First, I mean Second, try at a big(ish) EET install

[subtledoctor]

Okay, so in this run I think I'm going to try something a little different as far as the sequence of events in BG1. The party is currently:

• Charname, fighter
• Kivan, Stalker
• Drake, cleric of Tyr
• Eldoth, Blade (mage/thief)
• Xan, cleric/mage of Corellon Larethian
• Brandock, Transmuter

As usual, Kivan is a strong archer and good in melee dual-wielding. This is a great build for Xan, which I haven't tried before - a C/M that can specialize in longswords? Who comes with a longsword +3? It's almost like being a F/M/C. But for whatever reason, this party seems strangely underpowered. They struggle a bit in fights that my other party could steamroll. But I'm choosing NPCs for their RP value. I want to bring everyone into the party, at least for a little bit, who I will meet later and potentially re-recruit. So Jaheira & Khalid have come and gone; and so have Minsc and Dynaheir. Soon Drake will make way for Tenya, and Xan will be replaced by Skie. Then Eldoth will suffer a mysterious accident and... eh, I haven't decided who will replace him. Probably Ajantis or Sirene. At the endgame I figure it will be Charname, Ajantis/Sirene, Kivan, Safana, Brandock, and... dunno. Maybe another mage.

The current dilemma is how to progress through the plot. At the appropriate point in the plot, I want to dual-class to cleric, adopting FnP's "Scion of Bhaal" cleric kit. (Is it worth avoiding spoilers in a thread like this??).

Problem is, that means dual-classing in Candlekeep. I figure I will rush to that point of the game, leaving undone a bunch of stuff in Baldur's Gate and the surrounding areas. I am currently level 7, and I have just completed the Cloakwood mines. I will pick up Tenya and Skie and immediately handle the Seven Suns and Scar's other quests, then go down to Candlekeep. Figure I will dual-class at level 8, after getting one last proficiency (you get pips ever 2 levels in this system). Level 8 is 75,000 xp in my game, and then reaching cleric level 9 is 135,000 xp, for 210,000 xp total. That's a lot to have before attacking Sarevok... but kind of reasonable for a game with a lot of mods. I probably should have dual-classed at level 6, then I could reach cleric 7 with a combines 62,000 xp. But, story-wise, how would it make sense to become a cleric of Bhaal's successor power while going into the Cloakwood?

But the problem is, after Candlekeep I am an outlaw and subject to arrest in BG. I can do some of the wilderness quests outside BG:

• Firewine
• Ulcaster
• Spider forest
• Mutamin's Garden
• Sirine coast
• Ice Island
• Black Pits
• Werewolf Island? (blerg)
• Durlag's Tower (might be tough if not at full power!)
• NTotSC stuff

But some stuff, particularly NTotSC, involves trips into the city. Plus there are still a bunch of quests in the city! So maybe I'll do what I can outside the city to gain cleric levels, then go interrupt the coronation ceremony, and then pretend Sarevok has dropped off the radar? Instead of a hot pursuit to the undercity, just... take a few weeks to finish things up, and pretend that after some time we get a bead on Sarevok, and then go confront him. Kind of the way the 'clean-up quests' are presented to you in the Transitions mod. (Or is it EndlessBG1?)  In fact this would make a nice little mod - add some story-padding time between the coronation ceremony and the undercity endgame.

EDIT - and apparently my surgery on the Tenya Thermidor mod has not made it work in EET - I cannot get her to join my party. So I guess either Drake or Yeslick will be sticking around. Or, should I pick up Dave? He sounds like he might be fun.

Edited December 7, 2022 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

Okay I’ve been through Candlekeep and dual-classed. Party was:

• Charname
• Ajantis
• Kivan
• Xan
• Skie
• Brandock

This party is very straightforward and not very flexible. Two fighters, three archers, two mages. Xan is my only divine caster and it hurts. 

Xan is amazing in this game, by the way. A Feywarden of Corellon (from DR, with tweaks by FnP) multiclassed with mage, he can use a longsword +3 in melee, he is specialized with a shortbow, and in addition to both cleric and mage spells he has access to the FnP sphere of Plants for spells like Entangle, Goodberry, and Barkskin. I don’t love the character and expected to drop him early, but man he has been making this team able to adapt to different foes. Only problem is, he has literally half the hit points of everyone else (save Brandock).

