Post Your ETW Bugs Here!

[MikeV]

One consistent error is having it mis-interpret movement orders: for some reason, it picks the last mouse/key RELEASED event it sees. So, if you issue the order, but move your mouse and forget to wait the necessary seconds, it sends your fleet, or army, or agent off in an unintended direction.

I am really, Really, REALLY beginning to hate the GUI design based on mouse/key RELEASED events ...

[Monsieur Alphonse]

This is a bug caused by the march 25th patch. If I want to save my game while playing Russia, the screen suggests that I am Mexico (according to the map and faction flag) or something and there are no previous saved games nor is there a suggested save game like Russia winter 1725. I can only type a name or the name of my saved game and then save it the normal way. After saving and trying again everything is normal. But next turn everything is back to Mexico without regions according to the map. Now the question arises what if Mexico appears as a faction. Do they get all my regions or do I get a CTD?

[Babblearossa]

I am really, Really, REALLY beginning to hate the GUI design based on mouse/key RELEASED events ...

err, there's probably a better way but... one advantage I've liked is I can abort a 'move here' order by moving the cursor to the sky before releasing the mouse. Been assuming that's why it's based on released event's, there does need to be a way to say 'oops, scratch that'

[Babblearossa]

after march 25th:

save game list went blank after about 15 turns, games still saved but don't think i was cautioned about overwriting a previous save ( difficult to check as no save games were listed ). ( seems new with m.25th update )

if a stack is directly adjacent to a city ( maybe only capitols ) ordering a subset of the stack to enter the city fails, you have to move them further away from the city ( splitting the stack ) then order them in, ( seems new with m.25th update )

sound plays after alt-tab back to windows and switching focus to another program, pre and post m.25th update

if region detail window is open, clicking on a different capitol doesn't update region details to show that capitol ( as the equivalent window did in all previous TW games I've played ). Is a big pointless time eater as my country grows.

Buncha selection, order weirdnesses but am still trying to document them coherently.

Oh and, big +++ for getting 2 patches out in a month, better than any previous TW I've bought, usually I wait a few months to buy and this makes me happy I bought on release this time. It's what I was hoping for.

[Zatoichi]

I've just had my first CTD after a battle - this didn't happen before the March 25th patch. Annoyingly this was during the AI turn where 4 separate battles are due to occur - it happened after the 2nd of these battles. Gah! I guess I can auto resolve them, but I won these battles against the odds, so the auto resolve will no doubt give the win to the enemy. Gah!

[Furunculus]

got a fleet of four 2nd rates floating of the coast of Cuba, loading with a 16 stack army just waiting to invade.
every time i click on the fleet i get a CTD.

yes, i did get the hotfix last night.

[Bornslippy]

a cavalry army just seems to disappear completely when it retreats from (declines) a battle in RTI

[Bornslippy]

Trying to merge two depleted militia units causes a CTD

[anweRU]

after march 25th:

save game list went blank after about 15 turns, games still saved but don't think i was cautioned about overwriting a previous save ( difficult to check as no save games were listed ). ( seems new with m.25th update )

This happened to me in my brand new British campaign. I ended the first turn, remembered that I forgot to repair a damaged. So when I went to load my save at the start of the 2nd turn, the save game list was empty. I saw the Napoleon & Mexico image described by the previous poster. I exited to Windows and restarted, the list was still empty...

[foop]

Further information about the save/load bug.

I, too, have seen the problem with the save game list being empty and a strange monarch and flag. Worse still, if you choose "Load Game" from the "Single Player" menu and this bug is in effect, you will be stuck on the load screen. None of the buttons (including the back button) do anything, and the only way I've found to escape is to kill ETW from the task manager.

When it's in this state, "Continue Campaign" still works. You can then save the game (you'll have to choose a name because the save list will still be empty). Once it's been saved, a subsequent attempt to load a previous save will work because the save list is repopulated.

[ZIM!!]

