[spoiler] Q: Why am I even here? A: To find bugs!

[Zed-F]

If he could make a sleeping draft, why bother with the poison, just use his sword

[Ruff_Hi]

I did land the Great Wall this turn.  And I have (partial) proof!

I say partial ... because my land didn't grow a wall .  That has to be a bug.

Building some more units ... hey, why not.  You can see that I am building my Horse Whisperer benefits (Horse Archers and Sentry Enabled Chariots) and 

Tech is resting on Calendar.

Here is the land as I know it ... much better map knowledge that a few short turns ago.  I managed to find the Indian capital using my blind spy.  Capital was 1 of 2 tiles ... and I guessed the correct one.  India has a Great Engineer there.

If you look closely at the latest SD city (Idaho), you can see some FT culture (on the tile with the 1 on it).  So, FT is in that big black patch.

I can't believe how squeezed Mr C is.  Is that the result of slow expansion or earlier wars?  Look at the distance (capitals) for SD, me, India, Mr C ... and then look at Cornflakes and Commodore.

Sure ... maybe there were other civs there that have already been gobbled up.

(4,881)

[Charriu]

Unfortunately it is not a bug. The wall model is disabled in pitboss games to improve overall performance. This is base BtS behavior. I know it's hard, because this is the coolest wonder in that regard.

[RefSteel]

Bunch of questions here that I wanted to try to answer - emphasis perhaps on try, of course:

Now ... here is a riddle.  The outside game scoreboard shows +20 in score, up from 658 to 678.  That sounds like +20 to me.

But the in-game scoreboard thinks it is more like +57.  What is going on here?

I think this is because PBSpy tracks individual score changes (or groups of changes when they come in rapid clumps) but the scoreboard reports changes since the end of the previous turn. So a mid-turn score change after a beginning-of-turn score change would be reported by each differently. Or am I completely confused about what you mean?

Q: both spies moved 1 tile, one into total fog (and lost all future movements), one into a previously revealed tile but with unknown road conditions ... and retained its movement. Why?

Spies in RtR have a special promotion that limits their vision to the tile they're actually standing on. This was not anticipated by the game designers, and I believe this result is tied to the game's pathfinding algorithms. You can sometimes see this with goto orders, where the game doesn't give away anything about the black "shrouded" area, merely counting each tile in the shroud as costing a full turn of movement. But you can sometimes work out where roads are on long-fogged tiles you last saw before the road was built by using goto to see how long it would take your unit to pass over that terrain. Since the game updates the shroud every time any unit moves to a new tile, and every unit except RtR spies can see every adjacent tile, you're always moving onto terrain that has been revealed, and that therefore has the correct movement cost - unless you're an RtR spy. In that case, the movement costs you see in a goto order are correct - including a step into shroud ending your movement for the turn, regardless of what it reveals.

My honest opinion about spies. Krill has nerfed them so much that you could just as well remove them entirely.

I think you're seriously underestimating the value of an information advantage. Spies are still excellent units for the cost if used well.

I initially missed that you can drink something before taking the drink from your opponent.

That does seem to be important, although...

The dragon doesn't have to drink anything first; it can drink the Knight's cup, then drink from Well 1, then drink from Well 6, and it's safe. The Knight has to drink from Well 1 in advance though, in case the dragon's cup came from Well 6. Regardless, either of them can drink 1 -> Cup -> 1 -> 2 and they'll be fine; it doesn't matter if they have access to five wells or six - or two or two million.

Unfortunately it is not a bug. The wall model is disabled in pitboss games to improve overall performance. This is base BtS behavior. I know it's hard, because this is the coolest wonder in that regard.

I have been told that it does show up in Pitboss - but only for the player who was logged in when the turn rolled and the wonder completed. I don't have any way of testing this, unfortunately. Charriu, is that incorrect? (Or if it is correct, is it worth trying to modify the code to make it work for everybody?)

[Ruff_Hi]

The full nelson turn ... first Sentry Chariot rolled off the production line. Tech on (Construction), workers working (waiting on border pop on Gem Island), trackers tracking, spies spying.

(4,951)

[Ruff_Hi]

Bunch of questions here that I wanted to try to answer - emphasis perhaps on try, of course:

Thanks for posting!

---

Now ... here is a riddle.  The outside game scoreboard shows +20 in score, up from 658 to 678.  That sounds like +20 to me.