I’m using the enhanced Candlekeep component of MiH EQ, which is an improvement, but not perfect. In general, making this area a challenge is a nice idea - the skeletons and dopplegangers in the vanilla version are pretty boring. In execution, though, I think MiH could use some tweaking. It throws wights at packs. Wights are notable for their level drain attack - something for which my 7th-level party simply has no counter. It also mixes in greater wights, which are tough enough that even with full party focus fire, they can get to my tank and drain a level or two. Repeat that process five times, and Ajantis is a goner. (And level drain works through MI/SS, so you can’t build a tank to handle this.) I used all my fireball memorizations to soften up the wights, and I got through with Ajantis drained to 4th level and Kivan drained to 5th level. But then the mod also throws wraith spiders at you,  again in large packs. And contrary to my memory of these things causing disease (right), here they just do straight uncurable damage. I have Cure Disease spells, but they are of no use here. What I don’t have, but it seems I was expected to have, is any source of Restoration. Like, read the room, MiH. 
 

Greater wights seem like a BG2 enemy shoved into BG1, and I don’t think they are really necessary. A more diverse mixture of normal wights, ghouls, ghasts, and perhaps a ghoul lord or two would have been more interesting. (I mean heck, a room full of ghouls and ghasts is what BG2 throws at you at like 10th level, in the temple quest.) It seems the mod is trying to make the encounters “challenging,” as in you might die in the fight. But that is not really what the adventure design calls for here. Seems to me, the point of the undead here is to soften up the party and induce them to expend resources, because right afterward there is a party v. party fight. I went into it with no healing spells left, and only 1st-level spells, and my fighters level-drained and stat-drained. Got through that basically with wands and scrolls, including a nice scroll of Conjure Air Elemental that I’ve been sitting on. 

I have a similar complaint about the ju-ju zombies in the farm north of the bridge. Zombies are the classic canonical 2HD undead enemy. I get wanting to spice up this encounter, but these ju-ju zombies each have more hit points than my tankiest front-liners, and comparable thac0. It just seems… off. And more importantly, it did not make up for that by being more fun. It was mostly just a slog. 

But in general things are progressing. Charname dual-classed to cleric, with the Scion of Bhaal kit, and has already made it back up to 5th level. I replaced Ajantis with Sirene, and sent Skie back to her family, and now I am going to recruit Safana who will get my new Rake kit. Then to Firewine and Ulcaster, and maybe to the Black Pits as well. 

[StummvonBordwehr]

Hi Subtledoctor

I have been enjoying your progress so far - hope you can keep it up all the way to the throne…
But I do have a question: what is the MiH EQ? Sounds unbalanced in a way that I find strangely appealing.

 

br

[Graion Dilach]

[StummvonBordwehr]

Super. Thanks Graion

[subtledoctor]

I don't mean to rag on MiH too much... overall its heart is in the right place, trying to tune up areas of the game that could use tuning up. I just quibble with the details, and I can tend to become a dog with a rhetorical bone when waxing poetic about this stuff. (See my earlier comments about The Calling, which no doubt came across as unduly harsh.)

I've just gone through the Black Pits, and it went very well. That last fight is quite difficult at level 7-8, and my current setup is a bit more restricted as far as removing spell protections, compared to my last install. Basically surrounded Mr. Cat with summons to keep him on ice, and stretched out the fight against Mr. B so some of his protections expired. Once I got a single spell interruption, it was lights out for him.

BP-in-BG is almost ready for primetime, but not quite. There is one small bug I have to run down with how it handles party member "death." I have to say it's a weird experience in the middle of a BG game - all your spells and item abilities get restored after every fight, so there is no resting and very little resource management. I could go nova with my top-level spells immediately, in every fight.

There was also a showstopping bug, but it turns out it has nothing to do with BP-in-BG: something had overwritten the script name of BPNAJIM.cre from "bpnajim" to "cre_strref." That caused his dialogue to hang at the beginning of Black Pits. I believe I've narrowed it down to either SCS, or MiH-EQ "Revised Corporeal Undead." I wouldn't expect it to be MiH, but then again I don't know why that MiH component is touching a djinn at all, and I know MiH uses the SCS SSL code, so maybe there is a mistake there? Or maybe it's just a mistake in SCS itself? But I've used this version of SCS (33.4) before without this problem...

