List of Known Issues - RELOADED

[Arralen]

Please do not post bugs here - PM them to me instead !


The purpose of this thread is revive the old "List of known issues"-thread started by Alneyan . As he's about to step back from the forum, he will not update it any more. Switching "ownership" of a thread is not possible, it seems, but with great generosity he allowed me to copy the whole content to this thread. Which I plan to maintain longer than it needs for Dom3 to come out. I'll list all known problems with Dominions II , where "problem" refers to something not obvious and having potential effects on the game. Some of those are obvious bugs, some are odd behaviour which adversely affects gameplay, some are just counter-intuitive and need clarification and some are typos one must be aware of.

The list should be considered a work-in-progress: I have only copied over everything from the old thread and added the problems I am aware of, so please do add to the list if you know more bugs/typos.

Special thanks to Alneyan, and my best wishes for whatever he's up to now.
Further thanks to to anyone who helped building the original thread, and of course anyone who will give me feedback about 'his strange experiences with Dom2' in the future.

___STRATEGIC PART___

1. Trident from Tournament screws up resistance display if it replaces weapons
   Rather complicated description of this cosmetic bug can be found here.
   Thanks to silhoutte for the report
2. "Totem -" and "Raw Hide Shield" are "Leather Shields #70"
   Both (forgeable) "Totem Shield" and "Raw Hide Shield" show up as "Leather Shield" in the unit view, and in the "I"tems view, with "armor nbr 70".
   Thanks to Morkilus for reminding me
3. Commanders still retreat in assassination attempts
   Since the last patch (2.16), commanders which are set to "retreat" are supposed to ignore this order in case of a fight that origins in an assassination attempt.
   However, they still retreat from assassination by "indy assassines", which can occure as random event. Arralen
   
4. Flying and "Terrain Survival" do not 'collaborate'
   A unit with 2+ strat moves and "Terrain Survival" cannot move at the full movement rate when commanding fliers. For example, a commander with Swamp Survival cannot move 2 spaces in swamp with Black Hawks under his command, since they lack Swamp Survival - even though they can fly. Try it; it feels very wierd. I would bet that it works the other way, too (giving a flying commander land troops with terrain survival reduces the movement to 1) though I have not tried it. Thanks to Saber Cherry for reporting this one.
   Acutally, it _does_ (not) work the other way 'round, too, as expected. Arralen
   
5. The spells Iron Walls and Arcane Masonry do not appear to work
   They have been tested under several circumstances.
   
6. Some nations starting site give troops to conquerors
   It is possible to recruit Hydra Hatchlings from Pythium's starting site, even if you are not Pythium.
   Ulms Black Forest capital lets you produce Ghoul Guardians. ..Ygorl
   
7. Indies cannot handle castles
   Independents never storm castles, and they never protect their castled provinces either. So, if you are besieged by independents, you won't be stormed, while a single scout will be able to take a castle province held by independents.
   
8. Ressource counter does not properly reflect building of units
   When you try to purchase a unit that will take more than 2 turns to complete due to resources, the negative resource number never goes down (i.e if it says -26 the turn you order the unit, it still says that 4 turns later when it will be done next turn). Quantum Mechani
   
9. There is a limit of fifty units recruited in the same province in a single turn.
   
10. Unrest is limited by population count
    Unrest is limited to 500 points, or 1 point per 10 inhabitants in the province, whichever is lowest. A depopulated province will have very little unrest, even with 200% taxes (allowing Ermor to fully tax those gold sites without any unrest). Resources also require a bit of population to be fully used: 10 inhabitants will allow the use of 1% of the total resources, so 1000 inhabitants is required to use all the resources in the province.
    
11. Immobile Pretenders move by teleport
    Immobile Pretenders can only use the Teleport spell to move around. The exception to this rule is the Sphinx, unable to use the Teleport spell. Modded units behave like most immobiles, as they can use the Teleport spell.
    
