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

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

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Calahan

Quote from: parone on May 12, 2013, 07:31:47 AM
and phobos, yeah, i hear you on the 'dominions community looks bad' thing.

you have to understand, though, that while callahan is pretty abrasive, he is often VERY helpfull.  that said, i think he was kinda looking to take Nef to task for a fake 'bug alert'
I apologise if I have offended anyone, or came across too harshly regarding the "spreading bug rumours" thing.

But I am trying my best (and likely failing) to emphasise to you guys that rumours of non-existant bugs do harm the image of Dominions, and often confuses players far more than it helps them. So I'm not saying such things just to troll or rant or whatever, and  I am only asking that people seek clarification and confirmation of bugs from a reliable source instead of talking about rumours over the possibility that something might be bugged. As I said above, if this is askng too much then I apologise.

Calahan

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 11, 2013, 11:46:35 AM
Loading a pretender into a new sp game is not always helpful, as sometimes the pretender is locked, and local starting conditions may affect scales in the first region (although I suppose a new sp game could be created where each of two sides starts with a bunch of regions, so as to average out localized effects).

On the first turn your scales will always match those of your Pretender design, as no external forces have had any chance to affect them. It does not matter if the Pretender is awake, dormant or imprisoned. There are no pre-game random events to affect scales, and even if there were magic sites in the province that affected the scales (which there wouldn't be unless the map maker put them there, or they are one of that nations starting sites. As there are never any hidden sites at your capital), the effect of these scale altering sites wouldn't apply until turn2. So loading up a Pretender in a SP game is the prefect way to check the scales (and why I mentioned it).

You can test this for yourself by starting a SP game as MA Abysia and selecting Cold3, Their capital site generates Heat, but you still start on turn1 with Cold3 scales, and regardless of that Heat generating site.

If anyone can show evidence to the contrary then please do so because that would indeed be a VERY major bug. (but there have been no reports of that happening in 5+ years that I know of)

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 11, 2013, 11:46:35 AMStarting dominion, if I recall correctly, doesn't always immediately match the dominion strength of the pretender either

Every nation starts the game with only 1 candle in their captial, and regardless of dominion strength chosen. This is 100% intentional and WAD.

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 11, 2013, 11:46:35 AMand if someone took no scales but only dominion (as for example I did in this game) clicking the dominion candles does not bring up the scale/dominion sheet -- only clicking a scale marker does that.

(I'm surprised this has not been fixed already, btw. It isn't a bug exactly, but it's a design oversight that ought to be simple to amend.)

IIRC this has been brought up before, although can't recall Illwinter giving any reply on it. I will mention it to them again though in case they have forgotten about it (although my guess is they will say that the scales breakdown screen is there to show what affect each scale in the province is having. But if there are no scales at all, then there is nothing to breakdown and so nothing to display, other than the dominion value, which can be seen from the map. That's just my guess at their likely anwser though, so please don't quote that as being from Illiwinter)

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 11, 2013, 11:46:35 AM
(It doesn't help that the game saves new pretenders according to a generic criteria name -- designers have to manually keep track of which pretender they're testing out after saving.)

Yes, that is annoying, but if I understand correctly that is how the file structure has always worked, and so it won't be changing at all now. As such players just have to be aware of how Pretenders are saved, the file structure used, and work around it (which is very far from ideal, but then Dom3 has never been famous for its great UI)

undercovergeek

Quote from: Calahan on May 15, 2013, 05:19:04 AM

I wouldn't say Iliwnter won't listen to suggestions for Dom3, but the chances of there being any real changes to the game 6+ years after release is almost infinitely small. But that doesn't mean people can't make suggestions, and if there are any that can be implemented easily, then it might get done even at this late stage (but simple as in add a new hotkey, and not in changing how the UI works, or casting AI works, or requesting more script slots etc etc. As anythng along these lines is almost certainly not going to happen now, even if they are the most frequently requested changes)

surely a man of your vast means and wealth can buy the rights for '4'  :P

parone

see folks!  told you my old buddy 'dirty harry' can be uber-helpful!

parone

and Vlam-good game.  at least you nailed me good one more time before bowing out!

