vaalen
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1229
Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:48 pm

immortal replacements bug

Wed Feb 01, 2017 4:52 am

As France, in the grand campaign, with the latest patch, I have been fighting a long war with Austria.

I noticed that battles would take place, in which each side would take over one hundred hits, and every unit would always be at full strength the next turn, if they were in supply. This seemed a bit odd, so i started keeping track of things.

What I found is that replacement chits were replacing hits, but were never used up.

For example, I had accumulated 31 line infantry replacement points in 1855, when the war with Austria started.
After over two years of war, with a number of battles, and many hundreds of hits taken, I still have 31 line infantry replacement points, without adding a single one, and all of my line infantry losses had been replaced.

The same is true for all my other replacement point categories. even where I had only three. For example heavy warship replacement points were at the number three when the war started. My heavy ships took a number of hits when bombarding fortresses with artillery, and a few ships were sunk. but once I got them to port, the damaged ships were repaired, and replacement elements for the sunk ships were started, and eventually completed, and I still have three heavy ship replacement points.

This is a very serious bug, in that it makes it almost impossible to wear down an enemy army, unless they are cut off from supply, and almost impossible for an enemy to destroy one of my armies. It has also enabled Austria to fight several opponents at once, on three different fronts, and to keep all their forces at full strength.

I know the developers are short of time, yet I hope it can be fixed rather simply and quickly, as this replacement system works well in many Ageod games, and used to work fine in PON until the last couple patches.

Aside from this, the game works very well, and I respectfully ask that this be fixed.

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PhilThib
Posts: 13705
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:21 pm
Location: Meylan (France)

Re: immortal replacements bug

Wed Feb 01, 2017 11:44 am

May be send saves of 3-4 consecutive turns with this situation to Pocus :indien:

vaalen
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1229
Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:48 pm

Re: immortal replacements bug

Wed Feb 01, 2017 6:50 pm

PhilThib wrote:May be send saves of 3-4 consecutive turns with this situation to Pocus :indien:


I will do my best, probably with the help of my son, which might not occur until the evening. Thank you for being willing to take a look at this.

Since I posted the above, I had an epic battle with the Austrians in which I suffered over 700 hits and they suffered over 800. They won, as Radetsky is tough to deal with. I had two cavalry divisions destroyed in the battle, and most of my other units had far more red than white showing in the element boxes. Within a turn, they were back to full strength, and I still had the same number of replacement chits.

I am now thinking there must be a flaw in the mechanism that determines the chance of expending a replacement chit, as they are never expended, but remain immortal.

vaalen
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1229
Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:48 pm

Re: immortal replacements bug

Thu Feb 02, 2017 3:22 pm

Alas, I moved too far ahead in the game, my ally made peace, forcing me into peace, and I do not have any savegames that illustrate the problem.

I have sent a PM to Pocus. As you can tell from his very user name, he can do magic, so there is still hope.

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loki100
AGEod Guard of Honor
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Re: immortal replacements bug

Fri Feb 03, 2017 12:04 am

You could set up a fake test. First do a copy and save of your turn file (so you can revert to the game)

Open up the save game, find one of your armies and delete a load of elements. You can then check the draw down of replacement chits.

If you open the .trn file, search down for your faction you'll find a load of entries like this:

Image

Delete everything from {SubUnit} to {/SubUnit}, that is the equivalent of a hit costing an element (in this case you would sink HMS Persian). If you find a corps you do quite a lot of these in one go. Just make sure you leave at least one SubUnit and the text {Unit}..{/Unit}

I'll try and find the time to a test myself but it'll be a few days before I can test this.

vaalen
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1229
Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:48 pm

Re: immortal replacements bug

Fri Feb 03, 2017 4:13 am

Loki, that is a very interesting way to test this. I am going to look carefully at what you have described, and may try following your excellent instructions, despite my lack of computer skills.

If you can find the time, I am very interesting in seeing what the results of your test are. At this point, I do not know if this is a problem that effects anyone but myself, though I suspect it is not.

As always, your help is very much appreciated.

Regards,

Vaalen

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Pocus
Posts: 25659
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:37 am
Location: Lyon (France)

Re: immortal replacements bug

Fri Feb 03, 2017 4:44 pm

Vaalen are you using 1.04.3? The replacement bug should be fixed there.

vaalen
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1229
Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:48 pm

Re: immortal replacements bug

Fri Feb 03, 2017 9:34 pm

Pocus wrote:Vaalen are you using 1.04.3? The replacement bug should be fixed there.


