Well, there goes my 2nd campaign

I've had the game since release however I've only played two campaigns (excluding RTI). The first was as UP which was pretty good fun until the moment I interacted with a particular unit the game would CTD. So started a second campaign as the Ottomans. Once again, things were going great, empire was expanding nicely - right through the guts of Europe and all of Great Britain. The year was 1763, my armies are on route to the Americas and then once again... I interact in anyway with a particular unit and CTD! :furious3:

I play slowly and methodically and each of my campaigns has been carefully considered. After spending so much time building up a world it's very sucky to see it all come to an end due to a bug. Poor AI etc. I can live with for awhile... but this is a real killer.

Sigh

It's a chance to start afresh again (which is also exciting in TW games), but then I wonder... at what turn will the same issue prematurely end the fun? :shame:

Lots of people have this issue while some people don't. The more I read about the many problems with Empire the more convinced I become that it is less hardware incompatibility and more poor coding in the Empire engine. For example many people experience problems with the american indians while others don't. I think that the bug lockup is more likely a combination of things that both the AI and the player do that result in the game crashing. Just speculation but different people with similar hardware experience different things with Empire. One person can play and never crash while another person crashes right away or doesn't crash until midway through the game.

I always have like 10 saves for each campaign so I just go back a few years and it solves it. Although not always, worth a try at least.

What unit causes the CTD?

I have a CTD in my campaign as soon as I select a particular generals bodyguard, but I'm able to get around that by just never clicking on it. Selecting the stack still works. Maybe it's not that simple for you.

I really hate to be forced to give up on a campaign like that :/ Happened to me a few times with some mods in previous games.

I have the same issue and have also stopped playing for now. My first "cursed" unit is also usually a general. It's definiitely a code problem. CA has acknowledged it as such and is working to address it. These kinds of crashes happened a lot more often at release. The first patch took care of the cause of several of them (read the patch notes), but there are still a few of these bugs left to squash. I inevitably run into a situation where:
- one of my units will become cursed, and if I try to move him, the game will crash
- something happens with the AI nations (perhaps one of their units gets cursed), such that, during the AI turns when all the national flags flip by at the top of the screen, the game will crash when a certain flag appears.

I'm reasonably certain it's got nothing to do with hardware since two people with identical hardware may or may not have the problem, and that it's very clear that there's something with a particular unit that will cause the crash, since, if you can avoid the unit(s), the game will continue to run fine.
Mine usually start with a general or some other named unit. Sometimes I can isolate the unit and just ignore it, moving every other unit out of their stack and continuing on, but it seems like the number of cursed units increases significantly after the first one appears, so that soon you've got half a dozen units on the map you can't touch or you'll CTD.

Just because its software doesn't necessarily mean its the ETW program thats at fault.

So far (touch wood) I've only had two CTD's and both of those were explainable given what I was attempting to do at the time. (e.g. play WAR and leave ETW running mid-battle in the background)

However, I certainly had a lot of problems with WAR until I made sure (using Driver Detective) that ALL my drivers were up to date, not just my GFX. Updatng my drivers solved my problems with WAR and I don't seem to be getting the same problems as you guys with ETW either.

The other possible 3rd party causes are as potentially far reaching as:

- not having the up-to-version of windows (patched to current level)
- having the up-to-version of windows (remember the infamous Service Pack 2 bugs?)
- not realising that Windows has switched on your personal firewall behind your back and its blocking your game ports.
- having a periodic routine that conflicts with the program your running (for example my HP print centre, used to periodically CTD my machine when running certain games because it was checking for updated print drivers. Had to ditch it in the end.)
and thats before we even begin to consider conflicts with Adware, Spyware and other programs you may be running deliberately or in blissful ignorance of running in the background.
- Your Directx may be out of date or even corrupted, have you run a DxDiag?
(interesting point of note, I discovered to my surprise and annoyance that Mcrosoft no longer provide automatic updates to Directx, so if you haven't updated it manually it could be out of date.)

The fact is that two machines with identical hardware are rarely identical.

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Originally Posted by Dead Guy

What unit causes the CTD?

I have a CTD in my campaign as soon as I select a particular generals bodyguard, but I'm able to get around that by just never clicking on it. Selecting the stack still works. Maybe it's not that simple for you.

