Massive cultural bonus from espionage

[Aquila SPQR]

I always play with "no espionage" so espionage is converted to culture, but I've never experienced such situation before. My neighbor is literally eating up my tiles like crazy and there is nothing which could justify such huge boost (some of his buildings give small culture boost from espionage, but it should be few points at best, not so many). When I look at my cities my bonus from espionage is at about +50. In other civs I have envoys - about +25, +30... This guy (Cyrus) has +451. Has anyone experienced it too? Because I just can't understand what's going on. I'm playing 1082.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

Anyone? I modified buildings to generate no espionage points (I play with no espionage so I'm fine with it) but that huge bonus still exists. The problem is I have no idea where it comes from. If that particular city gets +451 additional culture points from espionage - and I see literally no source of espionage points - then where it gets those points from?

I saw there's a "end of espionage" mod (unfortunately it's using CvGameCoreDLL so it's above my humble abilities to edit) which changes this:

if (GC.getGameINLINE().isOption(GAMEOPTION_NO_ESPIONAGE))
{
if (eIndex == COMMERCE_CULTURE)
{

iRate += m_aiCommerceRate[COMMERCE_ESPIONAGE];
}
else if (eIndex == COMMERCE_ESPIONAGE)
{
iRate = 0;
}
}

to this:

if (GC.getGameINLINE().isOption(GAMEOPTION_NO_ESPIONAGE))
{
if (eIndex == COMMERCE_ESPIONAGE)
{
iRate = 0;
}
}

But I have literally no idea what it means and what it really changes. Does it mean that even without any espionage points from buildings, wonders, specialists and great people - cities still get some espionage points that are converted to culture under "no espionage" option?

It's literally the first time I experience something like that. I played thousands of AND games and never had any problems with no espionage option. Now I invested a lot of time in my latest game and it became unplayable because of that (that's why I prefer to try to fix it than start anew). My border cities have all cultural buildings built and are producing culture and it's still David vs Goliath here (140 my culture per turn vs 600 their culture per turn).

 

[Aquila SPQR]

Since I had no idea how to fix it - I saved my curent game in WB and restarted it hoping that my changes (removing espionage bonus from all buildings, wonders, great people, specialists and civics) would delete any espionage points from the game. I was hopingthat no espionage points = no espionage points converted to culture = no cultural bonus from espionage. On the first turn after that this massive cultural boost dropped from about +500 to about +2, in one case +12. I still had no idea why one city had +2 and another one +12, but that's the bonus I can live with. Borders returned to normal. Three turns later:

I totally understand +2 from religion and +54 from buildings. I totally understand why there is 56 base culture. I know why there's +10% from buildings and +50% from civics. But why FFS suddenly they get +41.60 every turn from espionage? There's no espionage slider. There's no espionage points from buildings anymore. There's literally no source of I can think of.

 

[Vokarya]

The -483 base commerce is weird too. Did you try a recalc with Ctrl-Shift-T? Otherwise you should probably post your current save game so it can be looked at.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

I did few adjustments to xml files when I noticed it (removed espionage bonus from buildings, civics, specialists etc.) so the game was asking to recalc when I was loading the save - I was always choosing "yes". And I don't know if posting save would actually work (compatibility) because I always tweak gamespeedinfo.xml and few other files to make the game much slower and change few other things as well (changes to buildings, small changes to handicap, enabling tech slider from the beginning etc.). I did it many times before but never experienced anything like that.


Currently I try to understand the mechanism responsible for that bonus from espionage in a situation where it should be totally disabled (no source of espionage points visible). It seems there's some hidden source of espionage which gives additional (huge) culture boost when "no espionage" is turned on. I have totally no idea how it works because I always play with no espionage.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

It's simply UNBELIEVABLE. I've decided to change the tactic. If AI gets the massive bonus out of nowhere from nonexistent espionage - I decided to remove espionage entirely from the game and disable the "no espionage" option. My logic was "if I remove every source of the espionage points then even if I enable it - it'd be still a no espionage game". Playing with espionage enabled should remove the "culture from the converted espionage points", right?

F****G WRONG.

No building gives espionage points anymore. No specialist or great person gives espionage points anymore. There's no espionage slider at all to allocate some of your budget to espionage - I removed that possibility. I even changed the "can build espionage" in cities so it produces 0 espionage points. Literally all sources of espionage points are gone. When I play now with espionage turned ON - I don't have that "+X from " I saw previously because playing with espionage mechanics turned on - there's no such bonus.

