Mix and Match of Games question....

[Rex Ursus]

This is the best place I could find to post these questions so here I go.

1. Can I use old games from the box and upgrade them with steam or other providers in a mixed up fashion and be able to run them? I have games scattered all over and am afraid to buy dlc for them from, for example steam or that other one, only to find that I can't do it because I have an old box version as my base game?

2. I really prefer to make multiple copies of one game with mods and vanilla copies all over the place just so that I can mod them and and still have vanilla versions and older versions at hand. If I use Steam will I be able to do the same? (I want to buy euIV and screw around with it but I don't trust steam.) I need to have the ability to copy and paste whole versions and modded versions on my computer.


I want to give steam a try as it seems the only way multiplayer is going to work out and it seems the only way to buy it now. But I like to mod and try to fix your engine and need to be able to copy the shit out of everything for backups and mods etc.

So how about it? What do you think?

 

[aragonFTW]

1. ) No, with very few exceptions you will need to get the game and the DLC from the same place. I bought some CK2 DLC on GamersGate and couldn't get it to work with my Steam game reliably, I wouldn't recommend trying it.

2a. ) For older versions of EU4 eg 1.1.3 or 1.2.0 that ship has sailed, Steam will only install the latest version. You can lock it and disable future automatic updates from within Steam though.

2b. ) For mods, sure it will work, outside of a patch Steam will not overwrite Paradox game files with the vanilla versions unless you ask it to. Since almost all modded content (including caches) lives in Documents/Paradox rather than the steam folder you could swap out sets of folders and files easily. I have not tried running multiple copies of the game concurrently from Steam though and haven't heard that's possible.



Hope that helps!