I can no longer start new campaigns! ("Please select an item from the list" message instead)

[Roma_Victrix]

Hello. I've recently encountered a problem with this mod (I'm currently playing Leo's Alternative Patch sub-mod on an HP Pavilion Notebook with Windows 8.1 OS), particularly with starting new campaigns!

So I played a full campaign as Gondor recently and recently decided that I want to play as the High Elves. After starting my campaign as the High Elves, I edited two different files that could possibly be the root of my problem. I fiddled with the "export_descr_unit" file to add some officers to High Elven units and beef up the numbers of soldiers in each unit a bit (don't judge me! lol). That's the only thing I did with that file. I went back and continued the High Elven campaign I had already started (using "Load campaign") and the game played just fine, no hiccups, and each of my Elven units had a bit more soldiers than before (changing from base level "48" to "60" in each infantry unit, which on the huge unit level increases the soldiers in each unit from 121 guys to 150 or so). Then soon after that I fiddled around with the "descr_strat" file under the "world" and "imperial campaign" folders because I wanted to change some wooden castles to (regular stone) castles for the start of a new campaign (especially since the High Elves cannot upgrade castle settlements, only town and city settlements). Right after doing so, I tried starting a new "Third Age" campaign, but it gave the following error message:

"Please select an item from the list."

...instead of actually bringing me to the menu screen for selecting factions. It does this for the "Fellowship" campaign option as well. WTF?

I've encountered this same problem in the past, I believe, a long time ago when I edited the "descr_strat" file for Medieval II Total War and made a tiny typo mistake that I fixed and the campaign worked just fine after that. However, the only thing I changed in the TATW "descr_strat" file was replacing the core building type of "wooden_castle" with "castle" for one province, the region called East Cardolan. Once the game no longer allowed me to start a new campaign, I immediately went back and changed the "castle" back to "wooden_castle" in that particular field. However, the game still won't let me start a new campaign?

Therefore, I have two theories on this: either your "descr_strat" file is UBER SENSITIVE and fails to work if you modify it even once, no matter if you revert things back to the way they were before, or the more logical explanation that export_descr_unit.txt is causing the problem here. The thing is that after editing the latter, I didn't check to see if I could start new campaigns or not; I only did that after editing "descr_strat," so I'm not sure which one is the exact problem.

To make matters worse, I forgot to backup "export_descr_unit" into a backup folder or thumb drive, so I would have to download the entire mod again just to get a fresh, unaltered copy of "export_descr_unit", right? Lol. Goddamn it! Or, alternatively, could you guys share a fresh copy of "export_descr_unit" here? So I can download just that file and not the whole entire mod again just for one stupid file? I made too many small little changes to it that there's no way I could remember them all and revert them all to the original state.

Thanks to anyone who addresses my problem!

[ElvenKind]

This message appears if you do not use Notepad++ to make changes/edits in your files( this happens in Leo`s submod, DaC and MOS AFAIK).

Open the files which you made changes in with Notepad++, and try the following to see will it fix the problem:

1) Go up top to "Settings"
2) Click "Preferences..." from the drop-down menu
3) Click "New Document" in the side-directory
4) Look in the "Encoding" Dialogue Box - ENSURE "ANSI" is SELECTED

Save your file again. Test can you start a campaign. If you can`t, here is the export_descr_unit file from leo`s submod ( 4.8 latest version). LINK

If you tend to make changes( with Notepad++ ), make a backup of whole leo`s submod if you have space on your PC.

[Roma_Victrix]

Thanks ElvenKind. It turns out it truly was the descr_strat file that was causing the problem! Not export_descr_unit! I downloaded the mod and extracted it to an external hard drive instead of my C Drive on my computer. Then I immediately copied the fresh original "descr_strat" file and replaced the one in my mods folder in the C Drive. Voila! The game works fine now and I can start any campaign I like. Cheers.