Crash in battle with multiple armies

**Gongsunzan** · February 13, 2021, 11:51 AM

I had repeatable crashes in two separate instances of initiating battles where there are reinforcement armies against Cao clan as gongsun zan. The battle will play for a minute or so, and ill send horse archers to harass and after a few volleys the game will crash to desktop. I have attached a log.

system.log.txt

**Seether** · February 13, 2021, 02:48 PM

How many units (roughly) are on the battle map? Have you tried lowering your graphics settings?

**Gongsunzan** · February 14, 2021, 02:42 AM

3 full banner armies and a half stack for this log crash, but i had a previous crash with 3 full banner stacks. My computer can handle most of the newer total wars fine and i dont have many crashes on divide and conquer mod with large armies. Ill try lowering graphics

**Seether** · February 21, 2021, 07:32 AM

With newer titles keep in mind that, while they are more graphically demanding, they are also using far newer engines and are optimized for newer systems. Medieval 2's engine is ancient and, while we have things like the 4GB Patch to help it's performance, it just can't hold up with even less graphically demanding mods. I remember a YouTuber once said (something to the effect of): "The more you make Medieval 2 not look like Medieval 2, the more unstable it becomes." With DaC no longer being on TWC and not having to adhere to this forum's rules, their mod can modify the .exe and create fairly good stability despite the mod's size, scope, and system and graphical requirements. BTW, did lowering your graphics help with your issue? I couldn't replicate it on my end.

**Gongsunzan** · February 23, 2021, 10:10 AM

It did seem to help a little, bit but I still have crashes when doing battles with reinforcements often. It is seemingly random tho as I will sometimes crash but sometimes i wont, sometimes I will have a battle with 6000 soldiers and not have a crash then ill have one with 4000 that will crash. Ive noticed that it seems to usually crash against Cao Cao. I am constantly defending bridge battles against 2-3 stacks of goguryeo and dont have crashes there.

Edit: My army composition is pretty much all horse archers as well. I dont know if this is extremely taxing to the game engine or not

**Seether** · February 23, 2021, 11:58 AM

I had read some things (a long time ago) that missile units are resource taxing, but nothing definitive.

In regard to the crashes, if it is taken into consideration that all 'normal' preventative measures have been taken (using "The Patch", install outside Program Files, shorten directory name, etc.) and it is mostly happening in large-scale battles (involving 3-5 stacks), then it is almost certainly a hardware issue - your system can't handle what it is being asked to handle by the mod - which comes in a variety of areas. RAM, available drive memory, video card, processor, operating system, BIOS... there are so many things involving one's system that have an impact on gaming in general. Considering the age of Medieval 2's engine and that is is absolutely not optimized for modern systems, and that the more you make Medieval 2 not look like Medieval 2 the more unstable it becomes, to have high-scale total overhaul mods run well (with limited crashing) you have to have a relatively good, modern rig.

But, system upgrades and 'normal' preventative measures not withstanding, lowering graphics and reducing unit size is the best option one has to reduce crashes related to large-scale battles.