Don't you just love

[Macilrille]

When you have won one of the five greatest heroic victories of your entire EB gaming experience, your half-naked German savages having defeated two full-stacks of KH elites and the city lying prostrate in front of you; then when you are relishing the look of the Victory screen and has so for 5 secs, and you get CTD?

[ARCHIPPOS]

Sounds like what Alexander and Caesar got :)

[anubis88]

I know your payne... I played a battle for Syria a long time ago on VH/VH wit the Seleucid, and won the battle after an !hour! of bloodshed, i was outnumbered, out-elephanted, and i still won... Only to get a CTD during the reloading

[Silence Hunter]

I feel your pain. It's so disturbing to get that deadly CTD after your getai hordes annihilated Macedonian royal army led by the faction heir and Pella lies in front of the piles of bodies with open gates awaiting to be plundered... Then BAM!!! CTD...

However, since I became extra cautious in order to avoid these bloody CTDs, I seem to not get them at all now. What helps is waiting till the whole victory song ends and just then pressing Accept button. Also it seems that EB does not appreciate being run for too long - I noticed in increase in likelyhood of crashes if EB runs for over 3 hours. So I never leave EB running for that long. Even when I have time to play for longer time period (extremely rare nowadays) I play for about 3 hours then turn EB completely off, check my email, do some stuff, restart the pc (though not always) and fire EB up again. As I said this helped me. However I'm sure that many other factors come into play (like PC specs, graphical options, etc.) when it comes to likelihood of crashes, but these two little things might help anyway.

[Macilrille]

Thanks and oh yes, the feeling must be similar (I now have a lot of angry Germans cheated of their loot after me), further this was the last large army in Hellas, so all of it lay ripe for the plucking in front of my heroic warriors. The song I have found makes no difference, and this time it CTDed right as the "Heroic Victory" parchment opened, I just had time for a screenshot I think. Then CTD. But time played does matter. I also find that when I fight Carthies I get CTD every 3-4 battles and agains Lusos it is every 1½. There is a reason my mighty conquering German horde has left a buffer of Aedui just N of the Pyrenees, not because I am afraid of the Luso weaklings, but because I am afraid of the dreaded Battle- Battle- CTD-Reload-Battle-CTD-Reload- etc...

Time for a good beer to calm down on I think.

[SwissBarbar]

You have my sympathies, man. I know it very well. Waiting till the song ends seems to help a bit, but does not always work. Could be a mystery. If you have to fight 5 battles in 1 turn and after 3 hours of fighting you get a CTD, this is annoying. In some cases I use the "auto_win" cheat after reloading the game... but the auto calc can never achieve such great victories as you can :-(

[Andronikos]

I especially love when I am in the middle of great battle and suddenly there pops up a window telling me that the system will restart in 15 minutes and the postpone button does not work.

[GenosseGeneral]

Then CTD. But time played does matter. I also find that when I fight Carthies I get CTD every 3-4 battles and agains Lusos it is every 1½. There is a reason my mighty conquering German horde has left a buffer of Aedui just N of the Pyrenees, not because I am afraid of the Luso weaklings, but because I am afraid of the dreaded Battle- Battle- CTD-Reload-Battle-CTD-Reload- etc...

Time for a good beer to calm down on I think.

Well, I had about the same probs in my current carthie campaign, really frustrating those CTDs (although i got pre-battle ones which are not THAT annoying). I do not know if u have tried the the unit sprite fix for numidian and lusos. This helped me to reduce the number of pre-battle CTDs against lusos and numidian troops significantly.

BTW: What actually ARE unit sprites?

[vartan]

5 seconds isnt enough, you need to wait 20

[seienchin]

I especially love when I am in the middle of great battle and suddenly there pops up a window telling me that the system will restart in 15 minutes and the postpone button does not work.

The postpone button always work with me, but when there is a window popping up in a battle, I cant go back to the Eb screen... My screen just starts to flash... I lost 2 hours of battling to this ones... Since them I always save after a battle.^^

[Metaluis90]

I know your payne... I played a battle for Syria a long time ago on VH/VH wit the Seleucid, and won the battle after an !hour! of bloodshed, i was outnumbered, out-elephanted, and i still won... Only to get a CTD during the reloading

You weren't destined to win... get over it.

[antisocialmunky]

Welcome to Germania, enjoy the foliage.

[Dyabedes of Aphrodisias]

Well, I had about the same probs in my current carthie campaign, really frustrating those CTDs (although i got pre-battle ones which are not THAT annoying). I do not know if u have tried the the unit sprite fix for numidian and lusos. This helped me to reduce the number of pre-battle CTDs against lusos and numidian troops significantly.

BTW: What actually ARE unit sprites?

Unit sprites are 2D images of your troops. When you zoom out to a certain point on the field, you'll notice your individual soldiers turn into flat 2D renders of the unit. This is to help the computer because as you zoom out there come more troops into your field of view, and thus more troops to render and animate.

As for the CTDs, I've never had a battle-related CTD, even since 0.80 (except once I had a pre-battle CTD that didn't repeat itself). What I do get sometimes is a turn-related CTD that just happens to occur on a turn when I've fought a great battle. For example, I fought a tedious, difficult and monstrous battle against Marian legions in a fully-forested map escaping with terrible casualties only made better by the complete annihilation of the enemy army, then Syracuse rebelled from Rome and the game CdTD. So I know your pain in one form or another.

[Taedius]

Hehe, I wondered how the Luso ambushers could hide while running. I only saw their shadows.

But yeah, the sprites fix did alot of good.

