workers stopping work

I was really hoping this was an issue with my machine or something similar.

After reading the thread, it's pretty disheartening to see it's been an issue for 18 months or so with exactly zero attempts at resolution by the devs.

I won't bother describing my exact situation, it's the same as everyone else's.

/sad panda

SesnOfWthr said:

I was really hoping this was an issue with my machine or something similar.

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I know where you are coming from, never fixed this and never will be!!. Heck, it was, and never would have been a problem but for the fact that we have to take every steam updated version on board. I don't understand computing and never will, I just play games that I enjoy. WHEN THEY FINALLY FIXED THE VANILLA GAME, SO AS TO MAKE IT SO DIFFICULT IN SOME ASPECTS OF GAME PLAY THAT ONLY THE VERY BEST OF PLAYERS COULD PLAY THE GAME AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS, this just happened to be at the point when they launched the G&K version of the game!! lol...lol...lol, WHat the fck is going on?

I have so many untried and untested challenges regarding the Vanilla version of the game and normally I would like continue to compete against myself for years to come. What a shame that old gits like myself are considered to be worthless in this modern World!! THEY HAVE RUINED THE ORIGINAL GAME ON PURPOSE, JUST TO MAKE WAY FOR A NEW WAVE OF EXPERTS WHO ARE MOSTLY MATHEMATICIANS. They don't play the game in the same way that we do, what they do is work out all the maths before they even start, then they make CHEAT play through's for us all to follow. Does it even matter ever again in the life in which we live just how good we might be if at the end of the day we don't follow the advice given by the experts?

SELL, SELL, SELL.


PS. TAKE NOTE CHUM!! You are the very first person on my IGNORE list.

TractorBoy said:

THEY HAVE RUINED THE ORIGINAL GAME ON PURPOSE

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Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by mere incompetence.

JUST TO MAKE WAY FOR A NEW WAVE OF EXPERTS WHO ARE MOSTLY MATHEMATICIANS.

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Citation please? I assert that is the very rare player who is approaches the game like it's a mathematics equation. Civ5 is a great game, for players of all skill levels, casual and serious, and that characterization holds for vanilla and both expansions. Myself, I found vanilla good, but a bit limited in replay. I have not ugraded to BNW since I still find lots to experiment with GnK.

number51 said:

So I guess the solution is to buy G&K.

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Seems that way!

number51 said:

I wonder if the dev's reaction to this issue would have been different if the bug existed only in the expansion, and vanilla was fine.

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Yes, I guess we all know the answer to this conundrum!

number51 said:

I'm guessing the fix would have happened in 5 minutes, if the bug was hurting expansion sales, instead of helping sales.

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Correct.

number51 said:

Nah, I'm just being cynical.

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It's still not fixed after nearly two years. Had there been a few more cynical posters like yourself then just maybe we would have ended up with a different solution to the one you prescribed!

This bug is so bad that conquering whilst in the process of playing a wide game is pretty well off limits!

TractorBoy said:

When I started this thread, I was mentioning every possible reason that I ever came across as to why the workers were stopping work. The list is long and is as follows.

1 - A barb camp was once in the vicinity.
2 - I was once at war with a City State.
3 - I was once at war with a AI Civ.
4 - Working around a captured City.

The above four reasons are to be expected in the first instance, but should not continue after the threat is no longer there.

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I have come across all of the above.

TractorBoy said:

As you say this is a game breaking bug and is worsened by playing at the slower speeds. In time the workers will eventually return to work, it can take hundreds of turns at marathon speed.

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I played a marathon game that lasted for six hundred turns and was at war for five hundred of them. The earliest captured Cities were nowhere near a war zone at the conclusion of one hundred and twenty turns and yet the worker problem persisted for the duration of the game whilst in the process of working around those early captured Cities!

The highlighted area of your post could be correct, but how many hundreds of turns are you referring too?

NiceOneEmlyn said:

I played a marathon game that lasted for six hundred turns and was at war for five hundred of them. The earliest captured Cities were nowhere near a war zone at the conclusion of one hundred and twenty turns and yet the worker problem persisted for the duration of the game whilst in the process of working around those early captured Cities!