12. Normal movement is check before, but applied after magic movement
    Sometimes, it looks like you "move through" a recently captured enemy province. For example, I had an army with 2 strategic move. I created a situation where they were moving through provinces in this order A->B->C. Where B was the only friendly province between A and C. I set that move order from A->C and then cloud trapezeed an enemy VQ onto province B to capture it. So to my surprise, on the next turn, province B was enemy, cutting off the travel route of the army... but the army had arrived in province C anyway... Ironhawk
    
13. Commanders with a leadership of 0 perform oddly with items
    Commanders with a leadership of 0 perform oddly when given items increasing leaderships or creating units. Thanks to Arralen, PDF for reporting this one.
    
14. Scales in starting provinces can "disappear"
    Scales can "disappear" from turn 2 onwards. It seems to be linked to specific Pretender designs, or perhaps to specific "hulls".
    
15. Limit on maximum numbers of units
    There appear to be a limit on the maximum number of units/commanders in the game, for all nations (including the independents). The limit seems to be around the 30,000 mark; the usual suspect would be of 32768, take or remove one. Boron reported having been able to go slightly above this limit however, so the limit might only include the units, and not the commanders.
    
16. Sites giving supplies do not appear to have any actual effect.
    
17. The messages you get when enemy mages cast global enchantments are cut off too early.
    Molog
    
18. Some Pretenders can get too many titles, and all their titles would then not appear.
    Quantum Mechani
    
19. Cthgul the Stargazer comes with a foot slot, unlike his kin.
    Tawqus
    
20. The sites that attack undead and/or demons do not advertise this fact.
    That list is as follows;
    Holy fire (vs undead and demons, 10AN attack): Pool of Sanctity, The Ward, Sacred Glen
    Holy power (vs undead only, 10AN attack): Gateward Valley, The Rainbow Shroud
    There are also some other unadvertised little facts, like The Hall of Flayed Skins giving out curses to units..." Edi
    
21. Arcane Nexus states wrong numbers of generated gems The Arcane Nexus enchantment states that "XXX gems have been absorbed", but you will get fewer astral pearls than that: gems absorbed are alchemised into astral pearls by the enchantment. => Will be fixed with the 2.17 patch
    
22. Forge order first, dwarven hammer later screws up gem usage
    If you give a commander a forge order and drop the dwarven hammer on him later, his still uses the full number of gems, as if he does not have a hammer. This is not cosmetic.
    Thanks to silhouette for the report
    
23. (Red) Dragon drops his helmet ..
    Upon switching from dragon to human form, a (red) dragon drops his helmet into the lab. Interestingly, this doesn't happen if he switches from human to dragon form...
    
24. "Troop acceptance" indicator missleading on merc commanders
    If you 'activate' one or more units on the troop setup screen ("t"), all slots which could accept them are darkened (commanders, squads, provincial slot). So are mercenary commanders and their squads, which do not accept troops.

___BATTLES___

1. Bodyguards do not count as soldiers
   An army composed of only commanders will rout after the first loss; likewise, an army made up entirely of bodyguards units (Guard Commander) will rout after the first loss. Units unable to rout should go on fighting. So beware! If the battle is not over after 50 rounds, the attacking side will automatically rout; if they have not retreated after the 100th round, the attacking forces are automatically killed.
   
2. Astral bonus spells boost all units, not only friendlies
   The spell Light of the Northern Star (and the Banner of the Northern Star) appears to give a +1 bonus to all astral mages on the battlefield, and not only your own mages.
   
3. Magic Duel uses *base* astral level
   It appears that Magic Duel uses *base* astral level: spells and items do not seem to affect the spell at all, or they might be limited in power: an Astral 8 mage (with +1 coming from a spell) lived through more than 500 Magic Duels, while an Astral 8 mage, with +2 coming from spells, was killed after the 10th Magic Duel or so. An Astral 3 mage, fully loaded with items (reaching Astral 8), was killed after the third Magic Duel.Thanks to JK for the information.
   
4. Phoenix Pyre does not work with Shapeshifters
   Involuntary shapeshifters cannot change forms when under the effect of Phoenix Pyre, unless they had already changed their form before casting the spell. Voluntary shapeshifters should be able to shape changes with Phoenix Pyre active.
   
