[We the People] Bug reporting

[raystuttgart]

@Marla_Singer
Your map 1650AD is integrated into WTP. (GameSpeed is set to Normal - default)
Thanks for reworking it, in my tests I could not find any more issues with it.

 

[uplink]

I`ve had a blast playing this mod these past days of quarantine. I`m a real sucker for micro managing and this game delivers on that front!
So my last game, my capital and most of other cities were on the mainland sitting behind a long uninhabited island and before declaring independence I blocked both ends of the island with ships. So there was at least one ship per grid with no gaps to get through without an attack - I wanted to take down as many Man-O-Wars as possible before they reach the mainland. The king`s fleet arrived BUT the ships didn`t move, they just sat there in the corner of the map and didn`t even engage my ships as I approached and attacked them. As soon as I made a gap in my blockade (moved one ship, exposing a way to the capital) the computer started moving again and now did attack my ships etc.

 

[raystuttgart]

I`ve had a blast playing this mod these past days of quarantine.
I`m a real sucker for micro managing and this game delivers on that front!

We always like to hear that people like our mod.

So there was at least one ship per grid with no gaps to get through without an attack - ...
The king`s fleet arrived BUT the ships didn`t move, ...

That is not a bug.

It is actually working as designed - intended behaviour of King Fleet.
(As it was desgined and implemented in TAC and RaR - most of it was done by koma13 - one of the best AI modders for Civ4Col.)

See:

King Fleet is not supposed to waste its ships carrying troops before they have landed.

So it is waiting for a "hole in the defense" where it can slip throught to land the troops.
Once it finds that "hole in the defense" it will fight its way through if needed.

Its first priority is to land the troops on the land, so the land war will start.
Attacking other ships is only second priority (but becomes first priority after all land troops of the ship have been landed).

Comment:

Your strategy would probalby only work on Islands but become too difficult on large continents.
But it will not really help you to just block without going into offensive at some point as you did as well.

 

[uplink]

King Fleet is not supposed to waste its ships carrying troops before they have landed.

So it is waiting for a "hole in the defense" where it can slip throught to land the troops.
Once it finds that "hole in the defense" it will fight its way through if needed.

Its first priority is to land the troops on the land, so the land war will start.
Attacking other ships is only second priority (but becomes first priority after all land troops of the ship have been landed).

Mkay, so I triggered this behavior by accident. Got it. And I guess that the King always attacks from the East side? So there is little point in building up defenses for the Pacific side..

Again, it is a great mod! Thank you! I will probably try to go after other victory types next as I have gained three independence war victories already.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

Please check if the following error was fixed in a future release: adding a city that I did not choose to the trade route. I chose the city of Fort Ross for export, but for some reason Novo Arkhangelsk also appears on the list.

 

[raystuttgart]

Please check if the following error was fixed in a future release ...

I will try to check the Trade Route / Automated Transports System.

@Nightinggale
You know it best though, since you did most of the recent improvements to it as far as I know.
Could you take a look as well?

 

[Nightinggale]

Most likely Novo Arkhangelsk is also importing fur and the other stuff you list. Maybe you hit the import button there by mistake? If you did, then it's working as intended. It's not a great system and I want to replace it, but it will take a while before I get around to actually do it as other issues have higher priority.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

no, there was no error .. I don’t like the import-export system through the governor’s menu on the colony’s screen and I use the creation of trade routes on the general map (screen in my previous message):

1 - product selection
2 - choice of the city of the exporter
3 - choice of the city of the importer
as a result, one trading route should turn out. but sometimes an additional one is created precisely in the first city.

priorities are a good thing)
for me, the language problem is also more important than others. I just outlined the problem.

 

[raystuttgart]

I don’t like the import-export system through the governor’s menu on the colony’s screen and I use the creation of trade routes on the general map (screen in my previous message)

Yes, there are 2 alternative Interfaces to create Trade Routes.

A) Colony Screen (Governor Menu) - more advanced with e.g. thresholds - which most modders and players usually use
B) Map Screen (Button at Transport Unit) - simplified for quick usages - which only few modders but maybe some casual players use

In the old days of TAC when Trade Route System was still really simple that was no problem.

We need to be really careful with this though.
I am actually a bit worried about having these 2 alternative Interfaces - DLL changes for A) can easily break B) - if we do not consider both.

On the same hand I understand that it is nice to have both - an advanced Interface (with more options) and a simplified Interface (for quick usage).
However, it also is more effort to maintain both ...

... as a result, one trading route should turn out.
... sometimes an additional one is created precisely in the first city.

That is a really important information.
It might help us to identify the bug.

 

[lethiel]

Hi
Is the de-sync problem still unsolvable or is it a part of a coming patch? I can't seem to find anywhere that it should be solved.
I tried again yesterday and it always happens in 1545 A.D or close to that, so as you know it probably could be culture expansion related.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/583565205 (end of video)

 

[raystuttgart]

Hi
Is the de-sync problem still unsolvable or is it a part of a coming patch? I can't seem to find anywhere that it should be solved.
I tried again yesterday and it always happens in 1545 A.D or close to that, so as you know it probably could be culture expansion related.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/583565205 (end of video)

Which exact de-sync problem?
At the moment we could only be guessing what the players in Multiplayer did.

I never ever heard of a de-sync happening due to "Culture Expansion".
I also know about nothing else that currently causes de-syncs - I can not even test de-syncs when programming new features.

If it is however the one related to "Bargaining with Natives" - then no, it is not solved yet.
Do never ever use "Bargaining with Natives" in Multiplayer - it will trigger a de-sync for sure.
(Normal traiding is ok, just do not try to haggle for prices.)

