Okay, here’s a big compilation post of a few things I’ve noticed over the last month or so of playing. I’m on the J patch, so some of these things may have already been fixed, but I figured I’d compile a list anyway. Hopefully at least some of these may not have been brought to anyone’s attention before.
#1: This is from a game where my girlfriend and I were on the same team against non-teamed AI. Here we don’t seem to be able to trade any techs TO Auric Ulvin, even though we are much more advanced than him. Why not?
Proof that we are more advanced – he can research Iron Working even though we’re researching Mithril Working.
As a side note, I notice Mithril Working both reveals and enables the Mithril resource. I presume this is intentional? It’s just that it doesn’t follow the previous pattern of one tech reveals / another tech enables (i.e. with Copper and Iron).
#2: Don’t have a picture of this one, but when I learnt the prerequisite tech for Caste System, the dialogue box that asked if I wanted to switch to Caste System listed its BTS benefits (Unlimited Merchant/Artist/Scientist, +1 hammer from Workshop). The civics screen shows the correct FFH2 bonuses of Caste System though.
#3: The AI seems to have a bug where it will not settle its capital unless its Settler has full movement points. Here you can see an example, where the Settler has moved to the location the AI has decided to settle in with movement points to spare, and yet it does not settle until the following turn. Before:
After:
#4: Relating to the same images, the AI seems to pick abominably crappy starting locations quite often. Just look at the image above. He could have easily moved to claim a seafood resource as well as the Sheep and the hills, and yet didn’t.
#5: Minor one here, and not sure if this is a bug. A Scout (2 movement points) can only move 1 tile per turn through regular desert, since that terrain has a high movement cost. Fair enough. But it can move 2 tiles per turn through desert with scrubs. Huh? Does this make sense?
#6: Ancient towers seem to be slightly bugged with their line of sight properties. In the screenshot below, you can clearly see that I can see Sandalphon’s unit. However, I have not met him in-game because the game apparently does not recognise that I can see this unit. I do not meet him until a few turns later when his unit gets within a tile or two of mine.
#7: Possibly not a bug, but in team games some events seem to occur several times in rapid succession. For instance, my girlfriend got the “+1 food or +1 commerce in farm tile” event one turn, then immediately again the next turn. I’ve also noticed the “werewolf/shut the gate or don’t” event coming up twice in a row for one player. Is this a bug with team play?
#8: With the Lurchiurp world spell it is easy to get Engineer points coming in such that two or more cities will cross the threshold for producing a Great Engineer by the same amount in the same turn. I noticed that what seems to happen, however, is that in this circumstance only one Great Engineer gets produced, but the threshold for the next great person goes up by double the usual amount (e.g. 100 to 300), as if two Great Engineers had been produced. Now I’m not 100% certain of this, but it’d be worth testing to make sure this isn’t the case, and if it is, then it needs to be fixed.
#9: AI sometimes seems to refuse to send a Settler out to settle despite excellent land and numerous guards. See the example below: Varn has had this settler for DOZENS of turns, but has not sent it out despite having several AWESOME spots to send it to (e.g. 2 Gold + Fish + Clam + flood plains, or Copper + Fish + Clam + flood plains). Something must be wrong with the AI risk evaluation or something.
#10: Pagan Temple does not give +1 happiness from Incense.
#11: In team play, Lurchiurp steals this Fish tile (which they cannot work) from the Kuriotates (who CAN work it), effectively rendering the tile useless for both teammates. Something is wrong with the border prioritising for Kuriotates in team play: they should always get priority to tiles within their 3-radius limit over a teammate with 3-radius culture in that plot.
#12: Probably not a bug, but I’ve noticed that Acolytes spread like wildfire. At least half the time they spread a religion to one of my cities, I seem to get a new Acolyte with it. I guess this is game design?
#13: What IS a bug is that me and my girlfriend noticed that if we gift an Order city back and forth between ourselves (both being in the Order), we’d continuously generate new Acolytes with most of the gifts. This probably needs to be addressed, or you could feasibly get players having “infinite Acolyte spam” in multiplayer team games by continuously gifting an Order city back and forth in the same turn.
