CTD: [bink] [debug] [data/fmv/faction/england_win.bik]Pause on

[Razor]

Try experimenting with descr_campaign_db - it might be connected to the autoresolve values, especially the naval ones. Here are the relevant values from EBII:

     <min_capture_percent float = "5.0"/>
     <max_capture_percent float = "35.0"/>
     <lopsided_thresh float = "1.5"/>
     <lopsided_hn_mod float = "2.0"/>
     <separation_missile_add uint = "1"/>
     <naval_sink_modifier float = "5.0"/>
     <naval_sink_offset float = "2.5"/>
     <naval_sink_max float = "80.0"/>

Another long shot would be the stat_stl entry (Number of soldiers needed for unit to count as alive) in the EDU. Setting it to 1 (one) might help.

Question is: why would this be a problem in the first place? I'm using non-altered values from vanilla M2TW and it works just fine there. Why shouldn't it work with my mod?

Is that navy one of your pirate spawns?

Does it also crash when French land units attack rebel land units? If it does then it's a France vs Rebels problem, or maybe anybody vs rebels, not a ships problem.

Yes it's a rebel pirate spawn. It doesn't seem to crash when France is attacking rebel land units or any other faction in that regard.

I don't know what to make of it right now. If I add ships to the mix, it crashes in the first 10-20 turns (well after the AI has started recruiting its own ships). If I don't add any ships it MAY crash somewhere around 50-100 and I can continue after reloading the autosave just fine.

[makanyane]

RTW had a thing where if the experience level for a ship changed (say between port and shipwright) in EDB - it'd crash if the port upgrade was built when that type of ship was in the build queue. Don't know if M2 has same issue but might be worth checking (e.g make sure the experience level stays the same in all the recruit lines).

[Razor]

That's an interesting piece of information. I'll go check it out if M2TW still has the same issue. However regarding my mod I haven't touched the experience levels for naval units or any other unit in the EDB so that's can't be the problem either.

[Razor]

Ok, so I've added a vanilla naval unit to my mod and there are still crashes, but not as much and not as consistent as it used to be. I can play through turn 80 with 2 crashes that I can bypass by simply reloading the autosave. The second crash proved to be a bit more tricky to bypass, but after reloading the autosave for the third time I could continue playing. If it stays this way it's something I can live with, but so far I'm not able to find a definite cause.

[Razor]

Just pointing out that this issue has not been fixed. During testing I was able to play to turn 124 with 3-5 CTDs that I was able to bypass by reloading an autosave.

Also this topic deals with the same issue: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ow-to-solve-it

[Gigantus]

Just read the other thread: the unit issue might be a valid approach. Ships have a soldier model assigned to them in the EDU, usually peasant. If that model does not exist or lacks a faction entry then it may cause a problem when entering a battle.

[Razor]

Are you sure? If I take a look at the naval units in vanilla M2TW EDU all factions have the unit Peasants in the line soldier for them, but not all factions actually do have the unit Peasants in the line ownership. Likewise not all factions have an entry in the vanilla battle_models.db for the unit Peasants. Don't ask me why, but it seems that M2TW doesn't quite see it as a problem.

[Gigantus]

I have not tested it myself, it appeared logical - but then the whole ship issue is a bit of a mess anyhow, might as well that line is completely ignored and was supposed to work eventually similar to the R2 ship crew.

Seems the only line actually 'being valid' is the high seas capabilities (or not) in the types listed in descr_ships.

[Razor]

Just read the other thread: the unit issue might be a valid approach. Ships have a soldier model assigned to them in the EDU, usually peasant. If that model does not exist or lacks a faction entry then it may cause a problem when entering a battle.

Also, all factions have ownership of every new unit that I'm using in my mod (and appropriate entries in battle_model.db) so that can't be the issue either.

I did spot an issue with existing factions being shadowed by another existing faction. If the existing faction that's being shadowed by another existing faction gets killed off (loses it's last settlement) the game crashes. I spotted this issue yesterday and fixed it. A work-around is killing off the shadowing faction first and then you can kill of the faction that's being shadowed without a crash. Not sure if the issue also occurs with factions that are shadowed by factions that have yet to spawn on the map. (i.e. they spawn when a settlement of the shadowed faction rebels). I've got to test that at some point. Maybe that's what was causing the crash? Not sure.

