New crash

[Brutus]

Finally I managed to get a crash again [;)]

Happened during the recruitment phase. I clicked on Spain first and recruited there and when I proceded to northern Italy, the game crashed.

Unfortunately no perfect save game avaible to reproduce. Next save game is from the beginning of the turn, and with that I can't reproduce the end of turn situation with the newly drawn card already played.
Don't remember which card it was, but I guess the crash cause was the combination of cardplay and some besieging action in northern Italy, with Philip also active there.

Crash report:

Hannibal Version 1.0.3 Build 355
Hannibal crashed at: Thu Apr 07 20:10:59 CEST 2011
OS = Windows XP
Architecture = x86
OS Version = 5.1
Details of the crash:
java.lang.NullPointerException
at xlb.b(Unknown Source)
at vlb.a(Unknown Source)
at p0.a(Unknown Source)
at a.a(Unknown Source)
at a.<unknown>(Unknown Source)
at a.l(Unknown Source)
at p0.a(Unknown Source)
at kdb.b(Unknown Source)
at p0.a(Unknown Source)
at a.v(Unknown Source)
at a.d(Unknown Source)
at d4b.run(Unknown Source)
at java.util.TimerThread.mainLoop(Unknown Source)
at java.util.TimerThread.run(Unknown Source)

[mercenarius]

Well, I am very sorry that the game crashed on you. [:(]

I cannot immediately duplicate this, but I am looking at it (of course). I will post something as soon as I see what the problem is.

And thanks for including the crash report. I know that it's annoying for the players, but it usually helps me quite a bit.

[mercenarius]

I have duplicated what I think is the cause of the crash you experienced. Did you have a Carthaginian general in Cisalpine Gaul in the same army as Philip? And that Carthaginian general had an equal or lower rating? And Philip was the commander of that army?

Note that when two generals have the same command rating, the order that the generals were added to the army determines who wins the tie to be the commanding general. This is true when there is no active leader in that army. The general with the current command phase is always the commanding general, of course.

There is an error in the recruiting code that doesn't know about non-Carthaginian commanding generals in Cisalpine Gaul. That's a stupid mistake on my part, and it will be corrected in 1.0.4. I am not going to rush a hotfix out because this problem should be fairly rare. There is no work-around for this, unfortunately.

A general does not need to be the commanding general in order to qualify for recruiting. But in this one case there is that error.

You can use the extremely lame work-around to avoid sending Philip into Cisalpine Gaul. I am embarrassed even to suggest it. [:(]

[Brutus]

Yes, it was like you say. Mago and Philip in one army in front of Placentia, both promoted with a rating of 7 as far as I remember.

No need for a hotfix I think. This situation should statistically occur once every million of years [:D]

Do you already have a estimated release date for 1.04? Because I have at least one bigger game mechanic change suggestion in reserve, but want to think about it for some time before I write down my idea.

[mercenarius]

There is no hurry for a 1.0.4 maintenance release. I don't plan to issue it for a month or two. So please feel free to think about your suggestion and post something when you are ready. Of course, now you have us all intrigued. [8D]