So it worked, right?

Now look at the numbers. +2 from Religion. +54 from Buildings. Base culture = 56. + 10% from Buildings, additionally +50% from Civics so Total Culture = 89.60

And the city gets +124.80 per turn. There's still some hidden bonus giving that particular city additional 35.2 culture per turn. 35.2 culture per turn with absolutely NO explanation where it comes from. Of course none of my cities have such bonus and I see nothing about it in the handicap xml file (some AI civs do not have that bonus, only some of them, so I doubt it's related to handicap).
It also fluctuates because on the next turn they still have Total Culture = 89.60 but per turn they now get +134 overall. Ten points more than on the previous turn. With NO visible source of that additional points.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

From a quick glance at the code you posted above, I'd say that for some reason when NO ESPIONAGE option is selected, at least part of the espionage commerce points are converted to culture. I don't know why and I don't know what else might be affected by this, anyway it's not something that has been changed in the last years at least.

 

[Vokarya]

Have you tried looking in WorldBuilder with the chipotle cheat code enabled? Maybe that can find something. That's about the only thing I can think of.

 

[Vokarya]

Something else I discovered: almost all culture producing buildings have their culture production continue after they go obsolete. That 35.2 culture per turn, divided by 1.6, is exactly 22. I wonder if there are a bunch of obsolete buildings in that city granting culture.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

I used "chipotle" but to be honest I had no idea how to gain any additional info by using it, so I just reinstalled AND completely because I considered that previous game unplayable thanks to that incredible AI culture boost. After reinstalling I made only basic changes to xml files (increased tech costs a bit, tweaked AI tech rate a bit etc). I started new game with espionage ON and everything looked fine. Until I saw this:



Two Japanese cities just grabbed a tile which is 7 tiles away from them and 2 tiles from my developed city full of cultural buildings. I've checked them and:



57.40 culture per turn from normal sources and additional 554 culture per turn OUT OF NOWHERE. The second Japanese city has slightly less culture per turn, about 500 instead of 611.

My city generates 50 culture per turn.

This problem still exists and to be honest I still have no idea why it's there. I do not recall having issues like this ever before. I'll try to remove all cultural buildings via worldbuilder from them and see what will happen, but I hope you understand why situation like this is quite unplayable.

EDIT:

I removed all buildings giving that city culture and nothing. It still magically gets more than 500 culture per turn out of nowhere.



It happens at later years - maybe the whole "doubles culture after 1000 years" causes it? But it should also work like that in my own cities and it doesn't. This unfair bonus is present only in AI cities so far.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

I removed that "doubles culture after 1000 years" thing from all buildings, loaded a save, recalculated, but it did nothing. Maybe it would fix the problem on a completely new game, but after investing many days into another broken game I don't really feel ready to invest so much time again (just to find out it's also broken and unplayable).
But so far I think that this "doubling culture after 1000 years" would be my best bet when it comes to what causes it. It would explain why the problem do not exist in the first turns and why it accumulates later. It would also explain why some AI civs have bigger such bonus, some other smaller and some other ones - none such bonus at all. It would also explain why the problem vanished after I created new scenario in WB and started playing it and why this problem returned after playing some time. It would not however explain why only AI get it. And it wouldn't explain why this bonus points still exist even when there are no cultural buildings at all present in the city.

When I started editing xml file to remove it I was shocked how many buildings were doubling culture after 1000 years. It was so many of them that I had to use "find and replace" command instead of doing it manually. I changed about 30 such lines manually and then about 120 automatically by "find and replace". If it doesn't work properly - it could produce a massive amount of "hidden" culture points.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

I also noticed that this bonus is not constant per empire - it varies from city to city. For exmaple Japanese capital has 141 culture from "normal" sources and additional about 100 from this unknown source while other cities have +400 or +500 additional culture points from unknown source. Aztecs have the same bonus - much greater in their old cities they founded themselves and much smaller in cities they conquered later.

BUT for some reason player number one in my current game - Victoria, do not have such bonus at all. Her capital city has 61 culture per turn, everything as it should be, absolutely no unfair, unknown points out of nowhere.

EDIT:
I checked old cities of my most developed civs on map:

Asoka - no bonus at all
Gilgamesh - absolutely RIDICULOUS bonus:

233 from normal sources and more than 2000 culture per turn OUT OF NOWHERE.

