Some random bugs I've discovered recently.

Hello, I'm new to the forums, but not to the game. I've been playing since AoEO has been released, but I honestly played more Project Celeste than when it was active. Anyway, that's not the point. Here are a couple of bugs I've found recently. I may be editing this thread to add some more. I've collected enough that I felt I need to make a post about it.

1. Sound engine dies randomly. At random times during gameplay, the sound will cut out of half a second, and then continue. When this happens all sounds (music, ambience, units, etc) will play out in their entirety and then stop. Unit sounds are the first to go, then the music, then finally the ambience (which takes a long time to end). After it ends, nothing I do save from closing the game makes it come back. It can happen in a quest hub, capital or in a quest (I know it happened in Sparta, but it mostly happens in quests). I can't reproduce it on a whim, but it has happened at at least 5 times now in the past couple of weeks. Also of note: when I try and close the game, it won't close. I hit exit game and it hangs. I can right click the icon and close it, the icon disappears, but the game is still "open." I have to end the process in the task manager to actually close the game. Notes: I'm on Windows 10 (but not the current update, some older one), I have a 2080 video card, a Ryzen 7 2700X, and a Corsair Virtuoso wireless headset. I do not have a soundcard.

2. The quest "Landholder Lunacy" (the regular quest that's part of The Fertile Crest booster pack, not an elite or legendary version that I am aware of) has a random ungeared Greek Sarissophoroi sitting just outside your starting base. This is a map against Persians, so it's out of place. Here is an image:

Spoiler: Image

3a. There is an advisor "Good Shepherd Shahriyar" for Rome that spawns sheep from a Town Center every 15 seconds. The sheep are herdable, and therefore can be captured by a wandering ally or enemy (which is annoying, and could use a change, but that's not the bug I'm about to speak about). The sheep are part of smart dragging. Meaning if you drag over them with Villagers inside the box, you will only select the Villagers. The same way you only select military units in a drag with Villagers inside. This is completely fine, however when you try and do the same with Engineers, you will select both the Engineers and the sheep. Please make it so you only select the Engineers. This feels like a bug. In addition as a suggestion: please force the sheep to only spawn at your first built Town Center (whether is already present on the map or your built it yourself). In the late game when you have 4 Town Centers the sheep will be spread out over them all and really messes with the economy.

3b. Related to the above in regards to herdable things, the two quests for the Egyptian Pharoah in Argos to collect his luggage and camel can have their objectives spawn in "Rescue Mission." The problem is, the two quest targets are technically herdable and can be recaptured by the enemy if you don't escort it. But it can also be captured by the Greek ally. It can be annoying to reclaim the unit if it is captured by the ally, and really hard to complete the quest. This feels like something that might be hardcoded, but I thought I would bring it up anyway. This can also happen for "Celebrate Hekatombia," I suppose, but I haven't seen the cow spawn in that quest.

4. Sometimes the Roman building that Engineers build that increase movement speed do not work. When built, there is no circle around them and do not provide a speed bonus forcing me to demolish it and build another one. This rarely happens, but it happened enough times for me to be upset by it.

5. The quest that's part of the Northern Invasion booster called "The Hideout" appears to be bugged. This is the normal version of the quest, which is classified as a level 32 quest. It appears to be the Elite version, or a version similar to the elite version of the quest. Here's some details: the two quests before this one has the enemy using gear around level 20. The quest after this one has enemies also using gear around level 20. However, all the enemies in "The Hideout" use level 38 epic gear, and Elite versions of enemies seem to spawn a much higher quantity. Not only that, but the enemy has constant spawns of waves of enemies thrown at you, even more than they could pump out from their production centers. This quest was extremely hard to do at level 40 with a gear score of 660. When the other 3 in that series were a complete breeze. When the quest requires level 32, and the enemies have level 38 epic gear, something seems off. Especially because the quest that came immediately after that every enemy had level around 20 gear and was dead easy.

That's all I can think of for now, I might add more when I remember them to this thread later.

Edit:

6. Not sure if this is a bug or not, but in Fortress of the Ice King you can select Rudolph and move him around the map. No other quest hub, to my knowledge, allows you to select units within the city (or wherever) and move units around. It seems off, but it could just be made for fun.

7. Zabol sometimes doesn't have a load screen and instead is just a white, incredibly bright, screen. I'm not able to reproduce it currently, but when I do, I'll add a screenshot. Also as a general feedback: the town (and some of its quests) are too bright in general. The texture used for the ground is really hard on the eyes.

8. Numbers in-game not matching up with numbers on items. For instance, construction additions that lower the train/research speed, such as Thoth's Rules of Training (level 40 item) says it lowers train/research speed by 7.0% but in game the tooltip only says 6.6%. Something that's related: numbers should be rounded up or down for percentages. For instance, if you are reducing the cost of Villagers by a certain percentage, the number should be rounded up or down internally. In game, sometimes it will say that Villagers cost 48 food or whatever, and if you have exactly 48 food it will say you don't have enough food.

9. There is a loading screen hint that says something along the lines of "Immortals are the only unit in the game to have both a ranged and melee attack." This isn't true, Roman Centurions also have a ranged and a melee attack.

10. Caravans are very skittish. If you build something in their patrol path from the Market to a Town Center, they will stop dead in their tracks and need to be setup again. This is very annoying.

 

Thanks to you both for the replies. