RAND Absurbaties/Abnormalaties Bugs and game play errors

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Here is a list of absurdities, omissions or bugs I've noticed. Its not a comprehensive list, nor reason for change, but please give it some thought.

1. Laboratory - Available with Chemistry, BUT builds 50% FASTER with Chemicals. Chemicals are only available with Plastics, in the Next Era altogether. The Chemical plant national wonder (3 Available) I feel this production boosting resource is available too late.

Solution - Move Chemical plant from Plastics to Chemistry. (seems logical to me)

2.Some buildings are making us Happy, is actually duplicated.

Spoiler :

Solution - Merge the two listings together.

3. Court Magistrate event, where they have over stated your state treasury, is WAY WAY WAY to low a penalty. 41 Gold, is NOTHING.

Solution - Make it 41% (O.K. maybe that's too high, but +20% at least.) I did get it twice in under 10 turns at Eternity speed.

4.Research Stock broking, suddenly you can't build Caravans anymore, all builds are cancelled and gold into build it refunded, and there is no replacement unit.

Spoiler :

But you will find you can resume building Caravans, so this is an actual bug.

Solution - Remove the obsoleting lines of coding.

5. Tech diffusion is easily manipulated.

Spoiler :

Here you just leave a tech that the AI's will Beeline un-researched altogether, and they will be stagnated for many turns. As well with tech diffusion, you get it at a 50% cost (Immortal level, eternity speeds)

Solution - Hmm This merges with the next on on tech diffusion, maybe make it a % of Era tech's researched, or % v's number of tech's you exclusively know? hard to code I know, very difficult to fix

6. Tech diffusion - I personally feel its gone too far the other way.

Spoiler :

Before gaining a leading Tech.



After gaining a leading Tech.

Solution - Maybe I should just suck it up at Immortal level, but at lower levels, what is the rates of tech diffusion?? Is it as high as this, or lower?? Please adjust for level played, if it hasn't already been done, if has been done Thanks

7. Between paved roads and railway's, there is no transportation boost. Its a long gap research wise, and the marked change is +3 to +10 movement. There is a +1 Road movement.

Spoiler :

This is available with Automobile, I feel it should be moved way earlier in the Tech tree.

Solution - Toll way's or Highway's between cities only.? - Move it to Cartography, that seems a good fit, ability to design maps, for easier transport and plotting of trade routes. Plus you have no penalty for movement through peaks. Move this feature and enable it?

Spoiler :

9. Transports, the naval variety. - These can only be built using Oil products, and not Oil its self. You need to build a Oil refinery to produce oil products. It can't be build using a Oil resource, BUT The steamer can be built using both Oil and/or Oil Products.

Solution - Change Oil products to Diesel oil, and allow transport to be built using both. Or change to using Diesel only!! (No oil products, leave this at Plastics.)

Also on the steamer, its top speed is only 4, v's 5 for its predecessors in the frigate, Man - O - War (ok its only 4), Ship of the line. (5 speed)

Solution - Upgrades should be UPGRADES Not slow downs. Make frigates speeds of 4, along with Ship of the line. Promotions are Promotions.

10. Early Tanks, v's Modern tanks V's the Future version (hybrid,plasma etc)
Early tanks were SLOW (talking WW1 here) go no faster then walking pace) Where as the current "Modern tanks" the M1 Abraham T76 etc can go at 60+ KM's /hr in combat speeds if not even more?

Solution - Reverse the speeds, the early tank should only go at +1/2 speed, the Modern at +2/3 and the Future at +3/4 to truly reflect the evolution of speed v's armour.

11. Meteorology gives +1 to flight, But hover has a ship icon.

Solution - Fix the hover to say "+1 to shipping" and reflect that in the shipping if it hasn't been done.

12. What's with "high explosives" What are "High explosives" in the game and what units actually have this ability.

Solution - Either a High explosives promotion is created, or an ability like "lead by war lord" is created for these units, given at a tech such as "Organic Chemistry." (TNT's creation),

Additional wonders.

Maybe a wonder as well, the Noble prize awards/Award. This gives a scientific boost to research in all cities or to all Scientists. +3 Beakers per Scientist. World ('s) or National wonder. (singular)

Thoughts for comment, discussion and modification if seen as needed.

