Dye Copper bug - a patch

[samson]

Hi.

Some time back I was talking to a friend, a computer programming whiz and Civ player, about the research I'd done on the Supply and Demand list formulas. When I mentioned the Dye/Copper bug he said he'd look into it. He did, and came up with a patch that corrects the problem. Don't ask about the technical details though, what I remember is that he said there was an "unitialized variable" (I think someone here suggested that) and he found a way to fix it.

I thought I would post the patch here, in case anyone is interested in seeing how trade Supply and Demand are supposed to work in the game.

The patch is for version 2.4.2.

If you load a saved game with the patch, the Dye/Copper demand problems in cities will not be automatically fixed. They will be corrected when the city goes through its next 16-cycle turn. If you start a new game with the patch, the S/D lists will be correct throughout the game.

The patch eliminates the "SDC switch" which turns out to indeed be a result of the Dye/Copper bug.

Unfortunately, the patch file is too large for the attachment limit at Poly. So I'll attach it in two pieces contained in two zip files. After unzipping them, join the pieces together with the DOS command:

COPY civ2DC1.spt/b+civ2DC2.spt/b Civ2DCpatch.exe/b

samson

[samson]

The second part.

[samson]

Oh ... after joining the two pieces copy the file to your Civ2 directory and run it from there.

Although I've tested and used this version and had no problems, I make no guarentee for it, use at your own risk etc.

samson

[solo]

I kind of like having the bug, because it can often be manipulated on or off to suit current supply or demand in other cities! However, I will download and try this when I can spare some time from playing RoN.

Your friend must be really good, since I did not think it was possible to create a patch to the executable without having access to the game's source code.

[samson]

Originally posted by solo
I kind of like having the bug, because it can often be manipulated on or off to suit current supply or demand in other cities! However, I will download and try this when I can spare some time from playing RoN.

Hi there, solo.

I don't know if there's any interest in this thing or not, but it's been sitting around my email bin for awhile and I thought I'd give it a home here. As for using the bug, I'd say that's in the same class of exploit as caravan-rehoming.

BTW, I recently read the threads of EL comparison games you posted. Very interesting stuff in there. Lots of well played games. Some new ideas and some old ones resurrected. Looks the early Republic vs. early Monarchy question is still open to debate, or at dependent on starting situation.

Originally posted by solo
Your friend must be really good, since I did not think it was possible to create a patch to the executable without having access to the game's source code.

I don't know but I thought there were a number of handmade patches to the Civ2 engine out there. Maybe there's a difference in kind. I don't really know.

[solo]

Samson,

Yes, the new rule barring huts really changed how EL games play, probably for the better.

It's good to see you again, back on these forums. I hope you are in good health and that things are going okay.

Are you giving Rise of Nations a try, or just sticking with the irreplaceable and classic Civ II?

[Elephant]

Welcome back, Samson. We still have not broken 500AD in the EL games - wanna give it a go?

Seems like a pretty big patch to just tweak one variable initialization. Must be a Micro$oft compiler...

[samson]

Elephant,

Hi there. Good to see you again.

The 'patch' is actually a fixed version of CIV2.EXE which is why it's so large.

Solo,

I think 'no huts' was an interesting experiment. It virtually eliminated exploration as an element of the game and made building MPE a must. As a consequence new strategies were tried and some succeeded. Personally I think the best landing dates in those games would be difficult to beat even with hut tipping.

I think these games exposed the negatives of hut-hunting which is: less strategic control of the game's course due to dealing with the consequences of hut tips. If this is true (that hut-tipping doesn't help as much as we once thought) then the rule is unneccesary. To tip or not-tip should be a strategic choice. Perhaps the optimal strat would be to tip just a few huts early on.

The big change I see, strategy-wise, is the shift in focus from science to infrastructure in the early/middle game. The problem with the science-focused path was always that technology outran production capacity, money, and trading opportunities. Specifically, that the early caravan-payoff reducers of Navigation/Invention and Railroad were acquired before trade could be exploited fully. In those ELCG games where the players focused on infrastructure, more caravans were delivered in the Ancient Age, for larger payments, providing more cash and allowing a middle-game tech catchup but with a more robust economy for late game play. Also by delaying science, more techs were acquired from AI via trades.

Although this change in focus was more obvious in the games of players using early Monarchy, I think it may work with an early Republic approach, too. Zenon's ELCG #5 was pretty impressive. Yet the excess of production capacity (seen in freights, money and wonders built) at the end makes me suspect that the shift back to a science-focus could be done sooner. An earlier landing date may be possible with a leaner economy.

