Reinforcement CTD Fix - The Real Deal!

[Kull]

This has not been tested extensively enough for us to say 100% that the bug is dead, but right now it looks VERY promising. All of you with v.74 games saved just prior to the Reinforcement CTD bug, please download the fix and test it. Do it RIGHT NOW!!!! And tell us if it worked. And when it does, you can thank Bovi for his genius and therother and BozosLiveHere for never giving up!

Edit: The fix is a single text file that should be unzipped into the /Data subdirectory of your v.74 build. It will overwrite a file already present there.

Edit2: Changed the link (file is now downloaded directly from europabarbarorum.org)

[Reenk Roink]

Yay!

[abou]

Hmmm... Rapidshare won't let me download it. Anyone else having this problem?

[Shigawire]

Did you write the letters/numbers you see?
It tests if you're a person or a pc. WEird world we live in

[abou]

Indeed I did/am. Still no luck.

[CountArach]

It downloaded fine for me... I'll go test it now!

Out of interest, what was likely to be the problem?

[BozosLiveHere]

Apparently, the engine got confused and crashed when it had to count the number of enemies in battle during a reinforcement battle. For some reason it went fine when you autocalculated.

BTW, the workaround I used involves in part replacing the NumEnemiesInBattle conditional with NumFriendsInBattle, but I don't know if it also has the problem. It was the only way to keep the functionality we wanted, and I figured that using a counter for the number of friendlies would be a better choice, given that most of the time the player can decide if in a particular battle he'll have reinforcement armies or not. So, if you get a CTD with multiple allied armies, try replaying it after merging them or moving one away and see if it works.

I've also uploaded the file to our FTP, it can be found here. Kull, you might want to update the first post.

[Excel]

so are the general's after battle traits still nerfed with this fixed?

[BozosLiveHere]

No.

[abou]

Ah, excellent then.

[-Praetor-]

But if you replace the NumEnemiesInBattle with the NumFriendsInBattle conditional, the engine must also count the number of soldiers in the battle, so it will also be confused and cause a CTD...

An the problem would not only be present when the player has reinforcements in the battle, but it would also arise when the enemy brings in reinforcements, because the trait that involves that conditional (NumFriendsInBattle) would also operate if one of the enemy`s armies has a general in it... since the traits operate also for the AI controlled FMs as well as for the player controlled FMs..

Perhaps a more safe solution would be replacing any conditional that involves counting soldiers in the field of battle altogether, with another like total kills, etc...

PS: Just a thought....

[BozosLiveHere]

If NumFriendsInBattle turns out to be as buggy as NumEnemiesInBattle I'll try something else. So far it has worked. I don't really have good substitutes for them (NumFriendsInBattle wasn't a perfect substitute already).

[CountArach]

w00t!!! Go EB!

Okay I just played a reinforcement battle as Koinon Hellenon, just to see if it worked. Here are the results:

Me = 1671 Deployed, 2512 Kills, 1481 Remaining
They had 3 Captain lead armies:
1 = 1221 Deployed, 88 Kills, 192 Remaining
2 = 341 Deployed, 61 Kills, 116 Remaining
3 = 1521 Deployed, 70 Kills, 263 Remaing

Overal Result = Heroic Victory
The second army was the garrison of Korinthos. There was no CTD! It came up a historic battle on the Strat map.

Great job guys! Especially the scripters!

[Zalmoxis]

Doesn't work for me.. but in my game it's saved at battlescreen. Does that make a difference?

[CountArach]

Well I started a new game, but yes, good question.

Save game compatible?

[Kull]

Save game compatible?

Yes. My game was from last March and it worked fine.l

[Kull]

But if you replace the NumEnemiesInBattle with the NumFriendsInBattle conditional, the engine must also count the number of soldiers in the battle, so it will also be confused and cause a CTD...

An the problem would not only be present when the player has reinforcements in the battle, but it would also arise when the enemy brings in reinforcements, because the trait that involves that conditional (NumFriendsInBattle) would also operate if one of the enemy`s armies has a general in it... since the traits operate also for the AI controlled FMs as well as for the player controlled FMs..

Perhaps a more safe solution would be replacing any conditional that involves counting soldiers in the field of battle altogether, with another like total kills, etc...

