Dom 3 slow game (2 day turnaround)[closed]

Started by Yskonyn, March 04, 2013, 01:34:57 PM

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JasonPratt

Quote from: Nefaro on May 09, 2013, 11:49:37 PM
On another note.. has anyone noticed the details of my messed up Dominion values?

The damn thing gave me a negative 3 to Order (and some negative productivity too!).  I've never taken anything less than zero on it before.  So poor.  >:(

Is that widespread over your whole dominion? Because if not, it's an effect of something else (maybe something to site hunt).
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
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Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Nefaro

Quote from: undercovergeek on May 10, 2013, 04:55:18 AM
wow - you wait 2 weeks for a turn and it turns out to be really s***!!!

by design or coincidence Ermor took a province, for some goodam reason my undefeated, uncrushable Hydras decided to flee the battlefield in the next province over and the one Ermor just took was there retreat - all gone, all dead - arse!!!!

i have more, dont get too excited - its the mechanics of the retreat im puzzled by

Oga - just patrolling, just patrolling

I'm pulling for you, in this struggle, but right now all I can send is hugs and well-wishing.

Nefaro

#767
Quote from: JasonPratt on May 10, 2013, 07:34:33 AM
Quote from: Nefaro on May 09, 2013, 11:49:37 PM
On another note.. has anyone noticed the details of my messed up Dominion values?

The damn thing gave me a negative 3 to Order (and some negative productivity too!).  I've never taken anything less than zero on it before.  So poor.  >:(

Is that widespread over your whole dominion? Because if not, it's an effect of something else (maybe something to site hunt).

Yes, it's everwhere in my dominion.

Evidentally when I kept adjusting my Pretender's stats back & forth, the file caught the bug and hit me with altered Dominion values when I saved it.  There's no way I took the -18% income craziness (plus lowered resources!) but it's certainly happened.

The only reason I'm not completely outmatched is from getting off my global enchant early so I have some extra fodder to add to my armies.   >:(  I actually figured that if I didn't move on someone else's territory early, I'd be easily done in due to my nerfed income & resources.

Huw the Poo

Join the club, Nef.  When this game's done I'm going to want to be LA Ermor again, only without making the stupid mistake I made this time.

undercovergeek

Because 200 strong ghoul armies just aren't enough?!

parone

i don't want to sound like i know everything(anything?) but guys, don't feel bad about making mistakes.  i've probably played more than anyone here, and i still make tons of em.  most of them stem from doing stuff too fast, or not understanding the ramifications of certain decisions.  and that's why you play in these games-to get better.

try not to let it mess with your fun.  we have a good group of folks here(all try to get their turns in, respectfull of one another, good admin, etc) and that is rare.

plus, if you mess up and know you have a hole in your empire, there are almost always ways to dampen its effects.  Nef, carrion woods is a great counter to low cash/production.  i must ask, how many design points did you have left when you made your pretender?  cus if it wasn't a lot(more than 5) that means you got some trade off for poor scales(better magic?  higher dominion?)

Huw, i know what your design flaw is, and i know your plan to counter it(cus you more or less told me)  and i know it has a good chance to work. 

well now, that's enough pontificating and pep talking.  now lets see if i can get my own affairs in some semblance of order!

Nefaro

Quote from: parone on May 10, 2013, 09:52:31 PM

Nef, carrion woods is a great counter to low cash/production.  i must ask, how many design points did you have left when you made your pretender?  cus if it wasn't a lot(more than 5) that means you got some trade off for poor scales(better magic?  higher dominion?)

The thing is.. they're not the scales I chose for my pretender.  I'm being told it's a known bug that occasionally happens when you save a Pretender file in which you've adjusted a lot of values up & down.  It evidentally struck on my first multi-player pretender and the bug's known trigger completely makes sense since I played with the Pretender values quite a bit before saving and sending it in.

