General CTD precautions?

[Sarisin]

I think that you learn over time that NO single game is worth all the work described here in sleuthing out CTDs and fixing them. I mean if you told me I would get a prize or something, that's different.

It is a game and sure some are really, really fun and good playin'. However, IMO having to delete and futz around in the WB to get it to run seriously impacts that fun.

Scratch that game, start a new one if you must, and say a simple prayer that the new, improved version shows up before you die.

 

[Tschuggi]

Amen

 

[Grey Fox]

Yeah but if you never find the cause of the bugs they will never be fixed.

 

[stupidnewbie]

I'm sure there's a better way of doing this, but when one of my games is crashing, I enter the worldbuilder, add stacks of 3-4 caravels within viewing distance for each civ still in the game, turn on show friendly moves, and watch them move around while the turn cycles. The last stack that moves before the game crashes will be the civ that's ruining everything, and so the CTD is a little easier to fix.

 

[admtanaka]

@newbie - that's actually a pretty smart idea.

 

[stupidnewbie]

Yeah, but the downside comes when the turn completes and the game doesn't crash after all.. then I have dozens of caravels floating around and contact with a few civs that I shouldn't have. Then it's a choice between spending another 5-30 minutes fixing the ctd or playing an edited game.

 

[snarko]

You can turn on logging (in the ini). Particularly useful are MPLog.txt and RandomLogger - Player * - Set **.log, sometimes PythonDbg.log. Usually at least one of those can clue you into what's going on. Or at least which player is moving.

Downside is playing with the logging on may be slightly slower. I wouldn't know, I never turn them off, so don't know if there's a difference

 

[Sjru]

Yeah, but the downside comes when the turn completes and the game doesn't crash after all.. then I have dozens of caravels floating around and contact with a few civs that I shouldn't have. Then it's a choice between spending another 5-30 minutes fixing the ctd or playing an edited game.

You don't need to test every civ, what I do is calculate the time it takes after I end my turn to crash, and then guess what civ is playing at the moment of the crash.
Say your endturn takes 1 minute, and the crash happened at 50 seconds, is likely caused by Savages, Cernunnos or Demons. If crash 20 second after you press endturn, it is probably 3 or 4 civs after you.
You can check which civs have the first turn by checking WB add units, you will be firts (unless you switched civs by event, mercurians or so), the second civ would be the second you added when you created the game, all in order. The barbarians are the last, firts Bhall, then Cernunnos and Demons, if they are in the game.

Another way to check, is to pay attention to score changes in the scoreboard, when a civs score changes, that means that civ has likely ended turn. It is more easy if you own Eyes and Ears network, you simply check the techs civs are researching.
And if you don't like caravels, just put archers or a weak unit outside your borders to further check, as that units are likely to die by OP griffon flight.