HOF Questions and Answers Thread

[Denniz]

Wow... that is so opposite of what I've always assumed.

It will certainly be a big timesaver to be able to move units before clicking regen without manual saving some crappy-looking start with interesting fog (compared to as I do now.... making save, then moving units, then clicking regen). I personally do not trust my autosaves folder from bad experiences.

As mentioned by Sun Tzu Wu, we prefer the initial save to be before moving and settling. People like to see what you started with. And as shulec mentioned, the Mod's have options to automatically create save files including the initial save. We tried to make it easy for folks not to forget.

 

[Habitus]

I've just registered and are going to attempt my first game for HoF (Challenge V Game 4). I downloaded Map Finder and used it to find some starts, I found out after this that the SS that Map Finder takes in Vista doesn't work unless your in Windowed mode. I would just like to know that if i open the save, settle, move warrior but save before end of turn so i can make a test game and try to optimise my start does this cause problems due to multiple sessions on Turn 0? I'd assume with the SS i could make a test game before opening and so only have the initial Map Finder session before i started playing the real game.

 

[Denniz]

I've just registered and are going to attempt my first game for HoF (Challenge V Game 4). I downloaded Map Finder and used it to find some starts, I found out after this that the SS that Map Finder takes in Vista doesn't work unless your in Windowed mode. I would just like to know that if i open the save, settle, move warrior but save before end of turn so i can make a test game and try to optimise my start does this cause problems due to multiple sessions on Turn 0? I'd assume with the SS i could make a test game before opening and so only have the initial Map Finder session before i started playing the real game.

As long as you play the map only once and always resume play from a save made at the end of the previous session, there shouldn't be any problems.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

As long as you play the map only once and always resume play from a save made at the end of the previous session, there shouldn't be any problems.

Each session, except the turn 0 one by MapFinder still need to be at least 30 minutes long, right?

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Ozbenno]

Each session, except the turn 0 one by MapFinder still need to be at least 30 minutes long, right?

Yes, that's right.

 

[babaBrian]

Yes, that's right.

Wow, interesting.

The text of the rules state:
We recommend that you aim to play sessions of at least half an hour in duration. Submissions with play sessions less than half an hour risk rejection.

I assumed if I played 20 minutes before work, but maybe not a half hour, as long as I wasn't cheating, it would be accepted.

What is the text that gets emailed when rejected for the 30 minute reason? If it is something along the lines of replaying turns, that may explain why some of my submissions have been strangely accused of replaying turns. If not, then it means I flub up my saves as often as you say I do I'm sure at least half of my rejects are legitimately for that reason.

 

[Ozbenno]

If a game was rejected for short playing sessions, the email would say so.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

On the final turn, an AI gave me a 2 Pop city (liberated it, since it surrounded by my Culture on 5 of the 8 adjacent plots or so I would assume).

My in-game (personal) HOF recorded a total Score of 49987, but my HOF submission notes only a Score of 40529. The game is #23557.

Please explain why Beyond the Sword awarded me a Score of 49987, but the HOF submission noted a Score of only 40529. These scores have always been identical until now.

Thanks,

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Denniz]

On the final turn, an AI gave me a 2 Pop city (liberated it, since it surrounded by my Culture on 5 of the 8 adjacent plots or so I would assume).

My in-game (personal) HOF recorded a total Score of 49987, but my HOF submission notes only a Score of 40529. The game is #23557.

Please explain why Beyond the Sword awarded me a Score of 49987, but the HOF submission noted a Score of only 40529. These scores have always been identical until now.

Thanks,

Sun Tzu Wu

I don't really have an answer. As far as I know, we don't calculate the score. We take it from the final save file. The only thing I can think of is that the Final Score didn't include the bump you got from the gift becauee it took place after the victory was determined. Personal HOF might be pick things up after the post victory screens. Do you remember the sequence of messages you got?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I don't really have an answer. As far as I know, we don't calculate the score. We take it from the final save file. The only thing I can think of is that the Final Score didn't include the bump you got from the gift becauee it took place after the victory was determined. Personal HOF might be pick things up after the post victory screens. Do you remember the sequence of messages you got?

Well, Ramesses II offered to give the City at the end of the turn before the win was announced, but the player can't respond to the offer until the beginning of the next turn. The RL DV vote should not be tallied until the end of the turn in which the vote was solicited. It really should have included the Population of the gifted City, except it didn't have the TAP Religion in it any way.

I'm not entirely sure how the Score is computed, but my Score of 49987 was shown as part of the Win report screens, after I was offered the city by Ramesses II.

