Tech tree game crash

[Predator145]

My mod ran fine through out the ancient and middle ages. Whenever the game crashed it was telling me what icon was missing. But when I opened the industrial age tech tree the game simple crashed without any information. What is the reason for this?

 

[Civinator]

Have you named this techtree "science_industrial_new" ?

 

[Predator145]

Have you named this techtree "science_industrial_new" ?

I don't even know that you could name a tech tree. I don't remember doing any of that. It's certainly not my intention. But then again, things have happened without me intending them. Is that something I need to fix in the pedialcons?

 

[Civinator]

The problem of the science_industrial and science_industrial_new graphics in the Art\Advisors folder only appears when you did changes to the graphics of those techtrees (arrows and so on). Since changes in the techtree for the tech Radio, C3C is looking for the graphics science_industrial_new and, as far as I know, no longer for the old graphics named science_industrial.

If the game cannot find a techtree graphics named science_industrial_new (may be if it is deleted), I think it could be that this causes a crash - but I have never received such a crash myself.

On the other side: If you haven´t noticed these different graphics files in the Art\Advisors folder, it is probable, that you haven´t done some changes here. May be that such a crash without a message can also result, when an entry in the pediaIcons file is missing the suffix .pcx ?

 

[Predator145]

The problem of the science_industrial and science_industrial_new graphics in the Art\Advisors folder only appears when you did changes to the graphics of those techtrees (arrows and so on). Since changes in the techtree for the tech Radio, C3C is looking for the graphics science_industrial_new and, as far as I know, no longer for the old graphics named science_industrial.

If the game cannot find a techtree graphics named science_industrial_new (may be if it is deleted), I think it could be that this causes a crash - but I have never received such a crash myself.

On the other side: If you haven´t noticed these different graphics files in the Art\Advisors folder, it is probable, that you haven´t done some changes here. May be that such a crash without a message can also result, when an entry in the pediaIcons file is missing the suffix .pcx ?

I have not modified anything from the Art\Advisors folder. Science_Industrial_new is there together with Science_Industrial.

I have reinstated the tech Radio in the same spot on the tech tree as well as removed a bunch of optional techs and replaced them with new ones. But that would happen regardless of what arrow background being used, right?

When pedialcon pcx is missing on techs, I couldn't even enter the game and it would let me know what's missing. I checked the pedialcon and no pcx was missing.

 

[Vuldacon]

Predator145... Check Entry Names in the Text Files and Check Palettes for your additions. Just a simple space or any difference in entries will cause problems and if a palette is not correct for an image, that can also cause problems

 

[Predator145]

It seems the issue is not in the pedialcon, but in the tech tree positioning of the tech.

At first I deleted all added techs in industrial age to no avail. Then I deleted all industrial age techs and started adding them back in 1 by 1. It's tricky as if the tech doesn't fit in a given X and Y number set the tech tree would end up not displaying it and the numbers in the editor jump back to 0. I suspect too many of these in the previous biq caused the crash. I had to rearrange the whole tech tree to get things to fit and display. That was quite time consuming as I can't run the Steph editor.

 

[Civinator]

Predator145, is your mod now running without crash in era 3 after rebuilding the positioning of those techs ? I remember there was a time (long ago) during developing my mods, when many of the techs of my mods were outside the screen of the single eras, but this didn´t cause crashes.

Only a speculation: Did you add new luxury resources to era 3 without adjusting the luxuryicons_small file in the city screen folder ? If remembering well, this can also trigger such crashes when entering the era of those luxuries.

 

[Vuldacon]

Predator145... I agree that it does seem odd for the Game to crash due to Techs not showing in ideal screen positions. Like Civinator, I too have had to adjust many Tech positions while working on MODs and never had a Crash.
As Long as the Techs are there and with correct Entries and Palettes, they should work even in bad positions.

