I've got a Steam installation of Civ4 Beyond The Sword, so I don't need to worry about the DVD being exposed to environmental hazards such as young children.
One drawback of using Steam is that it doesn't set up proper file associations for .Civ4BeyondSwordSave files, so you cannot double-click on a saved game and automatically launch BTS to load it. Very annoying, and a quick search showed me that several others have had the same problem, without finding an immediate resolution.
Just associating the files with Civ4BeyondTheSword.exe, which is buried somewhere deep in the Steam folder, does NOT work. That just ends up launching the game without loading the savegame. An additional command-line argument is needed, and there's no easy way to specify that on Windows 7, as far as I can tell.
So just in case others are facing the same issue, here is how to solve this. (Who knows, maybe I'll draw some more traffic to twowayserf as well.)
Create a file in the same folder as your steam.exe file, typically C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam, called civ4bts.bat, and edit it using a program like notepad. The file is a batch script, and should read exactly as follows:
"%~dp0\steam.exe" -applaunch 8800 /fxsload=\"%1\"
Then right-click on a .Civ4BeyondSwordSave file in windows explorer, choose Open with->Choose default program... and navigate to civ4bts.bat, choosing that script as your default program. Now you'll have the normal behaviour, where double-clicking on a saved game launches BTS and loads the saved game.
(Disclaimer: Maybe there's a less clunky way to fix this, by modifying the registry or some such, but if so I haven't found it.)
One drawback of using Steam is that it doesn't set up proper file associations for .Civ4BeyondSwordSave files, so you cannot double-click on a saved game and automatically launch BTS to load it. Very annoying, and a quick search showed me that several others have had the same problem, without finding an immediate resolution.
Just associating the files with Civ4BeyondTheSword.exe, which is buried somewhere deep in the Steam folder, does NOT work. That just ends up launching the game without loading the savegame. An additional command-line argument is needed, and there's no easy way to specify that on Windows 7, as far as I can tell.
So just in case others are facing the same issue, here is how to solve this. (Who knows, maybe I'll draw some more traffic to twowayserf as well.)
Create a file in the same folder as your steam.exe file, typically C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam, called civ4bts.bat, and edit it using a program like notepad. The file is a batch script, and should read exactly as follows:
"%~dp0\steam.exe" -applaunch 8800 /fxsload=\"%1\"
Then right-click on a .Civ4BeyondSwordSave file in windows explorer, choose Open with->Choose default program... and navigate to civ4bts.bat, choosing that script as your default program. Now you'll have the normal behaviour, where double-clicking on a saved game launches BTS and loads the saved game.
(Disclaimer: Maybe there's a less clunky way to fix this, by modifying the registry or some such, but if so I haven't found it.)
If you know what I mean.
