Many players are reporting crash issues with MTW. The fixes are generally pretty consistent, so this guide is designed to save people time waiting for answers on the forum.

I am mostly regurgitating information from the forums. However, this is not tech support, more a list of things to try before posting on the forum.

Be aware that the original disk version was not the most stable thing in the world, so the occasional random crash is normal.

There are several sections to this guide, covering the type of issue that you are having. Start with section 1, and if those are not successful, then browse to the following section as relevant:

If the game does not do anything when run (no launcher or Steam errors), go to section 2.
If the game has installed, but the game does not boot correctly, go to section 3. This includes if the Total War launcher does not appear.
If the game loads, but crashes during the opening cinematic or in the game's main menu, then go to section 4.
If you can start campaigns/battles, but crashes occur, then go to section 5.

Please let me know in the comments if my guide helped or if you are still having problems and describe their nature. Please also provide any additional fixes that you know of.

This section covers common fixes for Steam games in general. These are simple and should be your first port of call:

First of all, verify the integrity of Steam files (right-click on the game in your library, go to 'Properties' > 'Local Files' and click the box that says 'Verify integrity of game files'). This checks that the game has installed correctly and that no files are missing.

Try rebooting your PC (always worth a try) and then trying to run the game again.

Update your OS, Steam and your graphics drivers/any graphics software like Nvidia GeForce. Try running the game again.

If you get stuck in an endless validation loop (which can happen with Steam games), then you'll need to reinstall. Similarly, if you are told 'invalid command line parameter', then you might also need to validate/reinstall.

If you're having trouble trying to (re)install, then if might be a bad sector on your hard drive. You could try installing on a different drive or scanning your drive for bad sectors. You can also install a large dummy file over the bad sector, then install the game in a fresh area.

You may also benefit from running any OS updates at this point, since this is an installation issue and something is wrong with your OS or Steam or your hardware. Browse the internet for info on general issues with game installation. Check if you can install other games correctly.

This is for failures to boot the game, at least into the opening cinematic.

If you try to run the game and the launcher appears, go to section 3.2. If the launcher does not appear, read on.

All TW games boot into a launcher, which looks like the picture below:



If the launcher does not load you're probably having problems with the launcher rather than the game itself, which is surprisingly common. If you have other Total War games (except Medieval 2 and Rome 1), trying running those to see if the launcher appears (because they all run the same launcher). If necessary, you can actually use these to boot the game by selecting MTW from the list of installed TW games across the top.

If MTW is not marked as installed, then there may be a problem with your installation. See the previous section on issues with installation. Check if other programs list the game as installed (e.g. check the program list in control panel).

If the launcher does not appear, you can also run the game manually. I recommend doing this as administrator for good measure. Go the game files on your disk e.g. D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Total War Medieval 1 Gold and right-click Medieval_TW.exe, then click 'Run as Administrator'). This bypasses the game's launcher which can cause problems.

If the launcher boots, but behaves erratically, then you should try the same fix of manually launching the game. You may want to corroborate launcher issues with other TW games, if you have any installed.

If your game now loads correctly, then the launcher was the problem. However, if the game continues to crash, then carry on with the below.

Assuming that you can see the launcher and have booted the game (or have done so manually), what happens?

Sometimes, the game will appear in the taskbar, but not be accessible. Does the game appear as a process in Task Manager/have a 'Running' label next to it in your Steam library? If so, can you tab into it (sometimes games don't appear on the toolbar, but you can alt+tab into the game window)?

If not, then it is not even starting to run. Try running the game manually (Go the game files on your disk, right-click Medieval_TW.exe, then click 'Run as Administrator'). If that doesn't work, it's probably a graphics problem.

If the game initially starts running, but then crashes, change the compatibility mode of the game (go to where the game files are installed and right-click on the game .exe, go to properties and select the 'compatibility' tab. Try running the game in compatibility for older Windows versions - Windows 8 works well for me, as does Window 7). This can fix some of the issues with MTW/Windows 10 conflicts.

We can also try some graphical fixes:

• In the compatibility options, you can also force the game into low resolution (640x480) and reduced colour mode - try these. Similarly, you can use Nvidia control panel (or similar) to experiment with forcing certain graphics settings (see the fix on integrated graphics cards below).
  
• Turn down your desktop resolution to 1024x768 or similar. This can fix certain crashes with the game window.
  
• Disable your second monitor if applicable (right-click on your desktop, go to display settings and under 'multiple displays' select 'show only on x').
  
• Use your integrated graphics card instead of your dedicated one. How to do this will vary, but for Nvidia cards, open up the Nvidia control panel, go to 'manage 3D settings'. There is a setting here that you can tweak to choose which GPU you want to use.
  
  

If you're here, then the game at least starts running, but crashes during the opening cinematic or in the game's menu. If you can start campaigns/battles, then skip this section and go to section 5 instead.

Sometimes, the game doesn't crash, but will minimise itself without stopping. Check your taskbar or the task manager - is the game still running? If so, read on; otherwise go to 4.2.

Usually, if this is happening, the game is rejecting something about your graphical setup, probably your resolution or multiple monitors. For example, when I try to run the game with dual monitors, the game minimises itself before the main menu. Disabling my second monitor fixes the issue.

Try to alt+tab back into the game window and see what happens. If it just keeps minimising or crashes, then try the following compatibility/graphical fixes:

• Disable your second monitor if applicable (right-click on your desktop, go to display settings and under 'multiple displays' select 'show only on x').
  
