LAN Detailed Battle Bug

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [Napoleonics] >> Crown of Glory >> Crown Of Glory Support >> LAN Detailed Battle Bug

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LAN Detailed Battle Bug - 6/18/2006 4:46:47 AM

Wolfiehill

Posts: 7
Joined: 6/18/2006
Status: offline

We have come accross a major bug when playing detailed battles in a LAN game.

Whether playing against the computor or human, the opponent's reinforcing units CANNOT be seen. We have duplicated this on several occasions. As we are side by side, and the person controlling the reinforcing unit (or sitting as the server and watching both sides) can see the reinforcing units, we are aware of their position. An attempt to either fire into the hex, or move into the hex, of the invisible unit results in a pass of the turn to the next unit. The invisible units, although they can't be fired on, do engage in combat resulting in casualties from ghosts.

As far as we can tell right now, the problem only effects the non-server machine.

This has occured with France as host bring on invisible units against Austria (2 human players), and where Turkey was the host in a battle between Prussia and Spain (Prussia was human, and Spain computor controlled). The invisible reinforcements belonged to Spain.

We are playing patch 1.2.18.

Does this happen with any earlier patches, or should we repatch?

This is a masterpiece of a game, and a solution to this problem which makes it unplayable would be appreciated. My playing partner is tactically challenged, but is less predicable than the AI.

Post #: 1

RE: LAN Detailed Battle Bug - 6/18/2006 5:01:38 AM

Budgie

Posts: 219
Joined: 6/4/2006
Status: offline

Quote: Ericbabe: "2) We've had one report of a bug in detailed combat in TCP/IP which we have seen twice now in our testing. This involves the client's units becoming invisible and seems to happen when units are being reinforced while other units are routing. I've written a fix for this and we are working on testing that. I believe this is a bug that I introduced when I fixed another (much more minor) bug in the detailed combat reinforcement code one or two version ago, as we did not see anything like this during beta testing.

The TCP/IP libraries are based on Microsoft's Direct Play, version 4.0. Microsoft has deprecated Direct Play -- that is, they are no longer supporting it -- and Direct Play 4.0 does have some performance issues: it is slower than other TCP/IP libraries and we do experience some dropped connections. Because of this we are investigating migrating the TCP/IP routines to a newer library. However the Direct Play libraries are not impossible to play with over the internet -- we typically can play for many hours without a lost connection, and the longest delays at the end of a turn are usually no longer than 30 seconds to a minute. Direct Play seems much more stable over a LAN. One the LAN, there are no noticeable delays with fewer than 4 or 5 players, and it seems much more stable. "

Eric : This is our problem and the game is unplayable as a result.

If you can find any solution we would be gratefull.

_____________________________

I Game I Saw I Conquered

"And though the Ferris wheel spins round
my tongue it seems has run aground
and croaks as my befuddled brain
shines on brightly, quite insane "
--Shine On --Shine On --
- Procol Harum

(in reply to Wolfiehill)

Post #: 2

RE: LAN Detailed Battle Bug - 6/18/2006 12:45:54 PM

ericbabe

Posts: 11927
Joined: 3/23/2005
Status: offline

We had one report of this previously and I have been able to duplicate it. I think it happens when units are reinforcing after other units have already retreated. I will try adding code to re-synch the entire game state at the start of every turn (after reinforcements are called) -- this may fix the problem.

(in reply to Budgie)

Post #: 3

RE: LAN Detailed Battle Bug - 6/18/2006 6:27:03 PM

Budgie

Posts: 219
Joined: 6/4/2006
Status: offline

Thanks Eric:

We enjoy the game so much that we tried to make a house rule that we would tolerate the AI "ghost" units and promised each other, not to reinforce any Human to Human battles.

Unfortunately. In a battle after the AI army routs. When one of the "ghost" units surrenders to you and it is time to move that ghost surrendered unit, you can't as the order portion of your screen stays greyed out.

The computer waits for an order from you and we can find no way to force the game to continue past that point, not even "end battle".

Regards.

Budgie.

