Single Player bugs and crashes v36 plus (SVN) - After the 24th of October 2015

[Harrier]

Yeah, we need to set the default even lower IMPO, i suggest we set it to 40 but i would really like it set to 35 or even lower . . because lately the game is starting to give you all kinds of extra civs as the game proceeds . . so maybe even 30

This discussion took place about 2 years ago. Reducing the Civs to about 35 was decided up on. Then it was changed back to 50.

At that time, I reduced the Civs in SEM+ from 30+ to 20.

You can sometimes get away with some of these things if you show restraint elsewhere, such as playing lots of civs on a smaller map ?

NO - would not work.

To many Civs on a smaller map results in very low spawn area's for animals - and thus a reduction in the benefits they bring.

 

[Thunderbrd]

How is a cannon overtaking my city and taking charge of it, when i have 5 guard, healers and more in the city already?? and they are still IN city??

I believe this save is 1 turn before it happens, i wasnt paying to much attention to that city>

Good question. You can see the cannon so it couldn't just ignore them. I suspect, however, that for some reason the cannon cannot see any of your defenders. This is not good. I fixed that for the AI to make it so that they're defenders are always on standout but players shouldn't have to worry about that. If that's the problem, I'll probably add a 'noinvisibility' tag for unitcombats so that some units like LE units cannot be invisible, and add the tag to buildup promos like fortify (though I'll need to also add the effect to the normal fortify action as well.) This should streamline that problem.

My suspicion is that the LE units there are too small a size volume to be noticed by the cannon (which would need a fairly poor combat quality to miss them.)

If this isn't the problem, which doesn't mean I won't take the steps noted, then the problem is clearly a move rule violation.

I'll take a look at the save and evaluate what's happening if I can catch it. Or I'll look at some simpler saves and see if I can replicate the issue.

NO - would not work.

To many Civs on a smaller map results in very low spawn area's for animals - and thus a reduction in the benefits they bring.

Well... it WORKS... It creates a different style of game for sure. Yeah, that's a hindrance of course. I've had similar problems trying to live next to Joseph and Koshling in the MP games.

But that doesn't mean the game wouldn't be valid. It presents its own unique challenges but it's not unplayable.

 

[Thunderbrd]

How is a cannon overtaking my city and taking charge of it, when i have 5 guard, healers and more in the city already?? and they are still IN city??

I believe this save is 1 turn before it happens, i wasnt paying to much attention to that city>

Unfortunately, this is nowhere near the noted event - there's lots more units in that city and no attackers in sight. Went a few rounds but if I go any more, the lack of player activity would likely change the AI plan.

All I can say is, for now, make SURE all units intended to defend the city are set to standout.

EDIT: Next update will include the game rule that fortified defenders cannot be invisible. Law Enforcement units (being about all I can ensure on this matter) are always going to be visible as well (though this won't be retroactive for units already in a game so unless they are fortified or using the fortified or set for charge buildups then you'll want to make sure these potential defenders are all using the standout status.)

 

[Pit2015]

Yes.

No. The problem is when integer calls are made by the exe, which as DH stated, we have no access to manipulate in CivIV, that ask for integers that have added up to values that exceed a few million. We can cap things out at that point but it can cause some game problems doing so. The most recently disturbing overload seen was in total civ population which messes up a lot of beneficial score and power tracking when you must limit that value. There could be more penalties for these kinds of exceeding values than we can see as well. There are also many other values that get to the point of exceeding the integer cap (which is a C++ limitation in the way it assigns room to store the information on an integer.) Super big maps will run into these kinds of problems by late Industrial to Transhuman depending on how successful a given player is.


We've done a lot of work on overflow resolution and I know there's probably a lot more yet to do, particularly with culture. However, when we hit an absolute limit by not being able to manipulate the exe, we have real problems with the size of the game as a whole at that point that really cannot be overcome.


It might not, but it won't work quite right after you hit the maximum player limit. New players emerge from revolutions so if you're going to play a rev game you shouldn't do so with more than say 25 players or so to leave room for the # of players to double. Dead players don't get 'erased' towards this limit since the game still tracks the fact that they existed. Thus this is the limit of players that can ever be or have been in the game at any given time throughout the game.


