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

[raxo2222]

Well you still should touch only AiResearchPercent in handicaps.
Set that to 44 for Nightmare (SO handicap).

Handicap research/production cost was changed so game experience doesn't depend on handicap when it comes to difficulty until you meet AI.

 

[Toffer90]

So by setting player tech cost in handicap <iResearchCost> you do absolutely nothing.

The tag he changed works just like it always has.

 

[raxo2222]

The tag he changed works just like it always has.

Ah so its function was preserved then.

 

[Toffer90]

Ah so its function was preserved then.

If we had removed the function we would have removed the tag as well. All tags found in the schema file, or that is used in any xml file, does work. If not, then there is an oversight and the tag should be removed completely.

Well you still should touch only AiResearchPercent in handicaps.

@BlueGenie, Don't mind Raxo; I see no problem in you changing the iReasearchPercent tag in handicap files on your personal copy of C2C.

 

[BlueGenie]

Well, I don't agree that they should be the same regardless of difficulty level. Some things should become more difficult, be harder, take longer, independently of the AI, when going up in difficulty level. Among those things I think research should be paramount.

 

[BlueGenie]

And mentioning multiplayer games again, more experienced players playing on higher difficulties should have to work harder, because they can and know how to, than a new inexperienced player on a lower difficulty setting. This change basically means multiplayer with human players at differing degrees of experience can not have a competitive game together any more.

 

[raxo2222]

It appears Tar Pit can't be generated on Permafrost but can be on Ice or Taiga/Tundra for example (CIV4FeatureInfos).

 

[Thunderbrd]

Well, I don't agree that they should be the same regardless of difficulty level. Some things should become more difficult, be harder, take longer, independently of the AI, when going up in difficulty level. Among those things I think research should be paramount.

This is actually a new tag. Vanilla never had it. We tried this. It led to a sense of disruption among the harder level players. It might be worth splitting the difference between the AI tag and this though. We had been all player mod or all ai only mod but we haven't tried anything inbetween. You bring up an argument about the differentiation between 2 human players that seems to have some merit. At the last change to get it where it currently is, the determination was that it's better for the tech cost (and others) variation be experienced by gamespeed and for the difficulty to enhance the AI so the player would know no different on harder gamespeeds.

 

[BlueGenie]

It should likely be discussed elsewhere though, not in Bugs and Crashes.
As for the determining that it's better for tech costs variations to be the same makes no sense to me either. I have played some multiplayer games and the more experienced players, even with needing more beakers per research, tend to wade through the tech tree faster, reaching those key points earlier, than the less experienced players, so that will be the effect even when playing solo: the same player on his Mth game will invariably get to Ancient and Classical centuries before his Vth try, so even then there is a difference in the gameplay.
I also think the difference in the AI per difficulty isn't enough. Someone experienced enough to run games on Deity v someone running on Noble is separated by a lot more than the 100 to 85 that is currently in place for AI on most areas, a difference of only 15% better AI. In contrast going from Settler to Noble is an increase of 23% speed for the AI, hugely more than from Noble to Deity.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Joseph: No, total units outside were 15, no subdued animals outside of borders. But it added 36 imaginary units somehow counting for Units Supply.

<snip>

I have 13 units outside my borders. This Includes 3 naval units. From my screen shot below I only have 1 for Unit Supply. This is on Immortal Difficulty, on a Large C2C_World Map, using Normal GS (2000 turns).

Perhaps it's because your game was started on an SVN version before 10043.

 

[BlueGenie]

I doubt it, have had this happen for a long time. Can you check your more developed games, check how many you actually have outside and how many the Unit Supply states that you have?
And I am not saying how much I have in Unit Supply cost, only how many units it's counting as being outside, meaning units paid for + free units.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I doubt it, have had this happen for a long time. Can you check your more developed games, check how many you actually have outside and how many the Unit Supply states that you have?
And I am not saying how much I have in Unit Supply cost, only how many units it's counting as being outside, meaning units paid for + free units.

All games started before 10011 and 10043 were screwed up so bad as to be unreliable. And as such discarded/deleted. I only have games started at 10043 or after now.

The screenshot is from my most developed game since SVN 10043.

As long as you continue to play games started before 10043 your game will continue to corrupt. And if you are playing Any game started before 10011 it's a wonder it has not CTD'd to being totally unplayable.

