Dominions II Bug Thread
 

This topic is to list Game Bugs which have been found.
I've only played the demo but I came across two game bugs which were upsetting to see.

1) I had an undead spellcaster which was traveling with an undead army cast -Summon Lammana-. This costed death gems and two of these creatures appeared with my undead army as I expected to see. Then the undead army started attacking them and they started attacking my undead army!! Needless to say my opponent had almost won the battle before even reaching me.

2) This only happened once but was also very upsetting. I had two armies marching to attack an enemy army which I had completely surrounded. Next turn began and only ONE of them was in the battle my other army VANISHED. Both armies were mine and not mercenaries.

(Saber Cherry... it wasn't stealth as I said earlier the other army VANISHED.)

[ March 24, 2004, 04:33: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

1- Lammthastas are a dangerous gamble. Was the same way in Dom I. Try only sending in death mages and having all cast it. Your mages die, but the remaining force of demon women can often do tremendous damage.


2- Was one army stealthy? That's the basic 'Doh!' way to get the missing army effect.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

2) Stealth

Specifically, hold down <Ctrl> while clicking on the province you want to move to. That forces "move", while by default, stealthy units will "sneak" and not fight.

[ October 29, 2003, 17:25: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

Wasteland Survival: unlike 'Forest Survival', does not seem to give movement bonuses, only extra supplies. The Moloch has it. But he also has the 'Need not Eat' ability - so what is WS good for for him?

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

What is the Mountain Citadel good for? The Dark Citadel has exactly the same stats, except twice the admin, and is cheaper and faster to build.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I hear it is harder to storm by a besieging army. Not that that makes it worthwhile http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ October 29, 2003, 21:27: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

Just started a test game, picked drain, order and production at 3 each, in the initial turn my capital province showed the relevant icons and numbers, but in turn 2 order and production reverted to zero. Started a new game with the same nation, and it happened again. Not to mention the loss in income. How can this be?

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

What was your dominion strength? Did it go negative (red)? That sounds very strange.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Do you have to have a dominion of 3 or higher to get the scales to move to 3? I vaguly remember something about this somewhere... If it is the case then your scales should start at 1 and move up as you increase your dominion.

Dunno if that's right though...

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">4.

Quote:

Did it go negative (red)?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nope. Only 1 candle, but it was mine.

Quote:

That sounds very strange.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Indeed.

[ October 29, 2003, 22:20: Message edited by: Nagot Gick Fel ]

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

While playing Machaka I had a Black Sorceror get tagged by Wrath of God. He turned into a Giant Spider, lost his items, and stayed that way.

I suspect there is some "end of battle" check that reverts them to their human form, but it just never got triggered. Then again, I never had one get hit in battle, so perhaps the transformation is always one way...

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Do you have to have a dominion of 3 or higher to get the scales to move to 3? I vaguly remember something about this somewhere... If it is the case then your scales should start at 1 and move up as you increase your dominion.

Dunno if that's right though... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't think so. I still retained the Drain 3 in turn 2, only Order 3 and Production 3 disappeared. And the income and resource bonus with them OFC.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The different castles have different layouts when stormed. I stormed a watch tower and was pretty surprised when the enemies army started _outside_ the walls. I stormed a mountain fort, and had to walk down a narrow courtyard surrounded by 4 towers. Ouch.

I'm not sure yet if it's worth the points, but now that Storm doesn't stop all missile fire such aspects may well be important. The Mountain Citadel would have to be _damn_ good on defensive to make it worth it however! So would the Dark Citadel for that matter.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

That not-transforming-back/losing-items thing is definitely a bug. (No Machakan pun intended!) We bumped into it with the Machakans in testing and thought it had been squashed because it hadn't popped up again. Rats! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

* The images of magic items on my computer are wiggly - every six pixels rows or so the image wiggles one pixel left or right, so all the swords and spears appear wavy, etc.

* I had a unit who had routed from battle, but several months later I was viewing his stats outside of battle, and it showed he had a -4 to defense due to routing. I don't think this had any actual effect during combat, but was just a display bug on the unit stats screen.

* Nit-picky graphic thing: When a battle message is viewed, there is a neat "zoom in on the province" effect, but the table grain doesn't zoom in - just the map.

* There isn't always blood shown when units get impaled and hurt by spears.

PvK

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

As Jotunheim, I animated a Revenant. To my surprise, the Revenant started to gobble up supplies (OK, just 1 unit, actually).

Just to verify this, I moved the Revenant back and forth between two provinces - whenever he left, the supply upkeep in the province was lowered by one and whenever he returned it went up again.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmm, doesn't look that way on mine (Win XP Pro). What OS are you using?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Dom I had this bug too.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Wow, I didn't even notice - and I started next to a map edge.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">On the other hand, there is blood shown when units take poison damage.