CivII is a different animal apparently.

Dead players don't get 'erased' towards this limit since the game still tracks the fact that they existed.

@Joseph, revolutions is no problem, because you can disable it while gaming in WB if it makes problems and DH said it will not add more civs after 50 civs, and what you want to cut other game speeds always??? Go play on looser marathon, my scenario is set to run endless until one conqueres the entire world, so cutting anything will help nothing, other game speeds are for shorter games.

@Thunderbrd
So as i see it the only problem is that the exe has some overflows by to mutch data, you dont need access to the exe, it was hacked and modified so it can use more RAM and data, i look later into it and get the information to you. Maybe that can help. If you cant overcome the overflows that you can stop to make the mod... otherwise call firaxis they should help.

So i think it works this way, if you kill a ai player with one click in WB then he can emerge again by revolution but there will be no more than 50 AI players in game at any time. So scenario should work or is adaptable while gaming because you can turn off a option that hurts you, speed issues can be fixed by killing a AI player in WB, removing him completly from map by one click. So scenario should wokr fine only problem are the overflows then, so workarrounds needed or a exe fix.

 

[Thunderbrd]

@Joseph, revolutions is no problem, because you can disable it while gaming in WB if it makes problems and DH said it will not add more civs after 50 civs, and what you want to cut other game speeds always??? Go play on looser marathon, my scenario is set to run endless until one conqueres the entire world, so cutting anything will help nothing, other game speeds are for shorter games.

@Thunderbrd
So as i see it the only problem is that the exe has some overflows by to mutch data, you dont need access to the exe, it was hacked and modified so it can use more RAM and data, i look later into it and get the information to you. Maybe that can help. If you cant overcome the overflows that you can stop to make the mod... otherwise call firaxis they should help.

So i think it works this way, if you kill a ai player with one click in WB then he can emerge again by revolution but there will be no more than 50 AI players in game at any time. So scenario should work or is adaptable while gaming because you can turn off a option that hurts you, speed issues can be fixed by killing a AI player in WB, removing him completly from map by one click. So scenario should wokr fine only problem are the overflows then, so workarrounds needed or a exe fix.

From what I understand, Firaxis has always flat refused to open access to the exe or do any work on it any further.

However, there are some things that can be done in most cases. And we'll have to do a lot of it.

DH makes valid points that do suggest you can get away with rev on a large scenario like this but it does come with the downside of revolts tending to often bring forward just more barbs.

There's also some data limits but lately I've not seen much of those problems. Usually, when encountered, they indicate a problem in the code (one that's tough to track but that's what they've generally amounted to usually.) The data limits are generally due to the exe as well and the fact that it's designed for much older systems. Apparently these limits cannot be exceeded.

I'm curious to see how far your scenario will go before it irrevocably reaches such a point that cannot be resolved. If it CAN go the distance, I'll be very happy with the status of the mod right now.

 

[Pit2015]

We will see i keep gaming it and i will find solutions if needed.

"The data limits are generally due to the exe as well and the fact that it's designed for much older systems. Apparently these limits cannot be exceeded."

It can, thats exactly what they did for the .exe on that galactic civ 2 mod with the exe file, i send you what they did and you can look into it later when i have more time... have to do some work in my company today, i look into it asap.

 

[strategyonly]

CTD latest SVN

mini and save in zip

sorry about before on the save, i had my files set to alpha rather than latest modified, duh?? my bad .

btw i was having a great game, up until 4 SVN updates ago, i was under 30 seconds per turn, and into the Industrial era, now, its taking over 1 minute each turn and i have eliminated 2 civs and lots of cities also. infact, if the city i conquer does NOT have a wonder, i raze it . .?? . .

 

[tmv]

@Pit2015: If you mean http://www.moddb.com/mods/star-trek-vs-star-wars1/news/the-out-of-memory-error-crash-is-fixed that's about the (almost) regular 3gb patch, where you can allow a 32bit program to use up to 3gb. For a while, that was pretty much the go-to-solution for XP machines trying to run mods such as C2C.

