Bug Thread: Discussion

[Singularity24601]

There are situations where if a battle occurs in a province, any gladiators in that province will disappear after the battle, even if they didn't participate in the battle... I'll need to do more experiments to get the specifics.

[HoneyBadger]

I don't think this has been mentioned before, but if so, it's worth mentioning again:

With the regular druid-the guy that summons extra vine men/ogres, the Ivy Crown does *not* stack with this power. I'm pretty sure this is a balancing act, left over from Dom2, but there's no documentation explaining this, or rhyme or reason for it, in the Dom3. It would be a nice ability, if the Ivy Crown *did* stack (it might go a ways to restoring vine ogres to greater usefulness in the game, if it were) -or if there were atleast some thematic explanation for it, atleast. If I remember correctly, he's not actually *wearing* an Ivy Crown.

[lch]

Does it stack with others, though, like the Animist, Treelord or Ivy King? That would make no sense. Otherwise it would be a lesser bug that might be easier to fix.

[HoneyBadger]

I don't have a way to check, Ich. Sorry. It's just something that I happened to remember.

[thejeff]

Single troops can be set to Guard commander. But I don't think they count for "Stay behind troops". So in this case, the Commander and his guards would both follow up right behind the hydras.

Guarding archers also don't shoot, which is annoying.

[chrispedersen]

Single troops can be set to Guard commander. But I don't think they count for "Stay behind troops". So in this case, the Commander and his guards would both follow up right behind the hydras.

Guarding archers also don't shoot, which is annoying.

Sort of required. Else why not make all archers guard?

[Illuminated One]

No, I think thejeff means it that way:

If the enemy is in range they should shoot but they wont move away to shoot at an enemy they can't reach otherwise. Which would be really cool.

[vfb]

Does it stack with others, though, like the Animist, Treelord or Ivy King? That would make no sense. Otherwise it would be a lesser bug that might be easier to fix.

Treelords and Ivy Kings can't wear hats! :)

And when I put an Ivy Crown on the Master Druid (the one on foot), he goes from Ivy Lord (2) to Ivy Lord (3), and gets 3 extra vine men per cast instead of 2.

If you give him a Treelord Staff, he summons even more.

[Loren]

I'm playing with a mod race with nice assassins and I have come to hate a stupid little flaw in the game:

You get no message of any kind if you order an assassination and there's no target. I've got 20+ assassins out there handling much of my initial expansion and it's a royal pain keeping track of whether a province is cleared or not.

What I want:

<Assassin> was unable to find a target to assassinate. The goto button would take you to the assassin.

[JimMorrison]

No, I think thejeff means it that way:

If the enemy is in range they should shoot but they wont move away to shoot at an enemy they can't reach otherwise. Which would be really cool.


Unless there was something totally buggy when I tried it, multiple times units with bows or with javelins have refused to fire at targets in range, when set to Guard Commander.

In assassination fights however, they will attack normally, of course.

[lch]

What Illuminated One means that thejeff means, archers set to Fire move towards an enemy if it is outside of their range. Guard Commander could take that specific role of standing fixed and firing if it becomes available. Also, amazing mexican archer stand-offs.

[JimMorrison]

Guard Commander could take that specific role of standing fixed and firing if it becomes available.

Yes, it could, but in my experience, it does not.

In fact, it led to sad defeat in one case in particular, even though I had plenty of archers, had they fired their bows, instead of milling around for awhile and then screaming like little girls when the enemy finally closed to melee.

[HoneyBadger]

Thanks, vfb! It may have changed since the last time I was able to test it, so I'm glad that it's working properly.

[lch]

Guard Commander could take that specific role of standing fixed and firing if it becomes available.

Yes, it could, but in my experience, it does not.
Yes, I said it could take that role, which it doesn't do at the moment now.

[slayers_ai]

umm...there's a weird bug happened in the game BloodBath that hosted on LlamaServer. I am playing MA Pythium and Suddenly all of my Retiarius (yes, I've recruited a lot and I am pretty sure some of them suppose to enter a battle that I've set and some of them are just recruited in a Fort. However either in a battle or on the Map, I just can not find them.) disappeared without entering a battle.

Not so sure if it's a LlamaServer bug or DOM3 bug. It happened in turn 23. If possible where should I report this bug and whom should I report to?

(PS: the Retiarius are all fine for the turns before turn 23. The bug just happened in turn 23. I have no idea why.)
Thanks

[Edi]

If there is a battle in the province they are in, they go poof. They only fight in one battle, then leave. There have been similar things about them sometimes. It is related to the special hardcoded behavior of units 11 and 12 (Gladiator and Retiarius)

[Loren]

ARGH!

Some of my units just wandered off into the woods.

Please explain what my *UNDEAD* units were after??

[vfb]

Brains! :)

[slayers_ai]

If there is a battle in the province they are in, they go poof. They only fight in one battle, then leave. There have been similar things about them sometimes. It is related to the special hardcoded behavior of units 11 and 12 (Gladiator and Retiarius)

I know they only fight in one battle then leave. However there's no message show that they are in a battle and they suppose to be in a fort and there's no battle in that province. They just suddenly disappeared.:eek:

[lch]

Yes, that is likely a bug. Only the units that took place in combat should be discarded, not all of them that were in the province. So the "garbage collection" should be done for battle aftereffects while the battlefield is still in memory and maybe get active wherever the handling for commanders with battlefield enchantments are being checked, too.

[Bwaha]

The Eye shield seems to not work. I'm fighting a SC Cyclops and fought for at least 50 turns in close combat. How's the effect of this item resistible? Regeneration? Magic resistance? I couldn't find a mention of this. Thanks. :D

[lch]

The effect is MR resistable. Regeneration does help to avoid getting afflictions in combat, they say, it might help there as well, though I might doubt that.

[fungalreason]

What weapon was the cyclops using? And what was the relative attack / defense?

[vfb]

I thought it was not MR resistable. As long as he hits the shield then he should get afflicted, I think. AoE attacks don't count.

There are a couple of possibilities (that fungalreason hinted at).

The cyclops has a base 11 attack before exp. If he's hitting with a frost brand and your thug has super-high defense, he could just miss every time and kill your thug with the AoE damage.

If the cyclops attack is really high and your thug's defense is too low, then he may just be blowing past the Eye Shield's parry, which is only 5. 20 attack versus 6 defense needs the defense (plus parry) DRN+6(+5) to be as high as the attack DRN+20. That's just 1 in 20 hits.

[Loren]

<mage> was killed by a mental attack.

Please give ma link to *where*!!

[vfb]

The "fail to move" bug is still alive and kicking.

I've got turn 22 files (.trn and .2h) with the orders to move, and a new turn 23 .trn where my army did not move. I'll email them all to Illwinter. It's a really annoying bug.

[Reay]

Flying units in a storm seem to still be able to flee by flying. And yes it is not a storm demon or any other "can fly in a storm" unit (Bane Lord with winged shoes).

[Rathar]

I'm uncertain how to describe the bug..

In the attached two turn files I start with a nation with an estimated income of 15 or so and an upkeep of 450+-. I have 550 saved and I have made deals to have folks send me 350 more next turn. I got messages that the gold was received and there are no random events that I can see.

By my reckoning I should end up with approximately 450 but in the enclosed example I only have 150 or so.. I had to rename them to .zip files in order to upload to this silly attachment system but renaming them to .trn files should work.

A bit odd I thought!

[Loren]

I'm uncertain how to describe the bug..

In the attached two turn files I start with a nation with an estimated income of 15 or so and an upkeep of 450+-. I have 550 saved and I have made deals to have folks send me 350 more next turn. I got messages that the gold was received and there are no random events that I can see.

By my reckoning I should end up with approximately 450 but in the enclosed example I only have 150 or so.. I had to rename them to .zip files in order to upload to this silly attachment system but renaming them to .trn files should work.

A bit odd I thought!

It's not a silly attachment system. You're expected to zip them to make them smaller.

[Rathar]

Shrug, 200k files seem small already. I forgot to add the passowrd for those and it's 1 s p a m 2 remove the spaces.

[vfb]

I thought it was not MR resistable. As long as he hits the shield then he should get afflicted, I think. AoE attacks don't count.

There are a couple of possibilities (that fungalreason hinted at).

The cyclops has a base 11 attack before exp. If he's hitting with a frost brand and your thug has super-high defense, he could just miss every time and kill your thug with the AoE damage.

If the cyclops attack is really high and your thug's defense is too low, then he may just be blowing past the Eye Shield's parry, which is only 5. 20 attack versus 6 defense needs the defense (plus parry) DRN+6(+5) to be as high as the attack DRN+20. That's just 1 in 20 hits.

Please ignore my disinformation, sorry!

I've just tested this and looked at the debug output. Units actually hitting the Eye Shield do get to make an MR check (against 12, not 10) to avoid being blinded. Wearing penetration items with the Eye Shield does not affect its effectiveness.

[Reay]

On further investigation it appears the Firbolg champion with the storm staff fled the field of battle before everyone started flying again :doh:.

Flying units in a storm seem to still be able to flee by flying. And yes it is not a storm demon or any other "can fly in a storm" unit (Bane Lord with winged shoes).

[BDOC]

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/4323/errorpicty4.th.jpg (http://img265.imageshack.us/my.php?image=errorpicty4.jpg)http://img265.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)

Nagot gick fel
myloadmallock: can't open ./mod/./Worhty_Heroes/Dogfriend.tga

Then the game crashes and that game name can not play again. I tried deleting the trn file and 2h file and it still resolves to this error.

I a running Window Vista
Dom 3 version 3.21
Conceptual Balence 1.3

MAN Middle Age
Various maps
Rainbow god

Any ideas on a fix for this? Should I drop the mod?

[Endoperez]

The game can't find an image file. If your OS is case-sensitive (i.e. dogfriend.tga and Dogfriend.tga are different files), find the worthy heroes images and make sure dogfriend is spelled with capital D.

[Loren]

Playing with that Reign of the Vampiri mod and got something strange:

I noticed hero in the hall of fame tht is supposedly mine but looked odd. 14 kills and 1001 experience. That looked odd, I looked at him.

He's an "Eternal Knight", probably a racial hero but I don't recall ever seeing him. Somehow he got -9976 hit points! I'm going to try raising him and see what I get...

What?

Now he has 218 hp's. Current age: 4014. Start of old age: 500. He's also a plague carrier, something I don't recall ever seeing before.

[Endoperez]

The plague carrier icon was only added few patches back, so it's no wonder you haven't seen it.

Orion the Eternal Knight leads a mercenary band. They are a group of 5 or so human-sized beings wielding flaming swords. Their backstory says they were imprisoned somewhere for a long time, so they have huge starting ages and start with huge amount of experience. How did you "raise" him? It sounds as if you used Ritual of Rebirth to create a mummy out of him. The mummy doesn't necessarily have high-enough maxage to keep ancient beings from getting old age penalties, and has plague carrier ability IIRC.

