1989: Scenario Development Thread

Before getting further into game mechanics I wanted to give a heads-up on the crash issue in case anyone is wondering why this game is not progressing faster. For about 4-5 months the game has been crashing catasrophically and been completely unplayable. This means that not only do I have to fix the crash, but that many things cannot be improved or tested until I can make this issue go away. I've posted a bunch on this in the Technical Issues thread and although I received some nice input the issue remains.

The crash is related to the unit PRTO assigned but I can not pin it down. Basically, my last flawless biq is from February. In the process of adding new stuff, the game goes from working to crashing. I've done troubleshooting for months now including changing things back and forth and rebuilding the whole biq, as well as combing through the text files line by line looking for flaws, spaces and hard returns. One positive thing is that in the various uninstalls and reinstalls of Civ 3, I did get the scenario to open in Steph's editor (the Civ3 files are now in C:/Civilization III which helped matters) although other mods like Worldwide still don't open. Steph's interface gives the opportunity to make drastic changes quickly. For example, I took the current biq, changed every unit to PRTO_Infantry and the game works again. Also, I was able to tell that BLDG_ entries were not the issue.

The point of this long tirade is not to make a 'woe is me post' :p, but just to give a snapshot of where we're at and why I have no idea when or if I can get this scenario working again. It seems that by slowing re-adding the PRTOs piece by piece, I can get the game to work, but there are many moving parts and it is hard to tell. For example, I just had a build that functioned OK without a crash, but the game froze up during the AI turn. There are many, many things that can cause these crashes and they are notoriously difficult to pin down. Also, the save function still isn't working.

If anyone is interested in investing some time into this, PM me and maybe we can come up with some new ideas, or at least share in the misery. :) The game is approaching critical mass and much of what needs to be done from here is graphical or text-related, as the unit/resource/city editing is mostly done. Thanks and wish me luck.
 
ugh. i know exactly where you are at :( it is gut-wrenching.

here are some of my off-the-cuff remarks:

do you have any immobile units in the game? and if so, did you grant it/them with the 'Load' unit action? this causes lags and undecipherable errors.

i've had bad flc files cause crashes. it happened to me only one time. but i remember the exact flc, an attack anim for an f-86 sabre.

i imagine that there is no error message?

could it be a maximum units allowed issue? there is a cap on the total amount of units being able to be on the map at one time. remarkably, there is a patch that cures this.

lastly, as a matter of course, i ask about the RAM on your rig. could you be in need of more? i had issues on my old pc, added more RAM, and problems solved. sometimes processors are fickle and need all the juice they can get. just sayin.
 
ugh. i know exactly where you are at :( it is gut-wrenching.

here are some of my off-the-cuff remarks:

do you have any immobile units in the game? and if so, did you grant it/them with the 'Load' unit action? this causes lags and undecipherable errors.

Thanks, EJ. Some quick responses:

-There are immobile units in the game. I've gone through them all to make sure settings are OK. Also, just eliminated them entirely :p no effect.

i've had bad flc files cause crashes. it happened to me only one time. but i remember the exact flc, an attack anim for an f-86 sabre.

I went through the new units being added, mostly checking for bad pallettes. I remember Shiro's medieval Japanese unit causing a crash before it was fixed. Also, the Bobby unit that's missing the Default.flc. Neither in this game, though.

i imagine that there is no error message?

Message is 'Unable to Allocate Draw Buffer, Terminating'. Probably can post a picture when I get back to the house.

could it be a maximum units allowed issue? there is a cap on the total amount of units being able to be on the map at one time. remarkably, there is a patch that cures this.

Max units are 8192, and the game starts with 6200 on the map. Plus, the game always runs with Syn/Knuckles no-limit exe so that shouldn't be an issue. Just to make sure, I added a thousand extra units when they all had the Infantry animation, and it worked fine. Also, number of units in the biq is 1003, well below worldwide's 1400 and way behind Steph and Ares who use scientific notation to add up number of units in their biq.

lastly, as a matter of course, i ask about the RAM on your rig. could you be in need of more? i had issues on my old pc, added more RAM, and problems solved. sometimes processors are fickle and need all the juice they can get. just sayin.