On a 64bit OS you can even use the 4 gb patch, found here: http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

In all these cases you can give the program the ability to use up to 4 GB RAM. There is no way for an 32bit program to go beyond that. If you hit that barrier, you better have access to the exe source to change it to 64bit, because otherwise that limit is there to stay.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I have been using the 4 GB patch since I got win 7 x64 and still use it with win 10 x64. It doesn't quite get you to 4 GB but adds at least another 500MB+ on top of what the 3GB allows for 32 bit.

@Pit,
Look you fart I'm trying to help you understand your Scenario's limits. But go ahead and be stubborn, I understand that as I come from Missouri and I'm as stubborn as a Missouri Mule myself. .

And it's "loser" (as in some one who has lost) marathon not looser (as in something that is not as tight).

JosEPh

 

[olduser]

otherwise call firaxis they should help

Do you really think they care about a 10 years old game they don't even care about Civ5 anymore.

Try setting this option in the CivilizationIV.ini to 1 that should give you more room.

; Disable PAK memory mapping (May affect performance)
DisablePAKMemoryMapping = 0

But in the end you always loose this battle because Civ4 is a 32bit application and that means there is a hard limit in terms of memory it can use.

 

[Pit2015]

I have been using the 4 GB patch since I got win 7 x64 and still use it with win 10 x64. It doesn't quite get you to 4 GB but adds at least another 500MB+ on top of what the 3GB allows for 32 bit.

@Pit,
Look you fart I'm trying to help you understand your Scenario's limits. But go ahead and be stubborn, I understand that as I come from Missouri and I'm as stubborn as a Missouri Mule myself. .

And it's "loser" (as in some one who has lost) marathon not looser (as in something that is not as tight).

JosEPh

Dont cry old man, get a faster machine. ;-) Its looser like noob old man. ;-) Let us hear you german, so i can talk/write german and english can you talk/write english and german?

Missouri Swampfox And as i told you joseph, its no problem, if problems occure you can change the options in the WB for the scenario ok delete some civs with one click.

@alberts Yeah alberts, so firaxis has to give the source code free or we have to find workarounds, no problem for my scenario currently but some ppl report overflows, hopefully there will be a way to control this.

Otherwise we all have to move to CIV5 and get C2C to CIV5 and adapt it to CIV5... then we have to build a city screen...

Yes tmv that i had in mind, so will not help? http://www.moddb.com/mods/star-trek-vs-star-wars1/news/the-out-of-memory-error-crash-is-fixed

Edit:

Petition to release Civ4 source code?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=487644

Maybe Gamebyro sourcecode is released now in the meantime...

 

[tmv]

@Pit: As I said, 3gb (or even almost 4gb) is not the problem. But if your scenario goes beyond that, it's impossible with Civ4. There is no workaround that wouldn't be very much illegal, Firaxis still owns the source code and it's their decision what to do with it.

If you want to build a C2C for Civ5, go for it. Although Civ5 has some serious shortcomings, 64bit would be a compelling argument. I think there were a few mods already in that direction (definitely a prehistory mod - look in the Steam Workshop), but they have all been abandoned for more than 3 years, or at least, all those mods that I found.

Strangely, there is at least 1 Civ game even older than Civ4, where one difficulty is solved in vanilla (multi-maps): Civ2 Test of Time. Of course, to get a full C2C you would have to build the Concepts of Culture, Religion, Great Persons, alternative tech paths (and probably a few more things) from scratch, just to get to the point of BTS vanilla, but multi-maps was in and used in a few vanilla mods.

 

[Pit2015]

No time, so i stick with C2C doesnt matter what they do, and workaround within the mod, hope that will be possible, not the exe. Scenario never came to its limits by me, so we will see how far it will work on a fast machine. I saw scenarios with hundreds of citys and they run, so i hope the mod can be fixed so far that these overflows can be controled.

 

[george585]

AI development in early game bug:

1. Did not (apparently) build Tribe units, then once researched Sedentary Lifestyle did not build Settlers. Result: I have 6 cities, all of my known opponents have just 1 city.
2. Opponents' cities are full of (50+) entertainer units and not much else.
3. Also AI does not seem to be doing much tile improvements either.

