I think would be asking a bit much on my part).

If it's do-able I'm in your debt and would be happy to deliver a bottle of good Canadian rye whisky at the next Club Reunion or TillerCon event (or I could just send back postage and something for your time, I guess).

Regards,

Gen. Den McBride
Congaree Swamp Rifles
III Corps, ANV
C.S.A.
swampfox_csa@yahoo.ca

Send me your postal address and I'll send you a CD. Of course, if someone from the US would send it to you it would be faster.

I believe the one thing we forgot to mention is that you need a "full" install of the games for this to work, as obviously the game cannot use files from the CD that aren't on it.

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
Reserve Artillery, AoS

Of course, the real paradox is that HPS chooses to have the game require the CD in the drive even though the CDs themselves are not copy-protected. So this does nothing to prevent illegal distribution of the game, but does annoy the legal owners.

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
Reserve Artillery, AoS

Thank you guys.

Den, You can use no-cd files till you receive your magic cd. You can find no-cd files for the all hps games in gamecopyworld.com . You have to extract the files into your main folder.

note: no-cd files are valid for specific version of the game. You have to dl latest versions' no-cd file.

Fld. Lt Ozgur Budak
3rd Bird's Division
II Carroll's Corps
Army of Georgia

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Den McBride</i>
<br />Still being stuck in the Dark Ages at home (i.e. a Pentium 3 with no CD burner [V]) and with my employer taking a very dim view of anything at all recreational on my office computer (I manage security and thus I'm supposed to model good behaviour [:I]), is there any kind soul out there who'd be willing to burn one of these disks for the HPS titles for me and mail it off, for some sort of compensation?

I have all the HPS ACW Campaigns, as well as HPS's Waterloo, Wagram, 1812, French & Indian Wars. My hope is that this can be done by just burning from your own single start up disk, as opposed to having you do all the work to set one up (which I think would be asking a bit much on my part).

If it's do-able I'm in your debt and would be happy to deliver a bottle of good Canadian rye whisky at the next Club Reunion or TillerCon event (or I could just send back postage and something for your time, I guess).

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Den:

Send me an address and I will send your the CD.

<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
General, Commanding, Army of Ohio

ACWGC Cabinet member
</b></font id="gold">

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by D.S. Walter</i>
<br />Of course, if someone from the US would send it to you it would be faster. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Or even another Canuck [:)] Except I can't help you with some of those non-ACW titles, so perhaps I'd best play "last choice".


Lt Gen Mike Kaulbars
3rd "Freiheit" Division
VIII/AoS

The shortest possible description of how to create the disk for all games is now posted at the link express

http://members.tripod.com/garyned/

under

http://members.tripod.com/garyned/Disk_Copy.htm



Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
Reserve Artillery, AoS

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by D.S. Walter</i>
<br />Of course, the real paradox is that HPS chooses to have the game require the CD in the drive even though the CDs themselves are not copy-protected. So this does nothing to prevent illegal distribution of the game, but does annoy the legal owners.

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
Reserve Artillery, AoS

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

General Walter,

But if the 'magic disk' only contains the executables, it would only work if a person already had all the corresponding game files (.bmp, .doc., .hlp, .wav, etc.) installed on his machine, right? If that's the case, I don't think we would be encouraging free distribution of the games.

For that matter, could one 'master disk' be sent to a person who had some -- but not all -- of the games installed? There would be no front-end to even execute those games not already installed. If the person acquired and installed another title, the 'master disk' would still work for it, too.

(I'm just guessing here, as this is far out of my league.)


Your humble servant,
Gen 'Dee Dubya' Mallory

David W. Mallory
ACW - General, Chief of the Armies, Confederate States of America & Cabinet Member
CCC - Ensign, Georgia Volunteers, Southern Regional Deaprtment, Colonial American Army