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

[Publicola]

I've noticed a prehistoric-era bug in the most recent SVN patch. I'm noticing that the graphics of certain units tend to switch back and forth between the correct one and something else. For instance, I popped a 'stone-axe warrior' (or whatever the 4-strength equivalent is), and sometimes I looks like it should, but other times it looks like a different melee unit (2-strength Clubman, iirc). Likewise, when I got my first Great Artist, it showed up looking like a Great Prophet.

There's an even bigger and more consistent problem with some of the animal graphics. I've noticed that the 3D model used for 'The Green Man'-controlled animals tend to be replaced with unit imagery from much later eras. The auroch shouldn't be represented as a knight riding an animal; likewise with horses and wild mammoths. These ones only occasionally flip back to the 'correct' image, as most of the time they're pretty consistently medieval-looking

I'm sure there are other animals that have the same issue, but those are the ones that stuck in my memory. Hope that helps.

 

[Thunderbrd]

a desert field with freshwater, gives with desert camp 2 food.
I take a Great Farmer and set pigs there, then I can make a willow, gives 8 food
so far OK, but then I can build a farm, gives 11 food.
This looks not right for me.

Not sure what a Willow is.

But all in all it sounds right, particularly if the farm can be irrigated. It's a pig farm of course.

[ super-strong Stalker]



This was the only quality upgrade. A second Stalker got free Exceptional Might 3 during a battle and it is STR 9 now. I am in a way to promote third Stalker - I will check if I may repeat this bug.

This is just SM (not Uncut). Chosen promotions: Hunting 1 - Combat 1 - Combat 2 - Combat 3 - Marsh - Exc. M. 1 - EM 2 -> EM 3.

S.

I thought Exceptional Might was a Strength upgrade, not a Quality upgrade. Thus the reference TO the quality of the unit in the name (Exceptional). A quality upgrade would take the unit from Exceptional to Epic.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I've noticed a prehistoric-era bug in the most recent SVN patch. I'm noticing that the graphics of certain units tend to switch back and forth between the correct one and something else. For instance, I popped a 'stone-axe warrior' (or whatever the 4-strength equivalent is), and sometimes I looks like it should, but other times it looks like a different melee unit (2-strength Clubman, iirc). Likewise, when I got my first Great Artist, it showed up looking like a Great Prophet.

There's an even bigger and more consistent problem with some of the animal graphics. I've noticed that the 3D model used for 'The Green Man'-controlled animals tend to be replaced with unit imagery from much later eras. The auroch shouldn't be represented as a knight riding an animal; likewise with horses and wild mammoths. These ones only occasionally flip back to the 'correct' image, as most of the time they're pretty consistently medieval-looking

I'm sure there are other animals that have the same issue, but those are the ones that stuck in my memory. Hope that helps.

Turn on animations (not combat animations). This isn't a bug but the way that reskinning (a modder trick) works. You'll get this with all mods that reskin to get unit graphics.

 

[Publicola]

Turn on animations (not combat animations). This isn't a bug but the way that reskinning (a modder trick) works. You'll get this with all mods that reskin to get unit graphics.

Where and how do I "turn on animations"? I thought I had them on already....

This latest game I did change my preferences and turn off combat animation, but you indicated that the two are separate. Thanks for answering my questions!

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Not sure what a Willow is.

But all in all it sounds right, particularly if the farm can be irrigated. It's a pig farm of course.

It wont be a pig farm if farm is what is placed it will be just a farm with the minimum bonus yields from having a pig on it. The improvement for a pig bonus is a pasture or the earlier "nomadic herd".

 

[stachnie]

I thought Exceptional Might was a Strength upgrade, not a Quality upgrade.

Oops! My bad - of course, this is a Strength upgrade line. And I failed to reproduce that - I have promoted the last Stalker to EM3 and it has 9 STR. So now I have two 9 STR Stalkers and one 704 STR (in the meantime I have attached a Noble and gave a Blitz-like promotion). Perhaps I should attach a proper save...

