New game CTD

[the pasta king]

I have checked the forums and have found similar problems but none quite like this yet. I have just installed EB v1.0, when I ran the game for the first couple of times it I got CTDs when I pressed Esc to skip the vanilla Rome intro videos. On five consecutive occasions since then I have been able to progress as far as selecting a faction for a campaign or units for a custom battle, but when I click to start the campaign/battle the game CTDs immediately without an error message.

I do not use the modswitcher program and so have multiple installs of RTW but they all run independently (as far as I understand). To install EBv1 I started with a clean RTW 1.5 install and followed the instructions in the EB installer with no apparent problems. I have checked just in case for a map.wrm file but there isn't one in the appropriate directory, I also added -nm to the shortcut pathway as suggested on another thread without any success. I have run bovi's validation tool, these are the results:

You seem to have a corrupt install. There are changes to files, or some are missing.
However, these may be conscious changes you have made, to remod EB. See below for details.
==========
Changed file: .\Data\descr_arrow_trail_effects_final.txt
Changed file: .\Data\descr_surface_fire.txt
Changed file: .\Data\text\caesar_in_gaul_wip_5_regions_and_settlement_names.txt
Changed file: .\RomeTW.exe
Added file: .\EB\custom\previous battle.cbt
Added file: .\patch readme.txt

(the patch readme.txt is a file I place in the directory to list what version of the game it is)

I have also run the Process Monitor as you suggested and have recorded a log, these are the last 25 lines or so:

660306 10:51:18.2326212 RomeTW.exe 2900 WriteFile D:\Total War\Activision\Europa Barbarorum\cliffs_debug.tga SUCCESS Offset: 3,203,072, Length: 4,096
660307 10:51:18.2326996 RomeTW.exe 2900 WriteFile D:\Total War\Activision\Europa Barbarorum\cliffs_debug.tga SUCCESS Offset: 3,207,168, Length: 4,096
660308 10:51:18.2327785 RomeTW.exe 2900 WriteFile D:\Total War\Activision\Europa Barbarorum\cliffs_debug.tga FAST IO DISALLOWED Offset: 3,211,264, Length: 4,096
660309 10:51:18.2327845 RomeTW.exe 2900 WriteFile D:\Total War\Activision\Europa Barbarorum\cliffs_debug.tga SUCCESS Offset: 3,211,264, Length: 4,096
660310 10:51:18.2329378 RomeTW.exe 2900 WriteFile D:\Total War\Activision\Europa Barbarorum\cliffs_debug.tga SUCCESS Offset: 3,215,360, Length: 4,096
660311 10:51:18.2330793 RomeTW.exe 2900 WriteFile D:\Total War\Activision\Europa Barbarorum\cliffs_debug.tga SUCCESS Offset: 3,219,456, Length: 4,096
660312 10:51:18.2331894 RomeTW.exe 2900 WriteFile D:\Total War\Activision\Europa Barbarorum\cliffs_debug.tga SUCCESS Offset: 3,223,552, Length: 4,096
660313 10:51:18.2333015 RomeTW.exe 2900 WriteFile D:\Total War\Activision\Europa Barbarorum\cliffs_debug.tga SUCCESS Offset: 3,227,648, Length: 4,096
660314 10:51:18.2333905 RomeTW.exe 2900 WriteFile D:\Total War\Activision\Europa Barbarorum\cliffs_debug.tga SUCCESS Offset: 3,231,744, Length: 3,090
660315 10:51:18.2334053 RomeTW.exe 2900 CloseFile D:\Total War\Activision\Europa Barbarorum\cliffs_debug.tga SUCCESS
660373 10:51:18.2471968 RomeTW.exe 2900 Thread Exit SUCCESS User Time: 0.0000000, Kernel Time: 0.0000000
660374 10:51:18.2471991 RomeTW.exe 2900 Thread Exit SUCCESS User Time: 0.0000000, Kernel Time: 0.0000000
660375 10:51:18.2472081 RomeTW.exe 2900 Thread Exit SUCCESS User Time: 0.0000000, Kernel Time: 0.0000000
660376 10:51:18.2472100 RomeTW.exe 2900 Thread Exit SUCCESS User Time: 0.0000000, Kernel Time: 0.0000000
660377 10:51:18.2472187 RomeTW.exe 2900 Thread Exit SUCCESS User Time: 0.0000000, Kernel Time: 0.0000000
660378 10:51:18.2472292 RomeTW.exe 2900 Thread Exit SUCCESS User Time: 0.0000000, Kernel Time: 0.0000000
660379 10:51:18.2472396 RomeTW.exe 2900 Thread Exit SUCCESS User Time: 20.6406250, Kernel Time: 24.8125000
660380 10:51:18.2472490 RomeTW.exe 2900 Thread Exit SUCCESS User Time: 0.0000000, Kernel Time: 0.0000000
660381 10:51:18.2472603 RomeTW.exe 2900 Thread Exit SUCCESS User Time: 0.0156250, Kernel Time: 0.0000000
660382 10:51:18.2472689 RomeTW.exe 2900 Thread Exit SUCCESS User Time: 0.0000000, Kernel Time: 0.0000000
660616 10:51:18.4024358 RomeTW.exe 2900 SetEndOfFileInformationFile C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\system.LOG SUCCESS EndOfFile: 8,192
660617 10:51:18.4025815 RomeTW.exe 2900 SetEndOfFileInformationFile C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\system.LOG SUCCESS EndOfFile: 8,192
660618 10:51:18.4026845 RomeTW.exe 2900 SetEndOfFileInformationFile C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\system.LOG SUCCESS EndOfFile: 16,384
660619 10:51:18.4027891 RomeTW.exe 2900 SetEndOfFileInformationFile C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\system.LOG SUCCESS EndOfFile: 24,576
672433 10:51:18.7612598 RomeTW.exe 2900 Process Exit SUCCESS Exit Status: -1073741571, User Time: 20.6875000, Kernel Time: 21.3593750

[bovi]

The changed file: RomeTW.exe is suspicious. Are you sure you have a 1.5 RTW installation? Or possibly a localized version (not English, I mean)?

The three files under Data also are used by EB I think, since there are no overruling files under EB/data. I have no idea where the Data/text file comes from. Perhaps you have other mods installed that have changed those files? The Caesar in gaul thing probably isn't used though, but I think the two others might make some damage.

Edit: Oh, and thanks for gathering so much information for your report .

[the pasta king]

Problem solved, after trying to reinstall on a couple of different RTW backups, with the same problem, I tried again but this time I replaced the RTW.exe file with one taken from a BI (1.6) backup folder. Since then both campaign and custom battles work (as far as I can tell). Here is the validation report:

Changed file: .\Data\descr_arrow_trail_effects_final.txt
Changed file: .\Data\descr_surface_fire.txt
Changed file: .\Data\text\caesar_in_gaul_wip_5_regions_and_settlement_names.txt
Added file: .\EB\custom\previous battle.cbt
Added file: .\patch readme.txt
Added file: .\temp\battle.rpy

I'll play a bit on the weekend and see if it really is fixed.