Deleting AI teams error

[GabeKnight]

Don't know if this is new or not, but if one deletes an existing AI team (with units already attached to that team) from the settings and saves the scenario, the scenario becomes completely broken to play and can not be opened by the editor again... I would have suspected an automatic "idle" setting of said AI team in the game, but a total crash???

[bru888]

Gabe, Erik and I have been there and done that, for sure! See the PM that I will send you.

[bru888]

Gabe, it was good to hear by PM that your crisis has been resolved. Echoing what you told me, I will reprint some advice from my scenarios thread that helped me out of a similar predicament:

I had a scenario-threatening episode today, once again. My scenario designer career flashed before my eyes, once again. Fortunately, I was able to salvage a working copy and resume work.

Three lessons repeated to myself, once again (and to anybody else who may benefit):

* The editor crashes frequently, especially when Launch Scenario is repeatedly used to test it. Save the scenario often as you are working on it and once in a while, close the editor and even the program itself to refresh it. The time spent is well worth it.

* Always, always, always back up your scenario as it is being designed. Here's a twist on that, however: Don't back it up right away over your last fully functional save. Why? Because when the scenario file gets corrupted, sometimes you don't know until the next time you call it up. It may have been working when you saved it but not necessarily when you call it up again.

* Try not to make changes to alliances after you have been designing the scenario for a while. In particular, this means deleting alliances, rearranging them, switching human and AI, and reassigning team numbers. More than once this has caused file corruption in my experience and the game designer has confirmed in the past that the scenario editor has had issues in this regard.

Disaster averted. Let me continue whilst figuratively walking on eggshells.

EDIT: It was not in fact a problem with alliances this time, but a conflict in one of the triggers that would crash the scenario on start up. I found it and corrected it. The thing about changing alliances is still good advice but the first two lessons are all the more important. So is a fourth piece of advice: When dealing with a corrupted scenario, try to look at what you just did and reverse it bit by bit, from latest to earlier. One thing at at time, take it out, test again. This procedure may save the time and effort of reverting all the way back to the last functional backup.

[GabeKnight]

Definitely good advice. Always save a "working copy" in a separate backup file. I'd often "Alt-Tab" out of the editor to backup the "scenario.scz" file, as it's the only one really prone to corruption.

[Shards]

Version numbering is your friend. The scenarios files for OoB are tiny, save often, save with updated file names!