Bug-ridden disappointment

[eeyore]

I bought this yesterday and wish I could get a refund (I'm new to Steam - is that even possible?).

I started and abandoned half a dozen games due to unacceptable game bugs. Examples:

1. Warsaw Pact headlined and influence placement step skipped.
2. Norad failing to trigger on DefCon 2.
3. Attempting to coup or realign and no country being selectable.

The bugs are all random, but I never made it past Turn 2 without hitting one. This product should not have been released from beta.

[BockBockChicken]

1. Please describe more here. Did you play it or the AI? Did you or the AI choose to remove influence instead of placing them?
2. Did you control Canada? Did DEFCON drop to 2 during an AR or headline? If it's the latter, it won't trigger. Is the event still in effect (i.e., Quagmire didn't remove it)?
3. Did you take note of DEFCON restrictions? If you're at DEFCON 2 and there are no opponent influence outside of Europe, Middleast and Asia, then you cannot do any of those actions.

Just a note, most of the bug reports are due to users not fully understanding the rules. None of these are bugs reported elsewhere, so it's way more likely here that you seem to be not understanding the board state. We'll have to rule out the above first before declaring with any sort of confidence that it is a "bug".

And yes, you can get Steam refunds.

[eeyore]

1. AI USSR headlined Warsaw Pact. No US influence in Eastern Europe to remove. No USSR influence placed in Eastern Europe. Nothing about influence recorded in the turn log.
2. Yes and not sure. Wasn't aware that Norad did not trigger off headline DEFCON drop, so might have been my bad there.
3. Yes. DEFCON 3 and no ME countries selectable for either coup or realignment. Think I tried Africa too but can't remember for sure. Only happened once (all of these only happened once).

New one: Headlined CIA Created and there was only the option to place influence (no coup or realignment in menu). There were eligible countries available.

[BockBockChicken]

For Warsaw Pact Formed, the AI must have chosen to remove - which it can certainly do even when there are no US influence in Eastern Europe. The AI needs a lot of work.

I would suggest you take a screenshot for all the cases where you say you cannot coup or realign, because, still, in every other instance of people saying it's a bug in the forum it's because there actually aren't any eligible countries. Plus a screenshot will remove any possibility of misremembering the game state - the likely culprit here since it only happened once for you.

Remember, the opponent must have influence in a country in order for you to Coup or Realign that country. This makes early game a safe (and common) way for USSR to trigger CIA Created safely when it likely does not have any influence outside of DEFCON-locked regions.

Also keep in mind that certain events prevent Coup and Realignments for certain countries.

Keep an eye out on these requirements next time you suspect a bug with regards to Coups and Realignments.

[eeyore]

Points taken. If I report bugs in the future I'll aim to provide visual evidence.

The CIA Created bug happened very late in the game; there were plenty of eligible countries in non-DEFCON-restricted regions. That one I'm absolutely certain about.

[eeyore]

Not me, but here's a clear video example of a game glitch. Link below is to a YouTube video from a guy who plays and posts a lot of TS games. At the 2:00 mark his US opponent plays De-Stalinization and the game skips resolving the USSR event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF2UR0nI2Rw

[EarthBowser]

Yeah, it looks like something weird happened there.

However, the back button was displayed, so I'm guessing he could have clicked that and then proceeded with the event.

I also want to say that "Bug-ridden disappointment" is super over dramatic when it seems like your only legitimate complaint is that the computer will sometimes make a poor choice when Warsaw Pact goes off.

[eeyore]

If you look at what I've listed here that is not my only complaint, and I didn't document all of them. To be sure, the bugs have been intermittent, but since there is no manual override possible some of them are real game killers, and there is no excuse for that in a finished product. Regarding the video, the back button was displayed briefly but the game immediately progressed past it - he was never given the chance to use the event.

[EarthBowser]

The back button was displayed immidiately when the game moved into his turn, the entire time that he was trying to figure out what was going on, and up until he played his actual move and confirmed it. It was displayed from 2:09 until 3:45. I imagine that if he had pressed it and backed up, it would have allowed him to resolve the event. Something weird obviously did happen though.

As for your complaints, #1 is a legitimate complaint about the AI making a poor move. #2 was explained to you. #3 has been mentioned by other players, but seems to always end up being the player misremembering or not understanding the gamestate. If you do have other complaints, you should list them, otherwise they won't get resolved or explained.

[gweis_pd]

We've tracked down the bug in the video. It only happens when you have announcements set to Pause. Clicking "Continue" for the DEFCON warning also triggers the "Done" option for Destalinization. This will be fixed in the next update.

In the meantime, if you encounter this, when you hit the Undo button it will only back up to the Destalinization decision point. You'll be able to relocate influence and proceed from there.

This same issue most likely affects Destalinization, Blockade, Latin American Debt Crisis, Our Man In Tehran and "Ask Not What Your Country..."

[CaptHardship]

I just played Warsaw Pact as US and the USSR AI did not add or remove any influnce. Sounds similar to the issue you saw in headline phase.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=774303555