C3X: EXE Mod including Bug Fixes, Stack Bombard, and Much More Release 24

[Flintlock]

I just realized it might matter that I was playing as Authorities which use an invisible unit to capture Sam Hammer unlike the other factions. Would that matter?

Maybe, it was worth another look at least. My first rounds of testing were as the corporation since I couldn't see Sam Hammer when playing as the authorities. I ran some more recent tests as the authorities and again didn't see him even though I was using detector units to scout around the detective agency. I only captured him once by bumping into him, and not with an invisible unit. So I edited the map to move him near the police station so I could capture him on the first turn with Joe Rouerk, but that worked normally. Is this bug repeatable for you? It would help if you could tell me exactly what has to happen for it to appear.

There seems to be an extremely rare case where an AI declares war by attacking a city with a ship (the ship fighting the garrison unit like normal combat...), sadly I was so perplexed that forgot to back up the auto-save. I've seen this happen only once every few years (IRL), so I think it's an extremely rare and unimportant thing, but maybe you will come across it some day when working with movement or AI. Then it could be a nice fix on the side

I'll keep that in mind, but honestly my chances of hunting down a bug I can't reproduce are pretty much zero.

Speaking of this game's weird little bugs, that reminds me there's one I've had on my list for over a year now. I have a save game and scenario that reliably crash the game, simply by loading the save, quitting to the main menu, then trying to load the scenario. I investigated it briefly with a debugger and found that the crash is related to the minimap somehow. I still hope to give it a proper investigation at some point. It's not a big deal but I am curious what it's about. Also another thing I just thought of: a few months ago someone reported a submarine bug like issue with land units. I never did get around to investigating that either.

 

[Civinator]

I'll keep that in mind, but honestly my chances of hunting down a bug I can't reproduce are pretty much zero.

Flintlock, the "Privateer-Bug" is explained in this post (with links to other posts).

Another situation, when I watched such a behaviour, was when I limited ancient boats not to enter sea terrain by giving these boats the wheeled flag and and setting sea terrain to impassable by wheeled units. With these settings from time to time AI galleys, especially when carrying a land unit, crashed into cities by path finding errors, triggering a war.

The more interesting is the "Privateer-Bug", as it happens even with an unmodded standard C3C game.

 

[tjs282]

Also another thing I just thought of: a few months ago someone reported a submarine bug like issue with land units. I never did get around to investigating that either.

Isn't that pretty much the same bug? i.e. an AI-controlled (land) unit that can't "Detect Invisible" (land) units crashes into an Invisible (land) unit belonging to another Civ, triggering war.

You fixed that bug for e.g. Frigates vs. Subs, did that not also fix it for land-units?

 

[Vuldacon]

Flintlock... How to capture Sam Hammer is listed in the TARDIS entry DISC area in the Civilopedia.

 

[Alekseyev_]

Also another thing I just thought of: a few months ago someone reported a submarine bug like issue with land units. I never did get around to investigating that either.

Ah yeah that was me. I think I attached a save (which does however require a (very good) mod to load)

Flintlock, the "Privateer-Bug" is explained in this post (with links to other posts).

What I reported was different however, not involving any HN units anywhere.

 

[Stew Pid]

I just realized it might matter that I was playing as Authorities which use an invisible unit to capture Sam Hammer unlike the other factions. Would that matter?

I think it's in vanilla civ 3 when an invisible and hidden nationality unit attacks a defenseless unit like a worker, the worker dies. I remember something like that in TCW scenario where a CIA Agent was killing workers instead of caping them.

 

[Vuldacon]

Hidden Nationality with invisibility can capture invisible units.
"Paul 'Snake' Diego" for the Authorities can capture Sam Hammer the same as all other Faction Units... he also does Not have Hidden Nationality.

 

[timerover51]

I think it's in vanilla civ 3 when an invisible and hidden nationality unit attacks a defenseless unit like a worker, the worker dies. I remember something like that in TCW scenario where a CIA Agent was killing workers instead of caping them.

In TETurkhan's Test of Time, the invisible Dinosaur unit can kill a worker with no problems whatsoever. I loose a fair number of workers that way.

 

[Civinator]

The dinosaurs don´t have the tech to build those workers.

 

[timerover51]

The dinosaurs don´t have the tech to build those workers.

I need to see if I still have the Test of Time mod where I converted Abyssinia into a Dino-based civilization. That was a while ago. Would a Civilization that could build invisible hidden nationality Dinosaur units be able to do this?

I have located the file and will start doing some experimenting. Abyssinia can build Dinosaur units. However, if I set their Gallimus units to Hidden Nationality, that will set all of the pre-placed Dinosaur Barbarian unit as welll....

 

[Civinator]

I need to see if I still have the Test of Time mod where I converted Abyssinia into a Dino-based civilization. That was a while ago. Would a Civilization that could build invisible hidden nationality Dinosaur units be able to do this?

Decisive for capturing a unit is, that the civ that attacks that unit can build the attacked unit themselves. Otherwise the attacked unit will be killed. In my eyes there is no special situation if the attacking unit is a HN and/or invisible unit. The mod CCM has many units with such a setting (enslavers, holy men, lawyers). For your mod the civ that can build those dinosaurs, must be able to build the workers, too if they should be able to capture them. Barbarians unfortunately cannot capture or enslave other units.

