The farm crash bug

[whoward69]

I have a very fast machine and I have symptoms something like that. But I'm not sure if it's the same thing. My problems mostly occur when I reload a saved game after playing awhile. Things like mines and farms don't always appear right away. Usually (but not always) they eventually appear after a few turns. I'm using DX11.

I get that as well, I just assumed that the "draw the map" code was in a background thread (the same way that if you jump the viewpoint on a large map with lots of features/improvements it takes time for it to fill in all the bits) and it was taking time.

It's the replacing of improvements that seems to be weird for farms. If I replace a mine with a farm, as soon as the workers start, all the mine graphics go and I get the farm in progress graphic, but if I replace a mine with a farm (needs hills next to fresh water) the farm buildings go immediately and I get the mine in progress, but the field pattern remains for "a bit longer"

But I've been staring at this for so long now I'm no longer sure what I'm seeing!!!

 

[General Tso]

I know what that feels like. Been there done that.

 

[FramedArchitect]

-- So comment out the first 4 stmts and just go with the following one line, which should keep the buildings and the fields
UPDATE ArtDefine_Landmarks SET LayoutHandler='SNAPSHOT' WHERE ImprovementType='ART_DEF_IMPROVEMENT_FARM' AND ResourceType='ART_DEF_RESOURCE_NONE';
-- which it does

Thanks for your work on this issue.

Above solution causes crash on Load/Save when a trading post is currently replacing a farm (though not for mines or pastures).

This solution also causes the normal crash for all cases after transition to modern era graphics.

 

[whoward69]

I've spent the afternoon trying to create 4 sets of "Arable" improvement graphics (a la the 4 TP graphic sets) but it seems that the SNAPSHOT handler is only hard-coded to pick up sets for the TP and no other improvement type (only just noticed that every mine is actually orientated the same way - unless I've really broken my system!).

Also been digging into the farm_types.xml file, and (reading between the lines) the FARM layout manager is doing a lot of stuff that has no corresponding database entries - adding the hedge rows (can't even find the dds file for these!), deciding which continent you're on and picking a different crop colour, etc, etc.

Think it's time to make a mod that's just a static farm, ditch the FARM entries completely, ignore the lack of fields (I'm sure if the crash can be fixed someone can make a static field graphic), and see what that does. But first I have to wipe out the Maya in my current game as they're beginning to annoy me

 

[PawelS]

I've spent the afternoon trying to create 4 sets of "Arable" improvement graphics (a la the 4 TP graphic sets) but it seems that the SNAPSHOT handler is only hard-coded to pick up sets for the TP and no other improvement type (only just noticed that every mine is actually orientated the same way - unless I've really broken my system!).

Yes, this is hardcoded - it picks one of the trading post versions with a number from 1 to 4 randomly. This only happens with the trading post art defines.

In my mod I'm using the old trading post graphics for the Fishing Village improvement, and I'm using the RANDOM layout handler for this. It works well - you don't need to add these numbers to the art define names, just add multiple entries with the same art define name and different .fxsxml file names to ArtDefine_Landmarks, and the game picks one of them randomly.

 

[whoward69]

It doesn't seem that RANDOM is honouring the Era column - as I have a mix of Industrial and Ancient farms (but at least I have farm buildings and a random selection at that)

[And totally off-topic, whoever wrote Notepad++ deserves a Knighthood! - Having deleted all my previous SQL, and saved the file, and closed Notepad++ (but without closing the file within Notepad++ so it was there when I re-opened Notepad++) Ctrl-Z undid all my deletes!!!! ]

 

[PawelS]

It doesn't seem that RANDOM is honouring the Era column - as I have a mix of Industrial and Ancient farms (but at least I have farm buildings and a random selection at that)

I haven't noticed that, actually I don't need different era versions for my mod. I guess that's why they haven't used RANDOM for the Trading Posts, and hardcoded special behavior for it instead.

 

[whoward69]

I don't think the Tech column is going to work either, as while you can lock-out the modern farms from the early eras, the late eras still get the medieval farms as well.

So, it looks like we can have one static SNAPHOT farm with an ancient/industrial version or several RANDOM static farms that will have to be acceptable for all eras.

Boy, Firaxis really went out of their way to make this stuff non-flexible!

 

[FramedArchitect]

Boy, Firaxis really went out of their way to make this stuff non-flexible!