 

[strategyonly]

Why does the AI build UP this much, geez?? I havent even made it to Ancient, but i know they just did, barely??

btw what is going on lately, now i cant even make it to Ancient Era without the DARN turn times going near 30 seconds, that is ridiculous . .IMPO, should not be over 10 seconds . .

 

[Taxman66]

I'm playing 9265 and I'm not seeing massive buildups or excessive turn times. Heck I couldn't afford that many units in my cities, even if I wanted them, until after I got the treasury built. I play without the combat mods, and without traits. Maybe it is specific to one of those options (traits?) or perhaps to the specific leader. Are all the AIs doing it?

 

[TrippedOnACloud]

If I recall correctly, one of the things contributing to longer turn times in the prehistoric is combat between the animal factions. Reckless Animals probably only makes that worse.

 

[stachnie]

Super-Stalker managed to get Quality promotion and now it has STR 1050 (1.5x700), so its base strength must be 700.

I have included an earlier save (soon after the bug appeared). At the land of (Manchuria) edit: Nepal there should be at least two my Stalkers and one of them is my super-Stalker. BTW: I use Sparth's Civ Megapack with Polish civ (Megapack alone should also do - the only differences should be changed border colours, different look of Polish units and Polish units speaking Russian).

 

[Thunderbrd]

Where and how do I "turn on animations"? I thought I had them on already....

This latest game I did change my preferences and turn off combat animation, but you indicated that the two are separate. Thanks for answering my questions!

They are separate. The combat animation options are 'quick combat' options.

Usually this happens because you set (or it automatically adjusted) your graphics settings to 'low'. You can even keep it at low but you must simply adjust your main game graphic options so that you are not disabling animations. That's the vanilla core option panel.

It wont be a pig farm if farm is what is placed it will be just a farm with the minimum bonus yields from having a pig on it. The improvement for a pig bonus is a pasture or the earlier "nomadic herd".

Right, but somehow the pig or the 'willow', whatever that is, must enable the farm to be built?

Oops! My bad - of course, this is a Strength upgrade line. And I failed to reproduce that - I have promoted the last Stalker to EM3 and it has 9 STR. So now I have two 9 STR Stalkers and one 704 STR (in the meantime I have attached a Noble and gave a Blitz-like promotion). Perhaps I should attach a proper save...

It sounds like it might be nearly impossible to resolve unless we can find a way to replicate it. A save now won't help. I need to see how it came up with the flawed math in the first place. If you can capture a save that is on the precipice of replication with instructions on how to push it over the edge, then I can probably fix it. Otherwise, I cannot even theorize on how such a glitch can take place if the math 'normally' works as designed. As you can understand, a formula should always work the same as it worked before and there aren't any portals for variable adjustment into that formula that I can think of at all.

Corruption of data maybe? I don't know. That answer alone is a little chilling in what it can suggest.

Why does the AI build UP this much, geez?? I havent even made it to Ancient, but i know they just did, barely??

Very good question. Looks like its all defensive units so this would be something I've never seen before. Perhaps it hit some kind of infinite loop where its building defensive units for a city it can't send them to but it doesn't realize it when it evaluates for the need and where to build the units to fulfill that need.

Another possibility is that the AI is reacting to a perceived threat. Quite possibly that perceived threat may be very real. It could also be a real threat that's being responded to in the wrong way, which would be something more easily resolved in the code I think.

A save might help here.

On the positive side, it would make that city a true challenge to capture. That AI seems to play like I do!

btw what is going on lately, now i cant even make it to Ancient Era without the DARN turn times going near 30 seconds, that is ridiculous . .IMPO, should not be over 10 seconds . .

Buildups like that can sure explain a lot of slowdown. Particularly until I fix the known cause for slowdown - I'm almost to that point in the debugging queue. It's an extremely complicated issue and I've been happy to have a few simpler things to get my head into the game better before trying to tackle that matter.