Calahan

#800
Quote from: Nefaro on May 13, 2013, 11:06:16 PMI had been saving the last couple Pretenders for this nation under the same name, so they were overwriting every time I worked up a new one. 

This might be the cause of your problem (although in the following I assume that "same name" means same Pretender name, not same file name. Ignore if that's not the case). The name you give to your Pretender has no bearing on the file structure the Pretender is saved under. Pretender save files use a "AGE_NATION_INTEGER.2h" naming structure. The first Pretender you save for a nation gets given the interger 0, the second one for that nation 1, third one 2 and so on.

So for example if you created and saved a new Pretender called "Bob" for EA Caleum, and then create another Pretender for EA Caelum called "Bob", it does not overwrite the previous Pretender save file at all, as a new Pretender save file is created every time. So in the newlords folder for those two Pretenders all you will see is.

early_caelum_0.2h
early_caelum_1.2h

And if you start a new SP game and load a Pretnder for EA Caelum, then you will see the following choice of Pretenders to load

Bob
Bob

As I said in my reply above to Jason. Illwinter has not chosen a great way of handling the Pretender file structure, but this is how it works and it's almost certainly not going to change now. So all players can do is understand how the file structure works, and make sure to work around it to avoid sending in the wrong Pretender.


Also I will say that the following two causes have often been seen by both new and old players, in relation to ending up with the wrong Pretender.

1 - They simply send the wrong one into the server. Which can easily happen if you hae created several Pretenders for the same nation and didn't clean out your newlords folder to leave only the one you intended to send in.

2 - Something I've done myself on two occasions. You design and save a Pretender, then your load it up in a SP game to test it. After testing you wonder if it would work better by swapping 1 tick of scale X for 1 tick of scale Y, but then instead of going to the Pretender creation screen to make those changes and save a new Pretender. You instead start a new SP game, make the changes there, and then after testing go "Yes, that worked better" and then send the Pretender file in from the newlords folder. But forgetting that you didn't actually save the changes to a new Pretender file with those most recent changes applied, and what you sent in was the design you made before swapping 1 tick of scale X for 1 tick of scale Y.

And both the above, over the years, have led players to say "hey my Pretender doesn't match my design as the scales are wrong. Is this a bug or something? As I'm sure I didn't send in this Pretender" And again, hey presto, a rumour is born, which then spreads if left un-corrected/un-addressed. Both of these have been seen quite often over the years, both are innocent mistakes that can easily be made by anyone, new or experienced, and both are a highly plausible chain of events that can lead to a player sending in the wrong Pretender. And again, both of which can quite easily result in rumours of the above two being caused by bugs rather than the player oversight that it is. (which is what I'm fairly certain has happened over the years, and such incidents can likely be traced back to being the source of the rumours)

But the acid test to such bugs is to always re-create the in-game Pretender. As if the left over points are minimum, then it's highly unlikely to be a bug. As if there was a bug that, lets say randomly changed Order3 to Turmoil3 when you pressed save (which is something along the lines of what has been suggested in this thread), then that would mean you would have 240+ design points spare when you re-created that Pretender. If that is/was the case then yes, that is looking very buggy. But if not, then not only does the bug swap Order3 for Turmoil3, but it is also neatly and conveniently distributes those 240+ design points into other scales. It's at this point the bug really does become a lot more implausible, as bugs rarely manifest themselves in that manner, as they don't "take steps to conveniently hide the most obvious thing a player can check to confirm whether it is a bug or not". (at least I can't recall any Dom3 bug working in such a way before)

Calahan

Quote from: undercovergeek on May 15, 2013, 05:43:53 AMsurely a man of your vast means and wealth can buy the rights for '4'  :P
Lol, even if I had the means I have no idea if Illwinter would sell the rights (although I guess a market economy says everything has a price.)

