MP Bug in Capture City Slic

mapfi · August 4, 2002, 12:32

I've been playing the whole weekend with a friend so I didn't get the chance to try the single tournament yet, but here's what we discovered:

Playing GoodMod 0.993 with Apolyton v2.0 with a mini LAN of just two Laptops - 2 human players, 5 AI's. I'm the host of the game. Whenever my friend captures a city and try's to enslave the population the following happens:

- the slave capturing is displayed
- the city is gone
- a resync takes place
- my friend ends up with the city in his possesion - no slaves made

Oerdin · August 4, 2002, 15:00

Your playing with both good mod and apolyton mod installed at the same time? I'm not sure they were designed to be overlapped like that and you may want to consider playing with one mod at a time. I normally play with the Apolyton mod by itself and this bug hasn't cropped up.

Immortal Wombat · August 4, 2002, 15:21

No, Goodmod is set up so it can be an addition to the Apolyton Pack, but I havn't any idea what is causing the bug, unless its the way that SLIC handles player[0] in multiplayer.

Martin Gühmann · August 4, 2002, 15:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Oerdin
Your playing with both good mod and apolyton mod installed at the same time? I'm not sure they were designed to be overlapped like that and you may want to consider playing with one mod at a time. I normally play with the Apolyton mod by itself and this bug hasn't cropped up.

Actual at least GoodMod is designed to use huge parts of ApolytonPack namely all the city sprites from CityMod2, all the new tech pictures of CityMod2 (yeah CityMod2 is a part of ApolytonPack) and the civ parchments with the leader pictures on them. If you download GoodMod and install it you will get this ModSwapper option:

GoodMod for Apolyton Pack V2.0! CTP2 the way it should be.

You definatly didn't download the tourny game.

For the bug Oerdin the KillCityOption.slc is in the latest version of ApolytonPack, too. So I guess you don't enslave citizens if you take a city.

So it looks that this one isn't a slic problem but a problem of resyncs. If I remember correctly there were also problems with disappearing tile improvements and disappearing PW. So the question is how serious is the problem, can you reproduce it? If yes how offten does it occur?

-Martin

mapfi · August 5, 2002, 04:48

Well, the whole city capture option didn't work for my friend. He tried out enslaving several times and also a bloodbath with the effects already described ending up with the city in his possession.
He also saw his PW changed after resyncs but nothing with dissappearing tile imrovements (or he didn't notice).

So for reproducing it - no problem, how often - every time

For MP I consider this a serious bug because the host gets an advantage - he's the only one able to actually use the citycapture options - something very relevant when you reach you city number limit or when cities are badly placed. So if one can't fix it then their should be MP versions of the mods with the option disabled, don't you think so?

Martin Gühmann · August 5, 2002, 08:18

Quote:

Originally posted by mapfi
Well, the whole city capture option didn't work for my friend. He tried out enslaving several times and also a bloodbath with the effects already described ending up with the city in his possession. He also saw his PW changed after resyncs but nothing with dissappearing tile imrovements (or he didn't notice).

For the bloodbarth I could use the KillCity event, if it doesn't work either...

Another question is how does it work with stealing PW and Gold from civ that just lost the city, is it lost due to the resync, too?

Quote:

Originally posted by mapfi
So for reproducing it - no problem, how often - every time

For MP I consider this a serious bug because the host gets an advantage - he's the only one able to actually use the citycapture options - something very relevant when you reach you city number limit or when cities are badly placed. So if one can't fix it then their should be MP versions of the mods with the option disabled, don't you think so?

I already considered to removed it in MP games. As I can count how many human players are in the game that souldn't be a problem. OK first no slaves for MP no resettlement, just bloodbarth with the KillCity event and with the stolen PW and Gold.

-Martin

mapfi · August 5, 2002, 08:47

Sorry, for the stealing PW and Gold I don't remember and won't have the chance to create a new MP to try shortly.

J Bytheway · August 5, 2002, 09:29

I encountered this problem in CTP1 too, in my Mars Mod. I think it occurs whenever SLIC is run from a button - only on the machine of the player who pressed the button is the SLIC actually run - for the other player it does not happen. This means that if the player is not the host then when the next turn comes around the databases disagree, a resync is caused and everything goes back to how the hosts computer thinks it is. I found a workaround for the problem in the case of my mod, but I can't see an analogous solution here.

mapfi · August 5, 2002, 09:48

So one would have to create a way around the buttons...

Well, so far enslaving was possible even if you didn't have the advance slavery yet.
One way around this and to also avoid the enslaving option button would be that the population of a city were automatically enslaved if there was a slaver in the attacking stack and otherwise not.

That leaves the task to find a non-button solution for the bloodbath - what about a cheap slaver-like slaughter unit?

Martin Gühmann · August 5, 2002, 10:37

In this case I could use a CTP1 function work around, so I could call from this button a message box that is sent to all players.

-Martin

Martin Gühmann · August 5, 2002, 12:55

OK I put the city destroy code into MessageAll boxes, so that the code will go to all players and hopefully executed on the host machine.

