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AGCEEP on Linux

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May 11, 2007
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After considerable effort, I've finally gotten to where I can consistently load AGCEEP on my Linux PC (Ubuntu 8.04). I dunno if I just reinvented the wheel or not, but I couldn't find any instructions online. If there is anyone else out there who hasn't already worked this out and actually wants to perform such unnatural acts, let me know and I'll post up some directions.
 
It would be great and I hope it would deserve a sticky.

I don't have Linux installed right now because of hard drive space limitations, but I certainly aspire to have a multi-boot system again some day. How do you start EU2 in Linux? I prefer wine for Windows games but I know there are some tools to convert Win executables into Linux binaries.
 
EU2 runs on the latest Wine pretty much out of the box. Insert the CD and follow the instructions. EU2 is certified "Platinum" by Wine, meaning that it installs and runs flawlessly (or as close as *any* game does). I wouldn't worry about attempting to convert this to some native Linux version. Wine libraries are native on their own, and EU2 runs faster on Wine than it does on Windows.

AGCEEP is a bit different. Because Windows executables are launched by the "Wine" executable, games like AGCEEP that have special parameters or even launch other executables can be problematic.

AGCEEP installed fairly easily just by following the directions on the AGCEEP website. It even launched and ran fine immediately after it installed. The problem came about in any subsequent attempts to launch it. It seemed to load vanilla EU2 with no scenarios and missing graphics.

The trick, I found, was to use the Mod Launcher tool found on this site. Just drop the executable into the root of the EU2 directory. Then you can launch it by clicking on it in Nautilus (or whatever). It lists the AGCEEP mod and launches it with no problem.

But I, for one, don't want to have to drill into hidden folders to launch a game so I created a short-cut ("Launcher" in Gnome-speak) to open Mod Launcher. But that ran into the same problem about launching a launcher through another launcher (Wine). The shortcut seemed to have problems finding EU2.

What I ended up doing was creating a short batch file called "ModLauncher.bat":

Code: 
cd "/home/YourHomeDir/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Paradox Entertainment/Europa Universalis 2"
wine "Mod Launcher.exe"

I placed this in the EU2 root, then created a launcher to call the batch file. That launches Mod Launcher which then launches AGCEEP (or vanilla, if you prefer) perfectly.

I hope that helps someone.

BTW, I also got CK : DV running pretty well, and suspect other Paradox titles based upon EU2 engine will work, too.
 
Thanks for the information.

Shortcut of AGCEEP is just the same as a bat file launching EU2 exe with a command line and only one argument: the path to the mod (i.e. path to AGCEEP). Path can be relative or absolute (including drive). AGCEEP lanches without problem in Windows by creating a bat file inside EU2 directory.

for example (acording to seezero's command line):
Code: 
EU2.exe C:\Program Files\Paradox Entertainment\Europa Universalis 2\AGCEEP
With the provided cd command just before, it could work but I don't know how Linux and Wine work and problem is certainly with the absolute path to AGCEEP in Windows notation and especially drive.

But it works with relative path too:
Code: 
EU2.exe AGCEEP
Could you try to create a bat file like this:
Code: 
cd "/home/YourHomeDir/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Paradox Entertainment/Europa Universalis 2"
wine "EU2.exe AGCEEP"
Not sure for the wine command and argument for the EU2 exe but it could work. Could you please try and tell us?

If it works, I will add the information on website and first post of sticky Tech support thread. Otherwise, it will be the Mod Launcher solution.
 
Code: 
wine "EU2.exe AGCEEP"
... returns ...
Code: 
wine: could not load L"C:\\windows\\system32\\EU2.exe AGCEEP": Module not found
Code: 
wine EU2.exe AGCEEP
... it somewhat better. It launches but never, in my experience, completely successfully. Either the audio fails, or the screen is black, or it freezes moving through the menus. I suspect this will still probably work for some people, depending upon their distros and Wine versions.

I don't know what exactly Mod Launcher brings to the party, but it seems to consistently work for me. Well, the Music wont play, but who isn't sick of "Falalalala" by now? :)
 
seezero said:
Code: 
wine EU2.exe AGCEEP
... it somewhat better. It launches but never, in my experience, completely successfully. Either the audio fails, or the screen is black, or it freezes moving through the menus. I suspect this will still probably work for some people, depending upon their distros and Wine versions.[/QOUTE]

I haven't used Linux or wine for a long time now, but I don't think this is ok. Maybe wine "EU2.exe AGCEEP" or maybe there is some switch for the parameters to pass on to the Win executable like "wine EU2.exe -p AGCEEP" or something like that.

I don't know what exactly Mod Launcher brings to the party, but it seems to consistently work for me. Well, the Music wont play, but who isn't sick of "Falalalala" by now? :)
Click to expand...

EU2 is a very old game so music should work in wine. Maybe you don't have a mutlichannel driver like ALSA installed or wine is not configured to use it.
Click to expand...
 