JasonPratt

#802
Quote from: Calahan on May 15, 2013, 05:37:51 AM
Quote from: JasonPratt on May 11, 2013, 11:46:35 AM
Loading a pretender into a new sp game is not always helpful, as sometimes the pretender is locked, and local starting conditions may affect scales in the first region (although I suppose a new sp game could be created where each of two sides starts with a bunch of regions, so as to average out localized effects).

On the first turn your scales will always match those of your Pretender design, as no external forces have had any chance to affect them.

I didn't know that, thanks!

On the other hand, if scales have been taken does the initial scale screen confirm the proper base dominion strength, or does it only mirror the initial one candle of dominion spread effect going into turn 1?

Also, while I already knew that asleep or imprisoned pretenders still generate dom and scale effects, there still isn't any way to load such pretenders on the first turn in a new game to ensure their magic picks are intact.

This is why it would be nice not to have to workaround trying to confirm by secondhand whether the game is keeping pretender stats correct (or even whether a particular saved pretender is WhoeverWithWhateverStats). Which is why I asked for (and you gave an example of) a thirdparty program to check these things. For which I am very grateful!

But having it designed into the game would be better. I can't think of another game where I have to make educated guesses from the outset whether I'm really using the character I generated and/or whether the game has properly imported the stats. Be that as it may.

(Edited to delete unhelpful griping.)
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!

JasonPratt

#803
Quote from: Calahan on May 15, 2013, 06:01:41 AM
And both the above, over the years, have led players to say "hey my Pretender doesn't match my design as the scales are wrong. Is this a bug or something? As I'm sure I didn't send in this Pretender" And again, hey presto, a rumour is born, which then spreads if left un-corrected/un-addressed. Both of these have been seen quite often over the years, both are innocent mistakes that can easily be made by anyone, new or experienced, and both are a highly plausible chain of events that can lead to a player sending in the wrong Pretender. And again, both of which can quite easily result in rumours of the above two being caused by bugs rather than the player oversight that it is. (which is what I'm fairly certain has happened over the years, and such incidents can likely be traced back to being the source of the rumours)

When actually the problem isn't bugs, but poor game design (in this regard).

The difference being that the designers already know the game design is intended to be this way (unlike a bug) and have no intention of doing anything about it now.  ::)

Ironically, suspecting there's a bug in the game gives credit to the designers, compared to the alternative. ;)

Quote from: Calahan on May 15, 2013, 06:01:41 AM
But the acid test to such bugs is to always re-create the in-game Pretender. As if the left over points are minimum, then it's highly unlikely to be a bug. As if there was a bug that, lets say randomly changed Order3 to Turmoil3 when you pressed save (which is something along the lines of what has been suggested in this thread), then that would mean you would have 240+ design points spare when you re-created that Pretender.

On the other hand, by the same token your own example doesn't fit the actual situation either, because Nefaro wasn't complaining that his pretender was slightly off in a way that he might have forgotten he tried (since the difference is slight) by creating a new pretender but forgetting to save it.

Instead: "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." His scales are apparently something that runs so far against his design intention for the pretender that he wouldn't have tried testing them out on a pretender at all, much less on one he would have then saved for later possible use. (It's much easier to accidentally quit without saving a pretender than to accidentally save an unwanted pretender with a pretender name and extra steps etc.)

It's things like this which lead us to suspect a bug: the situation is not something that can be easily explained by user oversight even combined with a poorly designed UI. Granted as you say, a bug wouldn't in itself accidentally tidy up the leftover points.


What does demonstrably try to tidy up leftover points however is the CBM, when a pretender chassis is loaded into it which has differences between CBM and vanilla (not all do) and when the pretender was created in vanilla, and when the pretender's picks in vanilla conflict with base chassis stats in such a way that the result exceeds the point total allowance for pretender design. The CBM (or possibly Llamaserver code?) was intentionally designed to try to 'fix' the problem of resolving between vanilla designed pretenders and mods where pretender chassis stats create conflicts with vanilla chassis stats.

Nefaro feels pretty sure he accounted for that when designing his pretender, but there's no way to easily check. Perhaps you could activate and deactivate the CBM mod and re-design your picks each way to see what kind of difference there is?--have you tried that already Nef?