Perhaps you don't understand how bad the AI was broken till the SVN 10043 DLL righted the ship.

 

[Toffer90]

And mentioning multiplayer games again, more experienced players playing on higher difficulties should have to work harder, because they can and know how to, than a new inexperienced player on a lower difficulty setting. This change basically means multiplayer with human players at differing degrees of experience can not have a competitive game together any more.

I feel the difference between settler and Nightmare Deity is a large enough difference for an inexperienced and an experienced player to have a good game against each other.
The player on settler pays only 40% unit upkeep, civic upkeep, city upkeep, has 8 Happy and Health bonus in all cities, has minimal education and crime problems, and has 36 free units.
The player on NM Deity pays 240% Unit upkeep, civic upkleep, city upkeep, has a 2 health penalty and 1 happy penalty in all cities, and must deal with rampant crime and ignorance, and has 36 less free units than the one on settler difficulty.
There is imo no need to add more handicaps than this for multiplayer purposes.

 

[BlueGenie]

Joseph, I'm no longer talking about the French AI issue, I am talking about the Unit Supply that has been around since v 27 or so, for me, but strangely enough no one else seems to have noticed or have it at all. That's why I am asking you to check, even if it's older games, even if it's prior to 10011, and even if it's prior to v30.

Did anyone try to load my game to see what I am talking about with the Unit Supply at all? I am also rather certain that it is still persisting even if I start a new game post 10051 version, but if everyone insists I can start a new game with that and play on until I notice the "imaginary units" starting to come in?
Just as long as no one suddenly starts saying "oh, but that's a game from before 10060, you'd better start anew", because, like I said, this has been around for me since v27 or so.

Toffer, I don't. For one rather simple reason: To make the AI a challenge for the Deity player right now the AI needs significant boost to research and productions. I am, like I've previously mentioned, outperforming the AI (yes, past svn 10051) even before reaching a third of Prehistory running on Nightmare Deity if I do not substantially change my own research rates AND run on 0% science for the most part. As the AI is set by the highest difficulty by human players that would make it, for a Settler and even up to Warlord at least, the AI way too hard to beat for them, even with the reduction in monetary upkeep.

I also would like to add that setting main focus, almost all but properties also change, on money and upkeep costs between difficulty levels feels completely wrong to me. That does not make it harder, it makes it more expensive, which is not the same thing. Most experienced players also do not need massive amounts of units so that part of the cost does not matter as much anyway, only the ability to set more cities for the lower difficulties would be the final determining feature of higher or lower difficulty levels. With that in mind the higher difficulty player, with equal research levels, will be several techs ahead, maybe as far as half an Era or more, and will with that be able to match the cities a lower level player could amass anyway, with higher income and needing less units because they are in base stronger.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Joseph, I'm no longer talking about the French AI issue, I am talking about the Unit Supply that has been around since v 27 or so, for me, but strangely enough no one else seems to have noticed or have it at all. That's why I am asking you to check, even if it's older games, even if it's prior to 10011, and even if it's prior to v30.

I'm not talking about the French AI either.

We seem to Not be on the same page, even though I thought I was being very clear. As I stated I have no older games. 10011 was a Save game breaking commit to clean up some major problems. All games I had saved before that were deleted as they could not be updated without being broken. Plus the New system of Game Speeds and the underlying file changes and formulas that accompanied them.

10043 was another Major commit to set way more than the AI Brokerage system straight. And any game started inbetween 10012 and 10043 was also Broken. So any game I had started inbetween those 2 SVN versions was Also Deleted.

I have not d/l'd your save game yet.

Did anyone try to load my game to see what I am talking about with the Unit Supply at all? I am also rather certain that it is still persisting even if I start a new game post 10051 version, but if everyone insists I can start a new game with that and play on until I notice the "imaginary units" starting to come in?
Just as long as no one suddenly starts saying "oh, but that's a game from before 10060, you'd better start anew", because, like I said, this has been around for me since v27 or so.

A screenshot or 2 from you illustrating your problem would also be very helpful. But you have not provided any to date. Also you do modify the C2C files to suit your tastes correct?

EDIT: I have now D/L'd your french save game.

