First of all, make sure you installed the game properly through the instructions on
my profile: the installers linked below are old and require the game to be installed in the proper way in order to work as expected (possibly in the default installation directory too).
There are two mods you have to download:
one for vanilla,
one for xpack:
• Battlefield 2 ALL64 (incl. EF64 + AF64 + SP64) v1.0 [DOWNLOAD]
This mod adds the ability to play on "extended" versions of Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2 Euro Forces and Battlefield 2 Armored Fury maps (designed for 32 and 64 players), with full bot support and ability to change number of bots for singleplayer and co-op local lan server (starts with 63 bots out of the box).
 Installation instructions & quirks |
When you run the installer and you get to the directory step, if the "Next" button is greyed out then your game isn't installed properly, please reinstall with these instructions (or add your InstallDir path in Registry, if you know what you are doing). If your base game is installed correctly, the "Browse" button should still be greyed out but it'll show the correct installation folder, so you can click "Next" and finalize the installation.
The installer will create the mods folder mods\bf2all64, but by default the levels inside this folder will lack the client.zip files (roughly 1.5GB), because they can be copied from the mods\bf2 folder. To do this easily the developer has created a script called arn354_copymaps.bat but nowadays it needs some edits to run.
Run arn354_copymaps.bat, if it closes immediately then you most likely need to perform 2 edits to the file: right click it and choose "Edit", the script will open in Notepad and what you have to do is modify the registry path on line 4 and 8 by adding the Wow6432Node missing key in the path:
"HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Electronic Arts\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2" (line 4 & line 8 too!)
Save the file and run it again, it should now stay open and copy all the client.zip files from the vanilla maps.
If you are more of a visual person, Andrew Moris has made a video tutorial about installing this modification:
|
| Launching, playing & changing bot counts |
The installer creates shortcuts in the Start menu, creating a new "BF2ALL64" folder which contains shortcuts to the copymaps script (need to run it only once during installation), the botchanger and the shortcut to boot the mod: all of these shortcuts work for me.
Therefore you can launch the mod and play Singleplayer with 63 bots, the only missing map I've found has to be Op. Blue Pearl. To change the number of bots and their skill run the botchanger script and it'll prompt you for the values; what this script does is recreating the mods\bf2all64\ai\AIDefault.ai file.
If you want to start a local co-op server instead, there are a couple of details to keep in mind. First of all be aware the maximum amount of bots in the enemy team (eg. China) is 48, but for some reason you can go past 48 in your own team (eg. USMC). You can edit the AIDefault.ai file mentioned above manually (with any text editor) or via the botchanger to modify the total amount of bots and their skill (from 0 up to 1.0).
In case you want to control the total number and skill of bots directly from the game server settings menu instead, you need change the value of this line in the file from 1 to 0, but keep note that the maxium bots that the game settings allow is 48 (it even diminishes to 32 if you increase the players threshold, but it can't go past 48 ), so if you want 63 bots keep the override enabled: aiSettings.overrideMenuSettings.
Secondly if you're playing alone you need to bring down the number of players to start the local game from 2 to 1 by either typing sv.numPlayersNeededToStart 1 in the in-game console (every time) or by performing this operation to permanently set this value to 1:
- Browse to mods\bf2\settings\ and edit the sv.numPlayersNeededToStart value in the ServerSettings.con file to 1
- Now save the edits to the file, and make a copy of it in the mods\bf2all64\settings\ folder
A final quirk I've found is when trying to create the local server, the game mode defaults to co-op but the server settings about co-op bots don't show up: just toggle the game mode between conquest and co-op and they will come back. |
• Battlefield 2 SF64 (Special Forces) v1.1 [DOWNLOAD]
This mod adds the ability to play on "extended" versions of Battlefield 2 Special Forces maps (incl. night version of Strike at Karkand!) designed for 32 and 64 players, with full bot support and ability to change number of bots for singleplayer and co-op local lan server (starts with 31 bots out of the box).
| Installation instructions & quirks |
Refer to the installation instructions for Battlefield 2 ALL64 because they are the same for SF64 as well, what changes is that shortcuts seem to only appear on the Desktop and that the arn354_copymaps.bat script seems to run automatically at the end of the installation, copying the client.zip files from mods/xpack folder.