5. The Reinvigoration spell did not work under 2.15
   .. maybe it does work under 2.16?. Saber Cherry
   
6. Relief spell triggers crash
   The Relief spell appears to make battle replays crash, if too many units are involved in the battle.
   
7. The Ironskin spell overwrites effects (and icon) from bless effects given by the "Shroud of The Battle Saint".
   Arralen
   
8. Enslaved units who die can trigger the "all friendly units are dead, so commanders retreat" rule.
   Taqwus
   
9. Mirror image renders the unit immune to area effect spells (at the very least to spells with an area of effect of "1".
   Huzurdaddi and Ironhawk
   
10. The Flight spell has an odd targetting
    Zooko had a S&A Celestial Master cast the spell three times on himself (instead of casting it on a nearby commander), while other players have been unable to get their mages to cast the spell on themselves. Other spells seem to have problems with their targetting: Aim and Berserk have been reported to perform that way in particular (with Berserk being cast on friendly mages, who have little to do with fighting in the melee).
    
11. Heroically quick commanders tend to commit suicide NEW !
    Non-Mage commanders which get the "heroic quickness" trait sometime suicide themselves by advancing into melee despite being set to "cast spells" from item or "fire at .." using build-in or item missile lauchner. Looks like the scripted action only cost them the normal amount of AP, and the additional AP are used to move towards the enemy.
    knew it for quite some time, but always forgot to report it .. A.

___MODDING___

1. Modding items by number, not name
   It is actually possible to alter magic items by their item number, but this number is not the same as their weapon/armor value. Values of items sharing the same name are as follow:
   • Sword of Sharpness: 5 for the one-handed version, 6 for the two-handed sword.
   • Bane Blade: 28 for the one-handed version, 29 for the two-handed sword.
   • Staff of Elemental Mastery: 67 for the Fire/Water version, 71 for the Earth/Air version.
2. Some magic sites of the base and special theme share same names
   A few magic sites of the base and special theme share same names. As an example, Caelum base and Caelum RoR have sites of the same name, but it is not possible to choose the RoR sites as starting sites. Endoperez
   
3. Rl'yehs autospawns not fully editable
   It is impossible to edit the recruitable units for Rl'yeh costal forts. Well, you can edit the units (which also edits the units for underwater forts), but you cannot have more or less units than the original number. Quantum Mechani
   
4. Item misspelled: "Lychantropos' Amulet"
   The item is spelled "Lychantropos' Amulet", while Lycanthropos' Amulet would have been the expected spelling.
   
5. Site misspelled:
   "Underwater magic site, Air 3, Imprizoned Zephyr should be Imprisoned Zephyr." Edi => Will be fixed with the 2.17 patch
   
6. Note on the spelling of magic items:
   They mix AE and BE, e.g. it's spelled "Sceptre2 (and not Scepter) but "Armor" (and not "Armour"): Sceptre of Dark Regency, and Armor of Virtue. Possessive pronouns following a noun ending by S give "-s's": Picus's Axe of Rulership for example (and not Picus' Axe of Rulership).

___THE AI___

1. The AI does not understand supply system at all ...
   .. and its troops are starving constantly. It also loves the Death scale, hence making its troops more likely to starve. Arralen
   
2. The AI does not build castles at all ..
   .. therefore it ends up recruiting light and medium infantery armies all over the map. Furthermore, it can't protect itself from raiding. Arralen
   
3. The AI does not build even basic thugs (not to speak of SCs).
   .. I wonder if it actually forges items - without those it simply cannot build any thug.
   Arralen
   
4. Ai can't assess enemy strenght correctly
   The AI appears to have trouble with assessing the strength of enemy troops, and loves sending a mundane army to attack a lone SC (making it much easier to destroy AI armies by luring them to attack).
   
5. AI should 'think' before calling its god back
   AI should probably hold back on completing a Call God if the capital is currently held by an enemy and the AI cannot possibly move enough supporting forces in to assure survival. Rather pointless to call in a lone pretender who'll get killed immediately. Taqwus
   
6. Either the AI is reluctant to use Dispel, or it does not put enough gems to effectively dispel enchantments.
   Taqwus

Please do not post bugs here - PM them to me instead !