 

[BlueGenie]

I had not modified anything having to do with units, other than increase the Outside allowed units to keep up with the imaginary units. Research costs I think should not do anything with adding imaginary units in Unit Supply, one would think.

And I did not realise that you deleted all your old saves. I tend not to, mostly because there's no need to delete them really. As for screen-shots I seldom make any such, prefer teh old "savegame upload" really.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Research costs I think should not do anything with adding imaginary units in Unit Supply, one would think.

Never said it would. But the whole system used for the New Game speeds is a subset of the way the Mod is Balanced now. My old system of balance used the old Firaxis method and included much much more than research. Toffer and T-brd's new way of balancing is just that a new Way. They introduced new formulas and new tags for the sake of trying to balance the mod as they deemed necessary. Much more in depth than just tweaking research, way more deep. And it is an ongoing project still.

It is strange I must say that you are the Only poster to have this supply problem, or to at least post about it. And we've had many new players come in that have questioned everything under the sun that is in this mod. Surely if it was a wide spread problem the odds of some one else reporting this would have been done. The broken v38 release really showed this as the response were very large and vocal.

And my own screen shot and noted observation is the exact Opposite of your claim. I show 1 unit supply while having 13 units (or more now) outside my borders. In fact I have 4 Rangers that are on the other side of the continent which is a large continent on a C2C_World Large map. I do not have any Armies outside of my borders though at this time. I did have a 4 unit stack doing barb hunting for awhile.

 

[Talin2009]

I had a pause for c2c for 3 months, 3 days ago renewed SVN and started new game.
I noticed units don't get experience when attacking animals or barbarians.
After searching this thread i found that it can be concerned with either Barbarian General option (i have it on) and turning More XP to level option off (had it on).

So i turned off latter and i gain experience again, but it come way too quick to my liking.
Is there any way to have More XP to level option on and still gain experience?

 

[Thunderbrd]

I had a pause for c2c for 3 months, 3 days ago renewed SVN and started new game.
I noticed units don't get experience when attacking animals or barbarians.
After searching this thread i found that it can be concerned with either Barbarian General option (i have it on) and turning More XP to level option off (had it on).

So i turned off latter and i gain experience again, but it come way too quick to my liking.
Is there any way to have More XP to level option on and still gain experience?

Welcome back Talin!

Try to use Dynamic XP perhaps. I'm interested to see why you aren't getting any experience. The More XP to Level option shouldn't have had any effect on that. That can happen without Unlimited XP option once you hit about 10XP on a unit. Could that have been the issue?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Never said it would. But the whole system used for the New Game speeds is a subset of the way the Mod is Balanced now. My old system of balance used the old Firaxis method and included much much more than research. Toffer and T-brd's new way of balancing is just that a new Way. They introduced new formulas and new tags for the sake of trying to balance the mod as they deemed necessary. Much more in depth than just tweaking research, way more deep. And it is an ongoing project still.

It is strange I must say that you are the Only poster to have this supply problem, or to at least post about it. And we've had many new players come in that have questioned everything under the sun that is in this mod. Surely if it was a wide spread problem the odds of some one else reporting this would have been done. The broken v38 release really showed this as the response were very large and vocal.

And my own screen shot and noted observation is the exact Opposite of your claim. I show 1 unit supply while having 13 units (or more now) outside my borders. In fact I have 4 Rangers that are on the other side of the continent which is a large continent on a C2C_World Large map. I do not have any Armies outside of my borders though at this time. I did have a 4 unit stack doing barb hunting for awhile.

I think I recall him mentioning it a long time ago. It's just a very hard thing to try to track down in the code. Very hard. You'd have to run the game on a debug dll for a while and figure out when the transaction math is not recording a transaction as it should, which almost takes a round by round analysis of the whole game's worth of units. Some code to run an ongoing audit would be possible to design I suppose and through logs one could possibly find the problem. But even that is not easy and could take months to test and find the issue. I have the same problems with loading and unloading on ships becoming somehow out of whack on accuracy and in the visibility code, where I have solved the latter by pretty much causing a visibility recalc each and every round - which is helping to cause turn delays but is ensuring rules accuracy because I cannot figure out where certain actions are not being recorded properly. Being a royal pain to try to track down, I've not hazarded to attempt it and I'm still not likely to be willing for some years to come as there are more important matters imo. Particularly since it's even difficult to verify is taking place.