But the in-game scoreboard thinks it is more like +57.  What is going on here?

I think this is because PBSpy tracks individual score changes (or groups of changes when they come in rapid clumps) but the scoreboard reports changes since the end of the previous turn.  So a mid-turn score change after a beginning-of-turn score change would be reported by each differently.  Or am I completely confused about what you mean?

The example I gave was from end of turn to end of next turn.  I will (attempt) to keep track of both scores for the next few turns.

---

Q: both spies moved 1 tile, one into total fog (and lost all future movements), one into a previously revealed tile but with unknown road conditions ... and retained its movement.  Why?

Spies in RtR have a special promotion that limits their vision to the tile they're actually standing on.  This was not anticipated by the game designers, and I believe this result is tied to the game's pathfinding algorithms.  You can sometimes see this with goto orders, where the game doesn't give away anything about the black "shrouded" area, merely counting each tile in the shroud as costing a full turn of movement.  But you can sometimes work out where roads are on long-fogged tiles you last saw before the road was built by using goto to see how long it would take your unit to pass over that terrain.  Since the game updates the shroud every time any unit moves to a new tile, and every unit except RtR spies can see every adjacent tile, you're always moving onto terrain that has been revealed, and that therefore has the correct movement cost - unless you're an RtR spy.  In that case, the movement costs you see in a goto order are correct - including a step into shroud ending your movement for the turn, regardless of what it reveals.

I am ok with a spy losing all movement points when entering total fog (ie tile never seen before).  I was confused (but ok) with a spy entering a previously revealed tile that got a road between the reveal turn and current.  In this case, it looked like a bear, unimproved tile, spy moved onto it, found a road and keep some of its movement points.

Are we saying the same thing?

---

My honest opinion about spies. Krill has nerfed them so much that you could just as well remove them entirely.

I think you're seriously underestimating the value of an information advantage.  Spies are still excellent units for the cost if used well.

My view is that spies suck for revealing totally unexplored land.  They are good for updating city defenses once you know the general land layout.

[Ruff_Hi]

I got sick of 4 EPs per turn ... so turned up the EP counter ...

I need 37 EPs for graphs / charts on Commodore ... and something like 33 for Cornflakes.  Will go back to 0% EP but all on Cornflakes next turn.  I will need to micro to land Construction end of next turn.

Found some FT land, blind spies still revealing 1 tile at a time!

(5,033)

[Ruff_Hi]

I got graphs on Commodore ... just in time for him to invade India.  I have trackers in the area so I will peak at the battles.
The two blind spies will be heading into Roman territory to sus out where the Roman garrison is located.

Religion spread to Gem Island so that border is popping 1 turn early .

(5,069)

[RefSteel]

The example I gave was from end of turn to end of next turn.  I will (attempt) to keep track of both scores for the next few turns.

Interesting. I wonder if it's actually counting from the start of the previous turn? (If there was a mid-turn score increase) ... or doing something crazy like comparing the current score on the scoreboard to the most-recent score on the graphs....

I am ok with a spy losing all movement points when entering total fog (ie tile never seen before).  I was confused (but ok) with a spy entering a previously revealed tile that got a road between the reveal turn and current.  In this case, it looked like a bear, unimproved tile, spy moved onto it, found a road and keep some of its movement points.

Are we saying the same thing?

Yup, I think so. When moving onto already-revealed territory, the spy (and the turn count shown in the circles for Goto orders, for any unit, not just spies) takes the up-to-date reality into account even if you can't see the new roads that have been built (or old ones that have been pillaged) until the spy arrives.

My view is that spies suck for revealing totally unexplored land.  They are good for updating city defenses once you know the general land layout.

I mostly agree, but I'd suggest that under the right circumstances, even spies' slow, tortuous exploration of land you otherwise couldn't have explored at all can still be an advantage worth the price of producing and risking them.

[Ruff_Hi]

The example I gave was from end of turn to end of next turn.  I will (attempt) to keep track of both scores for the next few turns.

Interesting.  I wonder if it's actually counting from the start of the previous turn?  (If there was a mid-turn score increase) ... or doing something crazy like comparing the current score on the scoreboard to the most-recent score on the graphs....

I am seeing some sort of understandable, math related pattern in the in-game scoreboard change. I will wait for the end of this turn (to get another example) and then post it.