The scale bug is caused by province neighbors

[vfb]

Oh no! The geo table is polluted!

Code:

---

0xad6bc14 <geo+2356>:   0x002b0001      0x0033002d      0x00000032      0x00390035

0xad6bc24 <geo+2372>:   0x00000000      0x00000000      0x00000000      0x00000000

0xad6bc34 <geo+2388>:   0x00000000      0x00000000      0x00000100      0x03f10331

---

The above is for Marverni, neighbors:
0x01 = 1
0x2b = 43
0x2d = 45
0x33 = 51
0x32 = 50
0x00 --> no more neighbors
0x35 <-- Ack! This is neighbor #7, the invisible neighbor.

I'll see if I can find where the 0x35 gets inserted into the geo table.

Edit: It's from the save file itself. The getfatherland() function loaded the value into the geo table.

[calmon]

(Its in "Pretender Test3")

Well 0x35 is 53! And in my test game ermor (35) got dominion in 53 and its far away from his home province! I'm sure it has also this province as an additional entry in his table.

However this "invisible" neighbour explains another strange appearance i've from time to time:
My dominions spread into a far away province!

Well done vfb! Johan should take a deep look into this. It explains some of the strange things the game still has!

[vfb]

New information:

If you create a new game in dominions without exiting the application, the geo table is not cleared. You will end up with scale bugs in provinces with less than 6 neighbors. And other mysterious problems are possible too.

Exit the application first, then create a new game. That will prevent the problems calmon found.

calmon, if you have time can you please try to reproduce the bug again, but this time always exit the dom3 program before creating each game.

[Edi]

Okay, so how you guys ferreted these numbers out looks like black magic to me, but if I'm reading that right, the scales bug will probably go SQUISH come patch time, and it looks like this same thing explains the so far unsatisfactorily covered random dominion spread to faraway provinces (previously thought to result from the skipping in Dominion spread mechanics according to one hypothesis).

I'm also wondering if the corrupted geotable could be behind the bug where two opposing armies are unable to move against each other or armies getting "stuck" for no particular reason, which has been discussed earlier at some length.

calmon, vfb, great job! Props also to IndyPendant who got the whole Vanishing Scales discussion restarted and to Lord_Bob whose thread helped explore some of the scale mechanic possibilities and eliminate them as a consideration.

[calmon]

Ok i did some more tests with 2 games (each with brand new dominions open) and 5 First turn hosts for each game.

Now i can't find the bug in provinces with 6 or less provinces as neighbours. All bugs occurs in provinces with 7 or more neighbours!

It seems you found it !

[Daynarr]

Nice vfb. Looks like you are on to something here.

[vfb]

Thanks! I'd still like to have a look at Edratman's map later, where he had a 9-neighbor province and did not see bugs. So there may be a little more to it, but for now ... always start a clean instance of the application for new games, and try to avoid home provinces with more than 6 neighbors.

[calmon]

Well the bug doesn't occurs every time when having more than 6 provinces.

I think when having more than 6, the chance getting it increases with every additional neighbour.

[vfb]

I'm not sure. In the games I debugged, it definitely looks at the 7th neighbor first, and if it is foreign and there is any scale difference, it will first remove that scale from the home province. Then it moves on to the first neighbor, and if it is foreign it totally removes any positive (aka negative aka good) scales from the home province that do not exist in the first neighbor (looping up to 19 times just to make sure).

If you can please attach a save of a 7-neighbor game where the scale bug does not occur, I might be able to find out more exceptions to the above.