Strange Game Behavior and Possible Exploit

from GalCiv2 Forums
I have been playing a game and have noticed some very odd behaviors in 1.4. After a rush of building freighters, I saw that I had built 2 too many for the allowed number of routes. I upgraded them to custom constructors, and sent them home, (They were some distance away), and promptly forgot about them. When next I saw them, they had entered into an existing trade route, in mini form! They travel back and forth, sharing the route with the freighter originally assigned to that route. Here is a link to a screenshot of one of them. WWW Link This was brought to my attention because of the second abnormal behavior. A Terran freighter had parked itself next to my homeworld, at the end of the aforementioned trade route. It was directly on top of the spot where my ships would launch from orbit. This was very annoying, as sometimes it took more than one try to get my ships to leave the pile for their intended destination. I don't know if the placement of the freighter was an AI strategy, or if it just got 'stuck' there. Also, there was an odd graphics issue at the same place. Imagine a disk the same diameter as the planet, inserted in at the equator, until only a crescent-shaped wedge remained outside. It was the same 'select blue' color, and it would pulse; at approximately double the speed of the bobbing motion of stationary ships. This went on for literally months of game time. Wish I could post a screenshot of that, but my attention was drawn elsewhere, and by the time I got back to my homeworld, both the freighter, and the blue crescent, were gone. This leads to the next oddness- this time to my advantage. I was drawn to the other side of the galaxy in a war with the Thalans. I invaded 2 of their planets, big industrial ones, and immediately after conquering them, set them to build my latest Dreadnoughts. I noticed that the stated buildtime was 0. Same turn, conquered another planet, this time building from the quick build screen. Stated time to completion was correct here- 17 wks. Went back to the planet build screen, again, 17 wks. So going into quick build 'breaks the spell'. Next turn, conquered, set to build; again buildtime 0. This is not just an error in the displayed time- the ships are actually built in one turn! This issue in particular needs to be addressed, since this is an exploit that will completely unbalance the game.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sorry about the double post- I must have inadvertently bumped the wrong key before I had finished. Please feel free to delete the other post. Mistralok
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
As far as the frieghter behavior, I don't know.

However, the build time is not a bug. What's happening is that the AI was building a ship when you conquered it and has left a "credit" of production in the build queue. If this credit is more than your ship costs it builds immediately, you could also see partial credit that merely reduces the normal time to build the ship. This can vary from planet to planet and accounts for the behavior that you describe.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Reference the buildtime issue on the captured planets:

I believe that you "inherit" any accumulated buildtime that the previous owner had invested in whatever ship it was building at the time of conquest.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks for the info, guys. This is an interesting feature that I will investigate further. However... in order for your explanations to be correct, then the Thalans would have to have been building a considerably larger ship than the ones I chose to build, and, said ships would have to have been within 1 turn (or so) of completion. The ships being built on these planets were both smaller than mine, as well as being roughly halfway through construction. My ships were all Dreadnaughts- true behemoths; fully teched-out. The only possible way for the Thalans to design a larger vessel would be for them to own multiple Hyperion Shrinkers, which they did not. Also, this happened on Five separate planets during two turns, the one exception being the investigation of the quick-build screen, which when simply opened, stops this effect. I'm sorry, but you haven't convinced me yet. To take, say, ten planets, and be rewarded with a fleet of ten untouchable monster ships just can't be right.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thalans would have to have been building a considerably larger ship than the ones I chose to build

Not necessarily larger, but certainly costlier. Was your espionage high enough to look at the planet prior to invasion so that you could see the type of ship they were building? Do the Thalans perhaps have higher level techs and therefore more expensive weapons and/or shields?

Anyway as long as you're aware of the effect of inheriting the production spent on the previous owners build queue, then you're in a better position to judge than I am. Would you say that this is definitely new behavior at v1.4 that did not occur at lower revs? From what you say I’d have to agree that this is a bug.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I to have noticed getting ships from the newly conquered planet and assumed Mumble's explanation was what was happening. I'll pre-scout my next invasion and see if I can tell what's happening.

I do recall being able to finish a ship in the current que, that you had not even researched yet, when you conquered a planet in GalCiv1. Once completed it was no longer available, but you got the ship. So the code to get the industrial credit on invasion has been around a long time.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Was your espionage high enough to look at the planet prior to invasion


Yes, certainly. I find this to be an invaluable tool, and raise my level to max as soon as I can afford it. My custom race has this ability bumped up a bit, so I can scout out potential targets, (and problems) ASAP.
Do the Thalans perhaps have higher level techs and therefore more expensive weapons and/or shields?
In a word, no. This happened quite late in a very long game, and I had fully researched/bought/traded/stolen every available tech. The ships in question were my latest build, with every 'bell and whistle' I could add on.

Would you say that this is definitely new behavior at v1.4 that did not occur at lower revs?


