So I finally found a way to play Medieval Total War without it crashing on me.
The problematic crashes occur whenever stacks of armies face off against each other, even if you choose to auto-resolve the combat. As long as they only attack with one stack then it doesn't crash.
So I had to devise a way to play that didn't involve me ever having to face more than one stack of AI units. And then I had to figure out a way to defeat all the AI's without ever putting myself in a position whereby I could get invaded by multiple stacks.
Being an expert at the game, I figured there must be a way. If anyone can, I can. So I set the game to Expert Difficulty and chose the most difficult faction to start the game with, The Sicilians. Ironically, for an expert under these parameters, the Sicilians are not only the easiest way to win but also the only way to win.
My only worry will be making sure the Papacy don't invade me. The Sicilians' unique benefit for this scenario is that they have the buffer of the Papal faction, who start off weak, don't usually gain much over time and are the last faction any other nearby AI will invade. In a game where you desire combat, this is a huge downside, as attacking the Papal faction crashes your reputation, happiness and may cause a civil war, and then they respawn anyway, the only faction to always respawn in a regular game. However, for a defensive game they are ideal to hide behind.
After about 70 years (turns) the plan seems to be working, no-one has invaded me and the game has not crashed:
And it kept working. After 300 years I had won the game. I had defeated all of the AIs and no AIs had any territories left:
The last AI and it's 15 men are trapped inside their castle and I will attack the castle next turn with my large golden army.
Unfortunately, this game doesn't have a 'defeat all AIs victory condition'. The only conquest victory condition the game recognises is domination, whereby you own at least 60%ish of all the territories. I own barely 10% of the territories, it's just that the other 90% of territories are in the hands of the rebels rather than any AI faction. In the civilisation series you're allowed a choice, either dominate to 60-odd percent or just wipe everyone else out, but alas, this Total War game doesn't provide that alternative.
So how will the game cope if there's no AI factions for it to play?
It breaks the game, of course. I take the castle and instead of a victory screen I get the Danish respawning:
Then the French respawning:
As soon as I clear those out the Golden Hoard respawns:
As soon as I clear those out the Burgundians respawn:
And as soon as I clear those out the French respawn
yet again:
And by now it's clear that the game simply can't cope with there being no AI faction on the table. Which is a big shame really. While I don't care about this, after all
I know I've won and that's all that matters, it does wrangle that the game refuses to acknowledge this and continues flailing on like the limbless warrior of Monty Python fame.
I'd still prefer it if they bothered to fix this one specific bug that they've known about for 10 years, you know, so I could play it normally and have, you know, like, actual decent combat every now and then, but, heh, watcha gonna do. If they don't react to 500 people telling them about the problem over 10 years, what's my voice gonna add…