If you load the final save from submission #23557, you will see that the Score is 49987 and not 40529 as reported in my now accepted game. There appears to be a bug in the HOF software that accepts submissions, though certainly one that rarely raises its ugly head. By hovering over the player entry in the lower left corner, you will see that score from Population is based on 8 Population, but my capital can account for only 6 Pop, so it seems likely that the difference in score is the extra 2 Pop from the gifted city.

The HOF submission software claims my score is 40529, but that is obviously incorrect since the file I submitted has never reported any final score other than 49987 on my machine. I'm afraid the discrepancy in score is probably the result of a bug in the submission software which you may want to investigate. The final AutoSave includes the query of accepting the city offered and shows a Raw Score of 534 before accepting, but the file submitted was manually saved immediately after the win report screens and has a Raw Score of 586. Note that its not possible to hover over the Raw Score of 534 in the final turn (the victory screens intervene) before accepting the city, but if it were possible, it would likely show as 40529. However, BtS would never record this score as 40529, unless the player rejected the free city.

Would you like my final autosave so you can investigate? It might be interesting to see the score after rejecting the city offered.

Here is the autolog entries generated when accepting the city offered in the final autosave file:

Spoiler :

Logging by BUFFY 3.19.003 (BtS 3.19)
------------------------------------------------
Turn 47/330 (1180 BC) [29-Jun-2011 20:22:16]
Diplomacy: Ramesses II (Egypt) offers to give the city Hieraconpolis to Sun Tzu Wu (China)
Diplomacy: Sun Tzu Wu (China) accepts gift of Hieraconpolis from Ramesses II (Egypt)
Traded for Hieraconpolis (Ramesses II)

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Denniz]

Well, Ramesses II offered to give the City at the end of the turn before the win was announced, but the player can't respond to the offer until the beginning of the next turn. The RL DV vote should not be tallied until the end of the turn in which the vote was solicited. It really should have included the Population of the gifted City, except it didn't have the TAP Religion in it any way.

I'm not entirely sure how the Score is computed, but my Score of 49987 was shown as part of the Win report screens, after I was offered the city by Ramesses II.

If you load the final save from submission #23557, you will see that the Score is 49987 and not 40529 as reported in my now accepted game. There appears to be a bug in the HOF software that accepts submissions, though certainly one that rarely raises its ugly head. By hovering over the player entry in the lower left corner, you will see that score from Population is based on 8 Population, but my capital can account for only 6 Pop, so it seems likely that the difference in score is the extra 2 Pop from the gifted city.

The HOF submission software claims my score is 40529, but that is obviously incorrect since the file I submitted has never reported any final score other than 49987 on my machine. I'm afraid the discrepancy in score is probably the result of a bug in the submission software which you may want to investigate. The final AutoSave includes the query of accepting the city offered and shows a Raw Score of 534 before accepting, but the file submitted was manually saved immediately after the win report screens and has a Raw Score of 586. Note that its not possible to hover over the Raw Score of 534 in the final turn (the victory screens intervene) before accepting the city, but if it were possible, it would likely show as 40529. However, BtS would never record this score as 40529, unless the player rejected the free city.

Would you like my final autosave so you can investigate? It might be interesting to see the score after rejecting the city offered.

Here is the autolog entries generated when accepting the city offered in the final autosave file:

Spoiler :

Logging by BUFFY 3.19.003 (BtS 3.19)
------------------------------------------------
Turn 47/330 (1180 BC) [29-Jun-2011 20:22:16]
Diplomacy: Ramesses II (Egypt) offers to give the city Hieraconpolis to Sun Tzu Wu (China)
Diplomacy: Sun Tzu Wu (China) accepts gift of Hieraconpolis from Ramesses II (Egypt)
Traded for Hieraconpolis (Ramesses II)

Sun Tzu Wu

There is a bug somewhere. Whether it is in the game (my thought) or the Civ4 save file parser will take some researching to figure out.

My thinking is that there is a set of fields that are the "Final" values recorded at the point of victory. (i.e. final turn, final date, final score, etc.) If you play on, the running score can continue to grow but the final score is fixed. That is what I have to find out. It should be in the save file parser where the value comes from.

I am thinking that the "final" score is set at begin of turn. The gift came after. I find it interesting that the score in the hover text says that it is the score if "you win that turn". The fact that the autosave had the lower raw score seems to support the theory that the "final" score got recorded at that point. I will try to look at it this weekend.

Please send the autosave to hof.civfanatics@gmail.com.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

There is a bug somewhere. Whether it is in the game (my thought) or the Civ4 save file parser will take some researching to figure out.