I posted this on another thread - the Crystal Heart doesn't go away when it revives its owner, so it can revive them again and again and again. World's funniest battle replay - a diseased, blind, weakened, chest wounded, mute, feebleminded, one-armed Freak Lord surrounded by blessed berserk Hunter Spiders, scorpion beasts, cave drakes, etc., getting killed a couple of times a round (plus once more for poison), but still not staying dead so the battle doesn't end. Eventually my army routed from Flying Shard friendly fire and their arrow towers.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

thats perhaps a feature, but sometime I can swear that some of my units dont move their full AP.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That happened pretty often in Doms 1 too.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

If I understand his description well, the God of Fertility is supposed to increase growth in the province he's in, or maybe even in all his dominion? Yet I didn't notice any pop increase with growth 0. So is it another bug, or how is this bonus supposed to work?

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">He gives extra supplies. From his cornucopia. I'll check out if there is another effect, I do not recall off hand.

Edit: There is no effect but the supplies, the description is just fluff.

[ October 30, 2003, 15:07: Message edited by: Kristoffer O ]

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I did some testing on this as well, and concur that there is no extra effect.

The fertility lords text description is VERY confusing and the reference that implies that he aids growth should be removed.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I did some testing on this as well, and concur that there is no extra effect.

The fertility lords text description is VERY confusing and the reference that implies that he aids growth should be removed. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, it should NOT be removed - it should be implemented! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif That would be awesome, and I'd probably pick him in that case.

-Cherry

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmm, doesn't look that way on mine (Win XP Pro). What OS are you using?
... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Win98SE, but I figured this one out. I had the "filter quality" video preference set to "None", in an attempt to improve frame-rate. It actually has no effect on my frame-rate, and when I turn up the filter quality, the wobbly swords smooth out nicely.

PvK

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

I had this message:

"A plague has struck. Empty cabins and rotting corpses litter the landscape."

Ironically, there were no unburied corpses in the province after getting that message. I would expect a whole bunch of them, so I suspect this is a bug.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

in doms I the message was pretty generic : you could have this message in Ermor-levelled provinces which had no pop to begin with for example.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

when I use this command line

"C:\Program Files\dominions2demo\dom2demo.exe" -fps 100

I have the program run in windowed mode, with a small window opening labelled 'dominions 2 performance test' and then : loadmalloc : cant open /maps/julmap.tga

How to let the program use the -fps option?

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

Try --fps 100
That works for me...well...it lets me hit an astounding max of 52 on very low detail.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

I had an "Eyes of the Lord" priest and my 4-holy unarmored prophet in a battle against a small Abyssian army. Both were in the very back, behind 50 archers and 20 hoplites. Each had orders to "Cast spells" (I think). But, after casting a few spells like bless and fanatacism, they rushed halfway across the field to attack the routing Abyssians, got mixed up in the front lines, and were slaughtered by my archers. They were my only 2 losses.

I think unarmored mages and priests should never rush into melee, under any condition, unless you specifically order them to! If the spell AI can't find a good spell to cast, just have them sit there, not attack.

-Cherry

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Perhaps they went berserk, commanders and spellcasters in particular should not behave in the way you descibe, unless under order to do so. Did your pretender have nature 4+, and the abysians any missile troops?

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

I would add that your archers probably shouldn't have fired wrecklessly enough to wipe out your ace units like that.

Having played a bit of Doms II now, I think that my #1 Doms I gripe (and almost my only Doms I gripe) still needs some work: friendly fire. I think it may have improved in Doms II, but I think it would greatly improve the game to add some logic so that missile units prefer targets that have no chance of accidentally hitting friendly units, and that only fire near friendlies in extreme circumstances (no safe target, enemy is not fleeing, enemy is dangerous, enemy can be easily hurt by missile attack, nearby friendly units are low value and/or unlikely to be hurt by missile attack).

I have seen several battles already where most or all of one side's losses are due to friendly fire when there were safe targets available, or when the target enemy was routing anyway.

PvK

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, I agree. Too many times, a company of archers will fire at one enemy surrounded by 20 allies - and of course 90% of their fire will hit my guys. Now, if they're berserkers, that's not all bad, but usually, it makes archers dangerous to deploy at all, because their fire discipline is so terrible.

It's worse now that you can't order them to "fire mages" or "fire commanders" - they are both less useful and more dangerous. Please implement a "fire safe" order, that will only fire at enemies that are sufficiently far from any friendly (and possibly move closer if there aren't any good targets - the closer they get, the less scatter and therefore the more targets can be considered "safe".)

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, the Abyssians just had Abyssians and humanbreds, and my pretender has fire and earth. As far as I can tell, my priests sat their and cast spells while appropriate, but once they could not find any useful spells to cast, they rushed in to fight. I know I did not have them set on "attack", and I also know they were not berserked (I've seen DomII berserked units).

In a different battle, I had a scout in the back with (hold)5x-(stay behind troops) orders. After holding for 5 rounds, he rushed out and attacked also. He survived, though.

[ October 30, 2003, 22:00: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

A fire safe order, as Chris suggests would be great. Some units should also get a designation as non combatants I think, that way they'd never attempt to engage an enemy unless berzerked.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Agreed. I would like a "Fire at non-routing enemies only" command. This would allow fire to focus on enemies that are still a threat, and protect your units from the catastrophic end-battle friendly fire losses, where your quick, light troops get rained on as they pursue the fleeing enemies. I've wounded my gods with crossbows in this situation.

