Dominions II Bug Thread

[Taqwus]

It's still possible to trigger a deterministic game crash (bad unit number) when running up against the game unit limit; perhaps only possible when using multi-unit summons ala Ivy King/Ogres, Mound Fiend/Reanimation.

Some Earth Attack-style replays do not play (NOP), although these do not crash the game anymore.

[tinkthank]

My Astrologer casts Gale Gate at the same time an enemy casts Mother Oak; there are 4 globals up. Next turn, I get the message ("A Global Enchantment for My "), and right afterwards "Your Enchantment as been..." overridden by what must be Mother Oak. Fine. The bug: My mage died. There is no message regarding it, nothing. Mage was not assassinated, was in a friendly castle with positive dominion and not diseased. I know it was he who died, since he had a unique Artifact on him (Tome of High Power), which is now reforgeable (I no longer possess it).

[Saber Cherry]

I'll throw in here that the blood spell "Reinvigoration" (sacrifice a slave to remove all fatigue) still does not work in 2.15. It's too bad, because blood slaves are fun to sacrifice in battle http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Stab West]

I got this bug,
Error : Nagot gick fel

automelee: molesting the dead

What does this mean?

[RonD]

Stab West said:
I got this bug,
Error : Nagot gick fel

automelee: molesting the dead

What does this mean?



I have no idea - but it sure gave me a chuckle.

[Endoperez]

I seem to recall a similar post a long time ago. If it is the same case, one of the units in a battle is dead but hasn't been removed. I think that he was places inside castle walls then, and the 50-turn rule routed the attackers.

And if you hadn't heard it before, Något gick fel is Swedish (mother's toung for the Illwinter) and means "Something went wrong".

[RonD]

In a version 2.15 game, I attacked from a friendly province that remained in my control, yet a (very expensive) commander "died while retreating".

Is there a non-bug explanation for this?

[Turin]

Was it a flying commander? If it was, check if the provinces are actually connected by pressing the "8" key. If they aren´t connected, you can´t retreat there.

[RonD]

No, it could not fly, and it attacked from a province right next door (and officially connected).

Ugh - figured it out, and it has been reported before. It was an aquatic commander operating on land with ammy of fish.

Of course, it would be extremely cheezy of you to make use of this to try to beat me to resommuning it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif - http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[ioticus]

I had a battle where it said the enemy routed and there was nothing left but my army but I didn't get the province. Has this happened to anyone else?

[Alneyan]

Perhaps your own army was routing as well? I know I took a couple of provinces though my own army routed, so those provinces were left without a single unit (I only won the battle because some of my troops took a longer time to flee).

[ioticus]

Alneyan said:
Perhaps your own army was routing as well? I know I took a couple of provinces though my own army routed, so those provinces were left without a single unit (I only won the battle because some of my troops took a longer time to flee).



My entire army was still on the field. I watched the battle several times and it never said I routed. Is there any way to send a file of the replay? It's too late now, but in the future if it happens again?

[Agrajag]

You can save a replay by copying the turn files into some other place before hosting the next turn.
Did this happen in a multiplayer game? Did the battle report say you won or did you only check the replay?
Maybe it was because of server-host version incompatibility which is known to cause false battle replays (the battle report is always accurate though).

[ioticus]

Agrajag said:
You can save a replay by copying the turn files into some other place before hosting the next turn.
Did this happen in a multiplayer game? Did the battle report say you won or did you only check the replay?
Maybe it was because of server-host version incompatibility which is known to cause false battle replays (the battle report is always accurate though).



What turn files do I need to save? The game was single player vs. the AI. I forgot to check the battle report, but I didn't win the province even though the replay showed I did.

[Endoperez]

I think the fthrlnd file is only needed for hosting, and that the .2h files only hold the orders. That leaves only the .trn file to contain the actual turn. This is from memory, but should be correct.

[Alneyan]

This post (and the one that will follow, once I am done with some testing) has been made with the latest patch (2.16).

At least two players have reported an odd behaviour with the Mind Duel spell, where weak astral mages won against truly powerful ones: a six-level difference resulted in the lesser mage winning and living to tell the tale, while both mages should have been dead; an astral 3 mage also defeated an astral 10 mage and survived. All my tests have been done with the better mage casting the Mind Duel spell, and I was on the defensive both times.

- Light of the Northern Star (and the banner) gives +1 to *all* astral mages on the battlefield, enemy mages included. This extra level can be used to cast spells: the Astral-1 R'lyeh Starspawns became Astral-2 Starspawns thanks to my own Banner of the Northern Star, and started casting Mind Burn (a level 2 spell).

- An Astral 7 mage came into the battlefield, equipped with the Banner of the Northern Star; so he became a level 8 mage, but the Starspawns were actually level 2 mages. Regardless, my mage cast 200 Magic Duels without being killed in the process, so the Starspawns didn't manage to use their extra Astral level in the Magic Duels.

- An Astral 7 mage went in, casting Power of the Spheres this time; all was fine, as expected.

- An Astral 6 mage attacked the Starspawns, this time with Power of the Sphere and the Banner. He was a level 8 mage too, and the Starspawns were shown as being level 2 mages, but this mage got killed fairly quickly (the 19th Starspawn killed my mage). The target of the Magic Duel appears to have been killed too.

So, it looks like there is something very odd in the behaviour of those two spells, and perhaps in other things as well (Communions?). Two mages, with exactly the same levels, had very different results against the same opponents; the only difference was in the spells used to reach that level. I will be doing further testing on the matter, to try *what* exactly creates that sort of situation.

[Alneyan]

Neither the Iron Walls spell (increase defence of a fort by 200 points) nor Arcane Masonry (increase the effective defence of a fort when besieged) appear to be working.

A test involved one unit with a siege bonus of 50; despite the presence of Iron Walls (lasting ten turns), the Watchtower (defence 50) fell in a single turn. Likewise, with a mere commander besieging the tower, and another commander defending the castle, Arcane Masonry failed to repair the walls; the defence was at 0 before the spell was cast, and remained at 0, even though the besieging force was very weak (so the spell had no effect).

[Alneyan]

It looks like it is not possible to mod an item by using its number (under the patch 2.16, which should make this sort of modding possible). Changing the path requirements of the Bane Blade/Sword of Sharpness doesn't work when using their unique numbers; using the name only alters the one-handed sword. It looks like it is possible to remove both from the game however. I will create a thread shortly about those two weapons, as it could be my mistake rather than any bug.

On the same matter, both Staffs of Elemental Mastery appear to have the same ID (238), even though their effets are slightly different. They also have the same name ("Magic Staff", oddly enough), but otherwise behave as the Bane Blade/Sword of Sharpness.