_____________________________

(in reply to ericbabe)

Post #: 4

RE: LAN Detailed Battle Bug - 6/19/2006 3:29:56 AM

Wolfiehill

Posts: 7
Joined: 6/18/2006
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Eric

I am the other half of the Budgie game. In our human v. Human game no units had routed and neither of us had retreated. We still had the invisible units on the reinforcing side. Hope that info is useful in finding a fix.

Thanks for your efforts.

(in reply to Wolfiehill)

Post #: 5

RE: LAN Detailed Battle Bug - 6/20/2006 2:59:29 AM

Wolfiehill

Posts: 7
Joined: 6/18/2006
Status: offline

Eric

Is our bug present in patch 1.2.17? I seem to remember you writing that this bug was created when curing another (lesser) problem. Rather than waiting we would go back to precreation (so to speak).

Thanks

Wolfie

(in reply to Wolfiehill)

Post #: 6

RE: LAN Detailed Battle Bug - 6/20/2006 9:16:44 AM

ericbabe

Posts: 11927
Joined: 3/23/2005
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I think the bug was introduced in a later patch since we didn't have this problem during beta testing (and played a lot of LAN games then), but I'm not sure exactly when it was introduced.

(in reply to Wolfiehill)

Post #: 7

RE: LAN Detailed Battle Bug - 6/20/2006 7:53:46 PM

Budgie

Posts: 219
Joined: 6/4/2006
Status: offline

Re: . .

=============================
Western Civilization Software
Crown of Glory V1.2.18 Beta
ReadMe File
=============================

==================================
v1.2.18 Change List (January 10, 2006)
==================================

Changes 1.2.17->1.2.18
--------------------

* Added NOVALIDATE to .ini file options; if NOVALIDATE=1, then this computer will send non-guaranteed messages during multi-play. This will speed up play, but may cause the game to be less stable if packets are being dropped between server/client.

Eric we can't find this "INI" file as we don't know the ini file name.

IF it is the main "CoG.ini" file found in C:\windows, then we don't know what option number to change to force packet validation.

For that matter we don't know if this is the problem at all but at least if we can slow down and verify the information sent, it may help.

Sorry to harrass you on this.

Budgie and Wolfie.

(in reply to Wolfiehill)

Post #: 8

RE: LAN Detailed Battle Bug - 7/1/2006 2:56:18 AM

Budgie

Posts: 219
Joined: 6/4/2006
Status: offline

Ericbabe: If possible, Could you kindly advise us or post an answer to our question and this problem?

(in reply to Wolfiehill)

Post #: 9

RE: LAN Detailed Battle Bug - 7/3/2006 4:37:55 PM

ericbabe

Posts: 11927
Joined: 3/23/2005
Status: offline

I apologize for having missed this post before.

It should be crownofglory.ini and this is most likely located in your Windows directory.

If you add the following line of code anywhere in the ini file:

NOVALIDATE=1

this should make your game faster but less stable, as dropped packets will not be validated. The default is to NOVALIDATE=0.

(in reply to Budgie)

Post #: 10

RE: LAN Detailed Battle Bug - 7/3/2006 8:13:55 PM

Budgie

Posts: 219
Joined: 6/4/2006
Status: offline

Thank You Eric:

We figure your busy with GoG2.

"The default is to NOVALIDATE=0. "

Sigh!

Looks like it won't help us solve our problem anyway as we misunderstood and thought the default WAS "Novalidate".

Oh well. We're getting in lots of solo game practise.

_____________________________

(in reply to Wolfiehill)

Post #: 11

RE: LAN Detailed Battle Bug - 7/4/2006 1:08:13 AM

Wolfiehill

Posts: 7
Joined: 6/18/2006
Status: offline

Thank you for replying Eric.

We did add NOVALIDATE=1. We left in [DEFAULT].

This seems to have created a problem in that the non server simply stops. The server completes the turn, and the slave does not. This was recreated in three attempted games, occurring about three months in for each.

I presume you are trying to deal with the original issue in the patch. I guess this is not the solution.

Will this be an issue in the ACW game? We would like to get it but only if we can play LAN.

Thanks for your efforts.

Wolfie