[ October 30, 2003, 22:03: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

I just ran a battle where a dragon casting personal regeneration never regained health.

Also the dragon routed and did not have a place to go. There was no mention of the dragons death anywhere, although it did perish.

IW, if you want I can send in the turn file.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I've had a somewhat similar case happen to me earlier today. My pretender casts breath of winter as his first nonscripted spell. And then, one of the spellcasters behind him who was too fatigued to cast anymore (98fat) starts running back and forth, and eventually runs into the cold clowd and dies. I lost three magic items and a HoF hero because of that. Why couldn't he just stay put and wait for the fatigue to recover, instead of running around and wasting even more of that same fatigue?

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

Maybe he was trying to stay warm? Or dodge arrows? Or confuse the enemy? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

That's another tac AI suggestion from Doms I though - it might be good to let the AI avoid walking into existing damage zones, such as posion gas clouds etc.

For example, the AI will create formations of Hydras with human troops, who tend to die from the Hydras' poison gas clouds, even by rushing into them when they wouldn't have to.

I suppose that might be partly considered part of the abstract nature of the tactical combat resolution. At least, though, it would be a suggestion for how the AI might be improved - the AI players could have their formations avoid placing area affect units near other friendlies whom they can hurt.

Although, for all I know this has been improved in Doms II - so far I've been lucky enough not to run into such things in Doms II.

PvK

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It was a cold cloud actually (breath of winter) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif .... Maybe he wanted to get a better view of the routing enemy army (it was the Last turn of the combat), and the manticore was blocking it? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Well, now I laugh but it wasn't very funny in the game.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[ October 30, 2003, 23:36: Message edited by: HJ ]

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

Heh, yeah, I was thinking maybe he got cold from the nearby spell, and decided to pace back and forth to get warmer, and (like all AI units) didn't see the zone of death. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

But ya, it can be sad when one's heroes die, and it frequently happens in unexpected ways. It's part of the joy and agony of Dominions. In fact, I spend a lot of my time paying attention to my heroes and trying (often in vain) to have them see action yet keep them alive.

PvK

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

*************

Another Design Bug :

Melee units are able to attack rear units {this is fine}
Archers cannot fire at rear units and we're stuck with fire at archers.
~Sometimes there is no enemy archers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif


~~Hopefully this gets fixed in a patch because it would save the lives of friendly units!
Thanks ~

[ October 31, 2003, 01:50: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is no design bug. It is an intentional feature. The idea is that it is hard to target at the rear since you do not know exactly where they are, but as you outflank you can discover what is on the other side of the enemy lines. It is also intended to combat what illwinter percieved to be the somehwat cheesy dom 1 tactic of putting all you archers on fire magic Users or commander. Thius was especially potent against indeps.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Good alternative is to order them Fire/None order. They will choose their target, which sometimes can even be enemy commander. They usually choose their target better with that order.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This should be added to the MASTER LIST. I will quote your message over there.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

What about the dominion scales bug I reported earlier in this thread? Unless I'm mistaken, none of the devs provided an explanation yet (?). I've seen it happen at least 5 times so far, out of maybe 15-20 games, so I can't believe noone else noticed it.

Bug description: some of your dominion scales are reset to non-optimal values (usually zero) in your capital as soon as turn #2. It is possible only some scales are affected. So far I've seen:

Order: +3 -> 0
Production: +3 -> 0 (often) or +1 (sometimes)
Growth: +3 -> 0
Luck/Unluck: no change
Magic/Drain: no change
Heat/Cold: sometimes vary by +1/-1, but I assume these changes are seasonal effects.

Of course these changes affect income, production and growth. So that's a major issue.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Good point.
Btw, I guess wastelands do not incur movement penalties, and that's why their survival skill is not related to the movement?

[ October 31, 2003, 20:41: Message edited by: HJ ]

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

while we are at battle orders, I have a request:

Can we have units on bodyguard order fire their missiles weapons? We had already a discussion on the newsgroup about that, but got no feeback from IW, so perhaps there is a design decision about this.

My opinion is that allowing units on bodyguard to fire missiles would fix 2 problems at once:

1- it dont appears logical that - say velites - on bodyguards never use their pilum.

2 - more importantly, it would fix the problem of seeing our archers running to the front to get in range of the enemy, just to be caught in melee the next round because of advancing opponents. In essence, this would allow the much requested order of :

'fire, or stand still until you have somebody in range, you stupid archers!'.

Thank you for your time.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

Just noticed that the 2 new sharks units (815 & 816) have slots for hands, head, body and feet ;-)

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I am not so sure it's a seasonal thing, or if it is, it seems out of synch:

Playing Niefelheim with a +3cold scale in the current turn (early fall I think) I have +1heat at the capitol while the temperature scale is cold all over my dominion.

Re: Dominions II Bug Thread
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Dude, you should know, that the devs won't reply usually. Just check out an threads about the AI...they didn't made a single reply..