Help! "An error has occurred in your application." (Vanilla Civ)

[Jesdisciple]

I built a scenario in vanilla Civ2 and successfully Began it at least once; I think I then opened the SCN with Load a Game to edit it. Since then, I've repeatedly followed the same steps several times over to build this scenario, each time achieving the below results. I finally wised up and saved the SAV version of my conditions in Cheat Mode so I don't have to remember and follow all those steps anymore.

When I Save as Scenario and Begin Scenario I get this message:

An error has occurred in your application.
If you choose Ignore, you should save your work in a new file.
If you choose Close, your application will terminate.

[ Close ] [ Ignore ]​

Regardless of which button I click, I then get this message:

CIV2 caused a General Protection Fault in
module CIV2.EXE at 0037:077A.

Choose close. CIV2 will close.

[ Close ]​

(I have deleted the SCN before saving a new copy to ensure that I was generating an entirely uncorrupted file, but to no avail.) Could I get some technical advice with this, please? (I recognized the hexadecimal numbers but the way I thought to apply them didn't work.) Thanks!

 

[Mercator]

Is it just with this scenario, or with all of them?

Have you edited any of your text files? If so, does it still happen if you restore the originals?

When does that error appear; before or after the file open/save dialog appears?

 

[Jesdisciple]

It's just this scenario; I just tried the prepackaged rome.scn and it worked.

Am I supposed to include all the text files in the scenario folder? I assumed that the game would default to the files at the CIV2 root.

The error appears when I double-click my SCN to begin it.

 

[Mercator]

So your scenario is in a separate scenario folder? Are there any other files in there apart from the scenario file itself? If so, what happens when you try to start the scenario if you move those away, or if you move just the scenario file to the main Civ2 folder?

 

[Jesdisciple]

The scenario has its own folder because I wanted to keep my project organized, but I removed the files except the SCN to a subfolder of CIV2 and the scenario works, but without my introduction. So I moved my introduction back and it breaks again. I moved the introduction out again and everything else in, and it works. How am I supposed to write my introduction? I tried to model it after rome.txt...

 

[Mercator]

Interesting. I don't think I've heard of the intro file breaking a scenario yet...

Aha, I think I know what it could be. The intro text file has a few variables:
%STRING0 is the scenario title, %STRING1 the start date, and %STRING2 the end date.

Are you sure you've typed those up correctly?

Other variables work too (%NUMBER too, and both can be followed by digits 0-9), but I don't think they do anything interesting here.

When I add %STRING8 in the intro text file, however, my scenario dies with a similar error.


If that doesn't help, try adding the following line at the very end of the file:

@end -- this line must be here!

Strangely, the Rome.txt doesn't have that line, while every other scenario intro file I've seen does. The exclamation in it seems to indicate it's important, though I didn't have any problems leaving it out just now.

 

[Jesdisciple]

Ah! The %STRING constants don't matter, but that end does (although I thought I had tried that). Thanks!

EDIT: Why does it have %STRING1 (the beginning) as 1000 B.C. and %STRING2 (the ending) as 4000 B.C.?

 

[Mercator]

Hmm, no idea... Have you set all scenario parameters related to the game progress (Game Year, Turn Year Increment, Starting Year, Maximum Turns)? Do you have any funny values for them (i.e. zero, negative numbers or numbers > 32767)?

 

[Jesdisciple]

Game Year is -1000 (correct), Turn Year Increment is 0 (for default rate), Starting Year is -1000, Maximum Turns is 0 (for default - I want it to go to 2010 or 2020, whichever is normal).

 

[Mercator]

Well, that seems to screw up Civ2 indeed. I don't get the same numbers you do, but that might be because of difficulty level or Civ2 version differences.

What exactly do you want with -1000? 1000 more turns or 1000 more years? The "Starting Year" number counts in years (i.e. -1000 = 1000 B.C.), the "Game Year" number counts in turns, not years (i.e. at Deity level, -1000 = 50,000 B.C. because you're using the standard turn increment and each turn is 50 years at first).