They stuck a guy in a closet at the beginning of the project with these instructions:
"Make some farms. We'll be back to pick them up next year. Have fun."

 

[whoward69]

So like all the other guys on the project then

 

[whoward69]

Been digging into the DLL source today, and I can find nowhere that the error is directly related to - so I'm going to guess that the problem is in the graphics drawing code in (one of) the DLLs we don't have access to.

So that leaves us with
a) ignore it, hope players don't build farms on horses/iron/coal or at least have a recent save game when it crashes
b) reveal all the resources from turn 1 so you can't build on them
c) create two new farms graphics - an ancient one and a modern one - and set up a SNAPSHOT handler for the farm improvement for those. BUT this makes all farms look the same (which is very boring to the eye)
d) create several (four?) new farm graphics that are suitable for all eras (half timber buildings with wooden outhouses would probably look best - may be able to reskin the ancient plantation buildings) and set up a RANDOM handler for the farm improvement

My preferred option would be d (especially as we still have ancient fishing boats on crabs, etc into the modern eras)

 

[PawelS]

A and b don't really solve the problem, because, even on a hex without a resource, it's always possible that someone will want to replace a farm with a GP improvement or a trading post (and the AI can do it too), or just found a city there. So I'd prefer d as well, hopefully someone is able to do it... (currently I'm using Polder graphics for Farm, which doesn't look very good).

There is also option e - Firaxis fixes this bug in the next patch - but I wouldn't count on it

 

[whoward69]

There is also option e - Firaxis fixes this bug in the next patch - but I wouldn't count on it

April 1st sure came round quickly this year!

 

[Gedemon]

There is also option e - Firaxis fixes this bug in the next patch - but I wouldn't count on it

well, seriously, is there at least a thread about that in the bug report forum ?

 

[whoward69]

well, seriously, is there at least a thread about that in the bug report forum ?

You're joking right?

Mod subscribe/download/enable/disable off line/auto-delete when off-line bug(s)
- Reported on at least 4 forums (that I know of)
- Reported directly by myself
- Reported directly by (at least) one member of the Frankenstein group

And the response was?












[tumbleweed]















[more tumbleweed]

















[same tumbleweed, but going in the other direction]










still waiting a response

 

[Gedemon]

well, sometime we get an answer in the next patch note, it's better than nothing I suppose.

I'd love to have a direct answer, don't get me wrong, it would save the time we are spending looking for workaround, I'm just saying that reports are not 100% ignored.

So, even if the chance to get a fix is maybe not high, it will be higher than without any report. Devs sometime browse the bug report forum, but they surely don't check all threads here.

I'll do it tonight if none were made before.

 

[Pazyryk]

Just out of curiosity, where is the official place for posting bugs anyway? I found a sensible place here at CivFanatics, but it's sort of all over the place at 2K's forum.

If you need support
US Support
Phone: 1-866-219-9839
Email: usa@take2support.com

Canadian Support
Phone: 1-800-638-0127
Email: canada@take2support.com

You can also get your region's support information out of your manual.

Could always call I guess. Imagine trying to explain the farm crash bug or the lack of Runtime Error reporting from GameEvents to the poor operator that answers. Perhaps an email with the subject line THIS GAME SUKS! OMG! would be more effective.

 

[JA_Lamb]

Pazyryk it's not the game that sucks, what more do you want than a game that's unfinished and waits for us to expand it? It's the after sales service!!! and the inattention of the mechanics to their customers complaints.

Can you imagine if it was a car? Chrysler's problems in the 80's wouldn't begin to compare!

 

[whoward69]

Just out of curiosity, where is the official place for posting bugs anyway?

Probably here http://forums.2kgames.com/forumdisplay.php?86-Civilization-V-Support

But that's a major part of the problem - there is no "official place" for posting these types of issue. There is just one big bucket for support that takes everything from "why doesn't this game work on my Android phone" to "the core game DLL broken and here's why in precise technical terms".

And then the Firaxis devs further muddy the water by seeming to prefer posting news here than on their own modding forum!

 

[Thalassicus]

They should use issue tracking software customers can report to... but I guess that would be too obvious.

I think much of this game's development is rather disorganized. On the other hand, most of the programming industry is that way! Some earlier games in the series had above-average development, but this one's more average.