That said, I find any complains of turn times under a minute to be offensive. Vanilla can have turn times of that long.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Super-Stalker managed to get Quality promotion and now it has STR 1050 (1.5x700), so its base strength must be 700.

I have included an earlier save (soon after the bug appeared). At the land of Manchuria there should be at least two my Stalkers and one of them is my super-Stalker. BTW: I use Sparth's Civ Megapack with Polish civ (Megapack alone should also do - the only differences should be changed border colours, different look of Polish units and Polish units speaking Russian).

Actually, this could help to guide a restructuring of how the calculations take place. It would at least help if it basically recalculates the strength from the base up each time it changes. SM tends to additively calculate from the current values rather than refiguring the whole thing each time. So once a corruption is introduced it stays that way.

Is this save from before the Quality Up promotion is selected or after? I need to capture it right before its selected if possible.

 

[Dreifels]

Not sure what a Willow is.

http://www.dict.cc/?s=Weide

German word = Weide
that where cows or pigs or horses are within a fence
the regular option for a field with those animals

 

[Arakhor]

Then you want paddock or pasture, not willow, which is a type of tree or shrub.

 

[stachnie]

Is this save from before the Quality Up promotion is selected or after? I need to capture it right before its selected if possible.

Before it was selected - this is the earliest save with the bug (IIRC a few turns after it occured), so the Stalker has 704 Strength. And Stalkers were in the Nepal lands.

 

[Dreifels]

I come back to the BUG and F1 problem, and I think it's a thing of pathes:
I click in BUG in Help and got the window attached

It says, Help file not found. The file "BUG Mod Help-DEU.chm" could not found in the pathes recognized. Details find in tab "System" ...

- that tab I don't have in BUG
- the file BUG Mod Help-DEU.chm is in F:\Civ_4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Caveman2Cosmos\Docs\combined mods\BUG mod Info

means, BUG does read an another path, and that may for other BUG operations, too.

Are there somewhere stored absolute pathes (as I have my civ 4 not in c:\programs) instead relative pathes?

Edit
just had a look in F:\Civ_4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Caveman2Cosmos\Docs\combined mods\BUG mod Info\CvAltRoot.py
and there is
## CvAltRoot
[...]
## Tells BUG where to locate its files when it cannot find them normally. (what is "normally"?)

rootDir = "C:/Documents and Settings/[UserName]/My Documents/My Games/Beyond the Sword"

but that path also is not valid for me, I have G:\Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword ...

If within the installation these pathes get not adjust to the player's settings/pathes, then all problems may be caused by that

However, C2C does use the path G:\Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\Saves fine, so that may be related to BUG only.

 

[Noriad2]

I think what we're going to need to do to 'nerf entertainers' (who don't give that much education really)

Do we mean the same by "not that much education"?

It is easy to give some xp to entertainers, using citizen or artist specialists: boatyard +1 free specialist/fishing boat (I have 3 of those in my entertainer city), bonus specialists from high education, and town hall/village hall/citycouncil (+1,+2,+3 free specialists) plus normal pop used as Citizen specialists. For me, it takes 11 xp to make a lvl 4.

To test it how much education an entertainer gives, I chose a city with 2 lvl 4 entertainers with long-term buildup, and did 2 runs, one with the entertainers present and one without.
The difference was -22, so one lvl 4 entertainer gives +11 education for a measly cost of 1 money. This makes entertainers the best education provider until university. lvl 5 entertainers promise to give +4 more education over a lvl 4.

-----------------------------------------

Turn times (late medieval, large map, SVN 9265) with fast combat options, are about 2 minutes, give or take a few seconds, measured with stopwatch.

My system: Intel Core i7-4790K Quadcore CPU @ 4.00 GHz with 16GB memory and 64-bit Windows 10.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I come back to the BUG and F1 problem, and I think it's a thing of pathes:
I click in BUG in Help and got the window attached

It says, Help file not found. The file "BUG Mod Help-DEU.chm" could not found in the pathes recognized. Details find in tab "System" ...

