Pollution "Bug"

[Valen]

In other discussions on the topic of unstoppable pollution, it has been described as a bug.
A comparison between an emperor game and a prince game has me questioning that.
It has been established by a number of players that at emperor level, the pollution starts when you discover future tech 64.
In an old prince-level game that I've just dug out of my archives, the first hint of pollution trouble appeared when I discovered future tech 216.

It seems very unlikely to me that a software bug would be indexed to difficulty level.
I think the pollution was deliberately introduced as Sid's way of telling you that you have taken the game as far as it can go.

 

[Kernal]

Maybe it's a function of the total number of light bulbs you've accrued throughout the game?

I don't know, just a guess.

 

[Whelkman]

I'm only intimately familiar with Chieftain, but I've brushed up against Future Tech 1500 and have never triggered this scenario. It's hard to imagine that FT64(emperor) > FT1500(chieftain), especially since Chieftain is the level where Future Tech stockpiling makes most sense.

 

[Valen]

Actually Whelkman, the Chieftan's immunity to runaway pollution is another factor that led me to believe that the pollution is intentional.
When it first hit me, my impression was that Sid was telling me it's time to "get out of the pool".

 

[Dack]

Does anyone have a pollution bug sve & map file they could upload. I have never been able to trigger it.

 

[Valen]

Pollution is rampant here.
If this yields any insight into what triggers the pollution, I'm sure there are a lot of us that would love to hear it.

 

[Khilak]

What does the pollution bug do? I cannot use the saved game cause i am working...

 

[Valen]

You know you've triggered the "bug" whan a city that shows no smokestacks in the city information display generates pollution. It starts with cities that are close to the edge (20 "risk" points). If you continue to play through it, the pollution threshold gets steadily lower until all cities regardless of production, population or mass transit have a chance of polluting. At the peak, you get about half as many polluted squares per turn as you have cities.

 

[Dack]

Valen,
There has been much discussion over the years about the so-called Pollution Bug. Having never seen it in action until you post (#6 in this thread)

It appears in a quite an orderly fashion, unlike the great library bug where the program goes truly nuts.
Valen said: "led me to believe that the pollution is intentional"

Perhaps some event is weighted in such a way that it causes the make a pollution square decision to have a very large probability of being true.


Valen said: It seems very unlikely to me that a software bug would be indexed to difficulty level.
Maybe not intentional but a programming miscalculation, I’m sure that some of these scenarios were never test played.

One thing that I did discover is the location and values for the Pollution Sun Level Index 0 is none 1 to 3 is dark red, 4 to 7 is light red, 8 to 11 is yellow, 12 to 16 is white. The next transition causes a global warming event and sets the index back to 0. I didn’t study it to find out how many pollution square increment the index or how many cleanups decrement it.

The one odd thing I did notice was that the map & sve that you posted had a Sun Index of 2 in 1525AD. In the next move lots of pollution was created but the Sun Index was 1, Strange!

Valen said: (20 "risk" points).
Please elaborate on risk points.

 

[Kernal]

I know I saw a formula in a Civ 2 guide for probability of pollution. Civ 1 may be different, but since Civ 2 is more an extension of Civ 1 than anything else and shares many of its quirks like every third technology being unavailable, it may have many of the same formulas too. Anyway, the formula basically indicated that after some number that's based on your techs exceeds 256, the probability exceeds 100% and you get pollution every turn. I don't remember and no longer have the book, but maybe the "tech factor" had a difficulty-level component in its calculation as well.

 

[Valen]

Risk points:

I have misplaced my copy of Rome on 640k a day, but I kinda remember this part f it.

In each city, every shield produced counts 1 risk point. With hydro, nuc plant or Hoover, this is divided by 2 rounded down. With recyc center, it is divided by 3 rounded down. This is the production part of your pollution risk.

The population component of pollution risk depends on technology.

When you discover industrialization, every person counts 1/4 of a point (rounded down).
Discover automobile and every person counts 1/2 point.
Mass production increases this to 3/4 per person.
Finally, with plastics, every person counts a full point.
Population-driven pollution is completely eliminated if you build mass transit.

Total pollution risk is simply production points plus population points.
The first 20 points are free. After that, every point makes a smokestack.

In the scenario I uploaded, the normal pollution calculation has completely gone out the window. If you keep playing it out, you will see pollution in Berlin (no production, 4 people but mass transit). Risk is theoretically absolute zero.

Now the part of the book I've forgotten, pushing the sun symbol takes polluted squares plus time. There's a formula there, but I've forgotten it.

The symbol went to 1 because I've been using fast settlers to keep the place clean. The symbol is apparently driven by the amount of pollution you have at the beginning of a city check. Just a couple times, a few turns back, the pollution was too much for them driving the symbol to 2.

 

[Whelkman]

Now the part of the book I've forgotten, pushing the sun symbol takes polluted squares plus time. There's a formula there, but I've forgotten it.

Global Warming Formula

Eight pollution squares are enough to trigger the first bout of global warming, but the planet requires this condition to exist for a while before temperatures rise enough for tangible results to occur (i.e., the creation of many new Desert spaces). After the first time a planet is scourged by global warming, each additional bout requires two more polluted squares than the previous one (i.e., the second episode of global warming would require 10 visible polluted squares over a period of time, the third 12 squares and so on).

The Global Warming Indicator (located next to the lightbulb in the Status Window of the Map Display), will appear and glow in brightness in proportion to the danger of global warming. Note that there is a lag time between the appearance of the polluted square and the change in sun color.

