Med 4 Crash

[Joseph]

Wes
Med 4 is crashing a lot lately. One of the crashes, it stated Game obj.cpp error, no such id 2097152, another was id 03 and the last one, it crashed to my desk top without stating an error. Help please.

[WesW]

I and others have had the same 'no such id' crashes. No one has been able to figure out the cause of them so far.
Can you give some info on your game? No. of players, approximate turn no. and/or year, any use of cheat mode prior to the crashes. Any general info about the crash that you can come up with might help as well.

[Locutus]

It just occurred to me that these crashes *might* occur due to the fact that the values of the variables that are used by the dissemination code don't get stored (properly) when you save CtP. So once you reload, it the value is no longer correct and using it would give unpredictable results, such as crashes.
To test this one could write a test-trigger like this (add this to any of the SLIC files (*.slc) to try it out):

trigger 'BeginTest' when (g.year == 0 && g.player == 0) {
   SetActionKey(1, "^a");
   DisableTrigger('BeginTest');
}

messagebox 'TestMessage' {
   Text(ID_TEST_VARIABLES);
}

trigger 'TestVariables' when (key.1.pressed) {
   Message(g.player, 'TestMessage');
}

And add to med_str.txt the line:
TEST_VARIABLES "NumberOfPlayers is [numberOfPlayers.value] and NumberWithMonarch is [numberWithMonarchy.value]"

Currently I don't have CtPI installed so someone else will have to try it out. Just start a new game, play for a while and once Monarchy has been invented/traded a couple of times press Ctrl-A to check what the value for the variables numberOfPlayers and numberWithMonarchy is. Remember these values (or write them down) and save the game. Completely exit CtP, restart your computer and start CtP up again. Now load the game you just saved and press Ctrl-A again. If the values are any different then they were right before saving or the game crashes, you can be pretty sure that this is where the crashes come from. If all works fine, I don't know what the hell is going on either.

[Locutus]

Nevermind
[This message has been edited by Locutus (edited September 29, 2000).]

[WesW]

These type of crashes have been occurring without the disseminate trigger being in the mod, so it is something else. They started occurring with the 4.0 betas, so it would make sense that it has to do with something added for it. However, in my game where the crashes occurred, I had not gotten to the point in the game where the 4.0 units were available, and there were no special slic triggers added for the 4.0 version at that time, so I am at somewhat of a loss as to the cause.

Based upon reports from a couple of other people who have had the crash, it may be a certain sequence of events, or a certain number of 'objects' appearing in the game, that causes the crashes.

[Locutus]

Hmmm, OK. But it the errors you are having *are* in my experience usually (though not always) caused by SLIC. Maybe you should try playing a game or two without the garrison code and other SLIC material you're using in your Mod (apart from PowerSLICs, if that was causing the bug, it would have turned up a lot earlier).

[Joseph]

I started a new game. No Cheats. The first crash, was at year 360 AD, when the movie Grand Canal started to play. It crashed to win. (A fatal exception OE has occured at 0028:C000727D in VXD (01) + 0000627D). 2nd crash to dest top, no error given, year 400. 3rd crash, year 1748 (ID 268435737) then cause win. to crash (OE 0028! C0004E80 VXD VMM (01) + 00003E80). In the year 1760, it crash again to Dest Top, no error given. Turn on cheats at year 1824. Another crash about 1860. I said forget it.

Started a new game later. The game crash, while loading the game.

Started a new game. Turn on the cheat turn 1. I gave myself gold and PW only. Turn off the movies. Did not used the PW until I had a coastal City, and then only one city at a time. did not removed forest until I discovered Adv. Farm. No crashes at all. I'm in the 1800 AD.

All of my crashes, seem to happen when time start the next turn or a movie is going play. Had a movie crash while playing SMAC. I turn off the movie in that game also. No crashes since the movie where turn off. I had a problem with Civ 2, before patches came out with the Oracle movie crashing the game. I'm wondering if the new movie is part of the problem.

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[This message has been edited by Joseph (edited October 02, 2000).]

[WesW]

I don't know what to make of the other crashes; hopefully some of the tech guys here can help.

There are no new movies in the mod, however. The grand canal is simply Stonehenge re-named, and should play the Stonehenge movie like always.
If the game crashes when a movie is supposed to start, I doubt it has anything to do with the mod.

It might be a good idea to re-boot if the game crashes on you. It seems that if it has crashed once, it will probably crash again.

Also, could those of you who have had crashes give how much RAM your computer has. Mine has 64. If those of you who have had no problems would give your specs as well, it would be appreciated.

[XMon]

No crashes for me since Gedrin suggested that his Dissemination SLIC might be causing the crash, due to it not taking into account destroyed civs. I didn't d/l the final Med Mod 4 version where Wes "//"'d out the Dissemination SLIC, I just didn't annihilate anyone! Beat 'em down to one city and let 'em be. No crashes at all, not even once. Of course, that eliminates one of your gamewinning options. Maybe there are other problems related to destroyed civs?

