Single Player bugs and crashes v38 plus (SVN) - After the 20th of February 2018

Critical is a big word.

A critical issue would be something like constantly crashing.

 

The Animal spawn rates seem to be too high at the moment.

Anyone who doesn't agree should try a Autoplay on a Gigantic map and wait until the game crashes because one of the NPC's reaches the 8192 units or selection groups limits. This just happened to me after only 117 turns on the Normal gamespeed.

 

ahaha yeah, try a dryland map even at "large" and u cant even move because every turn new animals block almost all the paths each and every turn . .

 

I don't agree, but then I don't play on gigantic maps only huge and noble difficulty. I have the spawn rate on my games at about 10-20 higher than the default value. By the mid-Classic period there are few places left for animals to exist. In one game I did have that problem with the barbarians, but that was 15-20 versions ago.

 

Curious what Map? C2C_World? PM2? ??

How many AI on that Gigantic map too?

About 40 versions ago I had a Large map with 8AI and Peace Among NPCs On that was loaded. Exploration was greatly reduced. But I thought Toffer reduced some of the animal spawns after that. Individual type spawns and not the Global Spawn setting.

I had them at one time at 50, but I'm sure they were upped to 90. Need to look.

 

I think they are currently at 100. Which is what I use but like you said I thought that they had been set down to 50 or 60. I sure I have not changed that file because mine is still different to the SVN version in a number of places.

 

Yeah it's at 100 when it should be 75 - 90 range.

Sea Animals is at 75 and that was once 50, iirc.

But having the Option Peace Among NPCs On (checked) does make a huge difference too. No predators thinning the herds and the Barbs and Neanders not subduing either.

 

I will reduce NPC spawn rates some tomorrow. I would like to know if your test was done with peace among NPC's option, and if barbs/neanderthal were as numerous as animals or if animals were the main problem.

 

I play with peace among NPC's on. Barbarians should not be subduing at all as they don't need the buildings. Not sure about the Neanderthals.

 

I was just running a AutoPlay as a test so i left all Gameoptions at their defaults.
It was the custom contents mapscript with the default number of players and Normal gamespeed.

It really surprised me that the turns took so long on that Gigantic map with not even 100 turns done. Then after only 117 turns it crashed because one NPC reached the limit. Having that many animals around also explains the long turn times at that early point in the game.

We had that problem with the Barbarian player before the animals where split of into several players.

 

That would explain why my AI autoplay tests are crashing.

On unrelated note AI is eager to build Child Care Hut or something like that which then allows them build Omega Child Crew when they have needed resources.

By the way WFL and TD should affect civilizations, that have contact with each other.

So if on one continent two civs met each other, and on other 4 civs met each other, then on first continent TD would try equalize tech of pair of civs and WFL affect only weaker civ on continent.

If 4 civs contacted each other, then TD would equalize tech level only of these four civs and WFL would affect more weaker civs.

I do ai autorun on Blitz/Noble/Gigantic without barbarians and without pece among NPCs.
Greece representing European civ enjoys to expand - it already has 6 cities on 100th turn while others have 2-3 cities.
I play without traits.
Maybe we should review all leaders personality?
I set sea/land animal spawn rate to 50.

Greece is doing best, other civs have similar score on 200th turn.

Spoiler :

Aztecs are green (N. America).
Inca is orange (S. America)
Greece is light blue (Europe)
Egypt is yellow (Africa)
Babylon is purple (Middle East)
China is magenta (Asia)
Aborigines are white (Oceania)

Here is world map on 200th turn.
By the way Incas and Aztecs love each other

Spoiler :

Turns last 30 seconds on average.
Divided by amount of AIs it means single AI needs 4 - 5 secs to process turn.
Should be all NPCs counted as single AI, that always take 2 - 3 seconds to process turn?
Autosaving also takes few seconds.
This is consistent with 4 - 5 seconds I get on beginning of game without AIs.

7 AIs would take ~25 secs and NPCs + Autosaving would take 5 secs.
25/7 = ~3.6 seconds per AI.

There is one TXT entry.

Spoiler :

I play without Metropolitan Administration being requirement for third ring.
Now turns last little over minute after 210th turn.

I like how Egypt was strongest civ on previous AI autoplay and now its weakest one.

Turn processing time is nearing to two minutes on 270th turn.