I also noticed a problem in this game, that some archer enemies are not shooting me, but instead closing to melee. This includes Hobgoblin Elites, Black Talon Elites, and Goblin Archers. I have no idea why, and the scripts are too long for me to analyze easily. And again, I've used this version of SCS before without seeing such behavior. So it's a bit of a mystery to me.

I've now gone to BG City to confront the Iron Throne, only to find them in shambles and blaming Sarevok. I'll interrupt his coronation, then he'll go to ground. With my name cleared, maybe I'll pick up Drake and Imoen, and let go of Xan and Safana. (Even with BG1NPCProject, Xan is just unbearable. BG2 showed with Haer'Dalis how you can make nihilism interesting and fun, and the HD Friendship mod only enhances it. Xan in BG1 just makes me miss HD, which is sad. But I'll finally get to adventure with Imoen! We'll do NTotSC, some BG City stuff, Durlag's, etc. Charname is currently an 8th-level cleric, with a solid 75,000 XP left before getting my fighter levels back. Don't know if that's going to happen by the time I reach Sarevok.   In retrospect I made a tactical error waiting so long to dual-class, I should have done it at 6th level. It made story sense to do it when I did... but it would have been better to simply not hit the level-up button after 6th, until the time was right to dual. As it is, I traded over 100,000 XP and several dozen hours playing with a less fun character, for a single extra proficiency point. Not great.

But, I'm not about to go and replay it, so, onward and upward.

[Graion Dilach]

4 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

I also noticed a problem in this game, that some archer enemies are not shooting me, but instead closing to melee. This includes Hobgoblin Elites, Black Talon Elites, and Goblin Archers. I have no idea why, and the scripts are too long for me to analyze easily. And again, I've used this version of SCS before without seeing such behavior. So it's a bit of a mystery to me.

I suspect this one comes from the IWDification randomized equipment component with the dummy placeholder ITMs aren't being detected as valid ranged weapons throwing the scripts off.

[Angel]

16 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

I don't mean to rag on MiH too much... overall its heart is in the right place, trying to tune up areas of the game that could use tuning up. I just quibble with the details, and I can tend to become a dog with a rhetorical bone when waxing poetic about this stuff. (See my earlier comments about The Calling, which no doubt came across as unduly harsh.)

No offense taken.  As I wrote in my introduction of the mods, I wrote these for my own enjoyment and I am keenly aware that what works well for me may not work so great for others.  This is especially true for E&Q I suppose.  That said, I may indeed have overdone ch6 Candlekeep a little. ^^

16 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

There was also a showstopping bug, but it turns out it has nothing to do with BP-in-BG: something had overwritten the script name of BPNAJIM.cre from "bpnajim" to "cre_strref." That caused his dialogue to hang at the beginning of Black Pits. I believe I've narrowed it down to either SCS, or MiH-EQ "Revised Corporeal Undead." I wouldn't expect it to be MiH, but then again I don't know why that MiH component is touching a djinn at all, and I know MiH uses the SCS SSL code, so maybe there is a mistake there? Or maybe it's just a mistake in SCS itself? But I've used this version of SCS (33.4) before without this problem...

I checked the creature definition and the code for Corporal Undead.  There is no match, Najim should not be touched by it unless some other mod did very strange things with his race and class.  I currently do not change genies at all in any component.  SCS on the other hand does though.

[subtledoctor]

11 hours ago, Graion Dilach said:

I suspect this one comes from the IWDification randomized equipment component with the dummy placeholder ITMs aren't being detected as valid ranged weapons throwing the scripts off.

Wow excellent call! And a shame, because I’ve been really enjoying that otherwise. Now I know what to look for, maybe I can devise a hotfix. Or maybe it just won’t be relevant in BG2? Seems like most of that change affects low-level play. 

Another bit of an issue: in the Serpents of Abbathor quest (from ACQuest, I believe?), after talking to Wostok, I find Draglon, but instead of a fight or something he just peaces out and I subsequently get ambushed by some dwarf assassins. And that’s it? I think? I couldn’t see what to do about that quest after that.

