CTD for no reason I can see

[CaptainPatch]

Problem One: Yes, I have installed a couple mods. The main one is one that offers additional game map sizes. (For me, the bigger the better.) My current game is on a Monstrous map and is a Marathon. (Similarly, the longer the better.) I'm at Turn 300+ in a six-player (5 AI) game. When I advance to the next turn, I get Diplo visits from two of the AIs. Either halfway through the second visit, either the game freezes and then does a CTD, or it goes straight to the CTD. I tried backtracking a few turns to force events to take a different path and hopefully cause those two Diplo visits to not occur. Even if I do, when I get to this same turn, it's CTD time.

This is particularly annoying because, well, for one, 300+ turns, all for naught. But more importantly, I was really enjoying this game. And I would really hate to start a new game only to discover that somewhere @Turn 300 the game will start crashing again.

I checked my game benchmarks and was informed my rig is in the 99th percentile, so no matter how demanding the game and that Monstrous map may be, it should be able to handle the stress:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Intel i7-4790K CPU @4.00 GHz (8 CPUs), ~4.0GHz
32Gb RAM
NVidia GeForce GTX 970
4 Gb VRAM

Anybody out there have a clue about what is causing my CTDs? And how to eliminate them? (Preferably without reverting to standard map sizes.)

Problem Two: This one is simply weird, and as far as I can see, doesn't actually affect how the game functions. But whenever I go to a Diplo screen, the foreign leaders are shown as just silhouettes. That is, the static colored background remains, but the characters show only their teeth and whites of their eyes, but everything else is black. If this were Photoshop, I would think that only the bottom and top layers are showing and all the layers in between were blacked out.

 

[CaptainPatch]

Hmm. 47 views so far with no feedback. I guess I'm just one of the exceptional few to have these particular problems.

 

[DemonMaster]

There is a bug that makes the game crash on the AI turn. I had support ticket that didn't result in anything. They did mention all the normal things (verify the files and re-install directx and all that) but they also said that the crash can be avoided by DoW the AI that caused the problem. So you can test that. Look at who is the problem and then DoW him.
It didn't work for me though I should say and I also told them that it is a very bad solution.

There is a thread somewhere here on CTD (and probably on other forums) about it. Although I don't know if you have the same bug but it can be worth checking.

 

[Swordfishtromobone]

There is a bug that makes the game crash on the AI turn. I had support ticket that didn't result in anything. They did mention all the normal things (verify the files and re-install directx and all that) but they also said that the crash can be avoided by DoW the AI that caused the problem. So you can test that. Look at who is the problem and then DoW him.
It didn't work for me though I should say and I also told them that it is a very bad solution.

There is a thread somewhere here on CTD (and probably on other forums) about it. Although I don't know if you have the same bug but it can be worth checking.

Had to think about that for a while - by DoW, you mean declaration of war? That sucks. I've got a game stopping reproducible crash happening on the same turn, immediately after Rome contacts me, so that would mean that I have to declare war on Rome to avoid the crash? Rome is my ally in the game. Not going to do that.

 

[CaptainPatch]

There is a bug that makes the game crash on the AI turn. I had support ticket that didn't result in anything. They did mention all the normal things (verify the files and re-install directx and all that) but they also said that the crash can be avoided by DoW the AI that caused the problem. So you can test that. Look at who is the problem and then DoW him.
It didn't work for me though I should say and I also told them that it is a very bad solution.

There is a thread somewhere here on CTD (and probably on other forums) about it. Although I don't know if you have the same bug but it can be worth checking.

Thanks for the feedback guys; I was getting worried that I might be the only one.

In regards to the "solution" suggested, for me that would be kind of problematic. I started a second game with the same parameters. In the that one, the CTDs started when one of the nations that was already at war with me (he started it) was trying to Diplo me. From the two seconds that I saw before the crash, it looked like he was about to offer me a peace deal.

This is actually kind of hopeful, all things considered. I only have four mods installed --
Daughter of Ptah (Egypt enhancer)
Mynex Larger Maps (which goes all the way up to Monstrous)
Mynex Starting Distance (which starts civs a good distance apart to give them a chance to develop before warring on neighbors)
Yet (not) Another Maps Pack (which seems to come with the Firaxis Seal of Approval)

NONE of those seem as being likely culprits for causing the CTDs, so the solution looks to be a (near, hopefully) future patch.

A NOTE on that Larger Maps + Starting Distance combination: I'm playing Pangaea on a Monstrous map. (Think "Australia".) I set a up a five-player game (dumping Pedro II because he such a whiner). By the time I have located the other four civs, I discover that the program set up all five civs in the SE corner of the map, placing us all into less than 1/4 of the available map! What's the point of playing a larger map if the program insists on jamming everybody in next to each other? I _had_ been hoping that we would all be into the Classical era before anyone even found another civ. I'm wondering if that Starting Distance mod backfired in that, while not allowing civs to start within X hexes of another civ, it also requires that any given civ is no more than Y hexes away from another civ. And the assumption is that the map played would be no more than Huge. (Monstrous is easily 3x as big as Huge.)

 

[BrendanVI]

.... (Monstrous is easily 3x as big as Huge.)

wow 99 percentile. I take it the higher the number the better? on your monstrous maps, what is your average country city count and what is your next turn wait times like?

 

[CaptainPatch]

wow 99 percentile. I take it the higher the number the better? on your monstrous maps, what is your average country city count and what is your next turn wait times like?

The BIG wait time is the very first map-generation start up; that can take up to 10 minutes. Loading a Saved game for the first time of the day takes @1-2 minutes. Loading a Save once I've already been playing takes just under a minute.

The number of cities is more a function of how much "elbow room" there is between me and other civs. The game I was playing when the CTDs started, I had 13 cities and LOTS of room for many more. (All cities able to fill out their entire 3-hex radius from City Center.) My last game after that, when it started to CTD, I was at 5 cities and starting to feel hemmed in by Gilgamesh and Medici.