Earth part map is Large sized.
All covis have 10 - 15 cities.
Also most of them are reaching Renaissance.

AI Autoplay world at 0 AD (290th turn).
Turn takes ~100 seconds to process.
Civs are in Medieval and Renaissance tech level.
Some civs are close to Industrial era.
Greece is already in Industrial era.

Spoiler :

Turns take somewhere in between 2 - 3 minutes to process after 290th turn.

 

TD only work between civs that have made contact.
WFL is designed to be unrelated to civs knowing about each other or not.
It's working as designed.

 

Ah so TD already does that, wasn't sure as I have both of them enabled.
As for WFL what would be real world equivalent of it?

TD is civs spying on each other to learn their technologies.
Would be WFL related to smaller empires being generally more efficient?
Or that would be more like to people traveling and exchanging ideas?

By the way average 3 minutes/turn would be too long on Eternity on beginning of Industrial era.
On blitz its fine, but units may see quarter of era pass before you reach target.

 

It simulates border neighbors observing that the neighbor does a task different than they do. Example if the ppl on side x observe that the ppl on side y are planting their seeds by breaking up the soil 1st vs their own method of just scattering seed on the ground, then seeing that during the season the the y side had more plants come up and then at harvest have more than they got what do you think they would do? Keep throwing their seed on the ground, or start trying to break up their ground like y did? That is what TD emulates.

WFL is just a game gimmick to ease the Research load on the "poorer" and "smaller" AI and player. No more no less.

No.

No for WFL, but yes for TD.

Only if playing on Huge or larger maps. By Industrial you have units that can travel quite far per turn.

 

Ah so WFL is just cheating and tech "communism".

I'm testing premade map.
This is scenario map, Earth part is 110 tiles long and 55 tiles high. That is 6050 tiles.
Large sized map is 104 x 64 = 6656 tiles big and Standard sized map is 84 x 52 = 4368 tiles.
That is Earth is slightly longer than Large map and slightly taller than Standard map.

 

It's just an artificial balance mechanic meant to keep all nations more in line technologically.

Sure, why not.
It is meant to make small nations more competitive with large nations, that was the main intention TB stated when he added the WFL option.

 

There is a WFL equivalent as in that nations less developed tend to pick up things from the more developed nations they trade with. Sometimes just things they see, like a merchant counting on an abacus, or a cart on wheels, or riders on horses using stirrups but more often actually being told about the wonders of the more developed nation and in many cases even being told or taught how to make those things themselves.
It's only in recent times, think East India Company, where patents and proprietary rights are holding back from teaching others, and even then today lots and lots of information is being distributed freely without charge, even some things that are considered "property" and can make people earn money by making and selling.

 

I would say that there is a point where large empires are favored in the game compared to reality: Any technological progress is instantly known in the entire empire and you have a treasury that any city can access, no matter where it is (removing a point where criminals could really hinder your efforts). Especially the latter point might be the main reason why vast empires were rarely effective in history, so WFL might be considered a compensation for that.

Of course, there are many other aspects from reality that are not shown in the game (volumetric resources comes to mind, which would probably favor larger empires again, because right now it doesn't mean anything if you have an important resource just once or ten times).

 

+BlueGenie: your description fits Tech Diffusion, not WFL.

Something similar to WFL was already in the game: the more cities you have, and the bigger they are, the more upkeep you pay. This is partially because of the "number of cities" upkeep cost, partially because of Civic Upkeep cost, which scales with population size. Plus you can only cramp so many cities in a specific area, and then you have to place additional cities further away. Which increases distance-to-palace upkeep cost.

In other words, a big empire is more expensive per city than a small empire. Upkeep costs are NOT linear with empire size, but having a bigger empire worsens your financial situation considerably.

Which means that a big empire needs to put relatively more cities on Build Wealth than a small empire. So a small empire can put relatively more cities on Build Research.

As far as I understand, what WFL does is add a similar effect.

This principle was inherited from vanilla Civ 4 Beyond The Sword. However, in Civ 4 BTS most income was in the form of commerce, so you could turn excess money into research by changing the commerce distribution sliders. In C2C, most income is in the form of direct money or direct research beakers, lessening the importance of the commerce distribution sliders, and if you make more money than you can spend, there is no easy way to turn it into research, so the money tends to accumulate unused.

 

I'd like to think it fits both descriptions though, UNLESS WFL gives Commerce boost and not science boost?