Single Player bugs and crashes v37 plus (SVN) - After the 24th of December 2016

[JosEPh_II]

Yes, I confirm that I started the game in the Prehistoric Era. Also, as I predicted, the game pace slowed down to 4 years per turn after 2600 AD. Before that, the pace was 8 years per turn quite for a while - since 100 AD or close to it - that I noticed from post-game history replay screen.

My humble guess is that this info is somehow coming from CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml configuration file, but I could be wrong completely.

Yes it is coming from that file. I recently, over the last year redid all the Game speeds.

When you say 2600AD do you actually mean 2600BC? That would fall in line with the base numbers.
Snail Gamespeed is set up this way:
Preh era is set to run 525 turns at 84 game years/turn. That would put the game at ~ 6000BC.
Ancient Era is set for 450 turns at 13.33 yr/turn. The years would actually go 13, 13, 14 and then 13, 14, 13 until the era is finished at ~ 2000BC.
Classical is set for 300 turns/8.33yr/turn. Would end ~ 500AD
Med Era is set for 225 turns/3.5833 yr/turn, would end ~ 1400AD
Ren Era is set for 290 turn/1.33 yr/turn would end ~ 1700AD
Industrial Era is set for 460 turns/ 1/2 yr(6 months)/turn, would end ~ 1900-1920AD
Modern is set for 460 turns/ 3 months/turn, would end ~ 2015-2035AD
Transhuman is set for 950 turns/ 1yr/turn, would end ~ 2110-2130AD
Galactic set for 280 turns/ 7.166yr/turn would end ~4000AD-4050AD
Then Future Era is the catch all set for 1000 turns/ 1 yr/turn for another 1000yr timeframe.

These are all Target dates and ranges. They will Not be etched in stone because of the many options that can affect the speed of research which all these date ranges are based on. Number of tech/era determines the number of turns for that ear based on the range set for the era.

This is why I ask if you meant 2600BC instead of 2600AD. If you are getting 2600AD showing up as you say you arewith the # of year/turn you are reporting, then you could not have started in Preh era. Unless you are having a typo mistake and meant 2600BC but typed 2600AD instead.

You have posted saying " that I noticed from post-game history replay screen". The dates I'm talking about are at the top right corner of the main map. That History replay screen may be displaying wrong dates. That is not something I look at nor know anything about.

The info you are giving (without any screenshots, those really help by the way), the 8 yrs/turn and then 4 yrs/turn, says you where In or near Classical era 2000BC +/- and then near or at medieval era 500 AD +/- x years. (I thought you did post a screen shot though. )

Please post a save from your game so that I may look at it.

One final thought, did you play v36 before you started playing v37 with this game?

JosEPh

 

[JosEPh_II]

Had a look at the date system for snail and noticed this:
One reach the year 2600 after 1275 turns; snail consist of 4940 turns in total.

@Joseph: When you made your changes to gamespeed, perhaps you made a mistake with the dates here...

1275 turns would get you thru the 1st 3 eras loosely. Not sure how you came up with 1275 turns for the whole Snail # of turns. year 2600 would be 2600BC not 2600AD.

Add the turns up that I posted above. by end of modern era you should've played close to 2700 turns, not 1275 turns to finish Future Era. And yes these are ranges as Game Options and Leader traits and wonders researched plus if Tech diffision is On or Off all vary the results to varying degrees. But Not that Snail would finish the Eras by 1275 turns.

I also play tested snail multiple times and the dates were not as being reported here.

JosEPh

 

[Toffer90]

The first 52600 years take exactly 1275 turns on snail. I got it from the gamespeed xml.

 

[JosEPh_II]

1275 turns on Snail seems to be matching with my results.

I guess, I'm gonna play the Eons speed for now. Dates seem to be making more sense there. E.g. every year between 1167 and 1587 AD seem to be present in the game according to my calculations. Then it gets slower and slower until 1904 AD when it starts speeding up again.

I'll say it again, each era is based on the # of techs per era. The range of dates for each Era, ie Preh is 50,000BC to 6,000BC or 44,000 years. That 44,000 years is divided by the # of tech in that Era. In this case at the time these Game speeds were adjusted there was 100 techs in the Preh Era. 525 turns times 84 years/turn = 44,100

Snail was ~ 5000 turns. It ended up after adjustment to 4940 turns.

Eons follows the pattern but with 7,005 turns. So Preh Era in Eons has 700 turns with each turn change the date by 63.833 yrs per turn. The game will adjust by 1 year up or down since .833 is not a whole year. So that a base C2C game w/o extensive player exploits should hit Ancient close to the 6,000BC date in the game. It will be off x number of years + or - some years just from getting a tech from a goodie hut. Or by you the player making a trade for a tech you don't have.

