Medieval Mod 2.1 crashes

[WesW]

To anyone who has downloaded the Med mod 2.1 from Apolyton: The uniticon.txt has some errors in it that will cause the game to crash in certain situations.
Here is a link to the corrected file: http://apolyton.net/ctp/files/mods/uniticon.zip

[This message has been edited by WesW (edited January 27, 2000).]

[Savant]

You're right Wes, the problem is confined to MedMod 2.1. MedMod 2.0 worked fine.

It's the UGUA.tga references in the uniticons.txt file that cause the problem. The two I ran across are for the seige engine and the horse archer. I haven't gotten far enuff along in the current game to know whether units beyond the renaissance are affected.

BTW, it is a great mod! I like what you did with the units you chose to include and the changes you made to game play.

Thanks for all your work - you really have enhanced the playing experience for these early ages.

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'Blood will run'

[WesW]

Thanks, Savant.
The problem is with all of the units added for CD's mod.
I received a letter yesterday from another user who said the problem also affected the 2.0 mod. Myself, I couldn't say due to the nature of the problem.

I sat back last night, to try and put together what happened to cause this bug, and what I discovered was really fascinating. I may write it down here later, though it would take a couple of pages to describe.
It goes back to CD's mod, and the beginnings of my attempts at mod-making. I believe anyone involved in development in industry, especially computers (and a few Mars Observer workers at NASA), would see parallels between it and what happens in industry. I know Don Blevens would find it interesting.

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1)(Paraphrasing Small Soldiers) The Modern Mod: Everything else, is just a scenario.
2)(Imagine Mr. Voice from Rick Dees saying this) The Modern Mod: Dominating CtP like a Leviathan on steroids.
3)The Mod mod: Too cool for its own good.

Submit votes in any Modern mod thread.
[This message has been edited by WesW (edited January 24, 2000).]

[skorpion59]

Wes,

You know me well. I would indeed be interested in knowing WHY.


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Don, Apolyton Junkie

[MarkG]

here is the correct uniticon.txt
http://apolyton.net/ctp/files/mods/uniticon.zip

[WesW]

Let me see if I can reconstruct the timeline of events that led to the bug in the uniticon. (You may need to read some parts more than once to get things straight- No kidding.)

It all starts with CD's 4.2 mod, which is what I built my Medieval mods off of. In it, CD used the standard file names for his uniticon files and tgas. Thus, so did I.
Well, here comes the 2nd patch, which offers its limited scenario features. I guess this is where you could say the problems began.

I think it was Harlan Thompson who discovered that you didn't need all the different tgas for units placed in scenario folders that you needed for units placed in the original directory.
I mean, the original setup called for 4 tgas, plus an avi. Let's call this the *four-tga* system. Harlan found that the two tgas listed in the uniticon text weren't even needed. You could write in the name for one of the other two tgas in place of those called for in the uniticon text. This same tga could be put in place of the avi, as well. Let's call this the *two-tga* system. Remember this for later on.

Well, when Paul, I believe, put together the Apolyton Pack, he re-named all the new gl files in it, as well as the entries in their respective *icon texts. This was done so that the Pack would not interfere with the original game.
However, this created a problem for me. By this time, I had over 150 new gl files for my own mod, the Medieval mod 1.2. I wanted it to be laid over the Pack, but now I would have to sort through every gl I had created, to see if it was one of those that came with CD's mod, and had thus been re-named, if I wanted to keep using the Pack's new *icon texts. Plus, every time I created a new gl file, I would have to reference the *icon texts to see if it had been re-named. There were some other problems, as well.

I know that last paragraph was completely confusing, but it just points out what it's been like putting together these mods. Suffice to say that I had to go back to the original *icon texts that came with CD's mod. In doing so, I had to dump all of the gl files and tgas that came with CD's mod into my mod, since I couldn't use the re-named Pack versions.

Well, what I didn't realize was that Paul had made some other changes to the uniticon text, in addition to re-naming the gl files. He had changed some of the tga numbers in a couple of the original units, to match new graphics for those units that people had made to fit the changes that CD had made to those units. This change wasn't crucial, though.

The thing that led to the crash, was that he adopted Harlan's *two-tga* system for naming the tgas of the *new* units included in the Pack. This change wasn't documented in any of the readmes that came out about the Pack's changes. And, indeed, this change was of no consequence to regular users of the Pack- just to the fool who wanted to build off of it.

So, here I was, using CD's original *icon texts and tgas (the four-tga system). This worked just fine with the Pack, as long as I kept all the original gls and tgas from CD's mod in with my own. However, when I put out the Med mod 2, I cleaned up the mod, in preparation for the Modern mod. In doing so, I got rid of those tgas from CD's mod that I thought were not needed. I mean, they're included in the Pack, right? Wrong.

This is what caused the crash- my uniticon text, which used the four-tga setup, and Paul's use of using the two-tga setup, and thus only including two tgas in the Pack, neither of which were the ones called for in *my* uniticon text. Simple, right?
Plus, you have added complications like the fact that Morgoth and other graphics-makers still use the four-tga setup in their work, or a combo of the two systems.

Believe it or not, the above is the *short* version of what happened. There were other things that played a part in this, some of which even I don't remember now, but if you get what is written here, then you have all that you *need* to know. (Told you you would need to read this more than once. )

[pchang65]

Perl is an extermely useful scripting language which is great for scanning through files and renaming things according to simple rules. If you haven't already, I strongly suggest downloading it (http://www.activestate.com). You can create some simple scripts which will automatically do all this file management for you. If you have any problems, you can e-mail me at pchang@avalon.net and I will help you.

[skorpion59]

Wes,

Don't you just love being the one that is in the position to HAVE to figure all that out?

Thanks for the info. It should save somebody else from having to go through the same thing.

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Don, Apolyton Junkie

[MadWoodster]

First thanks WesW for the brilliant Medival Mod 2.0. However I'm still having problems with the Mod 2.1 here's what I've done can you check this is correct please:

installed the offical 1.2 patch
then the unofficial 1.21 hack patch
then the Apolyton Pack
then your Medieval Mod 2.0
then your Medieval Mod 2.1
then unzipped the unitsicon.zip to the gamedata directory of the Medieval scenario

It still crashes after about 7 goes. Have I missed something obvious? Thanks for your time, look forward to the Modern Mod, if you want any help beta testing it let me know,

[Savant]

MadWoodster -

What error message do you get when it crashes in the 7th turn?

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'Blood will run'

[WesW]

Someone else wrote in with this same problem.
The only time I have had an experience similar to this is when I tried to use one of the maps that came with the Pack.

Maps can be tricky to use under any circumstances, and you may not be able to use them with the Med mod. Myself, I always make random maps, then spend out 45 making them playable. This is one area I never took the time to check out. Sorry.

If you're having this problem with random maps, then try to give the specific error message, like Savant asked.
With the maps, the crash occurred when a player tried to begin construction of one of the Med mods new units (probably the Jav. Cav.)

[MadWoodster]

Sorry for not adding the error message. It just crashes to Windows and tells me that CTP has caused a general protection fault at a certain data address.
This is when using the 24 nation world map, and so that is probably why, I shall try a random map later thanks.

[MadWoodster]

Started a new game with the mod on a random map and have had no problems whatsoever.
Thanks for developing a great mod, I look forward to the modern one, when it is ready.