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Two Ways to Run Command Ops 2 On a MAC

David Heath

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Hi Guys,

One biggest thing I am always asked is if there will be a Mac version of Command Ops 2, my first hope is YES, but for the time being, I play Command Ops 2 on my Mac Pro with a great product know as Parallels.

I can run Windows edition 7 through 10. on my Mac with Parallels. I then run Steam or the game of my choice. Of all the ways to run Windows on a Mac, Parallels Desktop is my favorite because it just works. Simply, and fast. This is my first choice, and it works great.

The second method to get Command Ops 2 to work 'natively' on OS X is to run the game with Wineskin. Here's what you have to do.

Tested with the most recent version of Command Ops 2 I reckon this should work just fine on all OS X versions currently supported by Wineskin.

1. Download Wineskin (http://wineskin.urgesoftware.com/tiki-index.php).
2. Start Wineskin.
3. Click the '+' sign under the 'Installed Engines' section - we're going to install a Wine version here.
4. Choose the latest version available and click 'Download and Install.' If that gives you problems later on for some reason or another, try an older one. FYI, I am running WS9Wine1.7.12.
5. Once that is done. Wine will probably trigger an optional download of a Mono library (open source .NET) which may fail if you won't let the program accept incoming connections. In that case, simply ignore it and let it finish.
6. You now have a .app wrapper file in your /<username>/Applications/Wineskin directory! Double click it.
7. Click 'Set Screen Options'. Do the following on the screen that pops up:
a. 'Override Wine control of Screen Settings?' -> Override.
b. In the 'Override Settings' half of the screen, pick 'Fullscreen.'
c. Click 'Done.'
(optional) Click 'Advanced.'
(optional) Under the 'Options' tab, uncheck 'Map User Mac OS X folders in wrapper.'. Close the options.
8. Click 'Install Software.'
9. Select the .exe installation file.
10. Install the game, just like on Windows. On the last screen, uncheck Visual C++ runtime - we'll install this manually.

The Visual C++ runtime must be installed manually because default install along the game won't finish. Here's how to do it:

1. Navigate to the location of the .app wrapper file in Finder, right-click it and select 'Show Package Contents.'
2. Double-click 'Wineskin'.
3. Select 'Advanced.'
4. On the 'Tools' tab, click 'Winetricks.'
5. Install 'msxml3' from the 'dll' category. This needs a manual intervention - Winetricks will open a browser for you at the location of the library, and a Finder window where you have to place the library when you download it. Do so.
4. Then re-run the 'msxml3' target from the 'dll' section. This time it will install.
5. Select 'vcrun2010' from the 'dll' section and install it.
6. Close Winetricks windows.

Update the game next. This can either be done automatically via the updater from the menu or manually if you downloaded the .exe patch. Here's how to do it manually:

1. Navigate to the location of the .app wrapper file in Finder, right-click it and select 'Show Package Contents.'
2. Double-click 'Wineskin'.
3. Select 'Install Software.'
4. Navigate to the location of the .exe patch and select it.
5. Install it like on Windows, BUT uncheck Visual C++ on the last page.
6. When done, Wineskin will likely inform you that it has not detected a new executable file. Ignore this message - it thinks we just installed new software instead of a mere patch.
7. You can now run the game by double-clicking the wrapper .app file!

The instructions for installing HTTR are the same as for installing the patch - run the embedded Wineskin, install the add-on, then run the game. DO NOT install Visual C++ redistributable via the game installer.

Enjoy the game!
 

JET

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Runs ok on my 4 years old MacBook Pro using El Capitan version 10.11.6, running through BootCamp with Windows 8.1.
Although the MacBook Pro does run hot.
 

Hexaotl

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Wineskin is the most efficient solution, as you can just run the game without having to have to operating systems running, which can be demanding on the Mac

Unfortunetly I did to get CO2 to work using your step-by-stem guide. CO2 simply crashes when i try to launch it; the screen turns black with two different CO2 desktop icons in the top right for a couple of seconds, then it crashes. I have tried Wine 1.7.12, 1.9.8, and the newest 2.3 version with the same result.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how I can fix this?
Or any other version of playing CO2 on Mac without haveing to use a copy of Windows?
 

Alan Lewis

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It worked for me with one minor change, I either didn’t see it or there was no option to install vc++ that needed unchecking so it wouldn’t finish the install so I just quit from the dock icons pop up menu.
 

