Campaign will not load - no CTD

[rebelyell2006]

When I try to start a new campaign, I click start a campaign and the video and loading screen starts, the loading bar fills up and the mouse spins, but when it the loading bar fills up all the way it just sits there and the mouse keeps spinning. It goes on for an undetermined amount of time. The longest was five minutes before I got sick of it and closed the program via Task Manager.

I edited descr_strat, descr_regions, descr_sm_factions, descr_faction_standing, EDB. I deleted the map.rwm, and it generates a new map.rwm every time I delete it. The error log shows nothing because I manually close the game. The last message is

10:52:33.984 [system.io] [warning] open: data/terrain/aerial_map/tile_models/alpha_pages/mountain_mask.tga.dds is missing

Did I do something to cause this, or is it just a matter of waiting for about 10+ minutes for it to finally load and then it will load properly from then on?

EDIT:
I started a new campaign, stepped away from the computer for 15 minutes, came back and it was still loading. I tabbed over to my data\world\maps\base folder, and saw that according to the time, the game generated a new map.rwm the moment I clicked the new campaign button. Then after a minute from tabbing over, a windows message popped up that M2TW encountered an unspecified error. I will post my error log, but it says nothing. Intentional errors in various files will pop up and cause CTD, but when corrected it just goes back to the freezing.

EDIT2:
Forgot to mention that I also edited descr_missions and descr_settlement_mechanics.
EDIT3:
Intentional error in descr_missions does not pop up. What is the order of campaign loading in terms of files? When does the game look to descr_missions, and what files does it look at beforehand?

[Gigantus]

You are right, the log doesn't show anything.

Some questions:

1. Is this the original game, not a mod?
2. Did you manage to start the game before?
3. What did you do since the last time the game started properly (if at all)

[rebelyell2006]

1. It is vanilla with EDB and EDU changes and minor changes elsewhere.
2. Yesterday, it worked fine, but I made some changes.
3. Changes are:
-I reduced the minimum size requirement of Huge Cities from 50,000 to 40,000.
-I increased the base farm size for a few settlements to 6 from what they were before, but I changed all of those 6's back to 5's.
-I changed the starting positions of Venice and Byzantium by making Ragusa a rebel settlement and Crete a Byzantine settlement. [Question: Besides the in-settlement armies, are there any navies that would interfere with these changes, such as navies in ports at the start of the vanilla descr_strat?]
-I added militia units to the walls in EDU.
-I changed the descr_sm_factions.txt to remove the prefers_naval_invasions "yes" for a few factions.
-I changed the descr_faction_standing trigger_0094 and trigger_0095 to " FactionStanding exclude_factions { } normalise 0.0 50". [Question: if the trigger normalising factors are the same, will this cause a problem?]

I deleted my saved campaign games, because these changes are not save-game compatible. Either I accidentally deleted something, or I included an extra space, or there is something else causing problems.

EDIT:
I am pulling my hair out over this. I have the game backed up on a portable hard drive, I'll see if I am missing any files and I'll replace some of the files I edited with vanilla files, but I do not know where the problem is. I suspect that trying to use the mousepad on a laptop can cause slips of the cursor and accidental erasures when editing files.

EDIT2:
Found one error, I had Byzantium having both 0.8 and -0.2 standing with Venice. Corrected that by replacing all factions standings with vanilla from backup descr_strat, but still giving problems.

EDIT3:
I have a feeling the error might lie in my descr_regions files. If someone has the time, could you look to see if there are any obvious errors, such as missing regions? And is there a specific order of when files are accessed when starting a campaign, so I can follow a trail?

[Gigantus]

This is the first time I am seeing this type of error. My guess would be some graphics problem as there is nothing tangible in the log.

- I am not sure about the 'ship in port' issue, but then I generally place the ships outside - just in case I change the settlement ownership like you did. The AI moves them out of port in the first move anyhow.
- Incorrect changes in the descr_faction_standings file are either ignored or cause a straight crash. The (completely) same triggers will duplicate the effects.
- huge city requirements: did you check that you don't have settlements in the descr_strat between 40.000 and 50.000 population that are labeled 'large city'. Make sure you got the right size of wall as well.

You haven't really done too much work (just loads of little stuff) - I would suggest to start over again.
It is simply not efficient to hunt for the cause of this error. Please follow the golden rule the next time, then it is easy to pinpoint errors: "small steps, lots of testing - plenty backups"
You have an external drive, so make use of it:
1. At the beginning of the work, make sure you have a working copy (backup) of your mod.
2. Change ONE thing, test it, make a secondary copy of the mod.
3. Change ONE more thing, test it, copy the changed files into the secondary copy.
4. Rinse and repeat

[rebelyell2006]

<level name="village" base="400" upgrade="2000" min="400" max="5000"/>
<level name="town" base="2000" upgrade="5000" min="400" max="7500"/>
<level name="large_town" base="5000" upgrade="10000" min="400" max="15000"/>
<level name="city" base="10000" upgrade="20000" min="400" max="30000"/>
<level name="large_city" base="20000" upgrade="50000" min="400" max="72000"/>
<level name="huge_city" base="40000" min="400" max="150000"/>

Can you spot the error? I did, and I corrected it, but the campaign still will not load. Oh well, I was distracted last night by Civ IV and didn't hook up the portable hard drive. Perhaps later today.

And by "ship in port," what I mean is that I changed the faction ownership of settlements with ports. In vanilla, are there any fleets that start the game in port, and if so does that mean that by giving Crete to the Byzantines that there would be a Venetian fleet in the Byzantine port? I can't fire up saved campaign games because I get the same freeze, so I cannot re-check the (x,y) coordinates of the settlement ports and Venice's starting navies.

[Gigantus]

upgrade has to equal the next levels base figure.
max cannot exceed the next levels upgrade figure.

Ship in port - you will most likely end up with the same situation as if you had a non faction garison in your settlement: the unit will be within the your faction's ZoC (and vice versa) and can only one move at a time until it leaves that ZoC. It should not cause a crash.

[rebelyell2006]

Just an update, I copied and pasted descr_settlement_mechanics, descr_faction_standing and descr_missions from my backup and campaign loads now. Somehow one of those files became corrupted. I corrected the settlement upgrade levels to what I wanted and it still is loading correctly, so I think that through using the trackpoint on my laptop I somehow highlighted and deleted lines or items that I should have kept. Just a warning to those that use laptops for modding.

[Gigantus]

Possibly descr_settlement_mechanics - something must caused a loop.