Error while loading a save game 1.04

[Fwiffo]

Hello,

bought the game a couple of weeks ago and I have a problem with game saves. Sometimes a game seems to become "corrupted for saving", that is, from a certain point, no matter how many times I try to save (even advancing a campaign and saving different game statuses), I cannot load those saves.
The error message seems to be the same every time:
ERROR
JAVA.LANG.EXECEPTION: EXTRA GARRISON
UNEXPECTEDLY PRESENT IN CITY: 19

[mercenarius]

Well I am sorry that you are having this problem. This should not be happening and you seem to have uncovered a bug.

Can you please send one of these saved games to me (via PM)? Or upload one of them? That would help.

My only preliminary observation is that you may be saving at a point in the game which other players typically don't. And you are the first (apparently) to hit this bug. For which I am sorry. [:(]

Now I'm not saying that you are saving "at the wrong time." If the game lets you save then the saved game should be good. Of course. I'll try to narrow this down and provide a work-around for you.

City "19" happens to be New Carthage. Was anything unusual happening in the game there? Some details might help me to find the problem more quickly. Thanks in advance.

[Fwiffo]

Sent you the save file via PM. I understand all too well it’s impossible to uncover all the bugs, have experience from the same side of the fence you're on now. [:)]
Well, I like to save a lot, also after switching active leader in one turn, but no, I can’t notice anything unusual in New Carthage in the last “good” save (one turn before). Keep in mind though, I’m a newbie at this game.

[mercenarius]

Well, I have determined the cause of this problem. It's not with the saving or loading code. What is happening is that the game is getting corrupted and then it can't be loaded because there is an error with a city's garrison.

This corruption happens when the player tries to split off City Militia units from a city. This is an error in game play and the game will notify the player that City Militia may not leave their city (except to attack a besieger). But sometimes the city's garrison isn't cleaned up properly after the split is disallowed. This happens whenever there are no external garrison units in the city. I.e., the land garrison contains only City Militia units.

The only work-around is not to make this error. Since you may not move City Militia units out of a city (except to sally), the easiest (and only) solution is not to try to do this. Note: this doesn't affect selecting City Militia units to sally, which is legal and is handled differently by the game's logic.

I'll verify my correction and post something as soon as I can. I'll have to coordinate with Erik Rutins at Matrix and they are pretty busy right now. But we'll get a hot fix or a patch posted in the Member's Club as soon as we can.

I realize that this is a hassle for new players like the original poster. The game should work correctly, even if the player makes a "mistake."

[mercenarius]

I have delivered a hotfix to Fwiffo for this problem. If anyone else gets hits by this bug and gets a corrupted game from it, please contact me (via PM) and I'll arrange for you to download the same hotfix.

Sometime after New Year's I'll coordinate with Erik and Andrew at Matrix Games and we'll post a beta patch version of the hotfix. That will be in the Member's Club. Things are just too busy right now to prepare and post any patch before then.

And there is the work-around to avoid this problem. That work-around isn't perfect but I suppose that it will be sufficient for most players. Nevertheless, anyone who has been inconvenienced by this error should feel free to contact me via PM. I'll be happy to set up a private download so you obtain the hotfix.

As usual, thanks for your interest in "Hannibal."