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Language Choice? How can it be done?

Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:59 am
by ludorail
Hi there, my first post on this forum.

I would like to play in English -- the game "senses" that I am in Italy and uses the Italian-language localization, which is sort of bad, not horribly bad, but bad enough that I can't stand it.

Is there a way to choose the language? If so, how can it be done?

Thank you all for these very nice pages

Ludorail

Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:00 pm
by snoopy55
Unless someone else knows a software way, you have to uninstall it and then reinstall it. The first thing that comes up after you click "install" is a language choice. If you don't see 'English' first off, click on the arrow at the right and a list of languages will come up. Click 'English'.

When you uninstall you will see a list of choices to be uninstalled. Uncheck what you don't want and continue. You might want to copy your Scenarios in 'My Documents', because if you have them on your system it will save alot of time re-installing them!

Good Luck and nice to have you join us :D

Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:23 pm
by ludorail
snoopy55 wrote:Unless someone else knows a software way, you have to uninstall it and then reinstall it. The first thing that comes up after you click "install" is a language choice. If you don't see 'English' first off, click on the arrow at the right and a list of languages will come up. Click 'English'.

When you uninstall you will see a list of choices to be uninstalled. Uncheck what you don't want and continue. You might want to copy your Scenarios in 'My Documents', because if you have them on your system it will save alot of time re-installing them!

Good Luck and nice to have you join us :D
Thank you for the prompt reply and the piece of advice.
In actual fact, by installing the Patch, things went in place by themselves...
I wasn't asked for a language choice, but English by default is fine.

Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:48 pm
by snoopy55
Glad to help....

Are you saying it went from Italian to English by itself whithout asking you when you installed the Patch??

Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 3:24 pm
by leo
stolen from another thread...
DGackey wrote:

Oct 25, 2006 8:16 pm GMT -4
You need to add a command-line switch to the shortcut to the EXE. Like this:

Railroads.exe /LANG=XXX (where XXX is: ENU for English, DEU for German, NLD for Dutch, ITA for Italian, ESP for Spanish, and FRA for French)

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 8:45 am
by ludorail
snoopy55 wrote:Glad to help....

Are you saying it went from Italian to English by itself whithout asking you when you installed the Patch??
When I insert the CD, the menu appears in Italian.
But I start the game from the shortcut to the location in my H/D, and now it takes off in English.
Previously it would stick to Italian all the way.

As to your qtn, I don't think that the patch asked me which language I wanted for the install (I should de-install and re-install and re-patch to check it; if I get around to do this :roll: I'll post it).

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 8:05 pm
by snoopy55
I'd ask where you got the patch from, IE what site, but that shouldn't matter. If it was a bug in the download I'm sure we would have heard about it before. I just checked the patch and it doesn't ask for language, at least the one I downloaded. I'm guessing the rest of your system is in English. The patch may have found that because it doesn't ask for language. It may have looked at your language usage.

Then again maybe Firaxis isn't as bad as alot seem to think and they read your mind......

As they say, don't look a gift horse in the mouth....

Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2006 1:46 pm
by ludorail
snoopy55 wrote:I'd ask where you got the patch from, IE what site, but that shouldn't matter. If it was a bug in the download I'm sure we would have heard about it before. I just checked the patch and it doesn't ask for language, at least the one I downloaded. I'm guessing the rest of your system is in English. The patch may have found that because it doesn't ask for language. It may have looked at your language usage.

Then again maybe Firaxis isn't as bad as alot seem to think and they read your mind......

As they say, don't look a gift horse in the mouth....
I got the patch from the link that was listed here, sorry I don't remember now.
And, yes, my system is English-language all the way. But, then, why did the original CD did not detect that, and used other refs in my system (which say I'm in Italy, Italy timezone, etc.) instead?

Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2006 6:44 pm
by snoopy55
The first screen that comes up in install is the launguage screen. I'd have to assume that a game sold in Italy would have that screen in Italian and Italian for the main language. If you went right over that without really noticing it, it would load in Italian. I'm not sure how that works in other countries as I've never left the USA :cry: .