I'm thinking the issue is in here somewhere. The crash happens as I add more graphics, not as I add specific graphics. Changing a unit from PRTO_Infantry to PRTO_DDR-72 may or may not cause the game to crash, but when I change a bunch then it goes. It also happens gradually, going from an occasional crash that may take a turn to pop up, to crashing while loading as you add more stuff. This makes me think it's the graphics.

This is my new computer with 3.6 quad core 6 gigs of RAM...can't imagine that it can't handle a civ 3 mod. But I still have the crappy stock graphics card. Of course, the only check for this is to get a new card. I've never had the game crash because of graphics, but even on big maps and scenarios I don't think I've had so many units with different graphics all operating at once.
 
After six months of trying every trick I've learned so far, I think the crash in this game is due to a unit limit in Civ 3. There are some 6000 units on the map to start, from 1000 biq unit types and using about 550 unique graphics. We know that there is no limit on the number of units that can be in the biq, and that the limit of units on the map is 8192, which is not an issue anyway since we are using the knuckles exe. The scenario was first constructed using standard firaxis graphics, and then after everything was placed was when I began adding the 'after market' unit graphics. The game worked fine for a while, and then gradually became more unstable as new custom units were added. In its current form, the game will not even load.

The only answer I can come up with is that Civ 3 simply can't draw that many unit graphics at one time. There are many mods that have large numbers of custom units but I can't think of any that have so many at the same time. If you change the units in this game back to firaxis units, the game will go back to being functional. I also recently added a new graphics card with some other happy horsestuff to the computer which had no effect on the issue, so I doubt that it's an issue with RAM or processing power.

Anyway, if anyone wants to take a look at it, let me know. At this point I'm not going to continue working on the scenario. I do appreciate all the friendly support the last year or so :). Might get around to completing the interface/cities/units at some point as a separate release.
 
I would say that if you cannot get past this, revert the units back to the original Firaxis ones. While unit variety is great, the mod itself is why we play. Less graphical variety on the units is IMO a minor loss.

Post the mod somewhere I will at least see if I can load it on my rig.
 
After six months of trying every trick I've learned so far, I think the crash in this game is due to a unit limit in Civ 3. There are some 6000 units on the map to start, from 1000 biq unit types and using about 550 unique graphics. We know that there is no limit on the number of units that can be in the biq, and that the limit of units on the map is 8192, which is not an issue anyway since we are using the knuckles exe. The scenario was first constructed using standard firaxis graphics, and then after everything was placed was when I began adding the 'after market' unit graphics. The game worked fine for a while, and then gradually became more unstable as new custom units were added. In its current form, the game will not even load.

The only answer I can come up with is that Civ 3 simply can't draw that many unit graphics at one time. There are many mods that have large numbers of custom units but I can't think of any that have so many at the same time. If you change the units in this game back to firaxis units, the game will go back to being functional. I also recently added a new graphics card with some other happy horsestuff to the computer which had no effect on the issue, so I doubt that it's an issue with RAM or processing power.

Anyway, if anyone wants to take a look at it, let me know. At this point I'm not going to continue working on the scenario. I do appreciate all the friendly support the last year or so :). Might get around to completing the interface/cities/units at some point as a separate release.

AnthonyBoscia, I suggest you should contact marinecorps at the SOC site to give you a forum for your scenario, so everybody can have a look at those files -and may be someone will find a solution. There is too much work invested by you "to simply throw it away". :)

SOE in its earlier forms also had more than 7.000 units on the map. It was a WW II scenario in complete regimental (infantry) and tankcompany setting and more than 1.000 different unit graphics in game. I had to change that, as the inter-turntimes for this setting were about 45 minutes (when speeded up as much as possible). The loading times for SOE were reduced from about 7 hours to about 3 minutes. This is the silent part of fighting while creating such scenarios - and nobody is aware when playing it.

Can it be, that the problems come from knuckles`exe`? Have you more than 512 cities in the game?
 
Testing this now.

First off, I must say the mod description when you first select the biq is the best mod description I have ever seen, bar-none!

Secondly, just from what I saw and read at the civ selection screen and at start up, this mod is GORGEOUS, and will be the best looking mod ever made. I say WILL BE, not WOULD HAVE been because I absolutely refuse to let this mod die. You see, I've only had a glimpse but it is love at first sight. :love:

Thirdly, about 5 minutes into the load, I got the Civ3 is not responding error, so I can confirm at least that it is not a problem on your machine.