[HoneyBadger]

I don't know about undead, but it's possible that, if it's numerically based, they do, considering that aboleths-atleast-have lifespans of up to 20,000 years.

[lch]

It's the old bug/problem with Ritual of Returning to get mummies with a maxage of 500, even if the original unit could have had a far greater base age, like in this case.

[BesucherXia]

If a laboratory is destoryed due to random event during a siege, the besiegers instead of the defenders will receive the message.

[Edi]

If a laboratory is destoryed due to random event during a siege, the besiegers instead of the defenders will receive the message.

Other problems with partially owned provinces as well, such as the besiegers getting the PD from PD increase events, besieger being able to blood sacrifice even though the temple belongs to the defender etc. This is just one more to the list.

[AreaOfEffect]

Sounds like most of those issues won't be fixed until Dominions 4.

[Adept]

Just noticed. Charioteers are armed with spear and short sword, but the unit has no ambidexterity bonus. As a result both attacks are skill four(4)!

This needs a quick fix. One doesn't usually see it as the chariot only tramples, but it's ridiculous that it is helpless against an opponent of the same size class or bigger.

[Loren]

The plague carrier icon was only added few patches back, so it's no wonder you haven't seen it.

Orion the Eternal Knight leads a mercenary band. They are a group of 5 or so human-sized beings wielding flaming swords. Their backstory says they were imprisoned somewhere for a long time, so they have huge starting ages and start with huge amount of experience. How did you "raise" him? It sounds as if you used Ritual of Rebirth to create a mummy out of him. The mummy doesn't necessarily have high-enough maxage to keep ancient beings from getting old age penalties, and has plague carrier ability IIRC.

If he's a merc how did he end up in the hall of fame as my hero?

You're right about it being Ritual of Rebirth.

It does sound like the maxage on a mummy needs to be raised.

And why did he have that insane number of negative hit points while he was dead?

[Endoperez]

If he's a merc how did he end up in the hall of fame as my hero?

And why did he have that insane number of negative hit points while he was dead?

Mercenaries that die keep the flag of the nation that last controlled them.
Soul Slay, death upon retreat and other insta-Death effects will deal 9999 damage. I'm more interested to know how he has over 200 hps as a mummy. Does he have some absurd heroic quality?

[Loren]

If he's a merc how did he end up in the hall of fame as my hero?

And why did he have that insane number of negative hit points while he was dead?

Mercenaries that die keep the flag of the nation that last controlled them.
Soul Slay, death upon retreat and other insta-Death effects will deal 9999 damage. I'm more interested to know how he has over 200 hps as a mummy. Does he have some absurd heroic quality?

IIRC he had heroic toughness. If the dead version shows the current hps rather than the hps he's supposed to have the screen would make sense.

After Ritual of Rebirth is he supposed to remain mine rather than leave for non-payment?

[slayers_ai]

just want to report a bug (or feature?)
when using transformation, if it transformed to a hydra hachling. The hydra hachling is still in the old version. And we'll get a strange thing that has the old-version hydra hachling data with a wired unit picture. (now code No.719, probably should be code No.1840)

Not so sure if it's done by purpose or just forgot to change it to the newversion hydra hachling tho.

Thanks:)

[Loren]

I run Dominions in a window.

Today while playing a game I found it in full-screen mode. I have no idea how it got that way.

Habit took over and I hit alt-enter. (I do a fair amount of work with command prompts.)

Boom--something about a pixel, I was going to come and post it then but everything has interfered and by now I don't recall the wording of the message.

When I ran Dominions again it was back in a window where it belonged, no problems.

[Taqwus]

IIRC he had heroic toughness. If the dead version shows the current hps rather than the hps he's supposed to have the screen would make sense.


That would be the case.

After Ritual of Rebirth is he supposed to remain mine rather than leave for non-payment?

He'll be back as a mummy. Have you ever heard of a mummy going on strike, demanding more compensation? They're beyond such mere concerns as coin. :p

[Illuminated One]

just want to report a bug (or feature?)

I think its a bug.
The hydra you get is very suicidal it has poison cloud but no poison resistance. :D
Another transformation bug: If you have a shroud of the battle saint on a mage that casts transformation the bless effect will sometimes remain in place. Don't know if that works with other items too.

[lch]

when using transformation, if it transformed to a hydra hachling. The hydra hachling is still in the old version. And we'll get a strange thing that has the old-version hydra hachling data with a wired unit picture. (now code No.719, probably should be code No.1840)
Funny, those "Hydra Hatchlings" (719/767) have one of the secondforms of the Daughter of Typhon (1824) as their sprite graphics set. It should get the poison immunity, though.

[WingedDog]

I've found a funny bug. Was playing around with the Eater of the Dead. I have cast GoR on him, gave pedant of luck and ring of regeneration, made him a prophet, fed him to the 3rd form and pushed him deep into enemy territory. He quickly made himself to the 1st place in the hall of fame, then, as usual, he became uncontrollable and started rampaging random provinces. The icon in the hall of fame was showing he was dead, so I had cast a Ritual of Rebirh, AND the SECOND INDEPANDANT Eater with items and prophet status has appeared in the province first one has gone berserk in. Now there are 2 Eaters stalking around. That's not all. There's supposed to be only one Eater in the world, and when you resummon it the independant one dissapears, so I was eager to know wich one would dissapear, or would they dissapear both... So I've cast Call the Eater again... To my surpise - none of them did, and I've received the third one.

[Edi]

Are bvithg those Eaters of the Dead the same monster number? It has several forms, so that could be playing havoc with the normal unique mechanics. Once the second one reaches Unfettered form, it would be nice to see if it disappears or not...

[WingedDog]

The two rampaging eaters are U997 - the Unfettered form, the third one I've summoned is U994 - the smallest. I'll try to feed him to the U996 form to watch the result.

Added: I just fed the 3rd one to the U996 form, few turns after he's becane U997 and gone out of control, captured the province and then just dissapeared the same turn. The previous two are still wreaking havoc in the world.

[JimMorrison]

I'd guess it has something to do with the one being a prophet?

[Edi]

Must be. Prophetizing it changed it from a normal Eater of the Dead to type "prophet" even though the monster number is the same. It lists as dead because it went independent (much like charmed and enslaved units are counted dead). Then the second one went indie but is a regular Unfettered, so it stays too. The third one is fine as Eater, but once it reaches Unfettered status, Dominions does a check that says it shoudln't so it goes poof instead.

That's my guess as to how the game logic works with it. Just speculation though, but it fits the observed behavior.

[WingedDog]

Well, I also noticed if the first Eater was growing in power and reached about 7000 hp, while the prophet one was still about 500 hp. And it seems like the game consideres the prophet Eater to be my prophet as I'm still unable to make a new one.
Then something else has happened: when the prophet Eater was killed - the same turn the Third Eater U997 has appeared in the same province... Well not third now since prophet is dead - but there are still two indie Eaters in the world, here's screenshot of hall of fame.

[Zeldor]

Problem with .map files and #specstart - LA Atlantis and LA MArignon are nations that want coastal provinces. But if game has none valid coastal starts they can start on normal inland prov. Problem occurs when you want to place nations by #specstart, Mari/Atlantis either starts nowhere [and dies next turn] or replaces other nation [which dies]. Placing all nations by #specstart and leaving 1 free spot for Mari/Atlantis does not help, it makes it even worse [it still replaces one nation but mari/atlantis still dies, so 2 nations vanish]. Are there any solutions to that?

[Loren]

I don't know if this a game bug or a mod bug.

I've been playing with the Vampiri mod race and three times now during turn generation Dominions has vanished. Loading it up and hitting End Turn always works, though.

The reason I suspect the game is that it's also when I upgraded to 3.21.

[lch]

I've been playing with the Vampiri mod race and three times now during turn generation Dominions has vanished. Loading it up and hitting End Turn always works, though.
"Vanished" is not a useful error report. The game gives an error message when it crashes, you should copy and paste that to determine the kind of problem there is.

[Kristoffer O]

The Eater of the dead is no longer an entity with one body. For several patches now it has had the ability to split itself into neighboring provinces, slowly growing and turning every province into a field of animated flesh. Each manifestation of the otherworldly eater of the dead has a singular body, but the entity can manifest in several places.

The perceived bug might be a bug, but might also be a side effect of the multi-bodied entity mechanic.

[JimMorrison]

I've been playing with the Vampiri mod race and three times now during turn generation Dominions has vanished. Loading it up and hitting End Turn always works, though.
"Vanished" is not a useful error report. The game gives an error message when it crashes, you should copy and paste that to determine the kind of problem there is.

It's only not useful if it's not clarified in any way. But Dominions still has the "CTD during turn resolution" problem sometimes, and when that occurs, it just dumps you to desktop without any fanfare or explanation. It certainly sounds like that is what Loren is reporting (I think it was listed in the patch notes as fixed in 3.21, but I can confirm seeing it since then as well).

[Loren]

I've been playing with the Vampiri mod race and three times now during turn generation Dominions has vanished. Loading it up and hitting End Turn always works, though.
"Vanished" is not a useful error report. The game gives an error message when it crashes, you should copy and paste that to determine the kind of problem there is.

I mean vanished. No error message. One instant it's there, the next it's gone. I've never seen exactly what phase of the turn generation it's on when it happens.

This probably means a stack overflow.

[Loren]

I've been playing with the Vampiri mod race and three times now during turn generation Dominions has vanished. Loading it up and hitting End Turn always works, though.
"Vanished" is not a useful error report. The game gives an error message when it crashes, you should copy and paste that to determine the kind of problem there is.

It's only not useful if it's not clarified in any way. But Dominions still has the "CTD during turn resolution" problem sometimes, and when that occurs, it just dumps you to desktop without any fanfare or explanation. It certainly sounds like that is what Loren is reporting (I think it was listed in the patch notes as fixed in 3.21, but I can confirm seeing it since then as well).

This sounds exactly like what I'm seeing.

[vfb]

In-game messages like "I'm setting taxes to 0% so you go bankrupt" can cause the turn to crash when they are viewed.

The game formats messages that are displayed on the screen using one of the printf calls. It should pass ( ..., "%s", message ) for user-entered messages. But instead it passes ( ..., message ). So if 'message' contains printf formatting, it will expect additional arguments. And if the printf code is '%s' (spaces between the '%' and 's' don't matter), it will treat whatever happens to be on the stack as an address to read a string from. If this address is invalid, that can cause a crash.

[Soyweiser]

In-game messages like "I'm setting taxes to 0% so you go bankrupt" can cause the turn to crash when they are viewed.

The game formats messages that are displayed on the screen using one of the printf calls. It should pass ( ..., "%s", message ) for user-entered messages. But instead it passes ( ..., message ). So if 'message' contains printf formatting, it will expect additional arguments. And if the printf code is '%s' (spaces between the '%' and 's' don't matter), it will treat whatever happens to be on the stack as an address to read a string from. If this address is invalid, that can cause a crash.