Yes, I am using 1.04.3. I probably started this game after installing 1.04.3, but I am certain that 1.04.3 was installed long before I noticed the bug.

Regards,

Vaalen

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Random
AGEod Veteran
Posts: 779
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 4:10 pm

Re: immortal replacements bug

Sat Feb 04, 2017 12:11 am

Hi Vaalen. Before installing the 1.04.3 update (or after installing and before running the game for the first time) did you delete the Models.cached and Units.cached files located in the ...\VGN\Game Data\Models and ...\VGN\Game Data\Units folders respectively?

Deleting these two files does no harm since the game will automatically re-write them next time it is started. The cost is increased load time for this occasion only.

There is a chance that squashing the Immortal Chits bug involved either *.uni or *.mdl files and if so you would not see changes in the existing game until the *.cache files are updated too. At least that's how I understand the AGE-engine. I always delete the *.cache files before installing any update. I'm not seeing this bug in my latest game, which is why I suspect it may be a cache issue.

Try deleting those two files, you have nothing to lose other than waiting a few additional minutes as the game re-writes the cache files with any new data. Good Luck.

-C

vaalen
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1229
Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:48 pm

Re: immortal replacements bug

Sat Feb 04, 2017 1:48 am

Hi Random,

No, i did not delete those files before installing the patch.

Thank you so much for this suggestion. I will give it a try.

I am glad you are not seeing the problem in your game.

Regards,

Vaalen

vaalen
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1229
Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:48 pm

Re: immortal replacements bug

Sat Feb 04, 2017 3:50 am

Bravo, Random!

Your solution worked, and replacements are now working exactly as they should.

Thank you for providing this solution, I truly appreciate it. But this generous action is typical of the way you have given your invaluable help to so many of us over the years.

Regards,

Vaalen

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Pocus
Posts: 25659
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:37 am
Location: Lyon (France)

Re: immortal replacements bug

Sat Feb 04, 2017 10:52 am

If the bug is still there in official PON, then a quickfix is warranted then. Thanks for your help Random.

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Random
AGEod Veteran
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Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 4:10 pm

Re: immortal replacements bug

Sat Feb 04, 2017 8:01 pm

You're very welcome, glad to be of some help the PON community. I would suggest that deleting the cache should be included in the installation instructions for updates in all AGEOD titles. As I recall doing so has been suggested in the past, I certainly did not think of this on my own, but in my opinion clearing the Units.cached and Models.cached files should be standard procedure for all users before any update.

-C

vaalen
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1229
Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:48 pm

Re: immortal replacements bug

Sun Feb 05, 2017 5:47 pm

Random wrote:You're very welcome, glad to be of some help the PON community. I would suggest that deleting the cache should be included in the installation instructions for updates in all AGEOD titles. As I recall doing so has been suggested in the past, I certainly did not think of this on my own, but in my opinion clearing the Units.cached and Models.cached files should be standard procedure for all users before any update.

-C


Random, do you do this for the newer titles such as TEAW and WON?

I think you included these games by saying all Ageod games, but I wanted to make sure.

Your solution worked so well that I think I will do this for all the older Ageod games, and the newer ones, if you are including them It does significantly increase the game loading time once, as you warned, but it has been so worth it for PON.

Regards,

Vaalen

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loki100
AGEod Guard of Honor
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Location: Caithness
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Re: immortal replacements bug

Sun Feb 05, 2017 6:24 pm

I tend to clear the caches ... in theory the new builds should be set up with this done and recreated but it seems a small precaution. The one you don't want to clear is the map cache .. unless you fancy a 2 hour loading experience

vaalen
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1229
Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:48 pm

Re: immortal replacements bug

Mon Feb 06, 2017 4:05 pm

loki100 wrote:I tend to clear the caches ... in theory the new builds should be set up with this done and recreated but it seems a small precaution. The one you don't want to clear is the map cache .. unless you fancy a 2 hour loading experience


Loki, thanks for the information, and the warning about clearing the map cache.

I am finding that the game i am playing now shows substantial improvement after the last patch, especially in Diplomacy, battles, AI use of navies, amphibious assaults, Ai Strategy, events, and processing time. I am very interested to see how the game described in your latest AAR develops, especially with your novel approach to telling it.

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