[H3SW v0.8.0] [EIP = 0x0061E002] Seemingly Random Crashes When Attacking Weaker Monsters (Diplomacy)

As I've been playing through various different maps, I keep encountering a rather annoying crash. Sometimes certain encounters will just crash the game every time I try to initiate them, even after completely resetting the HD Launcher. It is always a variation of this error, with differing locations listed.

Error Images:

It seems to be random in nature, as often times the error no longer happens after a few turns have passed or I attack with a different hero. It also happens much more frequently with weaker monsters, or when I have diplomacy skills on my hero, which leads me to believe that the error lies somewhere in the process of troops seeking to join your hero.

I'd just like to say thanks for all the work you guys have put into this mod, as it is truly bringing some heavy nostalgia to me.

Are you able to reproduce the bug? I mean, when you encounter it, you reload AUTOSAVE, and then the crash is gone, or happens again?

Finally managed to encounter this bug.

Tried 5 times and 5 times the game crashed after reloading. Always the same EIP = 0x0061E002.

Do you happen to have a savegame? We need to figure out what happens.

Yes I do. But I can't post a link due to account age... Even can't send you a PM with it.

Feel free to send it via email.

orzieorzie@ gmail.com, without spacebar.

Done.

I've encountered this bug at least once in every game I've played so far. It always reoccurs upon loading the autosave, no matter how many attempts. The strange thing though is that after a couple of turns, the monster no longer causes the error anymore.

Here's a save file for a game I just recreated the error on.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1D6Cc3sMJmptqc1TUnNlt7Scutp29ZD_u

I've had the error occur with Skeletons, Goblins, Sprites, Tribals, Nomads, Pirates, Wolves, Wasps, Halflings, Boars, and oddly Giants once. Most are really weak creatures though.

We need confirmation on the following aspects.

1. Does the Diplomacy skill even work? To check this, you can simply put 10 weaker-than-hero packs of average aggressiveness and see if any of them want to join for money. Note that the mechanics is changed closer to Heroes 2, you won't be able to buy out the whole pack.
2. Do the crashes happen more often if a player has the same stack and/or playing on Easy difficulty (you can combine that for faster check).
3. Does the Diplomacy specialist (Serena the Sorceress) receive her bonus to the amount of joining creatures?
4. To check if the issue still happens, you can also temporarily remove h3sw_diplomacy from the game folder. Should revert back to Heroes 3 (except skill/spec descriptions).

As you may have guessed, we are suspicious about the new implementation of creature join feature as well as Diplomacy skill mechanics.

I pick Diplomacy on every possible occasion and not even once I encountered a situation where units would like to join my army for money now that I think about it. And I played quite a lot since release.

I removed h3sw_diplomacy and took a few attempts on the save that I provided you with. The crash did not occur.


PS.

When you point out some folders/files could you please point a path to one? I'm having problems with finding them sometimes and it takes time.

Sure. You could use the Explorer search though.

I have had the diplomacy skill work on 2 occasions so far. And it was working according to heroes 2 mechanics. I'll do some testing with the percentages and Serena. I did have the error occur once with a hero who didn't have diplomacy though

After some testing, I am pretty sure that these crashes are taking place due to the new Diplomacy code. Using the crystal ball artifact, I found that the crashes only take place with monsters that only partially join you. The groups that flee and the groups that entirely join you do not crash at all. It is only the monsters that are affected by diplomacy. I had about a 90% crash rate with diplomacy creatures, however, the 10% of the time it actually worked, it seemed to be working correctly.

Thank you very much for the information. Did you note any relation between Diplomacy skill level and actual probability of a crash? The levels differ in the actual join probability and amount of joining creatures (see skill description). Does the system compatibility settings influence on the correct work of Diplomacy? (that being said, Diplomacy works 100% perfect for me)

Serena the Sorceress is the Diplomacy specialist. She receives a 1xlevel percent bonus to the amount of joining creatures.

On the note of system compatibility, playing on an english system, I did notice that the descriptions given by the crystal ball were in english for the creatures that didn't crash (For Example: "All of these creatures will join you"), but the creatures that did crash had the description written in cyrillic. If the error is related to this, that might explain why diplomacy works for you.

Orzie guided me into this discussion for the reason I encountered the same crash as you guys. I knew nothing about this was already addressed by someone else. I'm glad that happened. Everything written on the crashlog what TechenPro provided has all the exact same text from word to word, like what I have with the only exception of one thing marked with a white circle on the image below. It says "0.00000013" instead "0.00000023".



Also, yes, I have Basic Diplomacy skill, I play as Hercules who's starter secondary skill is as well the Diplomacy skill, so no doubt about the crash caused by the problem Orzie mentioned on a different crash discussion I created. (Ignore Hercules money bonus specialty per day, I know it doesn't work, nor the Estates secondary skill.)



I don't know how different my crashlog from TechenPro's crashlog, but so far I have not experienced a working offer from the monsters. Most of them were friendly and joined my army for free.

Only EIP matters for players to identify the crash. Further information is of no use to them.

The bug will be gone in the next update v0.8.1.

If you want to get rid of it, delete h3sw_diplomacy.era which is placed in Mods/The Succession Wars/EraPlugins/ directory.
The Diplomacy mechanics will revert back to Heroes 3, but the skill/spec descriptions will be still from the original build.

Or, you can recompose your army so that the skill won't work and the crash won't happen.

TechenPro wrote:

On the note of system compatibility, playing on an english system, I did notice that the descriptions given by the crystal ball were in english for the creatures that didn't crash (For Example: "All of these creatures will join you"), but the creatures that did crash had the description written in cyrillic. If the error is related to this, that might explain why diplomacy works for you.

I think no, it might depend on HD Mod. Currently investigating.

Good news: we dealt with the problem. Diplomacy coming safe in v0.8.1.

Thanks also to TechenPro for the report with Cyrillic symbols for the Crystal Ball dialogue window. That was another issue (HD Mod like I thought), so I fixed that too.