Fog Of War Bug

[KGB]

SnotlinG,

In our 6 player game on Riverwar I got the following FOW bug this turn.

A blue city was suddenly displayed to me in the fog even though I've never even been to this city.

KGB

P.S. I wish the random start positions did a better corner spot positioning (which you can see from the screen shot). Being next to someone on turn 6 isn't what I expected on a large map like this with only 6 players. I honestly expected someone to be in the clump of cities in the upper left corner as I thought I was in the middle not in the corner.

[SnotlinG]

This is not good.
I havent seen this bug before though. Do you remember exactly when you saw this?
Was it during the first time you loaded your turn?
Or was it when you loaded it during observermode?
You are sure you didnt have a bat or something there?
No strange errors / suspicious behavior from the game at the same time this happened?

[SnotlinG]

regarding the startingpositions, as you know the startingpositions are divided into the 9 squares
123
456
789

So I guess you got randomized to square 1, and then a bit unlucky the city that got randomized to you was close to the border of square4. I guess this is always possible when playing more than 4 players. But you should know then that square2 should be empty, as the 6th player should have been randomized to square6.

[KGB]

SnotlinG,

No bats for me. I've never been further south than the unfogged area you see in the screen shot. I saw the city as soon as I opened my turn. It was there again in observer mode too. Not sure what triggered it either. I guess we'll have to keep an eye open.

As far as starting position go, I remember the grid format. I guess I was assuming you weren't literally dividing the area's exactly into thirds (33x50). But instead slightly smaller area's (20x40)of the larger 33x50 grid to get players further apart and make it so you don't get placed at the edge of your grid.

KGB

[SnotlinG]

Yea, I dont have much to go on for that bug unfortunately, so give me a shout in case you see anything similiar.

Yea I divided them in exact thirds
Not sure this is that bad though, as it is hard to know how big the map is, and where the cities are centrated.
Anyway, I will be looking into the possibility to create maps of diffrent sizes, so I will have to re-visit the functionality of starting positions for this anyway

[KGB]

SnotlinG,

It's not terrible. It just sometimes works out terribly if you get placed near the edges of your grid area.

Ideally you'd start with a smaller area (say 20x40) and pick one at random there. If there were no cities in the 20x40 area, you'd expand slightly to 25x45. Still no cities, 33x50. Still no cities you have to abandon that grid area entirely.

When you add variable map sizes the logic doesn't change, you still create the 3x3 grid and place within those grid for starting spots.

Incidentally this is one place where FOW hurts because had I known where my opponent cities were I could have deliberately gone another direction to avoid initial conflict that only hurts myself and Blue while benefiting the other sides.

KGB

[KGB]

SnotlinG,

Start of my next turn, city is still shown as 'discovered' by me.

KGB

[SnotlinG]

Yea, that city is added to your "knowledge-database", so you will continue to see it like that. The question is when/how it was added.

Either at the time blue took the city, or at start of your turn. Until we see more strange behaviors like this it is really hard to tell.

[KGB]

SnotlinG,

It happened again. This time on turn 2.

2 things that *might* have contributed to this bug. I can't be sure either of them did because it was only later in my turn that I noticed the problem

1) I got a hero offer that turn (happens all the time so I doubt this is related)
2) I got an out of sync error during the turn (I rarely get these so this might have been related).

KGB

[SnotlinG]

Ahh,
Yesterday I tracked down the first bug, causing you to know a little bit too much info about surrounding cities in the FOW. I havent fixed it yet as it is a bit complex. Should be fixed in a few days though.

Anyway, its a bit hard to see from your screen, but do you see the Neutral units in the fog as well? Thats weird.
What gameid is it, and do you still see them?

/SnotlinG