This is how I discovered I must not have enabled the CBM mod before designing my pretender for the recent EA game; soon after I tried to re-design it knowing for sure CBM was enabled I saw that the mod makes that chassis take an Earth pick which can't be gotten rid of; thus since I took nothing in Earth originally this was like trying to spend more points on my pretender than was allowed. The mod (and/or Llama?) tried to fix it by shuffling my picks around in ways that would allow the CMB base chassis, and the game continued. But since my pretender was imprisoned I had even less way of directly suspecting anything had happened except for goofy scales that I knew I had not picked because I would never pick scales like that.

The problem with this theory is that (as what happened with me) the CBM and/or Llama would have sent a message to all players (including Nefaro) that Nef had tried to play with an illegal pretender. Which definitely did not happen--we all had just seen it happen with me so we were on the watch for the same thing happening here.


Still, what Nefaro is experiencing is very qualitatively similar to what happened with me.

The expectation, then, is that there's a bug somewhere connected to code originally intended to fix an illegal pretender, and this is what's misbehaving. Does vanilla Dom3 have that kind of code?--if not, the CBM designers have evidence (although not deductively certain evidence) reasonably suggesting the bug is with CBM not vanilla Dom3. If Dom3 has that kind of code, the bug might be there.

Alternately, the CBM designers may have inadvertently recreated the Dom2 scale bug, fixed already in Dom3 vanilla.

(Or if it's Llamaserver doing the illegal pretender fix not CBM, that would be where to look for the problem.)

There are reasonably good reasons to check on this: the theories fit the evident facts much better than player oversight (even due to poorly designed UI), and also much better than the original Dom2 scales bug being still around somehow (since the proximate causes for the effects would be different).
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!

Calahan

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 15, 2013, 10:07:45 AMOn the other hand, if scales have been taken does the initial scale screen confirm the proper base dominion strength, or does it only mirror the initial one candle of dominion spread effect going into turn 1?

It only mirrors the 1 candle. The scales breakdown screen gives the player information relating to the scales and dominion level in that particular province. It does not show what scales or dominion score you selected for your Pretender design apart from on the very first turn when the scales do match your Pretender design, because nothing could have affected the scales by that stage. The base dominion strength is not displayed in the scales breakdown screen because it would be misleading and confusing to the player to do that, because that is not what the dominion value in the scales breakdown screen represents.

On the first turn you can find out your starting dominion level by either going to the recruitment screen and seeing what your Holy recruitment limit is (this will match your starting dominion level), or click on the temple icon and see what your home province number is. If you have built lots of temples, then to find your starting dominion level you have to subtract "number of temples/5" (rounded down) from your home province score. So for example if your home province score is 8, and you have 13 temples, then 13/5 = 2.6, so rounded down to 2, gives starting dominion score of 8-2 = 6.

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 15, 2013, 10:07:45 AM
Also, while I already knew that asleep or imprisoned pretenders still generate dom and scale effects, there still isn't any way to load such pretenders on the first turn in a new game to ensure their magic picks are intact.

The initial bug I responded to only mentioned there being a problem with scales, not magic paths. Which is why I mentioned loading the Pretender in a SP game to check the scales. If you move the goalposts, and so need to check magic paths and pretender chassis as well, then loading the Pretender in a SP game isn't a 30 second job. Although if you start a 2 nation hotseat game, load the pretender and then repeatedly host until the Pretender wakes up, then you can also use this method to check chassis and magic paths (it just take a minute or two longer than it does to only check the scales).

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 15, 2013, 10:07:45 AMThis is why it would be nice not to have to workaround trying to confirm by secondhand whether the game is keeping pretender stats correct (or even whether a particular saved pretender is WhoeverWithWhateverStats). Which is why I asked for (and you gave an example of) a thirdparty program to check these things. For which I am very grateful!

But having it designed into the game would be better. I can't think of another game where I have to make educated guesses from the outset whether I'm really using the character I generated and/or whether the game has properly imported the stats. Be that as it may.

