AS suddenly fields weird armies and odd crashes

[Shadowwalker]

Hello all,

playing a Hayasdan game (M/M) at the moment with:
Bi.exe (Ferromancer's mod, only the exe though)
Phalanx mod
force diplomacy
RSII environment
Citymod (added 4 more large cities to Gaul and Britain, to make it easier for them to achieve their reforms)
Info card mod

Am in ~230BC and started invading the AS (after having defended since 271, fought at least one siege battle every round in Phraaspa, Karkathiokerta or Ani-Kamah since then).

First I took Arbela, Seleukeia and Babylon, then I divided my attention and attacked Ekbatana and Edessa. These were the first battles I just couldn't win normally.
I sieged the city, a wandering AS halfstack tried to fight me off, I won a clear victory, annihilated the city garrison in the process and ... crashed.
Not the well-known "after siege battle" crashes I usually encounter though.
Usually I crash after the battle map when the loading screen is meant to be brought up. Now the game loads the campaign without problems and I get to the window where I have to decide to occupy, expel or exterminate. Regardless what I try (and I fought both battles 3 times, every time choosing another option) - I crash as soon as I click the button. Script or no script makes no difference either as it seems...
Anyone ever had that?

Second problem is that the AS suddenly fields armies not available to them. I solved the battles I mentioned above with auto-win (which I don't consider cheating in this case) and sent a spy towards Susa. He found an AS stack consisting of all kinds of african troops: Maure infantry, Garamantine infantry and those Elite African Phalanxes (which are depicted as Vanilla peasants of course).
Since it was pretty obvious that this is a serious bug I tried to annihilate them with a single FM and repeated auto-win, but that made the game freeze completely. I even had to re-start the computer.

Is my savegame corrupted?
I have some older saves but they are at least 30 turns back (I do fixed saves every ten years in the campaign, but somehow I forgot to save setween them too it seems...) and I was really lucky with some battles (using a King's army that mainly consists of Caucasian spearmen, Caucasian archers and 2 FM's prooves to be difficult when fighting Argyraspides and and Hypaspistai )


Thanks in advance for any ideas how to solve this without going back in time.



EDIT:
Yes, I realized that the title is somewhat ... misleading.
To make that clear: No, the AS doesn't field odd crashes.

[XSamatan]

First to say: This is a modded EB, so everything I write/advice is without any guarantee.

My personal first choice would be to revert back to a status where the mentioned problems with African troops doesn't exist (use toggle_fow and perfect spy to check enemy armies).

Check the troublesome city for FMs inside and siege it later when the characters aren't in town anymore. Or move another army of theirs near the town and attack that, sometimes this 'resets' generals.

Use character_reset and the linked guide to deal with zero-movement-characters inside towns.
Use FD to get control over the region and move the troublesome armies away using the console.

XSamatan

[Shadowwalker]

Hello XSamatan,

thanks for these advices.
Will try them one by one.

[Shadowwalker]

Got it fixed (hopefully) by going back - which was sort of sad (had to go back 20 years since the 240BC save was showing the same weird behaviour) but turned out to be a good thing balance-wise since in the new attempt the Makedonians didn't come knocking at Kotais' doors from the north (!!!) again...
Thanks again for the advices, XSamatan.

In return I have a little hint for people who might have problems to build the Royal administration/"The Emperor comes..." buildings in certain provinces.
Took me a while to figure that out though.

I was only able to build the Royal Administration in Persepolis when I destroyed the (Seleucid) Katoikoi (homes for military settlers) upgrade there.
As soon as I destroyed it the Royal Administration popped up in the "available buildings" list.

I have no idea what's the cause for that but it was the same for Seleukeia and Antiocheia. (Do these buldings perhaps share a slot in the building tree? Is such possible at all?)
I only wish I would have tried this earlier (I waited ~ 20 years for the "subjugation available" marker to pop up before I tried destroying buildings )


P.S.: As this is my first Hayasdan campaign that I actually manage to play long enough to have the finances for the high-tier units .... those units are wonderful. Armenian Noble Infantry, Persian Hoplites, the Cataphracts, the Armoured Horse Archers, the late bodyguards ... just all of them.
Not only highly effective but truly beautifully designed too.
I can't let go of the early Kings Army though (the one I exclusively used until ~200 BC) - 6 Caucasian Spearmen, 4 Caucasian Archers, 2 Eastern Axemen, 2 Eastern Skirmishers, 2 Scythian Horse-Archers, 4 Family Members. This must have been one of the most basic armies I ever used - and I was highly successful with it (was really surprised how easily I crushed even Argyraspides and TAB with them, something I always struggle to do with other factions).
Having 2 "doctor" type ancillaries with my general helps a lot with the losses though. :D Oh and the gold chevrons of course. (Since the AI retrains fairly often I see no reason not to do it myself. )