FIRAXIS: Bug reports coming from MT V testing

[alexman]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Stacks of two or more units can be set to "Fortify All" even if individual members IN the stack have no movement remaining

I think I remember someone from Firaxis (Mike?) saying that that even though the units look fortified, they do not actually get the bonus unless they had some movement remaining.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Velociryx
16. Stacks of two or more units can be set to "Fortify All" even if individual members IN the stack have no movement remaining

Originally posted by alexman
I think I remember someone from Firaxis (Mike?) saying that that even though the units look fortified, they do not actually get the bonus unless they had some movement remaining.

Soren recently reiterated this point at CFC - according to him, even though the drop down may now say "Wake" instead of "Activate" and even though the fortify animation may make it appear that the unit is fortified, it doesn't get the 25% bonus if it didn't have movement points at the time of "fortifying."

Catt

[DeepO]

So the displaying of those units is a bug, and not how they play...

DeepO

[DeepO]

17. AIs should be more reflective on how they fill armies
See attached pic. That the AI combines a few MAs with a MI, I can understand. But adding a longbowman? It's not that there aren't enough MAs around, I don't know how this happened as it was outside the area I could scout (and I'm playing now, not testing, so I don't steal maps of all the AIs every turn anymore).

Vel, I'm not sure, but this is a AI thing, right? You didn't fill an army like that especially to slow them down? I guess you would have added a marine, not a longbowman...

Oh, OT: Yes I know, It's not going good with me. I was surveying the area to see where a nuke would be most effective... another army is just around the corner, but this one is 4xMA, like it should be. And it's within reach of my fron line too...

DeepO

[DeepO]

A fine illustration of bug 9 and related: in this pic, you'll see a transport that has not unloaded their troops, when about 8 ships are within reach. It could be true that the goal of the transport was the saltpeter hill, but the one right next to it was, from a strategic point nearly as good. The saltpeter isn't connected, so there is nothing to gain from landing there, besides, everybody is in the late modern era and doesn't use saltpeter anymore. In this case, it is sure that the 'as less moves on the sea as possible' is what should be done, this transport is destined to continue its voyage in Walhalla.

DeepO

[Velociryx]

Nope....all the armies I gave to the AI at start were shells....totally empty. It was either quite silly of them to load out their army with a longbowman, or subtle strategy on a deeper level than I can comprehend....

-=Vel=-

[Catt]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Nope....all the armies I gave to the AI at start were shells....totally empty. It was either quite silly of them to load out their army with a longbowman, or subtle strategy on a deeper level than I can comprehend....

I'm guessing it's the second option, Vel. I'm going to give 'er a whirl the next chance I get. Fear my longbowman / MA / MI army!

[alexman]

Originally posted by Catt
I'm going to give 'er a whirl the next chance I get. Fear my longbowman / MA / MI army!

OK, so who really is rpodos, Theseus or Catt?

[Catt]

Originally posted by alexman


OK, so who really is rpodos, Theseus or Catt?

[shameless off-topic post in an otherwsie great thread]

Could I be a DL? Wait - should I take this impertinence from a sedimentary barbarian? As FrustratedPoet said - stratify! stratify!

(never would've guessed English was your second language, alexman)

[/shameless off-topic post in an otherwise great thread]

[DeepO]

18. City view: shield queue display problem?
I'm not sure about this one. As the cost for the ship parts was doubled, it seems that the cost for the SS exterior casing can't fit on the city view anymore... I don't know if this was intentional or not, the box seems to fill in the correct ratio, but there are only 10 shields to be filled, instead of the 1280 shields needed... it if was intentional, another graphic would be nice to avoid all confusion.

This was the last one for the evening, it's getting late again. You really have to break yourself away from this game

DeepO

[DeepO]

19. Update problems at the edge of the map with bombing runs
There seems to be quite a few update problems at the edge of the map (the dateline, so to speak). That ships fire the wrong way was already known (e.g. a BS firing to the east when the enemy ship is on the west), but it happens a lot in this game as one of the seas is exactly on the dateline.