[Saber Cherry]

Bug (v2.16):

A unit with 2+ strat moves and "Terrain Survival" cannot move at the full movement rate when commanding fliers. For example, a commander with Swamp Survival cannot move 2 spaces in swamp with Black Hawks under his command, since they lack Swamp Survival - even though they can fly. Try it; it feels very wierd. I would bet that it works the other way, too (giving a flying commander land troops with terrain survival reduces the movement to 1) though I have not tried it.

[ioticus]

Damn, looks like there are still a lot of major bugs in this game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif. I hope Illwinter will fix them in their spare time.

[PDF]

ioticus said:
Damn, looks like there are still a lot of major bugs in this game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif. I hope Illwinter will fix them in their spare time.



I hardly qualify the latest bugs here "major" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif...
But sure IW will patch, but remember that they only work in their spare time anyway ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[ioticus]

PDF said:

ioticus said:
Damn, looks like there are still a lot of major bugs in this game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif. I hope Illwinter will fix them in their spare time.



I hardly qualify the latest bugs here "major" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif...
But sure IW will patch, but remember that they only work in their spare time anyway ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



You call spells not working at all or giving bonuses to your enemies "minor?"

[PDF]

ioticus said:

PDF said:

ioticus said:
Damn, looks like there are still a lot of major bugs in this game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif. I hope Illwinter will fix them in their spare time.



I hardly qualify the latest bugs here "major" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif...
But sure IW will patch, but remember that they only work in their spare time anyway ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



You call spells not working at all or giving bonuses to your enemies "minor?"



What are you talking about ?

About Arcane Masonry I suspect it affects the castle *after* the attackers reduce the defense, so is of no use if they can break in in one turn.
Anyway even if it worked "properly" it is very seldom used, and quite useless.

As for Banner giving increase to all mages I'm not sure at all it's a bug, it could be a feature .. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

All in all I still don't see anything "major" (as in "game-breaking bug") here.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[ioticus]

PDF said:

ioticus said:

PDF said:

ioticus said:
Damn, looks like there are still a lot of major bugs in this game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif. I hope Illwinter will fix them in their spare time.



I hardly qualify the latest bugs here "major" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif...
But sure IW will patch, but remember that they only work in their spare time anyway ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



You call spells not working at all or giving bonuses to your enemies "minor?"



What are you talking about ?

About Arcane Masonry I suspect it affects the castle *after* the attackers reduce the defense, so is of no use if they can break in in one turn.
Anyway even if it worked "properly" it is very seldom used, and quite useless.

As for Banner giving increase to all mages I'm not sure at all it's a bug, it could be a feature .. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

All in all I still don't see anything "major" (as in "game-breaking bug") here.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif



I hope you are right about Arcane Masonry, but Iron Walls was already present and still did not increase the strength of the walls.

[ioticus]

I just tested Arcane Masonry using version 2.15 and it doesn't work at all even if the walls are not breached in one turn. It does not repair the walls at all. It would be a worthwhile spell if it worked.

[Alneyan]

Self-quoting, with an edit (besieger has become besiging force):


Likewise, with a mere commander besieging the tower, and another commander defending the castle, Arcane Masonry failed to repair the walls; the defence was at 0 before the spell was cast, and remained at 0, even though the besieging force was very weak (so the spell had no effect).



In other words, the spell failed to repair already damaged walls (down to 0), with no actual besieging force, so the spell had simply no effect. Defence should have gone back up to 49 or 50 (the maximum), but instead remained at 0, despite the lack of besiegers.

Its effects are supposed to happen before the attacker/defender contest (to the best of my knowledge), so it will only serve a purpose in battles where the besiegers are unable to fully bring down the walls in a single turn. The spell might also be useful in that kind of situation, if it prevents the besiegers from storming the fort: technically, the defence of the fort would go up after the spell is cast, thereby making any storming impossible. The spell is unlikely to have such effects though.

[Agrajag]

PDF said:
But sure IW will patch, but remember that they only work in their spare time anyway ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


That's kind of an oxymoron, isnt it?
If they are working, how is that time considered "spare time"? =P
Anyway, those bugs don't qualify as major in my eyes...
But important nonetheless!

[ioticus]

I also just tested Iron Walls and it had no effect on wall strength both before and after the walls were damaged. I disagree with PDF that these are not major bugs. Neither spell works at all so you end up wasting valuable gems if you don't know the bugs exist. Also, I think these spells would be *very* useful if they worked right. It's a real shame http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[ioticus]

By the way, what kind of bugs would you guys consider major? Does it have to reformat your hard drive or crash your computer?

[Agrajag]

ioticus said:
By the way, what kind of bugs would you guys consider major? Does it have to reformat your hard drive or crash your computer?


Those are good examples.
My definition of a major bug is a "game breaking" bug, such as not being able to move your pretender if you choose nation X, or militia costing -3000 gold (thus giving you 3000 gold per purchase plus 200 gold each day!).

[ioticus]

Agrajag said:

ioticus said:
By the way, what kind of bugs would you guys consider major? Does it have to reformat your hard drive or crash your computer?


Those are good examples.
My definition of a major bug is a "game breaking" bug, such as not being able to move your pretender if you choose nation X, or militia costing -3000 gold (thus giving you 3000 gold per purchase plus 200 gold each day!).



Ah, I see. I don't consider major bugs as necessarily game breaking. I would call those critical or "game-breaking" bugs. But this is semantics. My main point is that I don't consider the above bugs to be "minor" or unimportant. For me, a minor bug would be graphics glitches that don't really affect game play or, for example, a spell giving a +3 modifier instead of a +1. Major bugs for me are features that are broken or don't work at all like the 2 spells mentioned.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think the fact that this thread shows 69 pages of posts also takes care of the other comment also. Obviously the devs do fix the bugs.

[ioticus]

Gandalf Parker said:
I think the fact that this thread shows 69 pages of posts also takes care of the other comment also. Obviously the devs do fix the bugs.



Agreed. As a personal example, I asked Illwinter to fix the bug that allowed you to recruit while under siege, and they fixed it. Dominions 2 is an awesome game and the developers give awesome support, no question. I wish other developers like Creative Assembly were as supportive.

[Chazar]

ioticus said:Also, I think these spells would be *very* useful if they worked right.

Hmm, maybe the fact that this bug went unnoticed for so long shows that the spells we not regarded as useful by many players? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif Of course, it could have been the other way around: players ignored the spells because of the bug, but I really doubt it if you look at this forum and see how neatly almost all parts of the game have been dissected by the players...

In any way, I tend to agree that non-functioning spells are certainly worse bugs than merely malfunctioning spells. However, long-term-unnoticed non-functioning spells might first of all be rather a balancing issue... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[ioticus]

Chazar said:

ioticus said:Also, I think these spells would be *very* useful if they worked right.

