This is a post regarding some issues involving the capture of the city of Sardis under the auspices of a Senate mission. I'm new to these boards, so if this is in the wrong forum my apologies.
I've placed posts in the Support Requests forum on totalwar.com and on the Total War Center website regarding this issue, apparently it's not well known or the people who have encountered it haven't thought it was usual. I was inspired to post regarding the issue as another .com member, Mindblank was going through a similar issue, thus probing the problem wasn't isolated to me and me alone.
I was waging a relatively successful war against Pontus in Asia Minor when I was tasked with taking the city of Sardis. At the time I had 19 provinces, and my rating with the Senate was high, with the Plebs seeing me as average. For the first few times, the game CTD directly after I'd defeat the Pontic Garisson and take the city. Eventually I remedied this issue and then the real problems begain.
Sacking the city results in immediate outlaw-status imposed by the Senate. I restarted several times and in each case taking Sardis resulted in outlaw status. This isn't the end of the problems however. Once I was outlawed naturally I lost all my alliances (even with non roman factions). As time progressed my faction (the Brutii) and the other Roman factions would be outlawed again and again at Random. I would be given missions to attack the other Roman factions, and recieve rewards, though sometimes the missions wouldn't end resulting in something like "-6 turns remaining." in the mission status window.
In any event I was not tasked to assassinate my faction leader, the Senate never indicated a dislike for me, I did not have 30 or 40 or 50 provinces, I could not sack Rome, and my popularity with the people was mediocre at best. I believe this to be some kind of scripting bug involving a Senate mission to take Sardis. I recall that in an earlier Brutii campaign I took Sardis without issue. Possibly because it wasn't under a mission status (seems likely).
Any ideas you guys may have or thoughts on this issue would be welcome, Cheers!
Bookmarks