Perfect Spy Success!!

[O_Stratigos]

My CTD:Makedonia 252.2 is fixed!
I enabled PerfectSpy (I can't even believe I've managed to do something like this!!) set it on "roman_julii" and moved troops around, lifted a siege (Tyrus?) and then clicked for the next turn and got CTD.
Just before the CTD though, I noticed that the AI had set troops to move beyond the "one turn distance" and when I clicked for the next turn and a troop moved forward I had CTD.
Next restart I completed most of the troops movements, missed one and had again CTD.
Next restart I made sure that NO troops had any movements left and SUCCESS!! I am now at year 251.3 and counting.. happy days are here again!!
After I removed from EBBS_SCRIPT.txt the lines
"console_command toggle_perfect_spy
console_command control roman_julii"
and restarted the game I was still Arche Seleukeia, so I quitted the game went back to the file and inserted
"console_command toggle_perfect_spy
console_command control macedon"
restarted and everything works fine! I don’t know if I should remove the lines or not..please advise..

O Stratigos

[Chester]

This is a major recurring problem with many CTD's. Army movements by the AI have been the cause of almost all my game crashes.

Using Perfect spy, I was able to pin point army marches as the crashing source.

[LorDBulA]

Afther you switched back to your original faction its best to disable those commands.

[Divinus Arma]

O STRATIGOS:

Was the AI army movement that caused your CTD a captain or family member?

[O_Stratigos]

Was the AI army movement that caused your CTD a captain or family member?

I am about 90% sure that it was a family member hidden between 4-5 Pahlava troops near their capital. If it's really important I can do it all over again ( ) and find out..

I remember seeing somewhere a thread about balancing problems but I can't find it -it's total chaos, how do you guys keep up with it? - so I am reporting it here..
Fighting against Getai I've noticed that 40-50 even 60% of the units in their armies are cavalry, the vast majority been Komatai Hippeis, I am sure is not supposed to be like that..

O Stratigos

[Divinus Arma]

I am about 90% sure that it was a family member hidden between 4-5 Pahlava troops near their capital. If it's really important I can do it all over again ( ) and find out..

I remember seeing somewhere a thread about balancing problems but I can't find it -it's total chaos, how do you guys keep up with it? - so I am reporting it here..
Fighting against Getai I've noticed that 40-50 even 60% of the units in their armies are cavalry, the vast majority been Komatai Hippeis, I am sure is not supposed to be like that..

O Stratigos

Yah, it's very important. If it is a FM, then we can do something about it. If it is both captains and FMs, or just captains, then we have to do a little more work.

If you can figure this one out, it would be a huge help to us.

Thanks

The Div

[O_Stratigos]

I enabled Perfect Spy for Arche Seleukeia and confirmed that was indeed a FM namely HRH Kalimedes Demetriados Metrophanes that caused the CTD -repeated thee times- although he was actually between Zadrakota and Asaak at the time...
Now, on my original report about the CTD:Makedonia the CTD always happened on a troop movement near Antiocheia ( the troop is not there anymore when I enable Perfect Spy) and that got me thinking
So I restarted the game, reloaded 252.2 and this time I completed all moves exept three Captains, namely C. Metrophanes (no relation to HRH..lol) C. Keraias and C. Mahlos, saved the game as 252.2a and then completed the moves of two of the Captains, leaving just C. Metrophanes, click-turn, he completes the move; CTD! Repeated three times. Did the same thing with the other two Captains –repeated three times each- and had CTD every time.

It looks to me that it’s not any particular Captain or FM on the move that causes the CTD but rather whoever is last to do so. This cannot be confirmed, I believe, unless is tried on every single Seleukid army that's on the move, but I’ll (happily!) leave the conclusions to you…

Of course if you really need that confirmation ( ) I'm more than happy to oblige

O Stratigos

[QwertyMIDX]

The more precisely you can pinpoint this the better off we are. Having captains cause CTD's is odd as they don't get traits nor can they hire mercs...in fact I can't really thing of anything they could do outside of a city without getting into a battle that would cause a CTD.

[O_Stratigos]

The more precisely you can pinpoint this the better off we are. Having captains cause CTD's is odd as they don't get traits nor can they hire mercs...in fact I can't really thing of anything they could do outside of a city without getting into a battle that would cause a CTD.