Hmm, maybe the fact that this bug went unnoticed for so long shows that the spells we not regarded as useful by many players? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif Of course, it could have been the other way around: players ignored the spells because of the bug, but I really doubt it if you look at this forum and see how neatly almost all parts of the game have been dissected by the players...

In any way, I tend to agree that non-functioning spells are certainly worse bugs than merely malfunctioning spells. However, long-term-unnoticed non-functioning spells might first of all be rather a balancing issue... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif



Or maybe the spells were broken in a later patch. The spells look very useful to me, since you're getting a 20 point defense bonus for each earth gem invested. That's pretty cheap, I think. It could make the difference of getting reinforcements to the castle in time or losing it to an attack. It's not just that though, I think it gives the defender a cool way of boosting his defense if he buys a low defense building like a watch tower. Especially for a high level earth mage, Arcane Masonry would be a nice spell since you can increase your defense by an additional 25 (beyond the 100 base) points per earth level above 3!

[Graeme Dice]

ioticus said:
I also just tested Iron Walls and it had no effect on wall strength both before and after the walls were damaged.



What were the parameters of your test?


Also, I think these spells would be *very* useful if they worked right.



That's unlikely, since they are expensive both in gems and mage time compared to the fairly small benefit they give you. If they were low level, say around research level 3, took 5-10 gems, and only required an earth 1 or 2 mage, then they'd be powerful spells.

[ioticus]

Graeme Dice said:

ioticus said:
I also just tested Iron Walls and it had no effect on wall strength both before and after the walls were damaged.



What were the parameters of your test?

Not sure what parameters you want, but I set up a test 2 player game and let an army siege a watch tower while an earth 3 mage cast Arcane Masonry inside the tower. I looked at the amount of defense remaining after repeatedly casting the spell and it never once increased the defense. I tested this both before and after the tower was breached. I tested the same way with a higher level earth mage casting Iron Walls, which also had no effect on tower defense.


Also, I think these spells would be *very* useful if they worked right.



That's unlikely, since they are expensive both in gems and mage time compared to the fairly small benefit they give you. If they were low level, say around research level 3, took 5-10 gems, and only required an earth 1 or 2 mage, then they'd be powerful spells.



Perhaps so, but I think they are nice spell concepts that I hope to see return in useable form in Dominions 3 at least.

[Graeme Dice]

ioticus said:
Not sure what parameters you want, but I set up a test 2 player game and let an army siege a watch tower while an earth 3 mage cast Arcane Masonry inside the tower.



What I need is how many defenders and besiegers you had, what the strength on each unit is, and whether any of them flew or had siege bonuses.

[ioticus]

Graeme Dice said:

ioticus said:
Not sure what parameters you want, but I set up a test 2 player game and let an army siege a watch tower while an earth 3 mage cast Arcane Masonry inside the tower.



What I need is how many defenders and besiegers you had, what the strength on each unit is, and whether any of them flew or had siege bonuses.



I don't know since I didn't write it down. I don't see why it would be necessary though because I watched the defense value of the tower go down every turn despite casting the spell multiple times. Why would you need more info than that?

[Graeme Dice]

ioticus said:
I don't know since I didn't write it down. I don't see why it would be necessary though because I watched the defense value of the tower go down every turn despite casting the spell multiple times. Why would you need more info than that?



If we don't know how many troops and what their sieging strength is, then we can't be certain that the spells aren't working.

[ioticus]

Graeme Dice said:

ioticus said:
I don't know since I didn't write it down. I don't see why it would be necessary though because I watched the defense value of the tower go down every turn despite casting the spell multiple times. Why would you need more info than that?



If we don't know how many troops and what their sieging strength is, then we can't be certain that the spells aren't working.



But if I see the the tower defense decreasing every turn how could the spell possibly be working? If it worked, you would see the defense increase (from the previous turn) on the turn you used it. You do know you can check the defense value of the tower during a siege, right?

[Graeme Dice]

ioticus said:
But if I see the the tower defense decreasing every turn how could the spell possibly be working?



Without complete information, it's impossible to determine whether the behaviour you are seeing is a bug, or is the normal behaviour.

[Arralen]

Big bad bug - has anyone seen it before?

Spell Ironskin overwrites effects (and icon) from bless effects of "Shroud of The Battle Saint" !

.TRN file is available to the devs if there's interest. As it is from an still ongoing MP game, I wouldn't post it here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Alneyan]

Graeme Dice said:

ioticus said:
But if I see the the tower defense decreasing every turn how could the spell possibly be working?



Without complete information, it's impossible to determine whether the behaviour you are seeing is a bug, or is the normal behaviour.



One commander with 10 strength besieging, one commander with 10 strength defending, defence sticking at 0 after multiple castings of Arcane Masonry; that looks clear enough to me.

In the case of Iron Walls: one commander with 10 strength and one troop with 1 strength and a 50 siege bonus, one commander with 10 strength defending: watchtower is broken in a single turn, while it should have had 250 defence points (the same happens for forts with a higher defence too).

[Chazar]

This thread is pretty messy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif Has anyone already proposed to open an individual discussion-thread for each bug and merely post the bug-description and the link to the individual thread here (Maybe also including an editable bug-status tag)? What happened to that proposal?

[Endoperez]

That has been suggested, as well as a bug-tracking forum. However, this thread was formed so that all bug reports wouldn't be scattered around the forum but be in a single thread. I quess it might work if the links to the threads were posted here.

[Turin]

is there a bug with relief?
Sometimes the game will lock up(refuse to continue the replay and you can´t exit it either) when you watch a big battle after relief is cast.

[Alneyan]

Another player has a similar problem (Jurri): he believes the problem comes from his computer, as the relief spell creates a *lot* of animations. So it could be that your computer is too slow to handle this spell easily, or perhaps the game engine itself has trouble with Relief.

[Saber Cherry]

Bug:

I had a Bane equipped with a Wraith Sword (Bane A) attack another Bane equipped with a Wraith Sword (Bane B) and steal hitpoints. Banes are undead, so isn't this against the rules? I should mention that Bane B was a prophet.

[Jurri]

Lifeless critters don't yield hitpoints, others do (undead or not). I guess it's a feature, not a bug http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Saber Cherry]

Big bug (2.16): My defending forces lost castle-storming battles, and some units retreated. To the adjacent province. In other words, they did not die like they should have.

Also, commanders set to "retreat" will retreat during castle battles, which they shouldn't do... IMO.

[ioticus]

Saber Cherry said:
Big bug (2.16): My defending forces lost castle-storming battles, and some units retreated. To the adjacent province. In other words, they did not die like they should have.

Also, commanders set to "retreat" will retreat during castle battles, which they shouldn't do... IMO.



How do you know that defenders in a siege that retreat are supposed to automatically die?

