PBEM players, lets report the bugs. - Page 2

255 · January 12, 2003, 02:37

Oh another bug is that with PTW 1.14f Hotseat the AI simply doesn't expand. I know it won't in Regicide or any of the other goofy modes, but my friend and I have been playing 4-5 Diety AI Civs and within maybe 50 turns we have a significant (25 point) advantage over them. When we see their Civs they have about six cities, level 1 or 2, no roads connecting and plenty of untapped resources within their territory.

In contrast, when we both play Diety level single player games the AI expands like mad and we get our asses royally handed to us.

255

Raion · January 12, 2003, 16:22

I would think that the memory problem after the game, is the OS's fault. It is Windows that does not clear the memory, except after (running other programs) decides that it can. It use to be up to 2 minutes with previous OS's from Microsoft.

I always check the task manager or system monitor program, and the memory is never cleared.

All PTW can do is release the memory after the game, it is the OS that actually clears or finally releases the memory, and as above, the game merely shows the faults of the OS, like before.

Adagio · January 12, 2003, 18:17

I have never had that problem before PTW, so it looks like a PTW problem...

alva · January 12, 2003, 22:16

Quote:

Originally posted by ADG
I have never had that problem before PTW, so it looks like a PTW problem...

I agree, it doesn't other program as much either.

Just IE and mail programs (on my pc)

delmar · January 16, 2003, 11:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Raion
I would think that the memory problem after the game, is the OS's fault.

For the record, I have never seen this memory problem. It appears to me that Dissident is the only one who saw it and he thought that it was the same problem as other applications being slow after PtW exits. Well, IMHO it's not.

Another bug: when you press CTRL+SHIFT+P in the game, you get a dialog box asking for your password, then (if you entered the correct password) another one asking for the new password. This latter dialog box however doesn't have any text field where you can actually enter the password. It just has a label saying "Enter a Password for " and then there is an OK and a Cancel button, but you can't enter a damn thing.

I think I was able to change the password like this on at least one occasion, so it might not be consistently broken, but I am not sure.

As a side question, any news on when we will actually get a patch? Having to do the beta testing for Firaxis is bad enough, but doing it without eventually getting fixes for the problems would be really annoying...

Tiberius · January 20, 2003, 09:30

Quote:

Originally posted by Dissident
actually it might be like 2 seconds

. It only gives me a low memory message if I restart immediately after closing down.

This happens to me, too. If I restart immediately I get a low memory message and the game doesn't start. After a few seconds everything's back to normal and I can launch PtW again.

I'm using a Duron 1200 MHz, 256 MB RAM, Windows Me.

Adagio · January 20, 2003, 10:22

EDIT: Nevermind, I misunderstud something

delmar · January 20, 2003, 12:30

ADG: I thought you said you have the problem where the applications are slow after closing PtW. I have that problem too and I think that's a different one than the low memory problem (I can't start PtW quickly enough to get the low memory message).

I am using Win2K with 256MB, btw.

Adagio · January 20, 2003, 13:45

Oh, then I misunderstood what he was talking about...

delmar · January 21, 2003, 11:38

Diplomacy screen pops up at the beginning of every turn even though both parties have been clicking on "exit" for several turns already and there is nothing offered on either side. Unfortunately I don't know how we got to this stage. I suspect that the other party offered a tech that I didn't accept and then I learnt it from another civ. So perhaps there is a ghost offer on his side that we can't see any more.

Flandrien1 · January 21, 2003, 12:00

I think you must explicitely press 'clear table' to make the diplomacy screen go away.

delmar · January 21, 2003, 12:20

Thanks for the tip. For the record, I still consider this a bug (ie. diplomacy screen should not come up if it's empty).

SpencerH · January 23, 2003, 08:10

Yeah, its a damn irritating bug! Hopefully Flandrien's tip will help.

delmar · January 24, 2003, 22:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Flandrien
I think you must explicitely press 'clear table' to make the diplomacy screen go away.

I just checked this an the "clear table" button is not there when this happens.

SpencerH · January 25, 2003, 08:40

Delmar is right, there is no clear table on the human diplomacy screen. Human-AI is fine. Its only human human diplomacy where it's a problem.

delmar · January 25, 2003, 12:38

I think we would need a screen (e.g. F12) that tells which units were lost in the previous turn. A complete list of battles wouldn't be bad either (similar to those messages in online games that scroll up at a speed no one can really read anyway: "Our X near Y defeated/lost to Z's W.") .

This is more a feature request than a bug, but it would help a lot with PBEM games IMHO. In one of the games, I just realized that I lost all my scouts (and who knows what else). As I am not at war with anyone, I assume they fell victim to a recent barbarian uprising (probably 2-3 turns ago).