I have not tested it myself, it appeared logical - but then the whole ship issue is a bit of a mess anyhow, might as well that line is completely ignored and was supposed to work eventually similar to the R2 ship crew.

Seems the only line actually 'being valid' is the high seas capabilities (or not) in the types listed in descr_ships.

Only testing will tell. For now, I'll just use what works in vanilla. It's not that naval battles are a huge deal in M2TW anyway.

[Razor]

Ok, I may have fixed the issue I was having. After 3 tests I can now easily get to 200 turns without a crash happening. I found that out by coincidence during a testing for something else and the game constantly crashed when I took the last settlement of one specific faction. I then tried to eliminate the faction using the surrender_regions command. Still a crash. Then I tried the command on all factions on the map and everything worked fine and all factions turned rebel, which got me thinking. For some reason I went to look the descr_sm_factions.txt and found that the faction causing the crash was being shadowed by another faction that was present on the map. I tested the same for other factions on the map that were being shadowed by another faction and I got a hit: all caused a crash. Then I tried eliminating the shadowing factions first and then the shadowed factions and everything went smooth.

So in short: the culprit in my case seems to have been related to the use of shadow factions as defined in descr_sm_factions.txt. The shadow factions spawn correctly when they rebel from their parent faction, but whenever the parent faction get annihilated by another faction while the shadow faction is still alive the game crashes.

[Withwnar]

Maybe a bug in the engine then. An interesting test would be vanilla Brittania mod: destroy England while Baron's Alliance is on the map. CTD: looks like an engine bug. No CTD: see if there's a difference between how those shadow factions were set up compared to how yours were.

[Razor]

Ok, I've done some testing. When the Baron's Alliance spawns in the Britannia campaign I can still kill off England without any problems. In my mod when a shadowing faction spawns I can likewise kill the parent faction without trouble. The problem starts when I'm some 100+ turns into my campaign. If a shadowing faction spawns from its parent faction by rebellion I can't kill off the parent faction without causing a CTD. I don't know what's causing this, but for now I'm steering away from using shadow factions as a whole. It shouldn't be a big deal as I should still be able to spawn these previously shadowing factions by using events.

[Withwnar]

If a shadowing faction spawns from its parent faction by rebellion...

Script makes Baron's Alliance reappear multiple times but I don't know if they can also auto-reappear via rebellion. If they can then that situation would be the one to test to see if it CTDs. Such a test might be difficult to manufacture though.

Is yours configured the same way as Barons...

descr_strat

faction	barons_alliance, balanced smith
ai_label	barons_alliance 
dead_until_emerged
re_emergent

descr_sm_factions

faction						england, shadowed_by barons_alliance

...

faction						barons_alliance, shadowing england

It looks like your problem is being discussed across two threads: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post15748540

[Razor]

Script makes Baron's Alliance reappear multiple times but I don't know if they can also auto-reappear via rebellion. If they can then that situation would be the one to test to see if it CTDs. Such a test might be difficult to manufacture though.

Is yours configured the same way as Barons...

descr_strat

faction	barons_alliance, balanced smith
ai_label	barons_alliance 
dead_until_emerged
re_emergent

descr_sm_factions

faction						england, shadowed_by barons_alliance

...

faction						barons_alliance, shadowing england

In my mod the shadowing factions don't appear by script, but it's using the same mechanics as in RTW Barbarian Invasion instead. descr_sm_factions is the same. In descr_strat I haven't set the shadowing factions to dead_until_emerged (doesn't work without a script) but to dead_until_resurrected, which causes them to spawn when a settlement of the parent faction rebels.

I could try it with the Baron's Alliance script instead, but that takes some effort to set up...

It looks like your problem is being discussed across two threads: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post15748540

Yes, we are aware of each other's threads.

[Withwnar]

dead_until_resurrected, which causes them to spawn when a settlement of the parent faction rebels

Ah, so perhaps Baron's doesn't auto-reappear (only scripted reappear). If they don't then no point in testing Baron's further.

What about re_emergent?

[_Tartaros_]

i´ve got a similar ctd and most likely found the reason:

if a faction has slave entries for characters and captains in bmdb, but no units avaiable for the slave faction - this will lead into a transgretion log + a dead_captain unitcard ctd.