I really hate to be forced to give up on a campaign like that :/ Happened to me a few times with some mods in previous games.

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In both cases it's a general. Unfortunately ignoring it won't work. In my previous game I thought I'd try that however then it would CTD whenever I'd declare war (or if someone else declared war on me). Can't disband.. CTD. Can't conquer a nation... CTD. The trouble with the unit appears to be just the first sign of the problem.

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Originally Posted by Didz

Just because its software doesn't necessarily mean its the ETW program thats at fault.

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And just because you haven't experienced this doesn't mean that it's not the software's fault. Maybe you didn't conquer things in the same order, or produce a general from a "CTD" city? Who knows? I'm sorry, but outdated graphics drivers etc.(which isn't relevant anyway... I'm up to date) will not be the cause of allowing me to play the game perfectly for 120 turns and then suddenly make it CTD whenever I interact with ONE particular unit or declare war (as Servius1234 describes). It's most likely some kind of save game corruption. Thanks for you help anyway though, I appreciate it ~:thumb:

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Originally Posted by Didz

Just because its software doesn't necessarily mean its the ETW program thats at fault.

So far (touch wood) I've only had two CTD's and both of those were explainable given what I was attempting to do at the time. (e.g. play WAR and leave ETW running mid-battle in the background)

However, I certainly had a lot of problems with WAR until I made sure (using Driver Detective) that ALL my drivers were up to date, not just my GFX. Updatng my drivers solved my problems with WAR and I don't seem to be getting the same problems as you guys with ETW either.

The other possible 3rd party causes are as potentially far reaching as:

- not having the up-to-version of windows (patched to current level)
- having the up-to-version of windows (remember the infamous Service Pack 2 bugs?)
- not realising that Windows has switched on your personal firewall behind your back and its blocking your game ports.
- having a periodic routine that conflicts with the program your running (for example my HP print centre, used to periodically CTD my machine when running certain games because it was checking for updated print drivers. Had to ditch it in the end.)
and thats before we even begin to consider conflicts with Adware, Spyware and other programs you may be running deliberately or in blissful ignorance of running in the background.
- Your Directx may be out of date or even corrupted, have you run a DxDiag?
(interesting point of note, I discovered to my surprise and annoyance that Mcrosoft no longer provide automatic updates to Directx, so if you haven't updated it manually it could be out of date.)

The fact is that two machines with identical hardware are rarely identical.

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I haven't experienced any CTD's.

-Windows isn't patched to the current level.
-This gaming rig is so close to retirement it's counting the days on the desktop.
-I haven't bothered updating drivers or DirectX in 2 years.
-I get 2 or three errors on boot up that I can't explain.

None of this supports or disagrees with the fact that a multitude of individuals are having problems running ETW.

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Originally Posted by IRONxMortlock

And just because you haven't experienced this doesn't mean that it's not the software's fault.

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Well doesn't it?

But logically speaking, if the game works fine for some people but not for others...THEN....assuming they are all running exactly the same game software (patched to the same level by Steam)....AND....given the accuracy of an earlier statement that people with identical hardware are having different experiences....the only logical explanation is that some other software on the PC is causing a conflict with the ETW program resulting in it crashing.

I'm not a technical person but I can analyse a line of clues. If I'm running the same software as some else and he's having problems and I'm not, then how can the problem JUST be with the software. As best it might be that the software isn't coping with a particular driver or version of windows very well.

I mean basic difference 'I use Windows XP Home' are the people with the problems using Vista?

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Originally Posted by Didz

Well doesn't it?

But logically speaking, if the game works fine for some people but not for others...THEN....assuming they are all running exactly the same game software (patched to the same level by Steam)....AND....given the accuracy of an earlier statement that people with identical hardware are having different experiences....the only logical explanation is that some other software on the PC is causing a conflict with the ETW program resulting in it crashing.

I'm not a technical person but I can analyse a line of clues. If I'm running the same software as some else and he's having problems and I'm not, then how can the problem JUST be with the software. As best it might be that the software isn't coping with a particular driver or version of windows very well.

I mean basic difference 'I use Windows XP Home' are the people with the problems using Vista?

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Yes but there are other in-game variables that your deduction is not taking into account... nation choice, strategies, cities taken, technologies researched, units produced, units produced in different cities on different years with different technologies and perhaps a different number of craft workshops constructed.... As you can see, the variables compound quickly to the point that we cannot be certain that we are comparing exactly the same thing. This is how bugs escape detection in the first place and why they are tricky to replicate in a complicated game like ETW.

