Watch towers and watch tower failure

[The Painted Man]

Thanks, Mike. I appreciate the response. Sounds like best guess is I hit the sweet spot where the program thinks I have a dire wolf so removes a recon, but I didn't yet have the dire wolf because of timing of the orders/spells.

Underworld gets Dire Wolf Familiar (as an intrinsic spell) at level 5. That means, the spell effect automatically triggers every turn for you. So if you have a pwr-5 wizard in one of your groups with a Watch Tower building enhancement, it may cause an issue.

Since we're past the "lets keep the details out since its an active game" point, I went back and dug into details and will share here. 

The last time I raised a p5, I had the same result (and must not have noticed at the time). So, something about the dire wolf and watch towers don't work together. The following turn I made the p5 a p6, and the issue went away. The p6 then left the capital for reasons that are his own and I raised a new p5. And received the same error. 

My guess remains that the system says "oh, p5, you have intrinsic dire wolf, I should cancel the other recon" but then because of timing around spells (211) vs. magic research (799) means that I didn't actually have an intrinsic dire wolf to do the recon. Interestingly, I got the message indicating nothing to report by the dire wolf, which shouldn't have happened due to it being L4 per the spell description.

Lesson here: If you have watch towers and raise a wizard to where you get intrinsic dire wolf, don't plan on watch towers working that turn. 

Spoiler alert: I will be raising that p5 to a p6 per UM's suggestion, so won't be able to report if this is a one-off due to timing or if the two in the same square (dire wolf and watch tower) always stinks.

[Ry Vor]

Thanks, Mike. I appreciate the response. Sounds like best guess is I hit the sweet spot where the program thinks I have a dire wolf so removes a recon, but I didn't yet have the dire wolf because of timing of the orders/spells.

Underworld gets Dire Wolf Familiar (as an intrinsic spell) at level 5. That means, the spell effect automatically triggers every turn for you. So if you have a pwr-5 wizard in one of your groups with a Watch Tower building enhancement, it may cause an issue.

Since we're past the "lets keep the details out since its an active game" point, I went back and dug into details and will share here. 

The last time I raised a p5, I had the same result (and must not have noticed at the time). So, something about the dire wolf and watch towers don't work together. The following turn I made the p5 a p6, and the issue went away. The p6 then left the capital for reasons that are his own and I raised a new p5. And received the same error. 

My guess remains that the system says "oh, p5, you have intrinsic dire wolf, I should cancel the other recon" but then because of timing around spells (211) vs. magic research (799) means that I didn't actually have an intrinsic dire wolf to do the recon. Interestingly, I got the message indicating nothing to report by the dire wolf, which shouldn't have happened due to it being L4 per the spell description.

Lesson here: If you have watch towers and raise a wizard to where you get intrinsic dire wolf, don't plan on watch towers working that turn. 

Spoiler alert: I will be raising that p5 to a p6 per UM's suggestion, so won't be able to report if this is a one-off due to timing or if the two in the same square (dire wolf and watch tower) always stinks.

Well, obviously those who know me, know that is not what is intended.  I know it sounds like excuses, but if you take a Rick Loomis game like StarWeb, which received awards, and in which you can do a total of four different things, and compare that to Alamaze, where there are millions more possibilities than chess, I guess we have to accept if you are a test pilot for the boundaries, you could find something.  Meanwhile, 99.7792% of things work the way they are supposed to.

Next time, I will think more about making money, as in making a simpler game without so much variance in possible outcomes.  Sorry, I shouldn't write while Al Sharpton is screaming at me.

[The Painted Man]

Ry Vor, to be clear... not complaining, but rather seeking to understand and also to make people aware of it. If it was a random chance of failure, ok. If it's just a limitation because I have too much awesomeness at one PC at one time, ok.

We have good roads where I live in San Diego, but there's still the occasional pot hole, and I try my best to avoid it while out riding and if possible point it out so that others do too. This is the same. It's not perfect, but we all play on the same platform, if you will, so it only "backfires" when people hoard knowledge.

[Acererak]

Ry Vor, to be clear... not complaining, but rather seeking to understand and also to make people aware of it. If it was a random chance of failure, ok. If it's just a limitation because I have too much awesomeness at one PC at one time, ok.

We have good roads where I live in San Diego, but there's still the occasional pot hole, and I try my best to avoid it while out riding and if possible point it out so that others do too. This is the same. It's not perfect, but we all play on the same platform, if you will, so it only "backfires" when people hoard knowledge.

When I find Dusi Harbor in every game I'm going to try to destroy it.

:-)

[Pine Needle]

We have good roads where I live in San Diego, but there's still the occasional pot hole, and I try my best to avoid it while out riding and if possible point it out so that others do too. 

Humble brag.

[The Painted Man]

Ry Vor, to be clear... not complaining, but rather seeking to understand and also to make people aware of it. If it was a random chance of failure, ok. If it's just a limitation because I have too much awesomeness at one PC at one time, ok.

We have good roads where I live in San Diego, but there's still the occasional pot hole, and I try my best to avoid it while out riding and if possible point it out so that others do too. This is the same. It's not perfect, but we all play on the same platform, if you will, so it only "backfires" when people hoard knowledge.

When I find Dusi Harbor in every game I'm going to try to destroy it.

:-)

Me too!