Sorry, but most of what you say is Chinese to me... I can tell you this about the three Captains;

C Metrophanes is enroute to Hierosolyma going NE
C Kerraios is going West away from Susa
C Mahlos is going East towards Susa

If you can tell me exactly what should I do and how do I go about precisely pinpointing the cause it will be great, because I'm sorry but I'm a total novice about such things..
I can follow precise instructions though and I'd love to help!

O Stratigos

[Divinus Arma]

I can follow precise instructions though and I'd love to help!

O Stratigos

First of all, thank you for your help so far. Your contributions are exactly why we have an open beta! Who knows, you may be on to the single biggest source for current CTDs!

Okay, in regards to what exactly should be done:

Have you read the playtester guide? Specifically, the portion on bracketing?

You have already narrowed it down quite a bit. Let's see how close you can get.

Do we know if it is any captain or is it a specific captain? What are the exact and precise conditions needed to create the CTD?

BY changing things around through bracketing, we can nail this sucker.

Again: Great job so far O Stratigos. If you can nail this sucker down and we can solve a huge problem, you might just be given the EB Bug Killer award.

Post again if you have questions.

[O_Stratigos]

Have you read the playtester guide? Specifically, the portion on bracketing?

Thank you for you kind words

I've just re-read it and it talks -broadly speaking- about changing things around to see what happens. I did all these and posted about them in my original report "CTD: Makedonia", but this time around I was using Perfect Spy so I'm not sure what do you mean..

You have already narrowed it down quite a bit. Let's see how close you can get.

I'm sorry, but I don't know how I'm supposed to go about doing that..

Do we know if it is any captain or is it a specific captain?

As I posted earlier, I just picked at random trhee Captains that were "on the move" and all three caused CTD.
I can check with all of them and see if anyone of them does not cause CTD if you want or check something else that you think needs cheking.

What are the exact and precise conditions needed to create the CTD?

Again, as I posted earlier, Captains or FM's that had movements beyond the one turn that were arranged previously by the AI and they were now completing...that is of course as far as I can tell..


I'm sorry to be a pain, but if you guys tell me exactly what to check or what you want me to do, that will make it much easier for us all just keep in mind that when it comes to --> .. me -->

O Stratigos

[Divinus Arma]

Again, as I posted earlier, Captains or FM's that had movements beyond the one turn that were arranged previously by the AI and they were now completing...that is of course as far as I can tell..

So, EVERY time you move a captain or FM beyond the one turn range you get a CTD?

hmmmm....

[galathas]

i experienced the same thing i think. i was playing my casse campaign and had a CTD during the seleukia turn. Did that stuff with the EBBS file.

okay i already wrote this reply and my internet crashed so i will keep it short this time.

CTD
moved all armies with movement orders for more than one turn until they had no more movement points or into enemy contact (cant move either)
CTD

next try
CTD
move all armies outside of cities and the fleet
CTD

next try
CTD
moved all armies outside of cities and disbanded the fleet which contained another army so i moved that one too
NO CTD

next try
CTD
disbanded only the fleet and moved the army on it
CTD

If i can help further please tell me.

[O_Stratigos]

So, EVERY time you move a captain or FM beyond the one turn range you get a CTD? hmmmm....

Not exactly...

Captains or FM's that had movements beyond the one turn that were arranged previously by the AI and they were now completing

If I "manually" complete all the movements that were arranged previously by the AI then there is no CTD, but anytime I leave a Captain or FM with a move, when I click for next turn as soon as the move is completed then I always get CTD.

O Stratigos

[Divinus Arma]

Hmmm. Good info. I will pass this along to the powers that be. Very very strange. What opens if there are two turns of movements left? (into the blue or yellow) I assume the same.

What happens if only one captain has extra movement scheduled? The same I assume.

Let me know if I am wrong.


Good work O Stratigos!

And thanks galathas.

I think we are hitting the cause of serious issues with this sucker.


edit: O Stratigos and galathas: What season is it for the AI?

[O_Stratigos]

What happens if only one captain has extra movement scheduled? The same I assume. Let me know if I am wrong.

I've already posted this

So I restarted the game, reloaded 252.2 and this time I completed all moves exept three Captains, namely C. Metrophanes (no relation to HRH..lol) C. Keraias and C. Mahlos, saved the game as 252.2a and then completed the moves of two of the Captains, leaving just C. Metrophanes, click-turn, he completes the move; CTD! Repeated three times. Did the same thing with the other two Captains –repeated three times each- and had CTD every time.

What season is it for the AI?

I’m not sure but I can check it out if you like..

About the season though, I believe it might be an important question.

