XGM - Diadochi : Bugs & Issues

[RedFox]

With the public beta out, I figured any found bugs should be posted in a separate thread.
Discuss all found issues and bugs in the mod, balancing issues and whatnot. Everything belongs here.

Known bugs:

- No Unit Cards!
- Unbalanced Historical Battles
- Battle of Teutoburgerwald crashes

[Tony83]

It's 271 BC in my hard fought but fun Macedonian campaign. So far I have control of the following:

Pella;
Philippi;
Thermon;
Magnesia;
Mytilene;
Sicyon;
Corinth;
Sparta.

I don't know if this is a bug but I thought I'd bring it to your attention anyway; according to the Building Browser tech-tree, foundries do not appear on any of the above settlements (see attached file for Pella), except for Sparta and Corinth.

Therefore, again according to the tech-tree, I will be unable to build either the Army or the Royal Barracks in any settlements, apart from the last two named. This seems a little strange, is this by design?

Everything else is running very smoothly - and not a single CTD.

[Tony83]

I thought I'd report my first CTD in my Macedonian campaign. It happens during the Rebels move at the end of the 264 BC.

I am besieging Athens and the CTD occurs when rebel army moves to engage me. I've attached a screen dump of the error message that appears, which seems to suggest that there is something amiss with the onagers, two of which are attached to my besieging army.

I've also included a link to the save game file, which I've uploaded on FileFront.

http://files.filefront.com/Makedonsa.../fileinfo.html

Autoresolving the battle sidesteps the issue so it's not a gamebreaker - I just incur heavier casualties.

I hope this of help to you.

[RedFox]

The bug is completely my fault, I'm terribly sorry for messing with the onagers in the last possible minute without testing them. I'll see what I can do to make a quick Patch that will fix it.

It's just a missing texture though I noticed... it would be fixed if you'd copy RTW\data\models_engine\textures folder into the xgmd\data\models_engine folder. But i'll upload a quick patch to fix it as soon as I can.

I'll also take a look at the Armoury bug, I think you needed something special for it, but I can't remember from the top of my head. It'll get fixed nevertheless.

Also, was taking Southern Greece difficult, or just an overrun? It was historically very difficult for the Macedonians, the Achaeans had a really powerful army and the Spartans regained a lot of their strength later on.

[Tony83]

Hi RedFox, thanks for the response.

I've copied the textures folder as suggested and it's working fine now. You've now given me the dilemma of whether or not to go back 10 years and refight the campaign again - decisions, decisions :laughing:

As for the armouries, there's no mad rush as Epirus is conducting biological warfare on me at the moment and both Pella and Larissa have been "plagued" with sick spies for the last decade. They've both lost so much of their population that they won't be looking at large city status, and thereby be able to build an armoury, for a very long time. So I've had to shift the centre of troop production down to Athens and Sparta.

Taking southern Greece was far from a walkover! I'm playing on M/M and, if I say so myself, an experienced RTW player (I usually see kill ratios of 10:1 in my battles) but taking out Thermon, Sicyon, Sparta, and finally Athens was anything but easy - lol. I had to use all my artifice to take on the enemy stacks one at a time, and fight defensively to preserve my one and only army, knowing that the heavy casualties of a "phyrric" victory would finish me off!

No, it was anything but easy - lol. However, with most of Greece now under my control the money is just rolling in. It's 259, I've just stormed Ambracia and have over 124,000 in my coffers. If anything it's now that things appear to be a bit easy. However, it's probably just the lull before another storm. I've Asia Minor in my sights next, and then there's always Rome.

Some would probably say that Rome should be my next target and take them out before they get too strong but I just can't do it. It's something I have done in the past playing as Greece, in XGM and RTR, but the game just doesn't feel right without Rome in the mix and my interest in the campaigns just frizzled out. No, I'm saving Rome until last, whatever it costs me.

Sorry for rambling on (lol) and thanks again for a crackingly good mod. You've just proved that there's still loads of mileage left in Rome, despite M2TW's fancy graphics.

For a beta release, I'm well impressed.

Update

Hehe, sorry, you're gonna be sick of me RedFox. I've just noticed that there is a landblock between Sparta and its docks, which means you can neither embark nor disembark troops directly between the two.

