Reinforcement CTD Fix - The Real Deal!

This has not been tested extensively enough for us to say 100% that the bug is dead, but right now it looks VERY promising. All of you with v.74 games saved just prior to the Reinforcement CTD bug, please download the fix and test it. Do it RIGHT NOW!!!! And tell us if it worked. And when it does, you can thank Bovi for his genius and therother and BozosLiveHere for never giving up!

Edit: The fix is a single text file that should be unzipped into the /Data subdirectory of your v.74 build. It will overwrite a file already present there.

Edit2: Changed the link (file is now downloaded directly from europabarbarorum.org)

Yay! :2thumbsup:

Hmmm... Rapidshare won't let me download it. Anyone else having this problem?

Did you write the letters/numbers you see?
It tests if you're a person or a pc. WEird world we live in :dizzy2:

Indeed I did/am. Still no luck.

It downloaded fine for me... I'll go test it now!

Out of interest, what was likely to be the problem?

Apparently, the engine got confused and crashed when it had to count the number of enemies in battle during a reinforcement battle. For some reason it went fine when you autocalculated.

BTW, the workaround I used involves in part replacing the NumEnemiesInBattle conditional with NumFriendsInBattle, but I don't know if it also has the problem. It was the only way to keep the functionality we wanted, and I figured that using a counter for the number of friendlies would be a better choice, given that most of the time the player can decide if in a particular battle he'll have reinforcement armies or not. So, if you get a CTD with multiple allied armies, try replaying it after merging them or moving one away and see if it works.

I've also uploaded the file to our FTP, it can be found here. Kull, you might want to update the first post.

so are the general's after battle traits still nerfed with this fixed?

No.

Ah, excellent then.

But if you replace the NumEnemiesInBattle with the NumFriendsInBattle conditional, the engine must also count the number of soldiers in the battle, so it will also be confused and cause a CTD...

An the problem would not only be present when the player has reinforcements in the battle, but it would also arise when the enemy brings in reinforcements, because the trait that involves that conditional (NumFriendsInBattle) would also operate if one of the enemy`s armies has a general in it... since the traits operate also for the AI controlled FMs as well as for the player controlled FMs..

Perhaps a more safe solution would be replacing any conditional that involves counting soldiers in the field of battle altogether, with another like total kills, etc...

PS: Just a thought....

If NumFriendsInBattle turns out to be as buggy as NumEnemiesInBattle I'll try something else. So far it has worked. I don't really have good substitutes for them (NumFriendsInBattle wasn't a perfect substitute already).

w00t!!! Go EB!

Okay I just played a reinforcement battle as Koinon Hellenon, just to see if it worked. Here are the results:

Me = 1671 Deployed, 2512 Kills, 1481 Remaining
They had 3 Captain lead armies:
1 = 1221 Deployed, 88 Kills, 192 Remaining
2 = 341 Deployed, 61 Kills, 116 Remaining
3 = 1521 Deployed, 70 Kills, 263 Remaing

Overal Result = Heroic Victory
The second army was the garrison of Korinthos. There was no CTD! It came up a historic battle on the Strat map.

Great job guys! Especially the scripters!

Doesn't work for me.. but in my game it's saved at battlescreen. Does that make a difference?

Well I started a new game, but yes, good question.

Save game compatible?

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Originally Posted by CountArach

Save game compatible?

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Yes. My game was from last March and it worked fine.l

Quote:

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Originally Posted by k_raso

But if you replace the NumEnemiesInBattle with the NumFriendsInBattle conditional, the engine must also count the number of soldiers in the battle, so it will also be confused and cause a CTD...

An the problem would not only be present when the player has reinforcements in the battle, but it would also arise when the enemy brings in reinforcements, because the trait that involves that conditional (NumFriendsInBattle) would also operate if one of the enemy`s armies has a general in it... since the traits operate also for the AI controlled FMs as well as for the player controlled FMs..

Perhaps a more safe solution would be replacing any conditional that involves counting soldiers in the field of battle altogether, with another like total kills, etc...

PS: Just a thought....

