CTD when trying to fight Pontus

[Ivanelme]

Well as the title suggests, every time I try and fight Pontus I CTD. I mean I can auto resolve the battles and continue, but a lot of these would result in losses where I would manage to pull out victories. In the current state of the campaign I can no afford to constantly do that when they are throwing quite a few stacks against me with the Seleucids. Not exactly sure what is causing this.

[Ivanelme]

Oh and for additional information I forgot to add, playing 1.9 BI with the CTD revolt hotfix and the basic add-on's (no torches and those things except the loading bars and the grass). No units have been added or anything.

[Quinn Inuit]

Two things:
1) Please don't double-post. Instead, just edit your first post.
2) Do you have show_err enabled?
3) (Why, yes, I'm with the Spanish Inquisition, why do you ask?) Have you tried playing any custom battles against Pontus?

If the answer to 3 is "no", give it a try and see if you get CTDs. If so, try their units one at a time and see which one causes a crash.

If the answer to 2 is "no", definitely enable it. That'll help us troubleshoot.

[Ivanelme]

Sorry for the double posting, but okay here are the updates.

As far as I know -show_err is enabled, it is in the command line how one forum told. I am getting no error message though for this, so not sure.

And for custom battles, tried that with all the units they had to see before I started going one at a time. The battles load up just fine there.

Going to back up my saves and reinstall the game to see if that fixes anything.

[florin80]

Try skipping the add-ons this time.

[Ivanelme]

Okay, reinstalled the game with the saves, haven't installed any of the add-on's and still having the problem, no error messages as well.

[pannonian]

Okay, reinstalled the game with the saves, haven't installed any of the add-on's and still having the problem, no error messages as well.

If you reinstall the game, I don't think the old saves will be compatible any more, unless you restore the data files as well, in which case, the old problem will rise up again.

CTDs every 2nd battle mean missing sprites in descr_model_battle - mods that add a unit may cause this. IIRC CTDs after a battle may be due to a retreating army not having anywhere to retreat. I can't remember if that has anything to do with the reinforcements crash as well.

Rightclick on your shortcut and show properties. Take a screenshot of the properties and show it here, or tell us which box you've got show_err in. From the sounds of it, if the crash is happening every battle in which Pontus is involved, if show_err is indeed enabled, it should flag up an error message pointing to a missing entry in descr_model_battle.

[florin80]

I`ll have to say you have a very unusual situation. A ctd every battle with a specific faction and no error message .... I can`t think of any answer. If it would have been with all faction I would have said a problem with the video drivers or something to do with vista or something in these lines.

BTW, unless I`m missing it above you never said when exactly does the ctd occur. After the laoding bar finishes, at 3/4 of the loading bar, before it gets to it? Also, what were you doing when it crashes. I hope you were not besieging a city or something like this and by all the battle you mean the same one played a few times.

And do you have the simple version of RTRPE or the mod switch one?

[Ivanelme]

Basic copy of RTRPE played through BI, not the mod switch. The CTD happens during the loading screen, sometimes it will get 1/3 of the way loaded other times it crashes after 2 seconds without any movement. It might happen when besieging a city (haven't done that yet I have to engage an army before I can safely siege a Pontus city) but at this point it is just a basic land battle when I choose to fight it. It has happened when I engaged Pontus and once before when Pontus engaged me. It's not every second battle, as battles with all other factions so far (haven't fought the Gauls, Bactria, Germania, or Samaritans yet) have been working perfectly, it seems to be restricted specifically to Pontus, and only in the campaign game.

Here is the shot of the BI exe properities for RTR

[Quinn Inuit]

In that case, have you tried what I suggested and done custom battles with one Pontic unit at a time to try to narrow it down?

[pannonian]

Also, could you list what units are in those Pontic stacks? You don't need a spy for this - when the screen comes up with the battle odds, right click on the Pontic stack and note down what units are in it.

[Ivanelme]

I didn't do them one at a time, I did a custom battle making sure I had at least one of every unit in there first. That battle loaded up perfectly. I will look at the stacks they have an edit this post afterwards, just feeling a little sick at the moment.

Okay there are two armies and they are as follows:

Army 1:
2 Peltastai
3 Persian Sparabara
1 Archer
1 Pezoi
1 Harma
1 Dreponephora Harma

Army 2:
1 General
2 Pezoi
1 Asiatic Javelineers
1 Archers
1 Pontic Nobles
1 Dreponephora Harma

[Quinn Inuit]

Interesting. So all Pontic units work in the custom battle?

Also, you're missing Cappadocian Cavalry, Thoraskeminoi Hippakontistai, and the normal Pontic hippakontistai.

[pannonian]

Can you check the upkeep costs of those units? Tell us if any of them have outlandish values.

[Ivanelme]

Yeah all Pontus units work in a custom battle. The unites you listed are all in the custom battle army selection screen, I also assume you meant Cappadocian Lancers.

Also no, looking at the units none of them have outrageous upkeep costs, and none of them are the CTD hotfix units.

[Quinn Inuit]

Hmmm, could it be one of your units you have stationed in the area, then?

Also, if you have show_err enabled and it's not giving you errors, then perhaps that's not the problem. I commend this thread to your attention: http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=58801