G-Major 20

[IglooDame]

I would ask that others check this out and see if I may be on to something. If so, to avoid the wrong type of victory, what you need to do is end the last turn normally, with an Enter key instead of shift-enter, or clicking on the end of turn button when it is red only.

IglooDude, could this be the reason for your Domination?

I am just about to spool up the saves and go through the various checking, but I can answer this one right now - I never shift-enter or click on a green end-turn button in Civ4. If there are units to move, I let the game cycle through them (hitting spacebar for each if nothing else) until the "hit enter to end turn" dialog comes up, because otherwise I've probably forgotten to move something.

 

[Denniz]

I would think "Normal" behaviour for the program would be to check for a Time victory last. So when more than victory is possible and you get a Time victory that is probably the bug.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Wow, I cant believe I managed to finish this one. Pretty much on autopilot since the 1600's, when I left 1 AI (Hanni) untouched. I miscalculated and took too many cities but I was able to give a few of my own to the AI so I was just below the Dom limit all the time. He did a good job going for space, his engine was due in some 8 turns after 2050. No fancy rushes in the end, just end-turn all the way. Some 12k final score in Warlords.

 

[IglooDame]

I just went in and reloaded the game from 4 turns out, ran through it quick but roughly the same as the original, and got a Time victory this time. Two differences that I can see between this one and the original ending.

- I (accidentally) let both remaining civs live with a single city each, in the original only one civ survived the final turn.
- I loaded up the save that was created automatically on exit of the previous session, in the original I loaded up the save that I created 'manually' immediately prior to exiting.

In both games I launched the game and loaded up the save from the menu without playing any other saves first.

I just eliminated the above two elements from being a cause of the bug. I loaded up the 4-turn-out manual save (i.e. the one I used in the original game), played it out, eliminated one of the two remaining civs and took the other one down to a single city, made another manual save, hit enter to end the turn, and got a Time victory.

The only remaining possibility is that I eliminated one of the two remaining civs without at that point going over 60% land as I started planting settlers after that - perhaps eliminating a civ on the final turn triggers a Domination victory condition check earlier than it normally would? I'll run it one more time to eliminate that possibility, but if that isn't it, I'm well and truly stumped.

 

[IglooDame]

The eliminate-civ-before/after-going-over-60%-land item appears to be it - I once again ran the 4-turns-out save, but this time took Ramses down to one city, settled some settlers (sending me over 60% land), took Charlemagne down to one city, settled the rest of the settlers, then eliminated Ramses final city and ended the turn, and got a Domination win again.

Attached to this post is a save from 2 turns out - anyone who wants to, download it and play the final turn any way you want and see if you get a Domination, Conquest (if you eliminate both civs, the units are available to do so during the final turn), or Time victory.

 

[pholtz]

I would think "Normal" behaviour for the program would be to check for a Time victory last. So when more than victory is possible and you get a Time victory that is probably the bug.

I'm not sure what you are saying. Many many HOF submissions show that Time is checked before Domination. Several submissions to this very Gauntlet also show that. Some, like IglooDude's show abnormal behavior.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I would think "Normal" behaviour for the program would be to check for a Time victory last. So when more than victory is possible and you get a Time victory that is probably the bug.

This is a confusing statement when compared to your earlier statement where you said ...

Sorry guys. We go by the Victory Condition that Civ4 awards. Anything else would be chaos. ...

Clearly Civ4 should simply award a Time Victory on the "maximum" turn as defined in Civilopedia*. To allow other Victories on the "maximum" turn would be an invitation to Chaos and would clearly undermine the meaning of a Time Victory.

* Civilopedia (from the Warlords 2.13 version) defines "Time Victory" in the Game Concepts/Victory section in a paragraph titled "Time Victory" as quoted below:

Time Victory

The game ends at a specific turn, usually 2050 AD. The civilization with the highest score at the end of that turn wins.

