CTD on loading issue

[QuintusSertorius]

Recently something happened with a fair few of my latest saves, which meant they wouldn't load. They start loading, the music would kick in, and when the green bar finished they'd CTD. I had to re-play about 12 turns to get back to where I was from the save before that.

I just had the same thing happen again in my game, and once again I saved, quit, started EB again, loaded and got a CTD.

I've got all the fixes and the optional script optimisation, which I'm starting to think is the source of all my issues. I appreciate that LoRdBuLa spent a lot of time on it, but I suspect longer loading times is the lesser of two evils, since we keep trying new iterations of the optimised script, affecting more and more files, yet still not necessarily fixing the problems. And possibly causing others.

I had a cloned Makedonian FM who I stuck on Cape Horn. He died, and the stack out there "re-appeared" so I moved them back. Not long before I closed the game down before this bug, Pella's banner disappeared, suggesting a clone. Only there wasn't a cloned FM there, only one of their regular units showing a peasant unit card.

Around the same time, there was also a cloned Ptolemaic FM, though he didn't ghost or have an invisible banner. Just two of them in the same stack with the same name and picture and age and so on.

Other things I can think of that might be potential problem-sources:
-I give the Eleutheroi faction around 400k a turn. Is there some limit on how big a treasury can grow, so perhaps I hit an overflow type issue which is only triggered once I try to load up a save?
-I turn of my virus protection while the game is running, because Norton slows everything down and interferes with any and every process running. Could there be a virus at work?
-I use Forced Diplomacy a fair bit on and off. Whenever I use it to switch ownership of settlements around, I always save then load the game.
-I use move_character and create_unit a lot.
-I save every single turn.
-I Alt+Tab out of the game a lot to save screenshots.

If it happens a third time, I think I'm just going to have to start clean again, and not bother with the optimised script.

[||Lz3||]

I use the optimized script and I dont have any problems... looks that you're bug hunted Quintus


but I haven't reached your dates , (230's) I was about to do it , but I accidentally killed my campaign , so I'll have to start again and redo those 120 turns...


Still I think there are several people ho have reached more than 230 whit the original script

[QuintusSertorius]

My previous game worked fine down to 133BC even when I was mixing and matching my script between old and optimised.

For some reason this game, with the new and improved optimised script seems to be picking up problems all over the place.

[Swordmaster]

I think we can safely conclude that I have roughly the same problems as you do, on and off. Cloned FMs, banners disappearing, corrupted save games (I always keep mulptiple files, so that's never an issue for me), etc. Other people seem to have few or none of these problems.

I suggest we keep on reporting about these issues, it can only shed more light on what's actually happening. I've been thinking FD might be a potential troublemaker, but I'd find that very strange. Or perhaps, the move_character command, which might cause troubles with EB's differing naming schemes etc.

That was just brainstorming, BTW.

[||Lz3||]

Still I think there are several people ho have reached more than 230 whit the original script

sorry I meant optimized script not the original hehehe mi bad...

[QuintusSertorius]

I think we can safely conclude that I have roughly the same problems as you do, on and off. Cloned FMs, banners disappearing, corrupted save games (I always keep mulptiple files, so that's never an issue for me), etc. Other people seem to have few or none of these problems.

I suggest we keep on reporting about these issues, it can only shed more light on what's actually happening. I've been thinking FD might be a potential troublemaker, but I'd find that very strange. Or perhaps, the move_character command, which might cause troubles with EB's differing naming schemes etc.

That was just brainstorming, BTW.

I also find it strange that FD could be the source of the problem, given all it's doing is re-creating a disabled cheat. Or move_character as long as you're not putting stacks in places where they can't go, or on top of other stacks.

It's only because of your advice about multiple saves that I'm not having to start from scratch; used to be a time when I'd only have a couple of saves and keep over-writing them every turn. Now at least they tend to be about 10 turns apart at most.

I'm starting to think maybe I need to relinquish my desire to muck around with the AI factions as much as I do. And just accept that my game is alternate history and I can't try to make things turn out in a similar fashion to how they did.

[Swordmaster]

I'm starting to think maybe I need to relinquish my desire to muck around with the AI factions as much as I do. And just accept that my game is alternate history and I can't try to make things turn out in a similar fashion to how they did.

Go say that again when your Romani faction faces a Ptolemaic empire spanning from Baktria to Carthage even before you would start the Macedonian Wars . But you're right in that playing the game as it runs makes for lots of fun, too, as long as you keep it reasonable and think about how plausible certain moves are. The temptation to blitz everything within sight is at times quite big, I must admit.

[QuintusSertorius]

I've managed to get down to 233BC from a previous save, but I'm now getting frequent AI-turn-CTDs.

Got some captures of what I think the source of the problem is, the trigger being the death of the cloned Makedonian FM:

On his death, there's a Pahlavan army-within-an-army in Pella:



However the previously bugged stack on Cape Horn seems to be alright:



But it was moving that lot back to Makedonia that seemed to cause the whole business with something funny happening in Pella and the banner disappearing.

Was my game doomed from the moment that cloned Makedonian Faction Leader appeared?

Go say that again when your Romani faction faces a Ptolemaic empire spanning from Baktria to Carthage even before you would start the Macedonian Wars . But you're right in that playing the game as it runs makes for lots of fun, too, as long as you keep it reasonable and think about how plausible certain moves are. The temptation to blitz everything within sight is at times quite big, I must admit.

