C3C Patch 1.20 Bug Thread

[Inverse Icarus]

i started a game with 1.20 a couple of days ago, and tried to load it in 1.22. no dice.

i get the following popups when trying to load it:
DataIO operation System Error: DATE
DataIO operation System Error: PLGI
DataIO operation System Error: PLGI (again)
DataIO operation System Error: DATE (again)
DataIO operation System Error: DATE (again)
DataIO operation System Error: CNSL

the i get a "load error" in c3c itself, "ERROR READING FILE".

[vmxa1]

Any mods installed?

[player1]

Interesting.

I got similar error when trying to load one my old savegames.
Savgame was from a scenario with unmoded rules.

Saved games from sceanrios with moded rules worked perfectly.

[alexman]

The stock rules are no longer stored in the save games. They are saved only for mods. That's why.

1.20 has different stock rules than 1.22 because of the removal of the Radio tech (it was not really removed in 1.20), so the 1.22 game freaks out when it finds information in a save about the Radio.

[vmxa1]

Makes sense. So old saves of unmodded games can't be loaded after 1.22?

[Conqueror]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Makes sense. So old saves of unmodded games can't be loaded after 1.22?

Seems so. I just spent 2 hours testing why my old 1.15 PBEM (mod) did load on 1.22 but newly created (without mods) 1.20 PBEM game didnt load on 1.22.

Should have read this thread before all that testing Saves time to read first, test after

This falls into 'bug' category quite clearly. I think people should be able to continue old unmodded PBEM games.

[player1]

No it's not a bug.

It's an unavoidable feature.

And it would not matter in the long run.

[Conqueror]

Originally posted by player1
No it's not a bug.

It's an unavoidable feature.

And it would not matter in the long run.

OK. Not a bug then. This seems like Microsoft: "its not a bug, its a feature"

But it would be nice if us PBEM players would have known about such thing before half of the players have upgraded to 1.22 and are wondering "gee why some of my games work and some dont"

It gets most of those PBEM games killed which dont work anymore in 1.22, because many of the players are not so good with dual installs etc, and keep playing only with 1.22 version.

[player1]

Originally posted by alexman
The stock rules are no longer stored in the save games. They are saved only for mods. That's why.

I remember that staock rules being saved in save-game was introduced in one of vanilla patches.

When this got removed?


Minus: thos bugs already mentioned
Plus: you could change rules on the fly?

[alexman]

It got removed in C3C.
Apparently Breakaway programmers did that. It was a Friaxis/Breakaway miscommunicaton.

[Rommel2D]

PBEM Blackout

There were some long-standing bugs in PBEM that allowed players to aquire information about other players due to game mechanic flaws. For this reason, players concerned with fair play (myself included) didn't have a clear idea of what the bug was. The work-around was to not pay attention to the bugs until they passed.

Most of the time I've seen descriptions about the screen showing an opponent's map information when asking for the password. The apparent fix for this has been to black out the map entirely until after the production phase, robbing the player of their own map information for cities with new builds, riots, etc. and forcing them to subsequently cycle through all cities in order to track down these issues arising during the initial phase.

I have patched up to 1.22 and would like to avoid going back, but from my recollection, there were two distinct bugs that should have been fixed here; The ability to bypass passwords was the worst of them and, as far as I've seen, it has been fixed successfully. The other problem I have yet to see anyone accurately describe, and the fix for it has been akin to swatting a knat with a sledgehammer. Judging from the descriptions of the 1.20 online MP load problems and the 'blacked out screen' they experienced, I wouldn't be suprised if it was this sledgehammer that bashed the hell out of MP functionality, too.

When the password screen came up pre-1.18, the map was shown behind it centered on the previous player's capital. Contrary to the common description, there was nothing wrong with the fog-of-war, as that was displayed correctly. The new player gained no new information about the map's terrain, merely a vague idea of where the previous player's civilization was located. It seems this 'glitch' could have been handled much better by picking arbitrary map coordinates to initialize the screen with upon loading or by initializing the map directly after the password is correctly entered.

[smellymummy]

well arbitary map coord can still reveal something.

the fog of war needs to be removed immediately after a player successfully authenticates themselves.. not a couple of steps later

[Rommel2D]

IIRC, the fog-of-war that was displayed pre-1.18 was that of the new player entering the password. Everything shown on the screen was the same as what would be seen if you scrolled to that point later in your turn. The only problem (short of bypassing the password) was that a player could infer the coordinates of the previous player's capitol as the initial center of the screen.

[player1]

Originally posted by alexman
It got removed in C3C.
Apparently Breakaway programmers did that. It was a Friaxis/Breakaway miscommunicaton.

So that's why there is MPTournament.biq

To force players not to cheat by modifing original conquest.biq


P.S.
By the way, MPTournamanet and other optional BIQs still have Radio for tech.

[Switch]

Originally posted by player1
By the way, MPTournamanet and other optional BIQs still have Radio for tech.

Not these ones. I modded them to fit as explained in the readme (no radio, different prerequisites ,etc.):