If for some reason you don't see a black command line window appear at the end of the installation wizard then you need to run the script manually. Again refer to the steps in the installation instructions of Battlefield 2 ALL64 to update the registry paths in the script (lines 4 and 8 ) and then run it manually. |
| Launching, playing & changing bot counts |
The installer creates shortcuts on the Desktop, one to the botchanger and the other to boot the mod: all of these shortcuts work for me.
Therefore you can launch the mod and play Singleplayer with 63 bots, Iron Gator 16 is missing from singleplayer mode but it can be played in local co-op. To change the number of bots and their skill run the botchanger script and it'll prompt you for the values; what this script does is recreating the mods\bf2sf64\ai\AIDefault.ai file.
For more info open the "Launching, playing & changing bot counts" spoiler of the main Battlefield 2 ALL64 mod above (red title), keep in mind this time you're working with the mods/bf2sf64 directory instead. |
Singleplayer / Local Co-op Tips
I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but from the in-game console (check your controls for the correct key bind) you can issue some commands that allow you to control the game status and the map rotation:
| | admin.restartMap | Restarts the round (afaik, you can't skip to next round) |
| | admin.currentLevel | Shows you the ID of the current map in rotation |
| | admin.nextLevel | Shows you the ID of the next map in rotation |
| | admin.setNextLevel | Sets the ID of the next map in rotation |
| | admin.runNextLevel | Ends the current round and skips to the next map in rotation |
| | sv.numPlayersNeededToStart 1 | Starts the round if you're stuck in pre-game (waiting for 1 player) |
Finally the maximum amount of bots on the Team 1 side (the "not americans" team, so usually your enemies by default) is limited to 48 by the game engine, therefore you cannot go solo against the other 63 bots but you will necessarily have maximum 48 enemy bots and 15 allied bots; though for some reason you can have all
63 bots stay
on your side (with bot ratio = 0) and if you remember to uncheck autobalance in the local co-op server settings you can then switch to the enemy side (eg. China) and fight back 1 vs 63 USMC bots.
One thing that was also difficult for me to understand at first was how the "bot ratio" actually works: basically it's not a percentage that balances bots evenly between two teams, but rather
it represents the percentage of the number of available bots that should join Team 1 (the "not americans" team, so usually your enemies by default). To learn more about this I invite you to read this excellent article on the
classic battlefield modding wiki, to better understand the limitations of co-op game mode and the bot calculations.
Sources to put together this tutorial
- Vermitax from the
SP Bot Ratio on BF64ALL or similiar mods reddit post
- Ophionus from the
Are there any working ...arge maps in singleplayer reddit post
- Solikewhatsupthere from the
BF2 Special forces 64 single player maps reddit post
- The two articles from playground.ru with
working downloads and information about
bf2all64 and
bf2sf64
- The
Understanding the Coop Game Mode Limits article by Oldrick
Honorable mentions
- The
One mod with extended SP support for all BF2 (incl. Special Forces levels) by Dnamro
(even if forum is down file should still be available, right-click this link - 2,3GB - and choose "save as")
- The
Battlefield 2 Extended Singleplayer mod (released 2010), though for some reason
I have a note to look for Dnamro's mod instead
- Jehandelll from the
How to play with 64 player maps in singleplayer reddit post where he explains how
to install the bf2sp64_103.exe mod, which is rather complicated and not all maps are supported.
Broken downloads
- The
Battlefield: All in One mod, which merges bf2 and xpack but unfortunately has ceased
development and consequently been archived
- In a recent
rant by reddit user XAVIOGT the
Global Storm SinglePlayer 16/32/64 size maps Levels.rar
(or GS_Levels.1.rar) pack is mentioned with positive results, but the download isn't starting for me
