Instant Saba CTD

[Kugutsu]

Saba have just declared war on me for the first time. Now whenever I attack them or they attack me, I get a CTD. Its totally repeatable, as it has happened 6 times in a row now. It crashes the minute you try to attack, before the pre-battle screen pops up. I tried with all the Saba armies in sight:







The only thing the three have in common is pantopodoi, but I have faced those many times with the Seleukids to no effect.

I have also attacked the Seleukids, Ptolies and Epirots to see if that did anything, and there was no crash. It seems to only happen with the Saba.
Is there anything I can do to find out why this is happening?
And if its not fixable, is there any way to stop them ever attacking me? (obviously I can not attack them, but it crashes both ways).

[Moros]

Can you autoresolve battles? Then you can use the auto_win defender/attacker cheat...

[Kugutsu]

nah, it crashes before the pre-battle screen. the minute I right click on the enemy to move my army there it crashes.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Hey, did I recognise myself in the picture? By any chance, have you attacked them multiple times in a row? Like I described in this thread?

[Kugutsu]

nope. I have tried attacking various armies, on consecutive turns with different armies of mine. I did read your thread, but mine seems to be ongoing. It even crashes when they attack me.

Question: If I make them a protectorate, does that prevent them from attacking me? Cos I could try bribing them with vast quantities of gold (although they wouldnt accept a million, so I will have to cheat to get enough...). Its very frustrating, as I am now their only neighbour, so they have no one else to attack but me.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

I've had a similar CTD. I was besieging a Sabaen town and when I went to attack it, I got a CTD when I hit the little attack sword in the "continue siege/attack/lift seige" option.

[Kugutsu]

Well, I have made them my protectorates by bribing half a dozen of their armies and one town, then offering them protectorate and 1 million Mnai. Bizarrely they didnt want the settlement back though...
Hopefully this will keep them from attacking me. Does the AI usually attack its protector?

[Tellos Athenaios]

Question: If I make them a protectorate, does that prevent them from attacking me? Cos I could try bribing them with vast quantities of gold (although they wouldnt accept a million, so I will have to cheat to get enough...). Its very frustrating, as I am now their only neighbour, so they have no one else to attack but me.

Well, I have solved the issue by battering them into submission, they're now a protectorate of the mighty Seleukid empire! They are now a quiet, peacefull protectorate adding each turn the exact amount of 0 Mnai to my treasury... (The same counts for the Saka, they too are a protectorate of mine, and they too add nothing to my treasury.)

Too bad that you can't even have them attack you, or attack them at least once: weird that that didn't happen to me. Well, if you can't beat them with swords, you've got to try words instead I suppose. Good luck!

PS, if you siege all their towns and place decent forces as obstacles in the way of any 'relief' force; that will build up enough pression to make them sue for peace, and then you could propose them to become your protectorate quite succesfully.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Could the problems be related to the fact that EB uses the Senate faction slot for the Saba faction?

[Kugutsu]

Well, they havent attacked me yet, but they are massing armies on my borders, which is ominous. I may have to send a diplomat out with lots of imaginary gold to thin their ranks slighty. and perhaps put spies in their cites to give them some problems at home to worry about. Unfortunately they are so compact that the maximum distance from their capital is tiny, so revolts are unlikely...

[Tellos Athenaios]

I'd suggest you send some forces to protect your border cities and some that should move into Saba lands. If you stay away from their cities you'll eventually draw their armies away + you don't have to fight inevitable reinforcement battles. If you are really cunning you can have them chase your army for ages without having to fight at all. However, the latter would require some spies to scout the area, or playing with FOW off.

[Kull]

Hmmm. I played Saba for 80+ turns and never had a single CTD, and yet was at war with the Seleukids and Ptolemaioi almost the whole time (with many battles). So this is curious. Why would Saba battles CTD, but only when they are AI led? Because from your posts, that's the only common denominator.

[Kull]

You guys all owe Bonny a big wet sloppy kiss for this one, but I'm 99% certain this will fix the reported CTD. Go into your EB\Data\text folder and open up the file called expanded_bi.txt. Search for the seven rows containing this text (they will not be contiguous in the file, as they are below):

{EMT_YOUR_FORCES_ATTACK_ARMY_ROMANS_SENATE}					Your forces attack an army of Saba
{EMT_YOUR_FORCES_ATTACK_NAVY_ROMANS_SENATE}					Your forces attack a navy of Saba
{EMT_YOUR_FORCES_AMBUSH_ARMY_ROMANS_SENATE}					Your forces ambush an army of Saba
{EMT_YOUR_FORCES_ATTACKED_ARMY_ROMANS_SENATE}					Your forces are attacked by an army of Roman (Senate)
{EMT_YOUR_FORCES_ATTACKED_NAVY_ROMANS_SENATE}					Your forces are attacked by a navy of Saba
{EMT_YOUR_FORCES_AMBUSHED_ARMY_ROMANS_SENATE}					Your forces are ambushed by an army of Saba
{EMT_VICTORY_ROMANS_SENATE}		Saba is Victorious

Replace the bold red text with this:

SABA

You could also replace the blue text with this (although it's not a CTD issue):

Saba

There may be second, random CTD involving a bad sprite for the Arab Tribal Levies, but that one can usually be overcome by a restart (and we'll have the fix for both of these in the patch)

[Tellos Athenaios]

Victory is ours!!! Erm, well: yours, EB's. Anyway, thanks Bonny: !

[The Persian Cataphract]

Yep, CTD fixed, yesterday I bumped into this one CTD myself and I found myself in a position where I could not do anything at all. Props to Bonny!

[fish]

Hi, I've had the exact same problem, instant CDT whenever I attempted to battle the Saba. I tried the recommended fix, but it doesn't seem to work for me. Double checked, of course. Any ideas?

My bad, I looked into the RTW\Data\text folder rather than EB\Data\text. Will tripple check in future before making a fool of myself. My apologies, and thanks for the fix!