PS: Just a thought....

If the issue was simply counting, then you are right, it wouldn't make a difference. But the fact is that we DO see dramatically different results, so it must be something else. Bovi has theorized that the problem is a bug in the CA NumEnemiesInBattle code. And if so, then we should absolutely see no more CTDs. That's why we want to see a lot more testing. I'm not kidding - you guys can REALLY help us out here by running as many of your old CTD games as possible so we can say with 100% certainty that yes, the bug is dead.

[Zalmoxis]

It didn't work for me, so I abandoned the game and I'm going to start from scratch. I'll give you more info on how it's working when I have a chance.

[Kull]

Doesn't work for me.. but in my game it's saved at battlescreen. Does that make a difference?

Well you're at the battlemap here, so god only knows what has been loaded into memory. And given that you still got the CTD, the odds are the old file is already in there. I wouldn't consider this a valid proof for or against the theory.

[Kull]

For those who really want to help, here's a link to a directory containing a bunch of reinforcement CTD save games submitted by other EB players. A few files are "non-CTD" and a couple others have nothing to do with the bug, but the titles will tell which ones should be tested.

Here's the plan:

1) Select and download one of the files.
2) Post the file name you are testing in this thread (so others don't try the same one)
3) After your test, tell us what happened. Be sure to indicate the result of the battle if it wasn't a CTD. Average victories and losses often don't produce CTDs, while Heroic victories are almost a guarantee.

[Slartibardfast]

Damn! I've been made redundant after five minutes!

Downloading and checking tonight.

[BozosLiveHere]

Uh, Kull, that directory has a lot of savegames from the more recent builds that won't work with .74.

[-Praetor-]

Doesn't work for me.. but in my game it's saved at battlescreen. Does that make a difference?

Since when can you save your game from the battle screen?

If the issue was simply counting, then you are right, it wouldn't make a difference. But the fact is that we DO see dramatically different results, so it must be something else. Bovi has theorized that the problem is a bug in the CA NumEnemiesInBattle code. And if so, then we should absolutely see no more CTDs. That's why we want to see a lot more testing. I'm not kidding - you guys can REALLY help us out here by running as many of your old CTD games as possible so we can say with 100% certainty that yes, the bug is dead.

You are absolutly right. Hope that it`s just the NumEnemiesInBattle conditional!

Cheers for the trait team and to Bovi!!!

[CountArach]

Since when can you save your game from the battle screen?

I think he means where you chose whether to fight/autocalc/run. You know the screen BEFORE the battle map. From here you cannot activate the script, so it can be a problem.

[Kull]

Uh, Kull, that directory has a lot of savegames from the more recent builds that won't work with .74.

True, there are some of each. But it's no harm in trying to load up a v.79 game...if it doesn't work, they can post that and move on to the next one.

[fallen851]

I take it that this bug is still present in 1.5?

[-Praetor-]

With this fix, probably not anymore.

[BigTex]

Yay, amazing works! No more need to try and avoid killing the enemy general. Time to go make some more sweat love with the reinforcements.

[Oleo]

For those who really want to help, here's a link to a directory containing a bunch of reinforcement CTD save games submitted by other EB players. A few files are "non-CTD" and a couple others have nothing to do with the bug, but the titles will tell which ones should be tested.

Cool, I lost all my saves cause I started playing some other games and I uninstalled. Now I can download and test a couple of my saves again :)

EDIT: Ok, so I tested both Belgae_2stack_ctd.sav and 1sweboz vs 2romans_ctd.sav

In both cases I get a ctd with the old file and no ctd with the new file. Works like a charm!! Nice work. Hopefully it works the same for others.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Since when can you save your game from the battle screen?

Since RTW came out, you can save your RTW game from the battle screen.
Simply a matter of pressing Esc when the screen has appeared on your monitor... the next time you'll load the game, it will continue at the battlescreen.

Remeber that by then the engine already calculated the number of enemies, friends, and it predicted the odds as well. This data is simply saved together with the rest of your campaign game. That may prove to be the explanation why Zalmoxis continued to encounter the CTD: the 'likely' faulty code already had done it's buggy work.