*Edit*
11. Meteorology - It has a +1 hover for aircraft, but uses a ship icon.

Solution -
a) Change hover to reflect +1 to shipping. Remove the +1 to shipping from refrigeration, Ice storehouse, should morph into an ice box, which morphs into a Refrigerator with ? Logistics/Electronics/Consumerism/Globalization.
b) IF its meant to be for Aircraft, change the icon. Now Meteorology needs to be moved/swapped with Flight, as its giving +1 to Aircraft, which you can't build as yet. Or move the airship to Thermodynamics. ?

13. Resource spawning - The odds of spawning a resource need to be fixed to game speed/length, Empire size and possibly difficulty level as well. Playing an eternity game, I seem to spawn a resource nearly every turn on average, mind you I control a full continent.

Solution - Scale the odds of spawning a resource to the game speed, Empire size and difficulty level as well.

14. Building of sea food resources - As you can't spawn sea food, shouldn't you have the ability to build a sea food resource. Build a marine reserve, which has some odds of spawning a fishing resource, or marine resource such as clams, pearls, crabs etc.

Solution - Construct a marine reserve, in which seafood resources can be spawned, at 1/2 of land?

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

1. and possibly 2., I'll let Vokarya answer these ones.
3. ok, easy, I'll do it.
4. I'll lool into it but it doesn't depend on obsoleting.
5.&6., that depends on mapsize/gamespeed and especially handicap level. I'll see how to fix it.
7. I think it's ok the way it is now.
There's no 8.
9. Mmm, not sure.
10. Vokarya's playground
11. Ok
12. It's already been explained what's "high explosives", dig in the forum. Possibly we'll make it more explicit when we have time
13. Depends on settings, still working on it
14. Not a priority right now.

 

[Spirictum]

Wait a minute. Honestly.

Haven't you foreseen this 45°? You proposed to make Techdiffusion become even stronger then it was before.

Of course that happened because:

- Look at his score
- Probably all those AIs have less then 90% his total tech points
- They have several bonuses and discounts at Immortal level (and the techdiff multiplier is applied on the output directly)

Having a score 4 times the second best score means this guy will have a boost of at least 4x his research rate. If he gets it, then it's because he has less then 90% of the leader's tech points, so he will get another boost because of this. The 'Multiple Civ Knowledge' part of this won't make much effect in this situation.

He was doing in 15 turns, he passed the turn, now he would do in 14, then get this /4 and we have 3.5 turns. So the AI reworked its output and now will do in 3 turns. It's making total sense with the formula provided.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I've seen and I think I know what's going on but no time to explain now. I hope I have some time during the weekend.

 

[Vokarya]

Here are my explanations:

Laboratory
Laboratory building faster with Chemicals is to give you an advantage for getting new cities up to speed. The cities you have around when you get to Chemistry should be able to build Labs the slow way. It's the new cities founded during the late Industrial that should get some help.
I also do want to work with the requirements for the various Chemical resource-producers. I don't think they should all be concentrated at Plastics.

Multiple Happiness Text Entries
This is a DLL problem in CvGameTextMgr.cpp. There are three calls to the TXT_KEY_HAPPY_BUILDINGS text.

The first is at line 17341. I think this is to calculate raw building happiness, including bonuses from other buildings (like Casino + Las Vegas Strip).

iHappy = (city.getBuildingGoodHappiness() + city.getExtraBuildingGoodHappiness());
if (iHappy > 0)
{
	iTotalHappy += iHappy;
	szBuffer.append(gDLL->getText("TXT_KEY_HAPPY_BUILDINGS", iHappy));
	szBuffer.append(NEWLINE);
}

The second and third uses are together, starting at line 17397:

iHappy = city.area()->getBuildingHappiness(city.getOwnerINLINE());
if (iHappy > 0)
{
	iTotalHappy += iHappy;
	szBuffer.append(gDLL->getText("TXT_KEY_HAPPY_BUILDINGS", iHappy));
	szBuffer.append(NEWLINE);
}
iHappy = GET_PLAYER(city.getOwnerINLINE()).getBuildingHappiness();
if (iHappy > 0)
{
	iTotalHappy += iHappy;
	szBuffer.append(gDLL->getText("TXT_KEY_HAPPY_BUILDINGS", iHappy));
	szBuffer.append(NEWLINE);
}

I think it's supposed to be the top section is for Area Happiness (like Notre Dame), and the lower is
for World Happiness (like Carhenge). I really don't know for sure.