True, and for reasons I can't explain, I have this unreasoning hatred of Baktrian expansion.

[QuintusSertorius]

Do I just need to abandon this game and start again? Or should I be looking for one of the mini-mods that removes client rulers (and possibly generals)?

I'd be even more sad to lose generals than client rulers, since I make a lot of use of them. Client rulers are one of the neatest things in EB, but I could just about manage without them (as long as I could still have typeIV governments and the ability to recruit generals).

[Swordmaster]

That's just too crazy, Quintus. Again, same problem as I had. But it's solvable, so don't give up on this game.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=104992

[QuintusSertorius]

Is there any way around the army-within-an-army bug? I know it's a general RTW bug rather than an EB-specific one.

However I think it was another cloned client ruler that killed my earlier save, given the banner vanished in Pella.

[Swordmaster]

Is there any way around the army-within-an-army bug? I know it's a general RTW bug rather than an EB-specific one.

However I think it was another cloned client ruler that killed my earlier save, given the banner vanished in Pella.

I'm trying to remember how I solved it. Can you attack Pella with a teleported army? If I didn't do it with an army, then Pella wasn't their capital and could be transferred to me by FD.

[QuintusSertorius]

KH have nearly conquered it several times, and there was a brief rebellion there which whittled their numbers down. Perhaps I should sotp trying to prevent KH's expansion for long enough for them to be killed, then fix it all with FD.

I must admit the temptation to start afresh is quite strong given I might just hit similar problems again (cloning-wise, rather than army-within-army).

[QuintusSertorius]

It's gone into the irrevocable CTD that killed my last game again. This time it's Pella that's the problem, just had a crash on my spy trying to look into the settlement.

Restart...right now I'm running a full virus-scan before I reinstall the game; all those long periods of time with it disabled might have allowed something to take hold (I disconnect the internet while I'm playing too, so it's not exposed at the time).

[Swordmaster]

It's gone into the irrevocable CTD that killed my last game again. This time it's Pella that's the problem, just had a crash on my spy trying to look into the settlement.

Restart...right now I'm running a full virus-scan before I reinstall the game; all those long periods of time with it disabled might have allowed something to take hold (I disconnect the internet while I'm playing too, so it's not exposed at the time).

It's certainly not the internet, Quintus. I'm playing on a machine that isn't even connected (ever).

Could you upload a save?

[QuintusSertorius]

It's certainly not the internet, Quintus. I'm playing on a machine that isn't even connected (ever).

Could you upload a save?

I meant that disabling your virus protection while connected to the internet is a bad idea; thus when I was playing with it off, I pulled the cable out.

Bit late now, I've uninstalled and deleted everything.

[Spizania]

Ive gotten that horrible corrupted save file crash on loading bug myself, its really annoying, and I dont use FD at all, its not even installed

[bovi]

Quintus, could you for testing's sake try to not use client rulers or recruited generals at all? You seem to be a magnet for these kind of problems and I suspect it's due to your extensive use of non-family generals. Sorry to cramp your style, of course. But if it eliminates the problem, at least we'd know that it is this causing it.

[QuintusSertorius]

Quintus, could you for testing's sake try to not use client rulers or recruited generals at all? You seem to be a magnet for these kind of problems and I suspect it's due to your extensive use of non-family generals. Sorry to cramp your style, of course. But if it eliminates the problem, at least we'd know that it is this causing it.

Well in my new game I've cut out the client ruler script, and have only used a few non-FM generals (none of whom I've adopted - in fact I've never seen the option to adopt them), and I've had no problems at all.

I've got to wonder, do most people not use client rulers or recruitable generals?

[Papal Knight]

I use both, but sparingly. Say, in far off places like what are known today as Crete or Cyprus (raiding bases for an advanced Romani campaign), for example. I have not had the issues you have had (I have read all your AAR stuff over at tw-center).

I did have a similar, repeatable CTD with an older Romani FM in a southern Gallic city I owned (Tolouse? am on the work comp, and I forget). I crossed my fingers & waited for him to die. it worked, no more CTD. as such, I really don't know what the issue was, but it undoubtedly had someting to do with the FM..... was same as you though, a CTD every time you looked in the city, put a spy there, whatever.

(I don't do FD or any of the other stuff you do. )

[QuintusSertorius]

Thing is they've never been my own clones - always that of AI factions. First the Getai, then Makedonia.

[Skandinav]

I´ve just had three save games with far in between with persistent crashes similar to those described in the first post, all is fine when I save and log out but when I try to load it crashes shortly after the campaign music heralds the loading is done, never seen such before. No cloned client rulers anywhere though, but a lot of console fiddling done.


EDIT: Concerning the script optimization, I have played a romani campaign to 90BC a Swêboz campaign to 111BC and a Pahlava to 196BC without the "Client ruler potential fix", only the "Initial client ruler interlopers fix", and the "Client ruler script optimization fix" without having any problems besides the client rulers not getting their client ruler trait, never seen a single client ruler cloned or had crashes that were not related to rebellion, but my point is that aforementioned crashes, if they are connected to the client rulers, have appeared only after installing the mini mod pack a day ago which, as far as I know, contains the "Client ruler potential fix".