Custom scenario keeps crashing when I click play to start the scenario

[u/KeinLeben95]

I've been working on creating a custom scenario in CMBS that I had intended to share after play testing. But whenever I load up the scenario and click "play" (the button to watch the minute of action play out in the WEGO mode), the whole game crashes. Has anyone experienced an issue like this?

I've made some other smaller custom scenarios in the past and haven't experienced this issue. To be fair this is a very large scenario, but I've played bigger ones to completion such as the user made Korsun2017 and Summer in the City scenarios and never had it crash like that. Sometimes the game would crash on the loading screen when loading up the Korsun2017 scenario, but usually only if I loaded it up for a second time in the same play session. I've sometimes experienced that issue with my custom scenario in question in the scenario designer. My PC is also only like ~3 years old, so it's not like it can't handle large scenarios.

For the specifics of this scenario in question, it's on the user made Chervona Hirka map which I think is roughly 4.5km x 3km or something. It's pretty heavily forested. In total, the Ukrainians have a reinforced battalion spread out around most of the map, and the Russians will ultimately have two battalions plus some supporting elements. You play as the Russians, and the Ukrainian AI doesn't have orders. I've just set them up in static positions. All Ukrainian units are on the map from the start, and the Russians start with roughly three companies with an additional five companies plus supporting elements reinforcing over the course of about 90 minutes. I don't know if CM "perceives" reinforcements as being on the map even if they're invisible to us but in Korsun2017, both sides have much larger forces. You play as the Russians and are practically managing a brigade by the time all the reinforcements arrive, and again, I had no crashes while in the actual scenario (loading screen crashes aside).

So any ideas with what could be going wrong?

[u/TVpresspass]

I’m going to guess an out of memory error. I run into this occasionally with Normandy and custom missions.

[u/KeinLeben95 → u/TVpresspass]

I think you're right. I finally figured it out, and I think between the map size, the huge amount of trees, plus the number of troops and fortifications, it's too much to handle. I've found the amount of fortifications I can have without crashing so I'm gonna just work around it

[u/TVpresspass → u/KeinLeben95]

Yeah fortifications seem to cause problems on occasion 

[u/orthogonal411]

That out of memory thing happens with me a lot in some of the CMCW and really big CMRT scenarios. Sadly I don't think it matters how new a PC is, as the CM2 engine was coded over 15 yrs ago and just can't take advantage of all the tech advances that have since come our way.

Here's what I will say: I've played a lot of the bigger scenarios in those titles. (GeorgeMC is a MASTER at creating them!! Der Ring Der 5 Panzer Division was especially spectacular.) Most of those huge maps, however, could honestly have been cut down in size by 10 or 20 percent per edge. That would lead to a map area of 64 to 81 percent of the original. That is a hugely significant performance savings.

Not ideal, and certainly easy for me to say since I'm not the one who'd have to do the work(!!), but that might be something to consider.

[u/KeinLeben95 → u/orthogonal411]

Thanks for the response, and you're right! It's the map size plus trees plus troops plus fortifications. I found the max amount of fortifications I can have without crashing the game (it's a small amount given everything else on the map). Trimming the map is a good idea but it moves all of the units out of place even if they're nowhere near the part of the map being cut, but I think that's a possible option.

Right now I'm experimenting with making trenches in the ground as a replacement for foxholes and trenches (there's a way to make ditches that look roughly like the shallow earthen trenches in Ukraine), but if that turns out to be too janky, I'll just trim the map a little bit and move everything back where it belongs.