Anyway, congrats to all who participated, it was fun to read and catch up on the ideas explored there.

[Scouse Gits]

samson - good to hear from you again.

Originally posted by samson

I think 'no huts' was an interesting experiment. It virtually eliminated exploration as an element of the game and made building MPE a must.

This was not true in all games. MPE is crucial if you discover you are the only civ on your continent. However, if you have plenty of neighbours sharing your landmass early contact with them can bring big rewards. If the purple civ is found early you might be able to save the four caravans needed for Marco's.

-------------------

SG(2)

[SlowThinker]

Hi Samson,
couldn't your friend clear the black hat bug?
I think this is the most annoying bug in the game, not only because ELG strategies with 30 cities are powerful (and fatiguing).
And its repairation could be easy: somewhere in the code there is
if BlackHat(VeryUnhappy) then VioletHat(Happy)
and should be
if BlackHat(VeryUnhappy) then RedHat(Unhappy)
But MGE would be more requisite than 2.42 - people play MP games with a given limit of 10 cities etc.

Originally posted by solo
I kind of like having the bug, because it can often be manipulated on or off to suit current supply or demand in other cities!

Solo, I think this is not a good argument. Similarly you could tell I like the black hat bug, because I can build 50 cities and land 500 years faster.
Rules should be compact and simple IMHO.

[Scouse Gits]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
Rules should be compact and simple IMHO.

Yeah ... I know what you're saying ST. But if they were that compact and simple would we still be discussing them over 7 years after the game was launched?

-------------

SG(2)

[Elephant]

"No huts" did not eliminate exploration, but it did refocus it on finding good city sites and finding other civs early. "No huts" gave us full control of our tech paths, and evened out the variation in game benefit from hut gold and units. Barbs still provide some random events (which killed not a few players EL games at different times, we were all running pretty lean). I think your point about infrastructure is something that we continue to refine, and seems to vary somewhat based on the starting conditions. Our shift from Early Republic strategies back to extended Monarchy is an outcome of that refinement. I continue to struggle with picking the right time to switch from build-up focus to max research and trade. It usually has to do with nearing completion of my SSC, but other issues can supercede that.

Did you get sidetracked by GalCiv or RoN like Solo?

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by SG(2)
But if they were that compact and simple would we still be discussing them over 7 years after the game was launched?

OK. there are two things:
1. compact (and natural) rules - I simply don't like a rule like: first 3 supported units need 1 shield of support, next 2 need no support, 8th unit needs 3 shield, and 9th-10th produce +4 shield (a negative suport)
(This is a similar example to the black hat bug)

2. simple rules - with simpler rules maybe we wouldn't be discussing about rules, but more about strategies - it would be more interesting. I don't enjoy to speak about rules very much - I do it because I must. (OK, a little bit of reverse engineering may be entertaining...)

[solo]

Samson,

A good analysis, but when early huts provided some free cities and some early gold, this headstart was hard to compete with in games where we did not allow hut tipping. However, I was surprised at how well we were able to do without them, thinking that anything near 1000 AD would be much more difficult than it turned out to be.

As for MPE, I think it would make sense to build this even in hut tipping games. Contact with all AI (and the techs they had available for trades) is much sooner with MPE, and by monitoring and steering their research, I think players averaged 5 or more techs per game through trade. Previously, in our EL games, we put most of the onus of acquiring techs on ourselves.

In a game where we start on a large continent, I would agree with SG(2) that MPE is not vital. You don't need MPE for your key civ and others that have developed poorly, and could use diplomats to establish cheaper and permanent embassies with the AI who look like good candidates as research assistants.

Early Republic still works well, as was proven in my 615 AD game, but one of the reasons for this was that MPE helped me bypass Navigation and make the most of early caravan payments while acquiring a few more post-Navigation techs.

ST,

I was not really serious about preferring the copper/dye bug. This was one of the major flaws in the game, and I'm sure that trade would become much more fluid using the new version provided by Samson's friend.

Elephant,

One thing I really like about being "sidetracked" is they have done a great job in RoN of removing the amount of tedious micro-management needed to play Civ II. I certainly do NOT miss such repetitive chores such as incremental rush-buying or loading and unloading transports, or the sheer tedium involved in managing more than just a handful of cities. However, I do not think RoN has the detail and depth of Civ II, replacing this with a bigger variety of options. I think there is much less to learn to become a good RoN player.