One reason why, perhaps: sometime between returning to Candlekeep and confronting Cythandria at the Iron Throne, all of my BG City areas seems to have reset. The sewers are all once again unexplored and there are the ogre mage and carrion crawlers I already dispatched (and my painstakingly created exit markers are gone); Ramazith again runs up and asks that I, um, save? a nymph from Ragefast; and when I meet Slythe and Kristin in the Undercellars, there is Draglon again. And he peaces out again, and I assume I’ll get targeted by dwarf assassins again. Could this be something to do with EndlessBG1, or Transitions? Resetting areas and creatures seems like something that must be done pretty intentionally, but maybe the intentional code is being triggered mistakenly? I didn’t do much in BG City before going off to Candlekeep/Firewine/Ulcaster/Black Pits, so it’s not a big deal… but it seems like something that could be a bit dangerous for a player who had already invested more time there.

EDIT - in fact I noticed this happen just now after fighting Cythandria and reading Sarevok’s diary: on the way down the Iron Throne building, the lower floors had fog of war and there were guards giving dialogue lines from the first time I went there.

Final glitch worth mentioning: every once in a while, my Bag of Holding gets emptied out. I have no idea of the cause and I don’t notice it happening. Just every once in a while (like, on e or twice in a playthrough), I go to rummage through it and it is empty. I have a bunch of important quest items and stuff in there, so I have to back save by save to find the last one that has a full bag. At the moment, it means I have to re-play the Iron Throne/Cythandria, Slythe and Kristin, and the coronation scene. Not the end of the world, but annoying. 

Heck, I wonder if the Bag of Holding being reset could be connected to the BG areas being reset? I’ll pay attention as I go through the Iron Throne Building again.

[jastey]

5 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Could this be something to do with EndlessBG1, or Transitions? Resetting areas and creatures seems like something that must be done pretty intentionally, but maybe the intentional code is being triggered mistakenly?

No. That's not what EndlessBG1 is doing, and I assume Transitions, neither.

I have frankly no idea how one would do that if most of these encounters already run, tbh. Are the area codes still the correct ones?

[Graion Dilach]

Honestly, I'd doublecheck those saves with NearInfinity, because this sounds like a save corruption to me (and attempt to recompress the saves with NI if it does see the areas or the Bag of Holding stores in the save). I'm not sure how the game could end up with such, though.

[subtledoctor]

I mean I noticed it in-game while playing continously…

EDIT - actually no, I quicksaved right around the corner from Cythandria, then loaded that save and did the fight. So that could very well be what happened. I’ll find out soon. (I only got sidetracked by Marek & Lothander and then saving Eltan, all stuff I skipped the first time around.)

[Graion Dilach]

On 12/20/2022 at 4:22 PM, subtledoctor said:

Wow excellent call! And a shame, because I’ve been really enjoying that otherwise. Now I know what to look for, maybe I can devise a hotfix. Or maybe it just won’t be relevant in BG2? Seems like most of that change affects low-level play.

Well, this was my quickfix. I install this immediately after the IWDification component and it seems to work.

BEGIN ~Attempt to fix IWDification random ranged weapons~
LABEL ZG-IWDIFICATION-RANDOM-RANGEDFIX
DESIGNATED 11
// clone the standard weapons into the dummy ITMs

	COPY_EXISTING ~xbow04.itm~ ~override/cdrdcbth.itm~

	COPY_EXISTING ~bow01.itm~ ~override/cdrdclbw.itm~
	
	COPY_EXISTING ~bow05.itm~ ~override/cdrdsbth.itm~

	COPY_EXISTING ~xbow01.itm~ ~override/cdrdcbhv.itm~
	
	COPY_EXISTING ~bow03.itm~ ~override/cdrdlbw.itm~
	
	COPY_EXISTING ~xbow04.itm~ ~override/cdrdcblt.itm~
	
	COPY_EXISTING ~bow05.itm~ ~override/cdrdsbow.itm~
	
	COPY_EXISTING ~bow03.itm~ ~override/cdrdcb5.itm~

[subtledoctor]

Thanks, I'll try that.

Okay, so, I seem to have finished what I needed to do! I snuck into Baldur's Gate, the Iron Throne is basically defunct, and I exposed Sarevok for a fraud and villain right when he was on the cusp of taking control of the city! Angelo teleported him away before I could land the killing blow, and he's gone to ground, no one knows where. I mean Belt was trying to talk to me after the fight but I was out of there, man! My name was cleared, and people on the streets even congratulate me now on having put a stop to Sarevok's menace! All is right with the world, and I've got a tidy little treasure hoard - time to retire. Kivan took off to follow Tazok's trail, and Xan went back to Evereska to report the goings-on to the Greycloaks, and Safana leaves to have some 'me time.' But, I guess there are still a couple things for me to do. I've been helping a dwarf named Wostok deal with a dangerous cult, and a guard at the Sea Tower says a monk has gone missing, and some people are looking for their kids, and a guy named Nadalin is having trouble on the coast up north, and I never got around to clearing that Firewine dungeon for Charleston Nib, and I have collected a few things to give to the Ormyrrs way down in the southwest.

