FfH2 Bug Thread

[Emptiness]

I'm sorry for suggesting this and not just doing it myself. You hypothesized that the interaction of the tiger and the terrain might be a factor. Maybe somebody should check the terrain which the tiger is standing in or entering in each of the various saved games which are available as examples of the "tiger bug".

It's actually the improvements, rather than the terrain, that would be the difference. I used the wrong word. I can see the base terrain of the tile the Tiger is on, and of the tiles it would move through on the way to where Gereth Minar would be (if I could see it), but the improvements (and Gereth Minar) are not displayed because of fog of war. Its unlikely that this is related, but I was grasping at any straw to explain this odd phenomenon.

Your suggestion prompted me to try some other things. I loaded the save again and placed a Sheaim Hawk on the mountain 2N+1NE of the Tiger, exited worldbuilder, and then deleted the Hawk (without exploring). The result was an update of the improvements immediately surrounding the mountain, including the tile with the Adept, but no change with respect to the tile with the Tiger or any of the tiles through which it would move to reach Gereth Minar. I expected this would not prevent the crash, and would be the baseline for further investigation, but I was surprised when in fact this did prevent the crash. I was so surprised that I checked it again (confirming that it fixes the crash), and then retested the unmodified save to be sure that it still crashes (it does). In frustration, I worldbuildered a Sheaim Hawk onto the ice near the south pole and then deleted it - which also fixes the crash.

At this point my theory is that using worldbuilder to place any unit modifies the random number progression (either pulling a random number off the generator or else reseeding the generator) and that the crash is influenced by the RNG (either a bad value used in some calculation results in a crash, or else the action that triggers the crash doesn't take place because the decision to take that action depends upon a random result).

 

[Breunor]

Emptiness,

Make sure you check out post 2878 - this confirms that the improvement may have an impact on the tiger bug, it did in this case.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Inkling]

At this point my theory is that using worldbuilder to place any unit modifies the random number progression (either pulling a random number off the generator or else reseeding the generator) and that the crash is influenced by the RNG (either a bad value used in some calculation results in a crash, or else the action that triggers the crash doesn't take place because the decision to take that action depends upon a random result).

forgive me, but some things that came to mind.

can you confirm that people experiencing this bug have "preserve random seed enabled" i disable it, which may be why i have never gotten it(repeatable)

speaking of the RNG, do you have any units that can trip the RNG without substantially changing the rest of variables. as i recall thats a goody hut, a dungeon, or a battle, so i am guessing no...

i recall(can't check at the moment) that you could remove fog of war through the world builder without adding a new unit. i guess you could also trade maps(i'm assuming that technology is available to you by now, but i think that would trip the RNG. so its not a precise test)

lastly, has anyone just gone in and changed the terrain without altering anything else, add improvements, remove improvements. preferably ones that wouldn't affect the movement rate of the unit, or increase/lower the defense... 2878 mentions wiping both armies and terrain...

 

[Emptiness]

Emptiness,

Make sure you check out post 2878 - this confirms that the improvement may have an impact on the tiger bug, it did in this case.

Best wishes,

Breunor

I loaded up Nikis-Knight's original save (from post #2872), but it does not crash for me. There are several Ljosalfar units that are waiting for orders, so I just fortified them and clicked end turn. I also tried just clicking end turn (without giving any orders), but that also does not crash. Is there something specific I should be doing with those units to invoke the crash?

can you confirm that people experiencing this bug have "preserve random seed enabled" i disable it, which may be why i have never gotten it(repeatable)

I do not use the "New Random Seed on Reload" option. If the RNG is involved in this bug then people who do would probably have trouble finding repeatable crashes caused by this bug. Using random seeds would not be a solution, however. Ideally we would want to identify and eliminate the cause of the crash. Being able to reload and continue after a crash is better than being unable to continue, but eliminating the bug will mean there won't be a crash at all.

i recall(can't check at the moment) that you could remove fog of war through the world builder without adding a new unit. i guess you could also trade maps(i'm assuming that technology is available to you by now, but i think that would trip the RNG. so its not a precise test)

I'm not sure how to remove fog of war with the worldbuilder, but I can look around and try to figure it out. Trading maps was not an option in my particular situation, because I'm very much at war with everyone with which I have contact. I now suspect that the fog of war aspect of this situation is unrelated to the bug, since placing and then deleting a Hawk on the far side of the map was able to fix the crash.

