Trying to get back into the game

[Newman55f9]

Hello all,

Many years ago I discovered TWC. I became a historical consultant for Toon and helped with his TAR Mod. I was mostly interested in improving the graphics of the game and was using the units I helped to create. When Toon turned his focus to a stand alone mod I was less interested in that aspect but kept the older skin and unit upgrade mods going until my computer died.

I was sort of forced to try the TAR Mod on my new Windows Computer. It worked great once but than crashed and no matter what I tried I could not play it again. So I removed it but then not even the Vanilla Game would work.

Life was busy so I had to give it up. I disappeared for many years.

Well, I recently installed Rome II and was pleasantly surprised to see how easy mods could be plugged into it. I hoped it would be the same for Empire Total War. The good news is I see the TAR was update in 2019. The bad news for me is even though I have old files and such I don't know if it would work on Windows 10 and don't know where to begin.

I spent many hours helping Toon , even sending over regimental lace patterns but presently I have only the vanilla version. What drives me nuts are the officers with mustaches, drummers with fatigue hats, British drummers in red coats and of course Vanilla uniforms that aren't accurate to any specific period.

Can anyone advise me or push me in the right direction? I am basically looking for improved skins.

PS Are the Duffers still going?

[Alwyn]

The 2019 version of The American Revolution works on my Windows 10 computer and I recommend it. As the TAR FAQs say, it's worth getting the new version of TAR because of the new features and improved stability.

Alternatively, if your priority is better skins and if you'd like to try other mods, you could try the optional graphics pack for the Additional Units Mod (AUM); this can be used with or without the AUM itself. Alternatively, Vanilla United Enhanced also offers better skins (you mentioned being disappointed that vanilla skins aren't specific to a period; this mod offers 'early' and 'mid' 18th century versions).

[Newman55f9]

Thank you Alwyn!

[Alwyn]

You're welcome! You might be interested in a video on how to install The American Revolution by zachman1201.

[Newman55f9]

Hello Alwyn,

I connected with Toon again via email. We caught up and I installed TAR on my Windows 10 computer. Started a Grand Campaign and it worked for hours. I came back to it a few days later. It worked for about an hour, than CTD. It won't work anymore. I contacted Toon again and he suggested I post here. Could you please help me fix it or remove it properly so Vanilla will work again? I had tried TAR about 10 years ago and had a similar problem. I removed TAR and ETW then reinstalled ETW but could not get it to work again, not even the vanilla version.

Thank you in advance.

[Alwyn]

Hi Newman,

I'm sorry to hear that you had a CTD, that sounds really frustrating.

It's not likely that I'll be able to help you to fix The American Revolution, I'm afraid. My only contribution to the new version of TAR was a startpos from my These United Colonies mod (and some explanation of how I achieved some changes in that mod), which was used to offer a new campaign in TAR. Your best bet is to post this report in the technical support forum for The American Revolution - as you have done. If you don't get a reply there soon, you might want to send a PM to the main developers of TAR (or an email, if you have their email addresses).

Did the CTD occur when you were loading a saved game? If so, there's a saved game corruption problem which DarthMod users report occasionally. TAR, like DarthMod, uses a launcher. I could be wrong, but I wonder if mods with launchers (which allow us to save a game, then re-start and choose different options in the launcher, then load the saved game) might unintentionally make it easy to cause the saved game corruption problem to occur. When the saved game corruption problem started on my computer, it continued even after I removed the mod I was using and even after I re-installed the game. The solution which worked for me is explained in this post.

You wrote that you couldn't even get the vanilla version of the game to work. There are two places on a PC where Empire Total War files are stored. The first place is C:/ProgramFiles(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Empire Total War. That's the folder which is removed and replaced when we uninstall and reinstall the game on Steam. The second place is C:/Users/[your user name]/AppData/Roaming/The Creative Assembly/Empire. (Some of these folders are hidden by default, so you might need to search online for how to reveal hidden folders). The files in the second place aren't deleted when we uninstall and reinstall the game.

