Massilia siege relief bug?

[Makanyane]

I'm playing a mod and just had CTD after winning a battle where I beseiged Massilia (BI) and AI attempted to relieve siege (from Massilia side of bridge), mod map is same as vanilla in that area and I vaguely remember that being a problem in vanilla too - assume possibly to do with confusion over retreat path for beaten army???? Does anyone else remember if that was the case and / or if there is a map fix?

[Ciaran]

Did the AI attack you with a stack outside of Massilia and the Massilia garrison came to the field as reinfocements? Did you completely reduce the garrison army?

There seems to be a bug with reinforced battles, especially when a city is captured due to a complete rout of the garrison army, but I´ve never experienced that in a vanilla Imperial campaign, but very often in Provincial campaigns which mods use.

An additional note: The unit size you´re playing on may have an influence on the occurence of this bug as well. On Huge unit size I had way more ctds than on large size.

[Makanyane]

Did the AI attack you with a stack outside of Massilia and the Massilia garrison came to the field as reinfocements? Did you completely reduce the garrison army?

Yes.
Crash was after battle having killed the enemy garrison, CTD occured on selecting exterminate / occupy options. If I didn't take out garrison all was fine and I could take city as usual on later go.

There seems to be a bug with reinforced battles, especially when a city is captured due to a complete rout of the garrison army, but I´ve never experienced that in a vanilla Imperial campaign, but very often in Provincial campaigns which mods use.

Hmm, I've had that before in various mods when the reinforcements attacked me from behind (opposite side to city). Hadn't noticed it other than in this location when armies came from same side. Was playing a mod - but its installed over Main campaign not Provincial folder.

An additional note: The unit size you´re playing on may have an influence on the occurence of this bug as well. On Huge unit size I had way more ctds than on large size.

I was playing on huge, I'm surprised that makes a difference as crash is effectively after battle though....but, hmmm.

[Ciaran]

Yes.
Crash was after battle having killed the enemy garrison, CTD occured on selecting exterminate / occupy options. If I didn't take out garrison all was fine and I could take city as usual on later go.

Hmm, I've had that before in various mods when the reinforcements attacked me from behind (opposite side to city). Hadn't noticed it other than in this location when armies came from same side. Was playing a mod - but its installed over Main campaign not Provincial folder.

So it´s the infamous garrison crash, the part about the Provincial campaign was just a guess on my part, and not even an educated one, I suppose. I´m just trying to rule out any possibilities. I wonder, does this crash happen in a provincial campaign of the vanilla game?

[QOUTE]I was playing on huge, I'm surprised that makes a difference as crash is effectively after battle though....but, hmmm.[/QUOTE]

It´s just something I´ve noticed playing The Crusades, Chivalry and Corsair invasion on Huge, after battles with reinforcements the game was more prone to crashing when when I played on Huge than when I played on large. Might be my system, though, but the crashes tend to happen in the transition between battle and strategic screen. It´s perhaps unrelated to the city occupation crash mentioned above (that also tends to happen when I play on Large), but still...

[nikolai1962]

I've got one of these too, except with two AI factions--besieging army attacked by a relief army, besiegers win well enough to take the city. Were you at 1 turn left of your siege?

[Makanyane]

Were you at 1 turn left of your siege?

Nope seven turns to go.

Curious on yours I'd not seen relief army cause problem between AI factions or on auto resolve!

[nikolai1962]

Nope seven turns to go.

Nothing to do with that then.

Curious on yours I'd not seen relief army cause problem between AI factions or on auto resolve!

Yeah, I think it's a rare one. I know it's that city though cos I did a capture_settlement on it and that gets past the CTD. Also reducing the melee stats of the sieger's units made them lose the battle so they retreated instead and no CTD. The siegers do have two generals in my case, which probably makes it an even rarer CTD for AI armies.

[Makanyane]

Can you kill one of the generals (kill_character? don't actually know if that works) I had a funny CTD when combining two specific generals;
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75990
definitely seemed to be something to do with their traits but couldn't pin down what as it was only problem under very specific circumstance - assume game just got into too much of a knot over which generals traits should effect the armies movement / attack?

Noticed on the CTD thread you said EB had a problem with the reinforcement /relief bug. Do you know what they did to cause / fix it? I've noticed it seems more prevalent on some mods than others and have no idea what changes effect it.

Thankfully it seems pretty rare on my mod at the moment, which made instance at Massilia unusual. That's why I was wondering about its geography (its basically enclosed by river and forest with only one bridge out that tends to be blocked by the siegeing army) I'm sure I remember that city causing me problems when I played vanilla / other mods. That doesn't seem to have rung bells with anyone else though....

[BozosLiveHere]

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...3&postcount=86

[nikolai1962]

Can you kill one of the generals (kill_character? don't actually know if that works) I had a funny CTD when combining two specific generals;

i'll try that.

definitely seemed to be something to do with their traits but couldn't pin down what as it was only problem under very specific circumstance - assume game just got into too much of a knot over which generals traits should effect the armies movement / attack?

