Why do my berserk commanders disappear after winning fights

[Bananadine]

In my case, mods are involved. And it happened once before the recent patch transition, and once after it.

[fungalreason]

This may or may not be the cause in this specific circumstance, but I have had cases in the past where having a different version of a mod than the one the server is using causes the replay bug.

Is your commander mindless by chance as well? I think there's a 50 turn limit on them.

[chrispedersen]

Let me ditto Sombre's advice:

The replay bug occurs WAY more often if:

a). Host and client are on two different systems.
b). rollbacks are involved.
c). Patches have been applied mid game
d). Someone does not have the same version of the game 3.23b for example.

I do wish there were a way to validate clients before a turn were submitted (and no, I'm not talking about the -v option).

[Sombre]

Even without different versions of mods, simply having mods on makes the bug more likely.

But yes, different versions means you'll almost certainly get the bug. I wouldn't even call it a bug there, you just have the wrong version.

[Bananadine]

The attacking player just got back to me--he says he saw what I saw. He also found this other thread about the problem: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=34902

In that thread, dudes say what they've said in this thread, plus the additional speculation that a discrepancy in operating system between host and client can also trigger the problem.

It occurs to me that this problem could be happening very often--and we just wouldn't usually notice it, because only a few minor soldiers would have had their fates misrepresented because of it. But of course it's very obvious when a major commander dies in "reality" but not in the replay.

Anyhow, I feel better about the problem now. I'd been worried that there was a mysterious bug that killed powerful berserkers at random. That problem would be very hard to defend against! But now it appears that my powerful berserkers died correctly, and that only the replays I watched were incorrect. That problem is much easier to defend against! In fact it requires no special defense at all. Just equip your commanders so they won't die, and tolerate the fact that you sometimes won't know what they actually did do.

(Of course I'll be careful about version numbers etc., but I was already careful about that, and this still happened.)

I see what you mean Sombre, about not calling this a bug when it arises due to mod version mismatches--but if that's a way to cause this error, then the game allows you to use mismatched mods when it shouldn't. I consider THAT a bug. Of course this community has a pretty high threshold for calling things "bugs" rather than "WAD" issues or even "features". At any rate, maybe we can agree that it'd be better if the game didn't let you use mismatched versions of itself.

[thejeff]

That's a very old thread. At that time the problem was thought to be strictly a problem of version and/or OS differences. I believe the OS differences part of the problem was fixed awhile ago. And soon after reports of the replay bug happening without OS/version differences became more common. It's not clear whether this was a new problem or previous reports were just dismissed as confusion about OS/version differences.

I know I've seen it in SP, with the client and host being the same and thus using the same version/OS & the same mods. I'm not sure I've seen it without mods, but I usually use mods these days so ...

Mismatched mods would be hard to prevent, since they are just text files. I suppose some sort of checksum could be calculated...
OTOH, mod differences aren't necessarily a problem. The display only mods (Banners, etc) can be completely different without changing gameplay at all.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Bananadine

the game allows you to use mismatched mods when it shouldn't. I consider THAT a bug. Of course this community has a pretty high threshold for calling things "bugs" rather than "WAD" issues or even "features". At any rate, maybe we can agree that it'd be better if the game didn't let you use mismatched versions of itself.

No, I don't agree. There are some cool tricks which rely on using dms which differ at host and client level. One random example is allowing people to have streamers and standards on or off. I don't see the benefit to the game refusing to work with differing dm contents between players, but along those lines a warning wouldn't be too horrible I guess. I think that's the kind of 'bug' which would be a pain to fix and no-one really cares about too.

Easy enough to just not have mismatched dm versions.

If you're talking about versions of dominions itself, then I do agree.

[Bananadine]

WELL let's put it this way: There are some version discrepancies that cause errors, and some that don't, and I guess the game allows all kinds without protest. Bug!

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Bananadine

WELL let's put it this way: There are some version discrepancies that cause errors, and some that don't, and I guess the game allows all kinds without protest. Bug!

Wait until you have your best supercombatant die on the battlefield because the battle round reached turn_75. All attackers are auto-killed on battle round_75.

As soon as it reaches 5pm(round_50) all attackers must retreat and as soon as it reaches 9pm(round_75) all attackers are instantly killed. Honestly it should be changed from instantly killed to instantly force an automatic retreat.

Also I'm certain if given the option most players would increase the current auto_retreat and auto_kill settings.

[Rookierookie]

Originally Posted by NTJedi

Wait until you have your best supercombatant die on the battlefield because the battle round reached turn_75. All attackers are auto-killed on battle round_75.

As soon as it reaches 5pm(round_50) all attackers must retreat and as soon as it reaches 9pm(round_75) all attackers are instantly killed. Honestly it should be changed from instantly killed to instantly force an automatic retreat.

Also I'm certain if given the option most players would increase the current auto_retreat and auto_kill settings.

Had that happen. Fun. Enemy routed after 10 turns or so but had many exhausted units and I just couldn't kill them quick enough to win and lost my Pretender.

I've had many a bug-ridden battles against a Shedu in an SP game. In every replay I win the battle but lose my prophet commander, while on the map I lose the battle but the prophet is unharmed.