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The above mentioned was a duel game.

I am in the process of playing a Marathon small (5 opponents) game and this is what I have noticed so far.

Turn 200...Conquered Persia and all workers working close to or within the borders of Persia have the BUG problem.

Turn 220... I declare war on China and all the workers with the BUG that are working around Persia no longer have the bug.

Turn 230... China is now conquered and all the workers working in and around China now have the BUG.

Turn 235... I attack America and the workers working around China no longer have the bug.

Turn 245... I have captured two American Cities and make peace with them, the only workers that have the bug are the ones working in and around the American Cities.

So it would seem that the bug is only applicable to the Cities captured from the last Nation we were ever at war with.

GIVEN THE ABOVE INFORMATION IS CORRECT, THEN SURELY THIS WOULD BE EASILY RECTIFIED!!!

edit.... I have read this whole thread and not one person has found out what I have found. So what does this prove? Well in my mind it proves just how bad the BUG was, it was so frustrating that people couldn't be bothered to continue to play the game. Maybe some of the posters went on to play duel games as a kind of way to alleviate the BUG scenario, but little did they know they were just compounding the problem!! I would go as far as saying that potential new Civ gamers and some of the old have been lost forever due to this bug. THIS IS A DISGRACE AND SOMEONE SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

edit....Turn 552 Game finished with a culture victory. The captured and gifted American City workers remained BUGGED for the duration of the game.

I have been experimenting from various angles as regards the BUG and this is what I discovered.

Declaring war on multiple Nations within the same time span will result in all captured Cities being bugged. Going along the lines of completely wiping out those multiple Nations, as soon as I declare war on another Nation, then those previously bugged areas become un-bugged, and the new Nations Cities will become bugged once captured.

Solution... Don't capture any Cities from this Nation and don't accept any as part of a peace deal, instead just remain at war with them for the duration of the game.

beetle said:

I assert that is the very rare player who is approaches the game like it's a mathematics equation.

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Rare indeed but the fact remains that they are on this forum and they revel in being the very first to have worked out the best approach to a certain type of victory. For those that are interested, there are a host of play through videos to look at and I am sure that thousands of people do just that! Why do these thousands of gamers feel the need to watch and then emulate? Well I imagine for some of them it's because they can quickly add another conquered game to their ever growing c.v. and go purchase another one! Of course there are a lot of people who might use them for a (leg up) so to speak. Who is the beneficiary of all these goings on? Well I don't entirely agree with TractorBoy but I do see what he is getting at.

beetle said:

Civ5 is a great game, for players of all skill levels, casual and serious, and that characterization holds for vanilla and both expansions. Myself, I found vanilla good, but a bit limited in replay.

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I agree with what you have to say here, except for the fact that the only reason the vanilla game is limited in replay is because of the bug.

This is VERY weird, because it does not affect all the workers. Some do, some don't. I can not find any patterm - it happens with some workers that are mine from the start and some that I captured, but not all my workers and not all the captured ones. It happens on the fringe of my territory and in the heart of my empire. VERY irritating. I tried disbanding the problematic workers and buy new ones - but it seems the new ones are infected as well.
Can anyone write a mod that fixes that? It seems Firaxis is at a loss nearly as we are.

Welcome to 2016! This bug persists and is known since 2012.

Firaxis, Y U NO FIX STUPID BUG???

I play Capitalism 2. I reported bugs in October. In 3 days they fixed that 2005 game and released a new patch! (link)
And then there's this.........

I agree with the sentiment that Firaxis should patch this as a matter of professional pride. That said, while this can effect every vanilla player, the number of players that will troubled I think is very few. Maybe less than a hundred? Surely, if most vanilla players noticed and complained, Firaxis would have fixed it!

NiceOneEmlyn said:

I agree with what you have to say here, except for the fact that the only reason the vanilla game is limited in replay is because of the bug.

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I don’t really understand this assertion. I assume that vanilla V is the first civ game for many. Most probably like it enough, then go on to other games.
Those that really like V will purchase and then play GnK or BNW exclusively. Both of those broad groups are unlikely to even notice the bug.

