A most unfortunate crash

[Fragony]

I was playing a french campaign and doing very well. I beat the Krak, and had all french homelands including the muslim provincies. The spanish and the hungarians were a major problem, they were allied, at my borders and bigger armies. I HAD to defend toulouse to get the chiv knights, and year after year I fought them off. Then it happened...... The spannish and the hungarians invaded toulouse with over 7000 men, I only had 4 chiv knights, two cmaa, some archers, 3 chivalric sergeants and peasants. I managed to kill BOTH kings in the first 10 minutes, which saved the day. I fought of horde after horde of armoured spearman and feudal sergeants and jinettes, after a while they routed even at the sight of my badly hurt army, untill only peasants arived. Of course I killed every prisoner I took, don't want to fight them again. After +/- 40 minutes they finnaly routed, after one of the most epic battles I have ever played. My general got an expert defender, last stand and butcher. I had broken both the spannish and the Hungarians, it would take them years to recover. Very big battles are very bad for your computer, it drains memory. Of course I had to make a savegame of this breaktrough, I hit the escape to get to the menu, only to be greeted by my desktop. If I was a girl I would have cried (actually I was pretty close http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif )

[Magraev]

I'm sorry - I hate it when that happens. Meybe you should use quick-save instead next time. Sounds like a terrific effort though.

[motorhead]

similar thing happened to me (great battle, probably never be able to duplicate it), came back to map, hit ESC then CTD http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif . Then i discovered quicksave (ctrl-s) and i do a one at the end of every turn and immediately after coming back to map if i just finished a draining battle.

[Cebei]

At least that was computer's fault. What about this?

I was playing with a friend (Turks) and we quite boldly invaded Constantinople at the peak of Byzantine power. I sieged the fortress, just to be attacked by 3800 men with a 9star emperor the next turn. We had 4 star general with 2200 men and we managed to defeat the Byzantine army after an exhausting battle.

Then what happened? I went to the kitchen to bring some water (?) to celebrate, and my dearest friend left the game WITHOUT SAVING THE GAME

I thanked him and wished the best. Idiot. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

[Brutal DLX]

Do a quicksave often, and always hit Esc after loading your campaign. I observed that the game hardly crashes by hitting Esc right after loading a game, and if it worked once it will work the rest of the time unless you play for very long and also have lots of big battles. Might not work on your system though, but give it a try.