Further, there seem to also be a problem with bombing runs of bombers and jets: they start invisible, and only after they bombed they will show (so when normally the animation is over 5 tiles, you will only see the last, or last 2 tiles of animation). Nothing essential, just not very nice to look at.

20. AIs do not build stealths, but stick to bombers
So far, I haven't seen an AI stealth bomber yet. This is strange, the AIs are set to build air units often, and each one has build loads of bombers (which my F15s love to shoot down ), but so far there are no stealths to be seen. This is strange, as in MT IV (under 1.21f), all AIs built loads of stealth bombers, and not the normal ones. Every resource they need is available and some are in their GA (so production shouldn't be a problem) I wonder what is going wrong. Maybe they're just trying to get a number of bombers before they switch to higher cost stealths, while I'm shooting down all they can build, I don't know.

21. Some AIs will use their jets to bombard, one will not
Both the Germans and the Chinese keep a number of their jets on air sup., and use the rest to bombard me. The Russians, however, keep all their jets on air sup. Further, they keep all 24 of their jets in one city (Moscow). Maybe Vel has set those Russian jets to a defensive role, but I'd doubt that (Vel, any comments?)

The Germans are, as we're used to by now, quite devious in the use of their air planes. Normally, they will send their jets first, which have a better chance of shooting down my F15s(is it? or is this just intuitive?), and don't have that much bombard strength. After all my F15s are used, the bombers are sent in, which do more damage. I don't know if this order is by coincidence, but it is a good tactic.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Oh, BTW, the army with MAs and longbowmen mixed was not a once in a life time thing: so far I've seen 3 of them. I can only guess that the AI will use the first offensive unit that he can get his hand on, instead of waiting (possibly one turn) to make it a good army. This is just silly. AIs should have the patience to fill them properly

DeepO

[DeepO]

22. One of my cities has 'lost' his hospital, won't grow, and can't build a hospital again
See pic. I don't know when it happened, but Philadelphia has somewhere lost its hospital, and doesn't let me build one again. As a result, the growth of the city is limited to size 13. Very strange problem, I don't have a clue what went wrong. It hasn't grown after the first turn, maybe this has something to do with it... (the year is 3350 BC, when a save would be needed).

DeepO

[Catt]

Originally posted by DeepO
Oh, BTW, the army with MAs and longbowmen mixed was not a once in a life time thing: so far I've seen 3 of them. I can only guess that the AI will use the first offensive unit that he can get his hand on, instead of waiting (possibly one turn) to make it a good army. This is just silly. AIs should have the patience to fill them properly

DeepO

Still haven't figured out the magic of the longbowman / MA army, eh? DeepO, I fear that you will be in trouble come MP.

BTW - for those who accuse the AI of cheating, please note that the AI is acting very honorably in this instance. Many players (myself included) have qualms that the longbowman / MA / MI mixed army may be an exploit simply due to its overpowering strength and the consequent unbalancing effects -- as a middle ground between banning the unit (how could we even think it?) and letting it function as the "civ killer" in MP, we've come to allow it so long as the longbowman, when initially placed in the army, is no more than a "regular" (no veterans or elites allowed - but upgrades once placed in the army are OK). I would point out here that even the AI hews to this informal rule.




[ - I'm sorry; I can't resist. I really enjoy the game and am very impressed with the AI, but this one is entirely too funny a "bug" to let pass without comment.]

Catt

[Velociryx]

Regarding AI airforces....I didn't specifiy either way for any of the nations, but I too, have noted that the Russians seem to be holding their fighters exclusively for defense, while everybody else seems to mix it up a bit. I could go back in see if there's a way to force the Ruskies to mix and match a bit...IIRC, there is...shouldn't be a problem at all!

-=Vel=-

[DeepO]

Vel, there might not be a problem to fix it, but that would again require human intervention. My point was that the AI should decide this on its own...