Steamer and Transport
Steamer is an upgrade from Galleon, which is a transport ship, and not an upgrade from warships. It's the same speed (speed 4) but can be faster because it does have Ignore Terrain Movement Costs so it covers ocean squares faster without having to spend a promotion on Maneuvering I. It does have more Strength and cargo capacity than the Galleon it's replacing. It does have some small downgrades in that it picks up Can Only Defend (but I think by that point you should have the ability to build enough warships to do your fighting) and gets the +1 gold/turn maintenance that all powered ships have.

I am fine with Transport requiring Oil Products, and not being buildable with just Oil. Transport is classified as a Diesel Ship, and that's what Oil Products are supposed to represent; the cruder Steamer can run off raw Oil, but not a Transport. Also, I don't want to rename Oil Products. I actually think this sounds better, as it's a good catch-all for diesel, gasoline, asphalt, and anything else that might come out of oil refining.

Caravans
Were you starting and stopping production of Caravans? It looks to me like what happened was not Caravans going obsolete, but you building the last one you were allowed. Caravans are a National Unit, and you can only have 5 of them on the board at a time. If you had some Caravan production going in other cities when you built your 5th, then you would lose the other ones. The game only checks the count of units at the beginning of each turn, which is why it looks like they disappeared right after you got Stock Brokering, but I think they are really disappearing for other reasons.

 

[Spirictum]

I've seen and I think I know what's going on but no time to explain now. I hope I have some time during the weekend.

You think you know what has happened? You're probably not talking about what I said, because I explained what happened and fits perfectly.

Which BTW isn't a problem IMO. What would you expect from Tech Diffusion coming from that Massiveness that he is? Of course others deserve this high tech diffusion from him, he has 4x the second best score, and is an entire continent, bigger then the other that hosts all other players. For me it's clearly fair

 

[JosEPh_II]

You think you know what has happened? You're probably not talking about what I said, because I explained what happened and fits perfectly.

Which BTW isn't a problem IMO. What would you expect from Tech Diffusion coming from that Massiveness that he is? Of course others deserve this high tech diffusion from him, he has 4x the second best score, and is an entire continent, bigger then the other that hosts all other players. For me it's clearly fair

@45*,

As Spirictum is pointing out Ipex has 67 cities vs the Siamese at 23 cities.

Now If IPEX is getting benefits from Tech Diffusion then Clearly something is wrong. But if the AI in his game are getting the benefits of TD then there really isn't a problem. And as for playing on Eternity game speed in AND, That is really stretching things for balance. Also IPEX is in a massive Golden age (he still has 137 turns left!).

Edit: Maybe Eternity Gamespeed should be reconsidered for AND as to if it's a viable Game speed at all.

JosEPh

 

[Vokarya]

With regards to unit speeds, I feel those are a necessary fudge for gameplay purposes. Otherwise, a tank that had really high movement points would be able to annihilate huge stacks of enemy units in one turn thanks to innate Blitz. So I think we should bring Light Tank down to 3 (it's still at 4) and bring Panzer down to 3 as well, but leave the rest where they are.

 

[Spirictum]

@45*,

As Spirictum is pointing out Ipex has 67 cities vs the Siamese at 23 cities.

Now If IPEX is getting benefits from Tech Diffusion then Clearly something is wrong. But if the AI in his game are getting the benefits of TD then there really isn't a problem. And as for playing on Eternity game speed in AND, That is really stretching things for balance. Also IPEX is in a massive Golden age (he still has 137 turns left!).

Edit: Maybe Eternity Gamespeed should be reconsidered for AND as to if it's a viable Game speed at all.

JosEPh

There are two things implied on the situation of his massiveness gaining benefits:

1- He gets it because of the part of the formula which only aknowledges the number of players that know the tech (with modifiers as war, OBs, number of known civs/all civs). This part of the formula may only increase his tech production by 7% in max. If it's mathematically working and giving him max 7% of tech diffusion, I'm ok with this and it's reasonable for he to get tech diffusion too;

2- Why suddenly he gets that tech diffusion is the actual problem (if the math is being applied correctly), as this is happening because all AIs research the same thing.

