Bug: Losing a single-player game for no reason

[UhhhClem]

Forgive me if this isn't the right protocol for reporting a bug, but I couldn't find anything telling me a better one.

Here's the situation: I was many turns into playing Abysia single-player on the Aran map. My position was fairly strong. I went into battle with my Pretender, and the battle report (and the replay) indicated that none of my commanders were lost.

The last message in my turn report told me that I was defeated. I go to the game map and all of my units everywhere in the world are gone. The game's not visible in my list of saved games.

I'm using the unpatched version off of the CD, running under Windows Vista Home Premium. I don't know how to get any more information to help diagnose this problem.

As you might imagine, I'm pretty upset. This was about 2.5 hours of gameplay that just disappeared. I don't even have a saved game file (where do saved game files live under Vista?).

[Micah]

you didn't happen to run out of dominion, did you?

[Sombre]

I don't think running out of dominion would vanish the save.

[Endoperez]

I would've thought savegames are in the main folder, just as in the other versions.

Are you aware of the fact that Dominions only stores one "save" at a time, and that you can't "load" a previous turn without making copies of the folder that holds the turn data?

If you do know what's going on, I think you've found some kind of a Vista-only bug. I don't remember hearing about anything like this before.

[llamabeast]

Savegames are in a funny and hard-to-find place on Vista. I couldn't say where, but previous players have really struggled to find them.

UhhhClem, you almost certainly ran out of dominion. What did the defeat message say? This has happened to me a few times - you think you're completely safe because your armies are winning, and you don't notice you've got almost no candles left.

[Cor2]

Arrrr Avast Matey. Tis Me bet, if me were a bettin man.

[Edi]

Cor2 said:
Arrrr Avast Matey. Tis Me bet, if me were a bettin man.


You could very well lose that bet. Unpatched version (3.00) under Vista cannot possibly be a good combination.

As for how to solve that problem, UhhhClem, I have no idea. If you want to report bugs, we have a bug discussion thread for that. You can find a link to it from the bug shortlist thread stickied at the top of the forum.

[Loren]

Add me to the crowd that thinks you died from a lack of dominion. You lose your last candle and that's that, you're dead, all your armies vanish. It doesn't matter if you controlled all but one province on the map when that happened. (In theory it wouldn't matter if you controlled every province but I can't think of any means by which this could happen. To control every province would mean your enemies had only stealth units left. Stealth preachers could kill you but I don't think there is any stealth pretender and if he has no province and no pretender he will have died.)

The game is actually about spreading your dominion (that's why it's named "Dominions"), your armies are merely a means to this end.

[Endoperez]

There are actually several stealthy pretenders. Unicorn-riding Arch Druid (many nations), Master Druid, Partholonian Sorceress and Mother of Tuathas (Man etc only), Vampire Queen, Ghost King, Lord of the Wild (Panagea only), Anansi (Machaka only - oops, that's my mod! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif), Son of Fenrer (Jotun only), Allfather (Vanheim only), Lord of the Night (EA/LA Mictlan only)... But as you can see, only Ghost King and Vampire Queen are universally available. Most others are limited to Nature nations or glamour nations, with few exceptions.

[Folket]

Well, if I found a bug I would patch the game to the newest version.

Given that there have been five version since the release it is somewhat likly that preformance will be increased.

[Cor2]

UhhhClem, where did you get the game? Did it come with a manual?

[NTJedi]

UhhhClem said:
The last message in my turn report told me that I was defeated.



The battle you mentioned has nothing to do with this message. Since you mentioned your position in the game was fairly strong I don't think you died from loss of dominion unless you completely ignored the idea of building temples. If you were strong and building temples then it's my opinion you lost the game because a computer AI won because of a specific victory condition such as 'victory points'.

[UhhhClem]

I don't think I lost my dominion: I had temples all over the place. The game didn't have any special victory conditions. My copy's a legitimate one, purchased at full retail from Amazon.

The mention of alternate victory conditions does jog my memory about a message I received in the game, though, and maybe this is the cause. I got an announcement that some race that I hadn't encountered yet (and that I haven't heard of) had constructed or grown a stupendous oak tree, which I was encouraged to burn. Is there some sort of Yggdrasil-growing spell that can win you the game, or is that just crazy talk?

I'll certainly patch the game ASAP. How can I find out where the saved games live on Vista?

[K]

Naaa, thats just the Mother Oak global enchantment.

[Zylithan]

I don't know vista, but I imagine if you search for a folder with the name being whatever the name of your game was, you will find where saved games are kept.

alternately, search for *.trn or *.2h, as those are the file types for dominions turns.