[Tony83]

Hi RedFox, I thought I'd let you know about another CTD I had while going into a battle (screendump of error message below).

I found the file UNIT_GREEK_PIKE_PHALANX_MACEDON.TGA.DDS in xgmd/data/models_unit/textures/MACEDON and pasted a copy of it into xgmd/data/models_unit/textures, which seems to have cured the CTD.

I also noticed that the onager looks like a ballista on the battlefield (pic attached) but it throws huge boulders well enough when it starts firing.

[RedFox]

Thanks for all the feedback, let me start with the details then:

Firstly: Can you give me detailed information on your casualties when taking Greece? On VH you shouldn't be able to conquer the whole of Greece with 1 stack, but on M it's acceptable.

Second: Can you give me a picture of the Aegean region? I need to see which cities are producing too much money, maybe the mines are playing a huge role, as I balanced it so that Carthage could get good profit from the mines at Iberia... 124,000 denarii seems just too much, unless you got only 1 army and lots of developing cities. I really hope the starting situation didn't scare your pants off.

About the landblock - I was revising the strat map a long time ago and I must admit I kinda got some bad influence from troy and made the whole region too mountainous, I will fix it in the future, although I planned the area right of Sparta for going on/off ships...


Third: UNIT_GREEK_PIKE_PHALANX_MACEDON.TGA.DDS... did you hire mercenary Pezhetairoi? I think I accidentally left them with the old skins and bad references, I will work on another hotfix, that will fix both the errors you found yesterday and the ones you found today...
You should've got a "Warning: THIS SHOULD NOT APPEAR ON SCREEN" when you hover over the Merc Pezhetairoi.

Onagers: That's how they looked back then, like Ballistas with a sling like part at the back, it would throw the boulder to vast distances, but didn't really inflict that much damage to Stone structures... try Heavy Onagers... should be a little bit of a surprise to you.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll work on an update list on what to fix, I figure the next hotfix should contain more bugfixes, until then, don't hire mercenary Pikemen...

[Tony83]

Firstly: Can you give me detailed information on your casualties when taking Greece? On VH you shouldn't be able to conquer the whole of Greece with 1 stack, but on M it's acceptable.

The Macedonian army that I took to southern Greece to relieve Corinth was cobbled together from existing troops and what few units I could afford to recruit from Pella and Larissa and purchase as mercenaries. It was made up of the following:

Infantry: 1 x Asthetairoi; 2 x Pezehetaroi; 3 x Deuteroi; 2 x Archers; 1 x Slingers; 2 x Mercenary Peltasts.

Cavalry: Faction Leader; Faction Heir; 2 x Allied Cavalry; 2 x Prodromoi.

Due to the number of strong enemy forces facing me I had to fight defensively as I couldn't afford heavy casualties. Especially in the phalanx, as at the time I was unable to retrain either Asthetairoi or Pezehetaroi. Therefore, to keep an "army in being", I would let the Greeks come onto my phalanx and then would sweep behind them with the cavalry and hit them from the rear.

Fighting thus, I minimised casualties but, accumulatively they were high, especially amongst the cavalry corps, which was devastated. As examples, the Allied Cavalry have been reduced from 2 units of 80 to one of 35, and the Asthetairoi, who took pride of place at the right of the phalanx were reduced to 154 men (from243) after 2 sieges and 3 full scale battles (I've still not got a barracks that can retrain them yet!).

Overall, I reckon I must have lost over a third of the main army during the conquest of Southern Greece.

Second: Can you give me a picture of the Aegean region? I need to see which cities are producing too much money, maybe the mines are playing a huge role, as I balanced it so that Carthage could get good profit from the mines at Iberia... 124,000 denarii seems just too much, unless you got only 1 army and lots of developing cities. I really hope the starting situation didn't scare your pants off.

Here's a screen shot of my current campaign,



and a link to the save game if you want to see it more detail.

http://files.filefront.com/Makedon3s.../fileinfo.html

Money is flowing in very easily at the moment and, yes, I only have one field army at the moment (pretty much the one itemised above) and am building up my infrastructure as quickly as I can. I am in the process of building a second field force, which I intend to use to take Cydonia and Rhodes. Byzantium and Thrace are also in my sights so I shall probably need a third army for that (I shall have to leave a sizeable army in Macedonia to keep an eye on the Dacians and Romans - who I don't trust an inch, even though they are my allies!).

