Disappearing Tiles on invasion (DA)

I did some tests just to make sure it isn't my imagination.

The enemy has a planet.

It is PQ 7 but it has 11 tiltes.

They have built a Temple of Neutrality.

If I invade OR if I trade for the planet (I tried both) then when I get the planet 4 of the tiles disappear.

I went back to the game start and checked on the planet. It started as a PQ 7 and all the tiles that vanish are upgraded to useable.

I then did more tests and it happens a lot, and it is a real problem when the planet has unique buildings as they vanish.

There was one planet that had a Power Plant on it. The Power Plant disappeared, but the planet still has 100% production bonus. So maybe the tile vanished, but the game is still registering the tile?!?

- Livonya

hehehe don't use espionage spending - problem solved!

I think this phenomenon, which I've seen too, is related to the well known PQ bug.

Oh, good. I am not losing my mind. I have seen tiles disappear after invasion as well. I was wondering why a planet I invaded had such a high production bonus for seemingly no reason. BTW, the bonus disappears on the next turn, too.

SD is working on a fix for this, just gotta be patient.

This is a very annoying bug, and I have done a lot of playing around with it.

The number of tiles that disappear in an invasion are equal to the number of tiles they upgraded due to terraforming tech, although not necessarily the terraformed tiles. It doesn't make a difference what invasion tactic you use or your terraforming tech level, and it doesn't make a difference what alignment you use. If you spy before you culture flip, you will see that this even happens when you take a planet through culture flipping.

The only planets that are not effected by this are Minor Race planets - they aren't special, but the minor races don't research terraforming tech, so they have always terraformed 0 tiles.

You can get a planet to drop to quality 0 easily now if you use mass drivers, because the effect of mass drivers adds onto the PQ disappear tiles bug, in one case for me knocking out 12 planetary improvements.

This bug can knock out the original colony square as well - took over a PQ 2 that had a few soil enhancements on it, and the initial colony went poof. Pretty much made the planet useless except for the fact it could hold 6b population. (left it with 0/0/0 being produced)

Starting planets for each race are less effected, because you are probably only going to lose one or two tiles on an invasion (it all depends on your OPPONENTS level of terraforming tech) - but to recreate the bug to dramatic effect, gift all of the terraforming techs to your enemies and then start conquering/culture flipping worlds.

The game is still playable with this bug - you just have to realize that most worlds are now "garbage worlds" when you go to invade them. Build up a core set of worlds made up of the planets you colonize, minor race home worlds, and major race homeworlds. Everything else might as well be blow away, the game will rob you of your victory anyway. And if you trash a world it won't help the AI if it retakes it.

Also, sometimes the tiles disappear and the effect remains. I took over a fully upgraded pq4 (Mars, in this case) - which had no asteroids being diverted to it. After my attack, the planet only showed a starport, tech capital and original colony left. However, the planet was producing over 300 industrial units! (The planet had formerly been full of industrial sectors and a manufacturing capital)

Trade goods destroyed in this way cannot be traded, but their effects show up in your stats/graphs tab in the civilization manager.

I think they are aware of the bug, and I hope they are fixing it.

Im glad I wasnt the only one experienceing this. I tried to test it out, but there are just so many variables that go into each invasion (what techs you have at time of invasion, what method you use to invade, etc) its difficult.

As long as we're speculating, *I* think its related to the terraforming system. The problem seems to go away for me when I have terraforming tech fully researched (and of course, use non -destructive invasion)...so maybe it has to do with buildings built on tiles you wouldnt normally be able to use( and possibly inflated amounts due to racial planet quality bonus) disappearing on invasion (but then taking the tiles with them).


Thats based on very casual observation though, nothing Im confident about. But yes, I anxiously await a fix on this issue. Invading some plum world with a Manufacturing capital and a bunch of factories on it, only to see half the factories dissapear is very frustrating.

In my current game, no one has better than soil enrichment at this point. I do have it, and I am still seeing the disappearing tiles. Maybe you need all the terra techs, not just to the current level of AI research. I am not sure it is happening in all cases though. If you just glance at the tile layout during the invasion, drop it in short term memory and look at the planet post invasion, it's not too hard to get a feel for how much this is affecting you. Has anyone checked the current 1.5 DL patch to see if it's happening in it as well? Or is it truly DA only? It would certainly be much more noticeable in DA...