Okay then, time to get the band back together. Since our names are cleared, I figure it's safe for Imoen to join me, so I pick her up in Beregost. She has learned a lot from Firebead - both in terms of magic, and in how to sneak around him. I see Emily there, and I finally tell her I'll accompany her to the city. Then I look for Drake, who I haven't seen since we rescued Yeslick from the Cloakwood. Drake said he would be at the FAI... but he's not there... uh-oh. Looks like I didn't do as good a job as I though converting that mod to EET. He's probably gone to some BG2 area... whoops. I was hoping to take him along in SoD, and I know in the normal non-EET game there is a break in your party composition upon starting SoD. So maybe, even though Drake is currently lost, he will appear in BG City once I start the SoD campaign? Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, it turns out I was better than I thought at converting the Tenya mod! Yay! This is very late to pick up Tenya - I've already seen the cut-scene at the Temple of Umberlee where she brawls with the other kids, it seems like the mod is designed to have her along before going to BG City for the first time. But whatever, she can join the party, and she's a great character. So I do the fishermen quest, and get the bowl, and then tell her I can't in good conscience have a kid going into the city by herself, and now I have a teenage cleric in the party. So the party composition is now:

• Charname: fighter 8->cleric of Bhaal 8
• Sirene: paladin of Ilmater (zealot) 8
• Emily: Archer fighter/mage 7/7 (*though the Archer kit is not entirely working in this application)
• Tenya: cleric of Umberlee 7
• Imoen: Jinxermage/thief bard 7/7
• Brandock: Transmuter mage 8

We have about 150,000 XP each, and I have about 50,000 XP to go before hitting cleric 9 and getting my fighter abilities back. It's a bit weird because this is basically the end of the game - all that's left is the final fight in the undercity - but I actually have a ton of content left to play! Ulgoth's Beard, Ice Island, Durlag's Tower, NTotSC, the Serpents of Abbathor, the extra Firewine dungeon, a bit more SotSC stuff...

This is a fun party! Everyone has interesting things to do (bar Sirene, who is your basic front-line warrior) and I have lots of options to handle situations. Only Tenya in this incarnation isn't great. The cleric of Umberlee with the Faiths & Powers new sphere system doesn't have the best spell access. It's basically all debuffs and direct damage - very little in the way of personal protection. Some enemies beeline toward her (the 12-year-old!) so I have to keep her pretty far in the back. Which is generally fine. But I think I need to fine-tune those spheres. As for Emily, I used the  Might & Guile component to change the Archer to a fighter kit, then I used the MnG 'Revised Archers' component, and those don't work well together. The Revised Archer assumes it will be a ranger and so gives you some feats that sit in the (unused and unavailable) wizard spellbook; but a fighter can dual to mage and have access to that spellbook. For whatever reason, Emily in this configuration is not even getting any feats, so the spellbook thing is kind of moot.. but she should get some called shots! Further, the Scales of Balance Combat Skills component seems to have a bug and gave her bonus points in Thrown Weapons Yeeting Things instead of in the Ranged Accuracy skill. But, OTOH... she is specialized in bows, and has a nice magical longbow,* and fighter thac0... she she makes a perfectly good archer! It reminds me how this game was originally designed: you want an Archer? Just roll up a fighter and have her use a bow - there, you have an Archer. The BG2 kits, special abilities, etc... these are all window dressing, and not actually needed for a fun game.

* Worth mentioning as well: I have found a ton of great bows in this game: the composite shortbow of Streaming Energy, the Longbow of Marksmanship, the Elven Longbow, Kivan's Bow, the Eagle Bow... maybe one or two more. By contrast I have found zero enchanted crossbows. I had to buy the Crossbow of Speed, and buy another one from Taerom after finding some components for it. All the enemies are using bows, and lots of enemies have lots of magical arrows for me to plunder and use. Almost no enemies use crossbows, and almost no enemies drop magical bolts. Precisely zero enemies use slings against me, and so zero enemies drop nice bullets. The only sling I've found is a Sling +1 ("Mastercraft Sling," in this install), and a knockoff Arla's Dragonbane which has the stats of... a Sling +1. Super boring. So for whatever reason, with this mod loadout, in the BG1 portion of the game, it's really not worth using any missile weapon other than bows. My Charname chose crossbows early on and I'm pretty annoyed with how that choice has worked out so far.

