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| Thread: Game crashes after modding - sometimes | |
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Honz
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 06, 2012 02:05 AM |
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Game crashes after modding - sometimes
Hi there 
A mate and me have been creating a mode for a while and didn't have much problems with editing and scripting. Everything worked well and there weren't any problems.
Since I started using the mod to play a "normal" games versus AI I found out an error within a battle. When a certain creature is up to act, the game crashes with a well known windows error prompt.
For example I edited the orcish executioner by giving him a warcry. When I start a battle versus an orcish hero that has some of these executioners, the game crushes when it was the executioners turn. Funnily I can attack them even with retailiation and nothing happens but when he has to move, the game ends.
I also tried to play the mod with my mate coop versus AI, that caused another error: When trying to attack a neutral creature (on fast mode without having to battle in detail) the game crushes immediately while calculating the battle result. But strangely it is possible to attack these creatures some turns later an it works fine.
Can anyone give us a hint how to identify or/and solve these, sometimes really paradoxic problems?
Greetings
Honz
P.S. We used NCF to insert some new creatures that we also modded for own use (don't bother about copyright, we won't publish it because of this) but no other mechanical mods
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fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 06, 2012 02:10 AM |
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Edited by fauch at 02:11, 06 Apr 2012.
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I think creatures can't use warcries at all, but I'm not sure it would cause a crash, I think it simply doesn't appear in the spell book.
did you mod the warcry?
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Honz
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 06, 2012 02:27 PM |
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No, its just one of the old warcries.
But this problem doesn't appear only to creatures that have a warcry now, the same happens to creatures with modded abilities or spells.
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fulano
Known Hero
Can I link to my own avatar?
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posted April 06, 2012 06:36 PM |
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Using XML as data files was an amazing change for modders but the downside is that any minor typo or error can cause the whole game to crash, and there is no way to debug these errors. I usually have to go to a perevious version of the file and re-do the changes because I can't find what I did wrong.
I would suggest working backwards to find out what change exactly is causing the error then try to work around it.
Also, the Heroes engine does have a lot of potential, but isn't very well developed. Lots of unique situations (like giving creatures warcries) look like they'd work but the game designers never tested it and worked out any bugs that may happen.
You might also try giving the creature a normal spell just to test and see if it is actually the warcry that is causing the bug.
Hope that helped a little...
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Honz
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 09, 2012 03:00 PM |
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Well, I'm using a XML-editor that underlines syntax errors so this normally cannot be the problem. I also had those syntax errors but they cause the game not even to initialize/start.
I also modded other games so I do have experience in this metier!
The thing with undoing every step would have been my next try to identify and eliminate the errors but I hoped that there would be other possibilities because that's really a lot of work :/
And other mods that are adding/modifying contents also work without crashes (like Fauch's 3rd upgrades) so I was optimistic to find another smarter way to solve my problem.. 
Anyway, thank you for your support
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fulano
Known Hero
Can I link to my own avatar?
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posted April 09, 2012 06:47 PM |
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Good luck with it! Hope it works out, bugs to get to be huge pains. I've lost dozens of hours of work on mods in the past so I've tried to learn to be very careful, test lots, and back up even more when I make mods. I also don't do much modding anymore because of it.
The typos can be more than just syntax errors, and that's the problem I was referring to. Misspelling an ID, or using the wrong type of ID (like a creature where it's expecting a spell).
It's great to see another person working on modding the game!
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