This is a serious problem. This can cause much more than a simple crash. If someone makes a malicious message, it could take over your computer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Format_string_attack

[MaxWilson]

Oh, wow. %n does not modify the output from printf but instead treats its arguments are a memory address and sets it to the number of characters printed so far. That raises the threat potential from printing out the contents of your Dom3 process to modifying memory, including the instruction pointer. http://julianor.tripod.com/bc/formatstring-1.2.pdf

It's interesting that vfb reports that this will cause crashes. Maybe Dom3 is compiled in a mode that does stricter checking of printf, and throws an exception if the wrong number of arguments is supplied. In that case it's not a security threat after all.

-Max

[vfb]

Oh, wow. %n does not modify the output from printf but instead treats its arguments are a memory address and sets it to the number of characters printed so far. That raises the threat potential from printing out the contents of your Dom3 process to modifying memory, including the instruction pointer. http://julianor.tripod.com/bc/formatstring-1.2.pdf

It's interesting that vfb reports that this will cause crashes. Maybe Dom3 is compiled in a mode that does stricter checking of printf, and throws an exception if the wrong number of arguments is supplied. In that case it's not a security threat after all.

-Max

No, I just said %s will cause crashes. I did not think of %n, I was not aware of that actually.

The printf call used does check for a null argument to %s on the stack and prints "(null)" in that case, but it's going to seg fault (crash) if there's something on the stack like a random integer value.

It's impossible to do a compile-time check of the printf arg count when the format string itself is variable. And that's the problem here, the format string should be "%s" instead of the user-entered message.

It's also impossible for a library function like printf to know how many arguments it was actually passed. Whatever is on the stack is just there, and it will try to use it according to the format string.

[lch]

Black Laurel, Ivy Crown and Crown of the Ivy King do not provide an armor to the wearer, bug or WAD? I remember that a couple of crowns were missing their armor, and KO said something like "remind me of any other crowns like this".

[Tifone]

Should they provide armor? They're leaves after all :)

[Dectilon]

I don't know if this has been mentioned but:

If I use the random map generator once, quit that game and generate a new map I get the exact same map grahpics but with each province redefined (water provinces will often be land and vice versa).

[lch]

If I use the random map generator once, quit that game and generate a new map I get the exact same map grahpics but with each province redefined (water provinces will often be land and vice versa).

That happens if you save the map under the same name as before and is because of image caching in Dom3. You'll have to restart the game in-between or use another name. It's a bug that has screwed at least one MP game that wanted to start that I played in.

[vfb]

Bug using gems against PD when mayusegems is initially 0:

I had a battle against PD, where my commander was loaded up with a couple nature gems (I was expecting something more).

So, he didn't cast the spells he was scripted for, I checked the debug log, and I see (mayusegems 0). No mystery there.

My army proceeds to trash the PD, the infantry runs away, and there's just archers left shooting at me still. My mage lets off some buffs, etc, and then ... Swarm! My army had taken very minimal losses, just engaged the archers, there were no new enemy summons on the field, but I check the debug log and for some reason I see for my casters (mayusegems 1). It toggled on in turn 8 of the battle.

Is this a known problem?

[JimMorrison]

Units with Forest Survival + Gluttony still starve inside of Forests? Is this WAD?

To clarify, I have an army as Lanka, in a Forest. Every unit present has Forest Survival. Yet, it still states "Supply Used 490", I got a Starvation report, and my Palankashas all have the Starving debuff on them.

[AreaOfEffect]

Bug using gems against PD when mayusegems is initially 0:

I had a battle against PD, where my commander was loaded up with a couple nature gems (I was expecting something more).

So, he didn't cast the spells he was scripted for, I checked the debug log, and I see (mayusegems 0). No mystery there.

My army proceeds to trash the PD, the infantry runs away, and there's just archers left shooting at me still. My mage lets off some buffs, etc, and then ... Swarm! My army had taken very minimal losses, just engaged the archers, there were no new enemy summons on the field, but I check the debug log and for some reason I see for my casters (mayusegems 1). It toggled on in turn 8 of the battle.

Is this a known problem?


I believe I've seen this problem before as well. Battles where my mages don't use the gems they were scripted to use then use the gems later on, even when I'm in a winning battle. The worse part is that they are always spells I would never bother casting.

Also, I'm not sure how the opposition is weighed to determine when to use gems or when not to, but it appears that a lone black servant with almost no gear and scripted to retreat can cause all my mages to use gems. This is rather annoying as the unit presents no threat to my army, even if it were to attack rather then flee.

[Micah]

I think the gem use starts because the mage's fatigue gets high and he doesn't want to drop unconscious when the battle takes a few turns, even when the opposition is outmatched. Still buggy, but that might be the root of the problem. Just a thought.

[Edi]

Units with Forest Survival + Gluttony still starve inside of Forests? Is this WAD?

To clarify, I have an army as Lanka, in a Forest. Every unit present has Forest Survival. Yet, it still states "Supply Used 490", I got a Starvation report, and my Palankashas all have the Starving debuff on them.
They eat a lot more than the forest survival bonus provides in forests.

[vfb]

I think the gem use starts because the mage's fatigue gets high and he doesn't want to drop unconscious when the battle takes a few turns, even when the opposition is outmatched. Still buggy, but that might be the root of the problem. Just a thought.

Thanks, if I have the same situation I'll try scripting my casts, followed by "Stay Behind" instead of "Cast Spells", and see how that goes. I'm hoping the mage might just decide to do nothing instead of burn gems.

[AreaOfEffect]

I think the gem use starts because the mage's fatigue gets high and he doesn't want to drop unconscious when the battle takes a few turns, even when the opposition is outmatched. Still buggy, but that might be the root of the problem. Just a thought.

I haven't used "cast spells" for months. I still suspect that this is a problem. Still a thought to consider.

[Olive]

:bug: Hi, didn't saw this one in the bugs shortlist. When scripting cave drakes (conj 2 summon) to fire closest, they don't seem to fire. In fact, I never saw them firing anything - I would expect something like shards or stones... or maybe they do fire and this is a graphical glitch, but I don't think so, they just run into melee. Ranged attack seems broken for these poor creatures...

[Reay]

Cave drakes do not have a ranged weapon unlike fire and ice drakes.

[Olive]

Ouch. I thought they had...

[Gandalf Parker]

Then wouldnt it be a bug to even be able to choose "fire"?

[thejeff]

I suppose, but every one gets the "fire" command.
So it's more of a design decision than a bug.

[Edi]

Be hard to restrict the fire command. You can mix archers and infantry and archers can lose their arms, in which case they lose their bows. If the availability of the fire command was dependent on the presence of missile weapons, it would lead to all kinds of micromanagement problems. It could also have all kinds of other related bugs attached if that were the case. So my vote is that it was a design decision as well and in my opinion a good one.

After all, a unit that has received mistaken fire orders but can't execute them will default to attack anyway, so no harm done on that score. And if the whole strategy depended on the non-missile units being missile units, well, that's the general's fault, isn't it?

[Lokean]

I've just suffered a very strange and somewhat disruptive bug...

As MA R'lyeh I've received the Visitor hero, and have sent him out conquering with an army in tow. However, this turn I got two messages:

Suddenly the Visitor disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Suddenly the Visitor appeared at the gates of your Dark Citadel and wanted to fight for your cause.

The problem is that all the aquatic troops are stranded in the province he disappeared from and all the amphibious troops are in squads under his command, but are not being counted (the army setup screen claims he is commanding "0 units in 4 squads")

Now, it's an MP game on the llamaserver, so I can probably just roll the turn back, unload the troops and then spend a couple of turns moving the Visitor back to them ('cause of the mapmove 10), but it would be a crippling bug for most nations to have a national hero suddenly snap back to the capital with a bugged army.

EDIT:

It appears that the troops under his command are actually still in the province he disappeared from (though they appear on his list in the capital). They can be selected individually and removed from the squad, at which point they appear in the province he disappeared from.

[Stavis_L]

I've just suffered a very strange and somewhat disruptive bug...

As MA R'lyeh I've received the Visitor hero, and have sent him out conquering with an army in tow...


And that's why mother warned you about tagging about with extradimensional entities! I mean, really, they don't even have decent bathrooms in Limbo...

[Soyweiser]

I don't know if this a bug or some sort of strange mishap, but I tried a EA Abysia nation, and somehow the misbreds acted like undead. They can only be placed under commanders with undead leading capacity. But they are not listed as undead beings.

But they are not listed as magical beings. At first I thought this was a mod issue. But after I removed the mods, it still happened.

Sadly, this makes them fairly useless. There are only two leaders who can lead undead. And only small amounts. Is this a bug? Or intentional?

[Edi]

Misbreds are intentional and that's hardcoded.

[Tifone]

Aren't them demons? :)

[Edi]

No, which is why they are such a surprise to many people. They would make EA Abysia nearly unstoppable if they were normal units, because massing them is trivial. It's finding leadership that is difficult.

[Soyweiser]

Yeah, but it is odd that they don't have the undead icon. So it is hard to see that only special units can lead them.

[thejeff]

They're not undead. Or demons either, which is actually what they'd be.

They can't be banished etc.

The only trace of their demonic heritage is the need for special leadership.

It would be nice if it were more obvious. Is there anything in the description that at least hints at it?

[Soyweiser]

Nope, nothing, that is why I thought it was a bug.

[AreaOfEffect]

If memory serves me correctly, the current setup is a fix from when they use to be regular demons. The change occurred because MA Abysia had demon priests, which had the unintended and unthematic consequence of allowing them to reanimate. The demon tag has since been removed and their undead leadership requirement is now hard-coded in.

I would suggest that these units be given a new tag to indicate their status. Perhaps a half-demon tag?

Honestly, undead leadership isn't as hard to find as you might think. It is trickier to find undead leadership on units that also fly and are stealthy, which is what you need to fully realize the misbred's potential. Take a god with blood and death. Start with Revive King and move onto Bind Succubus. Vampires and Arch Devils will be optimal from there on.

[MaxWilson]

Or give a Rod of the Leper King to a Demonbred.

-Max

[AreaOfEffect]

I'm not sure if the Demonbred are still immune to disease. Have you tested this?

[lch]

I would suggest that these units be given a new tag to indicate their status. Perhaps a half-demon tag?
A new symbol for one unit only? Though not impossible, extremely unlikely to happen.

[lch]

If I use the random map generator once, quit that game and generate a new map I get the exact same map grahpics but with each province redefined (water provinces will often be land and vice versa).

That happens if you save the map under the same name as before and is because of image caching in Dom3. You'll have to restart the game in-between or use another name. It's a bug that has screwed at least one MP game that wanted to start that I played in.
Looks like this will be fixed in the next patch. From the Changelog (http://ulm.illwinter.com/dom3/dom3progress.html):
* Creating new game with random map and same name without quitting resulted in wrong map graphics being displayed, fixed.

[Agema]

Bug: Fortress not collecting resources from nearby provinces

This is on the Glory of the Gods MP map. The game is using the conceptual balance mod. I'm playing Atlantis, and I built a Fortified City on province 78, near the bottom right corner, adjacent to the two sea spaces that should be but aren't neighbours. I control all neighbouring provinces, one land and the rest sea. The province has only 32 resources, when it should have (by my estimate) over 100.