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If the issue was simply counting, then you are right, it wouldn't make a difference. But the fact is that we DO see dramatically different results, so it must be something else. Bovi has theorized that the problem is a bug in the CA NumEnemiesInBattle code. And if so, then we should absolutely see no more CTDs. That's why we want to see a lot more testing. I'm not kidding - you guys can REALLY help us out here by running as many of your old CTD games as possible so we can say with 100% certainty that yes, the bug is dead.

It didn't work for me, so I abandoned the game and I'm going to start from scratch. I'll give you more info on how it's working when I have a chance.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zalmoxis

Doesn't work for me.. but in my game it's saved at battlescreen. Does that make a difference?

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Well you're at the battlemap here, so god only knows what has been loaded into memory. And given that you still got the CTD, the odds are the old file is already in there. I wouldn't consider this a valid proof for or against the theory.

For those who really want to help, here's a link to a directory containing a bunch of reinforcement CTD save games submitted by other EB players. A few files are "non-CTD" and a couple others have nothing to do with the bug, but the titles will tell which ones should be tested.

Here's the plan:

1) Select and download one of the files.
2) Post the file name you are testing in this thread (so others don't try the same one)
3) After your test, tell us what happened. Be sure to indicate the result of the battle if it wasn't a CTD. Average victories and losses often don't produce CTDs, while Heroic victories are almost a guarantee.

Damn! I've been made redundant after five minutes!:laugh4: :beam: :2thumbsup:

Downloading and checking tonight.

Uh, Kull, that directory has a lot of savegames from the more recent builds that won't work with .74.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zalmoxis

Doesn't work for me.. but in my game it's saved at battlescreen. Does that make a difference?

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Since when can you save your game from the battle screen? :inquisitive:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kull

If the issue was simply counting, then you are right, it wouldn't make a difference. But the fact is that we DO see dramatically different results, so it must be something else. Bovi has theorized that the problem is a bug in the CA NumEnemiesInBattle code. And if so, then we should absolutely see no more CTDs. That's why we want to see a lot more testing. I'm not kidding - you guys can REALLY help us out here by running as many of your old CTD games as possible so we can say with 100% certainty that yes, the bug is dead.

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You are absolutly right. Hope that it`s just the NumEnemiesInBattle conditional!

Cheers for the trait team and to Bovi!!!

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Since when can you save your game from the battle screen?

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I think he means where you chose whether to fight/autocalc/run. You know the screen BEFORE the battle map. From here you cannot activate the script, so it can be a problem.

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Originally Posted by BozosLiveHere

Uh, Kull, that directory has a lot of savegames from the more recent builds that won't work with .74.

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True, there are some of each. But it's no harm in trying to load up a v.79 game...if it doesn't work, they can post that and move on to the next one.

I take it that this bug is still present in 1.5?

With this fix, probably not anymore.

Yay, amazing works! No more need to try and avoid killing the enemy general. Time to go make some more sweat love with the reinforcements.:yes:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kull

For those who really want to help, here's a link to a directory containing a bunch of reinforcement CTD save games submitted by other EB players. A few files are "non-CTD" and a couple others have nothing to do with the bug, but the titles will tell which ones should be tested.

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Cool, I lost all my saves cause I started playing some other games and I uninstalled. Now I can download and test a couple of my saves again :) :2thumbsup:

EDIT: Ok, so I tested both Belgae_2stack_ctd.sav and 1sweboz vs 2romans_ctd.sav

In both cases I get a ctd with the old file and no ctd with the new file. Works like a charm!! Nice work. Hopefully it works the same for others.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by k_raso

Since when can you save your game from the battle screen? :inquisitive:

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Since RTW came out, you can save your RTW game from the battle screen.
Simply a matter of pressing Esc when the screen has appeared on your monitor... the next time you'll load the game, it will continue at the battlescreen.

Remeber that by then the engine already calculated the number of enemies, friends, and it predicted the odds as well. This data is simply saved together with the rest of your campaign game. That may prove to be the explanation why Zalmoxis continued to encounter the CTD: the 'likely' faulty code already had done it's buggy work.

