Unable to claim empire tiles

Julianb3000

9 years ago
Views 19,970
updated 9 years ago
Declined

I've had this a few times, but it's just happened in a place that breaks a game, so it's inspired a bug-post.

Symptom - workers refuse to claim enemy tiles.

I was playing a workshop map, named The Vault (http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198031969859/myworkshopfiles/?appid=230190&browsefilter=mysubscriptions&p=2)

The map has a bridge, then a chamber with lots of portcullis and traps, and empire units. This then leads into a corridor. Once I'd cleared the room out, the imps converted maybe 4/5ths of the first room, but refused to convert any of the corridor.

I used the imp rally flag, and they'd stand idle beside the empire tile.

I dropped them on the edge of the tile, and they just wandered off.

Nothing was attacking them, and they were just idle (so no higher priority tasks in the way).

It was as if the tile had been flagged as 'empire non-claimable'.

I've had this in smaller doses in other workshop maps, but not had so many tiles in one place blocked out.

I was under 25mins into the game, and it was a fresh game (not saved it & reloaded). It was also the first map I've tried to play since starting WTFO.

I'm on a 64bit machine with 16g ram on Win10.

This is version 1.3.1f5.

Julian.

Game Version:

Steam Public

Platform:

Windows

Replies 16

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Stefan Furcht Programmer

9 years ago

Hello Julianb3000,
we got a similar report recently, which we fixed already:
https://forum.subterraneangames.com/threads/unclaimable-neutral-tiles.9864/

However when the old bug forums was locked, I continued the thread with the reports in a private conversation on forum.
We figured out this is a map editor bug which creates invalid claimed tiles which are "fortified" (which is only meant for walls) when you paint claimed tiles over fortified walls.
Since these claimed tiles have the fortified flag (you can identify those when tooltip shows "[Fortified]" http://imgur.com/8732oYj) some game machanics considers them as walls.

Now there is a game mechanic that makes sure:

When ever you claim a new tile all adjacenting walls which do not have

at least one claimed tile of their owner in 8 neighbors around is automatically unfortified.

(you might have already seen that enemy walls are unfortified when you claim around them)

So when you claim any neighbor of of such "fake fortified wall" the game

will in this process "unfortify" the claimed tile, which does simply remove ownership.

What remains is a claimed tile without an owner, something which should never exist.

Workers who try to unclaim can't do it and will get stuck.

We fixed the issue on both two ends.

- Fixed that the map editor can create such tiles

- Made sure that a tile having the issue is automatically fixed on map loading

I guess you have the same issue and it is fixed already.

A patch will be coming quite soon.

Hint:
Until patched, you should be able to fix affected tiles simply by applying the Annex spell on them.

Please let me know if you think it is not this bug we have fixed.

Cheers

PS. I was not able to open your link as it points to "myworkshopfiles" which something you can only access private

Reply Link

Jan - Eric Merzel

9 years ago
Completed - Resolved

Thanks for a quick and thorough response.

Shame about the link - I was trying to help you reproduce it. :(

The symptom is very similar to the one I'm reporting, and may well have the same cause.

I think you're describing one where a tile becomes 'neutral unclaimable', and that can be resolved with annex or other tricks.

The problem I had is tiles that stay 'empire unclaimable', and those methods don't work to claim it. I can't annex someone else's territory, or build walls on it. For the moment, I don't think there is a way I can get around this problem.

However, the description of the cause and fix both sound like they'll match this, so I'll await the patch eagerly.

Cheers,

P.S. I did search for any existing report in this forum, but there wasn't a post in here at that point - I didn't think to search the 'legacy' forum. :)

Hi,

Sorry to report that at least part of this fix isn't working.

I'm trying again with this map: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=578326103

I'm again finding that my imps won't remove the "Claimed Tile (Owner Empire)" from the tiles in the central corridor. There are no enemies nearby, and imps will stand "idle" next to these tiles - even though the tile next to it is mine. The tiles I'm having trouble with are ones in between the workshops on either side of the corridor.

Edit: Come to think of it, this map is the main (only?) place I've seen this issue.

9 years ago
Accepted

Hello Julianb3000,
any chance that the tiles in the center have hidden Blade Loti on them?
This makes workers avoiding these tiles, until you rally units on that tile which makes the Blate Lotus pop out.
I might take a look at this map as well.

Cheers

So I even played the map my self to the point where I claimed the "central corridor".
Despite this map being almost unplayable because of too many objects placed causing lag,
I was able to claim the center without any issues.

Or isn't this the "central corridor" you were talking about?

Quote from Stefan Furcht

@V0id, I didn't get very far down that corridor. When you go over the first bridge, there's an area with a bunch of traps. The problem was just after those traps.

There might be hidden blade lotii, but I've pushed battles past that point without them triggering. Maybe I somehow had everyone walk around the hidden lotus tiles, and need to rally onto the tile to force it. I'll give it another go sometime and let you know. (After two games failed on that map, I've been avoiding going back!)