Cities XL Tweaks

[jeremy12 0]

***Use this at your own risk.  Please do not come back here and tell us that your game is broken or that you can't get updates etc.  

To launch cities XL with out having to login every time just to play in OFFLINE mode modify your cities XL shortcut

• Simply right click your shortcut to the game and select properties then edit the Target field to contain:
• "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\cities xl\CitiesXL_Game.exe" NETWORK/PROFILE="disconnected" NETWORK/LOGIN="" NETWORK/PASSWORD=" " NETWORK/COOKIE="" Localization/Language=en

• Make sure you replace and with your username and password even tho you are not online your profile is still password protected
• also be sure to use the proper install location i play cities XL through steam i did not get the "box" version
• edit: i am not sure but i think this will prevent you from getting updates so please if you do this check the site for updates and launch it normally to get the update

How to skip the intro videos every time:

• Browse to your install folder    example: "C:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\cities xl\"
• Open The Data folder
• Open Interface folder
• Open Video folder
• Rename Intro.bik to something like Intro.old.bik (you may not see the .bik part depending on your system settings)
• Rename LogoCXL.bik in the same manner as Intro.bik

[Psycho_Teddy 25]

Can someone from MC verify that this is a legal bypass? This is a bit touchy in my book, but I'm not sure. It would be greatly appreciated.

[moaku 74]

Your "Skip intro" trick may pose problems later, depending on how mc manages it... I wouldn't recommand this...

"Skipping intro" shall be easy once modding informations are released... there is someway where it indicates to go to intro when launching... All we need is the right constant to specify to make it go cleanly thru the mainmenu directly...

I think the "offline trick" is fine since there is no "cleaner way" to do it as far as I know atm, but I would advise to duplicate the shortcut to do a new "offline" one, since, as you said, it will skip the update process (I can confirm it, I'm using this trick for a few weeks already)

However, if you want to do some graphic tweaks, I would suggest to have a look on the thread I created in "Custom Content" forum, especially if you're stuck on "very low" details with the boring warning message at each start.

Please remember that when you use such tricks to bypass the launcher or to tweak hardwares, if you have ANY issue, you should try with the standard method, removing all modifications to data BEFORE contacting mc support.

[jsszczytna 0]

it doesn't work when you're offline, so it's not a bypass, but just a shortcut

[moaku 74]

about the "legality" of bypassing the launcher, well... they can't say it's "illegal" or "illegitimate" to do it... all you're doing is changing a few hidden options that you have access to... After all, you paid for the product...you're just changing some accessible options, not your fault if they are accessible... so, they may eventually be not happy about it, but they can't do anything more than saying you "please don't do this" or simply remove access to these environment variables in a future patch... no one can blame you for doing this...

[moaku 74]

Originally posted by: jsszczytna

it doesn't work when you're offline, so it's not a bypass, but just a shortcut

quote>

It does work... but you'll have to do the online activation first

[Spinmaster 75]

Originally posted by: Psycho_Teddy

Can someone from MC verify that this is a legal bypass? This is a bit touchy in my book, but I'm not sure. It would be greatly appreciated.quote>

There is nothing legally "touchy" about modifying a shortcut (especially since MC themselves provided the command line parameters for doing so) or renaming a file on your own computer. You are not changing their intellectual property in any way whatsoever. However... support may be another matter, particularly if indeed you're not getting updates automatically.

[JakeMD 107]

I say use this at your own risk for now. Please do not come back here and tell us that your game is broken or that you can't get updates etc.

[jeremy12 0]

The launch without password is ezactly how cities XL is launching the game as it is, if you are unsure go download process explorer from Microsoft at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx it looks like task manager only 8000% times more in depth, pull your network cable, launch the game, minimize the game right click on CitiesXL_Game.exe and go to properties and you will see the same command given above with your username and PW in plain text.

P.S MC: you should really use a encryption on the PW like md5 or a custom encrypt, then pass the password to the game by using a command like nertwork/usr="" network/encrypt="" just to make it not so plain and simple for a spyware scanning your ram to get the password and username, using username and password in the command is like a red flag and almost any malware will copy the whole command and send it off. Or second option use the launcher to detect updates, and make you login in the game thats how Blizzard avoided this issue

edit: just woke up fixed spelling, stupid keyboard

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]