sorry for taking so long on my reply,

The game loads normally in all respects until I attempt to change the age in desc_strat following the characters name.

For example I attempted to change the byz ruler Alexius to 32 instead of 45 for historical accuracy, the game itself loads but when attempting to load a new campaign the game goes right back to the selection screen without loading.

Is there another file that contains "named character" information?