Note that the Time Victory is listed first, so any implied order of checking for victories should check for the Time Victory first. Since the Time Victory is always awarded at the end of the "maximum" turn, no other victory can be awarded at the end of the "maximum" turn.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[WilliamOfOrange]

I am in the last 50 turns or so...homestretch baby!! I am getting absolutely hammered with global warming and it is hurting my pop. Is there something I should know about to stop it? China dropped a few nukes before we could ban them and it took a while to get into the hostile territory and clean it up. Could that be it?


EDIT:

Well, after 32 hours, I too, got a stupid domination victory on the last turn. I hit the green button if that matters to anyone. I can't be bothered to settler spam next time. I just want a Major Gauntlet and now I have to go for it again. I have the week off for Carnival, so it should not be a bad thing.

Things I learnt, avoid Ethanol Corp....switching everything to Cereal later is a waste....plus you want to get big ASAP for UN votes...I lost Caste System as a result, so there is much to improve next round.

 

[pholtz]

Back home after a long drive, taken a nap, so hope I have the energy to finish this Gauntlet

As far as the end of game bug, it seems somewhat random, but a few things seem to increase the chance of it happening.

Forcing end of turns
Conquests

Since one of the main points of the HOF and Gauntlet is to maximize your score, I don't see not doing any city takeovers or settling as an option. I will compromise a bit by not finishing off any civ and being careful not to force the end of the last turn. I'll see if I can calculate the points I gave up.

In my opinion, anyone who has a last turn save (or end of the 2 turns to go save) that shows that no other victory has been accomplished, should get their game accepted into this gauntlet, as IMHO, it is obviously a bug that is causing the unusual victories. If you have gotten to the last turn, then you have a TIME victory, by definition!! At that time, you have passed all the TIME victory tests that you have any control over, avoiding the Domination and the Cultural Victories and preventing any AI win. (I am assuming the player has the highest score). The game is essentially over, the TIME victory is assured, and the play should focus only on maximinzing their score.

If the bug hits me, I will replay the last turn, until I get a TIME victory, submit it, and fight like hell to get it accepted along with all others who have been bitten by this bug. If I avoid the bug, well good for me, but I will continue to support anyone else bitten by the bug, to get their game accepted.

I think the next step in squashing this bug is to play a quick Settler Duel game to the last turn without the HOF mod and see if the bug still occurs. If no one else does this, I'll give it a try after I finish the Gauntlet. I also need to play more with my last turn save I posted a while back and with IglooDude's save. I will do what I can to track down the bug and will be glad to help any staff member, or any other player, doing the same.

 

[Harbourboy]

I'll be about 20% short of the domination mark by the time I finish, so no chance of that accidental domination bug affecting me. I think my strategy is therefore the best and I should be awarded first place.

 

[pholtz]

I'll be about 20% short of the domination mark by the time I finish, so no chance of that accidental domination bug affecting me. I think my strategy is therefore the best and I should be awarded first place.

 

[FiveAces]

I think the randomness (until the cause is isolated) of the bug is unfair as you have IglooDude's game and somebody else's played fundamentally the same way but he gets a Dom and the other person gets a Time. However I don't see much that can be done about it since if the game were accepted the HoF would be overriding the Civ4 VC, which doesn't seem right.

pholtz - a word of reasoning - you do not have to risk being bitten. If you want to settler spam to increase pop, do so on the last turns within your own territory. You are aware of the existence of the bug (unlike IglooDude) and the mods have already indicated they will not override the Dom VC if that's what the game comes up with. So you (and others too) may want to consider if it's worth risking making dozens of hours of gameplay worthless for the sake of a few final score points.

 

[pholtz]

Finished! and it was a Time victory.... the first try

I left a couple of cities unconquered. I was seeing about 3 points per population, so two size three cities, reduced one for the conquest.. one added for the specialist, means only 6 extra pop or 18 points.

I accidently left two cities size 4 or 5 unconquered also as I forgot to move into range with 2 turns left. So I had three unconquered AI's at the end.

I made sure to move every unit, or give them a sleep order, and put something in the queue for each of the cities. I dont' know if that's why I got the time, I had well over the domination limit on land, but its a thought if you still have this game to finish.

