A modder's guide to errors

[florin80]

I vaguely remember TA from eb talking about issues with disasters and the solution he was proposing at one time was to delete the map.rwm file and let it regenerate. I don`t remember what the consequences of not doing that were but not being able to construct a fort/watchtower might have been among them. So, are you sure that what did the trick in your case wasn`t just deleting the map.rwm file with no actual effect from the change in descr_mercenaries?

BTW, this thread should get a better position than under the sub-forums(maybe it should be placed above them). If you don`t scroll down you don`t notice it and I see that in 3 years it only got 11,016 views and not many posts, when in fact it is one of the first places a modder should start from.

[MasterOfNone]

That's my understanding too, florin.

As to the forum structures - generally speaking TWC seems to have a layer or subforum too much here and there which does tend to bury things. I use TWC regularly and still cannot "intuitively" navigate as easily as I should be able to due to things not always being where you think they would be

[florin80]

Just tried it ingame, given that`s such a an easy thing to test. I removed a region from descr_mercenaries, deleted the map.rwm file and started the game. As expected there were no mercenaries to recruit in that province, but I was able to construct both a watchtower and a fort. So, false alarm about descr_mercenaries. It was the map.rwm that did the trick for the rs player.

[DaVinci]

That's my understanding too, florin.

As to the forum structures - generally speaking TWC seems to have a layer or subforum too much here and there which does tend to bury things. I use TWC regularly and still cannot "intuitively" navigate as easily as I should be able to due to things not always being where you think they would be

One reason of this is of course that the admins and moderators are seldomly modders and good organisators in one person (in regard of the orga of modding forums/threads/posts) ... . And well, it is a lot of damn "ill"-work to make all that properly. I wouldn't do that for money

I didn't read the recent theme, but of course it needs to delete the map.rwm if a camp folder file is changed (exception is only the vc file, if i remember right).

[kongming]

A CTD happening either when exiting the game from the main menu or after selecting a faction for the Imperial Campaign can indicate having missing or renamed patch_0.pak and patch_1.pak files without having extracted them.

[Squid]

I moved the discussion about end of turn CTD to http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=209675 as it was cluttering up this thread.

[hæressiarch]

hi all!
i came to this thread to ask for some help. i am making a mod and since i've started to add new units i've encointered many problems. i've solved all of them fine i think untill this one...

i've added new unit that replaces carthaginian peasants. i've changed names in every (i think so) file required to do it succesfully as i did many times before. since the unit is in the game everything works ok, but when i try to save the game it simply crashes into desktop without showing me any message except windows message window "error blah blah blah" and "close"/"debug" window. i am using -show_err. line in my modfolder shortcut so i expected any clue as i had before when any problems apeared... this time i feel i am really down with the problem...

anyone knows what's the solution for this? anyone has any cure? any clue? any help? anyone?

[florin80]

You are referring to the campaign I presume. Does the unit work fine on the battle map too? I had a weird case once with a changed unit. The new one had different weapons and every time I went into battles with the unit that was in an existing army at the start of the game it crashed. No error message. But with a newly recruited unit the battles loaded fine. It turned out I had forgotten to delete the map.rwm file and that`s how the game reacted to the change(presuming it had to do with the missile weapon the unit suddenly got or something of this sort). Delete the map.rwm file in case you haven`t done so and try again.

[hæressiarch]

i've deleted all map.rwm files.

unit works fine on the battle map, but you gave me a clue with the weapon issue. they never change spear to sword when close combat starts. maybe there is something wrong with their weapon entry as you sugested? i'll try to co down this path .

EDIT:

unit uses two hand weapons (spear and sword). i've checked the entry for rebels and they use only polearm. i've changed their entry to have 2 weapons but game still encounter CTD's while saving...

maybe the problem lays somewhere else. it's my first very serious problem. i've restored previous state before i've added this unit, reinstalled the game and mounted modfolder again. still CTD while saving...

help...

[Aradan]

If you remove the unit, you can save the game without a CTD?

[hæressiarch]

@ Aradan

i've tried that allready. i thought it might be a model issue or DMB limits but it seems that it's not.
i can't save game after removing the unit. maybe there is sth. else than unit issue? could i miss something?

[Aradan]

Check your names in descr_strat again. And make sure the name files are valid and saved properly.

[florin80]

unit works fine on the battle map, but you gave me a clue with the weapon issue. they never change spear to sword when close combat starts.

You can`t have a spearman use its sword unless it has a phalanx formation in EDU.

[hæressiarch]

@ Aradan

i 've checked as you said. i see no bugs there.

@ florin80

! i had no idea!. is there any other way to make spearmen use secondary weapon like sword or knife?

[florin80]

@ florin80

! i had no idea!. is there any other way to make spearmen use secondary weapon like sword or knife?

If you check vanilla rtw you`ll see they don`t even have the secondary weapon implemented. A spearmen with no phalanx formation will only be able to properly use a missile weapon besides the spear(the missile being primary and the spear secondary weapon). You can give them both sword and spear, but weird behavior happens. Like they charge with the sword and only then switch back and I`ve read this is also responsible for ctds during the battle, but I see eb is using the formula so maybe it`s not critical. Iirc Eb thought the visual inconsistency is worth the unit having both, but the ai will not switch between them adequately. Only the player will be able to by using the alt click action like for the spear-sword armed cavalry.

[hæressiarch]

thanx florin80! that helps a lot!

i will use the same system then

but i still can't solve the problem. i think it's not connected with the unit. i've removed every clue and returned to the previous settings and i have CTD during save game still...

[Salvor Hardin]

This is really strange. Please tell me if I am wrong: the campaign loads and plays well but the CTD happens when you try to save it...Does the crash happen when you click on the "save game" icon? Perhaps it is something as simple as not having a folder named "saves" inside your my_mod install.

[makanyane]

Try looking at character names if you've changed anything at all to do with names - it was reported in the past that bad character names caused a CTD when the game tried to autosave at the end of turn

http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74045
so presumably the same problem would crop up on manual save?...

[florin80]

Two things I`ve noticed for vanilla BI and I thought to note them down somewhere:
1. in descr_strat there is a rebel/slave army (sub_faction sarmatians, Amage, general) that uses the unit steppe lancers. BUT, in EDU the unit only has ownership for vandal and slavs, not slave. And in DMB it has no textures or sprites for slave either.

2. in DMB the nomad_archer_cavalry only has texture and sprites for the slave faction even though this DMB entry is used by the sassanids too.

[hæressiarch]

that's helpful thanx