Yes it would be better not to have to use workarounds, and to be able to check Pretender designs easily from within the game program. But this issue is purely a "request for better UI", and so not really a productive avenue of discussion for me or anyone else to pursue, so I won't. (although others can do so if they wish)

Nefaro

#805
Quote from: Calahan on May 15, 2013, 06:01:41 AM
Quote from: Nefaro on May 13, 2013, 11:06:16 PMI had been saving the last couple Pretenders for this nation under the same name, so they were overwriting every time I worked up a new one. 

This might be the cause of your problem (although in the following I assume that "same name" means same Pretender name, not same file name. Ignore if that's not the case). The name you give to your Pretender has no bearing on the file structure the Pretender is saved under. Pretender save files use a "AGE_NATION_INTEGER.2h" naming structure. The first Pretender you save for a nation gets given the interger 0, the second one for that nation 1, third one 2 and so on.

So for example if you created and saved a new Pretender called "Bob" for EA Caleum, and then create another Pretender for EA Caelum called "Bob", it does not overwrite the previous Pretender save file at all, as a new Pretender save file is created every time. So in the newlords folder for those two Pretenders all you will see is.

early_caelum_0.2h
early_caelum_1.2h



Crap.

That may be what happened.  I did save a few differently valued Pretenders under the same given name.  So I must've sent in one of my oddballs. 

Good to know how this works.  I'll be more careful next time.

I'm also using CBM although I don't recall ever making a vanilla pretender and saving it before that.

Calahan

#806
Quote from: JasonPratt on May 15, 2013, 10:47:27 AMIronically, suspecting there's a bug in the game gives credit to the designers, compared to the alternative. ;)

Well if you want to view possible game bugs as a "credit", as opposed to saying it's just a "poor UI" (which is what it is), then ok. But Dominions 3 is already well known for having a poor UI, so saying "Dominions 3 has a poor UI" is correct, not news to anyone, and does no further harm to the image of Dominions 3 (being already tarnished as it has been for years with the "has poor UI" brush, and deservedely so). But saying "Dominions 3 possibly has lots of bugs (but they are a credit to the designers, as better to have possible bugs than poor UI design)" is not correct IMO, and for me personally portrays the game in a far worse light than saying it has a poor UI does.

But this is just personal opinion, and as such there is no value in discussing this point further.

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 15, 2013, 10:47:27 AM
What does demonstrably try to tidy up leftover points however is the CBM, when a pretender chassis is loaded into it which has differences between CBM and vanilla (not all do) and when the pretender was created in vanilla, and when the pretender's picks in vanilla conflict with base chassis stats in such a way that the result exceeds the point total allowance for pretender design. The CBM (or possibly Llamaserver code?) was intentionally designed to try to 'fix' the problem of resolving between vanilla designed pretenders and mods where pretender chassis stats create conflicts with vanilla chassis stats.

Sigh:

Please can you understand there is no code or algorith in the Dominions 3 program, the llamaserver, or CBM which attempts to "fix" anything to do with Pretenders. I do not know where you are getting this impression from, but that is not how it works at all. I will explain how the Dominions 3 program checks for a valid Pretender so that you, and anyone else interested, can better understand how it works, and by doing so I hope clear up some misconceptions that you personally appear to have regarding this matter.


When a game is created, the Dominion 3 program checks whether or not each Pretender can be re-created according to the information contained within the Pretender file, and relating to the chassis, magic paths, scales, and dominion score. There is no information regarding the "left over design points" saved in the Pretender file (so there is nothing for the program to compare it to). Neither is there any information in the Pretender file relating to what, if any, mods were used to create the Pretender.

If the game is vanilla, then it will attempt to re-create the Pretenders based on the vanilla game chassis costs, starting paths, and new path costs. If a mod is being used, then the program will first apply any changes that mod makes to Pretenders, before attempting to re-create the Pretenders (using the same process).

