How to point game at my saved files?

[kitutal]

I have this game installed on my D:/ and all the save files go to a folder on the D:/, so swapping out my C:/ for a new and better drive shouldn't have done anything to them, but ever since then, the game can't find any of the save files. I've checked and they are all still sitting there in the folder where they're meant to be, but the game just isn't looking in that folder. Is there a setting I can set to tell it where to look?

[grotaclas]

The game normally looks for your saves in "Documents/Paradox Interactive/Europa Universalis IV/save game". I guess you reinstalled windows when you changed your C: drive and this reset the location of your Documents folder. The easiest would be to just copy your saves to the new save games folder.
There is a way to change the location for eu4, but it is not well supported by the new launcher.

[kitutal]

That's exactly where they are, on the drive that didn't change, so a bit confused why it was an issue. I guess the launcher is trying to look on the other drive for an identically named folder? Moving them isn't ideal, since there isn't loads of space for them, but it'll do until I find an alternative. Or there might be a way of telling windows where to put Documents, I'll check around for that first. It worked well enough for moving the Desktop folder

[grotaclas]

Originally posted by kitutal:

That's exactly where they are, on the drive that didn't change, so a bit confused why it was an issue. I guess the launcher is trying to look on the other drive for an identically named folder?

I think you misunderstood me. When I said "Documents", I didn't mean "D:\Documents". I meant the folder which is configured as the Documents folder in windows. If you reinstalled windows, your previous configuration is lost and it will default to something like "C:\Users\<username>\Documents".

Originally posted by kitutal:

Or there might be a way of telling windows where to put Documents, I'll check around for that first. It worked well enough for moving the Desktop folder

I think you can change the location by right clicking on Documents in the left sidebar of the windows explorer and selecting "Properties" and then clicking on the "Location" tab
Changing the default Documents folder is probably the best option if your C: drive doesn't have much space, because It is used as the default location by other programs as well

[tonypa]

You do not have to move any Windows default folders for Eu4. You can just save the game data in other folder. I mean save games and settings and all the content of settings folder normally on
Documents\Paradox Interactive\Europa Universalis IV

Say you want everything instead to be stored in the folder
d:/eu4settings
Note that this would not be eu4 installation folder, just the settings.
I would copy the content of default setting folder in your new folder or you may need to reset bunch of buttons and messages again.

You go to the folder where eu4 is installed, normally it is under your Steam apps:
Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Europa Universalis IV

Now you look for the file userdir.txt, which by default is empty. But you can edit it with any text editor. Make sure eu4 is not running, open the userdir.txt and type in your custom folder path:
d:/eu4settings
save the file and restart the game.

It is possible game may overwrite this again if it is updated (I have not tested this with new update yet). But at least it is not tied to any windows settings anymore.

[grotaclas]

Originally posted by tonypa:

Now you look for the file userdir.txt, which by default is empty. But you can edit it with any text editor. Make sure eu4 is not running, open the userdir.txt and type in your custom folder path:
d:/eu4settings
save the file and restart the game.

Another problem with this approach is that the launcher does not respect the userdir.txt, so you won't be able to change settings, mods or DLCs from the launcher unless you tell the launcher which folder it should use(in launcher-settings.json). But that again has the problem that it might get overwritten by an update and if it isn't overwritten, you will be missing the changes which the update makes to that file(e.g. which version number and checksum to display in the launcher)

[tonypa]

Yea, I really do not run launcher, you only need it if you want to change mods or dlcs.