the 56-year bug

[Teutonic Knight]

Hello,
I have been hearing the massive outcry of Totalwar players lately about the "56-year bug" and I was wonering a few things.
First, does CA have any intention whatsoever of fixing this bug?
If they do, then how long must we wait?

I propose that if you tech wizes think it's possible, to find a fix for this evil bug that is outraging so many totalwar players.

so what do you say guys? would it be possible to fix the 56-year bug?

thanks in advance,
TK

[Ithaskar Fëarindel]

Very doubtful, it's a hardcoded feature, and nobody (at least to my knowledge) in the community has ever been able to change hardcoded data.


Also, CA have not been given permission from Activision to make any patches, so a patch is out of the question.

[Teutonic Knight]

Quote[/b] (Ithaskar Fëarindel @ July 08 2003,18:09)]Also, CA have not been given permission from Activision to make any patches, so a patch is out of the question.
official patches are out of the question......

Is this just temporary? Or do they never have any intention whatsoever of patching this?

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

[Z0eL]

What is the 56-year problem about? I never heard about it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[Ithaskar Fëarindel]

Kings all die at 56 if they reach that age.

This is because all generals have a lifespan of 40 years, and a Prince will mature at 16, serve for 40 years and die at 56 - if they don't die before then of course.


Activision are steadfast in their position to not let CA release a patch - as far as I know.

[Demon of Light]

TK: I tried this very thing a while back ago. I'll see if I can provide a link to my topic (I have to find the bloody thing first)


http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin....;t=7961 (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=5;t=7961)

[Demon of Light]

goscho suggested this in the Main Hall. I don't know how feasable it is but it might interest a few people to see this
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Hello
I have an idea how to fix this bug. I don't have the VI, have no too mutch time to play now and cannot try this at home.
It's the following:
So far I see it's hardcoded in the game, that every general die at the age 56. This means that this age is somewhere in a binary file, maby in the the Vikings Invasions .exe file.
You could try to open this file with Hex Editor and to search for 00 00 00 38
00 00 00 38 is in hexadecimal system = 56 in decimal system
make first a backup copy of the file
then open the file with the hex editor and find how many times can you see this in the file. If you have luck, on of these is the dying age of the generals.
Try to replace the 38(hex) with 46(hex) = 70(decimal)
Then start the game and see if your generals could live more than this age(to 70 years). If yes you found a solution, if not(the game crashes or nothing happen), take the backup copy and replace on the another place 38 with 46.
If you have succes this means, that not only the kings, nut all generals will die to the 70 years. I think this is not so bad and will be more playable than now.
Try this if you have some experience with the hex editors. (If you don't have an idea what a hex editor is, better not trying this).
If somebody is found a solution, it will be possible to create a small patch, who change the age in the .exe file.

I don't know will this idea work or not. There is at least 20% chance to work. It's possible, that the age is not stored in this format, or it is stored in another binary file. But I'm only shure the age is not crypted and if you know where to search it, you can change it. It is possible also, that there is a copy protection, which check if the file is changed or not. In this case if you change something you will be unable to start the game after this.

Hope this will help somebody. Sory for my bad english, but he is not my mother language.

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Demon of Light

Worth noting that the operative number isn't likely to be 56 but rather 40. Same principle though. Sounds like a plan. (I hope)All we need to know is what 40 is in binary.