DESIGN: CTP2 Bugs and alterations [fix list]

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Solver
As for reloadslic, we can implement yet another command /clearvar <variable name> to nullify one variable, if need be.

The problem in the /relaodslic example I mentioned is that you have no idea which variable causes the crash. You need also the /reloadslic thing to reload strings or to reset strings, fix the messages if you modified the string files. Well for this there is a chat window command in the ctp2.exe and also some others:

pacman
toe
/rnd
/resetlos
/reloadslic
/exportmap
/importmap
/attach
/detach
/resetstrings

Well know are /reloadslic, /exportmap and /importmap, for the others it is not clear what they should do and if they work.

-Martin

[J Bytheway]

In CTP1 /attach and /detach alter whether players are AI or not (In PBEM, and MP, I think... probably hotseat too), and so I guess that's what they're supposed to do in CTP2 too.

The others I would guess:
/rnd: reset the random number seed
/resetlos: reset LOS
/resetstrings: reload strings.txt etc.

But with luck guessing will soon not be necessary .

[Locutus]

/rnd [x] is let the game play for [x] turns without human intervention (in theory, at least; there are some caveats).

/resetlos is as John says and I don't think /resetstrings does anything (nothing I could ever figure out, anyway).

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Locutus
/rnd [x] is let the game play for [x] turns without human intervention (in theory, at least; there are some caveats).

That is something usefull, I usually played as Barbarian or let the game play.

Originally posted by Locutus
/resetlos: reset LOS

And for what stands LOS?

-Martin

[Locutus]

Line of Sight

[Barley]

Not read all the posts in full so apologise if this is in the list, plus its not a bug.

For multiplayer games could their be a calculator or something similar that although land is randomised it ensures the starting values of say an inner circle of 60 squares and outer circle of 300 have relatively equal total values re production, food and commerce?

Is this possible?

[MrBaggins]

for *just* their starting locality? probably

otherwise? probably not

[LDiCesare]

I think fixing crash to desktop bugs should be priority. They moslty happen because of mods (I got one in Cradle where my save games will crash after hitting the next turn, I think there are some related to Diplomod too). Whatever the SLIC'er writes, it shouldn't cause the game to crash.

[LDiCesare]

Another thing to think of: Getting rid of CD-protection stuff.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
I think fixing crash to desktop bugs should be priority. They moslty happen because of mods (I got one in Cradle where my save games will crash after hitting the next turn, I think there are some related to Diplomod too). Whatever the SLIC'er writes, it shouldn't cause the game to crash.

I'm guessing many of these crashes may be tied into the SLICS in some way. The last update (1.35) deactivated the Pirate code because of a bug in there - but tracking down that one was like finding a needle in a haystack - and does not solve any additional crashes either.

The whole nature of crashes makes them hard to figure out, because finding out what causes them is so tricky - especially for us non-programmers.

Somebody pointed out that new civs from revolts may cause a crash, which is something (probably) in the source code. Playing on gigantic maps, as well as the increased AI ability to catch slaves in Cradle, and greater happiness problems in Cradle (city caps), greatly increases the chances of this occuring, and might be the cause of current Cradle crashes. I tended to play on smaller maps, so I did not have a lot of crashes.

Another one is the end-game crash...

[LDiCesare]

The whole nature of crashes makes them hard to figure out, because finding out what causes them is so tricky - especially for us non-programmers.

Actually, with a debugger, a crash is very often easy to track down. That's why I think it should be possible to correct the crashes fairly easily, so that SLICs would be more reliable. I also think it would be fairly easy to track down what happens (many crashes are because of uninitialized memory, or 0 values where something is expected) and thus get a better understanding of the code. But then I'll probably leave that to someone else to check.

[The Big Mc]

What about the fact of pillaging a tile imp with no owner surely that would be something to do with a 0 value

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by hexagonian
Somebody pointed out that new civs from revolts may cause a crash, which is something (probably) in the source code.

Actual this is a problem of Diplomod 3.6 that is not part of Cradle, so it doesn't cause a crash in Cradle.

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Actually, with a debugger, a crash is very often easy to track down. That's why I think it should be possible to correct the crashes fairly easily, so that SLICs would be more reliable. I also think it would be fairly easy to track down what happens (many crashes are because of uninitialized memory, or 0 values where something is expected) and thus get a better understanding of the code. But then I'll probably leave that to someone else to check.

With a debugger - well maybe we should also extend the abilities of the slic debugger, so that it is easier to track down bugs in slic.

Originally posted by The Big MC
What about the fact of pillaging a tile imp with no owner surely that would be something to do with a 0 value

Could be anything else, maybe the problem is that the pillage function checks if the owner of the tileimp is at war with you and if not it makes the owner to explain war on you, unfortunatly -1 is not a vailid player, but as long as we don't have the source code it is only guesswork what it is. But I think it should be easy to track it down if you have a debugger.

-Martin

[Tamerlin]

Fix

From the FAQ thread
The player should NEVER disband units from the "Unit" screen within the city display. Yes, there is a button marked "DISBAND", but no points from the old unit are applied to the new one.

[Martin Gühmann]

Another little bug, we should fix is the pollution warning message at the begin of the game if you have set MaxPlayers>0.

Well there is a slic workaround, but the message is nevertheless called and you could imagine a mod that comes with high pollution at the beginning of the game.

-Martin