go to and allied subs = accidental wars

smellymummy · November 19, 2001, 16:02

i just accidentally happened to see one of my transports (filled with VERY BADLY needed mech) automatically run into an allied sub.

My transport was on a "go to" mission, and there was no warning about going to war.

Result: The sub sanked my transport and killed my reinforcements, I lost access to luxuries, and now I have duke it out with my ally!@#@

Against all my ethics, I'm going to load an autosave and deactivate the go to, and see if I at least get a warning.

Jahi · November 19, 2001, 16:12

my personal favorite is to park my privateer on a battleship.. then, when an ally or enemy comes to attack the privateer the battleship sinks them with no one going to war :P.

smellymummy · November 19, 2001, 17:04

i just redid it... If I move a unit manually to the sub's location, I get a prompt. If it's on a goto mission, it attacks.

So be careful in the late game, your ally might have subs wandering where you've sent you're own through.

Farmer Jimbo · November 19, 2001, 17:16

Speaking of subs, the civilopedia entry for subs claims that they are invisible unless they are in range of another sub or aegis cruiser or they initiate an attack. Why is it then that other civs complain if one of my subs is near one of their coastal cities? They don't have the technology yet to build subs and I certainly didn't attack anyone. Is this a "bug", "feature" or my imperfect understanding of the rules of submarines in civ3?

TCO · November 19, 2001, 17:29

Sounds like a legitimate bug or at least flaw. In civ2, the pathing would notify you if you encountered another country's units.

Wrong_shui · November 19, 2001, 17:36

The computer sees everything, its like God.

ElBone · November 19, 2001, 18:01

I have been bitten by this as well... multiple times. Finally, I had to go in the editor and make subs visible to modern naval... the AI can see your subs anyway, why shouldn't you see theirs.

I would say I hope firaxis would fix this, but with no patch out for the game-killer AS bug, I don't have high hopes.

bone

Farmer Jimbo · November 19, 2001, 20:02

To the origanal thread topic: One could make the argument that this akin to the accident that took the lives of the Japanese student in the Pacific recenlty. Of course that's a pretty week argument in that we are not at war with Japan. If Firaxis wanted to change this from a bug to a feature, there would be some random chance to cause an accident with a special diplomacy screen to try to talk your way out of it. Right now it sounds like a bug.

As to my question: Hmmm... I remember Soren saying something about the AI being able to see the whole map. I didn't realize it extended to being able to see a supposedly "invisible" unit. Doesn't seem to be any point in building submarines unless you plan on using them for missles.

smellymummy · November 19, 2001, 20:25

it's not akin to what happened in the pacific. this is a flaw:

1- manually moving a unit over a submarine which belong to a civ whom you're not at war with results in a pop up window making sure you wish to go to war

2- if a unit is in a go to mission, then there is no pop up, since the game takes over to do the moves automatically for you.

what happened in the pacific was an accident, no relevance to this issue. Plus, the sub didnt hit me I hit the sub.

Farmer Jimbo · November 19, 2001, 20:49

Hey now! I said my argument was weak! lol However, perhaps the pop-up in normal movement could be considered the flaw and not the "incident" you encountered. If you're only suppposed to see submarines from other civs in special circumstances, why should you get a pop-up at all? Shouldn't you just crusie on by none the wiser? Seems to me the pop-up is a band-aid fix to resolve the fact that the engine can't handle a sub and another naval vessel from another ziv in the same square. The band-aid did not appear to be applied to all circumstances.

As to the accident in the pacific having nothing to do with your situation: Yes, the american sub initiated the tradgedy while your transport was the one that attacked the allied sub. However, the problem common to both incidents was an invisble naval war vessel being too close to a visible surface vessel. Should I again say that my argument is weak, or are you going to rip another hole in it?