Scenario parameters, leaders etc. randomly reset during normal gameplay

[Blasph23]

Hi,

I've had this problem many times before:
At some point during the game (any scenario), I realize that all the other civilizations have defaulted to their vanilla names and titles. On top of that, all scenario parameters are also reset to their default values, the date is recalculated to reflect the number of passed turns, depending on year/turn increment in case it was non-standard in the scenario.

As you can imagine, this is extremely annoying, especially when the last save while everything was still ok has been created hours ago. Loading a valid save helps, but of course the progress is lost.

Has anybody experienced this? Is the cause known? Can I prevent this somehow or fix an already messed up save file?

 

[CurtSibling]

This is in MGE, I am assuming?

I recall this bug being present when the leaders names in Rules is changed, and a comma is missed somewhere, or some other typo.
If you have not edited the leader names/titles, then I am not sure where this one is coming from. It can also sometimes happen when
reloading a save file when a scenario file has not been saved in the same folder.

 

[Fairline]

It's not a bug related to renaming a scenario folder to include a period or comma is it?

 

[Blasph23]

I think if I skipped a comma somewhere, the game simply would not load.
It's usually quite explicit regarding where the problem is.
I have not moved any files around or changed file names either.
Also at the time when I noticed this (and immediately before), I was not editing any .txt files.

 

[CurtSibling]

Can you outline the version of CIV2 you are using, Blasph?

 

[Blasph23]

It's MGE with UIA launcher. I recall running into the same problem even without the launcher.
The problem is that it is so random and not easy to replicate.

 

[CurtSibling]

And is the glitch happening in regular games, or in scenarios? If a scenario, please post the files here so we can check.

 

[Blasph23]

Various scenarios. I wouldn't recognize if it happened during regular games since I play these with default settings.
As for the files, this happened to the scenario I have attached but to others as well, including Kobayashi's SW insurrection and Barron's Earth 3000, A Time to Stand.
I edit txt files occasionally to adjust what I consider oversights and/or unfinished aspects of work but I know what I'm doing and how the rules.txt are parsed.
I've been playing with the attached files for several games and everything was fine.
Is it possible that a particular line in events.txt causes an error and the game reverts to default files because of that?

 

[Blasph23]

Wow this just happened again. Fortunately, I had a backup save from 5 turns before.
The scenario is this one: sleague.civfanatics.com/index.php?title=The_Age_of_Númenor_v0.2
This time I have not changed a single thing in the txt files.
Suddenly I find out Frederick of the Germans and Xerxes of the Persians have joined the struggle for the Ring of Power.
Compare the two screenshots, 1st one showing what it's supposed to be, second one showing the bugged outcome after 4 turns.
Sauron suddenly became Morgoth, Manwe turned into Maedhros... the edited scenario tribes & leaders defaulted to rules.txt ones for some reason.
The years changed too.

 

[CurtSibling]

Have you edited your MGE core files at any point?
I'd check your core rules file in MGE directory.

 

[Blasph23]

Yes, the core rules.txt file has been heavily modified, I keep several versions of it and use them depending on the type of game that I'm currently playing. They have never caused any problems throughout any of the hundreds of games I've had.
Still can't quite fathom how the game decides to use the that file at some point, when clearly I'm playing a scenario which is contained in its own separate sub-folder, to not mix with the default game files.

I have noticed however a certain correlation between the occurrence of the bug and having to wait disproportionately long for the game save function. As if the application hangs for about ten seconds when normally saving takes a fraction of that.
Perhaps some crucial scenario reference information is not properly saved and when I load the game, it defaults to the original files and goes from there.

 

[CurtSibling]

Restore the core files to the default CIV2 files (I hope you kept backups!) and see what happens. I am pretty sure that the core files being changed is behind your bug.

 

[Blasph23]

I have backups. However, I would certainly like to know how could the core files possibly affect the whole thing when clearly during the scenario gameplay, they are not used.
On top of that, I also play regular games using said core files and have no problems.
Finally, by core files I understand the rules.txt. Any other files are considered core? As in, any .dll or .dat files? I didn't touch those, only the rules.txt.
Plus, I have the citypref.txt file in the main game folder but not in all scenario subfolders.

 

[CurtSibling]

All you need to know is that by messing with the vanilla files in your CIV2 main directory, you invite problems.
As the scenarios rely on the CIV2 core folder being default. In my experience, any changes to your files are are
best kept restricted within the scenario folders...I cannot give you an outline of why this is, I am no programmer.

I know what works, and keeping the CIV2 main folder sacrosact is just that. Hope this helps.