I am also curious if you made any additional adjustments other than the Tech Box X Y positions.
You may be correct about the Tech Boxes... IF the X Y positions can cause the Game to crash if they are set where the Tech Boxes cannot show at all on the screen, that is interesting. I have always at least been able to see part of a Tech box when adjusting the Tech Tree.

 

[Predator145]

Predator145, is your mod now running without crash in era 3 after rebuilding the positioning of those techs ? I remember there was a time (long ago) during developing my mods, when many of the techs of my mods were outside the screen of the single eras, but this didn´t cause crashes.

Only a speculation: Did you add new luxury resources to era 3 without adjusting the luxuryicons_small file in the city screen folder ? If remembering well, this can also trigger such crashes when entering the era of those luxuries.

I can display the industrial tech tree ok now. I have not added any luxury resources.

 

[Predator145]

Predator145... I agree that it does seem odd for the Game to crash due to Techs not showing in ideal screen positions. Like Civinator, I too have had to adjust many Tech positions while working on MODs and never had a Crash.
As Long as the Techs are there and with correct Entries and Palettes, they should work even in bad positions.

I am also curious if you made any additional adjustments other than the Tech Box X Y positions.
You may be correct about the Tech Boxes... IF the X Y positions can cause the Game to crash if they are set where the Tech Boxes cannot show at all on the screen, that is interesting. I have always at least been able to see part of a Tech box when adjusting the Tech Tree.

I added new techs, adjusted the X and Y positions of old techs a little without checking and it crashed without any error info. During the process of me adding all the industrial age techs back in I was doing it in alt-tab with me running the mod over and over again to check the tech tree. It took quite a bit of adjusting with the X and Y numbers to get things to fit and display. I thought things would just overlap on each other at worst. But that's not the case. The tech would just refuse to accept the X and Y numbers and the editor jumps to zero while the tech tree in game doesn't even display the tech.

 

[Vuldacon]

Predator145... That is Very Strange indeed. Normally the Techs would be there even if hidden behind another Tech.
Must be something else that caused that situation but in any case, Good you have it working now.

 

[Civinator]

Even after 20 years I learn something new about modding Civ 3 (and sometimes - but not in this case - something old, too ).

 

[Predator145]

Even after 20 years I learn something new about modding Civ 3 (and sometimes - but not in this case - something old, too ).

The Dummy Mod I uploaded had the same industrial tech tree that crashed. If you're curious you could check that out.

 

[Vuldacon]

It is True that we as individuals cannot know All the possibilities concerning things that can go wrong.

The most important thing is to be able to correct the problem and for that it is Good to share our experiences

 

[Predator145]

So here's another case. I've decided to create another epic game mod with flavor units. This time with constant testing to see if anything breaks. Only a couple of unit lines in, the tech tree causes the game to crash. This time it's either the ancient tech tree or just clicking to the advisors would crash the game. Only some civs the tech tree works fine. On most it crashes

Modding is done on the Quintillus editor. The copying function is convenient for flavor units. But this editor is known to cause issues.

Here's the mod for you to examine. I've replaced the new civilopedia entries with familiar ones so that stock game pedialcon can read it. Deleting lots of units or improvements on the Quintillus editor would break it.

So what exactly caused this issue?

 

[Civinator]

Unfortunately to connect several "flavor" units to the same PRTO_ entry is not working. This would help to keep the civilopedia "slim", but it seems to cause the following problem (no exact scientific explanation, but only normal logic):

In the PediaIcons file the game decides what animated graphics to use for a unit by the PRTO_ entry of that unit in the editor and not by the name of that unit in the editor. Therefore, if many different units in a game all have the same PRTO_ entry , the game seems to run into a conflict, what of the many different unit graphics it should use on the map for that unit. Per example, if all of the 15 different horsarcher units in the screenshot below would all have only the PRTO_ entry Horsearcher, what of the 15 different unit graphics should the game show on the map ?

That´s why the many "flavor" units in CCM all have different PRTO_ entries, what causes a "monstrous" civilopedia size, but also a stable game play.