Roman Civil War ToT PBEM playtest - Page 6

Kull · May 12, 2003, 23:44

"From the Golden Halls of Ecbatana - A Warning to Crassus":

Be silent, Roman cur. It is not for the likes of you to lecture the friends of Orodes. Oh, and here's a bag of heads to assist you in passing the time; archers, infantry, cavalrymen - and somewhere in there you'll find that of your former General of the Euphrates. It will undoubtedly please Crassus to learn that his old friend wept like a woman prior to receiving the death he so richly deserved!

MagyarCrusader · May 13, 2003, 17:11

Cruel fortune for Vercingetorix that Legio's garrison could not perform as well as Orodes legions. Going against the advice of his generals, Pompey would like to offer the people of Gaul one last chance at reconciliation. Promptly disband all military personel from the presence of Brigantium or else Gaul will face a mighty host from a united and blood thirsty Iberia.

Kull · May 14, 2003, 04:39

It would seem that hearing problems must be added to the long list of ills afflicting that pox-ridden flea from Iberia, Pomposity Maximosity. So let Vercingtorix speak loudly and in terms that even one so ill-begotten can clearly understand:

"Thy word o'Pompey, has been proven by thy actions to contain as much substance and worth as a blast of gas from the buttocks. Take thy pathetic threats and begone with ye!"

MagyarCrusader · May 14, 2003, 15:40

!!!

Civfan · May 15, 2003, 18:04

lol

techumseh · May 16, 2003, 20:58

Only a Gaul would have the gall! How wude!

To add to the levity of the Gaulish "Council of Petty Chieftans", here are the heads of two bands of horsemen which strayed too close to the camp of Mighty Caesar.

techumseh · May 16, 2003, 20:59

Here is the save.

The ANZAC · May 17, 2003, 10:10

Still fair sailing for all on Mare Nostrum

Civfan · May 17, 2003, 23:22

the turn

Kull · May 18, 2003, 09:51

There's a problem here:

After starting up the August Save, I made the rounds of my cities - and noticed something unusual. Most of them were building things I didn't want. Puzzled, I opened up my July save and wrote down a complete list of everything in my build queues, and then made a detailed comparison with the August File:

Of my 12 remaining cities, NINE were building different units.

Here's another odd thing. In August, two cities were going to complete a pair of expensive units. But after starting up the game, I only received notification that one had been built. When I looked in the city that was building the other, it contained a cheap archer unit instead! Worse - there wasn't ANY message indicating that this archer had been built. It just appeared magically, and my accrued sheilds were gone.

I definitely used "Control-N" (since it's impossible to move any of the fortified units from the July Save), so there certainly wasn't an "opening" for the AI to take control of the Gallic Civ. And in every turn to date, not once have my build queues changed. In addition, many of my cities are "working" terrain the AI would never select - and all those "human-choice" selections are intact between the July and August saves.

It's hard for me to believe that any of the human players would have cheated open the game and changed these queues - you'd have to be an idiot to do something so obvious - and to so little purpose. But some sort of human intervention has occurred, and here's why I know:

As a test, I downloaded the Egypt July Save, let it play through to August, and examined the Gallic Build queues. Result: No change.

I had played Parthia for Fairline, so I ran the same test on that file, with the same result: All was well in Gaul.

The next file was that of Pompey. And this is the file that changed the Build Queues in Gaul.

Tecumseh: This is your PBEM, so it's your call as to what happens next. But Gaul will not play until an explanation is forthcoming.

Civfan · May 18, 2003, 11:57

your referring to your civ gaul this has happend too?

There is a problem with the Civ2 engine and a program out their to fix this problem with city queries being changed by the Civ2 engine.

I've experienced this many times in my history pbem and ancient history game.

If someone remembers the name, dont be shy just post it here.

basically your suppost to save each turn with this program and then on your next turn load this program. It saves all the city productions and loads them from the previous turn.

thats what this sounds like

techumseh · May 18, 2003, 13:40

I've been back through the various posts, and it doesn't seem that the AI has had a chance to play a turn for any of the civs. This is the most common cause of this sort of thing, and I've seen it happen even if it plays a turn for an entirely different civ. Still, there might be a non-human explantion as Civfan says.

I indicated on an earlier thread that I would like to see PBEM games randomly audited. Perhaps we should do that now. What do people think?

MagyarCrusader · May 18, 2003, 14:17

Well, thanks for not coming right out and accusing me, but the problem is the Civ2 enginge. Civfan gave us the jist of it, and the program is called "LazyCiv" and its written by Xin Yu. Speaking from personal experience on the short end of the stick, the bug is trigged when a city is conquered. This doesn't happen all the time for everyone player, but only for certain players everytime they lose a city their queues will be changed. Xin Yu's LazyCiv is a god-send to PBEMers. However, I don't think it works with ToT. This is my first ToT pbem and IIRC, I tried it out on my first turn and it didn't work. I then proceeded to post on April 16:

Quote:

Question: do I need to use Lazy Civ for ToT?

