Nasty bug/exploit with Wealth

[T-hawk]

So I was sitting in the bathtub, when my thoughts turned to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri ("SMAC" to its friends), and the number of bugs still lingering in the game. The worst of which was known as the "Stockpile Energy" bug (SMAC's equivalent of Civ 3's "Wealth"), and to my horror I realized it, or rather its converse, probably still exists in Civ 3. I ran downstairs to test, and it's confirmed in 1.21f.

Here's the bug: Set a city to Wealth. Commerce happens at the BEGINNING of upkeep each turn, before food/shields are processed in any city. So at the first Zoom To City chance you get, scroll ahead in the city list (by pressing right-arrow) and change a Wealth city to something else. Voila - you got credit for BOTH the money from Wealth and the shields for that turn. To make it even worse, when you switch off Wealth, you seem to get the Wealth income as shields in the box for free as well!

If the city was producing 80 shields, you'd get 20 gold income, 20 shields in the box when you switched off Wealth, and then it would produce the 80, all on the same turn. This obviously needs to get patched...

Was this known? I haven't heard of it before.

 

[Sanaz]

I just tested, and I definitely got the cash at the beginning of the turn and then all of the production shields when I switched production at the beginning of the turn. I do not have a saved game handy where I can accurately test the wealth being converted to shields also - in a city with 10 shields of production, I got 10 shields towards a pikeman, not the 11 I would expect if this were true. Could be rounding, though, so maybe a larger production city would be different?

 

[Machi]

Ahhahh AHAHA HAaaa! Man if all the bugs weren't funny, it would be sad.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

T-Hawk, thax for pointing this out! never heard of it, and this will go in the new FAQ section "Known Bugs" with credit to you soon!