[The Panther]

The R'lyeh Void Lurker Pretender appears to be bugged. On turn 2, maybe 70-80% of the time, I was losing my Order 3, Growth 3, and Heat 3 scales. The Sloth, Luck, and Magic were unchanged. Usually the scales would go to zero, but occasionally they would go to 1.

I had heard that the scale bug was pretender related and usually happened on Turn 1. But in the case of the Void Lurker, it would happen on Turn 2. Turn 1 was always fine in my tests. It was not just my computer because the game host (Alneyan) was getting the same bug on his computer and also when he hosted the game.

I was using the Zen Pretender plus Scale mods, so that might have had an effect on the bug.

[Saber Cherry]

ioticus said:

Saber Cherry said:
Big bug (2.16): My defending forces lost castle-storming battles, and some units retreated. To the adjacent province. In other words, they did not die like they should have.

Also, commanders set to "retreat" will retreat during castle battles, which they shouldn't do... IMO.



How do you know that defenders in a siege that retreat are supposed to automatically die?



They are not supposed to be able to leave the castle. If there was a back door, they'd be able to sneak out while under seige.

[The Panther]

There is a neat trick to save troops under seige:

Just attack with all your army on "Retreat", and they will all be saved as long as you own an adjacent province. Or let the enemy storm the castle and the same thing happens. I think this is not a bug but a 'feature'.

[Zooko]

I had a noble charioteer of Tien Chi Spring and Autumn, and a Celestial Master (who has innate flying ability).

I put the two of them in one corner of the battlefield, very far from all other of my troops. I wanted to be sure that the Celestial Master would cast Flight on the charioteer, so I scripted him to cast Flight three times.

You know what that stubborn Celestial Master did? He cast Flight on HIMSELF three times in a row.

He's fired. Next turn, I'm scripting him to "Attack Closest".

[Boron]

What does this error mean?
I get it when i want to do my turn in my current sp game (around turn 50):
http://www.arcor.de/palb/alben/35/2119535/400_3535323265303030.jpg

I tried to host the turn 3 times, 3 times this error.

[RonD]

I seem to be the only person having a problem with the newly-started "Invisible Swarm III" game.

I was able to connect and upload a pretender. But now that it is time to play turn 1: I get the "select nation" screen; I select the correct nation; I enter my password; the client downloads a little bit (probably enough for a turn 0 .trn file), but nothing happens - just black in the dom2 window. No new folder under dom2.

I tried a different password, and I do get "wrong password" then, so its not just that I forgot my password already. I shut down the firewall - same result. The other game I'm in is working fine, including downloading a new turn.

I'm pretty sure I have all the correct mod and map files (though if someone says "that's exactly how it will behave if you do not have the correct mod or map file" I will check those yet again).


Anyone seen this before, or have any ideas?

[Boron]

With stealthy commanders the move+patrol order is not useable.

[Jurri]

I think it is; you just need to first change the order to move, and then change it again to move and patrol.

[Boron]

Boron said:
What does this error mean?
I get it when i want to do my turn in my current sp game (around turn 50):
http://www.arcor.de/palb/alben/35/2119535/400_3535323265303030.jpg

I tried to host the turn 3 times, 3 times this error.



I got this error now again in my new SP Faerun Game on turn 67. I was playing with Zens 4 mods and with my own small hoard+aimod which does the following :

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
#modname "easier hoard"
#description "revenant is now a clam with 10 pearls / turn"
#version 1.00

-newclam-
#selectspell "Create Revenant"
#path 0 2
#pathlevel 0 2
#fatiguecost 15000
#end

#selectmonster 396
#name "living clam"
#hp 200
#mr 30
#gemprod 4 10
#immobile
#end

-newFF-
#selectspell "Revive King"
#path 0 6
#pathlevel 0 1
#path 1 0
#pathlevel 1 1
#fatiguecost 15000
#end

#selectmonster 188
#name "living fetish"
#hp 200
#mr 30
#gemprod 0 10
#immobile
#magicskill 0 1
#end

-scales,Aifriendly-
#supplymult 1000
#resourcemult 500

</pre><hr />

What does this error mean?
It gets frustrating now because it seems i can't play sp anymore http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

[Taqwus]

unr = unit number.

The main time I've seen this happen is when I'm deliberately prolonging a game with vast amounts of unit generation (e.g. undead Ermor or Pangaea theme, or ludicrous amounts of Mound Fiend reanimation spamming plus Vine Ogre factories). Too many units could make the game crash with that error.

[Agrajag]

Interesting, I guess that -1 number is supposed to be the bad unit number, which would suggest an overflow (that is, the unit number goes beyond what the assigned memory slot can contain, such as an integer being inserted a value over 32767).
Reminds me of a similar thing in the game Sacred, where your stats (Strength etc.) could overflow and suddenly be reset to 0.

[Boron]

Hm according to the Unitsizegraph ermor should have not more than a maximum of 10000 troops.
If i understand Zen correctly each nation can have up to 32000 troops.

Could it be something else theoretically too?

[Endoperez]

I thought is was 32000 units TOTAL, all nations combined.

[Agrajag]

Most probably 32767 units Total, all nations combined, since each unit has its own special ID, there can't be identical IDs in different nations. And since the number you mentioned was 32000, I guess that actually means 32767, the size of an int =p

[Boron]

Hm it is weird.
I edited the Minimap in order to test it.

Now the strange outcome :
A commander can have 999 Units per Squad.

For simplicity i made Banelords with 4 Squads a 500 Vine Ogres.

If i do 16 such banelords everything works fine.
With 17 too. 17 such banelords are 17x2001 units = 34017 units.
If i do though 20 or more Banelords only 17 banelords are shown and the last one is empty.

So the unitlimit is somewhere between 34000 - 40000 units for one nation.

In my Faerun game there were never that many units though, rather around 10-20k in total.
So my bug is probably something else http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

If you have that many units there is another bug too :
You can only see around 5000 units in the army setup screen.
If you deploy them in the garrison though you see another 5000 units etc. so you see always only around 2-3 Banelords.
That could become a problem in a normal mp game too, at least for a successful AE ermor on faerun.

[Boron]

I tried to do a battle with the 34000 Vine Ogres now but Dominions freezed while loading the new turn http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

I attached the edited Minimap-file, if someone wants to test it feel free to do so http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Edit:
Finally another test: I copypasted the 34000 Vine Ogres for the 2nd nation too. Result : The 2nd nation gets no Vine Ogres + Banelords at all while the 1st nation has 16 "full" Vineogre Banelords and 1 "empty" 17th banelord without Vineogres.