[Endoperez]

Bug: Fortress not collecting resources from nearby provinces

This is on the Glory of the Gods MP map. The game is using the conceptual balance mod. I'm playing Atlantis, and I built a Fortified City on province 78, near the bottom right corner, adjacent to the two sea spaces that should be but aren't neighbours. I control all neighbouring provinces, one land and the rest sea. The province has only 32 resources, when it should have (by my estimate) over 100.

Fortresses in land provinces don't collect resources from sea provinces. I believe this is mentioned in the manual.

Since seas have so many neighbours, it would be easy to accidentally deplete large seas out of resources if this were different.

[lch]

This is on the Glory of the Gods MP map. The game is using the conceptual balance mod. I'm playing Atlantis, and I built a Fortified City on province 78, near the bottom right corner, adjacent to the two sea spaces that should be but aren't neighbours.
The only ones that I can see on that map that should be, but aren't, neighbors, are 44 and 55.

[AreaOfEffect]

I would suggest that these units be given a new tag to indicate their status. Perhaps a half-demon tag?
A new symbol for one unit only? Though not impossible, extremely unlikely to happen.

Actually, it would likely be applied to three units. The misbred regulars of EA, the Demonbred of EA, and the Demonbred of MA. Besides, once created, who knows where it will show up next. The point is to eliminate the common confusion with misbred, which to me is worth it.

[lch]

Actually, it would likely be applied to three units. The misbred regulars of EA, the Demonbred of EA, and the Demonbred of MA. Besides, once created, who knows where it will show up next. The point is to eliminate the common confusion with misbred, which to me is worth it.
Those are commanders only, though, so it doesn't matter. While the limitation should maybe be made clearer in the unit description, I think that there are a lot more hidden abilities/flags carried by units that deserved an icon instead of the half-demon one. And then everyone and his dog wants a new half-something icon, too. As I said, I don't reject the idea in general, though.

[JimMorrison]

I want a Mostly Harmless icon.

And a Half Yazata icon.

And an icon that says "Will Mind Burn For Pizza".

<.<

[MaxWilson]

Demonbreds aren't *always* commanders, if somebody Enslaves them.

It would actually be kind of cool to have a reverse Gift Of Reason so you could attach Pythium communicants to a master and teleport around as a group via Gateway/Astral Travel.

-Max

[lch]

Demonbreds aren't *always* commanders, if somebody Enslaves them.
In that case they can be led by normal commanders, too, though.

[AreaOfEffect]

It would actually be kind of cool to have a reverse Gift Of Reason so you could attach Pythium communicants to a master and teleport around as a group via Gateway/Astral Travel.

Sadly, non-commanders don't trigger their #onebattlespell. Meaning they would have to be commanders to be of any use as communion slaves.

[MaxWilson]

Are you sure communicants work through #onebattlespell? I have this vague memory of having tested this (by modding communicants as recruitable units, not commanders) and it worked.

-Max

[chrispedersen]

Are you sure communicants work through #onebattlespell? I have this vague memory of having tested this (by modding communicants as recruitable units, not commanders) and it worked.

-Max

I have enslaved communicants specifically to test this - and it did not work.

[lch]

Are you sure communicants work through #onebattlespell? I have this vague memory of having tested this (by modding communicants as recruitable units, not commanders) and it worked.
No, they don't. It is hard-coded into the game.

[vfb]

I just did a test with communicant as regular units and a D1H1 commander with a Crystal Matrix scripted for Smite x 5. He only cast level 1 spells.

[MaxWilson]

Sad. My memory lied to me. Thanks for checking, chris & vfb.

-Max

[Dark Kitty]

I did a little search on this thread to find the bug I just saw but didn't find it :

I created a MA game (CBM) with a vampire queen pretender. After a while taking independent provinces, I saw a broken sword icon "Broken Armor" :
"All armor parts of this unit are destroyed. The armor will be repaired when the unit is located in a province with enough spare production ressources."

So I let her a few turn in a castle not producing any unit, tried to take off her gear (lucky coin, basic fire helmet and robe of shadows)(except for the cursed lifelong protection and black heart), made her die once or twice (to get the cursed items off) tried the home castle, made her die without armor, etc... but the icon is still there.

Since I'm playing Abysia with Production 3 I don't think the cause would be a lack of ressources. And since the VQ doesn't have a "native" armor (hope I'm not choosing the wrong word here :P), I don't understand why the icon is still here.

Did anyone already encounter that "bug" (if it is one...)?

[MaxWilson]

I've encountered that bug before: broken armor taking way too long to repair. I haven't been able to repro it though, because frequently armor *does* repair. In your case you can safely ignore it before you're using forged armor (which never gets destroyed).

-Max

[lch]

:bug:: The ? hotkey on the strategic map doesn't list all the hotkeys that are available.
:bug:: The +/- hotkeys don't work with all keyboard layouts. Under Linux, they do work with a Polish keyboard layout (keycode 20 for "-" and keycode 21 for "+"), but not with a German one (keycode 61 for "-" and keycode 35 for "+"), under Windows they work for some people / keyboard layouts and don't work for others, too.

[Reay]

When a unit casts Drain Life at a Mistformed unit, it gets its full Fatigue/HP bonus even though the mistform prevents all damage but 1HP.

Small bug but it seems illogical that the unit should get all the HP and reinvigoration when they don't really cause the damage.

[MadFrancis]

Is there a bug with School of Sharks? I had a 5 water mage spend 30 water gems casting school of asharks 5 times and saw about the same result as a 1 water mage casting it once with the help of summon water and a spare gem.

[cleveland]

Possible :bug::

Stealthy priests (e.g. Dryads) are visible to the enemy when preaching in friendly lands.

Shouldn't they be invisible? They're invisible when preaching in enemy lands, after all.

?

[lch]

It's probably WAD.

[Loren]

Bogarus is dead. They still have two globals up, though. SP game.

[MaxWilson]

Bogarus was dom-killed, wasn't it? I think that bug is on the shortlist.

Edit: Yeah. From page 2 of the shortlist. "# BHV SPELL Globals Global enchantments of nations that have vanished stay in effect. [Edi's note: Presumably in cases where nation is defeated without the casting unit explicitly being killed (e.g. dominion death)]"

-Max

[Edi]

Bogarus is dead. They still have two globals up, though. SP game.
Known issue and reported already long ago, but nothing has been done since. If you send the files to Illwinter, Johan may do something. See the shortlist thread for the address.

[Loren]

Bogarus was dom-killed, wasn't it? I think that bug is on the shortlist.

Edit: Yeah. From page 2 of the shortlist. "# BHV SPELL Globals Global enchantments of nations that have vanished stay in effect. [Edi's note: Presumably in cases where nation is defeated without the casting unit explicitly being killed (e.g. dominion death)]"

-Max

Ok, my memory was wrong--I thought it was fixed, not merely identified.

Note that Bogarus was *NOT* dom-killed unless it happened the same turn my forces took out his last castle. I also believe the caster died many turns before the end. I was using assassins (some nice ones from the Dragons mod) to deprive him of the use of some large armies and I left those provinces until last. I don't believe there was a single surviving commander in any of them. Every province was being hit by multiple assassinations per turn and I wasn't losing assassins to some nasty they couldn't take down.

Unfortunately, I didn't look at the situation when I took out his pretender, I had no idea anything was wrong then.

I can't preclude the possibility that his pretender died during a retreat, could that be what happened?

[MaxWilson]

Hmmm, yeah, that seems possible.

-Max

[vfb]

Here's a bug in a unit description, it's really minor:

Sauromatia Androphag lizard riders (#1176) have an armored rider on an unarmored lizard. There's no problem with this unit.

If the rider is killed, the second form, Unit #1179 (Serpent) is just the unarmored lizard. However, the description says, "Since the serpents are valuable, they are armored in the heaviest possible barding." But unit #1179 has no armor at all.

[chrispedersen]

Also

The queen of the shallows gets undines and Water elementals.

The queen of the deeps only gets undines.

Seems backwards - especially as undines are amphibious.

[vfb]

Aquatic #359 Queen of the sea can summon Undine #360, which is Aquatic (only).

Aquatic #907 Queen of deeps can summon Water Elemental #410, which is is Amphibious.

Amphibious #908 Queen of the lake cannot summon allies.

What's the Queen of the shallows?

[chrispedersen]

Aquatic #359 Queen of the sea can summon Undine #360, which is Aquatic (only).

Aquatic #907 Queen of deeps can summon Water Elemental #410, which is is Amphibious.

Amphibious #908 Queen of the lake cannot summon allies.

What's the Queen of the shallows?

Yeah, I think I was playing a completely different game.
But, more or less my point was....

The Queen of the Deeps can summon someone that can go onland
where the queen of the seas cannot.

It would seem that should be reversed.

[Edi]

Read the descriptions for Bathusma (Deeps) and Thalassa (Sea) as well as Undine. They are as they should be or we'll start getting the thematics and continuity out of joint again.

[Herode]

In case this one is not spotted yet :

maximum dominion = god's initial dominion + floor(nb_temples/5);

but I currently play a game with a Dom8 pretender, 2 temples built and a dom strength of 10 in my capitol.

May be linked with the use of VPs ?

[vfb]

The maximum dominion is only relevant to dominion spread (temples/VP/god/prophet/sacrifice etc).

You can always increase dominion to above this maximum by preaching, for example an H4 priest at a temple can raise the dominion to 9. Random events can also increase dominion above the temple spread maximum. Are you sure you didn't get a random dominion event in your capitol?

[Loren]

Stealth unit bug:

I had several assassins in a province held by the enemy. Unfortunately it was under LA Ry'leh dominion and one of my assassins flipped out.

There was no PD, the enemy was all in his castle and so the insane assassin took the province.

The problem is now the other assassins do not have a hide order available. I'm not interested in trying to hold the province until I've driven out the evil dominion.

I had no problem sneaking them back in next turn.

[vfb]

Can you change their order to something else, like "Blood Hunt", and then see if the "Hide" command is available? The "Hide" command goes away when your stealth units have certain orders, but if you can change from the current order sometimes it will come back. What orders do you other assassins have currently? Siege?

[Thilock_Dominus]

Dominions 3: v3.21
Issue: Mod Command

Nation restricted spells shows up in other nation (ermor divine spells)

Exampel:

Make a new nation (90) in era 2

#newspell
#copyspell 103
#name "bla bla bla"
#descr "bla bla"
#restricted 90
#end

Enable the mod, start a new game as Ermor (era 2), then this spell will show up in Ermor Priest Divine spell list - even if you restricted the spell to a specific nation.

[Herode]

Random events can also increase dominion above the temple spread maximum. Are you sure you didn't get a random dominion event in your capitol?
OK, I didn't know this feature. Thanks for the tip ! :)

[Endoperez]

#newspell
#copyspell 103
#name "bla bla bla"
#descr "bla bla"
#restricted 90
#end

Enable the mod, start a new game as Ermor (era 2), then this spell will show up in Ermor Priest Divine spell list - even if you restricted the spell to a specific nation.

