Bugs 31.e not fixed i think

[feydras]

As of the 31.e multiplayer game i'm still finishing. I don't believe these two bugs have gotten addressed in the .32 release or patches a or b.

Shadows are visible sometimes and invisible other times. I can't seem to find the rhyme or reason to it. We tested this in our multiplayer game and the 'seer' doesn't have any hawks or other units that should be capable of seeing invisible. It seems to be arbitrary and doesn't seem to matter if the unit is HN or not. I've got two shadows right next to each other and he can see one of them and not the other. When i have the visible one masked he shows as a barbarian unit (correct i assume). Both shadows still have the 'Invisibility' promotion on them so.

Possible cause of problem: i'm playing as the Sidar and i casted my World spell. Is it possible that the Hidden unit attack promo overrode the natural invisibility promo and made the shadow visible after he attacked? I don't have a prior save to check that out.

Cosmetic: Undercouncil votes still refer to the UN and Secretary General.

 

[feydras]

Nevermind. Edited main message.

 

[xienwolf]

I am almost certain that you are correct about how it is happening. I'll have to peek at the code later today when I get time, but it would be natural if it were written to remove the Invisibility from the unit upon losing Hidden.

The change is the same one which is needed for the new Empyrean & Esus shrines: Change from a boolean to a Count function (well, in this case it is probably a string, so would have to change to an array so it can store a count on the string).

This change would make it so that each promotion you have granting Invisibility increases the count toward your being invisible, and when lost will decrease the count. That way you can quickly tell if a unit ought to become visible upon losing a promotion without having to loop through every existing promotion.

A slightly quicker/easier alternative which works for just this particular case would be to make Invisible block Hidden.

 

[feydras]

Thanks for the quick response xienwolf.

Have any ideas about this frustrating problem i'm having...
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=275847

 

[xienwolf]

I know next to nothing about multiplayer, and until I read those posts didn't know what was so "special" about Pitboss either. Still no idea how that one works, but I know now why you'd use it.

 

[feydras]

Back to original topic. Still playing that game and just found something else related to shadow visibility...

I had two shadows near his units and he couldn't see them. Then he Obsidian gated one of his own shadows to the spot and suddently saw them both. Seems shadows can see other shadows. I actually like that but was unaware of it. Is this a feature or a bug.

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Unrelated pitboss: what i like about it is you can leave it up and it runs with minimal system drain, players can log in whenever they want and back out, you can set a turn timer for so many hours to advance the turn should players not get their turn in in time. We usually set this to 24 hours and everyone misses a turn every once in awhile. Works out well. Games usually last for several months. We've never done FfH bcs. can't get it working but have done vanilla civ, BtS, and a modded BtS.

 

[MaxAstro]

I had two shadows near his units and he couldn't see them. Then he Obsidian gated one of his own shadows to the spot and suddently saw them both. Seems shadows can see other shadows. I actually like that but was unaware of it. Is this a feature or a bug.

I think units that have a certain type of invisibility can see other units with that same type of invisibility. For example, Giant Spiders can see each other, even though they don't have the ability to see invisible.

 

[xienwolf]

Giant Spiders do have the ability to see Invisible Animals. The catch is to remember that there are 2 levels of Invisible. Invisible_animal, which most any Recon can see, and Invisible_Land, which very few units in the game can see (as I recall, not even Shadows, who ARE invisible_land, can see this type)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Actually, there are 5 different types of invisibility: INVISIBLE_SUBMARINE, INVISIBLE_SPY, INVISIBLE_STEALTH, INVISIBLE_ANIMAL, and INVISIBLE_LAND

Most aren't used in FfH though.

You can set units to have and to see only one type of invisibility.

Eyes, Hawks, Kithra, Radiant Guards, Rathas, Revelers, and Sand Lions see only INVISIBLE_LAND (and, of course, units that aren't invisible)

Alazkan, Angels of Death, Assassins, Chanters, Devouts, Ghosts, Taskmasters, Baby Spiders, Beastmasters, Myconids, Fawns, Frostlings, Giant Spiders, Heralds, Acrobats, Hellhounds, Lizardmen, Harlequins, Rangers, Rathus, Satyrs, Goblins, Scouts, Courtesans, Shadows, and Dwarven Shadows (Basically all the recon units, plus spiders) see only INVISIBLE_ANIMAL


I was just thinking, it might be good for units to be able to be and to see invisible from multiple invisibility types, and to allow promotions to change these too. Should I add that to my wishlist for your modcomp, xienwolf?

 

[xienwolf]

Interesting. I had just assumed that the graded Invisibility was the same as the MODCOMP I had come across a while ago which had it set up so that there were "ranks" to the Invisibility, and you were allowed to see all Invisible ranks below whatever one you were allowed to see. I might have to pick that one up for integration as well.

As for your wishlist, you can add all you want to it. I make no guarantees that any of it ever makes it in, and what does make it in will be done in whatever manner I personally choose. Right now not much will be getting in outside of my own secret projects because I am getting itchy to have playtesters, and that means I need to release a playable, enjoyable, mod. So I am pushing up my timetable on the primary reason I started the whole project to get something which I can get a fanbase for.

 

[onedreamer]

I think sentry II should help vs invisibility, at least vs land and animal. It would make this promotion that much more desirable...

 

[feydras]

I think sentry II should help vs invisibility, at least vs land and animal. It would make this promotion that much more desirable...

That's a great idea. Then i'd suggest taking the ability away from hawks. In play the AI rarely uses hawks for spotting shadows but humans pretty much always do. As long as you can get the AI to prioritize Sentry II i think this would be a better fix. Not so easy to get that it's a no brainer but available to everyone.

I'd also like to see units being able to spot their own kind - shadows spot shadows. This would make for a more spy vs. spy feel. Especially as shadows are national units so you have a limited ability to be everywhere at once.

 

[Bad Player]

Yeah I like the idea of sentry II giving sight against invisible units instead of hawks because it makes it less likely that an opponent will have a complete vigilance against invisible units. With hawks it's not that hard to scan a complete empire if you just want to build several hunters + hawks (IMO it's not anywhere nearly as easy to build sentry II units).