Bug Discussion Thread - Dominions 3: The Awakening

This thread is for discussing and reporting bugs. Since so many bugs have already been fixed during the six years that Dominions 3 has been available, this thread is unlikely to see the kind of traffic its counterpart at the Shrapnel Games forums did. However, it is useful in that we can avoid cluttering up the forum with separate threads for minor issues.

Some things that are major bugs and still extant:

• Replay bug: Battle replays display different results than the summary. Thanks to Calahan, some of the causes behind this bug are now known and Illwinter is aware of them. The fix did not make it to the 3.28 patch (which is the version available from Desura). Hopefully there will be a patch that would fix this issue, but at the moment there is no news.
• Bless Weapons bug: Bless weapons replace all weapons after the first one (rather than adding a secondary effect) for blessed units with multiple weapons. Again, Illwinter is aware and hopefully it will be fixed in a possible future patch.

Those are the big ones and do not need much in the way of discussion. Otherwise, if you find something, fire away.

I bought Dominions 3: Awakening off of Desura. From what I have been able to play I love it. However, what I have been able to play is extremely little. After about 10 minutes of playing the game will crash and close. I've tried running it on the lowest settings possible, I have ran it in 10 different compatibility modes, and I have ran it with administrator on as well. I have re installed 3 times also. The game runs at 50 to 60 fps constantly so my computer actually running it is not an issue. It just randomly crashes very often. Please help ASAP. I really enjoy this game and it is depressing to not be able to play without reopening the game every 10 minutes from crashes.

I tried contacting customer support at Shrapnel Games but they no longer will support dominions so help..someone. Ha.

Do you get an error message when it crashes? Does it freeze, or dump you back to the desktop, or give you a blue or black screen?

For issues such as that, we need to know the operating system (including whether 32 or 64-bit), service packs installed, graphics card and graphics card driver version.

Also, try installing in somewhere other than C:\Program Files\ and try to run it with admin privileges (if you're on Vista, Windows 7 or Windows .

If you get a crash to desktop and any error messages, please post those too.

Also try running it without Fullscreen (ie. in windowed mode). This option can be found in Preferences>video preferences>un-select the Fullscreen option at the top of the menu.

It crashes straight to desktop and says Dominions 3 has stopped working. Windows is looking for a solution. It doesn't find one and that closes as well. I'll work on finding my specs ha. I have tried running it with administrator on and with different compatability modes on as well.

Occasionally it will crash to desktop but keep the game running as a tab. When I click on it the screen flashes and sound comes back but it still shows my desktop. Clicking registers game knows but doesn't show the game.

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T6600 @ 2.20GHz 2.20 GHz
Ram: 4.00 GB
System: 64 bit Operating system
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 4500MHD or Mobile Intel 4 series chipset family (I'm not entirely sure which I have. The first is listed online for my laptop but I can't find it in my device manager. Under Display adapters it shows the second one I listed.)

Then you should update your graphics drivers, preferably from Intel's own site, but failing that, from the laptop manufacturer's site. Try also updating the laptop BIOS, because that can often have a lot of effects on the other hardware.

Also, give running the game with a debug command line switch a shot (and make sure to save the contents of it somewhere).

if you're using linux or mac, just add a -d after running the game executable, such as:
./dom3_amd64 -d >> debuglog

If you're using Windows (these may be wrong because I'm about to run out the door to work..):
Create a shortcut to the game executable, right-click the shortcut, and select properties.
In the Target text box, type:
-d

It may provide more insight as to what's causing the issue. But as the guys suggested, it's probably a driver-related problem.

This should really be discussed in a different topic.

Maybe these posts can be moved to the troubleshooting thread.

Ooops. Sorry I haven't been back in touch guys. I updated all the items above and it ran somewhat better. I finally got it working by running the game windowed. The only draw back is while windowed caps lock/shift doesn't work but it is only a minor annoyance. Either way game is playable now so I'm happy.

Capslock/shift not working is a different bug. Does that happen every time you run the game in Windowed more just sometimes? Because I never had that happen more than occasionally, whether full screen or windowed mode.

If it happens all the time, run the game in debug mode, make a god, start a game or something and then email the log file and the game to Illwinter as per the shortlist instructions. If the capslock/shift malfunction bug could be fixed, that would be great.

The capslock/shift bug is only in windowed mode..but it is always there. I just start a game and make my god in fullscreen then save and play the game in windowed. So long as you don't have the urge to rename leaders it is a decent work around.

Hunter65 wrote: The capslock/shift bug is only in windowed mode..but it is always there. I just start a game and make my god in fullscreen then save and play the game in windowed. So long as you don't have the urge to rename leaders it is a decent work around.

Okay, in that case please make a new game in windowed mode when running in debug mode (I just added instructions into the troubleshooting thread), play a few turns, try renaming and then send the log and the game files to Johan so he can check them.

This is the first time I have ever heard of the shift/caps lock malfunction bug being reliably replicated and it's been there since at least Dominions 2. It's in Dom2, Dom3 and CoE3 and everyone experiences it intermittently sooner or later. It also means none of the capital letter keyboard shortcuts will work. I would dearly love to see it squashed for good and it would be awesome if this were to provide the keys to doing that.