Indeed, this is probably one of the most annoying bugs in the game...

I had a bug in a campaign. Basically, Marathia Confed were taking around an hour (literially) to do their turn. Annoying thing is, I never been able to get the conquer Europe achievement due to either AI having a curse, Ai taking forever for it's turn, or similar reasons like that.

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Originally Posted by IRONxMortlock

Yes but there are other in-game variables that your deduction is not taking into account... nation choice, strategies, cities taken, technologies researched, units produced, units produced in different cities on different years with different technologies and perhaps a different number of craft workshops constructed.... As you can see, the variables compound quickly to the point that we cannot be certain that we are comparing exactly the same thing. This is how bugs escape detection in the first place and why they are tricky to replicate in a complicated game like ETW.

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True, but it doesn't help that instead of comparing what evidence is available most of these discussions just turn into mud slinging matches.

It would be interesting instead to compare notes and try identify what the critical factors are in determining whether the game runs successfully or not. If nothing else it would help CA actually identify what if any errors exist in their code.

As things stand at the minute you read some of these threads and are none the wiser what the problem is let alone whats causing it.

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Originally Posted by Didz

True, but it doesn't help that instead of comparing what evidence is available most of these discussions just turn into mud slinging matches.

It would be interesting instead to compare notes and try identify what the critical factors are in determining whether the game runs successfully or not. If nothing else it would help CA actually identify what if any errors exist in their code.

As things stand at the minute you read some of these threads and are none the wiser what the problem is let alone whats causing it.

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Do I detect the scent of fanboyism? :laugh4: So long mate.

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Originally Posted by IRONxMortlock

Do I detect the scent of fanboyism? :laugh4: So long mate.

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No far from it....if you note I have pointed several problems with ETW, the worst being the 'Fire at Will' bug.

The frustration for me in reading all these rant threads is not that they are having a go a CA, but that they are not actually achieving anything for the person with the problem.

If we actually stopped slinging mud at each other we might be able to work out what the hell is wrong.

In my Spanish campaign (first time trying them) Whenever The Pueblo faction attacks New Spain's Mexican Regional Capital (Mexico City?) I get the CTD problem. I been getting around it so far by giving the Mexicans money to build up. I finally got around to invading the Pueblo's (Texas) but each time I attack them I get the CTD issue as well. So now I'm stuck at 1719 with the campaign. I cant attack them and they cant attack Mexico City. All my saves has this same problem too so thats not working for me. This is the second faction I have had to abandon and not complete now because of CTD issues. First France and now Spain.

I like the game and its fun when it works but ETW has my official 'Most Buggiest Game' CA has released. :furious3: I've never had these big of CTD problems with their other games. Just fustrating! :wall:

For what it's worth, since the latest patch I have been able to get around every naval CTD by doing the following:

1. Identify the stack that's giving you the crash.
2. Do not click on it.
3. End the turn.
4. Re-try selecting the stack.

In one or two turns this always works for me. I'm also nearing the end of an epic Ottoman campaign, and using this method has saved my bacon twice.

Hmm! well I need to attack the Pueblo Nations at some point as they occupy Texas which is a victory region in my American game, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Why do you think giving the Spanish money to defend Mexico City works?

Is it just that it stops the Pueblo's attacking it?

Don't think I've ever had a naval CTD although when I played Ottoman I hardly built any naval units. Interesting that it was stack specific though, did you notice any pattern to the nature of composition of the stacks that caused it?

This keeps happening to me with fleets. Solution: build a sloop and send it to merge with the fleet that's causing CTDs - this usually fixes the problem. I have noticed that if the sloop doesnt get to the faulty fleet in one turn (it just gets close-ish) then the sloop can also come down with the bug, necessitating *another* sloop to fix the first one, then send both to merge with the original faulty fleet, but eventually it all gets fixed. This leads me to suspect that there are certain regions of the map that cause the bug.

Dont know if a similar fix could work for ground based stacks. Try building a single unit in a nearby city and send it to merge with the faulty stack.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

For what it's worth, since the latest patch I have been able to get around every naval CTD by doing the following:

1. Identify the stack that's giving you the crash.
2. Do not click on it.
3. End the turn.
4. Re-try selecting the stack.