Started a new game with January 3rd build, then (around "6000BC") updated to the latest build, but still the issue persists.

Here's the savegame: https://www.sendspace.com/file/58nnqn

 

[Thunderbrd]

CTD latest SVN

mini and save in zip

sorry about before on the save, i had my files set to alpha rather than latest modified, duh?? my bad .

btw i was having a great game, up until 4 SVN updates ago, i was under 30 seconds per turn, and into the Industrial era, now, its taking over 1 minute each turn and i have eliminated 2 civs and lots of cities also. infact, if the city i conquer does NOT have a wonder, i raze it . .?? . .

I'll take a look at the crash but the slowdown must be from the 'repaired' (I use that term loosely) property control unit AI. It wasn't doing anything before to address positive properties nor to send prop control units where they should go. That was the 'fast' solution. At this point, the slower solution unfortunately shows an issue or two apparently as well:

AI development in early game bug:

1. Did not (apparently) build Tribe units, then once researched Sedentary Lifestyle did not build Settlers. Result: I have 6 cities, all of my known opponents have just 1 city.
2. Opponents' cities are full of (50+) entertainer units and not much else.
3. Also AI does not seem to be doing much tile improvements either.

Started a new game with January 3rd build, then (around "6000BC") updated to the latest build, but still the issue persists.

Here's the savegame: https://www.sendspace.com/file/58nnqn

Massive overreaction regarding the positive Property Control units? That was a possibility. I'll look at the math again and see what can be done to pull that back to where it should be targeting. Apparently I still don't have it right yet.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

@TB at some stage I will need to get the buildings required for a tech to show them on the pedia and the tech screen. Ie the contents of PrereqBuildingClasses. Sorry if I have already mentioned it I was just looking at my to do list and thought that it would be simple.

edit Latest SVN I have lost the ability to build Law Enforcers. I had two in the queue, updated to the SVN and now they are not showing up.

 

[Thunderbrd]

CTD latest SVN

mini and save in zip

sorry about before on the save, i had my files set to alpha rather than latest modified, duh?? my bad .

btw i was having a great game, up until 4 SVN updates ago, i was under 30 seconds per turn, and into the Industrial era, now, its taking over 1 minute each turn and i have eliminated 2 civs and lots of cities also. infact, if the city i conquer does NOT have a wonder, i raze it . .?? . .

Sometimes as a doctor, the worst thing you can experience is to lose a patient. This game is one of them.

I had the math inverted regarding property control unit generation evaluation. What this means is that some property control units were being massively overbuilt because getting on top of their needs was the trigger to building more.

How this has caused a problem in your game is that once this was implemented (Rev 8999) many AI cities started hyperactively building as many Entertainers and other prop contrl units as quickly as possible - the better state the city was in the more they would build.

And this now means that Player 3 has hit the unit maximum cap.

Soooooo... if you CAN go far enough back with a save game and do so with the next update I make here, you could recover to some degree but I know how frustrating it is to have to do that. My deepest apologies.

On the plus side, this has illuminated numerous tweaks that should take place to improve the property control AI.

I will look at speeding it up some if it continues to be super slow btw. It is possible to do but I think there was another place this was causing more trouble and I've tweaked that a bit as well.

@TB at some stage I will need to get the buildings required for a tech to show them on the pedia and the tech screen. Ie the contents of PrereqBuildingClasses. Sorry if I have already mentioned it I was just looking at my to do list and thought that it would be simple.

I'll look into it.

edit Latest SVN I have lost the ability to build Law Enforcers. I had two in the queue, updated to the SVN and now they are not showing up.

Be sure you have built the building they have as a prereq. I'll check some other possibilities in the meantime.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Sometimes as a doctor, the worst thing you can experience is to lose a patient. This game is one of them.

I had the math inverted regarding property control unit generation evaluation. What this means is that some property control units were being massively overbuilt because getting on top of their needs was the trigger to building more.

How this has caused a problem in your game is that once this was implemented (Rev 8999) many AI cities started hyperactively building as many Entertainers and other prop contrl units as quickly as possible - the better state the city was in the more they would build.