Third: UNIT_GREEK_PIKE_PHALANX_MACEDON.TGA.DDS... did you hire mercenary Pezhetairoi? I think I accidentally left them with the old skins and bad references, I will work on another hotfix, that will fix both the errors you found yesterday and the ones you found today...
You should've got a "Warning: THIS SHOULD NOT APPEAR ON SCREEN" when you hover over the Merc Pezhetairoi.

I've recruited and retrained Pezhetaroi and Deuteroi units at Pella, Larissa, Athens and Sparta but I don't recall seeing any mercenary Pezhetaroi up for grabs. The second CTD is a bit of a mystery then because there were no units in my army that I hadn't used before in previous battles, however, it was just after I'd downloaded your hotfix! I was actually assaulting Ambracia, is it possible that Epirus might have picked them up? I do recall there being one phalanx unit as part of the garrison.

Onagers: That's how they looked back then, like Ballistas with a sling like part at the back, it would throw the boulder to vast distances, but didn't really inflict that much damage to Stone structures... try Heavy Onagers... should be a little bit of a surprise to you.

OK, that's fair enough, it's just not what I was expecting - lol.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll work on an update list on what to fix, I figure the next hotfix should contain more bugfixes, until then, don't hire mercenary Pikemen...

No worries mate, you're welcome. I must admit I'm really enjoying this mod of yours.

Update

I'm hitting a CTD at the end of winter, 252 BC. I've tried reloading a few times but with the same result. Here's the save game file: http://files.filefront.com/Makedon4s.../fileinfo.html

Any ideas?

[RedFox]

Use the toggle_fow command, so you can see which faction causes the CTD...
I'll take a look at those save games of yours as soon as I can, though as of yet I have no idea what might be causing it. Might be the Marian Reforms kicking in... though it shouldn't be that early.

You should be able to retrain Pezhetairoi at your capital from the ground up, even if it has a low level barracks... maybe I forgot to upgrade the unit names in EDU.
You seemed to take over Southern Greece with relative ease though, might have to add some troops for Achaea there, how well did the Athenians fight back? They had a really tough elite army...

[Tony83]

You seemed to take over Southern Greece with relative ease though, might have to add some troops for Achaea there, how well did the Athenians fight back? They had a really tough elite army...

Lol - those battles were anything but easy! My cavalry was decimated and the phalanx well chewed. I can't say for the Athenians because I had to autoresolve the battle due to the earlier problem with onagers. I do know that the losses were heavy and the Pezhetairoi and Deuteroi units were whittled down to about 90 -100 apiece (thankfully, just then the upgraded barracks came online in Sparta so I was able to replace the losses). I still have my first save game so maybe I'll refight the battle, now that the onagers are working.

[Tony83]

Well, I refought the Battle for Athens and you can see the end result in the attached file. Considering that I lost over half my forces when I had to autoresolve it originally, it's not a bad result.

I drew up the phalanx of 6 Pexhetairoi, flanked by Thorakati, backed by Archers, Theruperoi, cavalry and two onagers. I concentrated my missile fire on their cavalry as they approached and their hoplites dashed themselves on the steel tips of my phalanx. It was nearly all over before I got my light cavalry behind them to finish them off and start a general rout.

Missile fire and the AI's predilection for suicidal frontal assaults cost the Greeks dear!

[RedFox]

Well, trust me, it won't be that easy to conquer in the next hotfix, in my first encounter with a puny force of them, I lost over 500 men of my 1800 man army, they only had half of my force... I also lost Gyras in a last moment desperate charge.

I'm fixing the terrain parts, so that the player can't exploit some steep mountains to defeat the Achaeans and the units have got a lot more experience than before, this is the only way of making them equal with the player...

About your savegame, I noticed you had a very large income from diplomatic tribute. Who was paying you? I loaded the earlier savegame, started by breaking alliance with Rome, immediate war, killed off all your spies and moved most of the armies out of the settlements, to Crete or to the Northern States.
Result? No crash. I believe it was something with the tribute for sure, a very stranger error indeed...

