[We the People] Bug reporting

[FlaviusBelisarius]

I'm not sure if the following is a bug but certainly it is surprising and unannounced. I'm playing 3.0.1 with a development modmod that should have nothing to do with the Indians (trade automation changes).

Basically, I am fighting a moderately sized Indian tribe with big camps, size 11,8, etc. In total around 7 camps (villages) left, three destroyed. Then out of a sudden, in the AI's turn, all the tribe's camps reduce to size 1 no matter if they are far or near my territory / troops. From looking at a savegame before and after, it looks like they "rushed" all their pop into braves (1:1 ratio). Ok, so this seems like an AI behavior. Is this supposed to be possible (rushing 10 pop in one turn)? If this is a feature instead a bug, it would be very nice and cool to have some sort of an announcement / event popup (Indian mobilization / migration?) since the effect is quite dramatic.

Edit: most villages immediately grew to pop 3 from 1 the next turn.

 

[raystuttgart]

If this is a feature instead a bug, ...

Why should this be a bug?
It is normal AI routine for Natives.

Is this supposed to be possible?

Yes, they can and could transform their Native Workers in Native Warriors whenever they want.
And after they won a war they can also transform their Native Warriros back into Native Workers.

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I have experienced that myself in other games and do not see an issue in it.
(Although in my games their camps were mostly just between 3 and 5 Natives.)

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... some sort of an announcement / event popup ...

Why have a special announcement if this is just normal Native AI behaviour.
And when do you want to trigger it specifically - because it does not need to be all at once, it can also be step by step as AI considers necessary.

Also a bit of surprise keeps a game interesting.
A little bit of risk and challenge spice up everything.

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Summary:

I see no issue or bug in this here.
Sounds like totally normall Native AI behaviour.

It may be surprising the first time you see it.
But there is absolutely nothing wrong about it.

At least not the way AI is currently programmed

 

[FlaviusBelisarius]

Thanks Ray for the clarification. I will start a new topic since I feel there is lost potential here for gameplay. I could simply not believe that AI can try to be so clever as to perform a full mobilization after being happily passive for some time. I would like to understand better how such a decision is made though since it would have made much more sense earlier on in the war.

 

[Nightinggale]

After loading save constantly popping up message. I accepted quest before saving/loading, several turns before and it pops only after loading save. It seems the game replayed all the messages that appeared before saving. I mean the messages stoped popping after dozens of clicks.

Confirmed. It seems to cycle through the same popup over and over. However it's even more screwed up than that because one of the popup is asking if you want to enter English territory as that will make you declare war on England. The issue is that you are England, hence it is asking if you want to declare war on yourself. If you click yes, then you declare war on France. Another event, which repeats is the one giving you horses or similar, which triggers when you build your second colony. I just managed to get horses 3 times in a row and indeed it gave me 60 horses (3*20).

Still no clue to why it is behaving like that though, but it's clearly broken.

 

[raystuttgart]

Still no clue to why it is behaving like that though, but it's clearly broken.

Was the savegame itself broken maybe? (corrupted data)
Never ever heard of such a bug and could technically not explain it otherwise.

 

[Nightinggale]

Was the savegame itself broken maybe? (corrupted data)
Never ever heard of such a bug and could technically not explain it otherwise.

Yeah I have been wondering about that and I haven't found anything yet to indicate one way or another. If the savegame is corrupted, then I need to confirm that and consider how it can be corrupted in the first place. Usually savegames won't corrupt themselves, though there are freak incidents. There have been cases of cosmic radiation flipping bits in memory, but not only is that rare, it also has to flip a bit, which will break the game without crashing anything.

 

[Nightinggale]

After loading save constantly popping up message. I accepted quest before saving/loading, several turns before and it pops only after loading save. It seems the game replayed all the messages that appeared before saving. I mean the messages stoped popping after dozens of clicks.

From what I can tell, this is what happened:

1. lots of events enters the queue
2. game is saved
3. events popping up
   
4. game asks if you want to declare war on France (multiple times)
   
5. you conquer Montreal
6. #4 is displayed and it displays the current owner of Montreal (hence yourself)

I haven't found anything alarmingly wrong while loading the savegame. The real bug seems to be #1, but since that apparently happened prior to saving, I can't catch it in the act to see what is going on. If I had a savegame where it would happen when I click end turn, then I would be able to analyze what is going on while the code is executing. Without it I don't really know what to do about this. I tried, but I don't have anything useful to go on regardless of how much I look.

