Game has gone from exciting to dull

Each game version now creates its own mod folders to prevent mods set to start on launch from crashing the game when they do break.

Mods themselves don't always break, it depends on the engine changes that were made, especially if the relevant files were changed in formatting to accomodate new features (for example, all the ship files in Entrenchment are different than Vanilla, due to things like toggle-able fighter behavior, number of targets for weapon banks, etc) and so the new game version can't read the old-formatted files.

This is the most common cause of mods breaking, and there's nothing Ironclad can do about it, unless they just never add anything new.

To the matter at hand, if you go to your mod path you'll notice that a new folder for Mods-Entrenchment1.03 was created (just in case, launch the game and go to options > mods and show mod path, then it will definitely be created). Try moving the mod from the old 1.02 folder to the 1.03, then launch the game and load the mod. If it crashes, the mod will have to be updated. Is this what you tried when you said you tinkered with it?

If you don't mind sinking more time in it, I can help you update it yourself.

I know that Haree will roast me for saying this, but if you are finding the game dull and unchallenging, have you considered playing it in online multiplayer over Ironclad Online?  You'll get to enjoy the company of other human players, having real allies, teamwork, camraderie, and more intense, suspenseful, and challenging games.  You'll probably be shocked at how much more challenging human opponents are compared to AI.  You might even make friends over time if you play regularly.

$50 says he does

CenturionJixra,

I appreciate the perspective and may try multiplayer. I'm afraid, though, as good as I feel I am at this game, I will be humbled by the online players. At least now, the utopia I create for my "underlings" will last, until I play that gifted ten year old that sets my humility back to the proverbial square one....

I can't win... heh.

JB

Same here. Plus I like to play when I want, for as long as I want!

I have 1.05 modded. What I did was copy the Sins folder to a new location so Impulse doesn't know it's there so it can't accidentally be updated.

I have a dual boot XP/Vista pc with Sins 1.05 installed on one, and up to date Sins/Entrenchment on the other. You can't do it successfully on one O/S because some of the game files are in Local Settings and will be different with different versions.

I do wish all files would go in the game folder, it would make things much easier.

You probably will get thumped at the beginning, but that's just the way that online multiplayer works for any game.  I remember the first time I ever played online multiplayer, which was for the original Unreal Tournament (1999), the greatest online multiplayer first person shooter of all time.  I had been used to using arrow keys for movement and never used the mouse at all and of course, I could barely move relative to the experienced players and couldn't kill anyone.  But I stuck with it and enjoyed the kills I was getting and now I can hold my own against all but the most elite players in the game.

So, you just have to stick with it and find enjoyment in lesser accomplishments.  Are you seeing yourself improve over time?  Do you feel that you are becoming tougher and learning the game?  In team games, is it taking longer for the opposition to take you down?  Are you learning to be a larger and larger pain-in-the-ass, helping your team as you go down?  Are you enjoying the challenge of trying to reverse-engineer your strategy by watching replays of good players?  (Highly recommended.)  I guess that to an extent you have to lower your goal from winning or beating another player to having a more humble expectation--to trying to become troublesome.  It really is quite a challenge.

You know, having played hundreds of games online, I've been in several situations where I started out sandwiched between four opponents (two on either side) or on a star system with three opponents and no allies (large random multistar) and I have learned to deal with it.  Today I actually enjoy the challenge of that situation.  I know that I'm probably going to lose my starting home terran, but I figure out ways to stay in the game and help my team.  (There isn't any law that says that your fleet has to fight to the death against the enemy fleet, dying for nothing, as opposed to going on the run and conducting guerilla warfare to help your team.)  I think a great many players don't know to do that because when you play single player, if you get beaten up you just quit and start a new game, whereas in the team game you need to try to help your team because if your team wins you win even though you may have personally been beaten up.  (Another example of how single player and online multiplayer are different games.)

Anyway, try to look at it from that perspective.  Your goal isn't necessarily to win the game single-handedly and to be the big hero nor even to knock out another player, but rather to do as best you can and to help your team as much as you can.  So, I think that new players really need to lower their expectations for what they alone can accomplish and that by doing that, they'll enjoy the online game more.  Instead of demanding of yourself that you beat another player or win the game for your team, instead try to do what you can to help your team, which might include beating another player, refusing to die quickly when faced with a 2-on-1 situation, and/or being a huge pain in the ass even though you've been beaten.  Over time, if you stick with it and try to learn more about the game and to improve, you'll become a tougher player.  Eventually you'll be the one beating up on the newer players and average players and holding your own against the good players.  Imagine how good that would feel.  It's quite an achievement.