Is this starting to make any sense? All these Game speeds were rigorously tested to make sure they gave a consistent pattern of dates per era. The dates in game are Not etched in stone, they are a targeted range. This is key.

JosEPh

 

[JosEPh_II]

The first 52600 years take exactly 1275 turns on snail. I got it from the gamespeed xml.

I'm looking at the xml right now. Snail in the Preh era has 525 turns. The increment per turn is 1008 Months not Years Divide 1008 months by 12 and you get 84 years. Each turn taken during this 525 turns passes 84 years on the game date. 84 years x 525 turn is 44,100 game years. 50,000BC - 44,100 = 5,900 BC. Close enough to the 6,000BC target date for this GS.

Perhaps you failed to see the </iMonthIncrement>
<GameTurnInfo>
<iMonthIncrement>1008</iMonthIncrement>
<iTurnsPerIncrement>525</iTurnsPerIncrement>
</GameTurnInfo>
are in Months not Years?

My math is solid and it's proven by the testing.

JosEPh

 

[Toffer90]

1008*525 + 160*450 + 100*300 = 631 200 months over 1275 turns
631 200 / 12 = 52 600 years

 

[JosEPh_II]

1008*525 + 160*450 + 100*300 = 631 200 months over 1275 turns
631 200 / 12 = 52 600 years

The math does not work that way in the game.
1008 x 525 = 528,200 which is then divided by 12, 528,200/12 =44,100 game years or 5,900BC
160 x 450 = 72,000, 72000/12= 6000, which is where I Do have an error.
I transposed the 6 and 0 in 160 should've been 106 to = 4000 game years so that Classical would start at ~2000BC, in the case of snail GS 1900BC for a base game. By being dyslexic on this one the game date is pushed back to 100AD
100 x 300 = 30000/12= 2500 game years or 500AD, start of Med era, Not 2600AD the end of game.
43 x 225 = 9675/12= 806.25 game years or 1306 AD start of Ren Era
16 x 290 = 4640/12 = 386.66 game years or 1693AD, Start of Ind Era
6 x 460 = 2760/12 = 230 game years or 1923 AD, start of Modern (target was 1920AD)

Shall I continue or can you continue the exercise till all eras have been calculated correctly by the right math procedures?

Your process was an oversimplification of how the game calculates it's dates.

JosEPh

 

[Toffer90]

Ok, I'll do the math your way.
1008 * 525 / 12 = 44 100 years over 525 turns
160 * 450 / 12 = 6000 years over 450 turns
100 * 300 / 12 = 2500 years over 300 turns
sum = 52 600 years over 1275 turns

 

[JosEPh_II]

See my edit please. I will correct the wrong number for Ancient from 160 to 106.

JosEPh

 

[JosEPh_II]

I have committed a fix for snail game speed. Thank you rfcfanatic and Toffer. My apologies.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

I have committed a fix for snail game speed. Thank you rfcfanatic and Toffer. My apologies.

JosEPh

Toffer always takes me to school whenever he and I disagree too. Don't feel bad. lol Very clever fellow, that one.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I find as I type more and more I start flipping letters and numbers. Mostly because I type with 2 or 3 fingers and my right hand the finger tips split every winter. It Hurts to type! And I get aggravated with myself and it spills over onto everything!

But wouldn't it have been easier to just point out that 160 x 450 divided by 12 was 6,000 not the 4,000 it was supposed to be? Just sayin', would've saved a lot of typing and gotten the fix done quicker.

JosEPh

 

[JosEPh_II]

Toffer always takes me to school whenever he and I disagree too. Don't feel bad. lol Very clever fellow, that one.

Young whipper snapper beatin' up his elders if youse ta ask me!

JosEPh

 

[Toffer90]

But wouldn't it have been easier to just point out that 160 x 450 divided by 12 was 6,000 not the 4,000 it was supposed to be? Just sayin', would've saved a lot of typing and gotten the fix done quicker.

JosEPh

I'm sorry about that, but I was really tired last night and didn't have the patience to properly read your post to figure out why you wouldn't listen; so I just kept repeating myself.

Toffer always takes me to school whenever he and I disagree too. Don't feel bad. lol Very clever fellow, that one.

I could say the same about you, our discussions are often enlightening for me as well.

 

[rfcfanatic]

I have committed a fix for snail game speed. Thank you rfcfanatic and Toffer. My apologies.

JosEPh

I updated to the latest version from SVN and it works now! I also have screenshots. This screenshot was taken before the fix:



It says turn 1281 and year 2621 AD. And after the fix (didn't even have to look for and delete any cached files after SVN update):



It's turn 1280 and year 592 AD (didn't have screenshots from the same turn, but I guess you get the point ). The year was already correct right after I loaded from the save.