If you want to remove the spell from Ermor, you need to use #selectspell 103. You restricted a COPY of the spell to the new nation, not the original.

[Loren]

Can you change their order to something else, like "Blood Hunt", and then see if the "Hide" command is available? The "Hide" command goes away when your stealth units have certain orders, but if you can change from the current order sometimes it will come back. What orders do you other assassins have currently? Siege?

Yeah, they got Siege orders. It didn't matter what I did with them, I couldn't get the Hide order to show up.

I don't have the offending data around to play with anymore.

Note that later I ended up taking the province again the same way, this time they remained on hide fine.

[Thilock_Dominus]

#newspell
#copyspell 103
#name "bla bla bla"
#descr "bla bla"
#restricted 90
#end

Enable the mod, start a new game as Ermor (era 2), then this spell will show up in Ermor Priest Divine spell list - even if you restricted the spell to a specific nation.

If you want to remove the spell from Ermor, you need to use #selectspell 103. You restricted a COPY of the spell to the new nation, not the original.

It's the copy spell that shows up in Ermor.

[Loren]

I've got a problem with units committing needless suicide.

I ordered a whole bunch of units into the water--and Thestis' Blessing got knocked out.

Magic is before movement, why did my guys continue to carry out now-suicidal orders?

I realize that's how it's programmed, I just think they should be smarter than that.

[AreaOfEffect]

Their fanatically devoted to you. Anybody under your control would gladly drown themselves if that is what you willed. Its not that you can't issue the order normally, its that you can't bring yourself to see people die needlessly without a good show.

[Edi]

I've got a problem with units committing needless suicide.

I ordered a whole bunch of units into the water--and Thestis' Blessing got knocked out.

Magic is before movement, why did my guys continue to carry out now-suicidal orders?

I realize that's how it's programmed, I just think they should be smarter than that.
Sounds like another move order validation check should be added.

[MaxWilson]

Their fanatically devoted to you. Anybody under your control would gladly drown themselves if that is what you willed. Its not that you can't issue the order normally, its that you can't bring yourself to see people die needlessly without a good show.

That qualifier cracked me up. :)

-Max

[Loren]

I've got a problem with units committing needless suicide.

I ordered a whole bunch of units into the water--and Thestis' Blessing got knocked out.

Magic is before movement, why did my guys continue to carry out now-suicidal orders?

I realize that's how it's programmed, I just think they should be smarter than that.
Sounds like another move order validation check should be added.

That's my thought, also. Move orders should be rechecked for sanity after the magic phase.

[vfb]

That makes sense to me. Move orders are already checked for sanity so that you can't move through a province taken in the magic phase, for example.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think it checks for sanity in movements before magic because the magic phase knocks out most of the sanity checks. Adding another check to 1500 provinces for sane movement AND magical ones could be a load.

[vfb]

I don't understand what you mean by "the magic phase knocks out most of the sanity checks".

I was talking about if your army is moving from A to C through B, and your enemy casts Call of Winds on B. The game currently already does some sort of additional check on movement orders, because your army stays in A instead of ending up in C (assuming the hawks take B).

As far as computation time is concerned, I'm just speculating, but re-doing the test for underwater entry based on globals and commander amphibious attribute is just order N where N is the number of commanders, and even 15000 is an extremely small number for any system built since 1980. :)

[Loren]

I don't understand what you mean by "the magic phase knocks out most of the sanity checks".

I was talking about if your army is moving from A to C through B, and your enemy casts Call of Winds on B. The game currently already does some sort of additional check on movement orders, because your army stays in A instead of ending up in C (assuming the hawks take B).

As far as computation time is concerned, I'm just speculating, but re-doing the test for underwater entry based on globals and commander amphibious attribute is just order N where N is the number of commanders, and even 15000 is an extremely small number for any system built since 1980. :)

Yeah, I don't get it, either. There seems to be this obsession with compute time of O(n) algorithms!

Furthermore, it's less expensive than the current test for a province on the route being taken.

[JimMorrison]

Odd. Siegeing a castle, and it disappears.

This game is running with Better Independents, CBM1.3, Single Age Mod, and Llama's Banners. >.>

I'll post the turn here, let me know if I need to zip up the mods and attach them as well.

[Zeldor]

vfb:

Are you sure about that? From what I remember around 3.08 that if you conquered prov B in magic phase enemy units still moved from A to C, through B. Maybe they added the check for it later.

[vfb]

I'm going from memory. I'll give it a test.

Result: It's like I said, if you conquered prov B in magic phase enemy units cannot move from A to C, through B.

[Kadelake]

Result: It's like I said, if you conquered prov B in magic phase enemy units cannot move from A to C, through B.
What happens if you conquer C in magic phase and enemy units are trying to move from A to C through B? Will they still be able to attack C even though they didn't start out next to C.

PS: Sorry if this is the wrong thread for the question. It seemed kind of related to the discussion.

[Gandalf Parker]

I don't understand what you mean by "the magic phase knocks out most of the sanity checks".

I was talking about if your army is moving from A to C through B, and your enemy casts Call of Winds on B. The game currently already does some sort of additional check on movement orders, because your army stays in A instead of ending up in C (assuming the hawks take B).

As far as computation time is concerned, I'm just speculating, but re-doing the test for underwater entry based on globals and commander amphibious attribute is just order N where N is the number of commanders, and even 15000 is an extremely small number for any system built since 1980. :)

That would be one test, one time.
But when it was said that another sanity check should occur after the magic phase then I was taking it to mean the full sanity check phase should occur again after the full magic phase. It sounded like it would involve checking all magically enacted movements again.

But if its just that each movement should be reality checked, and each magical action be checked when it occurs, then that would be minimal. Of course its never the ONE check. Its the additive of every additional check that comes up for discussion. And we have had many people praise Dom for running on systems they cant run other games on.

Actually I have no problem with long hostings. I dont tend to blitz much so everything is either hosted on a capable server, or its on my desktop and I appreciate the long hostings making me look up and realize that I should take care of other things. As far as I am personally concerned I wouldnt mind if every "hoggish code" (AI, checks, random events) that was cut-back due to host-time considerations was put back in full-force (or at least optioned).

[Loren]

I don't understand what you mean by "the magic phase knocks out most of the sanity checks".

I was talking about if your army is moving from A to C through B, and your enemy casts Call of Winds on B. The game currently already does some sort of additional check on movement orders, because your army stays in A instead of ending up in C (assuming the hawks take B).

As far as computation time is concerned, I'm just speculating, but re-doing the test for underwater entry based on globals and commander amphibious attribute is just order N where N is the number of commanders, and even 15000 is an extremely small number for any system built since 1980. :)

That would be one test, one time.
But when it was said that another sanity check should occur after the magic phase then I was taking it to mean the full sanity check phase should occur again after the full magic phase. It sounded like it would involve checking all magically enacted movements again.

But if its just that each movement should be reality checked, and each magical action be checked when it occurs, then that would be minimal. Of course its never the ONE check. Its the additive of every additional check that comes up for discussion. And we have had many people praise Dom for running on systems they cant run other games on.

Actually I have no problem with long hostings. I dont tend to blitz much so everything is either hosted on a capable server, or its on my desktop and I appreciate the long hostings making me look up and realize that I should take care of other things. As far as I am personally concerned I wouldnt mind if every "hoggish code" (AI, checks, random events) that was cut-back due to host-time considerations was put back in full-force (or at least optioned).

The thing is, the checks we are proposing are basically trivial. Most of the hosting time goes to the AI (in SP) and to battle resolution anyway.

For checks this simple I definitely disagree with the notion of making them optional--testing that option will take an appreciable percent of the time that the whole test would take.

[Gandalf Parker]

I agree. This one by itself would be more of a waste of programming overhead to make it optional than it would be itself. Only if it was a "recheck all moves" might it be considered. And even then probably not by itself.

I meant that the whole collection of "would be nice but takes too long" would have been good to pile into an option for servers and people at work.

For the original clarified description of this check, I withdraw my comment. :)

[Illuminated One]

I think there is a bug concerning underwater resources and land castles.
I've got two 50 admin land castles bordering an uw province I have taken and the uw province has 0 resources.

[chrispedersen]

I think there is a bug concerning underwater resources and land castles.
I've got two 50 admin land castles bordering an uw province I have taken and the uw province has 0 resources.

And why is that a bug?

[thejeff]

Land castles don't get resources from underwater provinces, so it seems reasonable that the uw provinces shouldn't lose resources?

[Illuminated One]

Exactly.
I'm not sure though, that the land castles are responsible I just can't find another reason.

[Incabulos]

I have that same issue in Chololera Mp game. I have two 50 admin forts bordering a water province and now the water province has 0 resources; just the same as the land province split between the two forts. The land one makes sense but not the water one.

[chrispedersen]

SOoooo..

Phoenix .. attacks some enemies...
Gets afflicted. (With disease) Dies. Blows up on battlefield.

Second incarnation. Has 1 hp. Blows up. dies.
Repeat, quite afew times.


Being immortal, and fighting in dominion, it returns to castle.
It has healed the disease affliction, but still only has 1 hp.
Kinda sucks being a god with 1 hp.

[vfb]

I think if this happens in Late Winter you'll end up perma-dead. Phoenix Pyre is also buggy and you will end up perma-dead if you get hit with the bug where a Phoenix Pyre unit duplicates itself on the battlefield.

Phoenixes pretty much suck in combat because of this, even in CBM.

[JimMorrison]

Phoenixes pretty much suck in combat because of this

I dunno, I've done quite a fair bit of testing with the Phoenix as an "awake, disposable, expansion aid" pretender, and overall results are fairly decent. I must say in probably 20 separate 2 year tests, I've not once had my Phoenix permanently die.

[chrispedersen]

I think if this happens in Late Winter you'll end up perma-dead. Phoenix Pyre is also buggy and you will end up perma-dead if you get hit with the bug where a Phoenix Pyre unit duplicates itself on the battlefield.

Phoenixes pretty much suck in combat because of this, even in CBM.

You are correct. This has happened 2x. Best not attack with the phoenix in late winter= ).

[vfb]

Phoenixes pretty much suck in combat because of this

I dunno, I've done quite a fair bit of testing with the Phoenix as an "awake, disposable, expansion aid" pretender, and overall results are fairly decent. I must say in probably 20 separate 2 year tests, I've not once had my Phoenix permanently die.

I suppose it depends on your paths and what you're doing with the Phoenix, and when you're doing it.

My Phoenix was A4F4, Dom 5 so no extra awe, CBM so built-in Phoenix Pyre, and using the Phoenix as a solo immortal suicide bomber to clear indies, before researching mistform. It's got so many death crosses in the HoF that I'd go blind trying to count them.

So, it worked pretty well for a bit, but I was planning on retiring the Phoenix from its bomber career in the midgame and using it for some specific battlefield buffs. At A3F3, those plans were pretty much shot.

