Routing bug

Wyxard · #1 October 27th, 2004, 06:43 PM

I just experienced my 3rd routing bug in the
"try something something" game
In all 3 occurences, my army wins the battle, with the enemy routing and leaving the map, with my army and leaders intact, then when I look at the message, it says I lost, and the enemy controls the province.

In the Last battle, I had 13 leaders, most full of magic items, my first 2 casting rounds I cast Blades wind (x2 mages) and killed about 8 of 13 theugs, then the battle progressed to a victory for me, with most of my leaders alive (troll kings, wraith lords, Djinn, high level Vans), and yet when I look at the summary screen, it says I lost 12 of 13 leaders, and the enemy only lost 2. Clearly in contridiction to the film.

has anyone else experienced this bug? am I missing something? my troops were cursed by Doom spell, did this have anything to do with it? if so, this is way too powerful a spell. help appreciated

Wyxard

Wyxard · #2 October 27th, 2004, 06:49 PM

clarification
Try something new game
playing on the World map
2 battles were direct movement against another player
1 leader windrided to enemy province
1 leader attacking AI indie that took province several turns earlier with random event
all 4 won on film, lost on main map

Cohen · #3 October 27th, 2004, 06:59 PM

I have some battle weirdness in heavy difference beetween the battle and the report.
The report is always the correct one.
Not only in that game, and against various options.
Dunno why, I've learned to live with that.

alexti · #4 October 27th, 2004, 08:55 PM

Do you run the same Version of client as the server?

Wyxard · #5 October 27th, 2004, 10:18 PM

the latter times it happened, I may or may not have been running exactly the same Version, but the first and maybe second time were early in the game, so I assume it was the same. besides, this still should account for the GROSS descrepancy between results, in the film I kicked ***, and killed a lot of his leaders, with most of mine surviving, and in the message, it said all but one of my leaders died, and he lost only 2 of 20+.
Plus I disagree that the message is the correct one and the film is wrong, (although I admit I may be a little biased) since I watched the battle unfold, and saw weak theugs die as they had bladewinds rain down on them,and I cannot believe the actual battle results would be that dramatically different in that most of them survived. Plus watching the film, you get a since of each die role being made, each hit being calculated, and see the men slowly lose hit points as they are hit, It follows logically how the code is set up. I beleive somehow the results may be calculated, the film generated, and then the results switched when sent to the message board and to the main code/program, which misrepresents them in the main game. (I hope someone can check this hypothesis)
Again, watching the battles, they all play out logically, then the results are way, way off in the other direction.

Any insights appreciated, as I ended up going AI, since I cannot see the fun in playing after spending so much time and resources raisng such a large army with lots of expensive leaders(gems and cash) and lots of large summoned creatures, only to have them decimated by a bug, then watching the enemy move closer to your now unprotected border.
Wyxard

Graeme Dice · #6 October 28th, 2004, 12:55 AM

Quote:

Wyxard said:
Plus watching the film, you get a since of each die role being made, each hit being calculated, and see the men slowly lose hit points as they are hit, It follows logically how the code is set up.

A single die roll that happens diffferently on your computer from the host is all that it takes to cause the rest of the battle to be widely different.

Quote:

I beleive somehow the results may be calculated, the film generated, and then the results switched when sent to the message board and to the main code/program, which misrepresents them in the main game.

The results are calculated by the host. It saves the seed to the random number generator at the beginning of the battle. The replay then takes this seed, and runs an identical algorithm to get the same results.

Quote:

Any insights appreciated, as I ended up going AI, since I cannot see the fun in playing after spending so much time and resources raisng such a large army with lots of expensive leaders(gems and cash) and lots of large summoned creatures, only to have them decimated by a bug, then watching the enemy move closer to your now unprotected border.

It's not a bug, you just got unlucky.

Soapyfrog · #7 October 28th, 2004, 10:19 AM

Well... it IS a bug.

The battle report and the replay SHOULD match exactly.

I am curious, has the try something new game been restarted on mosehansen since the upgrade?

Wyxard · #8 October 28th, 2004, 10:39 AM

so are you implying that the host computer and my computer each have different films and different results? this seems highly unlikely, as I have never seen it happen in any other battle except in these few cases where they differ? all the other times in all the other battles, they are the same, and if this phenomenon happened to other people, others would have commented on it and *****ed like me.

I don't see how it is "unlucky" to have a vastly different result on film than in the message.

I could see if only one extra commander died, or a few men didn't make it, that it was maybe a difference in computers or random generation (although if they do differ, then I think this is by definition a bug, as we should see exactly what happened on the host) , but in my battle it was completely opposite, 12 of 13 died instead of 2 of 13 leaders for me, and 2 of about 25 leaders of his died instead of like 17 of 25.

something is wrong for this much discrepancy, I don't think I just saw an alternate result of the algorithm, since my film had such a landslide victory, and I had sooo many good units. again, my first wave of blade winds killed 8 of 13 theugs, on the message it said only 2 leaders died in the ENTIRE BATTLE? with all my firepower, (see above) this just couldn't have happened.
I hope someone who is familiar with the code suggests a reason for this bug, as it make this game (which until now I considered one of the best games of all time) unplayable in my opinion.
Wyxard

Graeme Dice · #9 October 28th, 2004, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Wyxard said:
so are you implying that the host computer and my computer each have different films and different results?

No. The host computer calculates the battle, then kills the appropriate units and sends you a message about it. Your computer then constructs an identical battle using the same starting conditions.

Quote:

all the other times in all the other battles, they are the same, and if this phenomenon happened to other people, others would have commented on it and *****ed like me.

There is at least one inconsistency that can crop up in battles which will cause the replay to be different from the report.

Quote:

something is wrong for this much discrepancy, I don't think I just saw an alternate result of the algorithm, since my film had such a landslide victory, and I had sooo many good units. again, my first wave of blade winds killed 8 of 13 theugs, on the message it said only 2 leaders died in the ENTIRE BATTLE? with all my firepower, (see above) this just couldn't have happened.

Sure it could have. A single dice roll placing the bladewinds at a different location would be all it takes.

Wyxard · #10 October 28th, 2004, 10:46 AM

I don't think it has been restarted,
but that shouldn't change the real result that much, as I still should have won, although if the code values didn't match, that might create erroneous data match ups and thus result in a bug giving us incorrect results.
3 of 4 occurred against pythium, (one vs AI) but I am not implying he is cheating , as this would be too obvious, since I watch the films and reported it to everyone in the game after each occurrence.
thanks everyone for the input

Wyxard