To make the vanilla game to work, my first suggestion is to use the solution in the post I linked to above (which simply involves re-naming one file in C:/Users/[your user name]/AppData/Roaming/The Creative Assembly/Empire, and re-starting the game so it automatically generates a new copy of that file). If that doesn't work, then you could try first checking in C:/Users/[your user name]/AppData/Roaming/The Creative Assembly/Empire to see if there's anything (such as an old replay or saved game) you'd like to keep - and copying that elsewhere, before deleting the 'Empire' folder in C:/Users/[your user name]/AppData/Roaming/The Creative Assembly/Empire and then re-starting the game (the game should automatically re-create those files.)

[Newman55f9]

Thank you Alwyn,

To provide a bit more clarifiction:

The first day I played TAR it worked fine other than a few minor glitches.
Noting the glitches to be thorough. The Mod replaces leader and agent faces in their descriptions with historical portraits. Several leaders and agents got blank faces as if the replacement photos did not populate. Also some new towns appeared on the map early but without building options which showed up later when they became available through the game.

After installing the Mod I opened it and ran the Grand Campaign as Great Britain. Invaded France and started a battle to see if it worked. It did so I surrendered and quit the game.

Then I repeated those steps to see if it still worked, opening Game, invading France, starting a battle and quiting again.

Satisfied that it worked I started TAR again. I changed options to the hybrid Battle AI and updated map and started the Grand Campaign again. The updated map put me in much too strong of a position and I noticed an upgraded navy option was activated which seemed too cluttered for me so I ended the campaign.

I restarted the Campaign with Vanilla Map and Navy options selected and chose four seasons per year game turn and again the Hybrid Battle AI...

The game generally worked fine. But every now and then there was a glitch. My screensaver would pop on during the AI turn. I would push a key to make the screen saver go away. I was presented with my desktop with the TAR main menu screen open. At the bottom of my screen there were two icons that looked like they were there to return me to the game. One was TAR and one was ETW. (I lack the technical term here but similar to when one might be using more than one document on Microsoft word at a time so you could bounce between documents by clicking the icons to take you to different documents). I clicked the TAR icon and nothing happened. Then I clicked an Empire Total War icon and it sent me back to the game. This happened more than once but I played the game for hours. I saved the campaign several times. I saved battles and watched the replays.

Then I took a break for several days due to Easter.

When I returned I clicked continue campaign and it worked. Every now and then had the screen saver issue again. It may have become more frequent. After about an hour and a half the screen saver glitch happened but no way to get back because this time no Empire Total War Icon appeared. If I remember correctly the first time it may have appeared but when I clicked it I got a twirling compass icon and when it CTD the Empire Total War Icon was gone. So I had no way to return to the game. I tried loading the campaign, got the introduction video but nothing else. So tried to restart the campaign, the video introduction played but nothing else. I tried closing TAR and playing Vanilla Game. It played the introductory video but would not work. I went back to TAR and tried a custom battle. It allowed me to select units but CTD when I tried to start the battle.

So I shut TAR down again. Decided to play Rome TW 2 and found to my disappointment even that is now broken.

Thank you for reading all this. Based on the additional information what would you suggest as my first course of action? Toon told me to use TAR to uninstall itself but when I did that ten or so years ago I could not play Vanilla afterward.

Thank you for all your help. I really appreciate it.

[Newman55f9]

Hello again Alwyn,

Had a breakthrough! First turned off my screensaver. Then, under TAR's advanced settings there is an option to reset user script. I did that. It allowed me to open the game again and play Rome 2 again. But when I returned to the TAR campaign it opened but CTD when it was the AI's turn.

So I reset the script again and started with an earlier save. This got it working again tonight. Will see how things go tomorrow.

Thank you for your help! It has been so long since I had dealt with these issues. Your tips helped me figure it out. I really appreciate it.

[Alwyn]

It's good to hear that you found something which helped. You mentioned that Rome 2 didn't work either. This made me wonder if there is some underlying issue - and if it worth looking at the Sega Total War support solutions here (my suggestion above is a version of their 'Rename folder solution'). I don't know of any other possible ways to fix the game, apart from my suggestions above and the solutions on the Sega Total War support page.

[Newman55f9]

Well crap. It's broken again and now Rome 2 won't work either. I tried resetting the script and no luck. It goes beyond a bad saved game as it won't start a new one either.

I will check out that thread.