 

[raystuttgart]

I tried, but I don't have anything useful to go on regardless of how much I look.

Ok, then let us forget this for now.

It is pretty unlikely to hear about something like this soon again.
Nobody else reported such a bug either.

 

[xenofeel]

If I had a savegame where it would happen when I click end turn, then I would be able to analyze what is going on while the code is executing.

Next time I'll attach autosaves.

 

[xenofeel]

After turn ending game crushed (october 1610). Autosave before this date attached.

 

[Nenos]

Player can declaration of independence for another nation?

 

[raystuttgart]

Player can declaration of independence for another nation?

Well, if you are willing to pay the other Nation to become independent, why not?

You would lose the game if that other Nation is successful, but maybe it would be too early and they would get their b*** kicked.
So bribing them to start it too early sounds like reasonable diplomacy or a valid strategy.

AI would never even consider such an offer if it would not have a chance to win that war. (Selection would be red.)
It would also never even consider if its relations would be too good. (Selection would be red.)

Summary:
Why is this supposed to be a bug ?
(We may talk about this being an exploit though to tempt AI into an early War of Independence.)

 

[xenofeel]

CTD after end of turn. First time happened right after I declare war to Iroquois. I mean I saved the game, declared war, then ended turn and right after that game crashed. Then I loaded the save, killed some enemy units (ctd was after move animation these units) and turn was successfully ended. But few turn later the problem repeated and save/reload doesn't help. Maybe this somehow connected with saving process?

 

[Warmoonger]

Too many furs. They are constantly being gifted by natives and overloading my storage. They try to sell them, and when I say no they give them to me anyone - I am drowning in free furs.

I had to buy two galleons just to deal with the overload of furs I keep getting gifted.

EDIT: It is actually really bad. If natives like you they give 200-400 furs every time. It messes up new colonies with storage. Something is wrong with natives and furs.

 

[nci]

Great Admirals and Great Generals do not spawn if player doesn't have a single settlement. This situation puts a player who deliberately chose pirate/raider playstyle to avoid the mess of managing colonies into extremely unfortunate position, basically forcing them to found or capture a colony just to get the GA/GG they earned by pillaging and looting.

I believe a GG or GA should be allowed to spawn in Europe if player has no settlements and WOI was not initiated. I hope WTP team can kindly look into this, so that the game caters to different playstyles better.

 

[raystuttgart]

Great Admirals and Great Generals do not spawn if player doesn't have a single settlement.

That is not a bug. It is actually working as designed.
(It was supposed to prevent bug and also allow AI to use this feature.)

I hope WTP team can kindly look into this, so that the game caters to different playstyles better.

Well, it is a "change request". So better start a new thread to discuss it.
Maybe somebody will be interested to implement it. (I am taking a 1 year break from actively modding Civ4Col.)

 

[nci]

Well, it is a "change request". So better start a new thread to discuss it.

Makes sense. I will think a bit more about what else needs to be done to make this playstyle more viable, then post a concept thread.

 

[Andy Joe]

Hi Guys,
This is my first ever post anywhere. I love this game, and haven't played anything else since many years now. Since 3.0.1 I have noticed this problem with a large game with a high number of units, after declaration of Independance, where the AI turn never ever comes back. I have let it run for hours on end however to no avail. I am wondering if it's a bug or whether I have hit some limit as to number of units etc.

 

[Raubwuerger]

Hallo Andy Joe,

I've tested your game.
I played three rounds without problems. The rounds took some time, but they ended correctly. Try stacking attacks "On" and fighting animations "OFF". Maybe this solves your problem...

 

[Andy Joe]

Guten Abend Herr Raubwuerger,
Yes indeed, it was the animations that were indeed the root cause of the problem, as soon as I deactivated these everything went back to normal. Many thanks for your help, I shall now quietly return to my addiction... and a huge thanks to all of the folks who helped make this the best game mod ever!