Strange watchtower placement CTD

**Zantorian** · February 13, 2017, 02:26 PM

I'm having a problem with placing watchtowers, I can place them with say England, and they are visible and everything is fine, but when I place in another faction's territory and scroll over or near that watchtower on the strat map I get CTD with no log report. Can this be culture .cas related? I am using same watchtower model for all cultures present in game.. I've tried changing map ground_types to basic wilderness etc, and they are placed on basic map_height as well, still get the crash. Can't seem to find any thread or response to this specific problem. May be a simple problem, hopefully someone can help. Thanks.

**Gigantus** · February 13, 2017, 10:01 PM

Are you pre-placing them in descr_strat? If so make sure the co-ordinate is actually in the region the watch tower is supposed to be in. Code example from my 'Stone Forts' tutorial:

Code:

region Region_Name
farming_level 4
famine_threat 1
;fort    68 103 me_fort_a culture middle_eastern
;fort    68 103 me_fort_a culture middle_eastern
;fort    68 103 stone_fort_a culture northern_european
;fort    68 103 stone_fort_b culture northern_european
;fort    68 103 stone_fort_c culture northern_european
;fort    68 103 stone_fort_d culture northern_european
:fort    68 103 knightly_order_fort_b culture northern_european
 
watchtower     66 27

The watchtower model is defined in decr_cultures (example southern_european culture), make sure that custom models are properly entered and in their correct folders. I believe the last part of the entry has to do with the 'foundation' texture.

Code:

watchtower            data/models_strat/residences/SE_watchtower.CAS,                    watchtower_roman

**Zantorian** · February 14, 2017, 01:09 PM

I've made extra sure they are properly placed in decr_strat, I use show_cursorstat per placement, the map loads but it's when I go near the watchtower I get CTD. I will check that foundation texture, weird though as each culture uses the same .CAS and "watchtower_roman", I place them for England no problem, but another faction doesn't work.. Edit: I've uploaded images to give a better example. Notice the small island with the watchtower

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

, I'm playing as Scotland.. Then I scroll the map away, but on re-approach... CTD

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

I've tried different locations, still CTD.

**Gigantus** · February 14, 2017, 09:13 PM

This should be a problem a with the CAS model - more precise the entry in descr_cultures. Unless the crashing towers belong to the same culture as england...
Have you tried copying the working entry for england in descr_cultures (northern_european?) to the other cultures? The screenshots show different factions, hence my hope this might be the reason.

**Zantorian** · February 14, 2017, 09:38 PM

Ahh yes, I feared the descr_cultures file.. I will tinker with it tomorrow, but it's true the factions in which I placed the towers are not "english" or in my game southern_european.. They are northern_euro, each entry is spot on the same (copy pasted in place).. I fear it may be some culture entries I removed ex; the village settlement of eastern_european, or mesoamerican if that culture was not using it, or not even present, as to free up "space" for custom models as to not lose any shadows.. I will play around with my watchtower model/put back in the original for testing,, and put back in all entries even under cultures that are not even in the game.. see if i still get the crash..

**Gigantus** · February 14, 2017, 10:28 PM

I came across this issue in a mod where a scroll crash was very persistent. Turned out it was caused by a settlement level entry for a custom CAS file: a simple spelling mistake of the file name. Needless to say that it took hours to pinpoint that mistake...

**Zantorian** · February 15, 2017, 03:24 AM

It seems to have been the watchtower model itself and not an entry in descr_cultures in my particular case.. On re-conversion of the model i had about 20 groups that were using the same texture and 20 of the same texture in materials section.. I regrouped all groups using same textures, and kept only two material "groups".. Welded the model, Re-converted and re-named the file as to not confuse with vanilla.. Problem seems to have been solved, has not crashed yet, with a few different factions used.. Thank you once again for the help, it saves me lots of time and hair from scratching it off!