Setting up an alternate random number generator

[PPQ_Purple]

I don't really care about savegame scumming. In fact I turn it around and view the ability to keep the same random seed as a debug feature. This means if somebody encounters a bug, the same bug can be reproduced over and over, which is beneficial for both debugging and testing fixes. Yes there are bug reports with savegames saying "hit end turn and the game freezes/crashes".

That's definitively a bonus. But I don't really see my self ever getting bug reports from players in that format in an actual game development setting. At least not to the extent that I'd actually care about coding a feature just for that reason.

Really though, we are both mostly wrong in that the primary reason RNG's are used is because they exist, are built into the system and thus require 0 time, effort and budget to implement. The rest is just a nice bonus for developers.

 

[Nightinggale]

Add to that combat animations of non standard length or other similar effects and your game is basically randomizing things for you by making the time between each two rolls different.

Doesn't matter at all. The game runs the combat in one go, stores the result and moves on. At some point (like after all AI players are done) the graphics engine will start to display the animation from the combat logs. This design is ok, except for the fact that (at least in vanilla Colonization) it can freezes the game when you kill the last unit from a player because combat takes place, the player has no more cities or units, is killed and then the dead unit is deleted. Since the graphics engine no longer knows which unit it was, it freezes when it tries to play animation for that unit. I fixed this in WTP by making it impossible for players to die if they have units in combat, even if those units are dead.

But I don't really see my self ever getting bug reports from players in that format in an actual game development setting. At least not to the extent that I'd actually care about coding a feature just for that reason.

I have seen plenty of bug reports like that. We are talking about randomness i the civ4 engine, right?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Doesn't matter at all. The game runs the combat in one go, stores the result and moves on. At some point (like after all AI players are done) the graphics engine will start to display the animation from the combat logs. This design is ok, except for the fact that (at least in vanilla Colonization) it can freezes the game when you kill the last unit from a player because combat takes place, the player has no more cities or units, is killed and then the dead unit is deleted. Since the graphics engine no longer knows which unit it was, it freezes when it tries to play animation for that unit. I fixed this in WTP by making it impossible for players to die if they have units in combat, even if those units are dead.

I am pretty sure that when I right click to make my unit attack another unit the combat animation is displayed right there and than and not at the end of all AI turns.

I have seen plenty of bug reports like that. We are talking about randomness i the civ4 engine, right?

That's because you are a moder and have a very close interaction with your audience. I don't. At least not in my day job.

 

[Leoreth]

I don't really care about savegame scumming. In fact I turn it around and view the ability to keep the same random seed as a debug feature. This means if somebody encounters a bug, the same bug can be reproduced over and over, which is beneficial for both debugging and testing fixes. Yes there are bug reports with savegames saying "hit end turn and the game freezes/crashes".

I agree, but conversely I don't want to accidentally "save scum" just because I decided to reload my game for unrelated reasons. I should still win/lose all the battles I won/lost before unless I actually made a different decision to change the outcome that way.