MP YARG3, non newb MA+ENP2 RAND game. Executor's Ulm winner on turn 76 - Page 13

TwoBits · #1 December 4th, 2011, 05:51 AM

Things look really weird at Llamaserver. The game appears to have already hosted, even though it was not due to do so, I think until around 18:00 on the 4th.

Plus, it seems that several races have mysteriously "disappeared".

Executor · #2 December 4th, 2011, 10:49 AM

I don't think the game hosted. Score graphs still seem to be in order, no changes.

llamabeast · #3 December 4th, 2011, 12:35 PM

I'm worried this game may have hosted erroneously. Many apologies if it did - a rollback may be in order.

Those nations which didn't submit seem to have been removed from the staling record (a really weird and unexpected bug), which adds a bit to the confusion.

rdonj · #4 December 5th, 2011, 05:42 AM

It sounds like there's been pretty significant damage one, and I haven't heard any objections against a rollback yet, so I'm going to go ahead with it. One rollback coming up, hopefully there won't be too much rethinking of turns in light of the rollback or any other unexpected issues.

WraithLord · #5 December 5th, 2011, 04:35 PM

llamabeast, thank you for the heads up and for handling the recent problems.

Those of us who don't want to modify their turns, can we rest assure that the previously sent .2h files are stored on the server?- Or would you recommend to resend the .2h files?

rdonj · #6 December 6th, 2011, 05:13 AM

Resend your files just in case, I don't quite remember how it's supposed to work and it's better safe than sorry.

Executor · #7 December 6th, 2011, 05:23 AM

As I remember resending the turns is the worst possible scenario. Redoing the turn from scratch was the recommended procedure unless you wanted the game to crash.
I do however think Llamaserver stores the turns already sent and will use them on hosting, but don't take my word for it.

Executor · #8 December 6th, 2011, 05:26 AM

Well, here are the instruction anyway:

This will cause the game to return to the previous turn.

Note that I generally recommend not doing this. The main reason for this is the fact that players have already seen the current turn, and so they know what would happen given the set of moves they used last time. Hence, consciously or not, they are very likely to use this information to change their actions next time they submit a turn. Even assuming none of the players' actions are affected, there will always be a suspicion in the mind of the other players if battles turn out significantly differently. Therefore just in the interest of having the game feel completely fair, I think rollbacks are a bad idea.

A further reason is a difficulty with game file confusion. Imagine turn 10 has just come out, and someone starts to play the turn. Then the game is rolled back to turn 9, and processed again to make a new turn 10. Unless players delete the 2h file they produced from the original turn 10, Dominions will not know to ignore it and may get seriously confused. This can cause a lot of madness, e.g. soldiers becoming commanders and gaining magic paths, and so on. So if you do do a rollback, make sure to remind players to delete their 2h files.

Having said that, there are situations where rollbacks are called for, which is why I've included the option here.

Read this next bit carefully. I seem to be having difficulties explaining it coherently:

Note that once the game is rolled back, it will appear that the game is waiting for 2h files from all players. However, the 2h files from last time the turn was played will in fact be there, and will be used if the game hosts without them being overwritten. This can be useful; often, a game is rehosted in order for only one or two players to retake their turns, while everyone else is expected to make no changes. The game admin can therefore wait till just those players have submitted, and then force hosting. None of the other players will stale (assuming they actually submitted a 2h file last time the turn was played).

I hope all that makes sense!

So I guess only those who staled should send in turns, and whoever started the new turn (I think some nations sent in turn 39 already) should delete the files before downloading the new turn.

rdonj · #9 December 6th, 2011, 05:31 AM

Resending files is definitely the worst case in a situation where the game had an issue. There shouldn't be a problem with fixing the current problem, and the instructions in the llamaserver about deleting files is for the new, useless files for the turn that was rolled back. Those definitely should be deleted. It's best if you don't make alterations to the sent in turn if it's not necessary though. Anyway thanks for linking the actual message, its been a while since I've read it.

WraithLord · #10 December 6th, 2011, 05:44 AM

I'm aware of this: "Note that once the game is rolled back, it will appear that the game is waiting for 2h files from all players. However, the 2h files from last time the turn was played will in fact be there, and will be used if the game hosts without them being overwritten."

My concern is that, due to server problem, the 2h files from last turn will not be there. In which case, all who didn't stale last host will stale now. I guess we could do a 2nd roll back if that were to happen.