 

[Nor'easter]

22. Added the Son of the Inferno unit (ungraded form of the Disciple of Acheron).

I guess you meant to write "upgraded" rather than "ungraded"?

 

[Breunor]

Emptiness wrote:


I loaded up Nikis-Knight's original save (from post #2872), but it does not crash for me. There are several Ljosalfar units that are waiting for orders, so I just fortified them and clicked end turn. I also tried just clicking end turn (without giving any orders), but that also does not crash. Is there something specific I should be doing with those units to invoke the crash?



Breunor - Interesting, this is really weird. No, it crashed for me just hitting end of turn, but it took about three turns.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Inkling]

I do not use the "New Random Seed on Reload" option. If the RNG is involved in this bug then people who do would probably have trouble finding repeatable crashes caused by this bug. Using random seeds would not be a solution, however. Ideally we would want to identify and eliminate the cause of the crash. Being able to reload and continue after a crash is better than being unable to continue, but eliminating the bug will mean there won't be a crash at all.

I'm not sure how to remove fog of war with the worldbuilder, but I can look around and try to figure it out. Trading maps was not an option in my particular situation, because I'm very much at war with everyone with which I have contact. I now suspect that the fog of war aspect of this situation is unrelated to the bug, since placing and then deleting a Hawk on the far side of the map was able to fix the crash.

didn't mean it as a work around, just a way to isolate the problem. incidently, some information of note

the tiger i see, doesn't have hidden nationality, more over, they are at peace with the bannor with an open borders agreement, so he isn't attacking the adjacent adept, (atleast the only one i see)and removing the adept didn't help anyway.
infact, i went so far as to do nothing but add so many promotions to the tiger that he coulnd't possibly loose a fight, which succeeded in halting the crash, though he quite clearly killed nothing.

there is a war party from garrim making his way to the faeryl lands, but it doesn't appear they can meet that turn, and the cat shows no signs of wanting to solo the army anyway. so it shouldn't be combat related

revealing the territory from the world builder didn't help, and building on what you did, i added a unit to the lunan, way off on the other side of the continent, and it didn't crash. so yeah, adding a unit, even to an uninvolved third party so far from the problem it shouldn't affect it, seems to resolve the problem.

changing the script the animal was using worked also

edit: i take that back, changing the script twice from UNITAI_ATTACK to UNITAI_Animal resulted in a crash, which begs the question, what the heck did i change it to the first time.

i'm out of time, may play with it more later.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Elohim Archmage by Esvath should be incorporated too, imo, it'd be a pain to constantly change the artfiles with every patch.

New Acheron changes are interesting.

 

[esvath]

Yes, yes she should

On a more serious note, I think the religious units (at least Leaves and OO Priests) also should be included...

 

[Lone Wolf]

On a more serious note, I think the religious units (at least Leaves and OO Priests) also should be included...

The RoK ones are amateurish, but all others are great.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

patch K looking very interesting so far!

one note: I'm pretty sure the Lanun Adept is still using the same model as the Lanun Warrior. Esvath created some great model for Lanun spellcasters as well, they should be used imho... well, actually I think they're all good, or at least better than current placeholders

 

[Emptiness]

The Lanun Adept and the Lanun Warrior look nothing alike.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

umh, I'm pretty sure there was a cosmetic bug that made the Lanun Adept look like a warrior, and I haven't seen it fixed in changelogs, then again it might have been fixed but not showed up on the changelog due to being considered minor.

edit: ah, now I remember. I'm an idiot. it's not the models that look the same, but the ICONS that show up in the build screen.