So the Unitlimit seems to be a little bit more than 34000 for all nations together.
That is far more limiting than i thought. Please consider this for Dominions 3 Illwinter and increase the Unitlimit to at least 10 Million units because i love to play on huge Maps like Faerun.
The "small" 34000 Unit limit might even affect us in mp in our new faerun mp http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.
Since we had a full faerun quite quickly i think i am not the only one who likes gigantic battles so it is imho an important issue for a further patch and dominions 3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Boron]

Finally another test:
I modified the unitview map by giving pythium 100 ermor AE arch bishops and put them on reanimate longdead horsemen and just clicked end turn for 60 turns, then they had 30000 Longdead Horsemen reanimated.
On turn 61 it stopped at 30420 and stayed there for 5 more turns. I tried to recruit other units, they simply didn't show up.

So the indeps count for the unitlimit too !

The game did not crash though i simply couldn't buy any more units neither with pythium nor abysia, the 2nd testnation which did nothing.

So my error i got in Faerun has to be something else http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[ioticus]

If you click on an action that a unit is performing on the nation overview screen, sometimes the menu that should let should change the action is too far to the right or completely off the screen so you can't change it.

[ioticus]

Recently, I started playing with the music off. Since doing this, I notice sometimes at random I can hear a static sound for a split second and the light in the front of my computer cuts off and comes back on quickly. Anyone know what could be happening?

[Zooko]

nevermind

[Molog]

There is some strange stuff happening with the research sliders.

You can't select every number of research points. If you use the plus or minus keys research points sometimes increase with 1, 2 or 3 points. Increasing and decreasing will not use the same intervals. You can go from 62 to 64 to 67, but decreasing from 67 will get 67, 65, 64, 62.

[Molog]

Playing in a game as carrion woods. The mercenary might Pak-Ur costs me 50 gold to hire ont he hiring screen and it says underneath that he costs 80 gold for other nations. All other mercenearies cost more for pangea.

Can provide turn if wanted.

Don't know if this is bug or feature.

[SurvivalistMerc]

Is anyone else having problems recruiting from conquered independent provinces without fortifications? Sometimes the troop buy goes through and sometimes it doesn't. I particularly have this problem when I start and stop the game often.

[Endoperez]

Are you sure the unability to recruit isn't because thereare no resources in the province? If it's really a bug that prevents from recruiting, it is a big one.

[Agrajag]

I don't know if you can call this a bug or a feature, but if two province attack events happen in the same turn, both of the conquerers cooperate.
For example, in a SP game, I just had a "local lord revealed as vampire" and "evil necromancer wants your land for resources" and both of them cooperated (just like 2 ghost rider attacks).

[Endoperez]

Agrajag said:
I don't know if you can call this a bug or a feature, but if two province attack events happen in the same turn, both of the conquerers cooperate.
For example, in a SP game, I just had a "local lord revealed as vampire" and "evil necromancer wants your land for resources" and both of them cooperated (just like 2 ghost rider attacks).



Wow, that is COOL! Definitely something that should stay as a feature, possibly making sure some too strange combinations can't happen.

[FrankTrollman]

Bug: A spellcaster who has any Poison Resistance will not cast "resist poison", even if you script it.

This means, for instance, that a Great Kraken won't set his Poison Resistance to 100% because he already has a PR of 50%. That's not good, because Great Krakens poison themselves all the time.

-Frank

[Endoperez]

Known, and also affects any other resistables (fire/cold/shock).

[Ed Kolis]

In the Linux version, if you try to connect to a server that's down using the command line, the screen goes black save for the mouse cursor and the only way to get out of the game is to switch to another virtual terminal and "kill -9" the process.

[Ed Kolis]

All right, that last one isn't all that reproducible, but here's one that is: set someone to research or something and then order him to forge something but hit cancel on the forge screen; his order will be reset to defend, not research or whatever he was doing before.

[fmunoz]

Immobile creatures could be set to patrol if you set the orders in group where you select a non-inmobile commander.
Not sure about storm castle and break siege.

[Ed Kolis]

If you try to log in to a multiplayer game in which your empire is dead, the login screen kinda goes haywire... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Edi]

Molog said:
Playing in a game as carrion woods. The mercenary might Pak-Ur costs me 50 gold to hire ont he hiring screen and it says underneath that he costs 80 gold for other nations. All other mercenearies cost more for pangea.

Can provide turn if wanted.

Don't know if this is bug or feature.


All mercenaries have some preferred nation over another. Pangaea gets favorable prices for Pak-Ur and the crossbreed mercenary companies. Marignon gets favorable treatment from the pikeman companies led by inquisitors and T'ien Chi from the Green Horde, for example. No bug.

Edi

[NTJedi]

Moving this to the "WISHLIST" topic. With an improved and more user friendly map editor the game will have more maps made available. My suggestions below:

1) Ability to create a map, the provinces and basic settings within the map editor itself... instead of using GIMP or another tool.

2) Ability to create events which occur during specific turns or when a specific province gets occupied or when a specific graph measurement is reached.
This would allow for more interesting and creative maps.

3) Ability to disable specific spells, items, or units. Thus players could remove stuff they feel are unbalanced or weaknesses for the computer AI.
example... during a recent game I noticed the computer AI with high research summon at least 20 cave drakes during late game. Would be nice to sometimes disable a spell like this since I very rarely use the spell and it only wastes gems by the computer AI.

4) Ability to add or improve the computer AI via scripts. This was done within Neverwinter Nights with great success!

5) Ability to place a limit for the number of each building type(forts, labs, temples). Map makers can then provide maps where gamers would need to place these buildings in more strategic locations.

6) Ability to easily change the units which can be recruited within a province. Many of these weak units such as militia are purchased in mass numbers by the computer AI. Allowing map makers to easily provide more useful units within a province can make the AI more challenging.

7) Lots of other great ideas exist within other turn-based strategy games. The two best map editors I know would be AgeofWonders:ShadowMagic and HeroesofMight&amp;Magic_3. I definitely believe examining these map editors would provide some ideas for Dominions_3.

[thejeff]

I just had an immortal pretender lose a battle and not return. The province had +1 dominion both before and after the battle, and he had a dominion bonus to hit points during the battle, so it really should have been friendly dominion. Early in the game with no bordering enemy candles, so I don't see why dominion would have dropped anyway.

I've seen a few references to similar things as a bug, but not recently. Is this still known to be a problem? Is it related to the reincarnation bug? Should I expect someone else in the game to have an uberpowerful light infantry or something?

[SurvivalistMerc]

Yes, Endoperez. This was in a situation in which the resources listed would allow me to recruit the unit on the individual turn. You can try it with priests.

I recruit a priest in one turn with plenty of resources for him. (The little 2-holy guy I use mainly against undead.) The following turn, still a resource surplus, he is still in the queue, and I can get the 50 gold back if I want by removing him from the queue.