And nobody took time to respond.

Great. I was hoping that ToT would be different from MGE and this bug wouldn't present itself. Now we have a serious problem on our hands and we won't be able to fix it without going back several turns and replaying. Possibly, we could put the game on hiatus and try to get LazyCiv to work with ToT, or we can beseech XinYu to make another version. If successful, I'd suggest letting Kull "cheat" for this turn to build the units his queue lost and continue on. I fully understand Kull's plight because I've been jerked by the bug in the past, so if lazyciv won't work for us then this game should be terminated and all future ToT PBEMs avoided.

MagyarCrusader · May 18, 2003, 14:21

Furthermore, I wish that this does not affect my reputation as a reputable PBEMer. If you guys can fix out the bug and want to continue on without me, I'll drop without any objections.

Kull · May 18, 2003, 16:55

Quote:

Originally posted by MagyarCrusader
Furthermore, I wish that this does not affect my reputation as a reputable PBEMer. If you guys can fix out the bug and want to continue on without me, I'll drop without any objections.

Perish the thought! Seriously, I'm pretty new at PBEM, and this is my first encounter with this bug. It seemed inconceivable that anyone would deliberately change another player's build queue - but the fact was that something happened during your turn. I felt obligated to point that out, but certainly could have done so more diplomatically. My apologies on that account.

I have to agree with MC on his other point. If there isn't a version of Lacyciv for ToT and everytime you lose a city the AI is going to mess with your builds - that's a pretty serious bug. For now, I'll just suck it up and move on (with "suck" being the operative word!)

MagyarCrusader · May 18, 2003, 18:51

Hold on Kull, don't proceed with your turn yet. I'm going to start a thread asking about lazyciv for ToT. Every time you lose a city your queues will be muddled. I know you are a good player and won't lose that many cities under normal circumstances, but I plan on taking Brigantium in a turn or two which will cripple your production again. It could be catastrophic to lose multiple turns of production because it is a self perpetuating cycle. Everytime you lose a city, it makes it harder to survive (because of lost production) which makes it easier for others to conquer your cities and so forth.

Kull · May 19, 2003, 00:25

Well, there's no hurry now. I'm away on business until Friday, so hopefully you'll luck out on the LacyCiv front before then!

Civfan · May 25, 2003, 10:31

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=86485

seems the game can get going. cool

The ANZAC · May 25, 2003, 10:32

It seems a possible working version of LazyCivToT came out. I guess we should check and see if it works.

The ANZAC · May 25, 2003, 10:34

LOL, got that one in right before me

Kull · May 25, 2003, 11:42

It would seem that the best test would be for MC to replay the turn in which he conquered Legio. Don't try to replicate all the results of the turn - just follow Angelo's instructions, capture the city, save, and post the result. I can then download the test game and confirm whether or not LazyCSPL works. Assuming it does - and no one objects - MC can perform a full replication replay (ie ensure all results occur as in his first turn) and the rest of us can do likewise. And from now on, every person who plans to capture a city during their, MUST utilize LazyCSPL.

Sound like a plan?

The ANZAC · May 25, 2003, 12:30

sounds fine by me

MagyarCrusader · May 25, 2003, 14:41

Please work!

techumseh · May 25, 2003, 15:31

Do we all need to download this for it to work?

MagyarCrusader · May 25, 2003, 17:12

You'll need to download lazyciv.

Kull · May 26, 2003, 01:50

Quote:

Originally posted by MagyarCrusader
Please work!

It works!!! Angelo has done it again!!!

So - if MC, Tech, ANZAC, and Civfan are willing to replay their last turns, we can move forward as happier campers.

In partial answer to Techumseh, yes, everyone should download a copy of LazyCSPL....BUT, they don't have to run it every turn. If my understanding is correct, only those players who anticipate conquering an enemy city need to run the program - both before AND after their turn.

The ANZAC · May 26, 2003, 10:50

yes, I didn't conquer any cities during my last turn so no need for me to replay it I guess.

MagyarCrusader · May 31, 2003, 16:13

Am I supposed to take my turn again, or is it someone else first? Just say the word and its done.

Kull · May 31, 2003, 16:36

Yes - feel free to "multi-play" until you achieve the same results....same is true for the others.

Civfan · May 31, 2003, 18:25

i'm willing to play my last turn, dont mind the pratice of capturing Parthian cities