CTD 1.65.53.01 Including 1.65.55.01

[Tom_]

Hi Folks,

When attempting to the play the Main Campaign (as either side) the screen goes black and then a CTD on Turn 1.

Its very hard to test but it might be if my mouse is in the black area (screenshot 14) and I zoom, it causes the crash.
Screenshot13 is the screen when its gone black.


Version 1.65.53.01
Turn 1 (so no save required)
Dxdiag and Screenshots provided
This is a desktop PC not a laptop


What's interesting is that I can (and do) play the tutorial no problem..

18/09/2026
A new NVIDIA driver was released so I thought I'd see if the bug still persists - unfortunately it does..
After playing around a little to see if I can narrow any variables down it seems to trigger a crash when i attempt to scroll to the top of the map..

Anyway I hope the upcoming new version has this bug fixed - I have been waiting since the day 1 release to play

[RangerJoe]

If you check the Reports folder, there might be a crash report. If you post that, it will also help. If there isn't a crash report, please note that as well. The more information, the better it is for debugging.

[Tom_]

Ah thanks RJ - I wasn't sure where the crash reports were located!
Now attached x4 crash reports

[RangerJoe]

Ah thanks RJ - I wasn't sure where the crash reports were located!
Now attached x4 crash reports

You are most welcome.

If your preferences are to have the other reports saved as text files, they will be placed there as well.

[Tom_]

Any update on this?
Its still affecting the game so haven't been able to play the campaign since launch..
Not sure how long is appropriate to wait.

[Tom_]

Don't mean to be a pain buts its been several months now and the issue still persists and I cant play the main campaign.
So far as I understand I have done everything possible my side.

Or if there are larger plans in the pipeline please let me know so I can manage my expectations..

[Tom_]

Original post edited 18/09/2026 to include the latest information.

[Alessandro S.]

Thank you for that. Unfortunately none of us can reproduce the issue on any system. So I have to admit that at this time we still have no clue as to why the screen goes black.
The crash reports clearly indicate an access to a null pointer graphical surface. This seems to be the primary or backbuffer surface as all others are skipped if null. This is not possible with primary or backbuffer so the game cannot avoid the access issue.

Did you try to run the game is full screen ? That puts the hardware under full control of the game yet will make it harder to access other programs while the game is running.

[Tom_]

Thanks for getting back to me - yes tried full screen and windowed mode, to no avail.
(when i used it in full screen it outright CTDs - when I use windowed mode it goes to a black screen and locks up.

Grateful for the response regardless and appreciate you looking into it. Hopefully before the game series is released to a wider market these issues get ironed out.

Looking to buy a new PC in the next 6 months and no doubt patches will improve the game in all aspects - so I see it as a fine wine that will get better with time

[Alessandro S.]

I hope we can help you but it is to be said in order to fix something it is required to have it go wrong on a machine where one can track when and where.
At this time it seems to be found only on your system, which means we might be able to find the root of the issue by providing you with executables designed to further corner the issue in the logs.
So you test, I refine the debugging code and you retest. Repeat until we know what's going wrong. Pretty much all I can do when unable to run a C++ with debugger on the machine causing the issue.
Worst case something in your hardware does not do what it should and it cannot be fixed. Best case we find the root or a workaround.

I will switch to DM with you for this issue. I am preparing a first test exe right now.