Save game bug: New information!!

[Skyphos]

Hello all. I am writing to you about the plague of save game corruption's hitting many Empire players. Heres the rundown and what i've done to try and help prevent this or work around it...some success....some failures:

I've played through three campaigns after the RTI experience (RTI worked flawlessly) and each campaign seems to want to freeze between 1730+'ish -1740. Farthest I've made it on any campaign is 1736 (if it matters I'm on 4/5ths difficulty on battles, 3/5 difficulty on campaign and world domination settings). I cant find any other correlation other than the year which isn't even consistant. I tried to save my save games myself (copy known good saved into a seperate folder to avoid corruption)...with mixxed luck.

After my British campaign was corrupted I decided to manually pull and backup my save game files in a seperate location....(I still hold my crashed campaign incase things in the future make them accessable again). This saved me once already in my most recent Austria campaign...I was able to load my manual backup and delete the ones in the folder and recover my progress less one turn. Somehow it struck my again this morning and even when I try known good saves it wants to crash out an inch into loading. I've tried tricking the system to get around a few possibilities
I.E.: Renaming my "Austria Summer 1735.empire_save" to the following: 1.empire_save
quick_save.empire_save
auto_save.empire_save
(custom name).empire_save
and more...

Nothing I could do seemed to work THIS time around and it puzzles me because I know these are known good saves...pulled manually before any corruption (and copied into savegames folder rather than moved to prevent confusion). Anyone have any ideas or other techniques to try? I'm wanting to start another campaign but can't deal with another big hit on a weeks worth of playtime (can't get enough of this game...I love it although it hates me).

To others with similar problems...I suggest at least trying the manual backup technique...it at least helped my "terminaly ill" game live a little longer.

Any word on the next patch? Also will the save games from my backups work with the upcoming patch?

All the best! Hope to hear some creative ideas.

--Note--
I had no problems with anything prior to the first patch... Seemed to fix issues I didnt have =-(

[Frost, colonel]

For me it was the other way around, 2 sets of corruptions before patch, no problems so far after patch, except I now get the odd few CTDs.
Wow CA have got their work cut out patching this game, I wonder what the atmosphere is like at their offices?

[Skyphos]

For me it was the other way around, 2 sets of corruptions before patch, no problems so far after patch, except I now get the odd few CTDs.
Wow CA have got their work cut out patching this game, I wonder what the atmosphere is like at their offices?

Tense im sure lol. I know its hard work and I appreciate their efforts...probably many a long night 'round there.

I admit I had a few random crashes before the first patch...but nothing this devestating. Its just easy to be impatient when you purchased a game that has so many serious issues. Save game corruption on a game thats this involved is just as bad as a first person shooter game that shuts down every time you're half way through a match...pretty serious. I'd gladly welcome a crash to desktop once per every 2 turns as opposed to playing for a week and then having nothing to show for it. At least I could pick up where I left off. I'll never see the end technologies =-(

[Skyphos]

I did notice the times for each save on the corrupt files appear to be incorrect...this is consistant with all the saves I have that will no longer load properly.

[Frost, colonel]

I did notice the times for each save on the corrupt files appear to be incorrect...this is consistant with all the saves I have that will no longer load properly.

This was pointed out at the official forum, I don't think anybody figured out what was going on with it though, ie if that was causing the corruptions, it's something to do with Steams save times I think?

If you haven't seen the thread, go to the official forum-Bugs-Loading A Save Game=Crash!

[EarlofLeicester]

I'm Having a problem where by I've gotten to the Summer of 1765 and all is well but all my saves after that point will not load. I miss having My game installed on My computer and not having to go through Steam. As much as I like total war This is it it's put me off M2 was a nightmare as well,
Oh well

[caralampio]

My game crashed during the AI turn sometime in the late 1720's, then after that I could not continue the campaign, I would get a crash every time on loading. However, I could return to a previous save. Obviously the savegame got corrupted, but I don't know if this is the same problem as reported in the OP.

[Eastern Roman]

damn that bug... it happened to me too

[Skyphos]

Ive been able to work around it some (sets me back a few turns each time but thanks to my manual backups we're still rolling...sorta). Anyone else got input?

[Turbo]

Some posters have theorized that it has something to do with Steam and the game running on your PC. Both have different timestamps and dates...I can't verify as my game crashes immediately upon ending the turn..