If it is another one, we need to know what the players did exactly that round, to analyze what could have triggered a de-sync.
I personally have little possibilities to analyze any desyncs in Multiplayer.

Edit:
Ok, I saw it, you have been haggling, just as I expected ...
The only thing that is currently known to cause de-syncs in Multiplayer.
(We really told this in RaR and WTP many times to not use it in MP.)

 

[lethiel]

Which exact de-sync problem?
.

It simply happens between turns. It happens every single game we play same year or roughly same year, so I don't think it is related to any player action but rather AI action or something automatic like cultural expanding.

Edit: It actually does happen due to native bargaining this game. So I will have to test if we can get by it by not bargaining. Would surprise me (positively) though.

 

[raystuttgart]

It simply happens between turns.

Nope, please check my edit above - it is definitely relaled to you "Using Haggling".
This is known to cause desyncs for sure.

And there really is no known way until now to fix it for Multiplayer.
The "Haggling" feature is really a quite tricky hack that circuments hard coding of the DLL-Trading-Dialog logic in exe.
(Which made the feature possible at all for Single-Player but causes the de-sync im Multiplayer. In Singleplayer it does not cause any problems.)

Summary:
For now, please do not use this feature in Multiplayer-games.
(In Singleplayer it does not cause any problems at all.)

 

[raystuttgart]

Would surprise me (positively) though.

There should be no de-syncs if you completely avoid using "haggling" throughout the entire Multiplayer game.
Seriously, please do not use this feature in MP. It is a no-go feature for every Human Player in MP. (AI will not use it anyways.)

 

[lethiel]

There should be no de-syncs if you completely avoid using "haggling" throughout the entire Multiplayer game.
Seriously, please do not use this feature in MP. It is a no-go feature for every Human Player in MP. (AI will not use it anyways.)

Cool, thanks. Easy fix if it works on a (to us) long lasting issue.

 

[raystuttgart]

Cool, thanks. Easy fix if it works on a (to us) long lasting issue.

If we knew how to fix it - without completely deactivating the feature for Singleplayer as well - we would have done it.
Maybe one day, we will come up with a smart solution for Multiplayer though.
(Completely recoding the Trading Dialog - to circumvent hardcoded limitations in the exe - is not necessary a good idea though.)

 

[Nightinggale]

Nope, please check my edit above - it is definitely relaled to you "Using Haggling".
This is known to cause desyncs for sure.

And there really is no know way until now to fix it for Multiplayer.
The "Haggling" feature is really a quite tricky hack that circuments hard coding of the DLL-Trading-Dialog logic in exe.
(Which made the feature possible at all for Single-Player but causes the de-sync im Multiplayer. In Singleplayer it does not cause any problems.)

The problem is that it uses randomness to figure out if the AI accepts your deal or not. It messes up the randomness system. The game relies heavily on predictable randomness, like if an event happens like combat, each computer will do the same calculations and each time a random number is needed, all computers will get the same random number. Because this system gets messed up by haggling, all the following random numbers will no longer be the same and everything will go really wrong and way out of sync.

From time to time I wonder what to do about this. The problem is that the hackish approach to implement the AI reply to haggle means the standard approach to keeping the game in sync doesn't work. The best way to solve it is not an option because the answer is needed "now" meaning we don't even have time to wait for the network lag to keep the action in sync. Even the ping time from your computer to your router is too slow compared to the "now" requirement.

I never ever heard of a de-sync happening due to "Culture Expansion".
I also know about nothing else that currently causes de-syncs - I can not even test de-syncs when programming new features.

I fixed a bug, which caused desyncs due to cultural expansion, but that fix is included. It was the trait discount to cost of each cultural level. It used current player instead of colony owner and since current player is the one at the computer, if one has the discount and the other does not, some culture levels would expand on computers where local is Spain, but it wouldn't on other computers, hence desyncing on disagreement regarding number of owned plots. That one took me a while to hunt down because the desync causing plots were AI owned in unexplored land.

However this is fixed, hence not the issue.

 

[raystuttgart]

The problem is that it uses randomness to figure out if the AI accepts your deal or not. It messes up the randomness system. The game relies heavily on predictable randomness,... The best way to solve it is ...

Actually I have an old solution concept for the de-sync for haggling, I had just forgotten about it.
(Found it again though.)

I was planning to use a "pseudo-random-algorithm" (instead of "soren-rand").
I was thinking about using a complicated "modulo-function" and feed it some game data (which is not random and the same for all players in MP games).

Thus the outcome should be the same for all players in Multiplayer. (thus not causing de-syncs anymore)
The "pseudo-random-algorithm" (using modulo and game data) would be so complicated though for the Human player that it would feel and look like real random.
(meaning a Human player could not predict it)

I will give it a try.
(I will need somebody to help me test it in MP games though.)

Edit:
This will probably not happen though for the upcoming release.
It will need more time to do it properly.

 

[lethiel]

Actually I have an old solution concept for the de-sync for haggling, I had just forgotten about it.
(Found it again though.)

I was planning to use a "pseudo-random-algorithm"


The "pseudo-random-algorithm" (using modulo and game data) would be so complicated though for the Human player that it would feel and look like real random.

I will give it a try.
(I will need somebody to help me test it in MP games though.)

Edit:
This will probably not happen though for the upcoming release.
It will need more time to do it properly.

I will of course help to test it.

 

[Renera]

as long as I play this game, I have never had the opportunity to accept the Archbishop's offer and to recruit the Bishop unit. I always lacked money. But of course this could not be a bug, but due to my way of playing.