EU-1, save-game file corruption, crashes

[unmerged(5023)]

Folks,

(cross-posted from the eu1 general discussions)

I'm late in a game of EU-1, patch level 9, IGC'ed,
OS is Windows ME.

The game has run fine till this point, and previous games have
run fine. Early-mid 1700's, the leader of Spain died heirless
and I inherited his realm (I'm Portugal). I saved/exited, and
next time in, the "reading scenario" stops on a "critical error".
If I do "Retry", the game crashes. If I "Ignore", the game
finishes loading. I can play normally, unless I hit an area in
South America...I can't nail down exactly which provence, but
it seems to crash when I scroll the map towards a zone bordered
to the south/east by Tucaman, or the north by the path of provences
from Refcie over to the Incas. (since I have land there revolting
due to spanish nationalism, this is a problem).

Is there any way I can determine what is corrupted, and fix it?
I eyeballed a bunch of the provences in the savegame file, and
nothing I saw looked funny...and since these started happening
after getting all the spanish lands, and it happens in S.America
where Spain had some land, I'm guessing they're related; ie that
this is a savegame file corruption problem and not something with
my box...and to verify, the savegame from before Spain's demise
runs fine still.

 

[viper37]

it's something with your savegame file, and unfortunately, I don't think there is an answer for your problem. Someone might know what to do, but I'd think you'd better of loading and old savegame, even if it means losing your heritage. I've had this problem before, and it was the only way to solve it.

Otherwise, you could still try uninstalling EU, reinstalling it and reapplying the IGC patch over it.

 

[unmerged(5023)]

Originally posted by viper37
it's something with your savegame file, and unfortunately, I don't think there is an answer for your problem. Someone might know what to do, but I'd think you'd better of loading and old savegame, even if it means losing your heritage. I've had this problem before, and it was the only way to solve it.

Do you know how random this event was (the Spanish king dying and
leaving me his throne?) What are the odds that will happen again,
if I go back a savefile in time??

 

[viper37]

Originally posted by Rockies


Do you know how random this event was (the Spanish king dying and
leaving me his throne?) What are the odds that will happen again,
if I go back a savefile in time??

The odds are near to zero, unfortunately.

 

[viper37]

I'm not an expert on editing save game files, but you could open both saved games in Wordpad (or Word) and look at both to find the differences, maybe there is a section missing in the new file, or some weird characters in place there shouldn't be.

Backup your corrupt game and work with it alongside the other. Identify the section where it says the provinces you have, and leave that intact, or remove the exact province(s) where you crashed in your game. You could then copy the rest of the non-corrupt game and see if it works.

 

[unmerged(5023)]

Originally posted by viper37
Backup your corrupt game and work with it alongside the other. Identify the section where it says the provinces you have, and leave that intact, or remove the exact province(s) where you crashed in your game. You could then copy the rest of the non-corrupt game and see if it works.

Just in case anyone's interested: I backed up in the game to the
point before Spain's monarch left me his country; instead, I went
to war and conquered Spain, and annexed it. When I did the annex,
the game log showed "Rebel Scum discover (H-something provence, #166,
one of the Inca's start provences), and Helvetia (my vassal) also
discovering it. Seeing as I'd shared maps with Helvetia, and I'd
owned that provence for nearly 200 years, I found that odd I
looked in the savefile from before/after the bug popped up, but
don't see anything unusual.

I also notice that the world map (even when I'm in Europe) scrolls
slower/jerkier after this happens...I think I have the provence
that has the problem, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what
exactly its problem is!

 

[viper37]

well, if it works now...

The Rebel scum thing suggest something wrong with your installation...

By any chance, did you install patch 1.10 without reinstalling the IGC?

 

[unmerged(5023)]

Originally posted by viper37
well, if it works now...
The Rebel scum thing suggest something wrong with your installation...
By any chance, did you install patch 1.10 without reinstalling the IGC?

Well, it isn't "working" - touching the provence after annexing
Spain still produces a crash of the game just as it did after
inheriting Spain...I spent a little more time poking at it last
night...I "zoomed out" as far as possible (to see the whole
world) and then "walked" the cursor from provence to provence
to see where the crash would occur. I tried walking up from
the south tip of South America the first time, down from the
top the 2nd time, and from east to west the 3rd time. Each time
the crash occured when I hit the first of the former Inca provences
in my path. Looking in the save file, they *look* OK...so I'm
baffled. (I've owned the Incas since early in the game, Spain
never did...yet I had no problems with these provences crashing
the game till after taking Spain out).

Does that shed any light on where the problem might be? It's
really more an academic exercise at this point, since the only
country I haven't taken over is Helvetia now, and that won't be
long But it'd be nice to successfully troubleshoot this
corruption, should it occur again.

 

[unmerged(5023)]

Originally posted by viper37
The Rebel scum thing suggest something wrong with your installation...
By any chance, did you install patch 1.10 without reinstalling the IGC?

Oh, and I'm at 1.09, not 1.10; I'm pretty sure I'd installed 1.09
and then the IGC mods, but I didn't write down the order I did, so..
Was this a known bug fixed in 1.10 and I'm wasting your time
bringing it up at this point?

 

[viper37]

Originally posted by Rockies


Oh, and I'm at 1.09, not 1.10; I'm pretty sure I'd installed 1.09
and then the IGC mods, but I didn't write down the order I did, so..
Was this a known bug fixed in 1.10 and I'm wasting your time
bringing it up at this point?

You are not wasting my time, I am wasting my time being on these boards Frankly, I don't need anybody to waste it for me

1.10 could help, but I seriously doubt it since it was aimed at improving stability with mp games mainly.

I would suggest nonetheless that you uninstall the game, reinstall it, install patch 1.10 and then apply the IGC. When you install the patch, it modifies some other files than the EXE, files that the IGC needed to modify to work properly so it's important the patch be applied first before the IGC. Simply copy your save games in another folder to keep them.

If it still doesn't work, start a new game and you shouldn't experience any more problems.

If you don't want to do it, then there is another solution... Don't annexe Spain . Leave them with their capital province only and your game might just work fine.

Again, you're not wasting my time, and feel free to post again if you have problems.