- that tab I don't have in BUG
- the file BUG Mod Help-DEU.chm is in F:\Civ_4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Caveman2Cosmos\Docs\combined mods\BUG mod Info

means, BUG does read an another path, and that may for other BUG operations, too.

Are there somewhere stored absolute pathes (as I have my civ 4 not in c:\programs) instead relative pathes?

Edit
just had a look in F:\Civ_4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Caveman2Cosmos\Docs\combined mods\BUG mod Info\CvAltRoot.py
and there is
## CvAltRoot
[...]
## Tells BUG where to locate its files when it cannot find them normally. (what is "normally"?)

rootDir = "C:/Documents and Settings/[UserName]/My Documents/My Games/Beyond the Sword"

but that path also is not valid for me, I have G:\Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword ...

If within the installation these pathes get not adjust to the player's settings/pathes, then all problems may be caused by that

However, C2C does use the path G:\Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\Saves fine, so that may be related to BUG only.

This is actually a bug in BUG. They expect you, the player, to change those two paths to the correct ones for your installation. In the case of the first one it is not even necessary as BUG has the ability to identify where you have installed the mod you are playing and use that. I have been on to the BUG team about it and will try and come up with a sensible change to the code to pass on to them.

I am not so sure about the second though as I have not had time to look into it.

However in the Caveman2Cosmos case, and with many other mods, the game should not be looking outside the mod's folders for anything. There is a field in the mod ini file that should be set to ensure that. It is not set in the current SVN version of C2C.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Before it was selected - this is the earliest save with the bug (IIRC a few turns after it occured), so the Stalker has 704 Strength. And Stalkers were in the Nepal lands.

Can you do me a favor and get the game right up to where you would be selecting the promotion and then repost it here? Running a foreign game on a debug dll for any length of time is not a good way to use debugging time.

Do we mean the same by "not that much education"?

It is easy to give some xp to entertainers, using citizen or artist specialists: boatyard +1 free specialist/fishing boat (I have 3 of those in my entertainer city), bonus specialists from high education, and town hall/village hall/citycouncil (+1,+2,+3 free specialists) plus normal pop used as Citizen specialists. For me, it takes 11 xp to make a lvl 4.

To test it how much education an entertainer gives, I chose a city with 2 lvl 4 entertainers with long-term buildup, and did 2 runs, one with the entertainers present and one without.
The difference was -22, so one lvl 4 entertainer gives +11 education for a measly cost of 1 money. This makes entertainers the best education provider until university. lvl 5 entertainers promise to give +4 more education over a lvl 4.

I'll have to take a look at the education promos and possibly spread them out across the tech tree. Are they currently all being accessed from the beginning of the game with just exp as the only limitation? That could have them out of balance a bit.

That IS a good 'deal' but it's not THAT uber. It does suggest some need to rebalance a little so I'm not ignoring it. I also don't think it changes my previous statement as to what the system needs. But this does point out the entertainers can get a little much too early.

I take it you're talking about the Storyteller unit specifically or are you saying all the entertainers are getting the same 1 gold upkeep? That would also be part of the problem if that's so. Like the LE and Disease Control units, they should be more expensive as they upgrade. I still want to see them split off into Celebrity (not so educational but very good for motivation and morale) and Educator (best for education) units at some point in the upgrade chain. Would be a bit before looking at that further though.

Turn times (late medieval, large map, SVN 9265) with fast combat options, are about 2 minutes, give or take a few seconds, measured with stopwatch.

My system: Intel Core i7-4790K Quadcore CPU @ 4.00 GHz with 16GB memory and 64-bit Windows 10.

I'm finding places to speed things up here and there. That's not toooo bad but I would like to see it faster since it's over a minute.

 

[Thunderbrd]

EoT loop, i waited 10 minutes and no movement or noise.

Found and fixed the problem. These kinds of things are great to resolve! Good catch. Next SVN will include the fix. Also caught another odd little bug in rush build determinations that probably isn't horrible but wasn't optimal.