And this now means that Player 3 has hit the unit maximum cap.

Soooooo... if you CAN go far enough back with a save game and do so with the next update I make here, you could recover to some degree but I know how frustrating it is to have to do that. My deepest apologies.

On the plus side, this has illuminated numerous tweaks that should take place to improve the property control AI.

I will look at speeding it up some if it continues to be super slow btw. It is possible to do but I think there was another place this was causing more trouble and I've tweaked that a bit as well.



I'll look into it.


Be sure you have built the building they have as a prereq. I'll check some other possibilities in the meantime.

So if I've got this right, to save my game I need to go back to a save before I updated past 8998. I think I can do that as I keep a fair number of saves before I thin them down.

Was going to post a save that is not using any of the New Hide and Seek or CM components as My tamed Wolves and Bandit footpads can not attack barbarians. The Footpads may not have ever able to but the Tamed wolves could yesterday before I updated this morning.

Also the AI still has a penchant for overbuilding Rams, Siege Rams, Siege Towers,and the rest of that line. If you could see my save game and ongoing war with Sennacherib you would see what I mean. He has been using stacks of them to protect his tiles and block my tiles from being worked. But has not used them to attack my cities defenses to reduce them, their only purpose in the game. Kind of makes them a real waste because they cause massive unit build ups which bogs the game down. Not good.

JosEPh

 

[strategyonly]

Also the AI still has a penchant for overbuilding Rams, Siege Rams, Siege Towers,and the rest of that line. If you could see my save game and ongoing war with Sennacherib you would see what I mean. He has been using stacks of them to protect his tiles and block my tiles from being worked. But has not used them to attack my cities defenses to reduce them, their only purpose in the game. Kind of makes them a real waste because they cause massive unit build ups which bogs the game down. Not good.

Yeah, also in my game i picked up rams/siege weapons ALL by themselves just roaming around everywhere . . infact i dont even have to build them because i picked up OVER 50 of them from the enemy, because they are BY THEMSELVES all the time . .

any ways, here is the same CRASH as before BUT i added DH's update to the SVN if you want this one instead of the other one, but they are the same CRASH, once you click on next turn . .(again mini and save in zip)

 

[Thunderbrd]

So if I've got this right, to save my game I need to go back to a save before I updated past 8998. I think I can do that as I keep a fair number of saves before I thin them down.

It's a good idea anyhow. SO's was the save I saw that was completely fubared from it but the error is certainly plaguing all games being played at the moment. I'd have the fix on the SVN already if I didn't want to make 100% sure that prop ctrl units are doing everything they were supposed to and the ordering system is working just right.

Running some tests now.

Was going to post a save that is not using any of the New Hide and Seek or CM components as My tamed Wolves and Bandit footpads can not attack barbarians. The Footpads may not have ever able to but the Tamed wolves could yesterday before I updated this morning.

Not sure what the problem would be with the wolves so yeah, I'd like to take a look at that.

The Footpads are Ruffians and ruffians have changed to blend with barbarians. They are no longer useful in attacking barbs as barbs consider them one of their own and they consider themselves barbs under your instruction. As I'm sure you're already aware, they also capture cities for barbs.

Also the AI still has a penchant for overbuilding Rams, Siege Rams, Siege Towers,and the rest of that line. If you could see my save game and ongoing war with Sennacherib you would see what I mean. He has been using stacks of them to protect his tiles and block my tiles from being worked. But has not used them to attack my cities defenses to reduce them, their only purpose in the game. Kind of makes them a real waste because they cause massive unit build ups which bogs the game down. Not good.

Given how they are exhibiting this spreading out behavior, I'm beginning to think we're not talking about a problem with the stack composition issue so much as with siege units being relegated to city defense roles. This could be a tricky problem in the code BUT perhaps if we add the NotAIType tag to those units for UNITAI_CITY_DEFENSE, this may be resolvable by xml. Maybe. It's worth a try.

Since I've got a number of things I'm freaking out about over here, if you have a little time, would you be able to figure out how to do this for siege units?