#14: The AI tends to spam units the entire time while building no buildings, which leads them to quickly be left behind on all but the highest difficulty levels. Even worse though, they don’t use these units sensibly. Take Tebryn here. We’ve got him down to one city, and he’s got a formidable stack (several actually) of Pyre Zombies. Good for him. But he only leaves 3 or 4 in his capital, while the other 50 or so patrol his borders. As a result, when I declare war with my Centaur army, I simply march on the capital and take it in 1 turn, eliminating Tebryn and all his 50 other Pyre Zombies from the game. Sure I could have turned on “Require Complete Kills”, but the AI should value defending its capital more than patrolling its borders in the first place. Especially if it’s such a ridiculous ratio of 4 troops defending the capital while 50 patrol the borders.
#15: Barbarian units sometimes seem to completely ignore the AI while heading straight for the human player. Take the example below. I presume this Axeman is indeed a barbarian unit, since he does not have the Hidden Nationality promotion. This is just one of a dozen or so who would wander through Mahala’s territory towards mine without causing any damage to her. Mahala does not have the Barbarian trait either, so I don’t understand this behaviour.
#16: Here I cannot purchase the Alchemy Lab in the event, even despite apparently having all the prerequisites. It later occurred to me that I may have needed a tech to be able to select this event. Even so though, if this is the case the option should say in red: “Requires X technology”.
#17: Just for the hell of it I explored a lair in the first few turns, and my Scout got the Enraged promotion. Cool. Except… the AI just timidly sent him back to the capital to hide. Doesn’t seem very “enraged” to me. Maybe it’s a bug with not having much territory explored? Either way, seems like this needs to be addressed. Otherwise I never have any chance of getting my Scout back, because he’s not going to win a battle sitting in the capital.
#18: What does “We Long for the Open Country” mean? All I can guess is that it’s somehow related to civics, because I just changed this turn, but it’s not very specific at all.
And if it’s related to civics, then why isn’t my Pillar of Chains cancelling out that anger, as the description promises?
#19: I think this bug’s also in BTS, but it’d be good if it’d be fixed. Basically, sometimes the cultural borders of a nation will remain in place for a few turns after they’ve been destroyed. See below. It fixes itself after a few turns, but before that happens it’s quite annoying (slower movement, slower healing, inability to use tiles, etc).
#20: The Overcouncil seems bugged. The “total votes” number is larger than the number of nations actually voting. The consequence being that nothing can ever pass in some games. Just a couple of examples:
In the above, the “Required” number should have been 2 or 3 out of 5, not 4 out of 8, and as a result the resolution fails where it should have passed. Where the heck are the 3 phantom votes, anyway?
The above one is even worse. EVERYONE who could vote yes, did so. And yet, there are somehow 6 phantom votes in there which means that nothing can ever be passed any more. Seriously, NOTHING can be passed, because there are only 3 of us voting, and we require 4 votes! What the hell?
#21: My Hill Giants from Pact of the Nilhorn seem to get the Heroic Strength + Defence I and II promotions after Nature’s Revolt. That’s pretty neat. Is it intentional though? They’re not exactly “animals” by my reckoning.
#22: Hyborem spawned partway through the game on a tile (formerly) just outside my borders, but 2 tiles from a city (too close to found). Then he just sat there for the rest of the game, doing nothing. None of his units moved, none of his Settlers settled cities. This seems like a pretty major bug. Sure I started with a few extra civs, so the world’s a bit crowded, but there’s still plenty of space along the bottom left part of the map. Why didn’t he spawn there, so he’d actually be useful, as opposed to a pathetic joke of a civ with no cities or anything? Even assuming there was nowhere for him to spawn, why didn’t he use his worldspell immediately to claim a city for his use? Or even declare war on me and bust up a few cities to make room for himself? All seems a bit silly to me.
And just for the sake of it, here’s another screenshot a few turns later to prove he’s still doing nothing.
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That’s all I have for now. Sorry if this post has been rather longwinded!
I must say though that all the issues are few and far between, and on the whole the mod is truly excellent. I congratulate all of you guys on creating such a fun and awesome fantasy world for us to enjoy!