If in attempting to re-create any Pretender according exacty to the information contained in the Pretender file, the game subsequently finds a Pretender to be invalid (usually by it ending up with negative design points remaining), then it will return a "nation X has cheated" in-game message on turn 1 of the game (please note this is an in-game message. The llamaserver does not have any automated function to send out such cheat messages. Nor does the llamaserver have any means what-so-ever to know about a nation that cheated, or detect if any Pretenders are invalid. All this is handled by the game).

Also please note the program does not attempt to fix anything regarding the Pretender design in order to make the Pretender valid, or to use up leftover points, or anything at all in that regard. Also please note that the llamaserver plays no part at all in the process of checking the Pretender. None. Zip. Zero. Nada.


Here are two tests you can run to demonstrate how the game checks for valid Pretenders (and show that the game doesn't attempt to "fix" anything)

Test 1 (part A)

- Enable CBM 1.94
- Find a nation that can select the Great Enchantress (which is just about any land nation). In CBM she costs 40 base points and comes with base path A1E1S1
- Select her Awake with Dom5, Order3, Prod2, and A1W1E1S1 paths. You should have 30 design points left over.
- Save the Pretender (give it a distinctive name)
- Return to main menu and de-activate CBM
- Start a new vanilla game with the nation you created the above Pretender for
- When the Pretender screen appears load the above Pretender and start the game
- You will notice that there is no cheat message
- Exit the game and go to the Pretender design screen and design the same Pretender as above but this time with vanilla
- You will notice that you have 5 design point spare.
- The cheat detection didn't trip because the game could re-create the Pretender exactly without exceeding the available number of design points. (as the only difference between the CBM and vanilla versions was that one had 30 points remaining, the other had 5, but both are valid)

Test 1 (Part B)

- Repeat all of the above but with the magic paths of A1W1E1S1D1
- You will notice that this time the cheat detection is tripped, and a cheeat message does appear on turn 1 because to design that Pretender in vanilla would result in -5 design points remaining. Therefore it is invalid. Therefore it triggers the cheat detection.
- Nothing is done by the game to "fix" the invalid Pretender
- (you will also notice you have a pathless Arch Mage instead of Great Enchantress. This is the punishment that Illwinter decided should befall any player who cheats when creating their Pretender)


Test 2

- Disable all mods
- Find a nation that has the Great Enchantress, and select it (so you are designing a vanilla Pretender)
- The design screen should show you have 295 design points left over, and your paths should be E1S1
- Don't make any changes, and just save the Pretender as is (again give it a distinctive name)
- Return to main menu and enable the CBM 1.94 mod
- Start a new CBM 1.94 SP game, select the nation you just created the above Pretender for, and load that Pretender.
- Note that there is no cheat message
- When the game starts check the magic paths on the Great Enchantress.
- Note that she has E1S1 paths.
- In CBM 1.94 the Great Enchantress has base paths of A1E1S1.
- Please note the game did not attempt to fix anything at all, and even though in CBM the Great Enchantress has A1E1S1 base paths, here she only has E1S1 base paths because that is what the information contained in the Pretender file said her paths should be. What the mod said they should be was ignored.


At no point in either of these two tests did the game, or does the game ever, attempt to "fix" anything. Nor does the llamaserver. Nor does CBM. Like I said, I do not know where you get the impression from that "anything fixes something", but it is simply not the case as far as I, or anyone else is aware.

Unless of course you can provide a SP game test like the above to support your "the game fixes Pretenders" theory. If you can then I for one would genuinely be very interested in seeing it, and so to I'd imagine would Illwinter, especially if it gets around the cheat detection somehow, as they would likely want to close that loop-hole asap. But of course only if it can be proven it can happen, not guessed at, and supported with facts not theory and guesswork.

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 15, 2013, 10:47:27 AMThis is how I discovered I must not have enabled the CBM mod before designing my pretender for the recent EA game; soon after I tried to re-design it knowing for sure CBM was enabled I saw that the mod makes that chassis take an Earth pick which can't be gotten rid of; thus since I took nothing in Earth originally this was like trying to spend more points on my pretender than was allowed. The mod (and/or Llama?) tried to fix it by shuffling my picks around in ways that would allow the CMB base chassis, and the game continued. But since my pretender was imprisoned I had even less way of directly suspecting anything had happened except for goofy scales that I knew I had not picked because I would never pick scales like that.