May have something to do with my system which is a laptop and with frequently interrupting the game. It only happens when I leave the game, let it exit, then come back.

[Endoperez]

Well, the only other non-bug reason I can think of is high unrest, but that would probably be quite easy to notice... And I rarely have over 100 unrest in my provinces! I would have to work for it!

[Kristoffer O]

How come there is a page 73 that i can't see?

[Kristoffer O]

Now I can see it. I seems to have answered a post from NTJedi. I suppose there was a removed post or something.

[Endoperez]

In fact, it is a minor forum bug: every time a page is full, a new page is added. The new page won't have any visible posts on it before yet another message is posted.

[Agrajag]

Actually, on the bug thread, it happens much sooner, sometimes three messages before the next page should have even been created.
Atleast from where I'm standing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[The DarkOne]

Here is interesting bug i have never heard of. I had one of my abyssian slayers lose an arm and later when i gave him a fire plate he kept his chain mail cuirass as well and ended up with 21 in protection instead of 12 as he should have.
Guess being one armed isn't so bad after all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Cainehill]

Disappointing little bug : sometimes a commander or unit will already have gone berserk, be sitting there fighting after the rest of the army has routed, and then... Berserk goes away, lowering strength, protection, etc, and causing the unit to run away when it never should have.

Seen it before, and just had it happen with a berserk+7 commander in a test game.

[ioticus]

Does anyone else get a strange shimmering effect on the bottom edge of the maps?

[Zooko]

The help text made me think that -preexec would go off once per turn, before the new turn is generated, and -postexec would go off once per turn, after the new turn is generated. But in practice, -preexec seems to do nothing at all and -postexec seems to work as I expected.

[FrankTrollman]

Disappointing little bug : sometimes a commander or unit will already have gone berserk, be sitting there fighting after the rest of the army has routed, and then... Berserk goes away, lowering strength, protection, etc, and causing the unit to run away when it never should have.



If a berserk unit passes out from fatugue, they wake up not berserk. I don't think that's a bug, although I haven't found reference to this in the documentation anywhere - thus making it a "hidden feature".

-Frank

[archaeolept]

another global bug.

we are using the combined balance mod, but the only change to one of the spells was lowering the path requirement for mechanical militia.

Situation: only globals cast so far were (in order) mother oak, mechanical militia, stellar focus.

My pretender then cast gift of health. everyone got the message that it had been cast, along w/ appropriate flavour text; but it did not exist in the globals screen. Moreover, mechanical militia also ceased to exist. While it is possible that AI c'tis cast a dispel, this seems highly unlikely since its pretty early, and hard to believe that c'tis had the astral. Most likely, I think these two occurrences are related somehow.

[spirokeat]

I equiped a black servant with bane venom charm. His first turn he spent in a neutral province, that had no defenders as I had just lesser horror'd it to clear defences.

The message stated he had killed 270 people. upon selecting him to move him again, he had gained 25700XP and was top of the hero list with a special ability, though his kills were listed as 0.

Spiro

[Endoperez]

Known bug, happens only with Bane Venom Charm and, IIRC, with Harvester of Sorrows.

[Zen]

Edit: Edi is right!

[Edi]

Not Mastema, Mabakiel.

Edi

[Molog]

Wither bones removes mist form from non-undead.
Minotaur manikin can still use gore attack after losing their head.
Some undead don't have undead leadership when gift of reasoned(eater of dead is one of them i think).

[Ed Kolis]

I hired The Lost One and he came to me with -3 astral pearls... Perhaps the computer players are cheating and using more gems than it they are allowed to??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Cainehill]

Seems to me that the lightning swarm type weapons (low armor negating damage) shouldn't work the way they do. Right now, even though they're lightning damage and that's why they're armor negating, the weapon has full effect on units that are immune to lightning damage.

Since the armor negation comes from lightning, it shouldn't be capable of doing anything to lightning immune troops like mechanical men. Currently, a bunch of spring chickens, er, hawks, or air elementals blow through mechanical men when they shouldn't be able to.

[Edi]

Molog said:Some undead don't have undead leadership when gift of reasoned(eater of dead is one of them i think).


That just means that the monster type has no undead leadership specified (default 0), whereas normal leadership other than 25 (the default) must be specified separately. Ghouls and soulless at least have a base undead ldr 25. Don't know about the longdead. Eater of the Dead is a special case that is going to go on a rampage anyway, so it's irrelevant if it doesn't have any leadership at all.

Edi

[shovah]

but it would be kind of cool to see the eater of the dead turn around and eat the army he was leading

[Molog]

I had an airqueen cast mists of deception and then retreat. The mists of deception spell remained actived after the airqueen retreated.
The enemy troops kept running around for a long time killing illusions until their side retreated and because they were mindless mostly the army dissolved.

Mists of Deception + retreat should be capable of stopping any army in its tracks, seems a bit too strong.

Also repeated casting of puppet mastery, relief causes long lockups in the battle replay. It is something graphical, because if you move the view so that the animations aren't rendered, the lockups don't happen.

[Wick]

I just watched a deathmatch where a great mother killed Atlantis' prophet. Then she took poison damage for a while and was hit by Holy Avenger every round she was suffering it.

[boltcutter]

Possible bug, possible terrible luck: I sent a Scorpion King in vs. a handful of Ulmites. Scorp cast Personal Regen and went to attack. Did not seem to regenerate [or took more damage than I realized] but got three Permanent Afflictions: Lost one eye, lost other eye, and lost pincers.

It was like the Regen was ADDING afflictions.

Could have been a combination of bad luck and lots-of-little-injuries.

[Wick]

Troglodytes rose from a crack in the ground and attacked the PD and my Wyrm. They killed all the PD and my Wyrm *didn't* rout. That's good but, unless the rules have been changed, it's a bug.

[Zooko]

Earlier in this thread I complained about a mage casting Flight on the friendly unit who already had flight, even casting Flight over and over on the same friendly unit (who had already started the battle with flight) instead of on an adjacent friendly unit who didn't have flight and needed it.

However today I have discovered that targetting of the Flight spell is even more bogus: my mages cast Flight on enemy units instead of on friendly units! Perhaps they had some clever strategem in mind. They were going to make the Flying enemy units rout from the battlefield faster? They were going to cast some spell that destroys flying units? Who knows what they intended -- instead they lost the battle!

[Horst F. JENS]

Hi,
can you point me to a solution how to use the modding command
#casltedef &lt;value&gt; ?
No matter what number i enter for &lt;value&gt;, the unit description in the game says always: castledef(1000)

here is a test mod:

--castledef test with Tien Chi imperial Archer
#selectmonster 801
#castledef 5
#end

[lebarjack]

Active globals: Wild hunt

Mictlan's troops were sieging one of my (pangean) fortress. The lord of the hunt attacked one of the sieging priest and all my troops were suddenly ousted from the fortress. They stand now outside, with no lab, casting summonning spells or researching.