So this bug only troubles those who would like to obsessively play vanilla to the exclusion of GnK or BNW. Are there really more than 100 players like that?

beetle said:

I agree with the sentiment that Firaxis should patch this as a matter of professional pride. That said, while this can effect every vanilla player, the number of players that will troubled I think is very few. Maybe less than a hundred? Surely, if most vanilla players noticed and complained, Firaxis would have fixed it!
I don’t really understand this assertion. I assume that vanilla V is the first civ game for many. Most probably like it enough, then go on to other games.
Those that really like V will purchase and then play GnK or BNW exclusively. Both of those broad groups are unlikely to even notice the bug.

So this bug only troubles those who would like to obsessively play vanilla to the exclusion of GnK or BNW. Are there really more than 100 players like that?

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I fully disagree.

I compare your arguments to a car manufacturer that goes like this: Most people who like Mercedes will add to their car the basic options that include LED headlights. Therefore, we won't fix the halogen headlights that turn off every 2 minutes, requiring the driver to turn them on again repeatedly during the night.
It's that bad. I'm on a marathon game and have no orders to issue on turns. Yet, I have to end the turn, have the worker suddenly wake up, check if his job is complete, reissue the order if not, then end the turn again. And that's been going on forever, and there is no end in sight.
It's that bad.

I feel your claims are based on your personal bias rather than statistics. Too many assumptions.

I'm a long time Civ player, going through 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, Colonization and Alpha Centauri. I do not buy expansion packs because the value isn't there. When games come out (i.e. vanilla), they are complete. We even pay full price for them, right?

Also, how many people buy a game, enjoy it, but don't purchase expansion packs? That number is beyond any of ourselves. I'm in that group. You seem to not be.

Besides that, of the people who sometimes buy expansion packs to games they enjoy, what is the percentage of games they enjoy to which they buy expansion packs? I know zero people who have bought expansion packs to ALL games they enjoy (except for people who enjoy very few games, of course).

Moving along, if Civ5 is really the first Civ for many, that only makes it more embarrassing to have such an irritating flaw in game mechanics to first timers. Adding to that is the fact Civ is a very slow game for today's standards, and making a slow game demand even more patience is very bad for the franchise.

Finally, what is the effort required to review a couple of IF statements in code that interrupt a workers project? We payed a AAA price for a AAA game from a big developer, and I don't expect treatment below Indie level support.

There is no excuse.

I am asking because I am truly trying to understand the motivation of the types of players who would be noticeably effected by this. Maybe anyone playing a vanilla marathon game? But now I am curious why this bug did not become widely know when the game launched? Were not people hitting the game pretty hard until GnK? Or was it a later patch that introduced the bug?

NiceOneEmlyn mention people interested in vanilla HoF achievements. But I think you would have to admit that’s a pretty niche audience?

nicae said:

I compare your arguments to a car manufacturer that goes like this: Most people who like Mercedes will add to their car the basic options that include LED headlights.

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I think a good car analogy could be made, but yours is not a good comparison.

I feel your claims are based on your personal bias rather than statistics. Too many assumptions.

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Sure. But do you have any statistics? With all the alternatives, I don’t think marathon vanilla games are very compelling.

I do not buy expansion packs because the value isn't there.

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I must respectfully disagree. The IV expansion packs were an excellent value -- and the V expansions are better than that!

When games come out (i.e. vanilla), they are complete.

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One would think. But that was not the pattern with III, IV, nor V.

We even pay full price for them, right?

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Civ III buyers were tricked. Civ IV and V buyers should have known what the deal was.

Also, how many people buy a game, enjoy it, but don't purchase expansion packs?

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Plenty, I agree. I just don’t think there are all that many V vanilla purchasers that play vanilla enough for this bug to ruin their games.

I'm in that group.

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Why? The vanilla game is how many years old? And V complete can be had nowadays how cheaply?

Moving along, if Civ5 is really the first Civ for many, that only makes it more embarrassing to have such an irritating flaw in game mechanics to first timers.