You know, the more I see it happen, the more I think its not so much tiles that are supposed to be there disappearing, but an inflated display of tiles that shouldnt be there in the first place showing up on invasion(then correcting itself).



I mean, Ive invaded some class 3-7 planets that seemed *way* more powerful, tile-wise, than they should have been (they had the tile payload of a class 15-19), only to see them dissappear down to more reasonable levels for the planets quality rating.



So now Im wondering if its part of some inflated bonus the AI is getting, or just some display bug showing tiles that arent really there, that corrects itself on invasion. My terraforming hypothesis took a hit last night...I have maxed Tera-tech and still "lost" half the tiles on some low quality worlds I invaded(but again, they seemed inflated).


Anyways, its making me paranoid, and I would like to see the problem go away .

Its misinformation being fed to our spies!



agree++

Is my memory faulty or was it the case in DL that when a planet was terraformed its quality would increase? PQ 10 + soil enhancement because a PQ 11?

It makes it very difficult to use the sort by class options -- the quality of the information provided by the sort is destroyed.

And a stupid question, but could it be the case that the Devs wanted improvements to be destroyed what a planet is taken over? I could see the logic behind that (sort of) or is this a confirmed bug?

Only if you use a destructive invasion tactic (mass drivers, gas,etc). There is defeintely a bug afoot, though the nature of the bug is elusive.

I play as a neutral civ, and have not seen this bug.

My PQ 1's terraform into 16's all the time, and the population limit goes up right along with the developing planet. I always research the ethical alignment also, so that as soon as I research a terraforming tech, all tiles become available. Sure saves on build times.

Now the Yor did manage to invade and capture one of my jewels, (a PQ1 terraformed). I spied on the planet the next turn, and before the invasion, I had 12 usuable tiles, the Yor had 2 after their invasion. The Yor had not researched up the terraforming tech yet, so they lost all the tiles that I had gotten terraformed due to my tech level and my ethical alignment. I do not consider this to be a bug, but a cost of invading a planet.

If a civilization has upgraded a planet beyond my known tech level and I invade it, I am not going to know how to use their technology, and the improvements they have will deteriorate over time. I should not benefit from their ability to terraform a planet either, as I can not continue to support the terraforming if I do not know how they did it.

Just my observations and thoughts, and what makes this game so enjoyable, is that the game plays so differently, depending on the style of play, and the race one is playing.

Many of the complaints I read on this board are from people who want the game to work differently than it does, to benifit their preconcieved ideas of what the AI should do, so that they can beat it the way they want to win.

That is exactly how it worked.

TLheart ---

Try re-invading that plantet. When you get it back it will remain a PQ 2 and you will never be able to change it.

I have all teraforming tech researched. And when I invade a planet all tiles dissapear that were created via teraforming. But I can't upgrade the planet.

It would be one thing if I could re-teraform the lost tiles, but I can't.

This is the worst bug I have seen. It pretty much ruins the game on the larger maps as so many of the worlds are reduced to rubbish when you invade them.

There is NO possible way that this is working as desired. Clearly if the developers wanted it to work like this they would have explain this change as it is a huge change.

- Livonya

Dude, what the hell are you talking about? This thread is about a legitimate game bug where one way or the other, stuff is not working that way its supposed to. Im glad it doesnt happen for you (or you simply havent noticed it), but frankly your comments reek of newbness...anyone who played DL would know this is not normal. From what Ive read in other threads, SD seems to be aware of this issue and working on it.

Why dont you go point your wagging finger someplace where its warranted?

Do you mean that if you own a planet, terraform it and get say five extra tiles, then the AI takes that planet, then you retake that planet, all those five tiles you originally had are gone and you cannot get them back?

Yes, that is exactly what I mean.

All tiles gained through any terraforming tech are lost when a planet is transfered.

So if you build a PQ1 planet to PQ15 and it is invaded then it will revert to PQ1 and can never be build back to PQ15.

Trading teraforming tech to an enemy nation is really bad because it actually means you will lose tiles in the future.

Neutral enemies are the worst because their planets will have no terraforming available when you take their planets.

This appears to be fixed in 1.5X, according to the discussion in its accompanying thread. Good thing too, it was a seriously irritating bug.

WOW talk about scortched earth policy!



hope so!

Fixed in my latest game. Thank goodness this issue is gone, you can now increase your territory meaningfully again.