I haven't played S3 in a very long time and I want to play it again on my new laptop that has W10/11. The problem is is that my laptop doesn't have a disc drive, and supposedly I heard that I won't be able to use some mods if I were to do a digital installation of the game via Origin/EA app. So I'm planning to buy this to reinstall my games with.

However, I'm wondering if I can even reuse my CD keys since I know my games are still on the old computer, and that some of the expansion packs had to be installed digitally via Origin at the time because my old computer's disc drive wouldn't read them for some reason. Am I screwed in this area, or would I have to do a complete uninstall to move them all to the laptop?

Are there also some other things I should do or keep in mind when I install the game again on a new computer?

That looks very similar to the external drive that I bought to install TS3 on my gaming laptop. So, that part of it works. After that, not sure. I'm all disk. My issue is that I've been too lazy to check threads regarding win11 issues, to load on a new win11 laptop.

I have an all-disc installation patch 1.67 both on a desktop PC and on a laptop, that's no problem. On laptop, I also used an external disc drive to install. It might have taken a tad longer but it worked just fine.

But I don't use origin at all, it's not installed nor required.

An all disc install is Patch 1.67. If all of your discs are readable, this is fine. Be sure to turn down any offers to install the EA Download Manager (EADM, Origin's predecessor) or Origin itself along the way and Super Patch to 1.67 when finished. There's no issues with using an external optical drive or any need to uninstall an existing game first.

Once you install one pack digitally, one or all, you are using the EA App (Origin's successor) and are on Patch 1.69. There's no way around this.

Core Mods are sensitive to internal build numbers and may display a dire sounding but harmless core version mismatch on startup if the wrong variant is used. There aren't many Core Mods out there for TS3, only 7 or so are in popular usage. Other mods do not care about the two different patch levels as the game files other than their internal build numbers are identical. There are some game utilities, not really mods, that are not going to work on one patch level vs. the other because exactly where the utility expects to find the game program files is not where they really are.

So I can reuse the same CD keys that were used on my old computer for the new one then? It won't tell me my keys are already used up or be rejected once I start trying to install the games? I was worried I might have to buy them all again like people told me with Spore.


Really? My old computer had to have half of the expansion packs installed digitally because it wouldn't read the discs for some reason, and it's still on Patch 1.67. I think it only prompted me once to update to 1.69 and never prompted me again. It's still using Origin too since that never updated to the EA App (though I never needed to use it whenever I played)

The keys are supposed to be tied to the player and their account with EA. Not to a particular computer. I mean, you should be able to install the game on as many devices as you own or will own, although you should only be able to play it on one at a time.

The keys are not supposed to be transferable across different EA accounts or thus to different actual people. So I can't give or sell you my used keys (for example) and expect them to work for you. That tends to hurt a lot of people's feelings when they attempt to purchase and then register "used" games.

For all the horrible things we can say about EA, they do have a mostly effective customer support mechanism that can help a player who is actually the original owner of game keys gain access to use them should something go wrong with their account along the way, once you are fortunate enough to get someone there who knows what they are talking about.



When Patch 1.69 first came out, it was optional. EA closed the loophole that at first allowed but then did NOT allow players to stay on 1.67 for new digital (not disc or Steam) pack installs somewhere around 2017 or 2018. I think. Might be a year or two off there one way or another. Existing pack installs on a computer that never "phoned home" by way of Origin anyway shouldn't have been bothered by any of this. Sounds like your system got kind of frozen in time there for a few years, not that such was necessarily a bad thing.

Hmm, I'm not sure if I ever used my account while setting up or playing S3. I never really logged in much and just played offline. I know my EA account is still active since I'm able to log in and all.


Ah ok, I see. So I should be good on Windows 10/11 just installing discs one at a time then and in order.