No worries.. lesson learned.  I didn't know such a bug was possible in the Pretender Creator so next time I'll find the values I want, exit the creator, and re-start with a fresh template to avoid it happening again.  Hopefully others here keep this in mind for the future, too.   I'm playing through despite the handicap..  should be interesting to see how this situation turns out.  ;D

Huw the Poo

Thanks Parone!  Yeah I am having fun despite the handicap, and if nothing else, it will be interesting to see how well I can do.  I'm sure I'll learn a lot in advance of the next game where I hopefully won't mess it up! :)

Calahan

#773
Quote from: Nefaro on May 10, 2013, 10:07:31 PMThe thing is.. they're not the scales I chose for my pretender.  I'm being told it's a known bug that occasionally happens when you save a Pretender file in which you've adjusted a lot of values up & down.
Hi there

Can you please describe the bug you are refering to here. I know about most of the currently existing bugs in the game (I'm one of the moderators of the official Dominions3 forum), but I can't recall hearing of that bug before (where did you hear it from. Do you have a link to the source?). And as far as is known all bugs relating to scales weirdnesss were reported and fixed many many patches ago. So are you sure reports of such bugs are not relating to previous issues that have since been fixed? (and an odd question, but did you use the most recent version of the game to create your Pretender with? I assume one made with an older version would be rejected by the llamaserver, but then I'm not 100% sure that would be the case, as the issue has never come up before AFAIK)

Although this is not to say there might still be an unreported/unzapped bug there somewhere relating to scales, but unless it can be reproduced in some way, then chances of finding and fixing it are almost zero. But to be honest I have not heard of any comments relating to scale weirdness for quite a long time (back to 2007 perhaps), but if there is a bug there it would be useful to understand it further in order to try and find it and fix it.

Do you by chance still have the pretender file available that you sent to the llamaserver? (please check your newlords folder). And do your current scales and Pretender chassis and paths add up to a total that is near the design points limit? ie. You get 350 design points. So if you re-create your current scales and Pretender as they appear in the game (don't forget to factor in  awake/dormant etc), and using the mod(s) (if any) the game is using, then how many design points are you left with?

If you want to PM me the details etc. so as to not give anything away in the thread then please feel free to do that. But it would be good to ID this bug if it exists, and quash any rumours of this bug if it doesn't exist. Since sometimes false rumours of bugs can be just as harmful as the bugs themselves.

Calahan

#774
Sorry, double post (can a moderator please delete. Thanks)

parone

LOL.  uh oh Nef.  big daddy callahan is on the case.  one thing is for sure-if you give him what he wants, you will get not only an answer, but an accurate one(an important differentiation, as answers on dom forums are common, but accurate answers are less so)

JasonPratt

All hail Calahan!

As I noted back when I mentioned this myself, I've never seen confirmation that the scales bug is still in effect, so I treat it sort of like an urban legend, BUT I have heard a significant amount of secondhand testimony from people who thought their pretenders had been miffed after creation.

I know sometimes this happens because someone accidentally creates their pretender without a stat-affecting mod actually activated -- this happened to me a month or so back, the mod was installed but I hadn't enabled it yet -- but everyone here was strongly warned about that (thanks to my own example in a previous game) and seemed to understand and take account of it.


Are there any tools for looking at a new pretender's save file, so we can check in the future before submission to make sure the pretender has the stats we're after?
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Ogaburan

Just saw this now!

Quote from: undercovergeek on May 10, 2013, 04:55:18 AM
.... my undefeated, uncrushable Hydras decided to flee the battlefield in the next province over and the one Ermor just took was there retreat - all gone, all dead - arse!!!!

"Quintili Vare, hydræ redde!"
- Emperor UndercoverGeek was rumored to be shouting, following the Isen Hills battle.

Calahan

#778
Quote from: JasonPratt on May 11, 2013, 09:14:16 AM
As I noted back when I mentioned this myself, I've never seen confirmation that the scales bug is still in effect, so I treat it sort of like an urban legend, BUT I have heard a significant amount of secondhand testimony from people who thought their pretenders had been miffed after creation.

I believe there was a scales bug that existed in Dom2, and I know one existed in the very early versions of Dom3. But AFAIK it did not manifest itself like is being described here, as it was not related to Pretender creation at all AFAIK. Here is a link to the relevant entry on the scales bug in the bug thread. (green text denotes it has been fixed. The entry in red text is associated to a memory flushing error that only occurs in SP games AFAIK)

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=503334&postcount=8

There are a lot of rumours and urban legends regarding several Dominions3 bugs, but many of those are now either long out of date (as they were fixed ages ago) or are, and always were, simply wrong because they never existed to begin with.