[JimMorrison]

I suppose it depends on your paths and what you're doing with the Phoenix, and when you're doing it.

My Phoenix was A4F4, Dom 5 so no extra awe, CBM so built-in Phoenix Pyre, and using the Phoenix as a solo immortal suicide bomber to clear indies, before researching mistform. It's got so many death crosses in the HoF that I'd go blind trying to count them.


Sounds like just about exactly what I was doing. But I really considered it to be little more than an expansion aid, and then a booster forger and royalty summoner later. I think it's absolutely hilarious, really, and I don't know but out of all of my tests, I never suffered a catastrophic disease death. Was it just the one time that it happened to you? I'm not entirely sure, but I think it may be somewhat avoidable, even if it's imminent.

[vfb]

I knew about the Late Winter bug, so I was very careful to avoid that. I had accumulated about 4 or 5 afflictions each fall, but usually had just a Never Healing Wound left by Late Winter.

The Phoenix Pyre bug is rarer, but when it hits, your Phoenix is a dead duck. That's what killed mine.

[kadavriak]

Okay, not sure where this belongs, but as it is some kind of bug report, this cant be all wrong :)

Dont know if it has been reported earlier, I looked through Edi's bug list but did not find it. I am running version 3.21 + the CB mod version 1.3.

I think there is an issue with units that automatically attract other units (with the summonX command) and also have the stealthy attribute. I noted this when trying out the awesome Skavenblight nation mod by Sombre when my sneaking armies always triggered battles. Some additional testing proved that it was only while led by the Chieftain or Warlord commander that my armies attacked, despite that their move command clearly stated "Sneak", other stealthy commanders worked ok. Both these units automatically summon one unit per turn. I then deleted the summonX command from the .dm file, and then the sneak / stealth worked fine. Note that the summoned creatures in both cases have stealth +0, so the army should still be ok sneaking.

Is this only an issue with this mod or is this the case for all such units? I do not have that much experience with all nations / eras yet and do not know of another unit with these attributes.

[rdonj]

I would imagine it would be the case for any sneaking commander that autosummons units, since it is the summons that are causing the battles. That's a pretty unfortunate bug especially for sombre's skaven mod, it's hard to be sneaky and tricksy like a rat if you are forced to fight even when you sneak.

[Sombre]

I was under the impression only the autosummoned unit was involved in the battle when that happens and that if you had units under that commander, anything he summoned joined the first 'unit' of troops under him and wouldn't cause any problems.

[Gandalf Parker]

Yes. As long as the summoner has anyone in his units, then summons will go there.

If he does not have anyone already following him then it goes into the province queue for assignment.

Which of course means if he is not the owner of that province that they appear with the owners troops and have a battle.

[chrispedersen]

It also happens in other instances.

If you have a oreid with stealthy units, and she seduces the a commander, she leaves her troops behind and they fight. Which makes sense.

But even if she loses, and it goes to a fight, stealthy units in her command will trigger a province fight.

A Vampire with a black heart's auto summon has often triggered a fight. I think, when the vampire tries the assassination, his troops are removed from his slot.

Even if he succeeds, the troops then trigger a fight against the province.. which they always lose due to no commander.

[AreaOfEffect]

You can travel with units on your commander. Summoned units only go to the first of the five squads controlled by your commander.

1) Remove all units.
2) Add a dummy squad.
3) Add your other squads.
4) Remove dummy squad.

This should send the free-spawn to the province, not the commander.

[Loren]

Situation: I ran out of money while I still had a bunch of stuff queued. (I suddenly lost several territories to a just-declared war.)

I canceled the queued items and next turn I got the message "Inexplicable increase in wealth".

(SP game, Dominions 3000 mod)

[zlefin]

in a recent blitz, my warlock was attacked by the Lord of the hunt global that qm's pangaea had put up. He was in a forest province, but according to the description, that guy only goes after priests in forests, and my warlock was not prophetized or with a shroud or anything, so there's no reason he could get classified as a priest. It was the only time in that game that that oddity occurred, though it was near the end of the game.

Just reporting the bug.
Zlefin :)

[Psycho]

Don't know if this is on the shortlist. After a siege is lifted from a castle, the castle needs to be repaired to its full defense value by the troops inside it. But the damage to the walls is not shown after the siege is lifted, even when damage still exists. This can be misleading.

[lch]

WAD. The forts defenses are back to full strength as soon as there was one successful siege break in between. If the defender managed to do that, then you have to start getting the defenses down to zero again before you can storm the fort.

[chrispedersen]

WAD. The forts defenses are back to full strength as soon as there was one successful siege break in between. If the defender managed to do that, then you have to start getting the defenses down to zero again before you can storm the fort.

I am fairly sure thats not actually true. I *believe* I have seen where subsequent sieges have continued from the value remaining siege value.

Aka Siege a gets for to 242/1200
Sieger A gets attack by sieger B
Fort repairs a little, depending on garrison.. say 300/1200
Siege B starts at 300...

[Psycho]

Forts are not immediately repaired when the siege is lifted. It is just shown like that, but actually the damage still exists.

The easiest way to try - siege an empty fortress. Then move away next turn. Then return on the third turn. The damage on the third turn will be the sum of damages on the first and third turn. But during the second turn it is shown as if there is no damage. The display during the second turn while the siege is lifted is misleading.

[thejeff]

"Sieger A gets attack by sieger B" is a different situation.
The defenders never had a turn to rebuild.

[lch]

WAD. The forts defenses are back to full strength as soon as there was one successful siege break in between. If the defender managed to do that, then you have to start getting the defenses down to zero again before you can storm the fort.

I am fairly sure thats not actually true. I *believe* I have seen where subsequent sieges have continued from the value remaining siege value.
Like has been said already, that's unrelated. For all practical purposes, the fort was under siege the whole time. If the sieging force was diminished in strength during some time, then the defenses may have been rebuilt. But once a successful siege break attempt happens, the fort's defenses are immediately back at full.

Forts are not immediately repaired when the siege is lifted. It is just shown like that, but actually the damage still exists.

The easiest way to try - siege an empty fortress. Then move away next turn. Then return on the third turn. The damage on the third turn will be the sum of damages on the first and third turn. But during the second turn it is shown as if there is no damage. The display during the second turn while the siege is lifted is misleading.
That's never been the case for me, and I don't think that this is true. Maybe there was some unit left that has been sieging the fort on its own - maybe without a commander.

[Loren]

I discovered something: You can take provinces away from the AI without war. Sneak an army through and get caught. Of course this requires that you be able to win the battle with only a single commander and all stealthy troops.

Note that you can win the battle without even having a commander involved--my hidden commander was of a type that produced freespawn. One of those took an unoccupied province. Still no response and I'm up to 7 provinces taken from one AI and 2 from another.

[cleveland]

AI :bug::

In an 3.21 SP game (no mods), I observed AI-controlled EA Abysia attacking an indy province (Deer Tribe, 2 commanders, 35 troops) with a lone naked Slayer. Obviously, the battle didn't go so well for the Slayer.

7545

Presumably we don't want the AI sending its commanders on suicide missions?

I have all associated files, if IW wants them.

And Edi: did you get the exploit PM i sent you?

[Psycho]

Forts are not immediately repaired when the siege is lifted. It is just shown like that, but actually the damage still exists.

The easiest way to try - siege an empty fortress. Then move away next turn. Then return on the third turn. The damage on the third turn will be the sum of damages on the first and third turn. But during the second turn it is shown as if there is no damage. The display during the second turn while the siege is lifted is misleading.
That's never been the case for me, and I don't think that this is true. Maybe there was some unit left that has been sieging the fort on its own - maybe without a commander.

For the love of God, why do you argue about it? Just try it if you don't believe and you will see that it is true.

[Gandalf Parker]

AI :bug::

In an 3.21 SP game (no mods), I observed AI-controlled EA Abysia attacking an indy province (Deer Tribe, 2 commanders, 35 troops) with a lone naked Slayer. Obviously, the battle didn't go so well for the Slayer.

Presumably we don't want the AI sending its commanders on suicide missions?
He was probably planning to do an assassination and got caught. The AI and the Independents are all now susceptable to the same things we are.

[thejeff]

I've never seen a stealthy unit caught by independents.
(I'd don't actually recall ever seeing an enemy scout get caught by another enemies patrols. Do scouts let you see those battles?)

I have seen the AI send commanders on suicide missions all the time.

[cleveland]

He was probably planning to do an assassination and got caught.

That was my first thought too. But it was definitely in an independent province...can indys now catch sneakers?

[archaeolept]

i believe the manual claims that the castle defense needs to be repaired by defending units, as Psycho says. The bug is that the real defense value of the fort is not reported, and so it looks like they are back to full repair. I have not carried out any testing though - if a castle is reduced to half defense, and has no defenders, will it still be at half defense after 5 turns of having been left alone?

[Gandalf Parker]

He was probably planning to do an assassination and got caught.

That was my first thought too. But it was definitely in an independent province...can indys now catch sneakers?
They definitely can in my games. But I purposely boost defense random amounts in indy provinces. Having some of them quite high has flown back in my face a few times because I cant get a scout across an indy province.

Im not sure what the game sets PD at in Indy provinces but Im guessing its at a point of occassionally catching sneakers.

[chrispedersen]

i believe the manual claims that the castle defense needs to be repaired by defending units, as Psycho says. The bug is that the real defense value of the fort is not reported, and so it looks like they are back to full repair. I have not carried out any testing though - if a castle is reduced to half defense, and has no defenders, will it still be at half defense after 5 turns of having been left alone?

The short answer for me is - they never are in the experiments I tried. After five turns they seem back to full - but after 2-3 turns they often are still somewhat damaged.

I wonder how it recalculates.

[archaeolept]

heh, another ineffable dominions mystery ;p

[thejeff]

He was probably planning to do an assassination and got caught.

That was my first thought too. But it was definitely in an independent province...can indys now catch sneakers?
They definitely can in my games. But I purposely boost defense random amounts in indy provinces. Having some of them quite high has flown back in my face a few times because I cant get a scout across an indy province.

Im not sure what the game sets PD at in Indy provinces but Im guessing its at a point of occassionally catching sneakers.


I don't think indies default to having any PD. Their troops are just regular troops and can be whittled down. If they had any PD, the assassin technique wouldn't work. They probably can now get the PD boosting events though.

Regardless, I still suspect this is just the AI being stupid. I've certainly been attacked by lone commanders before.

[Gandalf Parker]

Its been a long time since Ive tried to figure the siege/rebuild thing out but... since there is a formula for how many and what size bodies it takes to tear down a castle, and a like formula applies for too many people inside rebuilding the castle for your siege to work at breaking down the walls....
does a formula along those lines affect the rebuild? Maybe some people see an instantaneus rebuild due to having enough forces after the seige, and others see a lag due to not enough forces/population?

[archaeolept]

yes it does, but as the rebuild happens eventually even w/out troops, according to the information posted above, this means most likely that there is a base automatic value, like 50 def/turn, added.

