A21 Vanilla

[AlbanianAreolas]

I have a game going with my dad (in A20) that has mods. I want to start a vanilla A21 solo game. How would I properly go about this without messing with the other modded game? Can I just take the mods folder out, update the game to A21, and when dad and I play again, put the folder back in and revert everything back to A20?

[Mardoin69]

Make a directory on your C:\ drive. Name it something meaningful to you... like a folder MyModGames for example. Then navigate to C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\Steamapps\Common\... you'll see a 7d2d folder in there. That's your A20 current install. Click on it and drag / drop it into the C:\MyModGames\ folder... or whatever you named it. Now, delete whatever shortcut on the desktop you may have for 7d2d originally. Looking into the 7d2d folder in it's new location, right click + hold the 7d2d.exe and drag / drop it onto the desktop. Chose the option to 'create shortcut here.' You can then edit the shortcut name... maybe to something like 7d2d A20.

Next, you don't want to lose your A20 saves and maps so, you'll want to back them up. They're in your users folder under ...\Appdata\Roaming\7d2d\ in the Saves and Generated Worlds folders. Need the A20 save and the map folder (which is named after the county / territory generated for that map) for that save. Cuz, when you run the launcher after a new install, you'll be clearing all this old data. You'll later copy your Save and Map data back in there. Just be SURE you do NOT choose that save and / or map when choosing to start a game in A21. Or else, it'll get corrupted. Onto the next step...

Now, you'll go into Steam and choose the 'uninstall' option for 7d2d. Then open 7d2d's properties and switch to the 'Betas' tab. Opt into the A21 experimental. Exit Steam and restart your system. This will ensure steams cache gets cleared AND Windows Registry changes get saved. Load steam, install game, verify files, and then run the 7d2d launcher. You're going to switch to the tools tab, click 'Clean...' selecting all the checkboxes, and clean the old data. This'll ensure Windows Registry values get updated for A21's installation. Then switch back to the main tab, disable EAC + Analytics, select 'Run and save...' In main menu--options--optimize your settings.

After that's all done, you can exit 7d2d and then copy your save and map files back. Don't forget... generate a new map for A21 and make note of it's county name when in the generation. Do NOT pick that other A20 map for starting a new game in A21. Also, if you didn't have Steam create a desktop shortcut for you, you should create one using same method as earlier.... except from the steams install location of 7d2d. Just name it 7d2d A21 for example. Now you can chose either shorcut to play whichever version you want.

Is all this guaranteed to work? No, not really. But, it usually does in my experience (in the past.) Good luck and happy gaming.

Edit: Oh snap.... forgot about the 'Mods' portion of this. That is normally installed in the users directory... which WILL conflict with A21. Sorry... but, you're in luck. The old method of using mods still works for A20. So, just move that 'Mods' folder out of the users 7d2d directory over to the C:\MyModGames\7d2d\ folder. So, A20 will still use those mods but, they won't be in your users 7d2d directory conflicting with A21.