Strange CTD problem

**Rodion Romanovich** · 05-31-2005, 12:01

Why does this lead to CTD? The only thing I've modded is this:

Data/text/quotes.txt:

ÿþ
{ Q u o t e _ 1 }

T e s t q u o t e

{ A u t h o r _ 1 }

T e s t a u t h o r

Data/descr_quotes_lookup.txt:

Quote_1
Author_1

Data/descr_transition_screen.txt:

quotes
quote "Quote_1"
quoted "Author_1"

**Rodion Romanovich** · 05-31-2005, 17:12

Ok, now I'm really confused...

I replaced the edited files with the originals I had made a backup of, a started to verify that everything was good again. No crash. Then I tried to edit the files again. This time, the only thing I did was to change ONE LETTER in the first quote: "I think the slain care little..." etc. to "J think the slain care little...", and then I started the game. Crash at the first loading screen which appears after the activision and trailer movie.

I tested restarting the computer and restarting R:TW again, but got the same result every time. What is going on? Can't I edit a file at all without causing a crash? Is there some hardcoded checksum that can't be edited? Or does the game check the last-edited-date or something? I see no reason why it should crash just because I changed one letter in one of the quotes!

I desperately need help! Just for testing I modded names to add a name to one of the factions, but also then I got errors of this type (but crash came when I tried to start an imperial campaign and end a turn) even though I exactly followed a tutorial/guide that I found here at the .org...

Does that stuff "this file gone for localisation" and a date affect things in any way? But it's just a line of comments so it seems unlikely... I've tried to follow all restrictions with correct number spaces before and after stuff etc. etc.

**Epistolary Richard** · 05-31-2005, 17:25

No, the gone for localisation is just an internal CA thing to tell them that it they want to add anything more to that file they have to tell somebody.

I don't understand why you're having trouble. I've completely replaced my quotes with stuff I have to learn. The only thing I needed to change was text\quotes - is show_err giving you anything?

**Rodion Romanovich** · 05-31-2005, 19:23

No, show_err isn't giving me any message. I'm not sure if it's correct but I edited the path of the shortcut to:
"C:\Rome - Total War2\RomeTW.exe" -show_err

Is that correct?

The message I get when the game crashes is the standard windows message with illegal operation etc. It says that "Dhelp has caused and error in ". Isn't unknown and Dhelp DirectX-related stuff? But why on earth would a change of one letter in a txt file read by the game cause an error with DirectX?

Some other things regarding my configuration:
- I have two Rome folders, one with the original game and one with the modded version. Could there be any conflicts?

**Epistolary Richard** · 06-01-2005, 10:13

It shouldn't do. You could try taking the hyphen out in front of the show_err, that's sometimes worked for me.

If you want to test if it's working then make a deliberate mistake in one of the commonly modded files - say removing the sparta hidden resource from the top line in export_descr_buildings - and see if it returns an error message.