If a Character or FM rebels, he most likely has this bodyguardunit and is able to transfer to the slavefaction, if the bodyguardunit has a slave entry in edu + bmdb - but if there are no other units available for the slave faction - this means if a captain lead army rebels, the captain is able to transfer to the slavefaction, but not it´s units - leading in a ctd. the logfile reports a TC_transgretion - because the rebelled captain is in enemy territory, but his army get lost in translation, reporting into the dead_captain ui ctd.

in order to fix this, i added basic units to the slave faction in edu, bmdb and edb.
this way rebellious captains can transfer with it´s units to the slave faction.

[Gigantus]

In other words the models of bodyguard units and the battle model entries for characters (named character and general in descr_characters) should always have slave entries in the modeldb file?

Example descr_characters:

type			named character


actions			moving_normal, moving_quickmarch, garrison, assault, attack, besiege, entrench, ambush, diplomacy, bribe, exchange, building_fort, building_watchtower
wage_base		200
starting_action_points	80


faction			venice
dictionary		15
strat_model		southern_general
battle_model	Northern_General
battle_equip	gladius, chainmail shirt helmet and rectangular shield

[_Tartaros_]

for example: if a unit in edu looks like this:

type             Croatian Axemendictionary       Croatian_Axemen
category         infantry
class            heavy
voice_type       Heavy
accent           East_European
banner faction   main_infantry
banner holy      crusade
soldier          croat_axemen, 48, 0, 1.2
officer          croat_BcarrierI
officer          croat_officer
mount_effect     horse +1, camel +1
attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest, can_withdraw, hardy, free_upkeep_unit
move_speed_mod   1.12
formation        1.2, 0, 2.4, 2.4, 4, square
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         6, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, slashing, axe, 19, 1
stat_pri_attr    ap
stat_sec         0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 0, 1
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  6, 4, 5, leather
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        4
stat_ground      2, -3, 3, 0
stat_mental      8, normal, trained
stat_charge_dist 20
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 470, 230, 100, 75, 470, 4, 130
armour_ug_levels 0, 2, 3
armour_ug_models croat_axemen, croat_axemen_upg1, croat_axemen_upg2
ownership        croatia
era 0            croatia
era 1            croatia
recruit_priority_offset   20

and has no slaveownership
but
the bmdb has the slave ownership for the croatian captains and officers - like this:

13 croat_captain 1 1 
63 unit_models/Generals_and_Captains/croatia/cro_captain_lod0.mesh 6400 
2 
7 croatia 
71 unit_models/Generals_and_Captains/croatia/textures/cro_gen&capt.texture 
78 unit_models/Generals_and_Captains/croatia/textures/cro_gen&capt_normal.texture 0 
5 slave 
71 unit_models/Generals_and_Captains/croatia/textures/cro_gen&capt.texture 
78 unit_models/Generals_and_Captains/croatia/textures/cro_gen&capt_normal.texture 0 
2 
7 croatia 
71 unit_models/Generals_and_Captains/croatia/textures/cro_gen&capt.texture 
78 unit_models/Generals_and_Captains/croatia/textures/cro_gen&capt_normal.texture 0 
5 slave 
71 unit_models/Generals_and_Captains/croatia/textures/cro_gen&capt.texture 
78 unit_models/Generals_and_Captains/croatia/textures/cro_gen&capt_normal.texture 0 
4 
4 None 
14 MTW2_Fast_Mace 0 
1 
17 MTW2_Mace_Primary 
0 
5 horse 
12 MTW2_HR_Mace 0 
1 
17 MTW2_Mace_Primary 
0 
8 elephant 
18 MTW2_Elephant_Crew 0 
1 
17 MTW2_Mace_Primary 
0 
5 camel 
12 MTW2_HR_Mace 0 
1 
17 MTW2_Mace_Primary 
0 
-1 0 0 0 0 0 0

then, in case of a croatian captain army, that turns rebel. the captain and officers turn into slave faction (create a transgression), but the unit isn´t able to convert to the slave faction, resulting in a ctd and an errormessage like this:

... found mods/TGC_master_94/data/ui/captain banners/dead/captain_card_slave.tga...
error

[Gigantus]

So the unit tries to convert to slave because of the officer entries (that have a slave entry in modeldb) but fails because the ownership hasn't got slave.

Kinda weird, I would have assumed that it won't convert in the first place because of the missing slave ownership in the EDU entry.

Thanks for posting that finding!

I am assuming the same happens if it is the other way round....

[Withwnar]

Why on earth is it consulting modeldb (battle models) when somebody goes rebel on the campaign map?