bman654

After the "restart", then launch XCOM. This makes Steam happy that game is up to date. Then quit XCOM and apply mod patches. Also make sure you modify your host file to block further attempts by XCOM to phone home.

They didn't do it to piss us off. The game has always been trying to talk to this server we are blocking. It is just that up until a few days ago, the server has been offline. They've only just brought it online, presumably to apply some MP balance changes which was always the intent. The mods are just falling victim to their MP-patching scheme since they've admitted that when they were designing the game, modding support was not a priority.

No guarantees about "all current mods", but I successfully tested a sample change in medkit prices (a strategic change) and unlimited ammo for the assault rifle (a tactical change) and both functioned correctly even with steam ONLINE. So, I am reasonably sure all mods will work. Yeah notepad will do that when saving a new file. Generally speaking, the way you fix that, is after saving in Notepad, you go to the folder and then right-click the file and Rename it.

noob here. i eventually found the hosts file, but when i added the lines of text, it didn't work. so is it just my placement? or is there something else i'm missing? Here's a way to see if you got it right: Open your web browser and goto http://prod.xcom.firaxis.com/Dict.ashx?key=XCOMDLC_PC_INT_00000.INI. Your browser should tell you that it cannot contact the server. That means you edited the hosts file correctly. If, instead, the browser tries to download a file, then you did not edit the file correctly. Here's a screenshot of my folder. Note the path. Note the file is "hosts" and not "hosts.txt". http://i.imgur.com/1zaFX.png?1 I've also attached a copy of the host file with only these lines in it. You can use it if you didn't already have a hosts file with your own stuff in it.

yeah you might not have a hosts file. If that case, just make a new file called "hosts" with the 3 lines above. When finished, goto that folder and make sure you didn't accidentally call your new file "hosts.txt" If you did, you need to rename the file and remove the ".txt"

I did testing on this. The hosts file seems to be enough: Start -> "notepad" (do not press ENTER key) Right-click on Notepad program -> Run as Administrator File -> Open -> %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts Add these 3 lines to the file: # Prevent XCOM Phone Home 127.0.0.1 prod.xcom.firaxis.com 127.0.0.1 65.118.245.165 Save the file No need to reboot even, at least on Windows 7. I tested by changing the cost of Medikits to $1 and changing the assault rifle to not require ammo. After this change, I was able to leave Steam ONLINE and the game still used by changes. I verified in the log file that the game only seems to get updates via the server above. It does NOT appear to get updates through Steam.