Flandrien1 · January 25, 2003, 12:42

Quote:

Originally posted by delmar
I just checked this an the "clear table" button is not there when this happens.

Maybe you should put something on the table first ?

Then press 'clear table'.
Then press 'exit'.

delmar · January 25, 2003, 13:39

Quote:

Originally posted by Flandrien

Maybe you should put something on the table first ?

Then press 'clear table'.
Then press 'exit'.

Yes, that worked. Thanks!

Adagio · January 25, 2003, 13:58

Quote:

Originally posted by delmar
I think we would need a screen (e.g. F12) that tells which units were lost in the previous turn. A complete list of battles wouldn't be bad either (similar to those messages in online games that scroll up at a speed no one can really read anyway: "Our X near Y defeated/lost to Z's W.") .

This is more a feature request than a bug, but it would help a lot with PBEM games IMHO. In one of the games, I just realized that I lost all my scouts (and who knows what else). As I am not at war with anyone, I assume they fell victim to a recent barbarian uprising (probably 2-3 turns ago).

This would defently be usefull

Arrian · January 29, 2003, 12:42

Something strange just happened to me in a PBEM game.

490bc, the 1st player (one of my human opponents) declared war on me, and signed an alliance with Greece (AI) against me.

When I loaded the game that turn, the Greeks wanted to talk to me. I said "yes" and was taken to a blank diplo screen. I went to "new" treaties, and found that my only option was peace (clearly, since they were at war with me). I was able to do a straight peace deal, and then formed an alliance against my friend with Greece.

Now, my friend tells me that the game is telling him that Greece is at war with him, and allied with him against me.

Err...

-Arrian

edit: removed rogue "d" from the end of strange.

Arrian · January 29, 2003, 12:46

delmar,

I totally agree with a unit loss screen! The most annoying thing about PBEM for me is not knowing exactly what happens to my units when it's not my turn. It's really irritating.

My #1 choice would be to somehow save the actual screenplay of the battles and show them upon loading the turn. But, if that's just too much, a new info screen would suffice.

-Arrian

SpencerH · January 29, 2003, 12:48

Any bets that we get games that crash after 6 mo of play.

SpencerH · January 29, 2003, 12:49

Yes it would be nice to know if delmar lost any troops while obliterating my cities.

delmar · January 29, 2003, 13:31

Quote:

Originally posted by SpencerH
Yes it would be nice to know if delmar lost any troops while obliterating my cities.

Well, I can tell you that... for a small fee...

delmar · February 17, 2003, 12:13

Quote:

Originally posted by SpencerH
Any bets that we get games that crash after 6 mo of play.

Any bets that there won't be any patch for that (or anything else for that matter)?

Edit: Heh, I just found a note that there will be a patch in a few weeks. So, don't give up!

Keygen · February 25, 2003, 11:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Conqueror

I have very similar bug, hard disk works like crazy (for no obivious reason) for almost five minutes after closing PTW, making every program work very slowly. This should not happen with 1,6 ghz processor and 1 gt ram.

And altho this has been reported before somewhere: my outlook express toolbar is totally wiped from any buttons after playing PTW. Thats why i use alternate mail clients to send PTW saves

I am not sure about the Outlook Express since I use (Office) Outlook but if I have lot of programs loaded into memory then my email client might crash or buttons disappear after I exit PTW plus my hard disk and cpu work for some time.

If I minimize all these programs to the taskbar and after I exit PTW maximize and minimize a couple of times any program cpu and hrad disk utilization will stop and no program will crash or part of it "fades away". At list that happened a couple of times I tested it. It might work.

argha · March 9, 2003, 17:14

Has anyone had PTW(1.21f) crash when trying to open a city or the advisors screen, no added civs, some tweeks to rules, 326x326 world size. I can no longer open cities or advisors, and my tax is stuck at 0.9.1 and losing around 90 per turn.

Adagio · March 22, 2003, 15:32

Don't know if this "bug" has been reported (don't want to re-read the whole thread again

)

Would be nice to have a msg, when loading the turn, where it says, if a deal was accepted or not...

Eli · March 23, 2003, 11:39

Quote:

Would be nice to have a msg, when loading the turn, where it says, if a deal was accepted or not...

Definitely. There were times when I was making long term plans, and working by the plan turn by turn, and only after playing 10 turns or so discovering that I already have some crucial tech.

bvoncranium · April 2, 2003, 01:14

Quote:

Originally posted by Conqueror
More known bugs:
-Being able to open someone elses turn.

As this bug was still present when 1.21f was released, I filed a Problem Report a month ago with Firaxis describing the bug and the fundamental way that it alters the PBEM game if players exploit it. On March 18 I received an email from their QA Manager who stated that it should be fixed in the next patch release. Lets hope that it is indeed corrected and in a manner that does not introduce new problems.
Cheers, b