Help, need English language text files

[lew zealand]

Hi,

I own the Chinese langauge version of this game. Trouble is, I can't read Chinese. Sure I can play fine for a little bit, but when that diplomacy screen pops up, I end up just starting some huge war. They just assume I speak Chinese, go figure.

Seriously, I'd really like to play this game, and I wasn't bright enough just to order it online. I figured, hey, if any game had multi language support, it would be Civ. sigh...

My point: Can someone give me the English language text files?

I assume I can just pop them into the dir and go at it. I tried asking Infogrames (?) and they basically ignored me. Plus, I'd like to patch, too. I tried searching, this has got to be new.

Thanks, xiexie, danke, merci, graci to anyone kind enough.

[zulu9812]

There is no Chinese patch, so I imagine you're still playing the 1,07f version of the game. I also don't think there's a Chinese PTW available. What made you want to get the Chinese version anyway? I think you have a warez copy. Whatever, I strongly advise that you buy the English version.

[Willem]

Zulu's right, there's a very good chance you have a pirate copy. China is very lax when it comes to international copyright, it's been a bone of contention with the West for quite awhile.

[lew zealand]

Okay, please don't misunderstand me.

The copy I bought is a genuine boxed copy complete with a Chinese manual from a national chain software store complete with a retail price. It's a legitimate copy. The pirated software available here is from smaller stores, and comes in a CD case only with no manual and is cheap by usually virus-ridden and copied with low quality CDs.

Being in Taiwan (the official language is Chinese), I have come to accept my Chinese (legit) copy of Windows 98, Word, etc. For many of these progams an English patch (free) can be installed to make most of the menus in English. Hence, I don't have to learn much Chinese to use my computer. Why use Chinese Win98? My GF likes to play her Chinese games and a lot of English software adapted for the Chinese/Taiwanese market has a Chinese language install program that ususally crashes and burns if run on an English Win98.

However, the vast majority of games I have bought here (Warlords Battlecry II, Unreal Tournament 2003, Sim City 3000, etc...) are either Original language only (i.e. English, the Taiwanese cope with this) or Multi-language (i.e. drop down box select during the install). Many other programs also support multi-language - this is nothing new. If a game has been translated into Chinese, it usually comes with at least a Chinese/English option during the install (Warcraft III for example). Please keep in mind that I own legitimate copies of all of the above software.

Up until I found this forum I've coped with the Chinese. I can just about play the game half-decently, although the diplomacy is very, very verbose and there is no way I can hope to play that part of the game. I also noticed that there is a folder in my Civ3 directory called -text- containing a ton of text files, most of which are in Chinese (headers, tags, instructions to translators, etc are English of course). Understanding a little bit about programming, I figured that: hey, maybe all the game text is in these files and the files are standardized, so all I have to do is get the English text files and my pain is over! That is, the executables and graphics are common to all langauges. That would make sense, right?

My key point: Can someone please (please) upload or e-mail me the English text files from the -text- directory? If it works, great! If not, at least I tried.

I really want to be able to play this game.

Is there a copyright issue? Sure, but many games for the international market come with multi-language support. Why Civ3 doesn't, I don't know? These text files are under 1MB in total so it would have been easy to include several languages in the original. Fine, maybe translation ahead of time was too expensive or too slow. Regardless, if there is a copyright issue, it's me who is in trouble for using the copied text files, and if they want to come and get me I'll show them my receipt.

So if anyone wants to help me, I would appreciate it. Tech support is through Infogrames and they have not answered my e-mail (what, do I write that much?). I really want to play this game but don't want to order it online, wait, pay for it -again-, and pay for shipping too.

Thanks!

[alva]

What files do you need?? Is it just the txt files??

[lew zealand]

Thank you kind sir/madam.

(You know who you are)

And Happy New Year Everybody!