In one or two turns this always works for me. I'm also nearing the end of an epic Ottoman campaign, and using this method has saved my bacon twice.

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Beauty! Thanks for that, I'll give it a try. Patience it seems, may very well be a virtue!~:yin-yang:

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Originally Posted by Daveybaby

This keeps happening to me with fleets. Solution: build a sloop and send it to merge with the fleet that's causing CTDs - this usually fixes the problem. I have noticed that if the sloop doesnt get to the faulty fleet in one turn (it just gets close-ish) then the sloop can also come down with the bug, necessitating *another* sloop to fix the first one, then send both to merge with the original faulty fleet, but eventually it all gets fixed. This leads me to suspect that there are certain regions of the map that cause the bug.

Dont know if a similar fix could work for ground based stacks. Try building a single unit in a nearby city and send it to merge with the faulty stack.

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Hmm! that sounds like something with the interdiction zone is triggering the issue. I wonder if there's a mathematical problem in the code that determines whether to interdict on not. e.g. something like a 'division by zero' error. That would explain why changing the composition of the stack cures the problem, as it would change the input data and thus the resulting calculation. What it doesn't explain is why it only happens on certain machines.

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Originally Posted by Didz

Hmm! well I need to attack the Pueblo Nations at some point as they occupy Texas which is a victory region in my American game, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Why do you think giving the Spanish money to defend Mexico City works?

Is it just that it stops the Pueblo's attacking it?

Don't think I've ever had a naval CTD although when I played Ottoman I hardly built any naval units. Interesting that it was stack specific though, did you notice any pattern to the nature of composition of the stacks that caused it?

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My thoughts were if I gave them money it might allow them to build up their armies and push out the invaders and save me the trouble. The Pueblos were rampaging through the Mexican countryside. I had to try something to salvage the campaign. I was having a lot of fun with it. So I tried giving New Spain money to see if that would help at all. It did buy me some time and get me a few more turns into the campaign.

I dont think adding a sloop will help in this scenario. The problem seems to be with the pueblo themselves near as I can tell. I could start a new campaign and I probably will eventually. In my CTD experiences these bugs are random. They may be in one campaign but not in another. They may happen with one faction or unit but not in another the next go around.

Anyway, I started a Ottoman campaign for now. I hadnt tried them yet. Basically I'm just going through all the various factions one by one to see how they all play out. So far only France and Spain have forced me to stop and abandon a entire campaign. I still need to try Poland, Austria, and the Marathas still. Ill get back to France and Spain again after thats done I think.

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Originally Posted by IRONxMortlock

Yes but there are other in-game variables that your deduction is not taking into account... nation choice, strategies, cities taken, technologies researched, units produced, units produced in different cities on different years with different technologies and perhaps a different number of craft workshops constructed.... As you can see, the variables compound quickly to the point that we cannot be certain that we are comparing exactly the same thing. This is how bugs escape detection in the first place and why they are tricky to replicate in a complicated game like ETW.

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Exactly. Specific unit bugs, trade fleet bugs, unit consolidation bugs all add up to bad code rearing its head at specific (but hard to reproduce) times. Add in corrupt sound DLLs (camp. map lag) and you have quite the witches brew.

Let's look on the bright side. CA now can admit to all sorts of issues with the Beta team on board. So I am confident that this next patch really will fix many of these issues.

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Originally Posted by Didz

Interesting that it was stack specific though, did you notice any pattern to the nature of composition of the stacks that caused it?

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I have only had CTD problems with stacks that contain ships of the line. And only after researching the techs that speed them up, copper bottoms and topgallants and so forth seem to exacerbate the problem. Once you've got some first-rates or third-rates with copper bottoms, be very cautious about clicking on them, especially in the Mediterranean or the Americas.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

I have only had CTD problems with stacks that contain ships of the line. And only after researching the techs that speed them up, copper bottoms and topgallants and so forth seem to exacerbate the problem. Once you've got some first-rates or third-rates with copper bottoms, be very cautious about clicking on them, especially in the Mediterranean or the Americas.

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Thanks for the advice. I have played two campaigns since my first one. In both , the game starts crashing around 1760. I thought it might be date specific, but it is somewhat frustrating.