Neither the mod, nor the llamaserer, nor the game "shifted anything around". If you give specific details of your Pretender design then it is likely what you observed can be explained, and without anything being magically "fixed". But without more detail it is impossible to respond further. (and player error is likely a high possiblity, regardless of what you say or think you did or didn't do)

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 15, 2013, 10:47:27 AMThe problem with this theory is that (as what happened with me) the CBM and/or Llama would have sent a message to all players (including Nefaro) that Nef had tried to play with an illegal pretender. Which definitely did not happen

Explained in detail above. The game will only produce a cheat error on turn 1 for any nation it could not create a valid Pretender for (based on the information contained in the Pretender file).

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 15, 2013, 10:47:27 AMwe all had just seen it happen with me so we were on the watch for the same thing happening here.

If you give exact details of your Pretender design, and mods used, for your game you are referring to here, then it can be tested whether your Pretender is valid for the game (and mod) you are referring to. I suspect it is, or if not then the cheat detection should have tripped. (which would be a bug, but it would need to be confirmed as a bug with testing, not by simply the word of any player)

If you do not want to reveal your Pretender design on the thread then please PM it to me and arrange to send me the turn file from the game when your Pretender woke up so I can check for myself what your starting Pretender paths were. A recent turn won't be good enough as you might have empowered, which would corrupt base paths, which would obviously invalidate the test procedure. (So the only valid turn for testing will be the turn your Pretender woke up)

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 15, 2013, 10:47:27 AM
Still, what Nefaro is experiencing is very qualitatively similar to what happened with me.

The expectation, then, is that there's a bug somewhere connected to code originally intended to fix an illegal pretender, and this is what's misbehaving. Does vanilla Dom3 have that kind of code?--if not, the CBM designers have evidence (although not deductively certain evidence) reasonably suggesting the bug is with CBM not vanilla Dom3. If Dom3 has that kind of code, the bug might be there.

There is no code to "fix" an illegal Pretender. And CBM or any mods certainly have no capability to introdue that sort of code to the game. As I have explained above in detail.

There is code to produce a cheat detection message if a Pretender is invalid, but this has gone through quite rigorous testing, so I would be surprised if it was not working properly, and that an invalid Pretender could slip through. This could be the case, however unlikely, but there would need to be a solid and reproducable way of demonstrating it, such as the testing method I outlined above. Otherwise it is just heresay, which is worthless (in regards to clearly identifying the problem)

And to make it clear, there could be an error in the llamaserver's copy of whatever mod the game is using, and that mod could be different in some way to the mod that the player is using. This could result in a Pretender that is not valid when recreated in SP game, being declared valid for a llamaserver game using the same mod, because an error in that mod has changed the stat values of the Pretender to make it valid (and the game only checks valid Pretenders for mod games based on the version of the mod the serer is using. The version of the mod the player is using is totally irrevelant in this matter).

But this is strictly a mod error, and nothing what-so-ever to do with a bug in Dominions 3. There is also no way to directly download mods from the llamaserver. This is why tests for these things have to be re-created in local SP games so that all the variables can be known, checked and controlled. A mod on the llamaserver is NOT a variable that can either be known, checked or controlled to 100% certainty. At least not without the help of llamabeast (which is unlikely to be forthcoming as he is a very busy man, and it is unfair to ask him)

(and of course by mentioning this I have given you a perfect out, and indeed the perfect explaination for you to explain anything you like as being a "bug", just as long as it happens in a game using a mod. As it's the convenient explanation that just keeps on giving)

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 15, 2013, 10:47:27 AMAlternately, the CBM designers may have inadvertently recreated the Dom2 scale bug, fixed already in Dom3 vanilla.

There is no way what-so-ever that a mod could change the game code to re-produce the scales bug.