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I don't think someone new to the game would even realize that the behavior is anything other than as expected. But maybe it puts enough people off that they never buy an expansion pack?

We payed a AAA price for a AAA game from a big developer, and I don't expect treatment below Indie level support.

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Except that we had IV repeat the beta-release-at-full-MSPR marketing. Why would V be any different. Apparently BE fits the same pattern. Any predictions for VI?

Sorry to butt in on the little debate, but I believe I found the bug is actually caused by an ensemble of shortcuts and less noticeable bugs.

First things first, how does the whole "waking workers up" thing happen? Well, if a worker is undefended and is building something in a tile that is marked as "under immediate threat", it will wake up. Tiles are marked as "under immediate threat" through the DangerPlots system...

DangerPlots is used to calculate the "danger" of each tile: at the beginning of every player turn, the game runs through every single city and unit that all other players have and runs danger computations on the ones it deems should not be ignored (i.e. mainly visible units and cities of players who are at war with the current player). This is reason #1 why a worker can be unjustly awoken: DangerPlots calculations are only run once at the beginning of a player's turn, so if all the units that would threaten capturing a worker are killed mid-turn, DangerPlots' data becomes outdated and the worker will still be awoken. It's also reason #1 why a worker who should be awoken is not: since units who are not visible at the beginning of the turn are ignored, a barbarian horseman (or similarly fast unit) that you discover mid-turn who is able to capture your worker from its current tile will not have DangerPlots data associated with it, so the worker won't get awoken.

Danger computations for [barbarian] units work like this: the game checks every tile within (unit's base movement) radius and sees how many turns it would take for the unit to reach that tile ignoring 1UPT. This is reason #2 why a worker can be unjustly awoken: if a unit could move to a tile if there were no other units present on the map but cannot because there are units blocking the way, DangerPlots will not realize this and think that the unit can still reach the tile. And really, why should it realize this? Danger values are simple integers, there's no actual tracking of which units can actually reach the tile in one turn, and conditions can change mid-turn, where the player might move a blocking unit out of the way or a non-blocking unit into the way.

For each tile checked, DangerPlots then adds the reduced melee strength of the unit to the tile's danger value, where the unit's melee strength is divided by the amount of turns it would take to reach the tile. If any unit can reach the tile in one turn, the tile's danger value is manipulated to flag it as "under immediate threat". The fact that danger values are only updated at the beginning of the player's turn is why workers still wake up when all the units that threaten its tile have been killed mid-turn. Here's the part that's important for issues with awakening workers: the flag that's used to check "under immediate threat" is actually the last binary bit of a tile's danger value integer, and it's supposed to be set by OR-ing with 0x00000001 when a unit can reach the tile in a single turn, while the unit's reduced melee strength is AND-ed with 0x11111110 before adding it into the tile's danger value to make sure it doesn't mess with the flag. What actually happens is that instead of the tile's danger value being OR-ed and AND-ed, it's the unit's contribution that gets OR-ed and AND-ed. This means that this is reason #2 why a worker who should be awoken is not there are a lot of scenarios where a tile should be marked as "under immediate threat", but isn't: for example, if an even number of units can reach a tile in one turn, it will not be marked as "under immediate threat", because each contribution gets OR-ed by 0x00000001 to produce an odd-numbered contribution and the sum of an even number of odd numbers is always even (an even binary number has 0 as its last bit, which in Civ5 danger value terms means that the plot is not flagged as being "under immediate threat").

Delnar_Ersike said:

Sorry to butt in on the little debate, but I believe I found the bug is actually caused by an ensemble of shortcuts and less noticeable bugs.

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This bug, as I understand it, is about Vanilla where neither of the first two conditions apply.

What "first two conditions" are you referring to?

What Delnar lists as reasons #1 and #2.

Units don't block other units in vanilla?

Why wouldn't they apply to vanilla? DangerPlots is only updated at the beginning of player turns even in Vanilla, and DangerPlots has used IgnoreUnitsPathfinder since vanilla.

Those two apply to vanilla -- but this thread is about workers alerting more than that. Or so I gather.