Yet another bug found in Civ4 PBEM

[Blkbird]

This one is less critical though, so I'm publishing the details right away.

And again - I'm really not trying to find those, I simply keep on running into them just like that.

OK, now to the matter at hand. If you set up a new PBEM with a map size "duel" and the second player to an AI - well that doesn't make sense, it's not PBEM if you're the only human player, but bear with me, for in fact I've accidentially set up such a game - then after your first turn, the program goes into an infinite loop.

The game says "wait for other civilizations", which never ends. "Sutosave" is shown every other second, until a "World's Nation Raking" pops up - as the system "thinks" that many turns have passed. Click OK on the popup, a few seconds later another one comes up, and so on.

The only way to end this infite loop is to exit the current game.

 

[Blkbird]

And btw, if I find a third major bug in this game, I'll gonna apply for beta-tester of the next version.

 

[onedreamer]

Honestly Blkbird, I don't really know if a non-working PBEM duel game with the AI is a game bug or a bug in your mind... and you call it major bug ?

 

[Blkbird]

Honestly Blkbird, I don't really know if a non-working PBEM duel game with the AI is a game bug or a bug in your mind... and you call it major bug ?

Major from the programmer's point of view, not from the player's. An infinite loop is always a major bug, and in this case, the ever-lasting circle of quick autosaving could in the worst case destroy your hard disk.

 

[onedreamer]

hardly, since it's autosaving the same turn. An infinite loop is a major bug when it affects normal gameplay. When it affects an absurd game setup is a minor bug.

 

[Blkbird]

hardly, since it's autosaving the same turn. An infinite loop is a major bug when it affects normal gameplay. When it affects an absurd game setup is a minor bug.

But when it burn your harddrive it ain't no more. And it absolutely doesn't matter if it is "the same game" it's constantly saving, it only matter that it does it with such a high frequency.

 

[Volum]

I dont really see why it matters that much, why would you play a PBEM against the AI? If you do that you might not be smart enough for CIV at all

 

[Blkbird]

Programming 101: Any action the user is allowed to perform, will eventually be performed. If it causes problems, it is always the programmer's fault, never the user's.

 

[phalzyr]

Oh now I feel really bad... That time a user deleted the database and then complained all his data was gone.... It was my fault

I actually agree with you though, they should of had some catch that didn't allow you to choose AI if only two were playing in that case...Yes a inifnate loop is a bad bad thing... *looks around nervously* I've never done that myself

 

[Blkbird]

Yes a inifnate loop is a bad bad thing... *looks around nervously* I've never done that myself

To be fair, new programming paradigm in the past few years have made infinite loop a legitimate tool if conditional break is well controlled, especially through pre-defined exceptions. Codes like this was unthinkable (at least for the general public of programmers) ten years ago but indeed very "in" nowadays:

while true
    Result = DoSearch()
    if Result
        raise ResultFoundException()
    end if
end while