 

[Nor'easter]

21. Added the Disciple of Acheron unit (fire caster that will occasionally spawn from Acheron's city, chance based on difficulty).
22. Added the Son of the Inferno unit (upgraded form of the Disciple of Acheron).

Apart from having commented on the typo, I did want to say that this looks interesting. What are these units' stats?

 

[clearbeard]

Kael's response in hidden within this thread somewhere (is only a million within million pages to search), but the jist of it is that if you save your great ppl up to the point in the game and then do that ritual then you deserve the reward. Slaves are more or less an artifact of this same thing, and may be considered a bug. This "bug" I hope is the very last thing on his list if he even considers it an issue...

Couple this with the Grigori worldspell late in the game, and it becomes a bit ridiculous. My one Grigori game I did just that, and ended up with more that 50 GP's that I could use twice. I used a bunch, then saved enough Engineers to build all 4 lesser towers and the Tower of Mastery in 2 turns (1 for the lessers, then 1 more for the win).

It's low priority, sure, but it's quite an exploitable "feature" nonetheless.

 

[Kael]

Couple this with the Grigori worldspell late in the game, and it becomes a bit ridiculous. My one Grigori game I did just that, and ended up with more that 50 GP's that I could use twice. I used a bunch, then saved enough Engineers to build all 4 lesser towers and the Tower of Mastery in 2 turns (1 for the lessers, then 1 more for the win).

It's low priority, sure, but it's quite an exploitable "feature" nonetheless.

I have a certain fondness for using different mechanics together to do something cool. So I tend to favor that when I think about these sorts of issues.

But here are my thoughts.

In order to do this you have to save your great people until late into the game. This means that you miss out all they could have been doing for you throughout. A bonus from a GP specialist occurs every turn, a GP sitting in a city waiting does nothing. An early academy or rushed wonder helps immensly in the early game, not so much in the late. Especially since you have to survive the early game to get to the late.

As for the grigori, I almost feel like this is a punishment if this is used with them because it means you have GPP other than adventurers.

So in my mind its a cool and possible effective strategy, but I dont think its an exploit. Its hardly something players would have to outlaw in PvP games.

 

[Nor'easter]

Patch j, getting a repeatable crash at the end of the turn, just hit "Enter" and wait. It'll take a few minutes, because it's late in the game (Turn 608) on a Huge map with 17 civs (started with 19).

The crash will happen after you hear the sounds of spellcasting, I think some kind of a summon, so might be related to the Tiger bug, I don't know.

 

[Rystic]

21. Added the Disciple of Acheron unit (fire caster that will occasionally spawn from Acheron's city, chance based on difficulty).
22. Added the Son of the Inferno unit (upgraded form of the Disciple of Acheron).

This makes me feel, in some happy way, that Cult of the Dragon lives on...

 

[aimlessgun]

Patch j.

During Illians stasis, Gold per Turn deals between civs are still active. In my current game, Arendal Pheadra was giving me 18 gpt for a resource, and Capria 8gpt.

Over the course of Stasis their powergraphs dropped precipitously. Like...they lost 80-90% of their troops. Without being at war. I am assuming that the GPT deals bankrupted them, and they were forced to disband their armies. Flauros was giving my 5 gpt and experienced no shift in his graph, probably because he had enough cash on hand to handle 60 turns of -5 gold.

Basically Stasis seems to have the ability to completely decimate opponent armies if they are not smart enough to cancel their GPT deals. Not sure what the solution would be, whether to find a way to make the GPT deals do nothing or program the AI to drop all GPT deals when stasis goes up.

Attached is a save of the game late in the Stasis.

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

This makes me feel, in some happy way, that Cult of the Dragon lives on...

Ditto!!! may work well with my little mod mod...