installing sam maps question

[vincep]

the instructions for installing sam maps says this
1) Rename the Sid Meier's Railroads! folder you presently have, adding an ending to it, whatever you want.

the problem is that i have two such folders.

on is in my documents/my games/

the other is in C/program files/2k games/firaxis games/

which one do i rename? thanks.

[snoopy55]

First...NEVER, unless you have a very good reason and you know what you are doing, edit anything in C/program files/2k games/firaxis games/.......

The one you edit is the one in my documents/my games/.

And thanks for bringing that to my attention. After you've plated with and edited thes game for 2 years, you don't think about what has become common to you... ..sorry, I'll edit those posts ASAP.

[vincep]

thanks for your speedy reply. i still have questions though.

i did as you said. step 4 says:

4) Open the Sid Meier's Railroads! folder, then open the UserMap folder.

i had no UserMaps folder. i had to create it.

step 5 says:

5) Open the Zip file of the map you wish to play and extract the map folder and any FPK files, If present, to the UserMap folder.

i did that and when i went to the game to play the map, it did not appear in the list of files.

i went back to UserMap file to check. it created a folder for the unzipped map (Africa Challenge)

i took all the files from this folder and moved them to UserMaps and deleted the folder Africa Challenge.

the map still does not appear when i launch the game.

what am i doing wrong? thanks.

[Rodea2007]

thanks for your speedy reply. i still have questions though.

i did as you said. step 4 says:

4) Open the Sid Meier's Railroads! folder, then open the UserMap folder.

i had no UserMaps folder. i had to create it.

step 5 says:

5) Open the Zip file of the map you wish to play and extract the map folder and any FPK files, If present, to the UserMap folder.

i did that and when i went to the game to play the map, it did not appear in the list of files.

i went back to UserMap file to check. it created a folder for the unzipped map (Africa Challenge)

i took all the files from this folder and moved them to UserMaps and deleted the folder Africa Challenge.

the map still does not appear when i launch the game.

what am i doing wrong? thanks.

Try to the steps below:

- go to MyDocuments/MyGames then rename Sid Meier's Railroads! as Sid Meier's Railroads!! or what ever then make a new folder that's name Sid Meier's Railroads! then copy setting.ini file from the renamed Sid Meier's Railroads! to Sid Meier's Railroads! (don't copy any folder except setting.in) then Launch SMR Game, you have not to play this game but until SMR menu appear click exit menu to exit window, now in your Sid Meier's Railroads! you have CustomAsset, UserMaps etc,
- Copy SAM MAP into UserMaps folder,
- Play This Game

[snoopy55]

So, you renamed the SMR folder, then restarted the game. And there was no UserMaps folder in it? I've heard of this happening to others. Never to me. I have the CD version, not the download version.

You refer to "UserMap" and "UserMaps". It is "UserMaps", check that.

Last trick, and I've done it before and got someone upset..... Insert the map you want to do, and if it doesn't come up, zip the UserMaps folder and upload it to this thread. Use the Africa Challenge since it is a small one. I'll look it over and see what happens.

[vincep]

i have the cd version also. i have done everything as instructed but no luck. here is my UserMaps zipped folder.

[snoopy55]

OK, first, I don't know if you've read the threads pertaining to SAMs, but there are a few unexplained things about them. It seems that some people cannot run certain SAMs no matter what they do. We have yet to find a common point to lay the blame on. Even one of my testers had to place the FPK into CustomAssets for one map. It played fine for the other testers and myself. Odd, just on SAM for one person.

But, back to your problem. First, when you unzip a SAM, most of them contain two things, a folder and an FPK file. Don't open the folder and place the contents in UserMaps, place the whole folder in there. Your upload worked fine for me, but in your system, and possibly others, who knows. The best way to handle SAMs, in my opinion, is to keep the Zips in a folder somewhere. When you want to play one, copy the Zip to the EMPTY Usermaps folder, then unzip it in there. Don't extract the files from the folder contained in the Zip. 99.99% of the maps will be one click to the left when you get to the map selection page. I say 99.99% first to cover myself against lawsuits and second because there is one little bugger of a SAM that seems to want to hide among the Original maps when I load it . Second, do you use No-CD? (you don't have to answer that if you don't want to) One member, it seems, found that if he used the No-CD set-up that he couldn't run SAMs or CICs.

Try the download below and see if it makes a difference. Then the other thing, if it applies. Let me know what happens.

[vincep]

i do not use no-cd. i have the cd in whenever i play.

i tried everything you mentioned in your post and still africa challenge does not show up. do i have to have smri installed because i do not?

i had smri but it kept crashing to desktop so i uninstalled it and went with a clean install.

[snoopy55]

No, with SAMs you do not have anything else in any of the folders in SMR except the map you are playibf and any FPKs with it.

Did you try the upload I did?

Zip your whole Sid Meier's Railroads! folder, the one in My Games, and upload it.

[vincep]

my file is 18mb. when i tried to upload it, it said that it was too large. 15mb is the cut off point. what should i do.

[snoopy55]

You should have 5 folders in SMR:

CustomAssets - empty
Logs - empty
Saves - empty
ScreenShots - empty
UserMaps - Africa Challenge folder
---------- AfricaChallenge.fpk file

And the Settings.ini file. You might have the Africa Challenge Zip in UserMaps also. Even with that it should zip to about 6.123 Mb

Look over what you have and let me know.

[vincep]

my save folder had all sorts of autosaves. i erased them. here's the folder.

[snoopy55]

I deleted my SMR folder and unzipped yours into \My Games\ and stared it up. The first map I got was Northwest. By clicking onthe left arrow I went to Midwest, noertwest, Southwest and the Africa Challenge.

I even started the map. No problems at this end.

Try putting the folder in the zip into UserMaps, and then CustomAssets.

[vincep]

i extracted the file to custom assets and it works now!
i guess i will have to put all of my sw maps in custom assets. thanks so much for your help. i really appreciate it!!!!

[snoopy55]

Try putting the FPK in CustomAssets instead of the folder I sent and see if it works that way.

If I were you I'd try each SAM loaded as they were originally meant to be first. Even my testers have had one or two SAMs that had to have the FPK put in CustomAssets in order for it to work.

Do me a favor if you do try weach SAM completely in UserMaps first, let me know which ones have to have the FPK in CustomAssets. I may be able to figure out what is causing it if I can find something common in those.