Qin Shi Huang - very delicate bonus, about additional 10 point per turn.
Genghis Khan - no bonus at all
Suleiman - no bonus at all
Bismarck - no bonus at all
Ramesess - very tiny bonus (about 10 points)
Louis XIV - no bonus at all
Tokugawa and Montezuma - large bonus (from +200 to +500).

EDIT AGAIN:
It's so ******ed I have to literally take a long break from Civ IV. I've checked all cities of Gilgamesh. One of his city gets additional more than 2000 points per turn out of nowhere. Most of his cities get about 1100 additional points out of nowhere. And his capital city... gets only 50 points out of nowhere. WTF!?

 

[Aquila SPQR]

God damnit, I loaded the earliest save I had - going back slightly less than 1000 years ago. And no civ had any bonus out of nowhere. Gilgamesh is getting exactly as many culture points as he should. No magic points out of nowhere. Meanwhile about 800 years later - he gets up to 2000 points out of nowhere.
"Doubles culture after 1000 years" theory has its flaws (it does not apply to all civs on map) but it's the best theory I have right now. Actually it's the only one I have.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I can tell you that nothing has been changed in the code in the last 2 years at least that might cause this problem. I'm having a look at the code but I can't ser anything causing this behaviour.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Which revision are you using? I might try releasing an experimental dll based on current rev1087 dll for you to try, if you're willing to check if the problem gets solved.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

I'm using 1082, it was the latest one with an installer when I downloaded it not so long ago. I decided I won't use that svn thing because I prefer simple installers. I've just noticed that right now there's 1087 installer available, but I'll try to fix my current version before I'll finally give up and install a new one (with even slower techs my games last for weeks - just as I love, and that's why I would like to salvage my current game than to start a new one).

Since it is the problem only I'm experiencing and I'm having it only in my recent games (never had it before) it may suggest it has something to do with my own xml changes. But I am tweaking civ iv for years and none of my changes should result in this. I've never played with revolutions before though, so I'm not sure about that component.

Right now the plan is simple - I'll convert my latest save into scenario and start a new scenario. It has drawbacks (diplomacy reset, great people points reset etc) but it should give me a fresh start. Last time I did it the problem vanished at first, but then started growing again (some AI cities started to get this bonus out of nowhere - small at first, but slowly growing). This time I have "double culture after 1000 years" removed, so maybe it'll never happen again if this is the cause. If it fails - I'll download the latest rev installer, tweak xml a bit (it's necessary, I can't play such fast games even on "eternity") and start again.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

I think I've found at least one of the sources of "out of nowhere" points. It's specialists and great people. I don't know why, but suddenly all specialists and great people in the city generate +4 per turn. And those points are not shown in the summary. In some cities that's exactly the number of points "out of nowhere" and explains them all, but it doesn't explain why some cities with only 5 or 6 specialists suddenly get +1000 per turn.

I also don't know why they get +4 if president civic gives only +2 per specialist. I'll remove that bonus from president and see what will happen. But that would also explain why this thing happens late in the game and only to some civs - when some civs are switching to president. And it would explain why different cities in the same empire have different bonus - because they have diferent number of specialists.

(sorry for posting it all but it'll help me find my notes later. I hate when I google for some solution, find a thread describing the exact problem I have and then the author writes only "ok, I fixed it, close the thread" without writing how he fixed it)

 

[Aquila SPQR]

OMFG I fixed it. It was specislists and great people! I noticed that in all cities which had this massive bonus out of nowhere each specialist/great person was giving additional +4 per turn. These points were not visible in the summary I was posting earlier. I noticed that presidency civic was giving +2 per specialist so I removed that bonus, loaded the save and recalculated. It fixed the bonus in Japan. Absurd +500 perturn disappeared, values are exactly like they should be. In Sumer this bonus "out of nowhere" was cut in half - in this city with nearly +2500 per turn it dropped to about +1200 per turn. But I also noticed that specialists in Sumer were still giving +2 per turn. It turned out it was due to Sistine Chapel. I removed the +2 per specialist bonus from the Sistine Chapel and... all this "out of nowhere" bonus disappeared. IT SEEMS IT'S FIXED.

But I have no idea why this bonus existed in the first place, because I've never altered any xml file related to this. Maybe it's because I make my games longer by increasing tech costs and this bonus is smaller (more difficult to notice) in your games.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

Not for long. I fixed this the most annoying thing, but now I have an unavoidable CTD on a specific turn. Increading UPT limit worked in all previous situations like this, but not this time... Which log file may contain some useful info?