I'm still waiting for the Russians to build more fighters, to see whether these will bombard or not. But, as long as I'm shooting down all their bombers, there is little incentive to them to build additional fighters... which is good, in a way. We don't want them to get stuck with 100 fighters defending their cities, while they have no bombers to harass us

DeepO

[DeepO]

Oh, while you're reading this: Could it be that you forgot to give Philadelphia a hospital, but set its population to 13? I'm still puzzled why I can't build a hospital there. Do you have the same problem in that city?

DeepO

[DeepO]

23. the Russian AI is dropping paratroopers by helicopter
I don't know what is happening with the Russians, but they seem to do sillier things than the other AIs. I can understand they want to use their helicopters just to view the animation, but please, those are my CPU cycles you're burning! So far, neither of the AIs have build paras, but they are using the ones that were included from the start. The Germans are dropping them behind the chokepoints, at the farest of their range, in hope of pillaging some tiles. That hasn't worked yet, but at least it is an attempt.

The Russians, however, are loading them in a helicopter, and as the helicopter has only range 4 while the paras have range 6, they can't cross my line of defense with a helicopter... so the paras are dropped in front of my lines.

Even sillier: they ran out of paras, and now they're transporting marines with their chopper. Okay, if this would mean the marines gain a turn in movement I can live with that (not that it helps a lot, but it would be a reasonable effort). But, they are actually retracting a marine from the border, to get to St Petersburg, to embark in a chopper, which then drops them on the border again. They lose at least 2 turns by doing this, as there aren't many roads on their side of the border...

DeepO

[dawidge]

24. A docked carrier's airplanes will return to the city, not the carrier
Take a carrier with airplanes aboard and move it to a city (Enterprise in the inland sea went to Boston for repairs to its battlegroup). Send its airwing (which reports such-and-such on USS Enterprise) on Bombing missions. The airplanes will return to the city, not to the carrier. This would be bad when I try to move the carrier next turn and discover that its airgroup didn't tag along.

Dawidge

[Travathian]

Keep in mind that every human player plays different.

Maybe Soren has it setup so that each Civ's AI has its own little flare to it? It'd be a pretty boring game if every civ acted the same all the time.

Maybe that Longbowman shoots those arrows that Rambo always had to blow up tanks and helicopters!

Maybe if you put certain combinations of units into an army it transforms into something different? Hmmmmm

[DeepO]

Maybe it was just plain silly?

DeepO

[Brinoch]

25. AI Destroyer can hit multiple subs it cannot see in one turn
I'm not sure how it was able to do this, but a Russian destroyer blundered into three of my subs (which it cannot see) in one turn. And, I might add killing them all. I'm setting up a save game to illustrate this.

In regards to 20, the AI will build stealths. It just takes them some time to do so. They also build paras and drop them behind your lines -- eventually. Since they start with so much military, they build up infrastructure first and then, after you've whittled his military down, he rebuilds using stealths. Check out the saved game I posted on the Alamo AAR thread.

Brin

[DeepO]

Thanks Brinoch!
As mentioned in the AAR thread, I think I saw an AI destroyer taking on a sub after he had already bombed in the same turn, however when I once bumbed into a sub after bombing, I was not allowed to attack it. As such, it is an unfair advantage for the AI...

Regarding the stealths: so far I haven't seen any AI bombers yet, which could change in the coming years however. The AI are improving their lands, and I think it has something to do with not having enough production because of the bare land. However, they (especially the Russians) are building loads of bombers, that are easy to shoot down. It would be an improvement if they would take double as much turns building up stealth bombers, as these would be more succesful, they can survive. It is rare that a bomber survives my F15s, the AIs should be more reflective on the use of certain properties of units. A stealth bomber has not just a higher attack value, it is espcially more worth it to build it because it is not so easy to intercept.

Paratroopers: In my game so far the Japanese are building up lots of paras (they have 15 so far), which is strange because they are not in range of using them. But this will probably change in the next few turns. That was not my complaint, I was complaining about loading paras into choppers, limiting their range. I can't see any advantage of doing this, so I wonder why the Russians see that otherwise.