It's a really weird bug.

[shovah]

Zooko said:
Earlier in this thread I complained about a mage casting Flight on the friendly unit who already had flight, even casting Flight over and over on the same friendly unit (who had already started the battle with flight) instead of on an adjacent friendly unit who didn't have flight and needed it.

However today I have discovered that targetting of the Flight spell is even more bogus: my mages cast Flight on enemy units instead of on friendly units! Perhaps they had some clever strategem in mind. They were going to make the Flying enemy units rout from the battlefield faster? They were going to cast some spell that destroys flying units? Who knows what they intended -- instead they lost the battle!



ive noticed it too, although unless against strong enemys (jotuns/sacred cavalry ect) i like it when my mages cast flight on enemys because then they come over one at a time and are slaughtered

[nihilistic]

I am running the latest patch of Dominions 2 (2.16) on Gentoo Linux. The game has two directories one at ~/dominions2 and one at /opt/dominions2. The first one is used to store pretenders, created games, etc. It also has the maps and mods sub-directories. The second one holds the game data and executables.

The mods I have placed in ~/dominions2/mods are recognized by the game and can be loaded. However, the maps I place in ~/dominions2/maps are _not_ picked up by the game. I have to place them in /opt/dominions2/maps in order for the game to load them.

I am not sure if this has been discussed here before; a quick search returned nothing relevant and I am too bored to go through 74 pages of posts. So, I apologize in advance if this is a known issue.

[Johan K]

Placing maps in ~/dominions3/maps doesn't work unfortunatelly.

[Oversway]

Good to see that dom3 is heavily on your mind http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Johan K]

Yeah, that should be dominions2.

[Cainehill]

Astral Weapon is _supposed_ to work on all attack forms, but definately doesn't seem to work with Trample - my Astral-Weapon'ed uber-Freaklord decimated everything else in an army, but didn't do any damage to the ice devils commanding them.

[Saber Cherry]

Bear in mind that Ice Devils can have extremely high defense. IIRC trample does no damage on a save, but my memory is pretty bad.

Aside from that - I never even thought of Astral Trample. Pretty insane http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif It's not really a weapon in MY book, though, and (regardless of the official rules) it seems strange for trample to be affected by Astral Weapon...

[Graeme Dice]

Saber Cherry said:
Bear in mind that Ice Devils can have extremely high defense. IIRC trample does no damage on a save, but my memory is pretty bad.



It does at least 1 damage no matter what IIRC. It can be useful that way for inflicting afflictions on a cursed unit.

[ioticus]

A few times when my succubus was successful seducing an enemy commander, the commander did not appear at my capital even though the succubus returned.

[Neophyte]

I'm using patch 2.16 and no mods.

I was playing on Talis Arco (me) vs Ermor. I found the site that allows you to build pyromancers and Adepts of Pyrolingin (I know the spelling is just wrong on this). I recruited an Adept and eventually I lost the province to Ermor, who happened to kill the adept in the battle (my only commander loss - he didn't run with the rest of the commanders, maybe he got lamed in the battle - I didn't think to check - was too busy cussing at his lazy butt to move).

I recaptured the province in about 3 turns. The laboratory was still there, though (obviously) the temple I had built was destroyed. I was unable to recruit any adepts even though I had plenty of gold and resources. Am I missing something here? I could put the adept in the recruit queue and he'd still be there next turn. Did I have too many commanders on site (I used about 9 to retake the province, and needed to keep them there for defense)?

Thank's!

[thejeff]

Check the unrest. If it's over 100 you can't recruit.

That's the only time I've seen something similar happen.

[Endoperez]

thejeff said:
Check the unrest. If it's over 100 you can't recruit.

That's the only time I've seen something similar happen.



Probably that. And it's 'Pyriphlegaton' IIRC.

[Endoperez]

For 2, I include a wide variety of... strange happenings... which I think are bugs, but I'm not entirely sure. Yeah, I patched to 2.16 as soon as I switched to the full game from the demo (ie before any of the observations that my current complaints are based upon). Here's the strangeness lumped under #2 that I saw happen in my most recent game, where I was Neifelheim on the Orania map against 16 "Difficult" AI players, playing on dom2 2.16 on win32.


2A. Around turn 50 or so, I couldn't find my prophet. My last recollection of him placed him underwater in Atlantis' capital (he was a Jotun Scout w/ a sea kings goblet). My temple conversion info screen said I had no prophet, but I didn't notice him die. I was never allowed to declare another prophet for the rest of the game (which ended on turn 162). Actually, I guess there's not necessarily any combat involved, so maybe this isn't properly under #2, but it's still under "bugs", most of which are vaguely combat related.



I'm not sure about what happened. In theory, your prophet might have sneaked somewhere where you didn't look, but IIRC he should still be shown to spread dominion in the Temple screen.



2B. A while later, I had a force of one Neifel Jarl SC and 400 Vine Ogres attacking a castle... I think it was a Man castle... after a while all of the VOs routed (actually dissolved) for a reason unknown to me. My impression is that mindless units are not supposed to route unless their commander dies. The SC continued attacking, but was killed. He appeared to have been killed by either a human militia man or a sea troll - they were the only units within range of him at the time of his death, but a fraction of a second before dieing he was at 70+ health, and by my understanding of the mechanics they should have had less than a 1 in a million chance of killing him (19 protection, 70+ hit points, 26 defense... vs the sea troll of 23 strength, -2 damage and 12 attack... the militia is even worse). I watched the battle several times watching the scrolling text for a spell that could be responsible for either the route or the SC death, but couldn't find anything. Save available.



There are at least two possibilities:
1) It might be that didn't have any commanders capable of leading magical units any more. Was you Niefel Jarl feeble-minded?
2) To stop never-ending battles (e.g. a Sphinx against creatures it can't kill with spells), all attacking units auto-rout at turn 50. Berserking units could stay and fight even after this. I don't remember whether the defenders are supposed to rout before or after any remaining units are killed, but it might be a case of a berserk Jarl fighting longer than the battles are supposed to last.

I doubt it is a bug, although it isn't as clear as it could be.


2C. A while later, I attacked a province with 102 vampires and a few commanders. They were led by a VL w/ sea kings goblet &amp; barrel of air. They attacked from the ocean. The vampires routed but the commanders won the battle anyway. It was within friendly dominion, and the battle summary said that they lived (well, that most lived, but I've found that the battle summary seems to often make up a few spurious deaths for no reason). The only adjacent friendly territory was the ocean province that I attacked from. So where did the routing vampires end up? Answer: nowhere, so far as I can tell. There were no vampires left in the province that I took, and none in adjacent territories. Some vampires were in my capital, but only 68, too few to account for my 100-odd missing vampires. Save available.



