[BUG] Armageddon Events activated Per Player in Game (Experiment Thread)

[Vehem]

I've split this off of the main bug thread as it's going to be kinda long. I decided to do a proper investigation into the Armageddon issues being reported and I'm now pretty much convinced that both Blight and Hellfire are triggering once per player in game in the current version (Patch j).

For Blight, I created a testbed as below...

Spoiler Screenshot :

This is a 5x5 grid of Corn resources. I then added Rosier the Fallen until the counter reached 40. I carried out the experiment initially with only one player (no AI's) in game. The experiment was then repeated with 10 players (1 Human, 9 AI's) in game.

1 Player
Trial 1 - 7 corn lost
Trial 2 - 9 corn lost
Trial 3 - 5 corn lost
Trial 4 - 9 corn lost

30 out of 100 total corn lost

10 Players
Trial 1 - 25 corn lost
Trial 2 - 24 corn lost
Trial 3 - 22 corn lost
Trial 4 - 24 corn lost

95 out of 100 total corn lost

"Houston - we have a problem."

Spoiler First trial with 10 players :

Next up - the Hellfire/Sect of Flies spawning event. The testbed for this one was a 10x10 area, marked out by volcanos for clarity. The event was triggered and the number of Hellfires that spawned within the test area recorded. Again - initially with 1 player, then with 10.

Spoiler Empty Test Zone :

1 Player
Trial 1 - 4 Sect of Flies Spawned
Trial 2 - 2 Sect of Flies Spawned

3% of eligible squares spawned a Hellfire

10 Players
Trial 1 - 24 Sect of Flies Spawned
Trial 2 - 26 Sect of Flies Spawned

25% of eligible squares spawned a Hellfire

Spoiler many flies :

===

Admittedly, this *could* be a pure fluke of statistics - but I don't think the chances of that are very high. I'm not sure which version introduced the problem, but I am convinced that it exists.

 

[sylvain5477]

Impressive testing.

 

[xienwolf]

Indeed, quite well done. One request I would have from gathering what has been stated in numerous bug reports though would be to set the test up and pay attention to every player in the game. Are all of them hit, or just one of them? (Maybe a volcano grid for each player with a volcano grid filled in by either single units or sities with population > 5 under a different player's control)

And if it does turn out to be just 1 player, is it the human player each time, or is it the one responsible for the most AC, or the one responsible for the AC point which tipped the scale?

ie - place Rosier in the world under one of the AI until you are 2 points of AC from the event, then swap to another AI and place the last 2 points worth under his control. See if the first AI, second AI, or human (with no personal AC) are the one hit

 

[Kael]

Blight and Hellfire will both be fixed in the next patch. The problem was that -1 weight events (always occur) would trigger for each player, even if they were set to be unique. So even thought Blight was set to only happen once, it would happen once for each player in the game. it won't happen in the next version.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Personally I don't think they should always occur. It would be much more interesting not to really know if and when such events will happen (there should be more such events to compensate)

 

[Vehem]

Blight and Hellfire will both be fixed in the next patch. The problem was that -1 weight events (always occur) would trigger for each player, even if they were set to be unique. So even thought Blight was set to only happen once, it would happen once for each player in the game. it won't happen in the next version.

Thanks Kael - good stuff.

 

[Vanion]

That is great news, Kael.

Now I really can't wait for patch k... as it is now, the armageddon events (and OOS issues, but as I see you're trying to fix those too) really break the game for me and my friends I play with.
Also, big thanks to Vehem for those tests... would never have expected that the number of players had an impact on how often the AC eventy are triggered, but that explains it nicely.

 

[Niveras]

Is there a fix that players can implement while waiting for the next update? Blight was an annoyance to recover from, unless you had an army of workers and adepts with water ready to go as soon as it occurred, but I would say this bugged version makes it virtually unplayable. Of course you can play without the AC, but where's the fun in that? Is it more complicated than a simple XML/Python edit to disable Blight temporarily?

 

[Vanion]

It's especially a problem for AI players because they don't use bloom properly. In our last game, Falamar had only a few tiles of grassland left, and every single plains tile in the world transformed into desert.
While it's painfully annoying for human players, the AI can't recover at all.

A quick fix would be nice, but I think we'll be seeing the next patch very soon anyway. Or are we?

 

[Sto]

I don't know if this has something to do with the event changes . Playing AV (compact enforced), i have begun a war against the salfatar . after 3 cities razed (including the ROK holy city ) the Armageddon counter growth from 37 to 97 ... In ten turns all the demons of the apocalypse were spawn .

Bug or not bug ?

 

[Sarisin]

What about the Armageddon 'event' that occurs when the counter reaches 90?

I reported in the bugs thread that the Enraged promotion is no longer given to all units and the Avatar of Wrath appears to be immobile.

 

[Kael]

What about the Armageddon 'event' that occurs when the counter reaches 90?

I reported in the bugs thread that the Enraged promotion is no longer given to all units and the Avatar of Wrath appears to be immobile.

Wrath convert chance is 50% (set in global defines) and the Avatar may have decided to stay immobile for a given game but he's definitly capable of movement.

 

[Sarisin]

Wrath convert chance is 50% (set in global defines) and the Avatar may have decided to stay immobile for a given game but he's definitly capable of movement.

Yes, that's why I said it appeared he was immobile as he never moved until he was eventually killed. He only sent out fireballs/meteors some turns.

I am still amazed that not a single unit got the Enraged promotion when the counter hit 90 and the Avatar appeared. No units going barbarian at all. With no chance to recruit his army and not moving, that Armageddon event was truly a non-event.