CTD when conquering Massalia

[crackerjack1348]

Hey guys, love the mod. I'm playing a 1-turn Roman campaign and I've been having a lot of fun with it. Beat Hannibal on turn one with the help of some non-realistic reinforcements (not to mention that I attacked, and wasn't ambushed ). Then the rebels sieged Rome, Cannae, and Crotonum (sp?) in one turn and I was able to beat them all back in battles where I was slightly outnumbered the next turn. Then I spent some time building up the economy before invading Spain to reclaim my lost colony there and deal a blow to Carthage. Was able to conquer the next town down the coast from Emporiae and Carthago Nova as well as the inland settlement from there before the Greeks turned on me. I then laid siege to Massalia and Syracuse, but...

The game crashes to desktop everytime I take Massalia... Anyone else ever experience this problem?
I've been saving a lot because it crashes all the time (not blaming the mod, I just forgot how unstable a platform RTW is) but I still lost like 10 turns and probably half a dozen hard fought battles.... I'll try it again and see what happens but this is the second time I've gotten a CTD when taking Massalia.

[Brusilov]

At what point do you get the CTD?

Is it when you occupy/enslave/kill (I've forgotten the exact wording) the occupants?

Upload a compressed save game when you're attacking the settlement and let us know which game engine (R:TW, R:TW BI or R:TW Alex) you are using and someone can confirm if it's the game or your install.

[crackerjack1348]

My morning class was cancelled, so instead of studying like a good student, I decided to mess around with Roma Surrectum instead. It *was* CTDing at the occupy/enslave/depopulate screen, but I auto resolved the battle and it worked.

Sorry for the false alarm, but my game does tend to crash a lot. Is this just a RTW problem or could a faulty install be the culprit? I'm playing a steam version of Alex, so there was a lot of copy and pasting and folder creating to get the mod to work at all. I'll upload a save game tonight if I can get around to it.

Another question: Sometimes if I choose to sap a settlement's stone walls it CTD's as well. I've just been avoiding sapping points, is that a bug too, or am I just experiencing random CTDs and attributing them to unrelated things?

[Brusilov]

Players do have problems at the occupy/enslave/depopulate option. There have been various theories behind what is happening and ways to get around it. Have a search through the forum there should be a number of topics on it - in the ERAs forum as it's not just RSII that is affected by this.

1) Try and save before you take one of the options. I think you do that by pressing the ESC key
2) Wait for a period (minutes) between the window popping up abd taking one of the options - go for a fresh air break or a coffee/tea

I believe the 'reinforcement CTD' may also mainfest itself when this option comes up. I believe that this happens when your army is beseiging a settlement and a relieving enemy army joins the garrison when they sally from the settlement (I'm not sure if the relieving force or the sallying garrison is the one that does the attacking and the other joins in). If you defeat the armies but there are garrison units still alive they have no way to get back to the settlement as you've taken it and this causes a CTD. So if you get into such a battle then make sure you kill all the garrison!

I tend to not use sap points in my battles and prefer to use towers. I'm not sure if the sap points cause a CTD.

The towers themselves can have problems against the bigger walls in that the units will push the tower to the wall but then refuse to get into the tower. At that point no matter what you do the unit will do nothing - if they are attacked by an enemy unit they will be destroyed. When using towers this bug can affect more than half of your towers - I tend to build one ram the rest are towers. The ram is used to attack the main gate with a weak unit - it's sacrificed to draw fire from the settlement towers near the gate while several siege towers approach (it gives them a better chance to get to the walls and then unload the men).

It's best to use towers either side of the settlement towers.