Bug: AI's Not Building New Cities

[Vylinius]

A friend and I have both been playing the VerticalSolar scenario as we'd like to try out the space portion of the game, but would like to compete against some AI opponents on our way there. The problem we've been having is that the AI hasn't freely been building tribes or settlers to create new cities at all. Is it working as designed and the AI only starts building new cities long after getting sedentary lifestyle or is something wrong? We've also noticed the AI not building gatherers or workers after the ones they receive from the Gathering tech.

We don't know if this is a problem on our end specifically as this seems too major a problem to go unnoticed, and we're both playing on the latest released version, not the SVN, of the mod. If any other information is needed to help us resolve this issue, we'll provide it. Just haven't done a bug report, so I wasn't sure what should be uploaded here.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Latest release is a mess and about to be rereleased.

 

[cakedaemon]

Question, but was that rerelease ever done? I've got the latest non-SVN version of the game, the same vertical solar map and the AI isn't building any cities as of turn 524.

 

[Snofru1]

Not yet. Wait a few more days or use the SVN.

 

[Shoobs]

I'm getting odd CTDs where ..strangely, I'm opening up a city and bam CTD, or on a completely new game I hit exit to main menu and bam crash. No crash log, as far as I can tell.

 

[raxo2222]

I'm getting odd CTDs where ..strangely, I'm opening up a city and bam CTD, or on a completely new game I hit exit to main menu and bam crash. No crash log, as far as I can tell.

@Snofru1 had same issue, do you both use Toffer's modmod?
It may be related to how @Toffer90 sped up opening city window.

 

[Shoobs]

No. Just the svn version.

 

[Thunderbrd]

No. Just the svn version.

Well I need something to look into.

 

[Snofru1]

I'm getting odd CTDs where ..strangely, I'm opening up a city and bam CTD, or on a completely new game I hit exit to main menu and bam crash. No crash log, as far as I can tell.

Not the same thing than with me. I only get CTDs when the map is in movement, e.g. by using the arrow keys on the keyboard or switching from one city to another. If I don´t use Toffer´s modmod (or in fact any other modmod) I still get the CTDs.

 

[Unmei]

I hope you don't mind me piggybacking on this thread, but I have the same issue, but I'm on the most recent SVN (10069 as of this post). I already discussed this a bit with Thunderbird and Raxo over here and it was suggested that I upload my savefile in case the issue persisted.

I played for another 100-150 turns, but none of the AI are moving from their capitals with their settlers. As a test I started a deity game with the same game settings just to see what they'd do with their bonus settler, but in that game they seemed perfectly okay with settling a second city ASAP. So it seems that, somehow, I managed to stumble across a very specific set of circumstances in which the AI is still a bit wonky.

Now, I'm perfectly okay with abandoning this save and starting anew, so I'm not at all expecting the modders to specifically try and fix my save. I'm mostly posting this here in case this save might help polish the mod even further, even if just a tiny bit.

Hope it helps.

*edit*

Started a new game, same settings but on Monarch. One of the AI hit Tribalism a few turns after I did and I saw it immediately building a Tribe and an army, presumably to escort it.
Nearly a hundred turns later, it's still sitting in the capital. (Khemer Empire, blue civ to the north of the continent)

I added this savegame to the post, under New Dutchtopia.

Personally? I think it might be the C2C - Size matters option. Since it changes unit strengths, maybe the AI can't properly calculate what it needs so it gets stuck? Will try to force it off in my current save, see what happens, once I have the opportunity. Will update.

*edit 2*

Did some experimenting. Disabling Size Matters doesn't seem to affect anything.
Then I tried giving the AI some extra tribes through the world editor, see what they would do. Turns out, they use those just fine.
It's the initial settler unit that just gets stuck in the capital for seemingly no reason, after which the AI seems to get confused and stuck. One of the AI in the first game turns out to have a settler unit and full army to support it, yet set its capital to minor research rather than doing anything.

Another test involved removing the initial built tribe, then letting the AI naturally build a new one. Same deal. It just sits in the capital, unmoving. Give them a second one, and it's new city galore, however.

Something seems to break the initial settler unit. But what? No idea.

*edit 3*

Seems the AI is more broken than I'd thought. Observing it closely, I notice it keeps building certain units, only to switch to another right before completion, never actually finishing anything. In the case of the New Dutchtopia save, you can take a look at the Khemer capital. It'll try to build an Atalatl unit, then an ancient workboat, then dogs, then back to atlatl. None of which will actually ever be built. Really no clue what's going on, but it's clear that something is really wonky at some level.

*edit 4*

Truly last edit.

In one last attempt to fix this, I reinstalled the game and mod from scratch. Completely clean install. Problem persists.
As an experiment tried giving the AI a settler instead of a tribe. Problem persists.
Then I gave the AI the Sedentary Lifestyle tech... it built a city within 5 turns.

 

[jshetley]

It looks like this problem is still with us in ver38.5.

 

[raxo2222]

Did you clear cache?

 

[jshetley]

Did you clear cache?

I never have cleared the cache. I only found it not long ago. I can try it and see what happens.

 

[solops]

I know I saw it somewhere but I cannot find it. How do I clear my cache? Will it ruin my saved game?
I just reached Classical first and have five cities. Three AI players have three, four have two and the others have one. I do not know if this is abbynormal. I am on Prince difficulty.

 

[raxo2222]

I know I saw it somewhere but I cannot find it. How do I clear my cache?
I just reached Classical first and have six cities. Three AI players have three, four have two and the others have one. I do not know if this is abbynormal. I am on Prince difficulty.

Cache is there: C:\Users\<username>\Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword

 

[Thunderbrd]

I know I saw it somewhere but I cannot find it. How do I clear my cache? Will it ruin my saved game?
I just reached Classical first and have five cities. Three AI players have three, four have two and the others have one. I do not know if this is abbynormal. I am on Prince difficulty.

It's probably normal. Prince is probably just far too easy for you.

Not ALL players will show a cache folder in their BtS folder I've found. It may depend on the way the game was installed or a setting in the config file. To clear it, if it is there, delete it. It's ok - if the game wants one due to the settings, it's going to initialize the new folder when it needs it. There's probably a cache folder in the Mod folder somewhere and it doesn't need any manipulating ever. It's a nothing burger now.

I think the consensus diagnosis here is that if you're playing too easy a setting you'll have trouble with the AI keeping up. That's part of the 'ease' of the setting.