The bug is that the true numbers for the castles' defense aren't showing during this... or that the castle is fully repaired instantaneously, contrary to the manual, and contrary to what some posters have reported.

[Gandalf Parker]

Id love to see the true numbers reflected. Especially during siege. I wonder if Kristoffer thinks its unrealistic.

[archaeolept]

the true numbers are shown during the siege, to the defender... the bug involves the true numbers seemingly not being shown to the defender outside of siege.

[Psycho]

It seems that after two turns without siege the fort is fully repaired even if it's empty. I didn't bother waiting more than one turn in my earlier tests. In that case the manual is incorrect (from page 82):
"Fortresses which are damaged but not besieged are repaired normally - the repair value is simply added back to the defense each turn until the fort is all fixed up."

[Gandalf Parker]

Wouldnt the type of fort make a difference in how quickly it repairs also then?

[AreaOfEffect]

Its probably a value related to administration. Most anything the involves forts uses that value. It also makes a reasonable amount of sense.

Edit: Which might make swamp forts and LA Ermorian castles interesting test subjects.

[Psycho]

In my test it was a dark citadel raised by "three red seconds". It has an admin value of 20 and repaired all 600 defense after two turns.

[chrispedersen]

this sorta fits my observation... none of them were fixed the next turn, all of them were fixed by turn 5.

[Edi]

And Edi: did you get the exploit PM i sent you?

Yeah, I got that, but unfortunately it got overshadowed by other stuff and was left gathering dust. I'll take it up with JK and KO when I get home. Thanks for reminding me.

[horza]

I have an exploit, not particularly nasty, that I can't see listed anywhere (but I could have missed it). Version 3.20

Ritual of Rebirth: If you rebirth your prophet he retains his priest level boost. Prophetize him again and he gets another priest level. And so on, as many times as you want to get him killed and rebirthed. This is the kind of bug that's fun to exploit in SP in a big game against LA Ermor ;-)

[AreaOfEffect]

That's not really an exploit since it takes several turns to regain the ability to make a new prophet and then kill off your commader again. It also isn't free as it costs 15 gems every time. Third, in all that wasted time it is very likely that your commader will drop off the hall of fame list.

There are also much easier ways to make high level preists in combat. Communion being the best. Just prophetize any astral or blood mage.

[MaxWilson]

KO (the game designer) says that's thematic, not an exploit. Coming back from the dead obviously makes your prophet more holy. :) So, exploit away with no feelings of guilt.

BTW, Power of the Spheres (via Crystal Shield if desired) also boosts your H level, if your priest has magic paths as well as H. I use this to boost e.g. E2H2s to E3H3s for Divine Blessing.

-Max

[Loren]

SP game.

I've been hunting a Harvester of Sorrows. Numerous Mind Hunt's failed to kill him, I finally nailed him with a patrol.

He's got one piece of equipment, a Bow of War.

What's his first move? To move forward despite the fact that I have a ton of troops within range.

Turn 2 he engages in melee attacks.

Turn 3 he routs.

Turn 4 he dies.

[Edi]

Not a bug. It would depend on what the AI assigned as that units orders. It sometimes gives orders that fail to take advantage of equipment its commanders have, such as in this case.

[JimMorrison]

Not a bug. It would depend on what the AI assigned as that units orders. It sometimes gives orders that fail to take advantage of equipment its commanders have, such as in this case.

That walks a mighty fine line between "WAD", and, "a bug". :o

[Wrana]

I'd say, bug of a different sort. :)
Another thing I currently got in SP - not sure whether it was in a short list: the Forge Lord consistently refusing to cast on himself Immolation (the spell that gives fire aura but burns non-immune caster as well) even though he had FR 100 or 150 in some cases. He prefered to cast Ironskin above existing Stoneskin (!) (there were lightning-casting enemies on the field) or, if Ironskin was scripted, cast Bladewind or Falling Fires (iirc) instead.

[Gandalf Parker]

Any chance he got the Bow of War from you earlier?
I see this most frequently in cases where the AI has already set the scripting, and later the unit picks up a piece of equipment.

[Endoperez]

I'd say, bug of a different sort. :)
Another thing I currently got in SP - not sure whether it was in a short list: the Forge Lord consistently refusing to cast on himself Immolation (the spell that gives fire aura but burns non-immune caster as well).

Immolation isn't an aura, it's a one-time spell that hurts people next to the caster. If there weren't any enemies right next to him right then, it wouldn't have helped.

[Psycho]

I've seen this behavior too, when a mage casts ironskin over scripted stoneskin. If I scripted stoneskin, although I have ironskin researched, it was for a reason. I didn't want to get the lightning vulnerability.

[archaeolept]

^^I haven't seen that, it shouldn't do that, and it is completely believable that it did exactly that :p

[Loren]

Not a bug. It would depend on what the AI assigned as that units orders. It sometimes gives orders that fail to take advantage of equipment its commanders have, such as in this case.

That would be a bug in my mind. You don't give a guy a ranged weapon and then give him melee orders!

[Loren]

Any chance he got the Bow of War from you earlier?
I see this most frequently in cases where the AI has already set the scripting, and later the unit picks up a piece of equipment.

No. This was my first encounter with the guy. It's possible he fought some other AI earlier but I first became aware of him coming from the corner of the world.

[MaxWilson]

Actually, Stoneskin on top of Ironskin isn't a bad idea necessarily--Stoneskin is really low fatigue, and I've considered doing Summon Earthpower/Ironskin/Stoneskin with some thugs instead of Summon Earthpower/Invulnerability. It's understandable that you're aggravated when it happens unintentionally, though.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Why is it a good idea though? More fatigue, more loss of resistances, and you don't go higher Prot than you would have from Ironskin in the first place.

[Edi]

Not a bug. It would depend on what the AI assigned as that units orders. It sometimes gives orders that fail to take advantage of equipment its commanders have, such as in this case.

That would be a bug in my mind. You don't give a guy a ranged weapon and then give him melee orders!
It works completely by the rules of the mechanics of the game as they are supposed to work. If scripted to attack, then it will attack. Therefore it is NOT a bug.

Whether the script is optimal considering equipment is irrelevant for those purposes, especially since it is unknown when the attack script was put in place. Other factors that could go into it are whether the AI calculates possible damage potential for the unit with missile vs melee and how it factors the Bow of War into that.

If untoward behavior is not present directly and there are that many unknowns, it is not a good idea to assume there is a bug.

[JimMorrison]

Whether the script is optimal considering equipment is irrelevant for those purposes, especially since it is unknown when the attack script was put in place. Other factors that could go into it are whether the AI calculates possible damage potential for the unit with missile vs melee and how it factors the Bow of War into that.

If untoward behavior is not present directly and there are that many unknowns, it is not a good idea to assume there is a bug.

Well it really becomes an issue of semantics at a certain point, and I'm not sure that rigorous defense of a flawed position is necessarily the best way to go with it. o.O

I don't know how many people would consider it a bug that the AI would either script melee with a Bow of War, or that it would not rescript a commander who got new equipment. I would, so long as there were any mechanic for rescripting at all, though I fear there may not be, in which case it would technically be WAD, and a design flaw rather than a bug.

(<3 JK)

[AreaOfEffect]

If it is something a player is allowed to do, then it is valid for the AI to do it as well and is not a bug. Can a player equip a bow and script the unit to charge into melee? Yes. Is that a bug? No. Just remember that the AI is just suppose to simulate the actions of a player. Its not a bug if that player isn't especially bright, or decides to play the game in ways you yourself would not.

[MaxWilson]

Why is it a good idea though? More fatigue, more loss of resistances, and you don't go higher Prot than you would have from Ironskin in the first place.

Hmmm. I just tested this, and we're both wrong, Jim. You don't get 22 Prot (Stoneskin is supposed to give you +2 on top of whatever you had before), but you *also* don't get more loss of resistances. I tried both variations:

Ironskin, Stoneskin: Scripted stoneskin gets overridden completely. Thug cast Holy Avenger or Blade Wind (ack!).

Stoneskin, Ironskin: Both spells were cast. Prot was as if only Ironskin had been cast. Cold vulnerability (50) went away (!) when Ironskin was cast, and Shock vulnerability (75) replaced it.

-Max

[thejeff]

If it is something a player is allowed to do, then it is valid for the AI to do it as well and is not a bug. Can a player equip a bow and script the unit to charge into melee? Yes. Is that a bug? No. Just remember that the AI is just suppose to simulate the actions of a player. Its not a bug if that player isn't especially bright, or decides to play the game in ways you yourself would not.

So you wouldn't consider it a bug for the AI to just do nothing? Sit in the starting castle and never recruit, research or try to expand. After all, a human player would be allowed to do that. Or maybe it could destroy it's own starting castle, lab & temple. Why not? A human player could.

The AI has enough trouble competing. It's worth pointing out especially egregious examples. Call it a design flaw rather than a bug, if you want. It's still an error of some kind.

[Gandalf Parker]

Interesting. Thanks for that.
In some of the most heated arguments Im not sure that the sequence of casting was considered. Some of the old "works for me / doesnt work for me" battles on the forum might be worth reconsidering.

[Edi]

If it is something a player is allowed to do, then it is valid for the AI to do it as well and is not a bug. Can a player equip a bow and script the unit to charge into melee? Yes. Is that a bug? No. Just remember that the AI is just suppose to simulate the actions of a player. Its not a bug if that player isn't especially bright, or decides to play the game in ways you yourself would not.

So you wouldn't consider it a bug for the AI to just do nothing? Sit in the starting castle and never recruit, research or try to expand. After all, a human player would be allowed to do that. Or maybe it could destroy it's own starting castle, lab & temple. Why not? A human player could.

The AI has enough trouble competing. It's worth pointing out especially egregious examples. Call it a design flaw rather than a bug, if you want. It's still an error of some kind.

The only way to fix that is to alter the AI decision trees and related algorithms to take this case into account. The real question is whether doing so will introduce more complications that make it more trouble than its worth to fix than leaving it as it is currently. Many of these more obscure issues are that way, even ones that are real bugs, such as the one cleveland reported by PM.

And believe me when I say you people don't want to get hit with the Stick of Unintended Consequences on stuff like this. With one of the recent patches, a batch of problems that had been around for a long while were fixed, but they produced a side effect that was a much greater headache and had to be fixed separately before the patch was released. If that patch had gone out in its initial form, it would have stopped every MP game in progress in its tracks and ruined many of them.

So if it's something as trivial as this particular scripting issue, think VERY hard before turning a molehill to a real hill. You might just get a Precision 100 Gifts from Heaven as a complimentary bonus if it's tackled.

[AreaOfEffect]

So you wouldn't consider it a bug for the AI to just do nothing? Sit in the starting castle and never recruit, research or try to expand. After all, a human player would be allowed to do that. Or maybe it could destroy it's own starting castle, lab & temple. Why not? A human player could.

The AI has enough trouble competing. It's worth pointing out especially egregious examples. Call it a design flaw rather than a bug, if you want. It's still an error of some kind.

