Scourge of War Boards

We are launching SOW via the GCM launcher. GCM mods are active and no others. We then generate a sandbox game with the standard SOW OOBs. This has worked in the past and recently we've gotten through 15-20 minutes of the game before it crashes.

We play this way because we like the GCM mod maps, terrain and toolbars, but want to use the more historical OOBs. I was unaware they are incompatible. When we get a chance, we'll try the straight GCM generated games.

As I mentioned, we get crashes even with only the Bugles and Flags mod, no GCM.

Just FYI, there is an option when creating a battle in GCM to use historical OOBs. This uses a GCM-compatible version of the Gettysburg OOB.

If you also get the crash with B&F that's helpful because it gives a much smaller set of potential files where the problem could be -- assuming the crash is always caused by the same thing.

Curious, have you tried GCM with the "GCM_StockToolbar" instead of the GCM_Toolbar? (In the mods list you can turn off GCM_Toolbar and turn on GCM_StockToolbar.) I believe this option is still available, and it could tell us if the problem is limited to the GCM_Toolbar which is a modified version of the B&F toolbar.

I still constantly get crashes now that I am using windows 8.1. One battle recently it happened when I pressed on my unit to 'use roads. I loaded up and it happened again. At other times it is completely random and happens when Im not press any button at all.

I would say it happens at least once, every game I play using GCM.

I have Windows 8 and the SoW Gettysburg program 'hung' on my m/c during a multi-player gamee. This was on an Asus N56V laptop with "Instant On" active; anyway it was very difficult for me to recover from the situation. I could not fully activate the Task Manager because (I presume) the SoW window still had the focus. Even a hard reset did not work! In the end I had to invoke the Start menu and then 'Restart'; I presume that 'Shut down' would have worked also.

I have attached some relevant data files from the Work folder but there isn't a log file as such for some reason, even though there are earlier ones in the same location.

I really dislike Windows 8 and I suppose that some crashes are to be expected. What I would like to know however is why I cannot re-join the game once I have the program working properly again. Surely there isn't a good technical reason for that obstacle. It would be desirable to have a way back in, if possible.


Regards,

Richard

The problem is much more frequent when "use roads" is ordered. I had 2 games, same scenario, crash consecutively; on the 3rd try, I omitted "use roads" & the crash did not occur. I was able to play the entire scenario. There's something about "use roads", when used in conjunction with Napoleonic OOBs, that makes it more likely to crash on Windows 8. I didn't have this problem when my computer used the Vista platform.

One test doesn't say much though. If you started the scenario maybe 10 times and used roads half of the time and that half always crashed while the others didn't, that would be more useful evidence.

Thanks for chipping in though.

Hopefully we can figure this out sometime.

The 'use roads' crash is just not a win8 problem, I experience it using win7.

It happens quite often in the Nap mods.

The courier order to use roads works fine.

The 'Leader Use Roads' works fine.

I usually encounter the problem in these circumstances.

A.) cavalry scouts:
I detach 2,3 or 4 regiments to do some scouting.

If I detach one regiment, assign it a hot-key, select a destination via command map and then click use roads; and repeat this order for each regiment, I do not recall a crash.

If I detach regiment 1,assign hot-key; detach regiment 2 assign hot-key, etc. Use hot key to select regiment, use command map to assign destination; repeat; then use hot-key to re-select regiment and press use roads, the first unit selected works fine but almost always before reaching the fourth unit the game will crash.

B.) Micro-manage in courier game.
After having difficulty getting a grip on the courier system, it was suggested I use the following order; Recipient, time, no-orders order, move to..., face direction, assume formation, orders ( defend,attack probe ), use roads where applicable.
I found this to be extremely helpful, with one caveat.

Example: I am in command of a french corp and order a division to a location and form in line with reserves. Later I issue orders to move the division to a new location, many times ( though not always, and distance to move does not appear to be a factor ) the division will move in line formation instead of changing to column.

I then attempt to micro-manage. I select the division commander, scroll down OOB to brigade commander select column formation and then use roads. Sometimes this works fine some times the game crashes. If I have to micro-manage three divisions the game will crash before I work through the 6 infantry brigades and the 3 artillery units.

Since finding the Nap mods, those are all I play, so any problem with the standard SOW scenarios and this road crash are not at the top of my memory.