Random crash with custom map

[Gundug]

I'm building a map from scratch, using the leaked 1.2 patch, and have created a couple of islands with a total of 10 provinces and 4 active factions (English, Scottish, Papal States, slave). The map loads fine with zero errors, but during testing, the game will randomly experience a CTD after hitting end turn. There is no consistant turn number for the crash to occur, and reloading the autosave has sometimes allowed the campaign to continue - in some cases, a couple turns was enough, in others, 30 or more turns.

In the error log, the only consistant thing I can see is that the game is apparently debugging the minor_win.bik (and rarely minor_lose.bik) file right before the crash. I took this as something to do with the win conditions for the rebels, since it seems to be occuring during their turn. There is no way they are meeting the win conditions in the game. The crash tended to occur sooner when I made their win conditions closer to the number of provinces.

Other guesses I had were: missing Papal Faction, too few provinces for victory conditions to work properly and the massive size of the ocean at this time (since naval battles take an unusually long time to start).

Has anyone else experienced this kind of problem? I don't know if I'm going to end up wasting a lot of time building a complete map with all the factions if this error will remain.

[Goatbuster3000]

Did you use a mapping base such as alpaca's found in the tutorials section or the BigMapLabyrinth found on the BigMap website? These restrict the map to only one faction and they don't have the Papacy in the game. I use these when I create my maps, and I get no errors like the one you have. They only thing you'd have to do is copy your map and imperial_campaign_regions_and_settlement_names file in your text folder.

Here's the link for alpaca's
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=89286
And here's the link to BigMapLabyrinth
http://www.totalwarfiles.com/downloa...rinthSetup.exe

I hope this helps you, Gundug!

[WImPyTjeH]

In Campaign Mode CTDs:
During play/AI turn:
- A family member being generated without a general_unit for the faction.
- A new character is generated and not given a valid name.
- Some building bonuses in the same building level as certain unit recruitment strings (this will happen both during AI turn and when the building is right-clicked).
- Units able to be recruited in EDB but no faction "ownership" for a faction in EDU.
- Units added to descr_rebel_factions.txt but no slave faction ownership in EDU.
- Units added to descr_mercenaries.txt but no mercenary_unit in EDU.
- Bad defined type of unit for army spawned via script file
- Mismatch between export_desc_character_traits.txt and export_VnVs.txt entries causes CTD when viewing the portrait of a named character with the bad trait.

Scrolling over campaign map:
- Not enough province/settlements on a too large map (fix : add provinces on the map/may be fixed with BI) causes CTD while scrolling the map.
- Error with the rebel faction/settlement owner and or creator (when you scroll over a given settlement)
- Some hidden resources can cause CTDs when you scroll over the region.

Look in here - it may contain the answer to your question

W

[Gundug]

Thank you both for your excellent answers - I greatly appreciate the responses (+rep).

Goatbuster3000, I have been using the very handy Alpaca map as a base, so I think that is probably ok. I have never tried the bigmap labyrinth though.

WImPyTjeH, it seems very possible to me that one of the errors in the list is causing the problem. I can try using vanilla files and see if that resolves it.

[wilddog]

Gundug
I've been having random crashes also but haven't tied it down yet. Mostly mine seemed related to missions or not receiving a 'candidate for adoption'.

Haven't got too bothered with it yet as I'm still fiddling with things and I always used to get random crashes in vanilla anyway.

I haven't got far with trying anything with 1.2 unofficial in terms of playing. Started 2 vanilla games as Turks and crashed both times when garrison comes out to fight at Adana.

[Gundug]

This crash problem seems impossible to resolve at this point. I tried using Alpaca's base map template with the one English settlement and no other modded files and it returned the same type of error after a number of turns. The only consistent thing is similar lines in the log before the crash:

21:45:10.187 [bink] [debug] [data/fmv/faction/england_win.bik]Pause on
21:45:10.187 [bink] [debug] [data/fmv/faction/england_win.bik]Pause on
21:45:11.000 [system.rpt] [error] Medieval 2: Total War encountered an unspecified error and will now exit.

The faction movie name depends on what faction the player is, and it has in rare cases been the _lose version, but always the same general idea.

I ran a bunch of test campaigns with the vanilla version of the game, and even a mod that was basically just the vanilla map (to see if putting a map mod in 1.2 was a problem) and never had a crash.

[wilddog]

Are you sure your factions aren't close to winning or losing? eg they have a town and a leader etc (with faction leader attribute). I think I had an error like that ages ago but I'm sure it was related to the win conditions. Too far back to remember.

[Gundug]

That seems like a reasonable place to check. All the factions have a capital and one or more family members with a faction leader. In a couple of cases, factions were destroyed, but the game continued.

I have tried fooling with various settings for win conditions before, but the error always occurred. I'm wondering if there is a problem with the number of provinces, i.e: too few for win/lose conditions to work properly - there are only around 26 spread over a huge map.

[wilddog]

I'm not sure what to try now. Is the faction heir attribute set for the faction heirs and nothing showing up in the error logs on names etc (they don't cause direct crashes like they used to in RTW).

Like I said I still get random crashes but I'm not sure whether its mission related or something silly I'm copying around. I need to start to build my mod from scratch to make completely sure but waiting for the final 1.2 for that.

[Gundug]

The map now has somewhere over 70 provinces and every faction also now has an heir. There are no errors appearing at all, unfortunately, just the crash. I'm just wondering if it's a problem with the patch and has nothing to do with the modded files.

[wilddog]

What size map are you using. There now seem to be a few people also admitting to errors if the map is up at the 1021*1021 heights size (510*510).

[Gundug]

My map is the 1021 x 1021 size. I suppose I could try shaving some pixels off of the top. I assume the 1021 size is ok in the X axis, since bigmap never gets this error. I'll give Alpaca's map template a try with a reduced Y size and see what it does.

[wilddog]

Mostly we are guessing the issue is around pathing. I haven't tried the bigmap so depends how bit it actually is plus combinations of where regions etc are.

We tried some smaller maps and didn't get crashes.

[alpaca]

Actually the crash happens in the base map I provided. I wasn't able to track it down yet, either...

[Gundug]

That's true - I could not get the base map to work either, even when I reduced the dimensions. I was able to make a 1021 sized stripped down version (only London region with England faction) of the base map that was reliable to around turn 80. After crashing, it continued until about 130 then would not progress. Another 1021 map with a simple circular shaped province and no features made it to half the campaign without crashing, then continued to 5 or 6 turns over the turn limit before crashing again.

This problem has been such a waste of my time - I have spent the better part of my free hours for the past few weeks trying to solve it. At this point, all I can hope is that someone smarter than me can figure it out, or the official 1.2 patch fixes it.

[alpaca]

I'm using 1.2, so no