My statement assumes that the AI is capable of making judgments. If it were a case that the AI wasn't capable of action, or if it wasn't allowed to weigh it's options, I would say that would be a bug. This example clearly shows that the AI at least doesn't set all of its commanders to "set battle orders". If the AI is able to make decisions and doesn't do what you would do, that is not a bug.

In fact, I'm not sure I would fire off my bow of war if it were me. It might be 13 arrow shots, but it would be 13 short bow arrows, which frankly isn't that exciting. Compare that to the an 18 strength armor piercing life drain attack on an ethereal unit who flies and has fear. You can very likely deal no damage with the bow, but the melee attack is more then likely to deal damage, net bonus HP, and your looming presence is guaranteed to deal moral damage to 15 squares around you.

[thejeff]

Freely granted that this issue is fairly trivial and quite probably not worth fixing, even without worrying about unintended consequences.

I was reacting far more to the statements that:
If it is something a player is allowed to do, then it is valid for the AI to do it as well and is not a bug.

and

It works completely by the rules of the mechanics of the game as they are supposed to work. If scripted to attack, then it will attack. Therefore it is NOT a bug.


Both of which seem to not allow for the possibility of bugs in the AI logic as long as that logic doesn't permit impossible orders.

In focusing on those responses, not the original situation, I was also ignoring the possibility that attacking was at least a reasonable option despite the results as AoE suggested. That makes it even less likely to be an issue.

[vfb]

I see this entry in the short list:

# BHV SPELL Globals Global enchantments of nations that have vanished stay in effect. [Edi's note: Presumably in cases where nation is defeated without the casting unit explicitly being killed (e.g. dominion death)]

I think this bug may be different:

In the World in Crisis MP game, TC had an immortal unit cast Arcane Nexus. That unit was killed in melee combat, in positive dominion. But TC's capitol was owned by another nation, so the immortal unit was permanently killed. However, the Arcane Nexus is still up.

[Edi]

That looks like a variant of the same bug. Immortality has all kinds of triggers associated with it and it probably just checks that when the unit is killed on the battlefield that immortality is ok, global stays up, but doesn't check whether the capital is in friendly hands.

In both cases the common factor is that the caster of the global is eliminated from the game without being explicitly killed on the battlefield or the global dispelled via overwriting or dispel. It becomes a case of "The Void ate my caster, but my global is still up! Nyanyannyan-naa-naa!"

[chrispedersen]

Yep, my low astral pretender has entered that strange little house more than once to avoid assassins, death.

Nothing like lost in space and time to keep a global up.

[Edi]

Yep, my low astral pretender has entered that strange little house more than once to avoid assassins, death.

Nothing like lost in space and time to keep a global up.

Hmm, I could have said that better. The units of a defeated nation that disappear sort of vanish and can't come back until their ID numbers are recycled, at which point a new unit would have the "This unit has cast a global enchantment" icon and the global stays up because that unit had never "died", even though the nation vanished. That's a lot different from "Lost in Time & Space", but the effect is similar in practice.

[chrispedersen]

Three times now, I have gotten EA-Ctis to Dominion 0 (verified by scores, graphs, etc) - and the god will not die.

He finally dies when I take his citadel. This despite the fact that I have 2 candles on his citadel at the time I take it.

[zzcat]

Attachment is a semirandomed SP game with CBM1.41. Plz see the battle occured at upper skelde. My S2 commander has reinvigoration 4 via blessing. Everything is ok in the first few turns, but when he start to move forward, he get 20-40 fatigue per round automaticly until it reachs 200. My enemy has no mage other than priests on the BF so I think it can't be result of any spell. Plz check it, thanks.

[archaeolept]

heh that did look like a bug - but the opposing forces include blowpipes shooting paralyzing poison. That's what did him in.

[zzcat]

heh that did look like a bug - but the opposing forces include blowpipes shooting paralyzing poison. That's what did him in.

Thanks! So it would be a cheap and very effective way to counter solo thugs:)

[archaeolept]

hmmm that seemed very unlucky though... they have damage 0 and he had armor 21 and luck... though I guess once he has fatigue, subsequent darts are more likely to critical and hence possible get through the armor. I'm gonna have QM look at it.

[Reay]

I think the poison secondary effect with ranged weapons does not have to cause damage before taking effect. The same problem exists with the Androphag archers aswell.

In the past I have also had a glamoured unit in melee get poisoned even when no damage was done. So there seems to be some bugs with poison.

[thejeff]

Yeah, the poison effect is known and debated at length.
The blowguns paralyzing poison probably works the same way. That's brutal against thugs. Though shields might help? I can't remember. Does poison resistance work against the paralyzing poison? I'd expect it too, but without checking...

[archaeolept]

if it were to be so, we should surely all have seen many an expansionist pretender in SP play go down to the woodland blowpipes. but this has not been my experience, so I remain puzzled.

CBM did just buff the blowpipes w/ +2 accuracy, but that can hardly be the reason.

[JimMorrison]

CBM did just buff the blowpipes w/ +2 accuracy, but that can hardly be the reason.

Because of the way that deviation is calculated in the game, a moderate Precision buff may not have a profound effect in most scenarios, but when there is a singular target, and thus only -1- single square that is worth hitting, every point of Precision increases accuracy a tremendous amount (up to a certain point of perfection).

[vfb]

Precision just makes the missile land in the right square.

Blowpipes work the same way as poison arrows, as everyone said. Except there is a MR roll to resist the blowgun poison (Which is actually 50-damage stun damage, not paralyzing poison as the description says. The effect is immediate and does not divide stun across turns the way poison divides damage across turns).

From the debug:

blastsqr: unr17793 x43 y23 aoe0 dmg0 eff109 spc1075838977 as-1 al0^M
blastsqr: unr17793 x43 y23 aoe0 dmg50 eff46 spc1073754240 as-1 al0^M
affectvic vic15643 hv0^M
hitunit 17793 15643 dmg50 spec1073754240 ba4^M
spec_mr pen 12 mr 18 (unr 17793 vic 15643 dmg 46 eff 50)^M
resisted^M

That's a square with unit #15643 getting hit with a dart. It does no damage, and the unit passes the MR check. Later:

blastsqr: unr17798 x43 y23 aoe0 dmg0 eff109 spc1075838977 as-1 al0^M
blastsqr: unr17798 x43 y23 aoe0 dmg50 eff46 spc1073754240 as-1 al0^M
affectvic vic15643 hv0^M
hitunit 17798 15643 dmg50 spec1073754240 ba2^M
spec_mr pen 12 mr 18 (unr 17798 vic 15643 dmg 46 eff 50)^M

Oh, that's bad! No "resisted", so fatigue is increased, from 22 to 40. That stun damage (28) looks about right for a 50-dam attack on 22 protection.


Anyway, nice use of the Blowpipes! I've never managed to get them to do anything useful. :)

[zzcat]

According to the manual, there is only 11% chance to hit for 12 vs MR18. So I'm somewhat unlucky...

I just did some test. Air shield provides no protection vs the blowpipe, but poison resist 100% works.

[Reay]

In the same game you can see an assassination attempt where the assassin manages to poison the mage in melee without even damaging him. So poison secondary effects seem to be activated even in melee if you hit but don't damage.

Strange that air shield does not protect against blowpipes. That technically should stop the hit occurring depending on how much percentage air shield it is.

[vfb]

According to the manual, there is only 11% chance to hit for 12 vs MR18. So I'm somewhat unlucky...

I just did some test. Air shield provides no protection vs the blowpipe, but poison resist 100% works.

Oh, sorry ... there were many more MR checks your guy passed in the debug data, I just didn't copy them all. :o

It was something around 1 in 10 failure though. But at 50 dam & 25 protection, you only need to fail 4 times to go unconscious.

[Sombre]

In the same game you can see an assassination attempt where the assassin manages to poison the mage in melee without even damaging him. So poison secondary effects seem to be activated even in melee if you hit but don't damage.

I tested this a while ago and units with poison secondaryeffect weapons couldn't poison a load of ulmish heavy infantry without shields. So I'm not sure what's going on here.

Oh and yeah poison immunity definitely works vs blowpipe poison. It has dt stun and dt poison. Dt poison is just there for immunity checks, it doesn't actually cause the slow poisoning effect seen if you use the special poison weapons.

[vfb]

In the same game you can see an assassination attempt where the assassin manages to poison the mage in melee without even damaging him. So poison secondary effects seem to be activated even in melee if you hit but don't damage....

Here's what happened in the assassination:

The assassin missed with his Short Sword.

Then he hit the Adon with his Poison Dagger, doing 11 points of damage, but the Body Ethereal check succeeded, so no physical damage was taken. However, the secondary effect does trigger in this case, so poison damage was done.

Body Ethereal does not protect you from the secondary effects of weapons that hit you, even if it saves you from the initial physical damage. Only if the melee weapon does no damage because it's stopped by armour (or just misses) then the secondary effect does not trigger (like Sombre says).

Debug output:

19573 striking with weapon Short Sword. att21 def25
19573 striking with weapon Poison Dagger. att28 def22
hitloc Assassin strikes Adon wl0 diff3 -> 4
hitunit 19573 15643 dmg2 spec2097153 ba4
damage 11 on Adon, spec0x200001 ba4
Ethereal negated 11 pnts of dmg
hitloc Assassin strikes Adon wl0 diff3 -> 4
hitunit 19573 15643 dmg15 spec8320 ba4

[BesucherXia]

A new minor bug I just met in ComfortZone:

Normally you can not raise a new prophet from a castle under siege, but the AI can.

I guess this is so obvious that someone should have reported it, yet found no clue in the pinned thread.

[chrispedersen]

The ai can also raise troops and mages in provinces it would be unable to.

[lch]

I wouldn't call those bugs, but AI advantages. Same as the AI can receive more gem, gold, etc. income.

[Psycho]

Rudra has D3, but 0 undead leadership. So when he raises undead they just stand there and dissolve. Normally that's not a problem as you will probably trust your rudra into melee. But once in a while you want him to stay in the back line and cast spells. And since raise skeletons/undead obviously has a high priority he does it a lot unfortunately.

[chrispedersen]

This game is *so* freaking buggy.

I move from B-->A, fighting and successfully taking A. In the process about 50 troops start to route.

The combat ends with about 40 of the 50 off map. The only square to retreat to is B.


Even worse, the units that were routing, and yet were still on the map are ALSO gone.

In direct contradiction of the manual, p 81:

"units in a victorious army.....If the battle ends before the routing units exit the map, at they end of the battle they remain with the victorious army."

[archaeolept]

my reply from the other thread you posted this in:

"etreats are resolved after combats and, as such, the units had no legitimate province left to retreat to. That is not a bug, but how the game works.

If there were units in your army which are not in the province afterwards, two possibilities exist: 1) that they were under the effect of poison or decay or somesuch, and so died, or 2) that the battle result you saw was not the actual battle, due to some incompatibility of OS or versions.

Routed units from a magical phase battle will appear in the retreated to province in time for the normal battle there, I believe."