66 BC CTD?

[AqD]

Hi all!

Can anyone tell me what the 66 BC CTD is exactly? I failed to reproduce it myself (I set start_date to -67 => nothing happened)

Does it happen in the fixed -66 year, or the relative +214 year from the first year(+ -280 = -66), or relative to the end year?? Does it happen for non-roman factions too??
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[Clearchus of Sparta]

This was posted by Limes

To be frank, it was fault of modders. I spent a lot of time trying to understand mechanism of this bug. And finally ...
Modders like me deleted most of Roman factions or used their code to create Epirus for instance. It's real reason of the bug. In 66 game engine starts civil war, but it can't find all Roman factions. CTD . Creativity of modders has no limits . Cheers.

Posted by Cherryfunk

Here's an explanation from dvk on how he changed the date:

There is, somewhere...I can't remember...a place to change the 'AD'....in two files...to 'a.u.c.' Oddly enough, one of the reasons I made this change was to FIX the RTR issue, and to ensure that RS2 does not have this problem.

the two files are:

menu_english.txt
shared.txt

In both cases I change 'AD' to 'Ad Urbe Condita', then altered the campaigm year dates in descr_strat.txt to match the corresponding Roman years.

'Ad Urbe Condita', was by the way, used by the Roman Empire from the founding of Rome until around 500AD.

You can find the thread here
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ighlight=66+bc

[AqD]

But if it's set to happen in the fixed 66 BC, why didn't I get it??
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[Clearchus of Sparta]

I dont know what you've modded, but if the roman factions havent been deleted, perhaps thats why.

[florin80]

Does it happen in the fixed -66 year, or the relative +214 year from the first year(+ -280 = -66), or relative to the end year??

It starts to happen around the year 66 BC and I was told that in RTR 6 Gold where you could use RomeSage to skip a year it would appear a few more turns after that, the same sollution aplying. It could be a turn or two before or after. I don`t think it is really fixed judging from the replies, but at least most of the cases occured in or around 66 so it got its current name. It has to be date specific and not turn specific and since it happened in other mods with different starting dates afaik, I don`t think it depends on how may years/turns pass from the start of the game. I suggest you set the starting date a bit earlier though. Like 70 BC or 80 BC. Maybe it depends on other things too. Like the fate of the roman factions(just guessing).

Does it happen for non-roman factions too??

Apparently not. If you run a test campaign with all factions controlled by the ai you`ll probably pass over that date. MC did it onces. And a few people playing macedon iirc and some other non roman faction also got past 50 BC with no issues.

[Candelarius]

This was posted by Limes

To be frank, it was fault of modders. I spent a lot of time trying to understand mechanism of this bug. And finally ...
Modders like me deleted most of Roman factions or used their code to create Epirus for instance. It's real reason of the bug. In 66 game engine starts civil war, but it can't find all Roman factions. CTD . Creativity of modders has no limits . Cheers.

The worst part of this sad story of the RTW modding is that no modding team will consider adding the Roman factions back. I've suggested this to just about every team of every mod I've been interested in or played, and they practically shout me out of the room. Which is weird to me, I actually liked the Roman factions in vanilla. Who cares if they weren't "historically accurate", they were just a game abstraction so simulate the Roman civil wars and to make the end-game more interesting. I guess the modding community would rather have a universal CTD issue at the end of the game...if I had more time and were still interested, I would mod RTR to include the three Roman factions back in again.

[beatoangelico]

The worst part of this sad story of the RTW modding is that no modding team will consider adding the Roman factions back. I've suggested this to just about every team of every mod I've been interested in or played, and they practically shout me out of the room. Which is weird to me, I actually liked the Roman factions in vanilla. Who cares if they weren't "historically accurate", they were just a game abstraction so simulate the Roman civil wars and to make the end-game more interesting. I guess the modding community would rather have a universal CTD issue at the end of the game...if I had more time and were still interested, I would mod RTR to include the three Roman factions back in again.

maybe because there are much more reasons to put these faction slots to a better use than to keep the vanilla system.