The game completely forgets paths/directions chosen for units upon loading the game so if you leave a units move unfinished say it takes 2-3 turns to get to a destination) then save the game when you start it up again the unit does not remember the command and just sits there.

[ZIM!!]

Ships that get too close to the map bundries get stuck

[Invar]

Army moves instead of agent: Sometimes when I select a city that has both an army and an agent, if I look at the army and then select the agent tab, then attempt to move the agent, the entire army moves instead!

Bouncing around to a different city works sometimes, but it's cumbersome.

[HKDDJulker]

During Naval Combat

on H/VH

1) I noticed that occasionally, while my ships were firing upon Pirate ships, the pirate ships would suddenly seem to gain another cannon. I believe I saw this twice in one battle, where I would mouse over the enemy ship, see "40/51" or something, and then after a second, it would blip and become "41/51."

2) Also, during the same battle, I had 3 Indiamen that I decided not to involve in the fighting. They stayed on the far edge of my deployment zone, and were uninvolved in any combat.

They started the battle with full health and cannon (12) and yet near the end of the fight, one was down to 8 cannon, another was down to 10. This is without any crew loss or hull damage. The enemy had no reinforcements, and no routing ships.

All the combat that was done was on the other side of the sea map.

I didn't auto resolve, and I'm not looking at a results screen. The battle is still going on, and they haven't been involved, but have suffered losses.

What the heck?

[MikeV]

err, there's probably a better way but... one advantage I've liked is I can abort a 'move here' order by moving the cursor to the sky before releasing the mouse. Been assuming that's why it's based on released event's, there does need to be a way to say 'oops, scratch that'

The Backspace key will stop it moving, if you're fast enough. There needs to be an Undo move keybinding, for a UI this broken.

[Vlad Tzepes]

got a fleet of four 2nd rates floating of the coast of Cuba, loading with a 16 stack army just waiting to invade.
every time i click on the fleet i get a CTD.

There's a workaround that problem - send another ship to your troublesome stack and it won't CTD anymore. It works for me. Somebody found it out, thanks, whoever he/she is, I can't find the post.

[miotas]

I get a ctd when I try to start a 2nd campaign. Anyone else have this bug?

[Warhammer3025]

Patched by 3/25/09

Phantom casualties still occur after victories. Each of my winning units are getting shaved anywhere from 5-10% for no reason. I especially notice this after i rout all my enemies and i choose to continue battle to chase down routers for more xp.

[Babblearossa]

Patched by 3/25/09

Phantom casualties still occur after victories. Each of my winning units are getting shaved anywhere from 5-10% for no reason. I especially notice this after i rout all my enemies and i choose to continue battle to chase down routers for more xp.

are you sure it's not friendly fire? I've noticed that happening when I don't turn off 'fire at will' on the artillery ( and the bombed my general, dang fraggers! )

[Dead Guy]

Light Infantry do not deploy like you tell them to. If you drag a formation they move to where you dragged it out but deploy facing the opposite direction or sometimes have their field of fire to one side, thus not firing at will at oncoming enemies.

Light Infantry also seem to keep firing when their target moves out of range if firing at will. Pressing back space doesn't stop it, nor does turning off fire at will I think, and they'll keep shooting at nothing until they run out of ammo.

Skirmishing also seems completely borked.

[Melvish]

Game always crash after a naval engagement (if i auto-calc it is all ok)
If i turn off the sound in ETW config panel all ok.

Moving an army to a town that already has a garrison then disbanding a unit without reselecting the town crash the game. (it display only the army recently moved and do not add the garrison in the displayed list)
Merging worn out unit can crash the game sometimes.

[sassbarman]

I get a ctd when I try to start a 2nd campaign. Anyone else have this bug?

ya i have this baby. just finished my first campaign as prussia went to start my second and as soon as i hit the grand campaign button CTD. nothing grand about that.

