tldr; tldr; version
If the map shows you that you own sov that you're not actually paying any upkeep for, it's going to go bye-bye. And no one else need attend with pitchforks and torches.
tldr version;
- There are a few things broken in sov
- We're trying to fix them
- The first step in fixing them is to remove sovereignty (the squares and the structures thereon) from any town that isn't actually paying any Gold or RP upkeep for said square
- We will be doing this on Saturday the 1st of December
Poetic Version:
Making the perfect Sovereignty Stew
The Sovereignty Stew consists of many ingredients:
- Some are freshly grown,
- Some have been cultivated over many seasons, and
- Some are plucked and crushed by the pestles of pestilence and the mortars of siege
However, as with any great stew that has been bubbling in the tribal pot - renewing continuously over many generations - there's always been the possibility of small flies inadvertently falling in.
There have been many young, thrusting and dynamic chefs who have arrived on the scene with their new version of the basic stew that we all know and love so well, producing amazing dishes from the recipes available.
Whilst some new chefs have contributed to the stew's development in unexpected but flavoursome directions, others have remained in the kitchen - whilst abandoning their stewmaking halfway through - so that they might move onto other recipes.... but this has left the poor kitchen staff with a mess to clear up.
Yet other more-established chefs have fought over ingredients in unexpected ways, throwing down their tools and leaving the kitchen halfway through their preparations, like a horribly sabotaged version of Masterchef... leaving the kitchen staff to clean up the ensuing culinary disaster!
And in an exciting twist, half way through the competition, Oh my! The judges replaced all the chefs' kitchen equipment with a new set of sovereignty UI pages!
Oh wait, dammit. UI isn't a kitchen metaphor.
What I'm trying to say here is that the recipe is sovereignty itself, the dishes are the sovereign structures, the ingredients are the maptiles, the chefs are the players, the devs are the kitchen staff and the flies are the bugs. Chefs who abandon stewmaking but remain in the kitchen are those who run out of Gold and RP. Chefs who fight over ingredients are those who counterclaim sov, and the devs changed the kitchen equipment sov page a few months ago.
Which means the devs are the judges and the kitchen staff. No wait again... that can't be right.
The stew is sovereignty, the recipe is the codebase, and the ingredients are the maptiles. Or are they the new resource tiles? No... no.. I can do this...
Oh, double dammit. I can't. And this horribly extended metaphor started so well.
Ignore the Poetic Version.
Here goes again.
Straightforward version
THE PROBLEM
There are a few issues with sovereignty upkeep after some sets of circumstances, and this has left some extra knock on effects to other towns.
HOW CAN I TELL IF THIS ISSUE AFFECTS MY TOWN
IF your sovereignty page shows:
- you have sovereignty that you cannot increase a claim on (above your town's sovereign research level, ofc and where you meet all the sovereignty requirements), or
- you have sovereignty that you cannot decrease a claim on (brackets as above), or
- you have sovereignty that you cannot upgrade or downgrade a structure on (above your town's sovereign research level, ofc)
- AND THIS SOVEREIGNTY IS NOT COSTING YOUR TOWN ANY GOLD OR RESEARCH UPKEEP
OR
- You are trying to counterclaim sovereignty on any square that is (doubtless unbeknownst to you) affected by the issue above but you either get an error message when trying to counterclaim or are NOT BEING CHARGED ANY GOLD OR RESEARCH UPKEEP FOR YOUR COUNTERCLAIM
... then you are probably affected by this.
I would hazard a guess that if you haven't opened a petition (or, indeed, dozens of identical petitions) with the subject line "Sovereignty claim/counter-claim bug" in each... then you probably aren't affected by this.
HOW MANY PLAYERS ARE AFFECTED BY THIS?
There are some 120 players owning about 140 towns with about 700 squares of sovereignty between them.
Before anyone oils up the torches and sharpens the pitchforks, whilst the sovereignty hasn't cost them anything in terms of RP and Gold, it also hasn't given the players any production structure town benefit benefit either.
SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?
This Saturday, 1st December, we're going to remove all these sovereign squares, and the structure on them, from the game.
We've put in a bunch of bug-catching code in various critical points in the sov decision-making process so we can then work out more about how these "orphan" sovereignty squares came about.
We're pretty sure it's through a combination of towns:
- running out of gold and/or RP to support existing sov claims and not being tidied up correctly, and/or
- people counter-claiming on the selfsame squares, or
- sovereignty left behind before the last exodus patch, or
- sovereign claims from the same player but from different towns, or
- any combination of the above events
... but we'd like this confirmed on live before saying "yes, it's all good".
So.
We think some of the flies in the stew (slap!) um... bugs in the sovereignty code will still be there come Sunday, but many existing issues directly affecting players will be gone, and we'll be able to track back the events of what might cause these issues much more carefully when they happen again in the future.
I'll make a post once the actual changes have been made, sometime on Saturday.
Best,
SC
Edited by GM Stormcrow - 29 Nov 2012 at 07:25