How to sumbit a bug report

By CariElf on April 13, 2005 1:09:46 PM from

CariElf

Stardock

Join Date 08/2001

+54

1) Include your debug.err file in your report. The debug.err report includes system information which can be important, and can help give us clues as to what was going on when your problem occurred.

2) If it's a crash, please include a SmartException log if you have one. You can download SmartException at http://www.stardock.com/products/smartexception and there are also instructions there. Please run it while testing. The submit button in the SE dialog does not yet work, so you will have to open the log directory and open the file as a text file.

3) If you can reproduce it from a save game, send us the save game.

4) Screenshots are often helpful. To make a screenshot, hit Alt-PrtScn and then paste in a paint program and save as a jpg.

5) Please give as much detail as you can when describing the bug.

6) Please do not include unrelated suggestions in your bug report. These should be made in a separate post.

7) When e-mailing files for a bug report, please link to the post/reply here in the forums where you reported the bug. You can e-mail the files to support@stardock.com

sumbit.....i've only just noticed! now where's that sumbit button.......

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When I start a game the small pictures (ships and planets) ar spinning wildly. Plus the main view of the galaxy is slighly zooming in and out, like a wiggle, and there are double images, a close up of the center of the view and the zoomed out view at the same time. I have now idea what it is all about. My driver is updated and I fiddled with the video stting to nop effect.

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I don't know if this is the place but here I go...

I just played a game against seven AI players. It seemed like a fair game until a bunch (around 200 ships) of pirates showed up. I guess they are created with the alltogether best tech known by all races, most ships looked like Beam 22, M.Def 30, HP 22. So I thought that my missiles wouldn't do much harm on them and invented Beam weapons instead, but the did even less damage. My ships Beam 15 B.Def 20 lost every time, mostly without taken any points from them. Looks like some sort of bug to me.

In the summary of the game, the average tax is only from the last turn, absolutely not from the whole game or last year.

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Hi,

I've just downloaded GalCiv2 and DarkAvatar from Impulse 2 days ago.

First question: Do I need to get any updates beyond that and where ?

Then, my bug:

Some or all colonies except the home planet seem to stop growing somewhere between 2b and 4b population. Even at 100% approval, with super breeder: nothing. The population also doesn't seem to shrink slightly below 30% approval, but does so close to 0%.

I can't find a debug.err file anywhere if I do a file search.

My machine is a Medion laptop with Windows XP Home. But I have been having the same problem over half a year back on another laptop.

Thank you.

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Another issue, while I'm at it.

The approval thresholds where the population grows, stalls or shrinks are not clear to me.

The tutorial mentions growth above 50% approval, but in fact it seems to grow above 40%, then better above 70%. The color of the approval rate turns from red to yellow, then from yellow to green, but when exactly it does that is quite confusing. In the colony list, it turns from red to yellow at 45% on single colony level. In the main screen, it shows the same behaviour for the average approval, regardless of individual colonies. Same goes for yellow-green threshold, except it is actually at 70%.

Is there any reliable rule I can go by ?

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Wow.

I guess it's funny in a way.

CariElf details how to post a bug report, then 4 (so-called) bug reports that don't follow her instructions. (even after 3 years since the OP)

No debug.err info in any of them. And it seems many do not do a search for similar problems to find the solution.

Wardchap, update your AMD CPU drivers. It will solve your problem.

Clarre77, you don't have a bug. You have a lack of knowledge.

RainerPlaumann, you have not mentioned a bug at all. Just a general lack of knowledge as well. Keep your approval rating as high as possible, and you will have the best possible population growth for your approval rating. 80-100% is best.

If you have a problem, start a thread and post the relevant details (including the debug.err info!!!). There are many people here that will help. In WinXP the debug.err is located in "My Documents\My Games\GalCiv2" - if you have the latest version, otherwise look in the main game folder. The debug.err for versions other than the original GalCiv2 will be in their respective sub-folders.

Always use the debug.err file info just after a crash or problem, as the game begins a new one each time you start the game.

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I'm sorry. I was tired and mistook this for a thread *for* instead of *about* bug reports.
As for the would-be bugs, I clearly stated that I did not just have low approval and that I could not find a debug.err file.

Through a search, I have now found out that the population growth can be capped before the maximum population. Thanks for the hint about the debug.err file.

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Not all bugs are reportable in the debug.err btw. Some don't crash the game, such as the 'spys still spying on a dead civ' bug. Reguardless, humans are humans and don't always follow directions.

RainerPlaumann:
"First question: Do I need to get any updates beyond that and where ?"
For the updates, you need to install and run Impulse. You can find it here:
http://www.impulsedriven.com/?site=GalCiv2

Your population 'bug' is just a lack of info that the game doesn't give you offhand. I would read the Wiki to learn more:
http://galciv.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Civilizations_Wiki

From the sound of it, you have mostly PQ 4, 5, and 6 planets which cap out at the numbers listed below. You can increase PQ of planets 2 ways: Research /build a tech /building that raises the PQ of the planet, or research the 'Soil Enhancement /Habitat Improvement /Terraforming' techs and terraform the appropiate yellow /orange /red tiles.

For Approval, I would keep at or above 76% for growing colonies, and above 20% for colonies that have maxed their population. If you research one of the Governments and opt to take it instead of Dictatorship, you want to keep the average approval as high as you can around voting time or risk losing your Political Party bonuses. The 'Super Breeder' trait works on a per-colony bais. You can set taxes so your new colony has 100% approval for the Super Breeder bonus, and your capital has 50% approval but does not benifit from the bonus.

Copy-pasting some info here:
Numbers for Maximum Population per Planet quality in billions:

PQ 1 = 0.16 b.
PQ 2 = 0.54 b.
PQ 3 = 1.28 b.
PQ 4 = 2.50 b.
PQ 5 = 4.32 b.
PQ 6 = 6.86 b.
PQ 7 = 10.24 b.
PQ 8 = 14.58 b.
PQ 9 = 20.00 b.
PQ 10 = 26.62 b.
PQ 11 = 34.56 b.
PQ 12 = 43.94 b.
PQ 13 = 54.88 b.
PQ 14 = 67.50 b.
PQ 15 = 81.92 b.
PQ 16 = 98.26 b.
PQ 17+ = 100 b.

Approval rating also impacts planetary population growth as follows:

Approval from 1% to 19%: population decreases 10% per turn
Approval from 20% to 40 %: population is static
Approval from 41% to 75 %: population increases according to formula given in the population page (given sufficient food).
Approval from 76% to 99%: 25% bonus growth
Approval 100%: double population growth

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Also thanks for the other tipps too, of course. Really gotta sleep now.

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Thanks again for those tipps.

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first please forgive if this is a double post, I don't think the last one took, script errors on this page.

about 5 years into my game, gigantic/abundant, all bonuses disappear from one turn to the next with no event to explain it. no race trait bonuses, no anomaly bonuses, no research bonuses... everything is reset to zero. the exception being super adaptor bonuses.

So I get well into a game, and from one turn to the next my entire civilization is reset to sero as far as game modifiers go. The game still runs, the ai's still threaten me with annihilation, ships move around on the screen, and finished production screen still appears at beginning of each turn.

Is this something built into the game? Some kind of espionage trick I can do to other civs?

please help

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