MAJOR Civic Bug

[Lord Parkin]

Found in Warlords. Could potentially be in vanilla too, I don't know.

Holy heck... I just encountered this while playing two multiplayer PBEM's simultaneously.

Basically, I had just switched civics in one PBEM (which is about at the gunpowder era). I then ended the turn, sent off the save, and loaded up my other PBEM (which was just getting started, in the early ancient era). I noticed something fishy when I saw I was in Anarchy in this new PBEM (I hadn't converted to anything). I then looked up the civic screen and... holy heck!

Also attached is the save with undisputable evidence of the bug. Please PM me for the password (this is an ongoing duel PBEM after all so I don't want to ruin it by potentially letting my partner get into my savegame ).

 

[Great_Scott]

You cheating man you.

 

[alexman]

This is a save you made after you encountered the problem, right?

If you have the first save you loaded and the second save you loaded after that, please post them so that I can recreate the problem. I tried from scratch and I could not get it to happen.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Okay, sure. You'll need to PM me for the passwords of both games (they're different).

Emp vs Elk PBEM: 1205 AD switched to Theocracy and Serfdom. Ended turn, sent.
Emp vs Thalatta PBEM: 3400 AD loaded up in-game from inside the Emp vs Elk PBEM, noticed the civic bug.

Note that by just loading the Emp vs Thalatta PBEM without first going into the Emp vs Elk PBEM, everything is as normal.

 

[alexman]

Strange, doesn't happen for me. Can you reproduce this systematically, or is it a one-time thing?

 

[Lord Parkin]

I haven't tried doing it systematically (I just play the game, don't work as an exploit-hunter). But if it can happen once it can surely happen again...

 

[alexman]

The problem is that it doesn't even happen once for me.
Does it happen every time for you when you load those two saves?

 

[Lord Parkin]

How are you loading my saves if you don't have the password?

Just checking, I can't seem to repeat the circumstances either. Although I had been playing for a very long period of time when this occured (6-8 hours), constantly loading in and out of games, alt-tabbing back to email, etc. So perhaps it was a result of that.

Either way, I still stick by what I said... if it can happen once, it can happen again. I'll try to pinpoint exactly how it might have happened at some stage, but right now I don't have the time.

 

[Chieftess]

Try to reproduce it again, with both you and your opponent writing down a step-by-step log of what actions you took. (like what trades you did - some civs ask you to change a civic, who you're at war with, etc.)

 

[Lord Parkin]

No trades or wars were made. These are both Duel PBEMs, so there are no AI either.

Try as I might, I still can't seem to reproduce what happened. Ah well, it's sure to pop up again at some time in the future when I least expect it, and I'll note what I did then.

 

[DaviddesJ]

How are you loading my saves if you don't have the password?

Do you really want him to tell you? That would rather ruin the password protection for everyone reading the forum.

When Alex built the game, he gave himself a way to bypass password protection. But that can't be public or it would defeat the point of the passwords.

Either way, I still stick by what I said... if it can happen once, it can happen again.

Unfortunately, we have no evidence that it happened once. The screenshot could be from the other game. If you had actually switched civics in 3400 BC, and played on another turn, and saved the game with the advanced civics, then we would have the evidence. As it is, it looks like you were tired and just got confused about which game you were in.

 

[alexman]

No, it's not only the screenshot, the first save game posted is definitely messed up.

And there is no way to bypass passwords in the retail version of Warlords. I have a different version.

 

[Lord Parkin]

It just happened again, under different circumstances. This time, I did NOT change civics in the first game before loading the second game (although I do remember checking into the civic screen, then checking out without changing anything). Once again, it happened when I had alt-tabbed out of the first game after ending my turn, in order to email the save to my duel partner, then got back into that game and loaded up the second game from there. Once again, the civics that were changed to were the ones which were in place in the first game at the beginning of that turn. This time I had not had my computer on for ages - the first game was the first one I had loaded up since turning on my computer.

Weird, weird indeed...

 

[Bungholio]

doesnt look like it effects the game a lot. Anyway the writing looks like blood.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Two more occurances: One of them it wasn't me who it happened to, but the Incan player.

 

[Lord Parkin]

As I have just realised, the EVG Warlords PBEM 1 save will appear to be fine when you view it, since it is not in itself bugged. (The "Bugged Game" save between Roland Johansen and I does indeed contain the civic switch bug occurence, though.)

The Civic Bug is, however, even worse than I first imagined. Previously to playing the EVG Warlords PBEM 1, I had been in a different PBEM, playing as Huayna Capac myself. I had built the Pyramids, and was in Representation in that game. As far as I can tell, what happened was that the civics from my Huayna in that game somehow got transferred to the other guy's Huayna in the EVG Warlords PBEM 1 game (I noticed because of the civic switch message in the game). Presumably, the similarity of the leaders could be significant to the cause of the bug, I'm not sure.

This is serious... this means that not only can a player accidentally switch his own civics through the bug, but a player can accidentally switch someone else's civics through the bug. Not good...