To install it just unzip the attachment into your ..\ctp2_data\default\gamedata\ directory. Once you are in the game open the chat screen and enter /reloadslic. I think for an MP game all human players should do this. And of course this file has to be installed on all machines. If you start a new game instead of continueing an old one then you don't need to reloadslic.

And of course I need your feedback if it works.

-Martin

mapfi · August 6, 2002, 04:01

I'll try as soon as I can.
However, now all players know when a city is captured - is that really desirable? Well, more than the bug, though...

by the way, the manual says:
If the Resynchronization box appears frequently during a game, double check your connection or try playing at another time when network traffic is lighter.

Is that suppposed to be some joke? As I said, we had two Laptops connected by a single cable -> 100Mbit connection! and we got a resync at least every 5 turns...

child of Thor · August 6, 2002, 05:40

That is alot of resync's - almost sounds like the pre-patch MP experience! Still you have got the patch so it's not that.
If you haven't already, try hosting the game on the most powerfull laptop - i found when using a P3 500 with 128mb as a host as opposed to a P3 400 with 64mb(the other kind of pc in my network), then i had alot less resynch troubles(although the patch made much more of an impact - this did help further.).

EDIT: something else - how powerfull are your Laptops? I just have a feeling that the lower the spec the more resync's you get in MP, especially with all the AI's selected too. Try a few less AI's and see if it get's any better. As to the particular Mod, maybe try a plain 1.1patched CTP2 game and see again if it get's more stable. As a note i have done most MP this way and a bit on Craddle(1.2). I get a resynch maybe every 15-20 turns i guess.Sometimes nothing for hours of gameplay and then maybe a few over a few turns. It does seem to be quite random as far as i can tell but post-patch i never had as many as your getting. But try the above and see if it get's any better.

mapfi · August 6, 2002, 06:34

hmmm, a P3 1 Ghz and a P4 1.6Ghz both with 512MB...

I hosted it on the P3 though, might be that

Immortal Wombat · August 6, 2002, 06:48

:greenwithenvy:

Martin Gühmann · August 6, 2002, 07:15

Quote:

Originally posted by mapfi
I'll try as soon as I can.
However, now all players know when a city is captured - is that really desirable? Well, more than the bug, though...

Actual I used the Abort slic function, so the message won't appear, I tested it and I didn't saw the message in the message box, only the code that it contains is executed. But for the resyncs maybe it will also help if you download the debugged slic files from the tournerment thread I posted there.

-Martin

mapfi · August 6, 2002, 07:37

@IW: well the P3 is mine, so I envy my friend too - and I think my bank won't allow me to by a new one till 2010 or so...

@Martin:
I thought you'd include the debugged files immeadetly in your mod, but in that case I will.

Martin Gühmann · August 6, 2002, 11:50

Quote:

Originally posted by mapfi
@Martin:
I thought you'd include the debugged files immeadetly in your mod, but in that case I will.

I found these bugs after the tournerment has been started, but obviously so far no one really needed these files, so this makes an upgrade less urgent, also this issure is only an MP issure. The most iportant thing of the tournerment game is that your aren't allowed to change the rhules only bug fixes, that means I have to postpone the next update of GoodMod until the tourny is closed. I already have some modifications of the govern.txt on my setup, and there have some others to be made.

I did not include the City Kill Option in the debugged slic file, because it has still to be tested at least I have to know if it will now work in multiplayer and therefore I need you. So if you have in the tourny game problems use the debugged slic files if not, you don't need them.

-Martin

mapfi · August 14, 2002, 02:48

Finally got around to test it. Sorry, Martin, no effect at all, still the same process of resync and slic not done. I'm guessing you're not really getting around the problem John made out. You're still executing the slic code from the first messagebox of the player, maybe it needs other players to also press a button to execute just that part of the code. But then, as I saw when testing, after the particular slic code is executed on one machine but not on the host, the resync immeadetly takes place, no time to react.

J Bytheway · August 14, 2002, 04:26

How about this - whenever a city is captured put it in an array, and then for the remainder of that turn (it is removed in an endturn handler) if that city is clicked on it is kept, if you never click on it it's bloodlusted.

Or, create (on some empty square adjacent to the city - if there isn't one hard luck) two units to represent the two actions. If one is moved into the city then do the appropriate thing, otherwise remove them at the end of the turn.

Other than that, there's also the solution suggested by mapfi above.

mapfi · August 14, 2002, 06:41

I like John's unit idea and I still think you shouldn't be allowed to enslave a population when you haven't discovered slavery yet.

Furthermore, so far only a human gets this kind of choice. Couldn't we also teach the ai to use it - like when he's reached the city limit do not capture but enslave?

Martin Gühmann · August 14, 2002, 13:14

Quote:

Originally posted by J Bytheway
How about this - whenever a city is captured put it in an array, and then for the remainder of that turn (it is removed in an endturn handler) if that city is clicked on it is kept, if you never click on it it's bloodlusted.

I already tried to move the code into a different handler, so I tested the enslavement option, all the units are created and the enlavement act does happen, but the on the map placed settlers aren't enslaved, although it is the same code taht should do the think like in the last version.

If nothing help no city capture option for MP.

-Martin