I seem to have been getting some variant of the caps lock bug a lot more recently(possibly patch related?), because I notice when playing turns that hotkeys like monthly ritual don't work. I've been running in fullscreen mode though. I've noticed, possibly a related bug, that when holding down ctrl to select multiple commanders the game kinda stops after holding it for more than a few seconds.This stoppage is like a freeze, I noticed that the flag graphics on the map stop blinking when it's 'frozen'. Once you stop holding the button it goes again instantly.

The shift/capslock bug always happened for me when I used an alt-tab to switch away from and then back to dom3, if that helps.

It does. I was never able to get it reliably reproduced and I didn't always get it on alt+tab but I got it often enough even without that that it's worth investigating. All this information is helpful, because it allows Johan to narrow it down.

If you can reliably reproduce it by switching from windowed mode to full screen and back, it may have something to do with the window management functions or related things. Given that the game was developed on Linux and the Windows version is just a port of that, it could well be in residence there. CoE3 has the same problem and Dominions 2 did as well. And I never heard any Linux user complain about that.

EDIT:

Sombre, thank you. It is exactly as you said. The switch between full screen and windowed mode (in either direction) triggers the bug. Same thing with both Dom3 and CoE3. It also turns out that if the naming function is already in progress, the switch does not affect that instance of it, but will affect all future instances. E.g. starting a new game in CoE3, naming a couple of leaders, switching modes and then renaming the rest, no effect, but afterward it manifests.

Edited by: Edirr

Victory points oddness:

One human player, 4 mighty AI opponents, Aran map.
One victory point per capital, plus 5 around the map, 8 cumulative VP needed.

AI Rlyeh started with a lot more VP than everyone else, and i don't know why. They also won very early. They never took a VP other than their capital, but other nations did.

Edit 2013.01.20: Oops, deleted the save game from the ftp server. Sorry.

Edit:
Gentoo, Amd 64, dom3 version 3.28, an old install from a CD from SG.

Edited by: Koradji

@Sombre & Edi

To solve the shift / caps lock problem, hit the 'Enter' key [not the numpad one]. Then all shortcuts will function normally.

Bug (Minor) - A hard-coded description relating to battlefield enchantment spells needs updating to reflect a previous patch change.

Battlefield Enchantment spells have written next to them the hard-coded the description "Affects the entire battlefield for the duration of the battle", which I assume is a leftover from before patch 3.20, when the battlefield enchantment spells mechanics were changed so that they now end is if the casting mage is killed or leaves the battle ground. From the patch notes-

New features and bug fixes v3.20:
· Battle enchantments expire when caster retreats from battle ground.

So the description relating to battlefield enchantment spells needs to be updated to reflect this patch and the change in the mechanics. (not that this is a major issue of course, but in a perfect world etc etc)

What with all the bug fixes that are coming through, would it be possible for illwinter to take a look at the spell Horror Seed? Since to my knowledge it has never worked as it's supposed to, but it's a really cool idea for a spell that would be neat if it did.

Admiral_Aorta wrote: What with all the bug fixes that are coming through, would it be possible for illwinter to take a look at the spell Horror Seed? Since to my knowledge it has never worked as it's supposed to, but it's a really cool idea for a spell that would be neat if it did.

Yes, that would be nice. But it might help if we (the community) first establish what Horror Seed currently does, and what it is supposed to do (or what we think or would like it to do). Since I don't think the true intended WAD specs for Horror Seed has ever been 100% clarified. The spell description suggests that a Horror is seeded in a random unit, and then that seed spreads in a parasitic manner to other units (other units... in the province, in the same army stack, in ???), while also cursing and horror marking other units (in ???). And then when/if the unit with the Horror Seed is killed (only kiiled in battle, or overland also?), then the Horror is released.

I haven't tested HS is ages, but seem to recall it does randomly implant a Horror Seed in one random unit. Can't recall if any checks are made, such as against MR. And IIRC it doesn't affect commanders. I don't recall it doing any horror marking or cursing either, but this needs to be tested to verify (maybe it did horror mark the seeded unit? Can't remember). It didn't spread the seed in a parasitic manner though.

But think the best way forward is to thoroughly test HS to establish what it currently does and doesn't do. And then from there we can hopefully suggest some "realistic fixes".

Edited by: Calahan.

Maybe horror seed should function like Monster Boar.

It horror marks a random unit in the province.

Then it has a secondary effect that summons a stealthy unit in the province. The stealthy horror camps in the province until found, like a dream horror. Instead of increasing unrest, it spreads horror marks, like a plague unit spreads disease.

The flavour text of the spell would need to be changed, to reflect that the initial 'seed' now attracts a parasitic horror, which in turn attracts the attention of other horrors.

I have only skimmed through the modding manual, so I don't know if that if even possible.

The wiki says this about Horror Seed:

wiki wrote: Horror marks and curses all units in target province. One soldier gets parasitic horror which horror marks up to 5 companions per turn and spreads up to 1 horror seed per turn. Horror seeds become lesser horrors in time. When this soldier dies, a Horror will emerge.

Note: This spell is currently bugged and the only effect is that a horror will emerge when the effected unit dies.

after a batttle, squads of Marverni troops sometimes get 'dumped' into whatever province the battle took place in- as if they retreated but never actually left the province.