My problem with Med Mod 4 is cities revolting. I was playing Emperor level and was in the time frame where you have underwater colonies and just started having space colonies...anyway I had a Happiness rating of 93 and all of a sudden 6 of my cities revolted and went barbarian. Only two of the cities had done any prior rioting so it was kind of out of the blue. It's funny that Gedrin is working on a SLIC for cities revolting since it's been happening for me anyway (also happened once with MM3, half my cities left in one turn).

Gedrin, if you're reading this could you email me that new Dissemination SLIC? I want to put the Germans out of their misery...

[coldsteel]

Rats, another med mod 4 game locked up, this time at 2160ad. The lead ai was very advanced and had 10 future techs in all 4 categories, who knows maybe there was a problem there since it should try to research something useful instead like subneural interface, which it refuses to do.

Is there a way to turn a computer player into the human player? If so I could take a look and see if I can find out what the computer player is doing that could be causing the recurring problem. Or I could upload the file to someone if they're interested in taking a look.

cold

[Joseph]

WesW
I should have said, almost every time the game crashed, it crashes the computer also. The few time the computer did not crash, directX did. One time, I tried to load SMAC after CTP crashed, and it said DirectX is not available, and every time CTP crashed, and try to reload CTP, it said DirectX not available.

I contuinal to play the cheat game last night, no crashes.

In Aug., I upgraded my computer to a PIII 600 w/128 megs. of RAM. Also a new video card, Matrox Millennium G-400. I still have Sound Blaster 128. Also two weeks ago, my Hard Disk, DVD drive, and Modem went bad and had to be replaced.

Tonight, I'm going to start a new game w/o the movies and no cheats, to see what happens.

------------------

[WesW]

I am not sure what to do about when an AI has researched every future advance, if this is indeed a problem. You could try setting the last advance to some absurd cost, I guess. I remember hearing that the total number of research points needed in the game might be causing some of the slowdown in the game, though, so I am reluctant to do that right now.

I have made the last non-future advances preqs for the first few future advances, so that now the AIs will have to get all of them before they can get more than 2 future advances in any category.

I have sent an email to Chris about getting a final version of the disseminate trigger that I want. When I get it, I will post it with the new advances file on my homepage.

Btw, I noticed that the Med mod 4 has been downloaded over a thousand times. I have received no news from anyone about it other than the few posts here. I don't know if this is good news or bad news. One person has voted on the mod since the 4.0 version replaced the 2.1 version, giving it a good mark.

If any of you out there have any comments, let me know, or cast a vote for the mod. I would ask that you give me a chance to address any problems and/or gripes you have with the mod before giving the it a poor vote, since one '1' can nullify several high marks.

[hexagonian]

I have been in my normal setup for the Medieval Mod - currently 1760AD

Emperor
8 civs
Large map
Mainly land over islands
Sea in the middle

I have taken a different approach to this game.

I slaved, but not too heavily, and did not use the means to control where the slaves were going.

No mines in forests. I built 14 cities and will not build anymore.

On top of this, my closest rivals (Romans and Brazil) are my neighbors. We have been in several wars, but I take a defensive stance only.

The main difference is I haven't played the agressor as I have yet to try to take an enemy city away.

The Romans are running neck-and-neck with me in science, and might even be ahead of me now. As soon as they have access to a wonder, they start building it - and they managed to get LE and Newton. Lately I've only managed to get happiness wonders, which actually has been a godsend - two of my cities are a great distance away, and are always on the verge of rioting, even with all the available happiness improvements. The AI forced me to swich from Industrial Rev to the advance that gave me Napolean's Code because it was about to beat me to LE and I didn't have a backup wonder to switch to.

There have been lots of battles and I have to keep my eyes open all the time, as I am always ending up in a war with either the Romans, Brazilians, Egyptians or Thais. Fortunately, my spies have alerted me to enemy troop movements, but I have also seen many enemy spies around too. If not for the spies, I would of had enemy stacks knocking on weakly defended city gates. I've been able to shuttle troops around to cover those cities. but the attacks are relentless, and the enemy stacks have a mix of ranged and non-ranged units - so bombarding costs me as well as my enemy.

The AI has been smarter in troop movement too. Ther have been a lot more stacks, and if I bombard a stack it will withdraw, though not all the time.

Same thing on sea.

I was setting up to hit the Egyptians but I had to divert my forces because the Thais decided to attack me...

I have an permanent alliance with one civ and another has been all hearts with me since the beginning of the game. Several tech exchanges from them, but always at their prompting instead of mine....

I do have the advance exchange setup with the AI civs - I am hoping for no game crashes. None so far.

A very satisfying game so far.

[coldsteel]

Wes --

Yes, forcing the computer to research all the non-future advances first before it can go to future techs 10 might take care of that lockup problem. If the computer gets all the non-future advances, then all 40 of the future advances, well by that time it would have already won I would think.

Is there a way for the human player to take a look at what a computer player is researching and building? I could maybe see what is causing the lockups then.

cold

[coldsteel]

The computer can't research cybernetics??

On my stalled game I notice the computer seems to have all the possible technologies except the following:

cybernetics
unified physics
mind control
neural interface
life extension
technocracy
subneural ad
virtual democracy

This suggests the stalling problem might be related to the computer not being able to research cybernetics, which is a prerequisite for the others.

What do you think?

cold