Scale Bug:Please Post Nations you have had it with

[Edi]

I've had the scale bug with both Arco and Pythium at 0 temp adjustment. At least those two, that I can remember. Arco was both EA and MA and in both Dom2 and Dom3. I think Kaljamaha had the scale bug with Sauromatia in one of our games and he's also had it with normal temperature nations. So it is not necessarily tied to the heat/cold scale. It must in some way be tied to scale mechanics, but that's a fairly wide field, seeing as how sites, events, spells and pretender Dominion all affect scales and there may be several types of different mechanics there.

I do notice that most people who report the bug have 3 picks in at least one scale, but does anyone have any experiences with this bug when they do not have any scale maxed out? I have a hazy recollection that one of my Arco games in Dom2 would have been that way, but I cannot be sure and more data on this might be helpful.

Lord_Bob said:
Yes. And this does two things that could trigger the Scale Bug.

First, it is very likely that the busy little min/max'ers have selected Cold-3, which makes a Cold-4 overrun more likely. It also means that the standard income/scales calculation code IS NOT USED FOR Ry'leh. ANOTHER, ALTERNATE, EVIL FUNCTION is used. This EVIL FUNCTION was not properly tested, and has resulted in all these problems.

Nice hypothesis, but I do not like the way you state it as if it were a confirmed fact when it is unknown, especially the part about testing it. As far as I know, nobody has asked Johan about that. So let's stick to the actual, verified observations and known facts, shall we, and mark speculation clearly as such.

Lord_Bob said:
Remember, we are only talking about single INITIALIZATION function anyway(turn 1). So this is an alternate second initialization function. It most certainly was not adaquately tested.

Again, see above. Do not make statements of fact from your speculation about things where we do not have full information on.

The mere fact that we got a public statement to the effect of "Most interesting!" from Johan speaks volumes. For him, that's being verbose. So he's going to look into it and I'm sure he will tell us in good time what he found. I'm also going to point out that the scale bug may not be down to just one thing, but may require certain unusual combination factors to coincide before it manifests and if those factors are not obvious, hunting it down may be very difficult.

One of the more unusual (non-Dominions) bugs I've seen was in Age of Wonders (the original) by Triumph Studios. In the first version, if you recruited units and sent them on a multiturn movement path and later box-selected several units when new ones kept appearing in the following turns, so you could give them all the same destination, the last unit would move the sum total of the movement points of all the preceding units instead of just its own allotted movement. The intervening units would all move the sum of the ones before them. That one was caused by some very specific things and required very specific behavior and had not come to light in beta, since box-selection was a feature added later. Because it was so specific, Josh Farley had no problem squashing it as soon as it was described, but the Dominions Scale bug may not and probably will not be as cooperative, since there is a lot more ambiguity here.

[Edratman]

Edi is absolutely correct. From the information submitted to date, it is obvious that the source of the problem is not yet defined. There are some cause and effect relationships established, but nothing more than than.

If the problem is solely related to #poptype, than it would show up in every no-indy game. I base this on what I have read on the forums that the no indy games actually set a #poptype in every province and use a poptype value that does not have a poptype associated with it. (This may be an error on my part and no-idies is accomplished in an alternate manner.)

The hardest way to solve a problem is to base the solution on erroneous root causes.

[Lord_Bob]

Nice hypothesis, but I do not like the way you state it as if it were a confirmed fact when it is unknown, especially the part about testing it. As far as I know, nobody has asked Johan about that. So let's stick to the actual, verified observations and known facts, shall we, and mark speculation clearly as such.

Yes. And this does two things that could trigger the Scale Bug.

Like last time, you simply make things up when facts are lacking. I suggest you state your speculations clearly as such.

Does this get me banned again?

Cause of scale-loss bug found!

I can't find you're straight-shooting on this thread either. In the same way you allow some to bully others and force others to be insulted without fighting back, you are also hypocritical on your criticism. This isn't surprising, because on Post #478170, #478218, #478509 where you pretty much break all your supposed moderating "rules". Guidelines would be more accurate.

[Lord_Bob]

The hardest way to solve a problem is to base the solution on erroneous root causes.

The actual hardest way to solve problems is to refuse to gather data. A quick search of the forum yields no threads attempting to gather data for at least the last eight months.

That is the very first thing I did.

[Sensori]

Jazzepi said:
Income for underwater nations is effected by heat scales, but not by cold scales.

Then tell me why Heat 3 and Cold 3 yield about the same amount of income as no scale instead of Heat having a considerably lower income, with exactly the same other scales? Supplies, however, are affected by cold AND heat as can be easily seen in the thingie.