DeepO

[DeepO]

26. Another update problem at the dateline
The dateline update problems continue. This one happened right after I bombed the Aegis, with a F15 on the carrier which can be partly seen in the right upper corner. The fog of war is not correctly displayed (the bombing animation didn't play either, but that one I mentioned above already). When doing anything, moving the screen position, standing down the next F15, etc. the problem is solved, and the FoW flips back to what it should be. It is a very minor thing, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

DeepO

[DeepO]

27. Super workers building RR on hills!
As I am bombarding the coast of China bit by bit, I noticed the following: I bombard a completely improved hill tile on turn 1. The RR is destroyed. Turn 2, I go there again, and two workers are building up the RR again. I bombard again, and take all improvements down (including the road). Turn three, I go to the same tile, thinking that I now will take another tile, as normally the workers can only have finished the road on the hill... wrong, they have finished the RR already. It is not possible that 2 (monarchy, not democratic) industrial workers can build a road+RR in 1 turn, so it has to be a bug: when a worker is set to a task (build RR), and the task cannot be done because of further bombardments, it still finishes.

I was hoping to post 2 pics, one of turn 2 (2350 BC) where the two workers are building on a destroyed hill, and one of turn 3 (2310 BC) where the RR is done, however I forgot to save one game... but it should be easily reproducable. Further, I don't know whether human workers do the same, I can only guess they do.

DeepO

[dawidge]

28. Dateline bomber lockup problem
Related to #26, I have twice encountered unrecoverable lockups when the AI bombs me across the dateline. I have a carrier with four F-15s on air superiority stationed just NE of that little corner in the fog of war cast by the American sub in DeepO's snapshot. I can't take snapshots (instant reboot, I think it's a graphics driver bug as it happens with third-party snapshot pgms, too), but I'll upload a saved game as soon as I find and read the instructions.

As soon as I end my turn, the Chinese attempt to bomb the carrier group. An F-15 rises to intercept, shoots down the bomber, and remains hovering over the battlegroup. The game is locked up at that point, consuming 96-99% of the CPU and getting nowhere.

[edit: bumped the #]

[Jaybe]

DeepO, notice how sometimes you have workers building an improvement, you add more workers to finish the job, and the original workers are now free to do other stuff?

COULD this be what happened here, that these are two DIFFERENT workers on the tile now?? Since China IS industrious (were they also a democracy??).

[DeepO]

Jaybe, it can't be like this. Between turn 1 and 2, the Chinese AI has put 2 workers to build RR, as they are not in a democracy, this makes sense: 2 workers take 2 turns to go from road to RR. So when I bombed the road away in turn 2, I can understand if the workers would stop building a RR, and build a road instead (this should take 2 workers 1 turn). But once these workers are finished, they don't have further movement points, and will stay behind. They should still be visible in turn 3. So the only explanation there is to see 2 workers and a RR in turn 3 is that they cheated: They went from nothing to RR in 1 turn, because they started on the RR already before the road was destroyed.

Well, cheat is not the right word, it's a minor bug. I believe that the humans get the same advantage (it is a belief, I have never observed it).

DeepO

[dawidge]

Okay, I fixed my screenshots problem (new video drivers) but I can't take a screenshot of a locked-up game.

Here is the savegame of the dateline intercept lockup. It may or may not be a separate issue from the dateline bomber lockup (where the game locks after a successful bombing run that crosses the dateline).

All you have to do is end your turn. A chinese bomber will attack the fleet, an F-15 will shoot it down and hover over the battleship. Lockup.

[Jaybe]

DeepO, now I got it. The workers, when it was their turn, finished the Rail but the supporting road was gone.

So their Rail building was (buggily) switched retroactively to Road, and they then built the Rail -- OR (equally buggy), they had finished the Rail and then built the required Road — OR they said "We've put too much work INTO this, we're KEEPING this Rail!"