Hexaotl

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It worked for me with one minor change, I either didn’t see it or there was no option to install vc++ that needed unchecking so it wouldn’t finish the install so I just quit from the dock icons pop up menu.

You actually got it to work? Could you eleborate a bit more on what you did differently from this guide?
Thanks!
 

Alan Lewis

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In the first section I didn't do the uncheck option to instal VC++ because I didn't see it, in step 10.

After a few minutes of waiting for it to finish, I just quit the install from the dock icon. Then did the next two sections with no issues and it worked!

That's it.
 

Hexaotl

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In the first section I didn't do the uncheck option to instal VC++ because I didn't see it, in step 10.

After a few minutes of waiting for it to finish, I just quit the install from the dock icon. Then did the next two sections with no issues and it worked!

That's it.

When installing CO2, does your installer crash? Once i click "finish" (or something like that), i get an error and it says the application has crashed. Does this happen to you as well..?
 
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Question: if I install Wineskin can I, then, point to the game installed on Steam? My CO2 is bought under Steam so the game is actually under the usual tree of Steam directories...
 

Alan Lewis

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schwarls37

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Thanks a ton for this!
I recently stumbled across the game and I'm super excited to try it out... from what I've seen watching some play-throughs on youtube this game concept is exquisite... very, very excited to give it a whirl.

For future reference, perhaps related to the problems Hexaotl encountered(?), when using the default choices for installation location (LnLGames/Command Ops 2) everything was installed into the .app object (which I had named "ComOp2") here:

~/Applications/Wineskin/ComOp2.app/Contents/Resources/drive_c/LnLGames/Command Ops 2

So, the C drive actually means ~/Applications/Wineskin/ComOp2.app/Contents/Resources/drive_c/

One more step was needed to make the ComOp2.app run (the game) as an executable when double-clicked:

In ~/Applications/Wineskin/
Right Click ComOp2.app > Show Package Contents > Double-Click Wineskin > Advanced
Under the "Configuration" tab
In the "Windows EXE:" field, put
/LnLGames/Command Ops 2/CmdOps.exe

Other notes:
- Like Alan Lewis, for the first set of instructions I didn't ever end up seeing "10. ...On the last screen, uncheck Visual C++ runtime..."
- In the second set of instructions don't forget step "5. Select 'vcrun2010' from the 'dll' section and install it."
 

schwarls37

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Sorry for the return posting; but, for closure completeness on this:

- The wineskin solution ended up not working -- menu's were not persistent and the program immediately crashed upon touching any of the graphical tools.
- It turns out that that wineskin just wraps wine, and wine alone works. Briefly:
- you need brew because it lets you easily get XQuartz >= 2.7.7
- the graphical download gets you the 32-bit version of things: https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/macosx/download.html
- the program still crashes upon touching any of the graphical tools, but the game works works great otherwise.

If requested I can try to provide some more step by step details, but the following references were sufficient for me:
https://www.davidbaumgold.com/tutorials/wine-mac/
https://wiki.winehq.org/MacOS

Finally, my motivation for doing this is how pleased I am about ComOps2 as a game/concept.
I'm an old school panzer general guy and I guess panzer corps is a nice reincarnation of that idea.
But I'm not into the newer things... UoC2, PC2... maybe I'm just not branching out enough, but all these games are just so flash-in-the-pan for me... I get very little sense of continuity or progress from play session to play session... basically something about unit-set building is never quite satisfying and I'd always rather just start a new campaign than get back into the mode of my last one. Another big issue is that later scenarios are never quite as challenging/satisfying compared to initial scenarios. I don't know... I've just min-max'd my whole army in the previous scenarios and the subsequent scenarios just don't have sparks for me.

So, with ComOps2, I think the design team has hit upon two attributes that turn out to be extremely important and awesome for me.
1. every scenario is fresh and challenging and awesome because it's designed to be that way... stand alone.
2. I seem to stop caring about perfectionist playing with this game, and instead I just let the scenario unfold... it just seems so much more relevant and satisfying this way to me... like, it's not gamey... it's more historical, or something.

So, consider this my tip of the hat to the ComOps2 dev squad.
You've done something really exceptionally excellent here, boys.
Thanks for the good work.
 
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