Only thing that I've seen that affects underwater provinces' income is the population which can be a little over or little below 30k depending on some weird luck from what I've seen based on my tests.

[Meglobob]

I have had the scale bug playing EA Atlantis on the Faerun map with scales, Order 3 Growth 3 Cold 3 Drain 2.

Also with MA Rlyeh, forgot the exact scales but I had cold 3 or heat 3.

Perhaps cold or heat should have the full effects on sea provinces, ie...income loss then players will not take it and if it is temperature related the bug wont happen, or not as much.

[Edratman]

Lord_Bob said:
The actual hardest way to solve problems is to refuse to gather data. A quick search of the forum yields no threads attempting to gather data for at least the last eight months.

That is the very first thing I did.

I was not belittling your data gathering in the least. I appreciate and applaud your intentions and effort.

What I could see in the thread is that there were attempts to fit data to a theory/conclusion. That is what I was trying to avert.

I make my living solving problems in factories. A very long time ago I learned that there is a difference between data and numbers. One specific example I always give to my employees involved an intermittant major problem that plauged a firm for over three years. The president of the firm told me to get with "Joe Smith", that he had been working on the problem for 3 years and has tons of data, actually has piles of it over 4 ft. tall in his office and knows all about the problem.

I gave Joe Smith a curtesy visit, but the numbers he had were not data, and if he knew all about the problem he would have resolved it a long time ago. It took me over a month to figure it out, and naturally it was not related to any prior theory or conjecture.

Just gathering information is not the same as collecting data.

[Edi]

Lord_Bob said:

Like last time, you simply make things up when facts are lacking. I suggest you state your speculations clearly as such.

I would very much like to know what I'm making up, so would you please tell me? I have not made definite statements of fact about the cause of the scale bug other than remarking that it must be in some way tied to scale mechanics, with some qualifications as to possible options. You, on the other hand make a conditional statement, then followed by a statement of fact about Illwinter not testing things properly, which is what I criticized you for.

Lord_Bob said:
Does this get me banned again?

No, not this. No reason to ban you over this. I do not understand this attitude you have that you expect to be banned simply because a moderator disagreed with what you said in this thread. I think the last time Mindi explained things to you in her email and as far as I'm concerned, that is past history. It has nothing to do with this thread.

Cause of scale-loss bug found!

That was the thread title at one point, what is the relevance? Turned out poptypes was not the answer and vfb seems to have solved the root cause of the problem, which turned out to be not directly related to scale mechanics, but province neighbors and some Dominion mechanics instead.

Lord_Bob said:
I can't find you're straight-shooting on this thread either. In the same way you allow some to bully others and force others to be insulted without fighting back, you are also hypocritical on your criticism.

In this thread? What are you on about? I made a statement that said we should stick to verified facts when making statements of fact and not state speculation as fact, so where is the hypocrisy? I would also very much like to know where I have let someone bully someone else during my time as a moderator. I would very much like to see that.

Lord_Bob said:
This isn't surprising, because on Post #478170, #478218, #478509 where you pretty much break all your supposed moderating "rules". Guidelines would be more accurate.

So, you went all the way back to the Vanheim/Helheim thread from November 2006 so you would have something to stick between my ribs? That would work, if it was relevant to this thread, which it is not. From my point of view, this is seriously starting to look like a personal vendetta on your part, though I have no way of knowing for certain.

For your information, I was made a moderator of the forums on the 27th of February, 2007, with instructions from the admins to take care of organizing the bug listing and managing bug reports. Since then, the scope of my moderation duties has grown somewhat, but not appreciably. My other forum roles (the DB and related things, mostly) I had even before that. It just so happens that when someone is made a moderator, the change is in their user profile, which turns the name black even in posts made before becoming a moderator. As far as the Helheim thread itself goes, there is a moderator forum thread from that period where my fellow moderators and administrators discuss whether they should whack me with a big stick or not. They decided not to when the thread calmed down.

In case you are wondering, there are no grudges between me and NT Jedi and we have a cordial relationship on the forum. I actually find many of his bug-related posts insightful and he's an expert with the map commands.

If you can find any examples of similar conduct to the Van/Hel thread on my part past 27th of February 2007, I'll be happy to present them to the administrators myself. If I ever pulled out the stops like that now that I'm a moderator, I can assure you I wouldn't be one for very long. These days, if a situation like that or one that could lead to something like that presents itself, the first thing that I do is discuss it with the other moderators so that it can be dealt with properly.

Does this answer your concerns adequately?