Oh, I had 348 future techs and the final adjusted score was 21491.

 

[FiveAces]

Congrat's and a good score. Looks like I'm down to #5 now.

 

[pholtz]

pholtz - a word of reasoning - you do not have to risk being bitten. If you want to settler spam to increase pop, do so on the last turns within your own territory. You are aware of the existence of the bug (unlike IglooDude) and the mods have already indicated they will not override the Dom VC if that's what the game comes up with. So you (and others too) may want to consider if it's worth risking making dozens of hours of gameplay worthless for the sake of a few final score points.

Thanks for the advice. But when I conquered the AI's cities, my land area expanded to go over the domination limit. Also taking a size 10 city was worth another 30 points or so, I estimate I took about 100 population? more with the settler spam? I didn't count, so I would have had to give up lots of points to avoid the bug. As it was I just gave up 18 or so, and managed to get a TIME anyway. My final statistics screen showed almost 80 hours, but I play the game in a window, often take a break, do some web surfing, forum posting etc. or even leave the computer running while I do chores or even go to a movie. So I think my actual time playing the game would be 1/3 - 1/2 that, even so, that would have been lot of time to see wasted.

I consider it unfair for people be forced to give up points because of a bug, when others, now including myself, "got away" with the settler spamming.

 

[FiveAces]

Agree. But an interesting phrase you used - "got away". Makes me think of conquest/dom games, where somebody gets a good time b/c they "got away" with 5 straight 50% combat wins (or something like that). Maybe this is the Time equivalent of that.

 

[pholtz]

Agree. But an interesting phrase you used - "got away". Makes me think of conquest/dom games, where somebody gets a good time b/c they "got away" with 5 straight 50% combat wins (or something like that). Maybe this is the Time equivalent of that.

I used "got away" because of some of the Staff messages indicating that getting a Time Victory the way I did even I was over the Dom limit was the bug. Also because of the unfairness of the end scores if some people go over the dom limit successfully and others get punished for doing so.

I don't think this is equivalent to winning 5 straight 50% combats. That is a random possiblity designed into the game. This problem is a bug, probably caused by some variable being overwritten. Since this problem didn't seem to exist until very recently, it was probably introduced by the latest BTS patch or HOF patch.

 

[BLubmuz]

Dammit, my game was EXCLUDED!!!
Perhaps i made some mistake after i reset the PC, but all my questions to Denniz to try to recover or to have a hint about my mistake fell.
I really don't know if i'll have time for another attempt, 20 to 30 hours of gameplay, added to the time needed for a good start and so on it's a long time. bahhhhhhhhh

 

[Denniz]

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Friaxis add a 20 turn delay in conquered cities counting towards Dom limit for the MP crowd? I am wondering if that might account for some of the variable nature of things.

 

[pholtz]

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Friaxis add a 20 turn delay in conquered cities counting towards Dom limit for the MP crowd? I am wondering if that might account for some of the variable nature of things.

The 20 turn delay does impact the scoring. When you settler spam the last turn, you don't get any more points in score for land, but you do get points for the new population. I also saw my percentage increase immediately as I took cities when my "suppressed" culture expanded. Also you get the points for the population of a newly conquered city immediately. I don't know how or when the single tile of the city is counted for domination.

But I don't think it accounts for what we are seeing. We are all under the Domination limit at the start of the last turn. I'm sure all check the victory screen to see what their land percentage is. And I think that all agree that you get the Domination victory as soon as the percentage on the victory screen exceeds the limit at the end or start of any turn, excepting the last turn.

Then we all either conquer or settler spam the last turn. In my tests I got both Domination/Conquest and Time victories starting from the same saved game doing the same thing, or so similar that I could not tell the difference. As I stated before I thought the differences were due to how I loaded the saved game, but now think it has to do with forcing an end of turn the last turn or possibly a change in the order of a conquest or new city. It seems that if you change somehow the processing of the last turn, a variable is overwritten causing a somewhat random change in the victory. I hope to run more tests in a few days to see if the problem occurs in BTS without the HOF mod.