Culture Corona's stay inflated in V1.21

[cracker]

Has anyone else notice how the culture coronas of captured cities stay fully inflated in V1.21??

Prior to V1.21, when you captured a city its borders collapsed back to just 9 tiles in size. Now the stay puffed out to 21 or even 37 tiles in size and give you direct access to keep attacking further into enemy territory.

With the combo of Cavalry and Railroads you can wipe the entire map clean in a single turn.

This may well be fixed in the V1.29 patch because it is so powerful of an exploit but I am surprised it has received almost no discussion up to this date.

 

[wisefool]

IIRC, they collapse back to 9 in my games. I am using 1.21. Perhaps you have a side effect from a mod?

 

[Padma]

I play with 1.21, and I have never noticed that! Maybe that's why there has been no discussion; nobody else has seen it!

 

[Sodak]

All my 1.21 captured cities fall back to 9 tiles, without exception. Helpful bug? What level do you play?

 

[cracker]

I am playing V1.21 with no modifications of any kind.

I experienced the bug in GOTM8 and GOTM9.

I posted a picture of what the exploit looks like in the GOTM9 spoilers thread but legally you cannot go there and view the picture until the end of the month or until you have virtually finished playing the GOTM9. (technically if you do not plan on submitting the GOTM then you can go have a peek.)

 

[sealman]

I have never seen it either.

How offen does it happen for you?

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by cracker
I am playing V1.21 with no modifications of any kind.

I experienced the bug in GOTM8 and GOTM9.

I posted a picture of what the exploit looks like in the GOTM9 spoilers thread but legally you cannot go there and view the picture until the end of the month or until you have virtually finished playing the GOTM9. (technically if you do not plan on submitting the GOTM then you can go have a peek.)

cracker, I've never seen the bug either. Are you sure you hadn't already previously captured the city and built up some culture?

 

[cracker]

The inflated coronas happened every time I captured a city with a corona greater than the base 9.

When I captured the cities they showed that no culture improvements (temples, libraries, etc.) would survive but the culture inflated territory stayed puffed out. Normally I would rush a temple right away to get the culture boundary reestablished as quickly as possible, but in this case it was best to wait. If I rushed an improvement, the city would reevaluate its culture position and give me the "our borders have shrunk due to declining culture" message. If I waited to rush the improvement until I had captured the next city (or cities) in the sequence then I got to use the larger boundaries. When the rushed improvement in the first city was completed then I got the shrinking borders message but it usually had little or no effect because the next city in the sequence overlaped with the exposed areas. Sometimes this shrinkage only knocks the border size down from 37 tiles to 21.

My civ (epypt) has a strong culture position and the opponents are either admirers or in awe of our position.

When I inspect the city view of the captured city that has no culture improvements, the culture expansion bar still shows infinite years to expansion but after I rush the temple the expansion bar shows something like 388 years to expansion whne the boundaries are at 21 and only a 1 year old temple is present.

At first I thought this was wonder related but I get the response even in cities with no wonders.

I think it is some bug in the routine that evaluates culture memory for the purposes of determining culture flipping risk.

For the record I have had no cities culture flip in any of these games but that is hard to attribute to this issue because I manage that closely with happiness, garrison, and blitzkrieg to gain distance.

 

[dojoboy]

I've not experienced this "bug."

Are you recapturing cities?

 

[cracker]

These are all first time virgin captures.

here's a zipped save game file from 330AD in GOTM8 (last months German's vs English).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/corona_AD330.zip

(NOTE: you must have V1.21 installed for this save game file to work)

It will be interesting to see if the bug can be replicated from the same save file just by using different installations of the same v1.21 patch.

This save file is at the end of the turn and to get it set up to replicate an inflated capture you need to let it go to the next turn without getting distracted by any city production that may pop up.

As soon as you can get control of units, find Canterbury and attack the city with the Knight army on the adjacent mountain. There should be two spearmen in Canterbury and after the army attacks, you should then attack with the Elite knight on the mountain that is two tilee away from canterbury to the east northeast. This knight should win and take the city. After the city is captured its corona should stay out at 21.

One or two turns further in the future the same thing can happen with London and other cities as well.

 

[Lawrence]

This bug exists. I have tested it.

Nobody else reported though, seems a rare bug. Dunno if Firaxis can solve it before the deadline of the 'final' patch.

 

[cracker]

Just to document the bug a bit more carefully: both of the games where I have observed the problem have been GOTMs that came from Matrix via direct download. I believe he is randomly generating the the games via V1.21 and then distributing the 4000BC save file that serves as our starting point.

I have not played any other games through to completion during this time period because I have been focused on scenario development and specific task comparison in the early game. This has been to support my theory that the player that builds the 10th through 12th cities first will almost always be the winner due to the way expansion effects all the other coefficients in the differential equation that controls game outcomes.

As soon as V1.29 comes out, I am going to scrub and see if the bug still exists.

Some of the reason that other people may not be seeing the bug might rest in how they rush initial culture in captured cities or in the culture ratios. I am grasping for straws here and have been trying to take apart some of the sav files in a postmortem using the multitool just to see if some variables reveal why the coronas seem to stay inflated.

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Sorry cracker, but I've not seen this happening in any of my games either. No help but at least some feed back for you.

CB

 

[Bamspeedy]

I think I may have seen it, but only for a second. Like resources after you get the proper tech. I don't see the resources immediately, but as soon as I scroll around the map they appear.

It looks as if they stay inflated, but as soon as I move the mouse, they deflate back. Certainly this isn't what Cracker is experiencing as the borders stay inflated after several turns for him.

 

[skaternate]

I have never seen it happen myself either.

 

[HomeAir]

I too have seen/had this bug. I don't know why or how, but it is there. Not sure if it is random or why some people seem to have it and some do not.

 

[Qitai]

Any chance your nearby highly cultured cities has expand to the 4th or 5th expansion and is helping the new cities?

 

[Dark Sheer]

I have seen this happen. And most of the time it seems to happen if you liberate a city that belong to a Civ that has been eliminated. I have always wonder if this is a feature (liberate a city and you get the old culture) or a bug. But this is something that happen lots of time.

 

[Serg]

cracker! What are the ratio of money/science/luxury and the government type at that situation when the borders are not shrinking?

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

tested it. When i take the town culture is indicated as 40/100!!!!!


I waited 1 turn, rushed the temple, then get this: