Long Solo Game Bail Out Problem

[Kalin]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a battle where both sides have 1000+ troops that is causing this error. The problem is that there is not enough space on the battlefield to place all the units. Sometimes, if you're using very large creatures, you only need a third of those numbers.

The solution, is to bring one of two throw away mages, and cast something like Gift from Heaven on their army...

[Gandalf Parker]

I wish it would continue the battle anyway and just blow up on trying to watch the combat. It seems like the battlefield size shouldnt affect getting the outcome.

Of course fixing the whole thing would be better but as a stopgap I wouldnt mind a battle response without view option so that the game could continue.

[Graeme Dice]

Gandalf Parker said:
I wish it would continue the battle anyway and just blow up on trying to watch the combat. It seems like the battlefield size shouldnt affect getting the outcome.

This betrays a fundamental ignorance of the method that is used to obtain battlefield results in Dominions. The battlefield size affects the outcome since the turn generation performs an identical set of calculations to the battle viewer part of the program.

[Gandalf Parker]

Graeme Dice said:

This betrays a fundamental ignorance of the method that is used to obtain battlefield results in Dominions. The battlefield size affects the outcome since the turn generation performs an identical set of calculations to the battle viewer part of the program.

Hmm I guess the same limits of number of people to the battlefield would apply. I guess that my "fundamental ignorance" was a failure to think out the ramifications of what was so eloquently explained further up (was it eloquently explained further up?).

Thank you for so suavely and tactfully pointing that out to me so I could catch up to you.

Gandalf Parker

[Actuarian]

I say this knowing that I am at the risk of also finding myself fundamentally ignorant.

It seems that this problem could be solved programatically without a ton of difficulty by allowing for reinforcements. Reinforcements could work like a summons spell with a trigger of there being enough room for them on the battlefield.

[Taqwus]

Order of reinforcements then becomes an issue... and whether to allow individual squads, or only when there's full room for a commander -and- all his squads, and whether they should ever refuse to come in (morale check, battlefield enchantments, et al).

Unless players could determine the ordering, there'd be complaints when scripts and formations no longer made sense. Might be interesting, and there's logic behind it (although there are obvious questions as to whether the reserves should really be immune to Wrathful Skies, Heat from Hell, the opponent's reserves et al while off-screen), but it'd require some UI overhaul.

[Actuarian]

I agree that reinforcements is a sub-optimal solution, but it's better than having the game bomb. Not that I'm particularly into realism for dom3, but there is a loss of command control as armies get bigger.

I also thought of grouping like troops into super-units or just limiting the number of troops on a side, but the reinforcements seemed like a more workable and equitable solution.

[Nightblade]

The maximum battle i had in a end game situation , being LA Ermor on the Aran map, was +/- 2400 undeads (lead by a -very- lots of non-magic users commanders, so there were no summons adding to the number during the battle) storming a castle protected by a pretender and a magic user with their +/- 10 remaining militia.

After clicking the turn button, i worried if wanting to assault with such huge number of troops could make the game calculation to be stuck on my not very high end system, especially with the castle taking some places.
Fortunately it played and ended correctly and viewing worked after.

So does a crash related to the amount of troops can happen only if -both- sides are very numerous ?

[Loren]

Nightblade said:
The maximum battle i had in a end game situation , being LA Ermor on the Aran map, was +/- 2400 undeads (lead by a -very- lots of non-magic users commanders, so there were no summons adding to the number during the battle) storming a castle protected by a pretender and a magic user with their +/- 10 remaining militia.

After clicking the turn button, i worried if wanting to assault with such huge number of troops could make the game calculation to be stuck on my not very high end system, especially with the castle taking some places.
Fortunately it played and ended correctly and viewing worked after.

So does a crash related to the amount of troops can happen only if -both- sides are very numerous ?

I have had a crash with something in the ballpark of 1000 troops against a castle that didn't contain much of anything. However, my troops were minotaurs, they took up more space.

I don't think it's the number of troops but rather the numbers of squares on the battle board. Exceed that and boom.

[NTJedi]

Loren said:
I have had a crash with something in the ballpark of 1000 troops against a castle that didn't contain much of anything. However, my troops were minotaurs, they took up more space.

I don't think it's the number of troops but rather the numbers of squares on the battle board. Exceed that and boom.

For dominions_4 the developers should use what was done within Lord_of_the_Realms_2.{{not_Rings}}
Here troops of the same type would merge on the same square and increase by 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64. It's difficult to explain so if someone's curious they should briefly play the game.