Third Age + MOS 1.6.1 Sudden Launcher Failure After Days of Error-Free Gameplay?

[JGeertsen]

I'm guessing this is in the wrong forum or something as are 99% of forum posts, so I apologize. My problem is that I've been playing Third Age + MOS 1.6.1 for like the past three days with no problems, save for a failed launch right after installing it in the first place (which was easily fixed by running cleaner.bat after the crash, and it started just fine).

Anyways, today I wake up and launch third age and my monitor suddenly goes black and into the "No Signal" mode for about 5 seconds, and then I am returned to my steam library. No error message or anything at all.

It should be noted that my Third age and Mos desktop shortcuts have NEVER WORKED, from vanilla to mos 1.5 to mos 1.6.1, but I have been able to play all versions regardless of this by: going to steam -> right click Medieval 2 Total War in game library -> click bubble next to "teutonic" (third_age_3), and it would start up just fine. Clicking on the desktop shortcuts or running thirdage.bat always gives me a "Can not find kingdoms.exe, blah blah blah".

I couldn't find any fixes whatsoever for "Can't find kingdoms.exe" anywhere, so I decided if it worked this way, I'm fine. Could this be the source of my problem? It just doesen't make sense to me how I have logged in easily about 80 hours in third age these past two weeks but suddenly I wake up today and it doesen't start at all.

I did some research as to how this sudden change could have occurred seemingly as a result of me just restarting my computer. I noticed that my steam update history had an entry for M2TW at about 5:30 am, right in the middle of my 10pm to 9am marathon last night. Also, instead of getting just "Can't find kingdoms.exe" message when clicking on the shortcuts, I am now also getting a "Can not find script file 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Medieval II Total War\G5BAISwitcher.vbs'." However, I can definitely see G5BAISwitcher.vbs in my mods\teutonic folder.

So, does anyone have any idea what the problem could be? Again, when starting Third Age MOS 1.6.1 I am getting a black "no signal" screen for 3 seconds which then returns me to the steam library. Another thing worth mentioning is that, bizarrely enough, on like the 8th attempt of starting third age, the ORIGINAL TEUTONIC campaign loading screen showed up for about 5 seconds and then I was returned to the steam library in the same manner as my original error. How can this even be possible?

I've always only heard about errors and crashes occurring BEFORE the game can even be played, indicating a faulty installing path or something, but I've never heard of a launcher crash occurring after the game has been played for an exceptional amount of time with no problems beforehand.

Any help or advice on this matter would be GREATLY appreciated, I'll be forever indebted to whoever can help me out here!

[Gigantus]

Either of the methods below work

Method 1

Make copy of medieval2.exe
Rename to kingdoms.exe
Start mods through regular BAT file

Method 2

Change BAT file (right click file, choose 'edit'): replace kingdoms.exe entry part with medieval2.exe
Start mods through regular BAT file

[JGeertsen]

I ended up getting a little impatient and re-installed before the thread got posted (whilst also upgrading to 1.6.2 in the process) and everything seems to be working fine for now. If anything comes up though I'll be sure to try the whole 'copy medieval 2 and rename it kingdoms.exe" thing' for sure. Thanks for the quick reply.

I just wish that steam wouldn't update medieval 2 automatically (which I believe caused the whole problem in the first place) when I explicitly made sure to click the box for "Do not automatically update this game". Oh well!