[Candelarius]

Like another Greek faction? Or how about Baktria? Oh boy, Baktria! Oh yeah, I'd rather have those than a hardcoded CTD every time I play as the Romans.... /sarcasm

Seriously, though, it's exactly that attitude that Limes was talking about (in the quoted text) that permeates the modding community and leads them to accept mods that are prone to crashes just to gain some marginally different faction roster. As an ex-RTR modder and a current M2TW modder, I recognize this in my old self, but have recently adopted a stance more in favor of stability and less in favor of "the mod of the month" with lists of "known issues".

Everyone's entitled to their own opinions, of course.

[florin80]

I`m sorry, but what is this all about?

Which is weird to me, I actually liked the Roman factions in vanilla.

Aren`t you the proud creator of the vanilla unified rome? More than 1500 downloads iirc.
Plus, what do you mean if you were still interested? If you`re not than why do you care? Ideally, staying close to vanilla is the safest thing; not that vanilla was totally stable of course. But besides changing the culture and the superfaction of the 2 roman factions(it has to be one of these) there are alot of other things that we all want and which are not in vanilla so they could be potentially problematic in one way or another. So we`re past that imo.
Besides, are you one of the probably 2 douzens people who have played RTR(or other rtw mod) until 66 BC(428 turns without the 4tpy) or plan to do it in the future?

EDIT: for the large majority of us is more an ipotetic problem I think. What if I play 428 turns in a campaing, want to play 20 more and the game crashes?

[Candelarius]

I`m sorry, but what is this all about?

Aren`t you the proud creator of the vanilla unified rome? More than 1500 downloads iirc.
Plus, what do you mean if you were still interested? If you`re not than why do you care? Ideally, staying close to vanilla is the safest thing; not that vanilla was totally stable of course. But besides changing the culture and the superfaction of the 2 roman factions(it has to be one of these) there are alot of other things that we all want and which are not in vanilla so they could be potentially problematic in one way or another. So we`re past that imo.
Besides, are you one of the probably 2 douzens people who have played RTR(or other rtw mod) until 66 BC(428 turns without the 4tpy) or plan to do it in the future?

EDIT: for the large majority of us is more an ipotetic problem I think. What if I play 428 turns in a campaing, want to play 20 more and the game crashes?

Calling me out, eh, Florin?

I should qualify my statement. It should have read "I actually liked the vanilla system back when I was playing vanilla"!

Seriously, though, I have had a recent change of tune when it comes to vanilla RTW. Yes, I created the original Unified Rome Mod, and yes, I have been a vehement RTR fan for years. But, this past year, after playing vanilla M2TW with never a single crash in a year of playing, I've come to respect vanilla more and more. I guess I sorta got used to the concept of occasional CTDs in mods. But, now that I'm older, am now able to make my own mods, and having enjoyed M2TW to such an extent, my expectations have changed. I now look at vanilla RTW as just having really ugly skins...but aside from that, it was, and still is, a great game.

Indeed, I even installed the Darth Mod and played for awhile as the Brutii. It was damn fun. Admittedly, I didn't play too long, so I didn't get a chance to finish the campaign (I got distracted with my own modding interests again), but, while it was going, it was cool by me.

So, retrospect is a valuable thing. In hindsight, I think I would like to have gone back to the beginning and made my own mod for RTW. I would have called it "Vanilla Total Reskin Mod", or something like that, and have only reskinned all the factions in the game (probably with Warspite's materials). But, the amount of work, and lack of interest, would now just be prohibative.

Will I play a RTW mod to the end of the campaign? Possibly. Possibly not. To be honest, after playing RTR religously for...what, two YEARS?...I don't think I ever actually played to the end, and only got to the reforms once or twice. BUT, I did play two full Julii campaigns (or maybe it was one Julii and one Scipii) in vanilla through to the end....see the point? The vanilla end-game system actually gave you a reason to want to finish the campaign. Oh well, I'm digressing...

Anyway, not sure why you saw the need to "put me in my place", Florin, but, I've always liked vanilla RTW, and, the more I think about it, the more I think I would like to try out a roman-faction mod for RTRPE. Indeed, it's a same Snake's old mod is no longer available...

