How to update settings.py after deploy? --force throws error

edit

I'm trying to figure out the best way to put custom settings in an outside file and using --append-settings option for the askbot-setup script. However since I have already created/setup the app before, when I use the --force option I get an error:

Please select database engine:
1 - for postgresql, 2 - for sqlite, 3 - for mysql, 4 - oracle (type 1/2/3/4)
> 2
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/mmatyas/.virtualenvs/askbot/bin/askbot-setup", line 8, in <module>
    load_entry_point('askbot==0.7.48', 'console_scripts', 'askbot-setup')()
  File "/Users/mmatyas/projects/askbot-devel2/askbot/deployment/__init__.py", line 126, in askbot_setup
    deploy_askbot(options_dict)
  File "/Users/mmatyas/projects/askbot-devel2/askbot/deployment/__init__.py", line 155, in deploy_askbot
    create_new_project = bool(options.force)
AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'force'

Am I doing something wrong? Is this the best way to do this? We don't want to manually add the settings every time to the generated settings file.