This has to be fixed anyways, now if tech diffusion is not working properly here can only be a math problem, because the formula as it should be has a fair yield (if you have 90% or more rate of [your tech points]/[leader in tech tech points] then it may only make your tech difusion add 7% of your total previous tech production value

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Well, Tech Diffusion code in its current version was written by Afforess and not by me in first place. I only added that part about the scaling caused by score. And this can't be the problem since it's just math: since IPEX has the best score and the modifier is getting multiplied by BestScore/OurScore(IPEX), the modifier is still being multiplied by 1 in IPEX case. Hence the problem is in the previous part of the code, if there's a problem. Actually I don't know how far ahead other civs are in IPEX game. A savegame might help in this sense so that we can judge how far behind IPEX is. Tech Diffusion has nothing to do with how big your empire is; it only cares for how backward your civ is in comparison to others. The problem I see here is that since Eternity/Deity or whatever extreme settings IPEX is using are not balanced. Do you think it's normal being in 1000AD researching Flintlock and having conquered a whole continent on such a high difficulty level? I don't think so. No matter how IPEX or anyone else is good at it, there's no way something like that should happen. This is the problem I see. AI teching at higher difficulty levels is totally unbalanced but I will fix it. Same applies for maps bigger than huge and gamespeed slower than marathon. That said, I also think that Tech Diffusion should be scaled for handicap level. Right now everyone is getting the same help on every level, either if you're in the lead and AI is getting help or if AI is in the lead and you're getting help. Of course this isn't right because on harder handicap level you're supposed to be behind in techs but tech diffusion is helping you too much. In the same way, on easier levels when you're supposed to be in the lead, AI is getting too much help, hence making the game harder. I think this is something we should look into.

 

[Spirictum]

Well, Tech Diffusion code in its current version was written by Afforess and not by me in first place. I only added that part about the scaling caused by score. And this can't be the problem since it's just math: since IPEX has the best score and the modifier is getting multiplied by BestScore/OurScore(IPEX), the modifier is still being multiplied by 1 in IPEX case.

In this case it isn't even being multiplied, as you may check on the code:

[COLOR="Red"]if( iTechScorePercent < iWelfareThreshold )[/COLOR]
                {
                        if( knownExp > 0.0 )
                        {
                                int iWelfareMod = GC.getTECH_DIFFUSION_WELFARE_MODIFIER();
                                //ensure tech diffusion can not hurt research, only help
                                int iWelfareTechDiffusion = std::max(0, (iWelfareMod - (int)(iWelfareMod * pow(0.98, iWelfareThreshold - iTechScorePercent) + 0.5)));
                                int iBestScore = 0;
                                int iOurScore = calculateScore(false);
                                for (int iI = 0; iI < MAX_PLAYERS; iI++)
                                {
                                        if (GET_PLAYER((PlayerTypes)iI).isAlive() && iI != getID())
                                        {
                                                int iScore = GET_PLAYER((PlayerTypes)iI).calculateScore(false);
                                                if (iScore > iBestScore)
                                                {
                                                        iBestScore = iScore;
                                                }
                                        }
                                }
                                //If iOurScore > iBestScore we are the best team in the game
                                [COLOR="Lime"]if (iOurScore < iBestScore)[/COLOR]
                                {
                                        float fRatio = iBestScore / ((float)iOurScore);
                                        GC.getGameINLINE().logMsg("Tech Welfare amount: %d, iOurScore: %d, iBestScore: %d, fRatio: %f, modified welfare amt: %d for civ: %S", iWelfareTechDiffusion, iOurScore, iBestScore, fRatio, ((int)(fRatio * iWelfareTechDiffusion)), getCivilizationDescription());
                                        iWelfareTechDiffusion = (int)(iWelfareTechDiffusion * fRatio);
                                        iModifier += iWelfareTechDiffusion;

                                }
                        }
                }

The iModifier only will be modified by score if the player has less then 90% the tech points of the tech leader. Of course this is an assumption, but as he is being the first to tech Liberalism, has 4x the score of the second player, and is an entire continent, I think it's a good one that he is the leader of tech, or at least he is above the WELFARE_THRESHOLD% which is defined as 90.