[Feanaro]

One thing that worked for me with CTDs related to starting a Grand Campaign: Delete your preferences file. You'll have to reset all your settings once the game has started but it worked for me. It's located in documents and settings>your Windows logon name>application data>the creative assembly>empire>scripts and the file is called preferences.empire_script.txt. Back it up before you do anything though! Also, some of these folders are hidden. You'll need to have enabled seeing hidden folders.

[sassbarman]

One thing that worked for me with CTDs related to starting a Grand Campaign: Delete your preferences file. You'll have to reset all your settings once the game has started but it worked for me. It's located in documents and settings>your Windows logon name>application data>the creative assembly>empire>scripts and the file is called preferences.empire_script.txt. Back it up before you do anything though! Also, some of these folders are hidden. You'll need to have enabled seeing hidden folders.

thanks feanaro i will give it a go. truly strange though i can hit continue campaign and play any one of my three saves from my prussian game but once i hit new campaign you guessed it. very very dissapointing shame on you CA!!!

EDIT: that worked feanaro you are the man!!

[Baudchaser]

As a big fan of the Total War series (played them all, except of the Shogun ones), I was quite disappointed to find that Empire - Total War was so full of (serious) bugs. In particular when I never could complete a game of world domination, as the longer I came into the game, the more it would appear to crash.

Anyhow, I realized that the game would crash-to-desktop 100% whenever I selected any fleet consisting of only "Heavy First Rates". No matter what I tried to do, it would consequently crash.

I did a lot of tweaking in the game settings, to no avail. The crashes appears to occur because of the "range available" (the green color that surrounds your units when you select them) simply goes bananas... So my "solution" to fix this, was to put a smaller and shorter-ranged ship (i.e. a Galley) into the group of heavy first rates. That worked for me, so far.

Now, if you dock the heavy first rate groups (with the galley) for repairs, the game crashes again if you select any of the heavy first rates when trying move them out of the dock. You solve this simply by selecting the galley first, and then shift-select the heavy first rates...

I am not sure how many people have this problem, but at least people with similar hardware/OS may have experienced it.

I run Win XP Professional 64bit version (game in Windows XP compability mode)

My hardware is :
Intel Pentium Core2Quad 2.4Ghz, 4GB memory, Nvidia GeForce 8800GT (512MB)

I hope the information was useful, and that it may help others to avoid annoying crashes which prevents you from conquering the world...

Best regards
Robert.

[crazyviking03]

Game always crash after a naval engagement (if i auto-calc it is all ok)
If i turn off the sound in ETW config panel all ok.

Moving an army to a town that already has a garrison then disbanding a unit without reselecting the town crash the game. (it display only the army recently moved and do not add the garrison in the displayed list)
Merging worn out unit can crash the game sometimes.

I am getting this issue with naval battles as well. So, simply turning off sounds will remedy this?

[Feanaro]

EDIT: that worked feanaro you are the man!!

The credit goes to someone else, I'm just not sure who. I read it on here or TWcenter.

[MikeV]

I get a ctd when I try to start a 2nd campaign. Anyone else have this bug?

Nope -- like so many others, can't complete a campaign. Just got the infamous save game CTD ~1743.

[MikeV]

Select a naval unit, create an Admiral, he takes command of the selected unit.
Select a land unit, create a General, he takes command of a new "general's bodyguard" unit.

One of these is a bug: either the Admiral needs to be constrained to a "flagship" type unit, or the General should be able to take over command of an existing "bodyguard" type unit.

One side-effect of the current implementation is that dead Generals leave behind 8-man "bodyguard" cavalry units that can't be assigned a new body to guard.

[A Very Super Market]

It is generally agreed that CA should allow us to transfer admirals from ship to ship. However, you still don't need a specially made flagship, it is simply preferable.

However, it is debatable if the bodyguard thing is a bug. Presumably, they should be disbanded upon a general's death, but they are still paid members of an army. I would think that they would stick around.