And it seems it's not just turn numbers bigger than 32767 (or less than -32768) that mess up Civ2, but also year numbers. With the 20 or 50 years per turn, you get to the 32768 B.C. range rather quickly (at -574 on King level).

When the turn number goes below -574, the years wrap around to ~32K A.D... And then the B.C. starting year probably complicates matters...

So those numbers you entered probably don't mean what you thought they did. In any case, you'll have to adjust them a bit so as not to go too far into B.C. years, especially if you want to stick to standard year increments.

 

[Jesdisciple]

Sorry, Game Year is 61; I was telling what that amounted to. How many turns does a normal game take?

 

[Mercator]

That depends on the map size and difficulty level, I believe. 420-570 judging from this post:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4146024&postcount=12

Not sure what the problem is now... Did I ask you before what Civ2 version you have? Have you patched it?

 

[Jesdisciple]

The scenario's supposed to be played on Deity. I tried setting Maximum Turns to 359 (turns played in the scenario), but it wants the turns that I played before saving as scenario included. I tried setting it to 420 and it said it would end in AD 2019 (1 year too early). So I set it to 421 (AD 2020). (I wonder if that's a pun? "Hindsight is always 20/20"...)

Apparently, it wasn't interpreting my 0 Maximum Turns as default (as it claimed) but as 0 turns into a game (4000 BC). Thanks!

EDIT: Yes, it's patched.

 

[Mercator]

The scenario's supposed to be played on Deity. I tried setting Maximum Turns to 359 (turns played in the scenario), but it wants the turns that I played before saving as scenario included.

Are you sure you've set the game year to 0 (Shift+F4, or Set Game Year in the Cheat menu)?

Apparently, it wasn't interpreting my 0 Maximum Turns as default (as it claimed) but as 0 turns into a game (4000 BC). Thanks!

Strange... But good it's fixed then.

 

[Jesdisciple]

Are you sure you've set the game year to 0 (Shift+F4, or Set Game Year in the Cheat menu)?

Huh? Game Year is 61. Had I set it to 0, 421 would make a bit more sense...

 

[Mercator]

Yeah, it's 61... But why?

Aha! I finally get it now... Your game doesn't start at 1000 B.C. because you set the starting year to -1000, but because turn 61 happens to be 1000 B.C.

The starting year value is ignored if the turn year increment is set to default (0), and the maximum turns is not treated as default but as 0 if the starting year isn't default (0) too.

So your game is really lasting 421 - 61 (= 360) turns now.

And 421 isn't actually a strange number. That leaves 420 turns of actual gameplay, with the game ending on the 421st. It's 421 rather than 420 for the same reason the sequence 0 ... 10 contains 11 numbers and not 10 (and for the same reason 1000 B.C. is turn 61 and not turn 60).

 

[Jesdisciple]

The purpose of the scenario is an experiment... For this experiment, the human needs to be extra-strong. I was doing pretty well by 1000 B.C., but I gave my tribe a little extra push. Given this, I think it'd be absurdly unfair (even for a controlled experiment) to the ******** AI if I set the year back to 4000 B.C.

So yes, I played till 1000 B.C., which happened to be 61 turns, but now I wish the scenario editor had mentioned that qualification.

Thanks again!

 

[Mercator]

It wouldn't really matter for the AI, would it? They've developed in the mean time as well (as far as you can say that about the AI). The year's just a number. The only difference would be the amount of turns left to play. Or do I misunderstand?

Of course, it doesn't really matter what turn it is in either case, as long as you know what's happening.

I only found out about those qualifications when I tested them yesterday (though I figured as much, and I probably knew about them a few years ago).

 

[Jesdisciple]

The number of turns is what I was referring to, assuming that the game ends in 2020 and progresses through time at the normal pace. Setting the Game Year to 0 would take the AI's only legitimate advantage away.

Anywho, yes it works now.