I'm also lowering the bonus experience from Drill Fields, they just give Morale bonus now and the last level gives +1 exp.
Next version won't be save compatible though, I fixed the Mercenary Pezhetairoi, made them a decent skin and gave them to all major Greek recruitment pools.

[Tony83]

Well, trust me, it won't be that easy to conquer in the next hotfix, in my first encounter with a puny force of them, I lost over 500 men of my 1800 man army, they only had half of my force... I also lost Gyras in a last moment desperate charge.

Lol - you are evil. :laughing:

I'm fixing the terrain parts, so that the player can't exploit some steep mountains to defeat the Achaeans and the units have got a lot more experience than before, this is the only way of making them equal with the player...

Cool; steep mountains are far too tempting to ignore if they are available, but it's the AI's habit of frontally assaulting the formed phalanx that's the real killer, and probably its inability to do combined-arms operations as effectively as a human player. There's not too much we can do about that.

About your savegame, I noticed you had a very large income from diplomatic tribute. Who was paying you? I loaded the earlier savegame, started by breaking alliance with Rome, immediate war, killed off all your spies and moved most of the armies out of the settlements, to Crete or to the Northern States.
Result? No crash. I believe it was something with the tribute for sure, a very stranger error indeed...

Yeah, I was wondering about that! The money came from Epirus. They had become a protectorate (first time I've ever tried that in RTW, incidentally) and, a few turns prior to the savegame, I had given them 50,000 denarri to bolster their economy, which they immediately gave back to me as tribute. Subsequently, that large tribute showed up in the stats after every turn, so maybe there is some problem surrounding it.

I'm also lowering the bonus experience from Drill Fields, they just give Morale bonus now and the last level gives +1 exp.
Next version won't be save compatible though, I fixed the Mercenary Pezhetairoi, made them a decent skin and gave them to all major Greek recruitment pools.

Excellent stuff, what I think I'll do, until the next hotfix, is rerun the campaign from my first savegame (The Battle for Athens) and wipe out Epirus this time instaed of creating a protectorate and see if that avoids the CTD.

[Da Erobara]

Just downloaded this mod and I have to say: Wow, although you still have to include a lot of our (the historians) work to it. 2 Things I noticed:
Bactrians don't have Thureophoroi
Achaens have the Laconian L, a symbol for Sparta as thei Icon. That's not right that way.

Keep up the good work

[RedFox]

Could you perhaps suggest a better icon for the Achaeans?

[Da Erobara]

Well, the Pegasus was a famous icon on greek coins, so it is definately a choice. Perhaps the Citys of Acheia had a unique icon on their coins, but I don't know. I think you should use the Pegasus for the Greek citys, and the Lightning for the Achaens, at least temporarily, until there is something better. BTW, Epirus' Faction Icon is not very historical, as it is just a green helmet. Epirus was very well known for their worship of Zeus Dodonaisos or their Mollossian hounds. they would suit much better.

[scannerfish]

-The icon for the mod doesn't link to where BI is installed , it links to the activision folder . This is a heads up for those with the sega version , you'll have to type in the target and start in yourself

-Uh Bactria has barely any cavalry . They need back there cataphracts and companions and heavy cavalry .


Besides that the mod is sexy time .

[RedFox]

The icon for the mod doesn't link to where BI is installed , it links to the activision folder

- I didn't have time to write a more complex installer script, will include a better one in the next big release, which will write a proper shortcut that is dependent on the install path.

Uh Bactria has barely any cavalry

- Bactria has a mock-up roster, this means I didn't have time to adjust the units, because it was a last minute change that removed the Aegean League and replaced them with Bactria.
Historically, Parthian and Bactrian Kingdoms came to be in 245 BC, which means they could be pretty much removed from the game, though then there would be no one left to massacre those Post-Marian stacks...

In the next version though, the Bactrians will have proper Indo-Hellenic units.

Besides that the mod is sexy time .

Thanks, I did the best I could with the limited time and resources I had.

[scannerfish]

Also are Romans not suppose to have Marian reforms ? Cause I built an imperial palace in Italy and no reforms .

[RedFox]

It's triggered by a more distant city, but at the moment, the reforms don't really properly kick in like they should...