There seems to be a solution for these late crashes in the roman campaign, but unfortunately the changes involved require starting a new campaign to take effect. Still, if you are willing to do this I will write a short guide on how to implement it. It is a solution that Rome Surrectum has applied and tested successfully according to them. So it looks promising.
Basically it involves changing the year dates and calendar system so that instead of the BC/AD years you get a calendar based on how many years have passed since the founding of Rome. You`ll start in the summer of 473 and the game will end in the summer of 753. With no minus in front of the date the game will think it is in AD, the year will progress as such(473->474->475 and so on) and the year 66 BC or the ones in that region will not happen anymore.
Personally I think it is a small price to pay and since the problem seems to be related to the roman campaign I think it`s proper enough to have Ab Urbe Condita instead of BC. Here`s what you need to do:
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1. open the file descr_strat from the location Rome - Total War/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign
Note: - for the mod switch version of RTRPE the path contains a RTRPE folder after data afaik.
- the latest version of RTRPE also has a path like this:
Rome - Total War\Data\world\maps\campaign\barbarian_invasion
for playing the game with the exe of BI. If you do that you might need to change the descr_strat file from this place too.
2. change the year dates that are at the begining of the file (right under the factions list) from:
Code:
start_date -280 summer
end_date 1 summer
to:
Code:
start_date 473 summer
end_date 753 summer
3. open the text file menu_english from this location: Rome - Total War/data/text
and change this line:
into this:
4. open the text file shared from this location: Rome - Total War/data/text
and change this line:
into this:
Note: The last two files are not really needed for the solution to work. The changes there are just cosmetic. What they do is that they`ll replace in game the AD next to the year with AUC(Ab Urbe Condita - from the founding of the City/Rome). And since BC no longer exist you`ll only see AUC on the campaign loading screen or in the various menu screens.
5. delete the map.rwm files again so they can be regenerated the next time to start the game, based on the new info.
Also, remember to back up the files you will be editing before messing with them. This way you`ll be able to revert any changes without having to reinstall.
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Two more things:
1. can you please confirm that you are indeed playing a roman campaign?
2. thanks for your reports! We wouldn`t have known the issue is still there if not for you. Pity it took so long to figure out a working(I hope so) solution. And good luck with this!