A huge part of this rumour and urban legend problem has been caused by the very early months of Dom3's life having no real bug reporting protocol in place. So players often just reported anything they didn't understand, or any user errors they made, as a bug. And then never got either a confirmation or rejection from someone "in the know" regarding whether it was a bug or not. And then all it takes if for someone to read "X is bugged" on a random forum thread, pass it onto another player, and hey presto a new rumour is born. This issue started to get resolved after Edi was appointed to take charge and maintain a proper bug list, but sadly this was not before many cats had been released from many bags. Leading to all the false rumours and urban legends people hear about the game, and the bugs it supposedly contains.


As I said though there might be a bug here that has gone un-reported for all these years (and/or slipped through the net as it was thought all scales bugs were fixed long ago), but if someone does believe they have further info on the possibility of a scales bug (or indeed any bug), and not just secondhand rumours about it, then myself, Edi, and indeed Illwinter would very much like to hear about it so that the cause can hopefully be isolated and fixed in the next patch. But it's never a good idea to blindly pass on information contained in secondhand rumours without first checking things out from a reliable information source. Which can easily be done by seeking confirmation on the official Desura forum, where someone "in the know" will hopefully be able to give you a reliable answer as to whether something is a known bug or not (or can check it out if it is unknown).

But please don't propergate rumours of bugs based on old and/or secondhand data, as that really isn't doing anyone any favours. Least of all the image and reputation of Dominions3. As it just gives people the impression that Dominions3 is a bug laden game, and then players often start seeing phantom bugs that don't exist because they've been led to believe the game has lots of bugs. Which makes some players think anything they can't explain must be a bug simply because they can't explain it ("the game is full of bugs, so 'this' is obviously just another one"). There are a few bugs left in the game, mainly because it is proving hard to find the exact cause of them, but the problem is nowhere near as bad as rumours tend to make out. But reports of genuine bugs will always be investigated, but rumours about bugs more often than not turn out to be just that. Rumours.

Dominions3 has been plagued for years with huge amounts of mis-information being spread around the various forum communities, regarding both game bugs and game mechaincs. So I hope the Grogheads community will be helping towards quashing the spread of such mis-information :) and not become yet another source of it :(

And like I said, if anyone is unsure of anything, be it bugs, game mechanics, or whatever, then all you have to do is ask about it on the official Desura forum to (hopefully) get a confirmed answer (and not just hear unconfirmed rumours).

Official Dominions3 forum on Desura: http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-3-the-awakening/forum

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 11, 2013, 09:14:16 AMAre there any tools for looking at a new pretender's save file, so we can check in the future before submission to make sure the pretender has the stats we're after?

Yes and no. There is no official tool, but there is an unofficial util called "catgod" that can give you a no-frills look at what Pretender lurks inside of a Pretender file (or newlords folder to be more precise, as that is what it scans for valid Pretender files). Here are the links for catgod:

Download link: http://www.omskivar.org/evil/dom3/catgod.html
Link to Discussion thread: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=34716

But generally the best way to check is to just start a SP game with the nation in question, and then load the Pretender from the design screen. If it doesn't match what you created then re-make it carefully and check it again. If it still doesn't match then please report it as a bug so that it can be investigated

And if you want to check what Pretender you sent to the llamaserver then you need to look through the sent box of your email client and find the email your sent to Pretenders[at]llamaserver.net for the game in question. Then download the attachement and place it in your newlords folder, then either use catgod or a SP game to check it out. (if you no longer have the email you sent to the llamaserver, then there is not a lot you can do other than contacting llamabeast and asking him to retrieve your Pretender file from his server. But he's a very busy guy, so please appreciate that he's not exactly going to be happy and willing to go fishing for your Pretender every time you ask for it)

Huw the Poo

Quote from: Calahan on May 11, 2013, 10:41:24 AM
But please don't propergate rumours of bugs based on old and/or secondhand data, as that really isn't doing anyone any favours.

I really don't see that happening here.  If you've been lurking a while and following these threads, what you'll have seen is a few of us being puzzled at how our pretenders turned out once a game had started, and others of us suggesting that there might be a bug with pretender creation.  None of us have been able to pin down anything concrete yet, we're simply advising each other that a bug might exist, and suggesting a possible workaround.

Also, since you're here and you seem to be connected in some way with the game, may I ask whether Illwinter is happy to hear suggestions for Dom3?  Or has all development now ceased on the game?