• Change the compatibility mode of the game (go to where the game files are installed and right-click on the game .exe, go to properties and select the 'compatibility' tab. Try running the game in compatibility for older Windows versions - Windows 8 works well for me, as does Window 7). This can fix some of the issues with MTW/Windows 10 conflicts.
  
• In the compatibility options, you can also force the game into low resolution (640x480) and reduced colour mode - try these. Similarly, you can use Nvidia control panel (or similar) to experiment with forcing certain graphics settings (see the fix on integrated graphics cards below).
  
• Turn down your desktop resolution to 1024x768 or similar. This can fix certain crashes with the game window.
  
• Use your integrated graphics card instead of your dedicated one. How to do this will vary, but for Nvidia cards, open up the Nvidia control panel, go to 'manage 3D settings'. There is a setting here that you can tweak to choose which GPU you want to use.
  
  

If the game crashes of its own volition, then we'll try the compatibility/graphical fixes, too:

Change the compatibility mode of the game (go to where the game files are installed and right-click on the game .exe, go to properties and select the 'compatibility' tab. Try running the game in compatibility for older Windows versions - Windows 8 works well for me, as does Window 7). This can fix some of the issues with MTW/Windows 10 conflicts.

We can also try some graphical fixes:

• In the compatibility options, you can also force the game into low resolution (640x480) and reduced colour mode - try these. Similarly, you can use Nvidia control panel (or similar) to experiment with forcing certain graphics settings (see the fix on integrated graphics cards below).
  
• Turn down your desktop resolution to 1024x768 or similar. This can fix certain crashes with the game window.
  
• Disable your second monitor if applicable (right-click on your desktop, go to display settings and under 'multiple displays' select 'show only on x').
  
• Use your integrated graphics card instead of your dedicated one. How to do this will vary, but for Nvidia cards, open up the Nvidia control panel, go to 'manage 3D settings'. There is a setting here that you can tweak to choose which GPU you want to use.
  
  

If you can boot to the menu, but the game crashes whenever you try to do something, it's more interesting. You can certainly try the fixes in 4.2 first, but otherwise we might be able to use the error log:

D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Total War Medieval 1 Gold\error.log

Often, however, it's not tremendously helpful. If it has an issue loading a resource, you can certainly try to check to see if the file exists or is corrupt, but it will likely reference parts of the code that are bound up in the .exe or in .dlls ... troubleshooting like this is difficult without specialist knowledge.

Post it in the comments and I'll try to help.

This section is for crashes while playing the game, assuming the game has managed to load without issue. This may be things like a crash when the turn ends or when you try to initiate a battle.

Before we go any further, we need to eliminate the most obvious sources. If this is your first time seeing a crash, I recommend that you reload last save and see what happens. Occasionally, the game might crash as all games do, so if all proceeds as normal when you reboot, then it was just a random crash.

However, if the crash repeats (e.g. during the same action, or at the same turn or in the same timeframe), then we need to try some fixes.

Where the crash occurs should tell us something about what is causing the problem(s). Try everything in Section 1 first. Then pick the relevant section:

There are a couple of easy fixes that work for a lot of people, particularly if your game is crashing at the end of a specific turn.

• Go to main menu options and change the campaign map resolution to 1024 x 768 (this value seems to work for the majority, but you can try others). Change the battle map resolution to the same for good measure. This fix seems to address a lot of problems.
  
• When in campaign, turn off autosaving in options. This seems to fix crashes/freezing on turns ending. However, if you still crash then you potentially lose data. To remedy this, you can quicksave (ctrl + s) at any point during a campaign. It can also help to turn off 'Show computer moves'.
  
  In order to turn off autosaving and computer moves, you'll need to actually be in the campaign. Click to the arrow next to the mini map (see below) to open up a menu and uncheck autosaving.
  
  
  
  

• Try to avoid the event. if your game crashes, you reload, and it crashes again at the same place, then whatever event you're trying to load is presumably causing the problem. As an example, your game might crash right before loading a battle - if you can potentially go back to your turn by loading a save, you can call off the attack and this should prevent the crash. If the game is crashing due to an AI action, see if there's any way that you can prevent it. As a last resort, mix up the moves you make on your previous turn(s) - this should impact the AI's decision making and potentially solve your problem. Not ideal, of course ...
  
  
  5.2 - Crashes during battles
  • Go to options and change the battle map resolution to 1024 x 768 (this value seems to work for the majority, but you can try others). This fix seems to address a lot of problems.
    
  • Change the default unit size in options (to something smaller). This means less units for the game to process and potentially fewer crashes.
  
  
  5.3 - Additional suggestions
  I would recommend mashing some of these fixes together before we try anything drastic. Changing the campaign and battle map resolutions to 1024x768, disabling autosave and running the game via the .exe in the game files rather than the launcher are all fixes that have worked for people. Try all of these together, even if they were listed under another section.
  
  If that's not working, then mess with the compatibility modes for the game. Try every single version of Windows with the above fixes in place.

This is a list of all the fixes that I could find (short of installing a virtual PC to get a different operating system for better compatibility). If you know of any more, then please get in touch via the comments.

I'm doing my best to help, becase I I love this game and want others to enjoy it. It's a shame that it's blighted by problems, but I hope that the fixes I have posted here help at least some of you.

If the fixes don't work, then do post in the comments, and I'll try to help.