CTD on loading settlements

[UrienRheged]

Hi, I've very recently started getting CTD's when loading settlement maps.
On the campaign it happens whenever I decide to attack a settlement: the game CTD's when about 1% of the loading bar is complete.
Custom battles: whenever I SELECT a settlement level in the Custom Battle screen I get an immediate CTD.
Field battles are all fine.
What's causing this? Anyone have an idea? I couldn't find this kind of CTD in the CTD guides. Sorry if I'm asking something that's been solved for decades =)

EDIT: A CTD has now also happened when loading a field battle...

Something I've recently done (not much else) is adding strat model levels for almost all factions. But this normally wouldn't cause such CTD's, right?

[Gigantus]

Unpacked the game without deleting the geography files?

Errors in character strat models will cause crashes at game start, not in battles.

[UrienRheged]

This is in a mod, and didn't unpack anything.

But renaming/deleting the geography file sure fixed it!
But I still don't understand why this would, after months and months of modding, suddenly cause CTDs?

[Gigantus]

[UrienRheged]

HAHAHA!

Well, sadly, they're back.

Is there any way to narrow down what kind of errors generate these CTDs RIGHT after the 'zoom-in' animation and at the first 1% of the loading bar for battles?

Is this descr_geography_new.db file save game compatible?
Btw: I didn't re-generate, so now I guess my mod is using the vanilla version of that file?

[Gigantus]

Crashes at the start of a battle often indicate invalid file references in modelDB. Faulty custom settlements can cause it, but only in siege battles. In custom battles crashes can come already in the initial selection screen when selecting a settlement, Third Age used to have that issue, something to do with the sequence in hwo you select the settings I think.

Familiarize yourself with bovi's checker - it checks for reference issues.
To rule out custom settlement issues rename the data\settlements directory.
And yes, the geography_db file does not regenerate automatically (requires a specific CFG file setting afaik) and in your case the mod will revert to the default\packed file. I actually meant the file after unpacking the game, that one causes a crash because of a timestamp issue - the one in the mod should be fine.