The Vampires couldn't rout anywhere, so they died. Units can only retreat to friendly, neighbouring provinces. Even fliers, sneakers, etc follow the same rules. It seems that immortals killed by retreat aren't reborn; that might be a bug.



2D. A while later, I decided that I had enough spare resources to try to make an ultimate unbeatable combat squad. I figured that I'd build it around the principle of making SCs be communion slaves, and sharing powerful self-buffing spells with them via the communion-slaves-share-self-buffs principle. Unfortunately, I found that communion slaves behave somewhat oddly in battle. I had 4 pure slaves, 3 master/slaves, and 2 pure masters. That is, a pure slave had a slave matrix, a pure master had a crystal matrix, and a hybrid had both. All were mages. All were set to cast spells for the first round, and the 4 pure-slaves were set to attack for the rest of the battle while the pure-masters and hybrids cast self-buffs. However in combat, the 2 hybrids and 3 of the 4 pure-slaves did nothing. The 4 pure slaves each had identical orders, identical equipment, identical unit type etc, and yet one of them cast while the other 3 just stood there. Even the one that cast stopped following his script after the first round, even when it told him to attack at the same time he was bezerked. I end up with the impression that the combat AI has communion slaves stand still and disregard normal orders, but every once in a while a bug causes one to do what it's told for a turn instead. Save available.



You quessed it: Communion Slaves are supposed to do nothing for the rest of the battle, but a bug may cause them to act strangely.


2E. One of my Ivy Kings found a lychantropos amulet and stupidly put it on. Since the item description says something about turning the wearer into a "beast" eventually, I figured it wouldn't be too terribly suprising if he became a wolf for some portion of a battle. I didn't pay much attention to him for a while, and he went through a few battles. I was fairly suprised when I noticed him next and found that on the strategic me map he'd been transformed not into a wolf, but into a human! Okay, maybe it's not a bug, he was changed into a skinshifter, one of those vanheim national werewolves that are humans blessed w/ the ability to be wolves. Except he wasn't supposed to be human! Save available.



Not a bug per se, but there are oddities in how Lycanthropos' Amulet changes creatures (including Jotun giants) into werewolves. There are bigger werewolves in Dominions 3 (EA Niefelheim has Jotun Skinshifters), so it might be partly fixed, but even then weird things will happen. There should probably be some types of units that are immune to the transformation, and inanimate beings and/or magical beasts (I'm not sure what Ivy Kings were in Dom2) probably shouldn't change.



Other ones I've seen include immortals sometimes respawning but sometimes not respawning after dieing in a battle where the dominion was friendly when the attack order was issued but hostile after it completed, or mindless units dissolving when the last enemy killed was a mage who respawns with that pheonix respawning spell.



The first might be a bug, or just an oddity in the order in which battles and dominion spreading happens. E.g. events might affect it. Dominion spread happens after all battles, so an event might change the province into hostile dominion before battle, and normal dominion spread could change it back after the battle happened but before the hosting was complete.
Not sure of the second.

[cthulhu]

I'm not sure about what happened. In theory, your prophet might have sneaked somewhere where you didn't look, but IIRC he should still be shown to spread dominion in the Temple screen.


My best guess is that I accidentally removed his goblet and he drowned.

There are at least two possibilities:
1) It might be that didn't have any commanders capable of leading magical units any more. Was you Niefel Jarl feeble-minded?
2) To stop never-ending battles (e.g. a Sphinx against creatures it can't kill with spells), all attacking units auto-rout at turn 50. Berserking units could stay and fight even after this. I don't remember whether the defenders are supposed to rout before or after any remaining units are killed, but it might be a case of a berserk Jarl fighting longer than the battles are supposed to last.

I doubt it is a bug, although it isn't as clear as it could be.


Yeah, it was about 50 turns before the VOs started spontaneously dieing. Doesn't really seem like the most wonderful mechanic in the game. I mean, when an SC goes up against a large army, and kills 2 people every turn, and eventually arbitrarily dies because the battle has gone on too long, well, the SCs owner is not happy! That one was kind of expendable but I had another with 30+ each in protection, defense, and magic resistance that I would have just curled up into a ball and cried if that happened to him.

The Vampires couldn't rout anywhere, so they died. Units can only retreat to friendly, neighbouring provinces. Even fliers, sneakers, etc follow the same rules. It seems that immortals killed by retreat aren't reborn; that might be a bug.


I think usually when my vampires die due to "fleeing into hostile territory" they respawn in my capital (assuming the battle occured in friendly dominion).

You quessed it: Communion Slaves are supposed to do nothing for the rest of the battle, but a bug may cause them to act strangely.


Blerg. It would be nice if the spell description mentioned that it paralyzed everyone who casts it. Now I'll have to figure out how to set it up so that the slaves form a protective wall around the masters. The masters will end up needing protection from arrows and area effect spells. Sigh.

Not a bug per se, but there are oddities in how Lycanthropos' Amulet changes creatures (including Jotun giants) into werewolves. There are bigger werewolves in Dominions 3 (EA Niefelheim has Jotun Skinshifters), so it might be partly fixed, but even then weird things will happen. There should probably be some types of units that are immune to the transformation, and inanimate beings and/or magical beasts (I'm not sure what Ivy Kings were in Dom2) probably shouldn't change.


Blerg.


The first might be a bug, or just an oddity in the order in which battles and dominion spreading happens. E.g. events might affect it. Dominion spread happens after all battles, so an event might change the province into hostile dominion before battle, and normal dominion spread could change it back after the battle happened but before the hosting was complete.
Not sure of the second.


The first is extremely annoying when playing a vampire queen, and contradicts some dev quotes around here somewhere IIRC. The second appears to be an obscure bug, but I didn't test it after the first time so it could easily just be a coincidence.

[thejeff]

cthulhu said:

You quessed it: Communion Slaves are supposed to do nothing for the rest of the battle, but a bug may cause them to act strangely.


Blerg. It would be nice if the spell description mentioned that it paralyzed everyone who casts it. Now I'll have to figure out how to set it up so that the slaves form a protective wall around the masters. The masters will end up needing protection from arrows and area effect spells. Sigh.




They're only inactive when the masters are casting. If I'm using the Communion Slave SC tactic, I have the Masters retreat after casting their buffs. The slaves keep the buffs and can attack.

[RonD]

thejeff said:

They're only inactive when the masters are casting. If I'm using the Communion Slave SC tactic, I have the Masters retreat after casting their buffs. The slaves keep the buffs and can attack.



Which would put it out of the 'bug' thread and into the 'exploit' thread http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Wick]

The description of Devil's Den says it causes 15 unrest but it only causes 10.