How to manually update the game?

[x4000]

Actually, the name of that list is actually incorrect -- it's not just beta updates, it's all updates, period.  If it's not in that http://www.arcengames.com/dl/AIWarBetaUpdates2.xml, it isn't an update that anyone needs (as in, its content was rolled into the next update).  The ones with a B prefix in front of their version number are the beta ones, but the rest are all official.

Speaking of, the latest official is 5.000.  5.004 and similar are all beta...

[TParis]

Okay, that was some fast response... thanks for clearing that up.  

[x4000]

My pleasure!

[unclechuck]

This does not work for me, I have the updates in my RuntimeData folder as well as the text document. But whenever I run the autoupdater it simply flashes, I load up AIWar and I'm still stuck on 5000.

[x4000]

If you want to run the autoupdater to manually apply patches, then you have to put the patch and text files under RuntimeData\updates, not just under RuntimeData that's probably all it is!

[unclechuck]

I have no updates folder?

[x4000]

Yes, usually the game creates it. But if you create it, that's just the same.

Or you can unzip the files manually into the root game folder. There aren't many of them, so that's probably fastest at the moment.

[unclechuck]

I have the zip files and text doc in a folder labeled "updates" in the RuntimeData folder, I run the updater and it does nothing.

[x4000]

The simplest thing at this stage is just to unzip the update files into your game folder, in order from lowest to highest. My best guess is that your text file isn't formatted quite right or something like that.  If the updated does nothing, it's not finding the text doc, probably. Otherwise it would give you some sort of error when failing, at least.

[unclechuck]

For whatever reason the 5002 zip won't unzip correctly, it just creates a new RuntimeData folder

[x4000]

Are you on OSX or windows? On windows, you need to unzip it to the root game folder, not the runtimedata folder. It will then need to merge with the runtimedata folder, overwriting any duplicate files. On osx, the default is to completely erase that original folder, which would be bad. I've been assuming windows. If so, sounds like you're down one directory from where you should be.

[unclechuck]

I'm on Mac

[x4000]

Okay, that's good information to know.  In that case, definitely don't unzip it manually because the Mac will just overwrite everything and you'll have to reinstall from scratch.  These are the instructions that you'll need to follow, from higher up.  I'm wondering if you didn't see this specific part of the post, since you weren't familiar with the updates folder, etc.  You'll need to create the updates folder, and the updatelist.txt file inside it with the file numbers, and the appropriately-named zip files go in that same folder.  If those are all in place, it should work just fine.  I hope that helps -- if not, I really need some more details, because I'm really shooting in the dark at the moment.

Manual Method 2 (For OSX or otherwise)
If you're having trouble unzipping the files, never fear -- there's a tool that will do that for you. 

1. First what you'll need to do is download the various updates that you'd like to apply.  Again, you can get those here: http://www.arcengames.com/dl/AIWarBetaUpdates2.xml

2. Normally you would just unzip those, in order, into your AI War folder.  But if that's giving you trouble (such as on OSX), then instead take the files and put them inside the RuntimeData/updates folder in your AI War installation directory.

3. Rename the files to just VersionNumber.zip.  So for instance if you download version 4.032, with a filename of AIWar4032.zip, you need to rename it to 4032.zip in the updates folder.

4. Once all the files are in place, create a new plaintext document called "updatelist.txt" in that same RuntimeData/updates folder.

5. Inside this document, put the version numbers all on one line, separated by a single space between each version.  Put these in the order that they should be applied, so ascending order.  In other words, the same order you'd put them in when unzipping them by hand.  An example document might look like this, with a single line saying: "4032 4033 4044" to apply 4.032, then 4.033, then 4.044, for instance.

6. Once both updatelist.txt and the actual zip files themselves are in place, go back to your main directory for AI War and run AIWarAutoUpdater-windows.exe or AIWarAutoUpdater-osx.app, depending on which platform you are on.  The auto-updater does NOT download anything, it simply unzips the files you have already downloaded based on the updatelist.txt file.  Normally the game itself does the downloads and creates the updatelist.txt file, but if you do it by hand the autoupdater can't tell the difference (so long as you do it right), and will save you the trouble of unzipping if that's being problematic.  For most people, unzipping by hand is faster, though.

[unclechuck]

ok, I have all of the update zip files in the "updates" folder inside the RuntimeData folder, along with the txt document titled "updatelist.txt". When I go to run AIWarAutoUpdater-osx it flashes and does nothing.

[x4000]

Ohhhh... In that case, your updated program is messed up and isn't running at all. I should have asked for a description of what was really happening from the start, rather than assuming it was actually running. I bet you have a steam copy of the game? Seems like sometimes the auto updated permissions are getting incorrect on steam. I believe I posted a copy of the auto updated app file in this forum somewhere -- you might search forthat link (I'm on my iPhone at the moment so can't readily). But just replace your corrupt updated with the one I posted here, and then it should run. It sounds like you're doing everything else exactly right. Sorry for the confusion!