One specific piece of advice I can lend - I got the exact same message when I first started creating leaderheads, but at the point of the Diplomacy screen, not initial load. The issue ended up being that I had created the FLICs for the leaderheads with CIV3FLCEDIT. Once I switched to using Jasc Animation Shop (which is a much easier tool, and also free), the problem went away. I don't think your problem is with the leaderheads, since you can select the civs at the beginning just fine, and it freezes before you ever have a chance to see the diplomacy screen, so I agree the issue must be with one or more units in the mod.

You mentioned before that it was happening sporadically, then more and more as you added more units, to the point now it won't even load. I have two theories here.

1 is that you are correct, you have finally discovered the max number of in-game custom unit graphics. In that case you'll have to use less custom units.

2 is that some of these units may have a (some) bad FLIC frame(s) that is causing the issue. This can be tested by trying them out in a test mod. If you get the issue in the test mod, the unit is bunk and should not be used.

I don't know what else to tell you. I'll poke around in the editor and see what I can find.

You will not give up on this. It has way too much potential and I can tell you've put an ungodly amount of work into this.
 
I should add some technical specs - I have 4 GB RAM. Before I loaded the mod I was using 1.65 of it. With the mod loaded I am using 3.06 GB. Unmodded civ3 only jumps it up to 1.77 GB.

AMD Phenom II x4 940 @ 3.01 Ghz

ATI Radeon HD 4800 series

Windows 7 64 bit
 
Thanks, guys. Don't worry, Civinator, I have no plans to throw it away. :) I had been simultaneously adding things to the scenario while trying to discover the problem, and I just reached the point where I don't want to do new stuff until we know we can get this to work. For instance, why spend the time (and money) creating new units if the game ultimately needs fewer units?

A few things I can confirm are not the issue. I have run the game with and without the Knuckles exe, and it doesn't affect anything. Running the game without it will remove all cities over 512 but the game runs (or fails to run) the same.

I checked all leaderheads independently and they run fine. You'll recognize a number of them from Bathyskaff's Modzilla Destiny Reborn collection.

All the new units have been checked out separately as well. This includes palettes, and also in game. So I couldn't identify any specific unit that caused a problem by itself.

Civinator, your comment on the early build of SOE is a good one to hear. I wonder how many of those unit graphics were in the game to start? Loading and turn times are healthy, especially if the player has an older computer. There'll be no way around that. Much of the turn time comes from actually watching the unit actions. That's something I enjoy (otherwise why have custom units?) but that will be a player preference.

Gojira54, what you said about the memory used seems most pertinent. It may be that all the stuff going on simply uses too much horsepower. I just want to be sure that this is the issue before we start axing units out of the biq.

I must say the mod description when you first select the biq is the best mod description I have ever seen, bar-none!

Whoops, forgot about that. Hope the kids weren't around when you opened it. :p
 
I hope this one has faster turns than SOE if it comes out
 
I can't help with any of the technical stuff, but this mod looks far too promising to not finish. I would vote in favor of removing some of the custom graphics to get the mod going, if that is the problem.
 
There's a new thread for the game under the "MBB User Group" at Storm over Civ, thanks to Marine Corps. I'm moving the technical discussion over there. If you'd like to join in, just log into Group Memberships at SOC and we'll get started. That way we can post the game, take a look at things, and generally keep from bumping this thread here too much. The CFC thread will focus on screenshots and updates and the mundane minutiae of how Czechoslovakian soldiers laced their boots.
 
I thought an update was in order since there's been no news for a while now. Gojira54 and Civinator have been lifesavers here. With their knowledge of Civ 3 and computers in general, we've got ideas on why the game stopped working and how to address that. Boiled down, the game was too damn big.

Blue Lion said:
When looking through the taskmaster while starting some of the 1989 biqs, I noticed, that the 1989 sYn-exe is very, very big (and becomes even bigger during gameplay).

Examples of size:

Normal C3C game at start: 113 000
Conquest Fall of Rome: 117 000
SOE: 451 000
Febr. 1989 biq: 802 000 (this biq run stable on my pc the complete first turn)
1989 crash-biqs: 960 000 and more

The size of biqs varies and rises, when there were more starts of the exe.
I can´t give here a direct rule, but from my observations this day it seems, that a game with a sYn-exe of 950 000 becomes very instable and over 960 000 the crash is "programmed".