Hence the problem is in the previous part of the code, if there's a problem. Actually I don't know how far ahead other civs are in IPEX game. A savegame might help in this sense so that we can judge how far behind IPEX is.

I agree on that, a savegame or more detailed pics of the tech diffusion being applied for him (like he did when it was applied for the AIs) would help clarify. Maybe there are some misleading informations there?

Tech Diffusion has nothing to do with how big your empire is; it only cares for how backward your civ is in comparison to others.

Only directly, then I can agree with you. But even before the score modifier, Size already mattered indirectly on your overall values (as tech diffusion is a multiplier, the more you make, the more it affects you). Now it matters even more, but with the opposite effect: The bigger you are, the better tech diffusion others will have, because bigger means more score, and size is an important factor of score).

The problem I see here is that since Eternity/Deity or whatever extreme settings IPEX is using are not balanced. Do you think it's normal being in 1000AD researching Flintlock and having conquered a whole continent on such a high difficulty level? I don't think so. No matter how IPEX or anyone else is good at it, there's no way something like that should happen. This is the problem I see. AI teching at higher difficulty levels is totally unbalanced but I will fix it. Same applies for maps bigger than huge and gamespeed slower than marathon.

I couldn't agree more on this, and I've already talked about this somewhere else. But this is mostly independent from Tech Diffusion. AI superpowers are easy to emerge in higher difficulties, as well as humans playing at lower difficulties.

That said, I also think that Tech Diffusion should be scaled for handicap level. Right now everyone is getting the same help on every level, either if you're in the lead and AI is getting help or if AI is in the lead and you're getting help. Of course this isn't right because on harder handicap level you're supposed to be behind in techs but tech diffusion is helping you too much. In the same way, on easier levels when you're supposed to be in the lead, AI is getting too much help, hence making the game harder. I think this is something we should look into.

Now about that I don't think so. If the AI goes far away in score/techs it's nice that it overly diffuses to the whole world, and not evenly to the AIs and slower to you. Even already with Tech Diffusion, Deity, under many configurations like big maps, rev on, is ubearable. Making the AI slower to tech (or the human, depending on the difficulty) won't bring much difference in difficulty on deity: less techs will diffuse, and because of that diffusion will be less effective and instead of multiplying your tech diffusion by 10 (like happened in my spanish game) it'll multiply by 3 (a lot better).

 

[JosEPh_II]

Where are we coming up with IPEX being behind in tech? Did he say he was? If so I missed that part. But looking into his screen shots and studying for details I came away with the impression that he was the Tech Leader in his game.

JosEPh

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Where are we coming up with IPEX being behind in tech? Did he say he was? If so I missed that part. But looking into his screen shots and studying for details I came away with the impression that he was the Tech Leader in his game.

JosEPh

We're not, that's what I want to know and why I'm asking for a savegame. In theory, if he's getting tech diffusion from other civs it means that other civs are ahead of his civ.

 

[Spirictum]

We're not, that's what I want to know and why I'm asking for a savegame. In theory, if he's getting tech diffusion from other civs it means that other civs are ahead of his civ.

Ahead at least in knowing a tech he doesn't, but if he has 90%+ techpoints then the leader of techpoints, he should only in the best situation be able to increase his capacity in 7%, which isn't what he stated. He said he got 50% faster, which indeed shouldn't been happening.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Yes, agreed, there is one screenie that shows a +1200 in TD but not in any of the rest. I would like more detail on how he accomplished that. And it's in the second screenie where IPEX is talking about Research Stock Brokering and caravans. But in the Points about Tech Diffusion he's not getting any bonus TD.

JosEPh

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Ahead at least in knowing a tech he doesn't, but if he has 90%+ techpoints then the leader of techpoints, he should only in the best situation be able to increase his capacity in 7%, which isn't what he stated. He said he got 50% faster, which indeed shouldn't been happening.

Well, without a save it's hard to tell. I'd really like to test this problem.

