Bug: Case of the Dying Mages (and God)

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Reay

In a game last year I had a lot of battles that were wrong. In most of my other games I can't remember having any incorrect battle replays. Perhaps once a game is corrupted it continues to happen on a regular basis.

Actually, that might be the genesis of it. Perhaps the game states have gotten corrupted even before the battle.

I don't know how the game state is maintained. Is that the fatherland file?

Game state being the list of all territories, units etc.
Interesting question.

If list of all units is distributed to all users, it is subject to attack - and corruption.

If only the list of known objects is distributed to each user (units owned, seen, interacted with) then adds moves and changes may not be happening consistently across playerlists (reconciling actions between the player's list and the overall manifest.

If the complete manifest is given to each player, you could CRC it and see if the manifests were the same for the server and each player.

If the people from illwinter are reading this thread, I'd like to make a suggestion:

Some of the results I've seen from this bug cannot be the result of just a different number seed.

For example. You send 4 SC's and 200 troops into a province, with a single scout. My results say I won without a single casualty.

But the server results were I lost - thats just simply not possible as a result of a battle bug.

This seems more of a problem with the results of the battle being misapplied.

[archaeolept]

lch, running XP, I see the battle as you and zeldor do - he escapes w/ an unused elixir and 30 hp. I would guess there was a little corruption in the fatherland file; I find it unlikely, though possible, that Hadrian saw something different - if he does, then I would look to the 32bit Ubuntu that the server was running.

[Illuminated One]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

If list of all units is distributed to all users, it is subject to attack - and corruption.

I think each user gets only the units he owns.
Battle replays are saved independently of real units. Meaning real units never show in a battle replay only copies of them.

For example. You send 4 SC's and 200 troops into a province, with a single scout. My results say I won without a single casualty.

But the server results were I lost - thats just simply not possible as a result of a battle bug.

This seems more of a problem with the results of the battle being misapplied.

Did that ever happen?
I had other bugs like a forger getting feebleminded because he was sneaking around an enemy province with an astral mage in it.
As I understand that should only happen to a mind hunter (had those, too).
Maybe there is another bug where the server mixes up unit IDs and applies death/afflictions etc to the wrong units?

[lch]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

I don't know how the game state is maintained. Is that the fatherland file?

The game states are the fatherland file, yes. And it's the absolute instance that decides what is, and what isn't. The trn files that are being sent to the players are only snapshots from it.

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

If list of all units is distributed to all users, it is subject to attack - and corruption.

Isn't. Compare file sizes for the fatherland and the nation's trn files. A player only gets sent as much information as he is required to know.

Also, since there were cheating attempts before, JK is using the data from the fatherland file where possible, instead of blindly accepting user input from the .2h files.

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Some of the results I've seen from this bug cannot be the result of just a different number seed.

The seeds are the same. The starting seed for each battle is being saved and reused upon replay. JK even does checksums for each turn of battle to check if there is an inconsistency. If there isn't, then in the log files for the replay you'll find the message

This battle looks just like I have forseen

for each turn. If there is an inconsistency, then you won't see those anymore, but instead, you'll see (in my case)

***** Warning: Battle inconsistency (turn 1)

for each turn.