My Makedonian CTD happened at year 252.2 (2=second turn) and since I couldn’t go past it at the time, I started a campaign as Karthadastim and reported this:

CTD: Karthadastim
I have the CTD in the year 261.2 on Ptolemaioi, repeat five times. Save has been sent.

A curious observation; in my CTD:Makedonia report I had CTD's in the years 256.2 and 252.2 and now on Karthadastim I have the following:
272.2 Message: Ceasefire between Roma and Yuezhi(!?)
263.2 CTD fixed after third try
261.2 Current CTD

Maybe just five samples are not much, but it might be a good idea if we keep an eye out for any strange things happening on the second turn of every year..

After I passed the Makedonian CTD I had more "strange" things happening and ALL of them on the second turn. I save every turn at the beginning as i.e. 265.1, .2, .3, .4 then 264.1 etc and I record every strange thing that happens, for example I got a message at 250.2 that Bactria and the Romans are allies so just out of curiosity I went and checked and then double checked and indeed there was no Roman ambassador anywhere near a Bactrian city or army nor was there any Bactrian ambassador near any Roman city or army.. Year 248.2 non reproducible CTD, 247.2 same, 246.2 the 14 AD bug, 238.2 CTD fixed on second try.

What might be happening is this; in the original RTW there are just two icons for the seasons, summer icon- winter icon, with EB implementing four seasons the icons appear like this: summer, summer, summer, winter, which implies that EB have inserted the two extra seasons in between the original two, presumably using script. So if there is a bug or something in the script for the second turn when a winter icon is normally expected but a summer icon appears instead, maybe this might be the cause of some bugs, CTD’s or whatever.

I think that anyone reporting a bug or CTD should include -along with the year- the precise turn that it has happened and even if the second-turn-bug-theory comes to nothing at least one possibility is eliminated.

O Stratigos

[MeroFromVero]

So if there is a bug or something in the script for the second turn when a winter icon is normally expected but a summer icon appears instead, maybe this might be the cause of some bugs, CTD’s or whatever.

I've only had one persistent CTD bug, posted here. It also involved army movement (though it was caused by two armies merging, not multiple turn movement), and it also happened during the summer. Curious.

[galathas]

The seleukia CTD is also summer, 224.2 Seleukia AI is really waisting its FMs i had to scroll the family tree 3 pages to the right and one page down to find the leader and most of the guys were dead.

here is two more tries of mine (as far as i dont say otherwise i am only talking about armies outside of cities)

CTD
moved only all captains including the army on the fleet.
did not move any FMs and did not move fleet
NO CTD

next try

CTD
only moved FMs
did not move caps or fleet or army on the fleet
CTD

oh and i counted 3 FMs and 10 caps (including the one on the fleet) 1 fleet
This is a pain without this BI function where you can find your armies. I could try moving one cap at a time but i already moved all armies and forgot the army on the fleet and got a CTD. But after i moved that last army i had NO CTD. But if you want i will try that too. But not without being told to.

[galathas]

Sorry had forgotten your question in my last post.

CTD
moved 9 of 10 caps until they had no movement points
moved one cap with orders for one extra turn
CTD

CTD
moved all caps except for one
CTD

CTD
9 of 10 caps until no MPs
1 caps with orders for 2 extra turns
CTD

[Divinus Arma]

You can find all armies in a list by right clicking your "armies" tab. Same with cities. Same with agents. Makes it easier.

edit: Wow. Great work on those CTDs. You are ally are a patient SoB! Terrific work!

Are these happening in the summer?

[galathas]

All of this happend under the hot baking summer sun of seleukia.

[khelvan]

Try not moving anyone at all or making any changes but for turning off the movement-oriented traits for the turn. I want to see if this helps at all.

[O_Stratigos]

Try not moving anyone at all or making any changes but for turning off the movement-oriented traits for the turn. I want to see if this helps at all.

Ouch... could someone please "translate" this for me?

O Stratigos

[NightStar]

Lucky I read this thread before starting my Pontos game. I have a very similar recurring CTD that happens the year 256 during summer, in A. Seleukia's turn. I toggled FOW and saw it happened to a captain moving near Palmyra.

If someone could point me to where I can use the perfect spy and change factions I will do my best to pinpoint the bug (and keep playing my campaign )

I wish I hadn't saved over the savegame I had with Sweboz which had a recurring CTD so I could check if it was A. Seleukia that produced it.

