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Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:39 am
by lordhoff
After three games having crashed with the message "leaving Guns of August" I suspect that is a good idea. Any game, no mater how well conceived, is a failure if a satisfactory conclusion cannot be reached. With no reply from the maker, I can only assume that the game is a lost cause. Even the namesake Avalon Hill game was better then this flawed as it was - one could at least finish more then 2/3s of the games. A real shame and a real downer - how can I trust other Matrix games?

RE: Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 12:15 pm
by Erik Rutins
I don't see a previous post from you on this in the support forum, have you brought this to Frank's attention and sent him any save files?

Support for GOA has been continuous since it was released and I don't think it's typical at all that a game can't be finished. Many gamers have fought campaigns through to conclusion. I'm guessing this is a bug specific to your game or perhaps new in the latest update. I'll call Frank's attention to his, but please provide save files and any other info you think might help to pin this down.

RE: Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:51 pm
by FrankHunter
I can't find anything that would cause that but if you could send me your autosave I could load that and see what's going on.


RE: Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 2:31 am
by lordhoff
I don't see a previous post from you on this in the support forum, have you brought this to Frank's attention and sent him any save files?

I did an exhaustive search first, found an old post, and sent an e-mail direct to Mr Hunter because I doubted he would notice a reply from a four-year old post. Because the first time it happened was in the spring of 1919, I thought the later-added extension might be the culprit. The last game died in the spring of 1917, though and the other in 1918. It may be as simple as a decisive victory being reached causing the game to exit but without showing results but it is very frustrating as came out in my post written directly after it happened. Anyway, I haven't started another nor have I deleted the game so the file from the last game may be there. Possibly the first too since I believe I made a named save at the death point but I doubt the second.

I have played through several games to conclusion too - it happened three times in about nine games. I am not using the latest beta patch as it royally screwed up the naval game. I did delete the game and reloaded with the 1.2.3 beta patch afterwords when nobody replied to my post asking if it could be deleted another way (not within the "support" section) but it does appear that, somehow, the old save files were not lost.

I have not previously tried to send in a save file so it may take me a while to figure it out.

Thanks. My post came across as harsher then it should have due to my writing it while I was still upset and for that I apologize. I'm usually more diplomatic.

RE: Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 3:44 am
by lordhoff

Looks like this has come up before --

End Sept 1917 Crash - 8/25/2008 12:07:16 PM ILCK
Matrix Veteran


I've got a game that rolls off the September 1917 turn and I get a "Leaving Guns of August" dialog box and there's nothing to do but click and the game progress is lost.

Curious if anyone has seen this sort of error.



Let's see if this works:

OK - it appears this is a known problem that the latest patch has fixed. There is a whole discussion on this ending with:

FrankHunter: If you're using 1.23 and you're getting that behaviour it means the game is over. In 1.24 you should be getting the victory screen.

No need to send in the save files that I haven't been able to figure out how to send. Interestingly, I found the above discussion while searching how to send "save files" [:D]

Looks like my guess of decisive victory was a good one - never did get to use all those tanks I built and Germany surrendered without me taking but a single city (Konnigsburg) but they were wavering (probably due to the kamikaze attacks that they continually did).

I guess I have to put up with that for the time being - any progress on fixing the 1.2.4 patches naval game issues?

RE: Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 12:28 pm
by Erik Rutins
lordhoff,

As far as sending save files, just attach the file(s) to an e-mail and send the e-mail to me at erikr@matrixgames.com and Frank at fhunter@telus.net.

Regards,

- Erik

RE: Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 11:19 pm
by lordhoff
lordhoff,

As far as sending save files, just attach the file(s) to an e-mail and send the e-mail to me at erikr@matrixgames.com and Frank at fhunter@telus.net.

Regards,

- Erik

Thanks; saved this to Word for easy future reference.

RE: Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 4:02 pm
by FrankHunter
lordhoff, I assume from what you posted above you're playing with 1.23 instead of 1.24 because of a naval issue?

RE: Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2008 4:42 am
by lordhoff
lordhoff, I assume from what you posted above you're playing with 1.23 instead of 1.24 because of a naval issue?

Yes, that is correct. I know the naval game doesn't really affect much but it was just too goofy - ships being sunk without taking a single hit, etc so I deleted the game and reloaded it then added the 1.2.3 beta. Haven't downloaded the 1.2.3 official yet.

I haven't noticed any other bugs. There may be some very minor issues that I don't agree with like isolated units being able to have artillery ammunition teleported in but no bugs. The number of times I have replayed speaks a lot for the game.

EDIT - I just noticed you said "a" naval issue, not "the" naval issue. Someone else had posted on it earlier so I assumed you knew about it.

RE: Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:31 pm
by FrankHunter
lordhoff, is this the thing whereby you see a ship listed as taking 9 damage or whatever even though no actual hits were taken during that battle?

RE: Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 6:54 am
by lordhoff
What I saw was a ship taking zero hits in a single surface battle (no other screens) and being listed as sunk and another taking one hit and being listed as sunk. They started out with zero damage. There was a single battle screen.

I haven't noticed what you posted - I have noticed that the number of hits on each screen represents the total number from all surface battles, ie, one hit on battle one may show a ship as having 7 and being sunk but the addition of all later screens equals the total - all screens show the total hits compiled after all the battles. No problem there. This was different - just a single battle so either the other screens were missing or the qualifiers for being sunk failed to match with the ship's numbers (at least, that is my guess [:)] ).

If I am the only one to have noticed this (and I tried again from a save and got a similar result), it may be just a fluke of the download. I did change patches mid-game and I have never verified whether or not the patches are compatible with each other. If you like, I could save my progress in the current game delete the game, reload, and repatch with 1.2.4 to see if it continues. Apparently the save files are not lost in the game deleting process.

RE: Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 2:30 pm
by FrankHunter
I have noticed that the number of hits on each screen represents the total number from all surface battles

Right, that's the one I thought you might be referring to.

The one you mention is new to me, you say it happened in a game where you changed from 1.23 to 1.24 in mid-game? Was it the first naval phase after the switch or did similar results show up in following naval phases?

Don't go to all that trouble of creating a new save, but if it repeats I'd like to get the autosave

fhunter@telus.net

Thanks!



RE: Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 11:23 pm
by lordhoff
Yes, it was the very first strategic phase after loading the newer beta patch (which was loaded mid-game).

RE: Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 2:43 am
by FrankHunter
Okay, it was probably just a glitch caused by the switch before data was updated.

RE: Leaving Guns of August

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 12:17 am
by lordhoff
Great! Next game I'll reload 1.2.4 beta - if there are any further naval problems, I'll let you know via this thread.