Maybe wine "EU2.exe AGCEEP"
Click to expand...
Tried it. See above.
maybe there is some switch for the parameters to pass on to the Win executable like "wine EU2.exe -p AGCEEP"
Click to expand...
Maybe. Let me know when you track that one down. Since I have it working the way I described, I'm happy as is.
EU2 is a very old game so music should work in wine
Click to expand...
It's not just me . With Wine, it's not only a function of age. There's also popularity. For instance, Guild Wars is relatively new and runs flawlessly. EU2, though huge amongst us strategy gamers, still doesn't make a ripple in the overall scope of things. And there are also the vagaries of Linux to deal with. I've noticed quite a few problems with multiple streams of sound. Maybe we had to give up Music so we could hear the game effects. Note that while the music isn't working, the rest of the sounds work fine. I pipe my preferred music through another PC and I don't miss it.
 
It's not just me . With Wine, it's not only a function of age. There's also popularity. For instance, Guild Wars is relatively new and runs flawlessly. EU2, though huge amongst us strategy gamers, still doesn't make a ripple in the overall scope of things. And there are also the vagaries of Linux to deal with. I've noticed quite a few problems with multiple streams of sound. Maybe we had to give up Music so we could hear the game effects. Note that while the music isn't working, the rest of the sounds work fine. I pipe my preferred music through another PC and I don't miss it.
Click to expand...

The rest of the sounds work well because they are the first to be initialized by the game and take up the sound driver. It doesn't work for most people because ALSA is not a default package on many distros and because even when it is it is not enabled by default in wine. I went through a lot of pain to enable it in my SUSE. You can easily check this if you try to play the music in your favorite player while playing the game. If it works then it is truly a problem with EU2 and wine compatibility. If it doesn't work, then either or both of wine and your music player don't have ALSA enabled (or you don't have it installed).
 
Last edited:
You can easily check this
Click to expand...
Hoo, if only it was that easy.

First, let me note that my Wine is configured to use the alsa drivers. Not sure how you used to do it, bu I just opened up the Wine config tool, selected the audio tab, and chose the Wine driver. I was already using it, so I just selected the "Test" button to make sure it generated sound. All good.

Next, I opened up Amarok and manually set it to use alsa, too. Then I opened up Rhythmbox and played two different mp3s on Rhythmbox and Amarok to make sure my card could take the two streams. It could. Then I closed Rhythmbox, leaving Amarok playing, and launched AGCEEP (using the Launch Mod method). I tried this several times and it failed every single time, usually by simply displaying no video. I could hear the opening movies (along with Amarok) but couldn't see or do anything. After several reboots, I gave up on that.

Next, I tried Amarok and vanilla EU2, launched without Mod Launcher. Same black screen, etc. Reboot.

Lastly, just to make sure I hadn't busted anything, I tried AGCEEP (with Mod Launch) and no Amarok. In like Flynn.

In summary, I can say the Wine implementation of EU2 doesn't like it when something else is using the sound card, even if the alsa drivers are enabled.

Note that this is most likely a problem specifically limited to EU2 (or the way it's written). I run Guild Wars all the time with both background music and sound effects.
 
Hmm... sounds like maybe we should have a look at the sound-playing code.
 
More grist for the mill

Crusader Kings, with the Deus Vult upgrade, has no problems playing both the music and the effects. Same engine. Go figure.

Yes, musics are mp3 files while sounds are wav. This could be the explanation of the difference.
Click to expand...
Hmm. That could be tested. Put a wav in the music directory and change the play list ...

Not sure I'm ready to start rebooting again. And CK uses MP3s, too.
 
This works fine

Hi everybody,

I just got the same install of EU2+AGCEEP to work under both XP and Wine. This is actually quite easy and straightforward! I'm running Wine 1.0 hand-compiled on a stable (etch) Debian. Here is the procedure.
* Drive c: from XP is mounted on /win, using ntfs-3g. (This really works well).
* EU2 is installed in its default directory on this drive.
* I installed EU2 in Wine, I set the install directory to /some/directory/eu2.
(This does not work with an older Wine, and probably does not without the latest patches as SecuROM messes things up with Wine).
* Open ~/.wine/system.reg in your favourite text editor and replace all occurences of /some/directory/eu2 with z:\\win\\Program Files\\Paradox Entertainment\\Europa Universalis 2 (you need to quote the backslashes since this looks like a C string).
You could also replace /some/directory/eu2 with a symlink to /win/.../Europa Universalis 2/, but this is slightly messier.

This enables the same copy to be run in both OS. If it works, the directory /some/directory/eu2 is unneeded and can be removed. Of course, this means that the saved games are the same in both OSes.

Finally, to get AGCEEP to work is quite simple:
cd /ntfs/.../Europa\ Universalis\ 2
wine EU2.exe AGCEEP
(which might also work using an absolute path, but I've not tried)

This should be put in an alias in whatever shell you're using.
By the way, wine "EU2.exe AGCEEP" is definitely not going to work: as it is a single quoted string, wine looks for some file with this name, and obviously won't find it -- that is, unless you name your files strangely.

Hope this helps, and happy gaming!
 
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