03SEP22 Multiple Bugfixes

We've been made aware of a number of bugs that - using a similar method for each bug - some players have been able to exceed the maximum number for a variety of different capped ingame numbers. To explain:

Some players have been able to build multiple buildings that are supposed to be limited to one per town (eg. multiple Libraries or Barracks).  

In most (but not all) cases having multiples of these buildings conferred no advantage.

Some players have been able to build more than the 20 maximum Sov structures allowed per town. In all cases of this bug, advantages were gained, but - looking at the data - this appears to be a very recent discovery.

Some players have been able to level a Commander up beyond the level that the Commander's total XP points should allow.  In all cases of this bug advantages were gained, however they were limited to a small range of extra levels, and all additional unearned levels still remained capped at 10 maximum.

These loopholes have been in existence since the game was launched (more than 12 years ago) but we have no specific evidence that they have been deliberately exploited for advantage.  In fact, we believe - having looked through the historic data - that this bug is a recent discovery - and quickly reported to us (thanks to all who reported).

We have closed these loopholes, and very much thank those players who have made us aware of them in the last 10 days.

We are carefully checking the codebase to see if there are any other subsystems where this bug could occur, and closing them down; however, if anyone is aware of other systems in which capped limits (usually capped by research) have been exceeded, please do let us know via petition.

We also acknowledge that it was entirely possible to accidentally fall into this bug without realising it, so we are largely unable to distinguish between accidental usage and deliberate exploitation.

To this end, if you have:

a) More than one building in your town of the following types:

b) More Sovereign Structures either built or in the building queue than your Sovereign technology level permits...

c) A Commander with more Levels (of either Self or Divisional Bonuses) than their XP should allow...

... then we are giving you a grace period of 14 days to get this fixed in your towns.

At the end of 14 days, at midnight server-time on 17SEP22 , we will:

a) forcibly destroy ALL buildings of the duplicated type, including the ones you can legitimately have

b) forcibly destroy ALL Sovereign Structures of the duplicated type on ALL squares belonging to that town

b) forcibly destroy the over-levelled commander belonging to that town, such that they cannot be resurrected

Please ensure that all buildings, sovereignty and commanders are compliant by this time, to avoid your empire being largely rearranged in ways you probably don't want.

Many thanks, in advance.

Regards,

SC

Thank you for the bugfix.

There seems to be a new "bug"/inconvenience now though:

When you have e.g. 18 finished lvl 1 Sov buildings and one lvl 1 Sov building in progress it does not allow you to build another one with the message "You have 19 sov buildings and one in progress". It seems the lvl 1 Sov building is both counted as "already finished" and in progress. The same problem exists for other states too (e.g. 16 finished + 2 in progress or 12 finished and 4 in progress).

The problem does NOT exist for lvl 2 Sov.

There is a workaround for that (build lvl 1 Sov in even more steps) - but it is quite annoying.