We found several ways to consolidate and reduce graphics without severely changing the game. There is still more work to be done but now that we know what the issues are, I can make any necessary cuts and have a measurable idea of the effects. I'd like to point out that this game is indeed monstrous in size. No efforts are being spared in trying to make it run as quickly as possible, but by design it will not run as quick as, say, AOI. I always thought of this an an 'animated board game', so I'm not too worried about long turns. The game will require a fairly modern computer with sufficient processing speed, though not a state-of-the-art gaming beast by any stretch. Turn times vary by the nation you are playing. Much of the turn times are taken up by the US and USSR. If you're playing one of these two, turn times will still be long but much of that time will be you playing. :) As units are slaughtered wholesale in the first dozen turns or so, times are sped up considerably.

A great deal of time was lost with the crashes but that's how these things work so on with the show. There is much more work to be done still. Updates in the near future will concentrate on things that are already nailed down, like the unit summaries that were posted so far about the Soviets and West Germans. Stay tuned!
 
In the last 2 1/2 years since I started working on this a lot of info has become available online on the Soviet Army land forces. Like any armed force, it constantly changed and reorganized based on needs. And like much else in the Soviet government, its details were deliberately shrouded in secrecy. Conscripts and officers alike often did not know exactly which unit they belonged to or the organization of higher echelons, beyond the numerical unit number. The Army was designed not only to be combat effective, but also to deceive potential enemies and help keep the strategic element of surprise that proved its value in the Second World War. Lastly, restructuring totally changed the face of the Soviet Army: first in 1988 - 1990 when the Gorbachev drawdown began, and then rapidly accelerating with the end of the Warsaw Pact, the withdrawal from Eastern Europe, and finally the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The order of battle, therefore, is partly fictional. It is based mainly along the lines of the Army as it stood in the beginning of 1988, since the 'alternate history' story of the scenario means that tensions are actually increasing and no restructuring is taking place. In real life, units were coming back from Eastern Europe, while units at home were being converted to BHVT equipment storage, coastal defense, or disbanding outright. The order of battle in the game, therefore, includes a number of units that are actually increasing in strength as they draw more equipment and reserves in response to the crisis before the start of the scenario.

The results of this new info have filled in a lot of gaps in the placement of Russian units. It also has taken out a great deal of guesswork and non-existant units. This has had a few positive effects. First, of course, the game more accurately reflects soviet capabilities. Second, bogus units can be removed, thus speeding up the game. Third, better understanding of Soviet units means that the biq and civilopedia can be more streamlined, increasing clarity and game speed. This works closely with the stuff I was doing with Blue Lion and Gojira. For example, earlier builds of the biq had many different types of BMP and BTR regiments. Once we saw how mutliple PRTOs, Art/Units folders, and pediaicons entires slowed the game, new ways could be developed that consolidated entries without losing key graphics or details.

Of some of the new info found, the biggest is that I finally got a translated copy of 'The Soviet Army during the "Cold War" (1945-1991)' by three professors from Tomsk State University. This document, released in 2004, is probably the best known attempt to clarify Soviet Army organization for a general audience and clear away a lot of the guess work. Artillery units were a big part of this. Formerly, I didn't have much specific information on the composition of independent Artillery brigades and the Artillery divisions. These units actually used a lot of towed artillery, especially the 2A36 and new 2A65 howizters. The big 203 mm 2S7s were mostly consolidated into independent "High Power Artillery" brigades. Other systems like the terrifying 2S4 240 mm SP mortar were usually part of battalions often incorporated into larger brigades. Units like this, that have no civ 3 graphics, no visually similar graphics, and are difficult to find 3d models for, no longer have to be part of the biq. Also, the new data shows more brigades of BM-27 rocket launchers than I originally knew of, and even have the first operational BM-30 units which can now be incorporated as a new biq unit.

The info on the Soviet Army now available can often show the correct regimental numbers, the type of equipment used (which verified a lot of my guesses thankfully), and their readiness level. Most of these changes have been strictly in the excel sheet. I will still be doing a civ-by-civ run through of all units on the map so there will be a lot of editing for the Soviets especially in the biq. The end result should be a game that is more accurate, less slow, and somewhat fun.
 
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