At first the patch made all save games crash so I uninstalled EB and reinstalled a clean 0.74 and it seems to be working OK now. I've only tested it with the CTDn1n.zip which ended in a clear victory with out CTDing. Will try some of the others and my most recent CTD's on file latter tonight and tommorow.

Well done Bovi "the Dragonslayer".

The CTD had still been present in our 1.5 build and we've made no secret about it. Simply ecstatic to see the posts here about this solving people's old problems now and very happy that now I can stop reading on other mod forums about how EB has all these problems :grin:.

This is very encouraging. Thanks to those who are running the tests for us! Please continue to do so, we do appreciate your efforts! :2thumbsup:

For the record, this fix does not limit or eliminate the award of post-battle traits to winning (and losing) generals. It is a true honest-to-god fix. While giving out credit to Bovi (who discovered the faulty trigger) let's not forget to to give a round of applause to BozosLiveHere, who figured out how to use a different trigger that would produce the desired effects without invoking the CTD.

Tremendous work, gentlemen! ~:cheers:

It worked for me in my Makedon campaign when I took Thermon. Before the fix it crashed, but this time I had no problems.

Alright an update. I played another few reinforcement battles (I try to when ever possible now :P) and still no CTD!

Go Bovi!

From the results posted here it would seem this dragon has been slain and it appears everyone's been feasting on fried dragon bits.....on a stick.....with sauce.....and seconds! If it has then Bovi and Bozo's have both earned half the kingdom and half of the princesses' hand in marriage for their efforts.

"Eggcelent":smash: ~:grouphug:

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:2thumbsup:

Realy great work guys....This is :balloon2: :2thumbsup: :cheerleader:

good work, fellas.:thrasher:

btw, how the heck do i get an avatar on these boards?

edit: nvm, found the answer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Excel

good work, fellas.:thrasher:

btw, how the heck do i get an avatar on these boards?

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Click "User CP" on the top left bar of the screen.

On the left there will be an option that says "Edit Avatar"

Click that and follow instructions.

Brilliant! It pleases me immensely to see that the most annoying CTD ever to appear in EB is finally fixed.

:2thumbsup: Keep up the good work :2thumbsup:

Sorry guys,but can you tell me exactly what fix this file?

Because i didn't understand nothing...

Thanks...

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Originally Posted by Alkiviadis

Sorry guys,but can you tell me exactly what fix this file?

Because i didn't understand nothing...

Thanks...

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Without the "fix file" (get it from the first post in this thread), there was a strong chance that you would experience a CTD (the game "crashes-to-desktop") in any battles that involved MORE THAN TWO armies. This would happen if three or more campaign map unit stacks were involved in the same battle. We called it the "Reinforcement CTD" because the 3rd army often shows up either immediately or during the battle as "reinforcements".

It's a nasty problem that has bedeviled us for over a year, but has finally been solved. (the EB team was able to trace it back to reports from our v.60 beta testers in October 2005!) If you are playing EB v.74, then you really should download and install the fixed file.

I was hit by this bug for the first time while playing my Avernii Campaign. after a 20 year war with the Audei I finally managed to get them down to their last settlement and seige it with a decent sized army. I played the battle the first time round and it took over an hour (no time limit) before I won and destroyed the Audei. Only problem was I crashed before getting that satisfying "faction destroyed" message on the campaign map.
I found this fix and played the same battle again a day later. This time I wasn't rewarded with a CTD, and I lost far less men, though since I've "Unified Gaul" my campaign has got considerably tougher, but thanks none the less! :sweatdrop:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

Since RTW came out, you can save your RTW game from the battle screen.
Simply a matter of pressing Esc when the screen has appeared on your monitor... the next time you'll load the game, it will continue at the battlescreen.

Remeber that by then the engine already calculated the number of enemies, friends, and it predicted the odds as well. This data is simply saved together with the rest of your campaign game. That may prove to be the explanation why Zalmoxis continued to encounter the CTD: the 'likely' faulty code already had done it's buggy work.

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Turns out I used the wrong word, it was the battle deployment. Would the code still be active?

not for this particular battle, but for the rest of the game, yes