Posted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 1:18 pm
by Bushdoctor
Good day,

I have specifically joined this forum to reply to this topic.

Snoopy55: Even though your advice is well meant, it's just an assumption
and not tested. I tried: It doesn't work. The language choice you are refering to
only applies to the few lines of text used during install. It does not affect
anything after the install, being the game itself.

The command line switch that Leo copied from another topic unfortunately
does not work either.
My OS tells me that LANG is not a valid location and refuses to accept my edit.
I've tried a few variations with the slash and space.. No go.

I am quite annoyed by the fact that a company like Firaxis forces the game
to use the language of the OS without offering any option to switch.
For starters, games just don't feel good in my own language. I want them in English.
Secondly, I want to be able to talk to other players about this game
without having to use lines like 'that second button from the top, on the left'.

From this topic I understand that during the game-update, once again
users can not pick a language and things switch to English.
I guess Firaxis wants to get rid of customers who don't speak English.
Very strange..

I was looking forward to this one, but I guess I'll toss it in the closet
untill an update appears that lets me pick a language that I want.

Greets,
Bushdoctor.

PS. This same question appeared on gamespot.com where somebody from Firaxis replied.
The reply was that the solution to the language issue was posted somewhere on that or this forum.
Dude: PLEASE copy the answer next time and just post it
instead of forcing users to search heaps and heaps of posts.
I guess it was the same guy who designed the part of the game that picks the language....

Posted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 2:50 pm
by leo
First of all welcome to the forum.

Well I decided to try the thing I copied and pasted ... works like a charm.

Right click on the Railroads! short cut on your desktop and add the /lang in the "TARGET" window.

"C:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Railroads!\RailRoads.exe" /LANG=ESP


That is how I added the spanish one and it worked great , I am glad I know where all the buttons are or I would have been stuck in the game, since I dont really know anything about spanish :) heh ...

Posted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 8:31 pm
by ludorail
snoopy55 wrote:The first screen that comes up in install is the launguage screen. I'd have to assume that a game sold in Italy would have that screen in Italian and Italian for the main language. If you went right over that without really noticing it, it would load in Italian. I'm not sure how that works in other countries as I've never left the USA :cry: .
Actually, I bought it via the net from Amazon.uk. That's why I was sort of surprised and rather unhappy about the Italian.

Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 12:04 am
by snoopy55
Bushdoctor.
I'm sorry for my assumpsion, but if you read the original post, ludorail states, "I would like to play in English -- the game "senses" that I am in Italy and uses the Italian-language localization, which is sort of bad, not horribly bad, but bad enough that I can't stand it."
In his reply he mentions "In actual fact, by installing the Patch, things went in place by themselves...
I wasn't asked for a language choice, but English by default is fine.".
His 3rd reply is "When I insert the CD, the menu appears in Italian.
But I start the game from the shortcut to the location in my H/D, and now it takes off in English.
Previously it would stick to Italian all the way.".

Now, I made it an assumpsion because in order to test a well stated fact I would have had to remove Railroads from my system which I had to do to try to put it on 2 different drive to do software tests. I tried an Italian load on my wifes system and the loading was in Italian, but the game was in English, unlike ludorails.

Please reread the whole post and or question ludrail as to just what happened in case I've read it wrong.

Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 2:37 pm
by Bushdoctor
Good day,

Thank you for staying relaxed when I wrote my cranky comment.
After cooling down I had another go and managed to fix things.

Leo's second version shows the command line perfectly. Thanks. ;)
The first one however didn't: I tried to include the language setting
inside of the quotation marks.
Noob thing? Absolutely. But I think many other noobs have made the
same mistake and perhaps gave up in the end.

Maybe a simple language option can be included in the next patch.
Would be great.

Greets and thanks,
Bushdoctor.

Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 5:54 pm
by DavidC
since that has been sorted out, isn't it strange (still) that the program first decides by itself where to install (drive and directory) en then choses the language. The patch is probably written in English, so by installing it, the game changes to english. It's nice to have a new game out before x-mas, but Firaxis should have taken care of all this (including the Editor thing) before releasing it.