[florin80]

Well, personally I think other factions are more important than the romans(brutii and scipii) and I would probably still have tried to keep the romans in my game if CA wouldn`t have placed a hardcoded limit on the number of factions. To be fair the gameplay in vanilla and in RTR is completely different. Playing with the romans there meant a competition with the other romans with the point of being more prepared then they when the time comes. And you got a specific feel of factionalism sort of speak which no mod who replace them gives. But besides the bad skins, RTW, you`ll have to agree is too much of a game in the sense warcraft and other games are. It is only marginally historical. As much as I have enjoyed the history inspired gameplay I`m not going back to egyptians, mini skirt virgin archers, recruiting iberian infantry with Carthage in Asia and fighting hordes of war dogs with Carthage against the romans in the Italic Peninsula(you can`t attack them after you`ve killed the handlers you know... they just spread around and are a pest). Looking back I think CA was not prepared for the wargaming madness their game launched(Osprey should thank them) and didn`t go too much out of the general gaming rules especially when it came to factions. And it seems a lesson they have learned now(looking at m2 and etw) with the limits of them being a business of course.
About CTDs in vanilla... I got so many of them(in the later stages of the game and not with the versions prior to 1.5) that I was afraid to invest so much time only to be halted at that point.
As for your question. It`s not "putting you in your place". It was a friendly remark that you can`t make such a big deal of this considering our past. You`re part of this as much as Lestat or the rest. You can`t be on the critics stand.

[Candelarius]

Florin, you silly, I was only kidding about "putting me in my place"!

But, you're probably correct about vanilla. Maybe I'm just getting nostalgic in my old age!

RTRPE is still, without a doubt, when all is said and done, the best mod, indeed, the best RTW experience. RTRPE is probably one of the few mods, few games, I have played for this long. I still have it installed on my PC (after removing it for a few months to make room for M2TW...) and still play it.

[Clearchus of Sparta]

Just out of Interest Candelarius, is there anything you think "could" be improved in PE if it were being re-done?

[florin80]

-the map(lots of glitches with the borders as MC only included part of my fixes and geographically and historically wrong places; in Asia Minor, India etc.)
-some odd factions like the thracians that should have been getai or something more historical for this timeframe, the greek citites that should have been a league of some sort, the iberians that should either be celtiberians or iberians(currently they`re a bit of both plus the lusitanians) etc.
-pyrrhus should have its own epirote faction imo or be rebel in the worse case scenario.
-better names for the characters(currently you have Attila, Ion, Oltenia and Banat for the thracians to give an example; they are inherited from the vanilla dacians and comically wrong)
-maybe better faction symbols for some factions(especially the changed ones if so)
-more units to certain aor zones together with better units for the changed factions.
-maybe a few other things, but these would imo improve the game and are all things that the rtrpe players have been asking for years. They are basically the sort of changes promised by RTR 7 since 2006. RTRPE was meant to be just a port so it was never done in this form. But they were frequently enough asked so that I felt the need to put #4 in the FAQ to not have to repeat the answer.

[Candelarius]

I would agree with Florin on all his points. I would also probably add some of the features from Roma Surrectum, like the distance to capital mechanic. Aside from that, I really couldn't think of much else to do with RTRPE.

Like Florin said, much of this is supposedly going to go into RTR7, but, as the months and years tick by, I wonder if we'll ever really see an RTR7...I know the devs are promising and hopeful, but, time is against them, the longer they work on mini-campaigns the more people's interest in this game will diminish, and the closer to Rome Total War II we'll get...anyway, I digress.

[florin80]

I should have separately added the sort of detailed italic aor and italic republican units(for romans) that you`ve done in your mod. It was a great idea and something that should have been implemented in RTR 7. It was indeed considered and demanded at some point, but as you say, we play what is here now...

[Candelarius]

Maybe I should update my old Extended Mod? I guess it's not necessary, though, since Quinn already has a good thing going on with his update of my old mod. I thought they were using my Italic AOR units for RTR7? They emailed me once and asked my permission....

[mcantu]

EB doesnt seem to have the 66 BC crash. Anyone know why this might be?

[florin80]

Have you played with one of the roman factions(in eb they are the seleucids, pontus and something else iirc) until 66 BC?

[mcantu]

The factions using the Roman faction slots in EB are Arche Seleukeia, Baktria and Hayasdan. I've never played any of those but I've never seen the 66 BC crash ever mentioned on the EB forums or through beta testing...I'll ask over there if anyones seen it

although, now that i think about it, the "roman_senate" faction slot was renamed "saba." Maybe this had something to do with it...?