Duplicate Praenomen Issue

[Krunchman]

This post died a lonely death in the tech support thread.
Perhaps in open circulation it will receive a response.

Character names, as defined in the "descr_names", "descr_names_lookup", and the "descr_strat" utilize duplicate praenomen, and truncated surnames (i.e. "PubliusA" for the future victor of Zama, and "Scipio" in lieu of "Cornelius_Scipio", etc.).

The game will recognize those exact naming configurations (as the RSII team designed them) on intial game load, and will allow for any editing of ancillaries and traits. However, once a game is saved, and the user re-loads from a save, those characters which have specific duplicate praenomen in the "descr_strat", are no longer recognized by the game for their duplicate coded names (i.e "character not found"). For example: "MarcusC Livius_Salinator" is subsequently recognized by the game as the more conventional "Marcus Livius_Salinator", and I have yet to figure out what "PubliusA Scipio" changes into.

Ideas on why this alteration occurs, and what the younger "PubliusA Scipio" actually becomes would be helpful.

[tone]

Strange - not sure why this is happening to you as no-one else has appeared to have suffered the same problems and this has been tested for months and months in beta with no issue.

It's important that you realise that the internal naming is different from what you as the player see....the intention is that you only ever see e.g. "Marcus Livius Salinator" rather than "MarcusC...."

[dvk901]

And the reason for this is that the Romans used very few Praenomen in this era....like ten of them, perhaps. This is too few for RTW to use effectively, so I added 'MarcusA, MarcusB, MarcusC, etc. The game will choose one of these and see it as a 'different' name, but what YOU see as the player is still the same name. So 'Marcus Livius Salinator' (the name YOU see in the game, can have eight variations as far as what the GAME sees).

[Krunchman]

tone & dvk901: I appreciate your responses, and admire the hard work the entire team has done for this great looking mod.

It is clear that the addition of "A", "B", "C", etc. to praenomen would only be intended to appear within the .txt system files, i.e: "descr_names" "descr_names_lookup", "descr_strat" , and not reveal themselves on screen for specific characters while playing.

More than once, I have completely uninstalled and wiped all vestiges of RTW, BI & Alex, and all of RSII, including cleaning out all entries to such programs within the system registry, reboot, then re-installed all parts, patches, etc. (to C:\Roma Surrectum II). I have not modified anything, beyond the addition of standard RSII install, and ensuring to disable the "Autosave" feature.

To clarify the issue: Whenever the user first starts a new Roman campaign, RomeShell will fully recognize all the various coded praenomen, nomen, and cognomen, exactly as they appear in the "descr_strat" for the standard "Play_Rome" campaign.

After the game has been saved, and the user reloads the campaign, using a save file, the following names are (or are not) recognized by the RomeShell:
"Quintus Fabius" works, as designed.
"Gaius Flaminius" works, as designed.
"Sextus Fabius" works, as designed.
"Decimus Fabius" works, not the alternate "Marcellus Fabius" in the "descr_strat".
"Lucius Aemilius_Paullus" works, not the abreviation in the "descr_strat".
"Gaius Varro" nor "Gaius Terentius_Varro" do not work. What does work, I haven't a clue.
"Quintus Caecilius_Metellus" does work, without the "C" which appears in the "descr_strat".
"Publius Scipio" does work for the elder consul Scipio.
"Gnaeus Servilius_Geminus" works, not the abbreviation in the "descr_strat".
"Atilius Regulus" nor "Lucius Vibius_Atellus" do not work. What does work, I haven't a clue.
"PubliusA Scipio" ("PubliusB", "PubliusC", etc.) nor "Publius Cornelius_Scipio" do not work for Scipio Africanus. What does work, I haven't a clue.
"Marcus Claudius_Marcellus" works, without the "D" which appears in the "descr_strat".
"Marcus Livius_Salinator" works, without the "C" which appears in the "descr_strat".
"Lucius Postumius_Albinus" works, without the "C" which appears in the "descr_strat".
"Tiberius Sempronius_Longus" works, as designed.
"Quintus Fulvius_Flaccus" works, without the "D" which appears in the "descr_strat".
"Salvius Attius" does not work for the admiral. What does work, I haven't a clue.
"Octavius Pansa" nor "Quintus Antonius_Pictor" do not work for the spy. What does work, I haven't a clue.
"Gabinius Pupienus" does work for the diplomat.

All save files can be deleted, the program shut down, and a brand new campaign started, and the above situations (as described above) will re-occur every time.

BTW, any image for the ancillary of "doctor" fails to appear in game on the character cards as coded in the "descr_strat" for "Flaminius", "Geminus" and "Paullus".

Thanks, in advance, for any further response and suggestions.