I was thinking it might be traits at first so i removed all the triggers temporarily and then started the save game and still CTD. but i'm not 100% sure if the trait stuff is saved with the game or not.

Massilia unusual. That's why I was wondering about its geography (its basically enclosed by river and forest with only one bridge out that tends to be blocked by the siegeing army)

This seems possible too. The only thing going against it is these bugs seem to happen a lot when a sieging army gets attacked and wins. So the only army retreating is the losing relief force. Still a possibility though.

[Ciaran]

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...3&postcount=86

That could explain why CTDs tend to happen on Huge unit size more often than on Large (at least I´ve noticed that tendency, as posted before). Thanks for the info, Bozo

[nikolai1962]

Another wild theory...

In mine, the city in question has stone walls pre-placed by the strat file even though the settlement isn't officially large enough to build stone walls yet according to the tech tree.

Is massilia in your example the same?

[Ciaran]

Possible, but it would still be a very narrow issue. However, a lot of mods (and players) have experienced the reinforcement ctd, so I doubt it´s something that simple. What strikes me as odd is the fact that - according to my own experience, I cannot speak for others - all the mods in which the reinforcement ctd happened have modded traits and ancilliaries, lending weight to bozo´s theory that some internal calculation goes awry. However, that leaves the question why I´ve never experienced this bug in the vanilla version.

[BozosLiveHere]

There are no NumEnemiesInBattle conditionals in the vanilla export_descr_character_traits.

[Makanyane]

BozosLiveHere, thanks for the info. its good to know to avoid that, I didn't have that conditional in mod either though. I've added stuff with BattleOdds in ancillaries but that is used in vanilla...

Ciaran, I've had reinforcement CTD more often in other mods including a home version that only had very little alterations to traits (just some of the religions set at birth triggers). I'll have to figure out way of designing strat file to provoke a reinforcement relief battle near the beginning of the game and try swapping traits files around.

Nikolai, thanks but no mine doesn't, it starts as city with wooden wall

[Dol Guldur]

I have not experienced this CTD in (the heavily-modded) Corsair Invasion - and have tested many many hours of it. That does not mean it can't happen of course. Maybe someone can explain in more detail exactly the circumstances of this problem? Screenshots et. al.

[Makanyane]

I have not experienced this CTD in (the heavily-modded) Corsair Invasion

Show off !!

Dol Guldur, the general reinforcement CTD that's getting referred to is, as far as I know, when human player is besieging settlement, enemy army of same type as occupier attacks human player in attempt to relieve siege. Garrison army comes out to fight as reinforcement, human player wins battle and exterminates garrison army to the extent that the city is unoccupied. After battle when player gets option to occupy/enslave/or exterminate city and selects one of those buttons, game CTD's.

I noticed problem when playing Arthurian and in their thread here:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=63122
its mentioned that Chivalry also had problem, and in post #14 that they fixed one CTD by changing map.

I don't seem to have a general problem with the reinforcement CTD, hence original question about Masilia geography. But predictably now I'm trying to duplicate CTD I can't (from original pre_battle save) don't think I changed anything that would have fixed it in meantime so either I'm not getting quite the same (necessary) battle results or there is a random element.

[Ciaran]

There definitely is a random element to it, I´ve often saved a battle on the setup screen (experience, and a couple of gameplay hours lost due to one of these ctds makes me do that), and when I reloaded the game and played the battle again (the result most of the time being identical) it didn´t crash.

[Dol Guldur]

Hmm..well I've not come across it - I think, as Makanyane says, is to try and duplicate it in vanilla and post the saved game so that we can test different circumstances. If it can be duplicated that easily.

[BozosLiveHere]

In EB we had reinforcement CTDs even on field battles.

[Makanyane]

I think, as Makanyane says, is to try and duplicate it in vanilla and post the saved game so that we can test different circumstances. If it can be duplicated that easily.

Sorry, on the grounds that I currently can't duplicate it even from the save before battle that gave problem in the first place, me suggesting that was optimism overtaking reality. On the grounds that no-one else seems to think it happens in vanilla anyway I'd have to start from mod, duplicate problem including AI action (which as I currently can't get CTD again even from save seems unlikely to be reliable test) and if CTD re-occurs regularly then re-introduce vanilla files to find fix. Overall unless problem is more severe / common like EB's sounded I'm not sure there's really a way for me to test.

RE: the Massilia only factor, I know I've had problems with the darn place before as when battle came up I automatically thought to save, with the region name in save file as I was automatically half expecting a problem. Unfortunately I can't really remember from my playing career whether previous problems occurred with vanilla, RTR, War Map, slightly modded versions of those, or own grown (but essentially similar) large European map. Now have big notebook by the side of computer, with CTD log written on cover, so hopefully I don't have to do the 'I vaguely remember' thing again.