[Intranetusa]

I once defeated the full stack of gold/chevroned Gallic elites north of Rome with 1 + 1/2 stack armies...the half stack were mercs controlled by the AI. 2 hours of bloodshed only to get a CTD at the end...

So I was pissed off and turned on "battle time limit." Then I reloaded defeated the same gold stack of Gauls with only 3 units of cavalry and 5 units of merc infantry.
I just let them attack me, and ran around until the time limit expired...I won by default and their army disbanded... >_<

[Pobs]

hmmm... well I think these post-battle ctd's are far more sinister than we are giving them credit for... look at the descriptions above and ask yourself this......


has it EVER happened after the AI has won ????????

I am quite certain the AI sulks and takes my game down if it loses......



:)


cheers



Pobs

[Rahwana]

MY strangest, and yet most frustating CTD.... when play one of the greatest roman battle against BOTH Carthaginian and Aedui horde... and I get an upper hand.. suddenly I teleported back to windows and my Yahoo popped out saying.....
.
.
.
BUZZZZ
*originally in Indonesian* "Hey pal, I never see you online for this long before, good night"
that blasted peson has signed out
.
.
.
.
AARRRGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!
And after that, when playing EB in campaign single player mode.... I always PULL OUT that internet cable!

[Poulp']

Same thing happened when both lines were about to meet and clash.

When I came back to the game, I was winning the battle.

[ARCHIPPOS]

hmmm... well I think these post-battle ctd's are far more sinister than we are giving them credit for... look at the descriptions above and ask yourself this......
has it EVER happened after the AI has won ????????
I am quite certain the AI sulks and takes my game down if it loses......

That blasted AI is reloading !!!

[Macilrille]

hmmm... well I think these post-battle ctd's are far more sinister than we are giving them credit for... look at the descriptions above and ask yourself this......


has it EVER happened after the AI has won ????????

I am quite certain the AI sulks and takes my game down if it loses......



:)


cheers



Pobs

Well, statistically speaking if you play 200 battles the Ai will win one, so if you get CTD on average every tenth game you would have to play 2k battles to get an AI Win CTD.

But, your explanation is more fun.

[Pobs]

Mac,

lol , lose 1 battle in 200 ?????.... hehehe you and me are playing different games!!!!... I reckon the AI beats me around 1 in 20 battles, depending on the campaign, as romans I got royally battered by the Sweboz regularly and as the SABA I rarely win !! .. so I probably have more experience than you in that area and I am certain the AI NEVER crashes its own wins.... it just gloats and becomes insufferably smug......


cheers,



Pobs

[SwissBarbar]

In my current Romani campaign I have about 400 battles won and a bit over 100 lost. Nothing near "200:1". Maybe you should not field fullstacks of elite units ;-)

[Macilrille]

Remember that the counted ratio includes the sea battles where you get by pirates. I will check my ratio. I think mine is 100 to 1 with those included. I do use fullstacks, but not all elite, I try to aim for historical. Will check my actual ratio.

[SwissBarbar]

Actually I the pirates ^^

[Macilrille]

As swêboz? ;-)

[Arutima]

In my current Romani campaign I have about 400 battles won and a bit over 100 lost. Nothing near "200:1". Maybe you should not field fullstacks of elite units ;-)

i think in my romani game i lost about 3 land battle . the other battles i lost was sea battles . (around 600 battles won, 30 battles lost)


during the polybian time , i i used 5 hastati , 5 princeps, 4 triarii, 2 pedites extraordinarii, two cavalry units + equites consolares + 3 ranged units of my choice for all my legions

with the marian reform, now i 9 cohors + 1 first cohors, two of those elite spearmen cohors (or helvitii spearmen, or galatian spearmen or hoplitai), two recalled veterans cohors, 3 cavalry units + 3 ranged untis of my choice)

[Macilrille]

I told a lie, the Sweboz campaign, which I have just completed with a Victory Screen (pics later when I can be bothered to convert them to Bitmap) saw me fight 308 battles, the vast majority on land.

Of these I won 273 and lost 35, about 30 of the losses were pirates finding my skin canoes, dugouts and small Nydam Boats. So if we subtract them and the three won sea battles, I fought 275 battles and lost about 5.

I tend to fight Montgomery-style though, to prepare for a campaign so I can hardly loose. After the first 20- 30 years of dangerous blitzing, after that I sometimes loose a battle (very rarely) but never a campaign.

[SwissBarbar]

i think in my romani game i lost about 3 land battle . the other battles i lost was sea battles . (around 600 battles won, 30 battles lost)


during the polybian time , i i used 5 hastati , 5 princeps, 4 triarii, 2 pedites extraordinarii, two cavalry units + equites consolares + 3 ranged units of my choice for all my legions

with the marian reform, now i 9 cohors + 1 first cohors, two of those elite spearmen cohors (or helvitii spearmen, or galatian spearmen or hoplitai), two recalled veterans cohors, 3 cavalry units + 3 ranged untis of my choice)

I used:

2 generals
2 hastati
2 principes
1 triarii
1 leves / velites
1 accensi / velites
1 eqvites romani

+

1 general
2 akontistai or other non-roman light javelin-inf.
2 hastati samnitici or other non-roman medium inf
1 pedites extraordinarii or other non roman heavy inf
2 toxotai or other archers
2 eqvites campanici or any other non-roman cav.

The marian armies are of course mostly consisting of cohors

[moonburn]

oh so well :\ i had to stop my carthaginian campaign when i was preparing to invade italy because the lusotanan gods are so powerfull i couldn´t defeat 5 units inside oxtraxaca in their final chapter as a rebelious people (because of ctd and after a few attempts i just given up)