Edit: Found how to use Perfect spy, wasn't there when I first read about weeding out bugs

[NightStar]

Oh boy this is going to take more time than I thought.

I stopped every movement path that the A.I had set for A. Seleukia but still it pulled a CTD on me, now I have to check building queues and etc.

Edit: I managed to get past the CTD with A. Seleukia by stopping the movement paths of two captains who had movement for this turn and the next. But ALSO I lowered taxes for number of cities who were in the red, that way I managed to get past the CTD. So the CTD could also have been caused by revolting cities. But there my luck ran out as I encountered a CTD with KH the same turn.

So back to rinse and repeat.

[Malrubius]

Try not moving anyone at all or making any changes but for turning off the movement-oriented traits for the turn. I want to see if this helps at all.

For those who want to go hard-core in your testing, check the instructions I posted here for fixing the Desert Warrior bug and turning off movement restrictions/forced marching:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...4&postcount=11

[O_Stratigos]

For those who want to go hard-core in your testing, check the instructions I posted here for fixing the Desert Warrior bug and turning off movement restrictions/forced marching:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...4&postcount=11

Ok.. I'm not sure that I understood correctly, so I'll just post here exactly what I did.

For #1: I inserted ; in front of every line
For #2: I inserted ';' in front of every line
For #3 I replaced all "Condition AridRegion" with "Condition Trait AridRegion", but then I had a problem..
Despite over a dozen tries –Ctrl+F- I couldn't find "and AridRegion" so I just used Ctrl+H- find and replace- it took me to the top of the file but no "I can't find" message- then I saved and closed everything.

Next I started EB, loaded my 252.2 CTD save, clicked-turn and got CTD.

Please let me know if this is what I was supposed to do and also whether I should replace the changed e_d_c_t.t file with the (saved) original.

O Stratigos

[Malrubius]

Ok.. I'm not sure that I understood correctly, so I'll just post here exactly what I did.

For #1: I inserted ; in front of every line
For #2: I inserted ';' in front of every line

I'm hoping your lines look like this now:

;------------------------------------------
;Trigger forced_marching_flag_set
;    WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

and not this?

;------------------------------------------
';'Trigger forced_marching_flag_set
';'    WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

The first is good, the second is bad. Comment by inserting ; at the front of the line. That will be the same all through the edct file.

For #3 I replaced all "Condition AridRegion" with "Condition Trait AridRegion", but then I had a problem..
Despite over a dozen tries –Ctrl+F- I couldn't find "and AridRegion" so I just used Ctrl+H- find and replace- it took me to the top of the file but no "I can't find" message- then I saved and closed everything.

That means there's no "and AridRegion". Ok, that's fine, then. I just wanted to make sure I covered all the bases.

Next I started EB, loaded my 252.2 CTD save, clicked-turn and got CTD.

This was a savegame that already had an impassable CTD? Can you load up the 252.1 save and do whatever you did to get to the 252.2 CTD? See if you're still getting the CTD?

Your new edct will be less buggy than the old one (with the Desert Warrior fix), so you might as well keep it and use it in your campaigns. See if commenting out the winter/summer campaigning restrictions means you have less CTDs when you play, maybe.

[galathas]

I am confused to say the least.
ok i will try to explain.

I did what you said and put a ; in front of the lines you posted. Triple checked so it should be right. I loaded the game at the start of the turn where seleuckia gets the CTD.

This is what i had found out so far (and i have reproduced this a couple of times)

- only by moving the 9 caps outside of town and the one on a fleet i got NO CTD

- i tried quite a few other things and always got CTD except if i moved ALL armies outside (caps and FMS)

Ok so now i do what you posted. Iget a CTD when not moving any armies sort of like i expected since this had always been the case.

So i thought i ll try the same thing i always do moving all 10 caps but suddenly i still get a CTD, and i still get it when i move ALL outside armies.

Here comes the weird part: to double check with my previous tries i replaced the modified file with the backup (yes i checked the file itself to see if it was the backup and not already modified) I load the savegame where i have already moved all caps. With this savegame i reproduced a few times the NO CTD workaroudthing. Now i get a CTD. So i reloaded the savegame at the start of the turn and moved the caps the way i did but i still get the CTD.
I dont know what happend and i dont know if this is helping or only confusing but it is really weird. I am gald that somehow it worked a few times because i am still playing the casse campaign this bug could have ruined. Tell me what to do and i ll try it. And again thans for this mod

[NightStar]

Oh well...I might as well spend a couple of hours tonight beta testing so I´ll give it a try....