My thinking is that there is a set of fields that are the "Final" values recorded at the point of victory. (i.e. final turn, final date, final score, etc.) If you play on, the running score can continue to grow but the final score is fixed. That is what I have to find out. It should be in the save file parser where the value comes from.

I am thinking that the "final" score is set at begin of turn. The gift came after. I find it interesting that the score in the hover text says that it is the score if "you win that turn". The fact that the autosave had the lower raw score seems to support the theory that the "final" score got recorded at that point. I will try to look at it this weekend.

Please send the autosave to hof.civfanatics@gmail.com.

The offer comes from the turn before the winning turn, but the player is forced to answer the offer at the beginning of the following turn before win processing, before he gets the requester informing him of the win. Obviously, Ramesses II has to complete his turn, before the RL DV vote count can be made and this is where his offer of a city gift is generated. The player must answer the offer, before the win processing. It appears that the game considers the forced queries at the beginning of the winning turn as part of the game. One has not yet been given the choice of continuing past the win, so everything before that must be considered part of the win. Only things that happen after the player says they want to continue to play should be excluded. So, in my opinion, BtS is computing the final score correctly in this case and the HOF submission software is not.

I have sent the final AutoSave file to the address you provided with an empty subject line by mistake (mail clients shouldn't send e-mail without a subject line unless one insists, but they do so anyway).

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Denniz]

The offer comes from the turn before the winning turn, but the player is forced to answer the offer at the beginning of the following turn before win processing, before he gets the requester informing him of the win. Obviously, Ramesses II has to complete his turn, before the RL DV vote count can be made and this is where his offer of a city gift is generated. The player must answer the offer, before the win processing. It appears that the game considers the forced queries at the beginning of the winning turn as part of the game. One has not yet been given the choice of continuing past the win, so everything before that must be considered part of the win. Only things that happen after the player says they want to continue to play should be excluded. So, in my opinion, BtS is computing the final score correctly in this case and the HOF submission software is not.

I have sent the final AutoSave file to the address you provided with an empty subject line by mistake (mail clients shouldn't send e-mail without a subject line unless one insists, but they do so anyway).

Sun Tzu Wu

I looked at it at little over the weekend. I saw enough to know that it could be a bug. Not totally sure yet. I see a passed in score value and a calculation from land, pop, etc. I need to track things down a bit to see which part of the code is driving what we store in the database and where it gets it values from.

 

[Rockin_T]

Before this last update I submitted a Duel Marathon Noble Culture game which was accepted. When I filter hall of fame for bts it shows up, yeah I was filling a hole. I had picked Louis and Great Plains map since I am missing those in my Elite QuattroMaster for Noble. But when I go to the status tab in Elite QuattroMaster and filter for Noble nothing is showing for France or Great Plains map. Is something wrong or am I missing something.

Thanks...

 

[shulec]

Before this last update I submitted a Duel Marathon Noble Culture game which was accepted. When I filter hall of fame for bts it shows up, yeah I was filling a hole. I had picked Louis and Great Plains map since I am missing those in my Elite QuattroMaster for Noble. But when I go to the status tab in Elite QuattroMaster and filter for Noble nothing is showing for France or Great Plains map. Is something wrong or am I missing something.

Thanks...

Duel games do not qualify for EQM.

 

[Rockin_T]

I was wondering about that. Thanks.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Alright I am getting an error that says my assets aren't the same as they should be, and with Ozbennos help I found that I am missing the .FX files. But the Asset Checker will only recognize them if they are in a folder in the Shaders folder named FX, while CIV BTS on the other hand won't start unless they are in a folder named FXO in Shaders. But when they are in FXO I get the same error that I got in the first place.

So how do I fix this problem of mine?

 

[Denniz]

Alright I am getting an error that says my assets aren't the same as they should be, and with Ozbennos help I found that I am missing the .FX files. But the Asset Checker will only recognize them if they are in a folder in the Shaders folder named FX, while CIV BTS on the other hand won't start unless they are in a folder named FXO in Shaders. But when they are in FXO I get the same error that I got in the first place.

So how do I fix this problem of mine?

You need both a FXO and a FX folder. FXO files come with BTS. The FX files are something that were there in an early patch and then went away. I don't remember if they are the same files or not. You may need to reinstall to get the FXO files if you didn't save them.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

You need both a FXO and a FX folder. FXO files come with BTS. The FX files are something that were there in an early patch and then went away. I don't remember if they are the same files or not. You may need to reinstall to get the FXO files if you didn't save them.

Damn then I gotta find my discs.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Is the submission system down? I am trying to submit a game (can select saves etc.) but no response from server when hitting the "submit" button.