Table 6-4. Global Warming Indicator

╔════════════════════╤════════════════════╗
║   [b]Sun Icon Color[/b]   │ [b]# Visible Polluted[/b] ║
║                    │       [b]Squares[/b]      ║
╟────────────────────┼────────────────────╢
║      Dark Red      │        0-1         ║
╟────────────────────┼────────────────────╢
║     Light Red      │        2-3         ║
╟────────────────────┼────────────────────╢
║       Yellow       │        4-5         ║
╟────────────────────┼────────────────────╢
║       White        │         6+         ║
╚════════════════════╧════════════════════╝

Reference List

Wilson, Johnny L., & Emrich, Alan. (1992). Sid Meier's Civilization: Or Rome on 640K a Day (p. 233). Rocklin, CA: Prima Publishing.

 

[octobertiger]

You know you've triggered the "bug" whan a city that shows no smokestacks in the city information display generates pollution. It starts with cities that are close to the edge (20 "risk" points). If you continue to play through it, the pollution threshold gets steadily lower until all cities regardless of production, population or mass transit have a chance of polluting. At the peak, you get about half as many polluted squares per turn as you have cities.

To get round it, sell every factory and manufacturingplant and have recycling centres, mass transit, hydro plants in EVERY city possible. Irrigating hills is a good idea now. You do this, pollution will be much more manageable! Plus, at this laste stage of the game you do not need super-production in all of your cities.

 

[Whelkman]

Plus, at this laste stage of the game you do not need super-production in all of your cities.

You do if you use Valen's Caravan push or even a more conservative SDI Defense tax base.

 

[octobertiger]

Okay. You have blinded me with science. Caravan push?

Maybe I was wrong. Have tested it and the pollution starts at 168 Future Tech. Selling off factories etc. doesn't help. An accident or design? Who knows.

 

[Whelkman]

One can base his entire economy upon the "bonus" income from optimized Caravan routes. Read posts by the topic creator, Valen, for details.

Wow, Firefox 3 pwns that table I created.

 

[Dack]

Fear of not having completely checked all possibilities. I won’t make any wild claims, but I submit for peer review the following.

A method for controlling the Pollution Bug

I seem to have found one of the factors in the pollution bug. In an attempt to codified the advances not offer by the Science Advisor. I found that each civilization has a counter. This counter is what is used to come up with the modular three count. That count is used to determine what choice of advances is offered by the Science Advisor I also found that only the human played has a counter for Future Tech.
Over the years people have described the pollution bug differently. I’m hoping that people who have come up against the bug will come forward with a MAP & SVE files examples.
I don’t know what other factors come into play, perhaps difficulty level. It also appears that it is variation of the advance counter value and the Future Tech. counter.

One example Future Tech. =1 and advance counter=188 you get the pollution bug in King level.

But if you are at one of the standard advances the advance counter must be much higher to cause the pollution bug.

In the sample game offered by Valen
The values are Future Tech equals 395 decimal and advance counter at 460
The next move will get the pollution bug.
Lower the advance counter to 100 and the bug goes away

As an exercise, Start any game, build a city, save the game, change the value in advance counter to 2049, restart the game next move the pollution bug starts.

I have only academic interest in this, as I never chase the year or the future tech counter.
So for you who are interested here are the particulars:
All address are hexadecimal offset into the SVE file 0000 being the first word.

0002 human player 0-7
    	
Each civilization has an advance counter (number of advances)
04D8     (2 bytes)    0 Barbarian
04DA                  1 Russian    / Roman
04DC                  2 Babylonian / Zulu
04DE                  3 German     / French
04E0                  4 Egyptian   / Aztec
04E2                  5 American   / Chinese
04E4	              6 English    / Greek
04E6	              7 Indian     / Mongol

8BAC                 human player future tech value

The next release of CIV$ may offer a way to manipulate these values. There is a excellent hex file editor, and for free I might add at Freeware Hex Editor XVI32 *


note: further discussion in post #18 of Help, what's the logic on what your wise men can research?

*Edited 01Sep10 to corrected invalid link. The link original offered was incorrect. Funny that no one spoke up about it. Shows how much interest there is in the repair of the pollution bug

 

[jpciv]

Hey Dack, check your gmail inbox, I sent you a couple of pollution bug save files by replying to the TerraForm Request For Registration Key email

 

[awie]

I have run into this bug several times when trying to get a very high score. I hadn't noticed that the trigger was reaching furture tech 64 in Emporer mode. That seems to match my expereince, so is very useful info for my next attempt.

I recently was inspired to edit further Holgar Eichmann's CivMap.PAS code that Dack kindly ported to working in DosBox (yay!). Now when I press 'm' the whole world is irrigated, railroaded and turned to oasis or grassland as appropriate. Pollution is also removed but this doesn't prevent global warming.

For you interest, attached is such a world (based on the Earth map) with the pollution bug just kicking in and making a 126 city world pretty much unplayable.

CIVIL0.MAP and CIVIL0.SVE
also a much earlier version of the same game should anyone wish to experiment.
CIVIL2.MAP and CIVIL2.SVE

 

[Noddy]

I have run into this bug every time I have big playthrough on emperor level. I think arounf future tech 60. So has anyone found an easy work around? Is it possible to edit a save file to reverse the bug? How can I lower the advance counter in my save game?
Thank you very much in advance.