 

[Spirictum]

Actually 12549. I skipped that, as it wasn't the pic he complained about tech diffusion I didn't see his TD.

And yeah it's definetly wrong, it's 50% indeed.

@45° You're right, a save would help a lot, maybe he is indeed less then 90% of the tech leader, which then may easily put his TD in 50%

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

@ Vokarya On Oil products, I was being too literal I see. On steamer, I was thinking of an earlier SVN, where they could attack other shipping, or maybe I'm confused over that, I haven't tried to test the current versions, so could be my bad

Chemicals, I almost NEVER settle a city later in the game, and if I do, or I have a laggard, I spam it with Caravan's and Transports, and spend some gold to finish building. (The Hammer bonuses) I guess my game play doesn't suit the "ideal" of using chemicals, so be it. I just saw the bonus, and thought "hey I'm building laboratories in ALL my cities, but plastics is in next era?? what gives.

Steamers, I've had a think about this, and Coal would be an ideal resource to allow production (really powering) of the steam turbines. This historically fits (Wood for the American steamers, but what wood resource?) Wasn't Oil more for the later Post dreadnought class of shipping, the 'Oilier' to refuel the fleet. Anyway it has to fit into tech tree limits and it only a game, not reality.

On Caravans, I was only building 5, I only ever could build 5, and only would ever build 5. As each caravan is used up, I would build another on the NEXT turn. As I was only able to build on that turn if I had 1 existing spare from the previous turn already.

It is a bug, I had 2 completed and heading to cities or awaiting the disembarkation turn to be rushed into buildings, I had 3 in production. It cancelled the production 3, and then IMMEDIATELY allowed me to build another 3.

@ 43 Deg & et al - I am the tech leader, the Agricultural tools tech, I skipped, and only gained as I needed it for a current tech research. I'm probably 10 tech's ahead, as there is 3 lines on teching you can follow. *Well done on tech tree design*

I've said I should suck it up, ok I should, I understand the ideal of tech diffusion. If I can highlight problems for other levels, I've achieved my aim. Early on in the game, I'd get tech diffusion, and concurring diffusion. I probably hit the lead about Machinery on my continent, and only notice the diffusion come discovery of the 2nd continent, and the leaps they suddenly made. I still see the SMALLEST falling levels behind, and example is I had Swordsmen, and the other AI's on my continent, only had lightswords for a long time, much longer then I actually expected, but I was at war with EVERYONE so maybe that slowed it down.

On High explosives, maybe add it to the Civopedia.

On the Road bonuses, who has roads after railways, I automate my workers, and they just spam Railway's over every single networked tile.

On Worker Automaton, What about making all the automated options OFF for the Human player, and leave them as on for the AI. Then if you want an automated option, you have to turn it ON specifically, instead of having auto workers spam them when you forget to turn them off upon receiving the Tech.

On worker automaton, are you able to only have automated workers improve tiles, within the worked area of a city, so if using 1 tile radius, only improves within that area, if working a 3 tile radius, it improves within the 3 tiles, and not the culturally enveloped area.

Finally why No number 8 I had it written down, but crossed it out, along with No 2 which I renamed on the fly, but missed 8, sorry, my mistake.

Saved game attached. ENJOY

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Here's more on the Tech diffusion, Its a cutting edge tech, that I let the AI's research for me, now I've swooped in.

Spoiler :

I am the Tech leader, no doubt about it, I've just gotten Plastics. Anyway for your consideration in tech diffusion.

On the AI's and its great General usage. They don't keep them on the front line, or in cities under attack, or with attacking stacks.

Spoiler :

The AI correctly, bypasses the front line, which is well defended, and goes for the 'low hanging fruit', but the defending AI, didn't use its Great G's at all in front line, kept them in rear, altogether, and allowed another to waltz in and take and raise a city.

The AI's need to value them more highly, as offensive, defensive and Valuable units to not run about the borders on own, when in war.

Something for consideration for improvement of the AI.

 

[Rezca]

Here's one that I never understood:

Art Gallery requires Pacifism to be run, and allows for +3 Artist slots (IIRC)

Pacifism allows for unlimited artists while it is being run, and leaving Pacifism disallows the Art Gallery from being built or used.


Why does it add Artist slots if you already have an unlimited number to use?