I finished my first campaign with only a few CTDs. Those revolved around manually merging units. After I quit trying to do that, I had no problems. Since the game has been patched though , I have encountered too many crashes...mostly involving ships.

I may just not research those techs and see what that gets me.

I hate to sound like I'm crying, but as everyone knows, it is frustrating to say the least.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

I have only had CTD problems with stacks that contain ships of the line. And only after researching the techs that speed them up, copper bottoms and topgallants and so forth seem to exacerbate the problem. Once you've got some first-rates or third-rates with copper bottoms, be very cautious about clicking on them, especially in the Mediterranean or the Americas.

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Yes, the ship CTD has something to do with the range calculation (green area) of Ships of the Line. Since the range shown is always the range of the ship with the leastmovement points left, merging a ship (which then has already lost some of its points) solves the problem.
It occurs almost every time around Newfoundland (I don't send SotLs there directly from Europe anymore) and rarely elsewhere (once or twice somewhere off France for me), which leads me to suspect it has something to do with a specific coastline feature up there.

Findind out which corner of the cursed island that is should be easy. Simple trial and error of moving a 2nd rate or something closer and checking which is the closest you can get from each direction. This would be terribly time consuming though, because of the multiple game restarts, so I'm not going to do it. Any students with too much time around? :laugh4:


Edit: On second thought it can't be the range calculation for the ship stack or the we would see CTDs when the AI moves ships from that area. Could it be the green range circle? Anyway to disable this?

I have a white screen crash in 1740 at the later stages of the AI's turn. I've gone back to 1734 and 1730 to try and select alternative reality paths and no joy.

My GB m/m campaign is basically a total wash :shame:

I'm fairly certain, there was a cost benefit submission from CA to Sega over releasing the game as it is...without a shadow of a doubt this situation (CTD's) if repeated in the next game, will have a bottom line impact on sales.

Maybe that will get through to the hardcore business men making the calls about these technical issues.

I've also just lost my second campaign to CTDs. First time was my GB campaign which died during the AI's turn on 1785 regardless of which of the 4 saves I tried to play from. My second dead campaign was my Prussian one, which seems to have corrupted saved games as it white screens from the last 2 saves from 1739 and 1740, and as I'd done some spring cleaning on my hard drive, the previous save is from 18 years before - I can't be doing with playing out an alternate time line from that far back. I was enjoying that campaign too - I'd just finished off Poland and was considering whether to turn my energies Eastward into Russia, or absorb Austria into my expanding empire.

Bah.

So, do I start a new campaign, or wait for the patch? I've not seen anything to say whether or not it's save game compatible.

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Originally Posted by Darth Venom

It occurs almost every time around Newfoundland (I don't send SotLs there directly from Europe anymore) and rarely elsewhere (once or twice somewhere off France for me), which leads me to suspect it has something to do with a specific coastline feature up there.

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Disagree, I've had many, many ship-based CTDs in the Caribbean. A couple in the Mediterranean, as well, but they're more common in America. Here's a fun fact: The port directly west of London (forget the name) has calculation problems as well. Oh, it doesn't usually result in a CTD, but moving any ships into or out of that port should trigger some sort of slowdown. It can be quite epic. Move a stack of Line ships in and you can probably watch the extended version of Apocalypse Now before your computer is done chugging the calculations.

With any luck these range calculation bugs will be addressed in the next patch. Or the one after that.

In the meantime? Sloops all around!

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Originally Posted by IRONxMortlock

It's most likely some kind of save game corruption. Thanks for you help anyway though, I appreciate it ~:thumb:

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I seems to me that save game corruption is most likely the cuase of a LOT of the CTDs. Most of my long campaigns have hit the killer CTDs around 1750 or after. Each time I get a killer CTD it seems to happen when a I hit end turn right when it rotates back to my turn again. If I go back a few years to a previous save game and start playing again I usually dont get the same CTD again, even if I pretty much do the exact same moves as before. Also, the CTDs seem to occur when I load up a new game within the first 10 to 15 mins of playing. As far as I can remember, I rarely if at all get a CTD if I have been playing the game for a while (over 25 mins) unless it is a memory crash. So to me, the end of turn CTDs seem to be directly related to saving games and starting them back up. By going back a few years and starting a previous game save, I can usually finish all my campaings now.