Inconsistant outcome

[Ewierl]

NTJedi said:This rarely happens yet does happen once in a blue moon. This has nothing to do with giving the commander/mage the command attack. If you watched the last arena match my spellcaster SC(Battle#3) was killed despite the battle showing him with 36hitpoints at the end of battle.

Illwinter will have a better chance of fixing this issue is if we find a way to accurately reproduce the issue repeatedly.

I know I've submitted save files with the bug in them, info is out there. AFAIK the bug is caused by different random number generators; it happens when a MP game is hosted on one computer type (e.g. PC) and played on another (e.g. a Mac). The real battle resolution is determined once at host level, but the replay is generated at the player level, so it's possible for the replay to end up incorrect once in a blue moon if it handles random numbers differently.

[thejeff]

That was the old bug, probably still exists.

I've recently seen incorrect replays in SP games.
Viewed on the "host", obviously.
So there's something else going on.

[Torin]

yes, in SP theres no different versions.
if you have no provinces of yours next to the battle, fleing units are killed.

[TruePurple]

Torin said:
if you have no provinces of yours next to the battle, fleing units are killed.

me said:Except nonmerc units are lost, if you win, even if your surrounded by provinces. I only get to keep running units if I lose the battle it seems.

And why do they so often wait to run till after your winning?? Gosh we better get out of here, we got them massively outnumnbered, they might try something!

[Torin]

dont understand what are you talking about, TP.

[TruePurple]

Damn I already explained it all, fine I'll try again.

I'm fighting a weaker enemy, I've destroyed many of their units and most or all of them are fleeing.

Suddenly some weaker morale units will run. They will run despite all your enemy running and you outnumber/outpower the enemy. Especially if that group suffered much in losses during the battle.

Then it becomes about the enemy reaching the end of the screen or being destroyed before my insane fleeing troops reach the end of the screen. If I win the battle those fleeing nonmerc units will have vanished, even though I control provinces around the area I won.

Do you understand now? If not you'll need to be more specific in what confuses you.

[thejeff]

Because morale checks are based on what has happened to that squad, not on the larger state of the battle.

Once a squad has taken enough damage, they'll start making morale checks every turn. When they fail one, they'll retreat.

If they all make it off the field before the enemy does, you lose.
That all seems straightforward, if a little strange

I've never seen the disappearing troops though. They'll certainly be detached from their commanders and scattered, but I've never noticed losing them. Do commanders disappear?

[TruePurple]

Yeah all mine were in SP

[Agrajag]

I find it more likely that the problem is in specific calculations in battle resolutions rather than a problem with random numbers. For example, using a different function for checking morale in the replay phase then the hosting phase.
What you are talking about (Ewierl) is IIRC a bug that has been squashed long ago where on different OSs the random code got evaluated differently (specifically, in a "if(random()>random)()" on some OSs the left one was resolved first and on other the right one), which lead to wildly different results. This case is a bit more subtle, and I'm guessing that it's an SP game, so was hosted and replayed on exactly the same machine.
I'm pretty sure a save that shows the bug would be useful for Illwinter, especially if you can get a save from one turn before it happens.