Thank you JosEPh for fixing this so quickly and Toffer90 for also looking into this!

 

[JosEPh_II]

You are most welcome.

I do have another question or 2 though. How did you reach Modern Era so fast? And what Difficulty level is this game?

JosEPh

 

[rfcfanatic]

You are most welcome.

I do have another question or 2 though. How did you reach Modern Era so fast? And what Difficulty level is this game?

JosEPh

The difficulty level is Noble. Map size is Large. Here are the factors which I believe helped with reaching Modern Era so fast.

Expansion. I think the main factor that enabled me to pull ahead in tech so greatly is expansion - as many cities as early as possible - even if over-expansion meant significant penalty in cities. To compensate the unhappiness, I used resources and buildings. I consider Tribalism and Chiefdom as key techs in early game. Bronze Working and Monarchy in the Ancient era, Democracy in Classical era and Representative Democracy in Renaissance era help greatly with expansion - they unlock civics that reduce the over-expansion penalty.

Due to weakness and instability of the AI, I had lots of land to settle. I settled 50 cities myself I think. The other 20 or so were conquests.

Golden age. Once both Cheomseongdae and Mausoleum of Maussollos were finished, I used a Great Person to fire a sequence of golden ages that lasted over 500 turns in total including only one 6-turn interruption - before I got Taj Mahal built. Cheomseongdae and MoM add 70% to golden age length in total which on Snail speed means 35 turns vs 59 turns - a huge difference! It's like a positively feedbacking process - during GA, Great Person production rate doubles and the longer you stay in GA the more GP you produce and the more probable it is to get different GP-s to lengthen the GA by another 59 turns. Techs that give a free GP are also worth prioritizing.

Gets increasingly difficult to keep the GA going in late game though. Neuschwanstein Castle wonder was one of the last thing that helped. The next 59 turn addition would have cost 8 different GP-s which I didn't have.

Crime fighting and disease control. Invested into these heavily. A police and medicine unit in every settler stack from Ancient era onwards. In bigger cities, multiple of such units sometimes.

Heroic units and archievements. These special buildings constructed by heroic units are very powerful. Each one increases 8% something, e.g. or . Tried to get these as early as possible - in Ancient and Classical eras.

Good land. Lots of coast on this map. Great majority of my cities are coastal cities. Coastal cities seem to be benefiting from trade routes quite a lot. The Great Lighthouse is still a powerful wonder, btw And Harbor is very powerful building in C2C - in addition to trade routes, it unlocks other powerful buildings.

Hunting in early game helps with a lot.

City build queue. SHIFT or CTRL clicking is better than simply clicking buildings. Doing this on Domestic Advisor screen on a group of cities is even better. Because thanks to Multiple Production feature, you can sometimes construct a second or a third building in the same turn using the overflow.

 

[JosEPh_II]

@rfcfanatic,
You play very similar to our Senior Modder Dancing Hoskuld. He does all his Testing on Noble and is a builder too. Works those Golden Ages to the max like you do.

Thanks for the run down as that tells me it's not a "bug", but just an experienced player playing well below their capabilities.

I would love to see how you perform on our regular Deity level. The insight would be valuable.

Thanks for the report!

JosEPh

 

[Galadrion]

rfcfanatic, this sounds a lot like my own play style as well. I know I've been talking elsewhere to a newer C2C player who was having problems with crime and disease, and Joseph and I were both advising him to increase his LE/medical garrisons.

Golden ages are not so much a consideration for me, but I tend to play more on Marathon game speed. GAs are not quite as big an issue at that speed. Great People tend to be reserved for special buildings and, occasionally, settling in my cities.

As for the city build queues, YES! And on Marathon, it can often happen that a city builds considerably more than a second or third building - once my initial build queue on a city is done and I start putting in more specialized queues, it often happens that I'll have a city complete around six buildings in a single turn, at least until the cheaper ones are completed.

Land usage, particularly coastal siting, and hunting are both large factors as well. One element I didn't see you mention, which I'm exploring/exploiting in my current game, is the synergy between criminal/ruffian/strike team units and slavery - black ops units carefully promoted in order to be slave-takers can really build up the number of military and Neanderthal captives (civilian captive don't seem to be anywhere near as common), which can accelerate a slavery-driven economy enormously.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Love the game play insights guys but can we put them in the tips and tricks section rather than in the bugs and crashes? This is kinda my support ticket thread and I often spend time reviewing to make sure I've resolved all issues. Posts like these can make it take a lot longer to do said reviews. Don't take it to mean it's not appreciated feedback though. Interesting stuff!