I can not say with 100% certainty that this is a behavior unique to 1.4. What I can say, however, is that I have used this tactic numerous times in the past builds, and have never seen this before. In my experience, playing with and against very large civilizations, that dealing the blitzkrieg type of knockout blow is very difficult. Usually, (in my style of gameplay, at least), things come down to a war of attrition. If I can expand my industrial capacity, and degrade his, I can usually prevail. In short, if it could have happened, it probably would have.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Mumblefranz explain is correct...and it has been like this since ver 1.0
I always check the starports on conquered planets by putting different size ships in the build to calc the amount of "credit" available.
No cheese here, just a perk of conquest !!!!!
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also, once I destroyed the starport on invasion (love mass drivers!!!) and when I bought a new starport the build credit was still there !!!!!!!
Oh the joys of conquering the galaxy...
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also, once I destroyed the starport on invasion (love mass drivers!!!) and when I bought a new starport the build credit was still there !!!!!!!

I've seen this happen as well.

The only thing is that as Mistralok points out that this is an end game situation with all techs researched and max miniaturization. His point is that he’s building what should be the most expensive ship in the game and the ships are completing in one turn. He makes the point that the ships being built before the planet was conquered were smaller ships than his. I have to agree that this is suspicious, though I’m not sure what he meant about the quick build screen interrupting this process.

The only possibility I can think of is if there’s some wonder he may have that could cause his effective military production costs to be lower than the Thalans. Perhaps the Artifical Slave Center might do this. I don’t think so, but it’s the only way I can see for this not to be a bug.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I see your point Mumblefranz, I have always seen a pretty reasonable amount of "credit" in the ship build after conquest...so it seems that Mistralok may have experienced something unusual.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have noticed this credit too. What I had attributed it to is that the world may not have been assigned anything to build in a while and AI planets are allowed to build up a ship construction credit until they assign a ship to be built. This allows for a dumber AI while still allowing them to build ships on demand without giving them unlimited builds.

Scincerely,
Scintor
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Found my answer. NOT A BUG All about the $$. Loaded savegame, found a dreadnought of theirs, looked closely; 238 shield defense! Also found cruiser- same type as was being built-279 shield defense!! The cost of the shields alone was more than my entire dreadnought. My fault- neglected to account for the AI's intermittant insanity. Thank you all for your input
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Found my answer. NOT A BUG All about the $$. Loaded savegame, found a dreadnought of theirs, looked closely; 238 shield defense! Also found cruiser- same type as was being built-279 shield defense!!

This does make sense, but have you also checked their defense (and offense) ability? I think (not sure here) that you see the offense and defense values as modified by civ ability which include resource mining. If they have a large defense bonus then this may actually *not* be the answer.

But otherwise this does make sense, the cost per size of the top end defense is quite a bit more than the cost per size of the top end offense. If your ships are primarily offense and their ships are primarily defense then this makes sense as long as they don't have an unusually large defense bonus.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sorry for late answer; injured. Hunting and pecking now. Thalans have +47% defense, at this point, would still require 22 ultimate invulnerability, at 140bc, 3080bc for defense. Other attributes are +39% offense, +110% mini. At first glance, this seems believable, but given medium hull, and stage of construction, (little more than halfway), not sure.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The other fact is that AFAIK the Thalans have an racial 10% miniaturization bonus. So the 110% ability should be 10% better than yours. That's not a whole heck of a lot, but it does account for some difference.

Also don't forget about the sizemod variable. I know the UI module is size 4 on a huge hull, it may only be size 3 on a medium hull because of sizemod. All and all, it's in the realm of possibility that a defensively focused medium hulled ship with a 10% miniaturization advantage could cost on average twice that of a more offensively focused huge hull ship. If this is true then I think it accounts for the behavior you've described.

At this point you probably have almost enough information to estimate the cost of his ship, you may as well go the rest of the way and come up with a total estimate. If your ship cost is on the order or 60% or less of that total then it makes sense. If your ship cost is much more than 60% of his then there's something strange going on.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
More strange behaviour...

I'm having some odd problems with the game. It's been for lack of a better word warping. I just started playing and I'm in my own little corner of the galaxy doing my thing (01-01 on the map) and if I get too close to the border of the grid I'll "warp" ridicuously far away (ie 00-1304653) where obviously there is no grid or anything. Further, I can't edit or build any ships. The ships spin around extremely quickly in the ship building section. Finally another instance of uncontrollable spinning, in the world view window at the top left corner where the 3d model of the current planet you're examining is... this too is spinning incredibly fast. And it seems to gain momentum till it maxs out and can't go faster. I'm fully updated on the galciv2 and graphics driver side... any suggestions???? What do I do???? After several issues with serial keys this issue is becoming what might be the straw to break the camels back.   
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Caleb, do you have a dual-core processor (particularly an AMD x2)?
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes I do. I didn't even think about that, gotta dumb it down to one cpu eh?   
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If anyone happens to have this problem and finds this thread here are the instructions if you have problems like the ones I mentioned and have a dual-core processor:

Step 1) www.innes.org

Step 2) download ROPE

Step 3) Install

Step 4) Create short cut for galciv2.exe

Step 5) Open Short-cut properties

Step 6) Under "Shortcut tab" change the target to:
"C:\Program Files\innes.org\ROPE\ROPE.exe" -f 0 -n "C:\Program
Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\GalCiv2\GalCiv2.exe"

***Make sure the appropriate directories are used for YOUR machine.***

Step 7) Double-click short cut

Thanks kryo, I totally forgot about the issues some games have with dual core.   
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You can do that, but you should also be able to resolve it with a driver update from AMD and/or BIOS update.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Jeez, and here I thought I had an easy way