[samson]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
Hi Samson,
couldn't your friend clear the black hat bug?
I think this is the most annoying bug in the game, not only because ELG strategies with 30 cities are powerful (and fatiguing).
And its repairation could be easy: somewhere in the code there is
if BlackHat(VeryUnhappy) then VioletHat(Happy)
and should be
if BlackHat(VeryUnhappy) then RedHat(Unhappy)

ST,

What exactly is the black hat bug? I'm not sure what you're talking about.

And no, my friend does not have source code to the game (as least as far as I know). I think he just patched the .EXE file directly.

[samson]

Huts

Yeah, okay, I guess 'eliminated exploration' was hyperbole.

My point about huts vs 'no huts' is this: I don't think huts help as much as we once thought. The chance of getting a free city or some early cash or a timely tech casts such a lure that one keeps tipping them until bad things happen: barbs, an off-track tech, or a misplaced city. The negative outcomes, I think, can actually impact the game to the point where a 'no huts' policy is actually more advantageous to the player.

Call this the 'samson conjecture': that aggressive hut-tipping provides no significant advantage in early landing games over a no-hut policy. The exception would be for huts tipped prior to founding your capitol.

[solo]

Oh sure, I concur that huts are far less valuable than we once thought. It was those games where most early hut results were favorable that their use produced a noticeable advantage, especially when there were extra early cities from nomads and tribes.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by samson
What exactly is the black hat bug? I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Normally any item that helps your citizens to be content (for example martial law, HG, 2 luxuries) turns
one VU (very unhappy citizen) to U (unhappy citizen) or
one U (unhappy citizen) to C (content) or
one C (content) to H (happy).

So you get '+1 happiness'.

But some items (HG, 2 luxuries...) turns VU directly to H. So you get '+3 happiness'.

So unhappines due of number of cities is bad as far as you get red hats, but is good from the point you get black hats. With 24 cities under Republic and deity every city has 1 black hat and celebrates very easy. Much easier than with 16 cities.

Read 'happiness quirk' (link in GL).

[War4ever]

Can this be used with MGE? b/c i would love to implement this into MP

[SlowThinker]

War, what do you mean? Caravans?

[SCG]

Originally posted by War4ever
Can this be used with MGE? b/c i would love to implement this into MP

yes, the bug is still in effect in MGE.

I'm not sure exactly where, but at the end of the Civ II 2nd demo game (played using MGE), Cavebear and myself had several discussions with reguards to celebrations/avoiding disorder and production vs trade. and one of the primary cities being discussed (Cordoba?) had a black hat bug that meant it needed fewer luxuries to stay content. Somewhere in there are a couple graphical depictions of it (probably more than 1 thread too)

[SlowThinker]

ICS wouldn't be possible without the bug. It stands on HG+black hat bug.

[Scouse Gits]

ICS may not be as effective without the bug ... but it's certainly possible as each city will have a production capacity and will contribute towards science unless built on unusal terrain. ICS is all things to all people. There are many differences between several variants. To some players ICS is having many cities, which is different from the pure form used so effectively by DaveV.

------------------

SG(2)

[War4ever]

what i meant was preventing the repeating caravan? you said it was a patch for standard civ2...so can this patch be used to cure the problem in MGE and more importantly, MP games....?

or did i misunderstand this patch??

[SlowThinker]

War,
I think it works with Civ2 2.42 only.

What do you mean by 'repeating caravans'?

[samson]

This patch is only for 2.4.2.
It fixes the Dye/Copper bug which causes many cities to demand Dye early in the game, and later to demand Copper.

[War4ever]

ST, there are times in games when you can repeatedly send (hides) caravans to cities and do it most of the game without the caravan using one of the slots up.. it makes for extremely beneficial trading to the fellow using it.

if the patch worked for MGE, people couldnt' exploit this fun but damaging little trick, and there isn't really a way to ban it . b/c your only building what the city tells you you can

[rah]

I don't think it fixes the repeating hides caravan demand.

Actually I didn't know it was a bug, but after reading this thread, I've see it almost every game, and try to take advantage of it.

Good work guys.

[samson]

'Repeating hides' is an altogether different bug. It affects both supply and demand. I believe it is caused by CIV2 using the hexidecimal numbers 0-F to represent the 16 commodities in the three trade slots. In this scheme "0" would stand for hides, but "0" must also mean "available", causing hides to never be blocked (put in parentheses.)

[rah]

That makes too much sense, so that can't be it.