 

[timerover51]

Decisive for capturing a unit is, that the civ that attacks that unit can build the attacked unit themselves. Otherwise the attacked unit will be killed. In my eyes there is no special situation if the attacking unit is a HN and/or invisible unit. The mod CCM has many units with such a setting (enslavers, holy men, lawyers). For your mod the civ that can build those dinosaurs, must be able to build the workers, too if they should be able to capture them. Barbarians unfortunately cannot capture or enslave other units.

Thanks for the explanation, Civinator. Abyssinia can build regular workers. I will need to think about the Barbarians and how to get them to build workers.

 

[Civinator]

Thanks for the explanation, Civinator. Abyssinia can build regular workers. I will need to think about the Barbarians and how to get them to build workers.

Very welcome. Unfortunately the Barbarians cannot build workers and settlers - at least until Flintlock has one more of his fantastic ideas. The barbarians can build warriors that pop out of goody hats with an additional worker and/or settler setting, but this cannot be used by the barbarians themselves. If remembering well, Anthony Boscia has something like that in his Worldwide mod (Tribe as level 1 Barbarian unit).

 

[Vuldacon]

there is no special situation if the attacking unit is a HN and/or invisible unit.

Exactly
Hidden Nationality was basically intended for Barbarians ... and the AI Knows exactly where they are on the Dark Unrevealed map... I would always use a faster Unit to out run the AI to get the Gold
This is the reason why the AI will go after Hidden Nationality Units... as if they are Barbarians.

 

[Flintlock]

Flintlock, the "Privateer-Bug" is explained in this post (with links to other posts).

Thanks, another bug for the list.

Isn't that pretty much the same bug? i.e. an AI-controlled (land) unit that can't "Detect Invisible" (land) units crashes into an Invisible (land) unit belonging to another Civ, triggering war.
You fixed that bug for e.g. Frigates vs. Subs, did that not also fix it for land-units?

My understanding is that my fix should work for land units as well as sea units since the code I edited was not specific to sea units. However, it's possible I missed something since that fix relied on some guesswork. Basically, I identified some parts of the pathfinding code that ignore invisible units, in other words blindly path over them, and modified those parts one at a time to account for invisibility. I checked if each modification fixed a sub bug scenario I had set up. I found one that fixed the scenario and didn't cause any bad side effects, and that's the sub bug fix that's still in the mod today. I might be able to do better now that I know more about how the code works. At least there are some additional locations I could consider modifying. I actually never checked them all in the first place since I wanted to a make as few changes as possible to avoid creating additional bugs.

Flintlock... How to capture Sam Hammer is listed in the TARDIS entry DISC area in the Civilopedia.

Thanks for this, finally I was able to reproduce the issue. The problem isn't related to invisibility or hidden nationality, and it's not just a random quirk, it's because of stealth attack. Sam Hammer is listed as a stealth attack target of Paul 'Snake' Diego. In the base game, a stealth attack won't trigger when Snake attacks Sam Hammer alone on a tile because the game doesn't doesn't allow stealth attacks when there is only one possible target. That limitation is removed in C3X, so Snake does perform a stealth attack, destroying Sam Hammer instead of capturing him. To fix this issue, @Nwoll, the only C3X feature you need to turn off is allow_stealth_attack_against_single_unit.

Related to this, the next version of the mod will include the ability to add a cancel option to the stealth attack selection popup. It won't be enabled by default, and really the stealth attack against a single unit shouldn't have been either since it changes the game rules, but if enabled it lets players choose not to do a stealth attack instead of picking a target unit. I checked and made sure that it would solve this issue, choosing not to perform a stealth attack means Snake captures Sam Hammer instead of attacking and destroying him.

 

[Ozymandias]

Exactly

This is the reason why the AI will go after Hidden Nationality Units... as if they are Barbarians.

Now that is an interesting bit to

 

[Vuldacon]

Flintlock... The Stealth Attack explains what was happening with "Paul 'Snake' Diago" trying to capture Sam Hammer.
The fix you will implement in C3X will allow the Units to work as they do with the original game settings

 

[Ozymandias]

I found a longago note from tom2050 that the AI will not airdrop defensive or artillery units. It will only airdrop offensive units. (...?)

 

[Flintlock]

Flintlock... The Stealth Attack explains what was happening with "Paul 'Snake' Diago" trying to capture Sam Hammer.
The fix you will implement in C3X will allow the Units to work as they do with the original game settings

I'm glad to have this mystery solved. After sleeping on it, I've decided to change the default setting of allow_stealth_attack_against_single_unit to false for R15. It's no coincidence that the one change C3X made to the game rules turned out to be the one thing that caused a compatibility problem with another mod. It's better to keep a strict policy of not modifying the game rules out of the box. Anyone who's accustomed to stealth attacks working against single units should keep this in mind for the next release, I'll tag @Civinator in particular since I remember he requested it in the first place.

 

[Predator145]

I found a longago note from tom2050 that the AI will not airdrop defensive or artillery units. It will only airdrop offensive units. (...?)

Which is a shame because now we can have insta drop and pillage paratroopers. But the threat of having them take your cities in the back will get you drafting.