I have to ask this. Do you not think comments like this make it clear that you have little to no understanding of how Dominions 3 really works. Or mods, or the llamaserver for that matter. As just about everything you have commented on regarding these three things has been nothing but faulty guesswork and fanciful assumptions. And yet it seems you somehow expect me to take your word on, and views on, matters relating to how these things work.

Sorry if that offends you, but I just find it very strange that one minute you are trying to claim knowledge of how the game works, yet to try and demonstrate that knowledge you make comments that show quite clearly that you simply have no idea. I just find that a very odd combination myself.

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 15, 2013, 10:47:27 AM(Or if it's Llamaserver doing the illegal pretender fix not CBM, that would be where to look for the problem.)

Answered above. The llamaserver has no ability to "fix" anything. (wonder how many times I've said that in this post?)

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 15, 2013, 10:47:27 AMThere are reasonably good reasons to check on this: the theories fit the evident facts much better than player oversight (even due to poorly designed UI), and also much better than the original Dom2 scales bug being still around somehow (since the proximate causes for the effects would be different).

Sorry, I must have missed them. As what are your facts exactly? All I have seen are theories based on some very fautly assumptions on how the Dominions 3 game, mods, and the llamaserver works. If you do have "facts" then please post a reproducable method of testing one of your "facts" (such as I have done to demonstrate how the cheat detection works), and then we can start talking about your facts. But until then you are only dealing in theory, and not fact. (and a player saying "I am sure I did not take these scales" is not a fact either. And many apologies to Nefaro for that last comment :()

Huw the Poo

It's getting increasingly difficult to maintain a diplomatic silence around here...

Calahan

#808
Quote from: Nefaro on May 15, 2013, 01:20:04 PM
Quote from: Calahan on May 15, 2013, 06:01:41 AM
Quote from: Nefaro on May 13, 2013, 11:06:16 PMI had been saving the last couple Pretenders for this nation under the same name, so they were overwriting every time I worked up a new one. 

This might be the cause of your problem (although in the following I assume that "same name" means same Pretender name, not same file name. Ignore if that's not the case). The name you give to your Pretender has no bearing on the file structure the Pretender is saved under. Pretender save files use a "AGE_NATION_INTEGER.2h" naming structure. The first Pretender you save for a nation gets given the interger 0, the second one for that nation 1, third one 2 and so on.

So for example if you created and saved a new Pretender called "Bob" for EA Caleum, and then create another Pretender for EA Caelum called "Bob", it does not overwrite the previous Pretender save file at all, as a new Pretender save file is created every time. So in the newlords folder for those two Pretenders all you will see is.

early_caelum_0.2h
early_caelum_1.2h



Crap.

That may be what happened.  I did save a few differently valued Pretenders under the same given name.  So I must've sent in one of my oddballs. 

Good to know how this works.  I'll be more careful next time.

I'm also using CBM although I don't recall ever making a vanilla pretender and saving it before that.
Glad to hear that it appears I might have at least helped one person in this thread explain the oddities they encountered, and help them better understand how the game actually works (and help find an explanation that didn't result in simply saying "it's a bug")

Calahan

#809
Quote from: Huw the Poo on May 15, 2013, 02:49:45 PM
It's getting increasingly difficult to maintain a diplomatic silence around here...
Yes you are absolutely right Huw. I am sorry for my part in this thread, as I certainly didn't expect it to turn out anything like this when I first posted trying to help regarding the bug that was being talked about.

But I will take my leave now from this thread now, with deepest apologies, and from this whole forum actually. As it appears I have accidentally ruffled the feathers of the local Oracle Bird, and if I know me then if I don't leave for good now then I will likely say something I shouldn't (if indeed I haven't already done that). So anyway...

I wish all you Grogheads the very best of luck with your new Dominions 3 community. If you ever need proper reliable answers to questions, rather than random guesswork, on any and all Dominions 3 related stuff, then you are welcome to pop your head in anytime to the official forum on Desura. Where I hope myself, or someone else with reliable Dominions knowledge, will be able to answer any questions you might have (and hopefully without the drama :()