[tone]

Anyone else had these problems?
I've been running a Roman campaign for the last couple of weeks, reloading from savegames and not had any of the above issues.

[wrg]

i had similar problem too...(tried on Rome Shell)

[dvk901]

I'm a bit stumped by this, as we have not had any problems with character names in ages. And I'm uncertain what you mean by 'does not work'. Do you mean that the game produces an error saying it can't find the name, it's invalid, or something like that?
If there is a naming mistake, even if there were a hundred mistakes in descr_strat.txt, the game will ONLY show you the first one it comes to.....fix that, and it will then show the SECOND one it comes to. There is no way it will report ALL of them at once.
So please clarify what 'does not work' means. If the game simply won't load, then you have an issue. If the game loads, then what doesn't work?

[Centurion Cato]

This isn't entirely related to the OP's problem, but I've found that if I'm going to (very rarely!) cheat, I need to check the name in descr_names file as what appears in-game isn't always the name the game recognises eg, if I type character_reset "Marcus Iuventius_Laterensis" it won't work, but if I check descr_names it appears like so:


{Iuventius_Proculus} Iuventius Laterensis

Replacing Laterensis with Proculus in the console will subsequently work. Few other examples:

{Nautius_Laterensis} Naevius Turpio
{Numerius_Helva} Naevius Capella
{Numicius_Fronto} Numicius Priscus
{Octavius_Dorsuo} Octavius Rufus
{Ovidius_Cursor} Octavius Mamilius
{Papirius_Cotta} Papirius Crassus
{Petronius_Cincinnatus} Petronius Maximus
{Pinarius_Calidus} Pinarius Natta
{Pompeius_Bucco} Pompeius Faustulus
{Pompilius_Asellio} Pompeius Magnus
{Pontius_Saturninus} Pontius Pilatus
{Popillius_Mamercus} Popillius Laenas

[dvk901]

That is correct.

[Krunchman]

The mod functions with no CTD issue. The characters are just "hit or miss" editable / uneditable once the campaign has been saved, and is subsequently reloaded from a save file.

My purpose in using the RomeShell console is solely as a means of "housekeeping" what is already on the character cards (both "good" and "bad"), not removing or boosting anything (i.e. cheat). Just keeping all personality traits together, military traits together, political traits together, etc. Call it being overly OCD / uber-micromanager, if you wish.

My use of the remarks "will work" / "not work" (above) is to define what names the RomeShell console will or will not recognize, after the campaign has been saved, and is reloaded from a save file (at a later point). Again, on initial campaign startup (prior to any save or end turn), the names which appear in the "descr_strat" function perfectly. Once the campaign is saved, and is reloaded, many are altered. The "names" and "names_lookup" in the "Play_Rome" folder are not particularly insightful when this occurs.
If I am missing the boat, and there are other files I should be looking at for answers, I am remiss and ask for redirection. I am not a mod designer, and I do not play one on TV.

Again, I very much admire and appreciate the team's work. It is a great looking mod, and I know you guys worked on it for eons. No criticism implied. My intent was to just point out a perceived "issue", which someone else may have experienced also.

[tone]

I suppose there's no reason why the internal names couldn't be adjusted to reflect what's being shown (other than the obvious need to keep duplicate praenomina), although it's a lot of work.....although having the praenomina would still frustrate your goals.

[Trader01]

I edited the internal names in descr_names.txt, descr_names_lookup.txt, names.txt and the descr_strat.txt files. When I try to save I get a CTD. All I know that the crash is related to the Surnames part of the file, because after editing only the names (i.e. GaiusA, GaiusB etc.) I can save and play successfully. I edited only the roman names (romans_brutii faction). Any ideas why the game crashes on saving?

[lampuiho]

This isn't entirely related to the OP's problem...

Obviously it is changing back to the name on top of the list once the game is saved.

The problem is you can no longer edit characters with the same names.

[bob01]

And the reason for this is that the Romans used very few Praenomen in this era....like ten of them, perhaps. This is too few for RTW to use effectively, so I added 'MarcusA, MarcusB, MarcusC, etc. The game will choose one of these and see it as a 'different' name, but what YOU see as the player is still the same name. So 'Marcus Livius Salinator' (the name YOU see in the game, can have eight variations as far as what the GAME sees).

I solved this problem by copying the common praenomen and replacing the last "u" with a "v" the way the Romans wrote on their inscriptions.

Hence: Marcus = Marcvs Quintus = Quintvs, etc

The game does not seem to care and uses both without distinction but it does double the number of choices without a lot of the silly praenomen that were put into Vanilla.

[sharkeyyyy]

Sounds good, what exactly is the issue this solves ? Thanks.