Thraxwhirl

Hello.

I'm new here, so forgive me pleas if this thread is in the wrong place, or if I have grossly overlooked one which contains the answers. I do apologise if that is the case.

Anyway, I would like to say first off that people here have been very helpful and friendly in the first couple of days I've been here, and thanks to your endeavours I have successfully managed to get the Baldur's Gate Trilogy to WORK on my machine! Thank you soooo much, folks.

Now, I intend to add a few more mods, but I would be very grateful if any of you here could tell me which of these mods are and are not compatible(and also, if there's an advisable order in which they ought to be installed). ALL of them are for BG2 BTW.


Gibberlings Tweaks. The mod is so brilliant, as it removes annoying stuff like the stupid helmets and it allows for two-handed bastard swords and a few other things.

Ease of Use. Probably my favourite mod of all, it has many benefits, like shutting up the "You must gather your party" speech. In addition it allows you to have multiple strongholds, and it doesn't care what class your protagonist is when you earn them.. It also has the "wait here"/"wait at the Copper Coronet" feature, which again is truly invaluable if you are the sort who likes to utilise many NPCs and have the right one(s) for the right phase(dunno what would happen if you sent an NPC to the Coronet while still battlig through BG1 though). I really love this mod, and without a doubt it's the one I'm most keen to use.


The Happy Packs(dunno what's the latest version, as it's been a while since I've had BG2 running on a machine, but I have v.5.02 which includes scripts for Nalia and Tasha). This, as I recall is the mod which allows you to have, for example, Viconia AND Aerie in your party simultaneously, which is nice, because they really entertain if you can also use...


Banter Packs, which are good fun, and it makes the party seem more "alive" when the NPCs keep squabbling. lol. It's a firm favourite of mine(my version is v.6, but maybe there's a newer one?).


The Flirt Packs. I have v. 1.01 For similar reasons to the above. It can provide a moment or two of mirth if you're able to make an improper suggestion to one of your party members. lol. Even better if you get slapped for it. Spices things up a bit.


Valen. I think se's extremely cool, though sadly she can't travel with you while Aerie is among your number, so you have to switch 'em now and then. Still, she's worth having IMHO.



That's more or less the lot I THINK. So, er, yes, I'd be very grateful if anyone can tell me IF they happen to know of any compatibility issues regarding these mods and BGT. It would be very much appreciated.

Many thanks folks.

Hello, everyone.

I am new here, and indeed this is my very first post, so I hope you will not be too cross if I have put this thread in the wrong forum. If so, I apologise, but I would be very grateful if one of you more experienced users might be willing to help me with a technical problem.

I am trying to install and run the Baldur's Gate Trilogy Mod, starting from a completely new game, and ne adventure - ie. at Candlekeep.

Now, in the last two days I installed both BG1(with ToSC) and 2(with ToB) on my computer. I've played them both before(though not for quite a while), on my old PC, but this is their very first installation on this new PC.

All went fine in both cases. Now I have NO OTHER mods installed in either of them(not even XPCap removers), and the only custom files present at all are in BG1's override folder(all items and spells, etc. but NO mods), and I have deliberately kept BG 2 completely unmolested since installation, because right from the get-go, I wanted to run the Trilogy Mod so that I could combine the two adventures back-to-back.

NB: I thought I'd keep it simple, BTW, and NOT bother with the Darkest Day, Dark Side of Sword Coast and Never Ending Journey etc. that make up Big Picture, because I didn't want to over-complicate the whole thing. I just want to run BG1 and 2 back to back with ONE story/character(a Sorcerer, which is unavailable in BG1 of course).

So, I DL'd the 658MB file, and ran the .exe after extracting it. I told it where the BG2 folder is, and it did its stuff, so I thought. It ran the XP-modififier, and I set starting Exp to 100 as ordered in the instructions, and I then proceeded to try to run a brand new adventure from the very beginning, with no cheats, mods, custom items or ANYTHING but the Trilogy mod itself.

Well, firstly, I was rather dismayed to see that my character began his adventure not in the peaceful setting of Candlekeep, but rather in Irenicus' dungeon at the start of SoA.

I quit, re-read the ReadMe file that came with the Mod, wondering if I'd made an incorrect selection at the start of the game.

It told me this:

" To start a new Baldur's Gate game, start Shadows of Amn, go to new game, then the Baldur's Gate button. The New Game button will start a Shadows of Amn game. Once started, you can load either BG1 or BG2 games normally."

Well, firstly, I didn't spot thiis "Baldur's Gate" button to which it refers, but could only choose from the normal buttons that have always been a part of BG2. If the Trilogy should've added a new one, permitting me to run an adventure from the start, it's not there. Now, as for running "BG1 or BG2 games normally", well, I didn't exactly what to make of that, but I assumed logically that it meant that I could place a BG1 saved game into my BG2 folder, and run THAT... or how else could one play BG1 adventure in BG2 if there's no button to choose it?

Well, it seemed easy enough, as all I would have to do was generate a character, start the adventure, save it at Day 1 and 0 hours, then copy that saved game to the "Save" folder in BG2, right? Then run BG2 and load THAT. Well, it didn't work at all. As far as the game itself could tell, there were no saved games available to load in.

So I went back to the instructions. And I saw this:

"To start a new BG1 multi-player game, use the included multi-player savegame."

Aha! I thought. The Mod comes with a Multi-player game as created by the author himself, and no doubt it begins right at the very start of BG1. Thus, all I would have to do was load THAT in and then create or import a character into that game and off I'd go.

Well, the FIRST problem I encountered was this. The MPSave folder was completely EMPTY. The Mod's installer had failed to do its job to a lesser or greater extent. As a tryout, I looked inside the BGt3 folder and found this multi-player save in there. I put it into BG2's MPSave folder, and sure enough, the game FOUND it ok when I loaded it, and it correctly identified its time as Day 1 and 0 Hours(at Candlekeep one presumes)... BUT, as soon as it completed loading it in, it crashed back out to Windows.

In short, the Trilogy Mod hasn't installed correctly.

So... I've written as detailed a report as I can, so you know exactly what I've done, tried to do, and failed to do, and now I shall have to uninstall BG2 and BGT and start all over again. *Sigh*

BUT... may I ask for some assistance here? Can anyone recomend a pretty foolproof way of getting this mod to install itself correctly? There are no other mods present to conflict with it, afterall. Is there a list of do's and don'ts, in/during/prior to/after installation that I should know about?

Are there required game patches for BG2 that I should've installed FIRST? I'd already done one, which is called BGII-ThroneofBhaal_Patch_26498_ENGLISH.exe but should I have installed any others too?

Any assistance that someone could provide, so I can get this Trilogy mod to install and run correctly would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

Adam.