Savegame CTD - possible sollutions?

[ztn3]

With tears in my eyes I have joined the ranks of players who can't go on in their campaigns because of corrupted/CTD saves. I was in the year 1710 with Spanish - but it took me almost a week to get there because I like to micromanage a lot, do not autoresolve and my comp is low end so it takes ages when I load, end turn or play a battle. Before this CTD savegame trouble I only encountered CTD once when moving a fleet carrying soldiers into my port...
I was looking for sollutions, checking forums but didn't find any really satisfying answer.

What I found so far:

- advice 1: not to use autosave or quicksave at all (can anyone actually confirm that his CTD problem disappeared when using this technique?)
- advice 2: play the save on other computer, save the game after a while and then try to go on on your own comp (I found that some players denied this option, because it didn't work for them)
- advice 3: find the last working save (gl there :/ ) and try to do things, moves etc differently (I suppose this may help on end turn CTD, not sure about savegame CTD)
- advice 4: some players reported CTDs connected with Hurons - and the sollution might be to erase them ASAP

If anyone has found a working sollution of this hardest game braker, please, share your ideas. Thank you very much...

P.S. Anyway, I definitelly believe that this issue will be fixed in the patch... (call me an optimist)

[Spartan 666]

the autosave feature is known to be highly buggy with both Medieval and Rome, then it very well be buggy also with Empire...I have experienced random CTD while loading autosaves, so I tried to disable autosaves from the preferences script, but doesn't seem to be any autosave line...

[Skyphos]

This issue is paramount because it ruins the game...PLUS its the most know and discussed bug around...gotta be fixed because it would mar their reputation too bad if it wasnt. That aside....heres help.

I dropped a post on this a few days ago (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=238382). I've ran into savegame bug at least 50 times, killing my british campaign 35 years into it before i began finding workarounds. Now im rocking Austria 50 years into the 1700's.

FACTS:
-Signs of early warning include off dates/times on your ingame saves
-Any CTD has a potential to doom (corrupt) ALL your save game files in your ETW game folder.
-Sometimes you save normally and just leave the game and it corrupts anyway...kinda sux.
- I dont have any support to back this up but I think multiple save games in your list makes it more prone to accident. Seems like i heard it somewhere too...

WORKAROUND: (not a fix, but makes it playable)
- Use your own discretion as to when and how often to do this but at the end of your turn I recommend manually going to menu->save game-> IE: "Austria Summer 1712." Save that first...then do a quicksave. (Maybe im supersticious but I tryn make one little trivial adjustment/movement or something to distinguish between those save...its given me good luck lol). Once you did both your saves, leave to windows and navagate to your ETW savegame folder...should be somethign like:

C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Empire\save_games\"IE: Austria SUmmer 1712"

Create a shorcut to save_games folder and then make a folder named whatever you like and pull the named file (IE: Austia Summer 1712) to that folder. Copy it, or move it...i side with moving it because I think having many saved games in there only helps spread the fire and confuse ETW. If its pulled from the game folder it is in removed from the damaging environment so you know its safe. If you load back into the game and your quicksave is fine....odds are the other file is ok. Then go ahead and end your turn and repeat the process as you see fit. I've managed to sneak past a million save game bugs this way...although sometimes you'll find yourself doing the same year over a few times, or being set back....at least its not gone ya know. If you do have to reload a backup...COPY it over instead of moving it...that way if you decide to pull it back to manual backup you know its in the clear and dont set yourself back. Even if one of your msot recent years is trash you have a close backup to fall back on. I like to tryn do it every 2 years at a max, sometimes every one year (2 turns per year of course). This has helped me from going INSAINE.

HOpe it helps...really hope they patch it before you even fool with this mess haha. All the best

[WeardLan]

I made it to 1792 before I got hit. I squished the Spanish, but missed Gran Columbia which emerged after Spain fell. Now I CTD every time I hit end turn and it comes to the Columbians turn.

1) I save every summer, sometimes more often,never use QS/AS
2) I usually quit/restart the game every couple of hours.
3) I'll revert and make sure to squish Spanish Columbia before squishing Spain proper.


before this happened, I'd saved, loaded the autosave from the last EoT (because I'd forgotten to save earlier, and wanted the state), saved that, then reloaded the later save. maybe that's what caused my problem, tonight I shall start with earlier saves until I no longer crash, or I shall call end game at 1791 and start again.

I killed the Hurons early, gave their territory to the plains nation, then watched them re-emerge and build another uber-stack before squishing them again, so they've been around, gone, come back and gone again without causing any problems. It's not the Hurons (or at least them any more than it is the inuit/columbians/whoever crashes your game), but there's usually something you can spot that kicks it off

EndTurn/SaveGameCTD are probably related to the same memory leak /corruption as turns it into a waiting game after extended play.

I had one other crash/corruption related to the ZoC/movement/reinforcements problem, I'd been playing solidly for four hours, the pre-battle save game was corrupted and would crash on load, the previous (EoT) save the Venetians just chose to go a different direction so it never happened again.


EDIT: For me I have no problem with huge lists in the save game folder, like I said, every summer, sometimes more often, and they're all still there (including the corrupted ones). As he said though CTD is fatal, odds are high that corruption has already occurred before your game actually crashes, so odds are equally high that the last save (auto/quick/normal) is going to be corrupted.

[Flavius Silvanus]

The only game I have ever seen before this that corrupts all the saves in your folder is Silent Hunter 3.

In that game, if you cut and pasted your saves to your Desktop, restarted computer, then pasted them back into your Saves Folder they would work again.