CTD when looking a city

[Spartan 666]

I have this very strange problem with DTW, playing both with BI and ALX. When I scroll the map to the southern part of Arabia (Sabaean area) or click on it in the minimap the game freezes for a couple of seconds and then it crashes with no error message.

It’s very strange because:
-I always played and looked that area and it never happened until I tried to move a city in that area of only a few X values. This caused CTD, but then I restored the files as they were before and it still crashed;
-It happened some times, then I managed to give a look at that area with FoW off without getting crashes, but then it started crashing again and now I am completely unable to look at it, it crashes always;
-It happens only with Fog of War off. I mean, if FoW is on, I can look at that area with no problem. If FoW is on and I deactivate it while looking that area, it crashes immediately, while if I deactivate FoW and then scroll down there, it crashes when I reach that area. So the problem is surely there.

There are 3 cities in that area. One (Carna) can be looked most of the times. The other two (Mariaba and Gorda) can never be watched, so they are the problem. I will try to give you as many informations as I can.
Mariaba is needed for the roman reform, so it is unreachable being surrounded by impassable terrain. It’s a huge city with no buildings other than the governor building. Descr_regions.txt and descr_strat entries here:
Saba
legion: Parthica
Mariaba
numidia
Sabaeai
6 129 61
fertile, incense, slaves, arabia, italy
5
6
christianity 0 pagan 60 zoroastrian 40
; Mariaba
settlement
{
level huge_city
region Saba

year_founded 0
population 400
plan_set default_set
faction_creator parthia
building
{
type core_building imperial_palace
}
building
{
type hinterland_culture_east east_native
}
}

Gorda represents the Arabian desert so it’s unconquerable and surrounded by impassable terrain too.
Arabia
legion: Parthica
Gorda
parthia
Arabs
13 171 244
camels, slaves, trade_road, arabia
5
3
christianity 0 pagan 0 zoroastrian 100
; Gorda
settlement
{
level town
region Arabia

year_founded 0
population 2100
plan_set default_set
faction_creator egypt
building
{
type core_building governors_house
}
building
{
type barracks muster_field
}
building
{
type hinterland_culture_east east_native
}
}

I know the faction_creator are strange, but they have always been like this and they never caused problems. By the way, I tried to put parthia everywhere, considering that armies in descr_strat had sub_faction parthia, but it crashed anyway.

I was suggested to check wrong sub_faction entries for the slave faction, but they are fine, and Mariaba doesn’t even have a true garrison, there is an army just outside the city but none inside. I tried to delete those two armies, but it was useless. Then, I was suggested to look for "corrupted data file, which caused stuff like [] to appear in .txt files, not being shown by Notepad++ (the text editor we use) but being shown by default windows notepad". Well, I checked and there are none.

That’s incredibly annoying because, as I said, I just tried to move a city, and after seeing it crashed I restored the files as they were. It still crashed so I completely reinstalled the mod, but in vain as it still crashes. The problem is definitely one of those two cities, as they can’t be looked at. It’s without any logic, and I’m really getting annoyed and upset by all these stupid crashes.

[florin80]

Another thing that`s worth checking is the rebels that are linked to that region. Makes sure that entry is correct in descr_rebel_factions and that it includes valid units(all of them need to have slave for ownership btw or the game crashes). And also that it relates correctly with rebel_faction_descr for the description.

[makanyane]

^ what he said...

also some modders (DVK for one) I know are convinced you shouldn't have different faction creator for same region in strat and regions files - I've not personally had problems with it in BI or Alex - but have had similar 'can't view region' problems with certain combinations in RTW (pontus and dacia I think caused problems but not 100% sure now as it's a long while since that came up) - if all else fails change the default factions you're using for the regions and see if it fixes problem.

EDIT: (if you can view region OK - but not click on city it's a buildings or traits text problem)

[Spartan 666]

thanks guys, I'll try to see if there are any wrong rebel entries and change the faction_creator...I already tried to change it with no positive result, I'll try again...

-------- double posts merged (Brusilov) - please EDIT to provide an UPDATE.....

This time it worked...I matched the faction_creator entries and now it works...maybe because I downloaded Service Pack 2 for Vista before trying?

Anyway I have the feeling that problem will appear again in the future...


Edit: here it appears again!!! After two days of map editing with absolutely no problem, it started annoying me again...at this point, I suspect it's because of some issue with my laptop...