Anyhoo, we found out that Sarevok's disciples are still operating, and apparently feeling vengeful, because we get poisoned by Marek and Lothander. There is a slight dialogue bug with Jalantha Mistmyr when dealing with this, which is no doubt from my hacked-up Tenya mod. But it's minor and doesn't stop me. We purge the city of the Serpents of Abbathor, with fight off some Planar Hunters while looking for Emily's mother, and we expose a leftover doppelganger incursion and security threats at Balduran's Sea Tower. Then we head south to Nashkel to clear the iron mine of the remaining Abathor cult. (These guys hit hard and do a lot of damage... it's fine as an encounter, I guess, though a bit boring since I've already been through these areas. I save my spells for the final battle, and the dungeon is basically a tax on my stock of healing potions.)

Having cleared the Naskel mines again, I'll turn in the ormyrrs' quest and then head east to the Firewine, and then north to Ulgoth's Beard and the North Coast.

[subtledoctor]

Playing the game this way made me realize that BG1 suffers from a similar time pressure issue as BG2, though it is a bit less severe. Once you are tasked with going to Candlekeep by Duke Eltan, the sequence of events is pretty fast:

1. go to Candlekeep, confront Rieltar
2. escape Candlekeep, return to Baldur's Gate
3. you can't travel above ground without being attacked by guards, so fairly quickly go to the Iron Throne
4. go to the Undercellars to intercept Slythe & Kristin
5. go to the Ducal Palace and confront Sarevok
6. go to the thieves' guild maze and the old catacombs
7. final battle

After #1 you are a wanted criminal so the game really compresses what you can do; a lot of late-game quests involve time in Baldur's Gate and that becomes difficult. You can spend some time in the countryside during #2 - Sarevok's journal or helper conveniently says he will make his move "in a few weeks" or something like that. Still, it wouldn't do to miss your opportunity to stop him, right? So there's some time pressure even there. And from #5, you basically never see daylight again - in the old days it was interrupt the coronation, get teleported to the thieves' guild, go to the catacombs, defeat Sarevok, wake up in Irenicus' dungeon.

By contrast, now I have a lot of breathing room. My headcanon is that Sarevok is in hiding - still a threat, but not easy to find. It gives me time to do a lot of other quests, including ones in Baldur's Gate, and only later get a lead on Sarevok's whereabouts and then go hunt him down. Conveniently, this jives with the way SoD begins - getting leads on the location of Sarevok's allies, presumably still up to no good, and then rooting them out. It kind of makes me want to create a small mod to actually structure the game this way, instead of just imagining it. Something like:

• After interrupting the coronation, Belt tells you he has no idea where Sarevok and Angelo went, he can probably divine their location but it will take days or even weeks to attune the divinatory whatsit to work well.
• Maybe follow the example the The Calling and collect items to create a customized scrying device. Meantime, there are other quests to be done
• Maybe create a few more parties of assassins to attack Charname - Sarevok did after all say "you better find me or I'll find you"
• Finally get the ingredients to Belt for the divination,
• Something some thing about a traitor in the thieves' guild, who was covering up the only known entrance to Sarevok's hideaway? Chance for some thief-y intrigue.

Or, it could be done in a really barebones way, just alter Belt's dialogue a bit.

Anyway, I think I figured out why I was having that savegame corruption: I think it happens when I transfer override files to my iPad while the game is running. See, the procedure for moving modded files to an iPad is:

1. have the game running
2. save the game
3. send the files over and open them with the BG app
4. close the app completely
5. restart the app, load the savegame

I was getting a bit lazy - I was sending files over while playing, and figured I would close the app and restart it whenever it was convenient. But I think the process of accepting the modded override files immediately corrupts the next savegame you make (e.g. an autosave you might not even notice, or a quicksave before a battle). So lesson learned, when moving updated files to iOS, immediately go through the process of restarting the app to incorporate the new files into the game.