End-of-My-Turn CTD

[phalanx_man]

Hello Everyone. I have referenced this forum many times since starting play of RTW and then RTR in the last year and I thank everyone for all the CTD help I have been able to extract from the posts many-a-time.

I have just come across a CTD that I have not found anywhere in Total War Center Forums > Total War: Eras > Rome: Total War Hosted Modifications > Rome: Total Realism (RTR) > RTR Gold & Platinum > RTR Platinum Support Area
and I hope someone will be able to help me correct it.

SUMMARY:
MY GAME = RTRPE version 1.9 nonModSwitch (from RTW GOLD patched to VER 1.5)
CTD Fix for Loyalist revolt = installed and has been working properly for about 100 game-years.
Unified Animations Pack = installed and also working for about 100 game-years.
Playing = MACEDON
Year = 113 WINTER
STRATEIGIC = Only myself (MACEDON), ROME, CARTHAGE and REBELS remain
I have also read Sticky: DIY CTD solutions by leemyster and found it very useful.

ISSUE:
With Fog of War OFF I can verify that the crash happens exactly at the END OF MY TURN.
ie. The movements I have pending get executed and, (while paying attention to the overhead faction icons), while it is still my turn (but campaign map movements complete) I get a CTD. This happens before the next faction turn begins. (turn order is MACEDON-ROME-CARTHAGE-REBELS).

As indicated above, I have the revolt CTD fix installed. There is ONE city that may be revolting during this turn, (CALLEVA) but it also revolted 2 turns ago and I never had a CTD then.

The ONLY other thing I did recently was modify/correct some ancillary characters in export_descr_ancillaries.txt.

I did note that if I changed (increased) ExcludedAncillaries to include ancillary character combinations that already existed, that game would CTD (as it did the previous turn). So I rechanged them back, then reverted to the original and then (to double check) even removed all the ExcludedAncillaries in the lists to allow all combinations (except the unique characters) and I still get a CTD at the end of 113 WINTER - MY TURN.

I know there are gentlemen such as Florin80 who are experts at this mod and I would be greatly indebted for any possible suggestions as to the cause/correction to this CTD.

Kind Regards,
Vladimir "phalanx_man"

[florin80]

Did you do those changes during an ongoing campaign? It might have messed things up if so. If you make changes that could involve the campaign(removing ancillaries that are mentioned in descr_strat or changing who can get them and such mightfall into this category) it`s best to remove the map.rwm again and to start a new campaign. Other than that, do you own the settlement that you think might revolt? If you do check if the core governmental buildings are damaged. Maybe they`re affected to the level that no new troops could be recruited from there. According to one theory this could trigger the revolt ctd.

[phalanx_man]

Thank You Florin80 for your quick feedback.

Yes, I do own the settlement CALLEVA, and I know what you mean when either the rulership building (barbarians hold etc) OR the town square is damaged - but in this case they are both OK.

Regarding the ancillaries, yes I did make the changes during the campaign. When I made the changes at first (about 20 game-years ago), there were no ill effects. Such changes included the bug where assasins never recieve a poisoner. Encouraged by this, I recently made changes to the (A) EFFECTS of some ancillaries as well as (B) standardized the ExcludedAncillaries list.

As examples of the former, (A)
I increased the beneficial effect of the UNIQUE ancillaries to 2 or 3 instead of their typcal value of 1 an changed some of theother ones to what I thought were more logical. But I doubt this is the issue, since when I did this first (~20 game-years ago), there were no CTD's.

As examples of the latter, (B)

Ancillary idiot_savant
... ExcludedAncillaries pet_idiot

but

Ancillary pet_idiot
... did not have ExcludedAncillaries idiot_savant

So I went through ALL of them and made the appropriate correlating excluded ancillaries. When I first got the CTD it was one turn ago. I then changed back those and the CTD at end of turn did not recur.

But now, with the CTD happening, I reverted ALL of the ancillaries to the game-original file, but the CTD still recurs. I would have thought reverting to the original should have corrected the problem.

What do you think ?

Does the campaign have a "memory" in that, if I go back to a saved game BEFORE I made any changes and revert to the ORIGINAL export_descr_ancillaries, do you think the campaign could continue (or is it all messed up now even if I go back ?)

Vlad "phalanx_man"

[florin80]

But now, with the CTD happening, I reverted ALL of the ancillaries to the game-original file, but the CTD still recurs. I would have thought reverting to the original should have corrected the problem.

Yes, but it`s all the changes back and forth that could have caused conflicts. Make a backup of your current map.rwm file(and saved game) and then remove the one in use so that the game will generate a new one. Sometimes this helps with glitches.

Does the campaign have a "memory" in that, if I go back to a saved game BEFORE I made any changes and revert to the ORIGINAL export_descr_ancillaries, do you think the campaign could continue (or is it all messed up now even if I go back ?)

Theoretically it could work if you use a previous save game and make sure the game files are in the exact condition that they were when you have made that save, including the map.rwm. But it`s no exact science. To give you an example. I had changed a unit once and while the EDU title had remained the same, some other things like the weapons and I think class were changed. I was getting a CTD in the campaign when trying to fight a battle involving the units(of that particular type) present at the start of the campaign, but no CTD with newly recruited units of that type. Turned out I had forgotten to delete the map.rwm and once a new one was regenerated there were no more problems. I had not anticipated that this would cause problems. Stuff like making an existing unit recruitable, or adding a new ownership to an existing unit and generally adding stuff without removing or altering any of the existing functions tends to be save game compatible from what I`ve seen, but that asides, it`s best to edit things before starting a new campaign(and remove the map.rwm before doing so) and not after.

[phalanx_man]

I tried backing up and deleting the current map.rwm file but it still crashed at 113 WINTER end-of-turn.

Then, as in your second suggestion, I reinstated the previous "good" ancillary file and went back to a saved game where I knew I had not done the latest ancillary changes yet. I also, as you suggested, deleted the current map.rwm file and let it create a new on from this prior point and then re-played the the next 10 turns. This time I passed 113 WINTER with no CTD...

It looks like if I ever do wish to try an in-campaign mod again, I should make sure that I first save:
(A) the file being modded, (B) the current map.rwm and (C) save that point in the campaign.

I understand that making mods should be more troble-free if the changes are made BEFORE a new campaign; its just that in this case it took me so long to get to this point in the campaign (in terms of hours of game play) that it was not feasible to restart it all over again.

Many Thanks for the advice Florin80 - it helped me to recover what I thought was a lost campaign (all 334 turns of it !).

Kind Regards,
Vladimir "phalanx_man"

PS - I will start a new thread with another question regarding mods. It would be great if you could respond to it since you may know some of the people involved in the making of RTW and RTR. I entered it under RTR PLATIMUN MODS AND ADD-ONS with the title "Whos Who of the RTW+RTR Programmers"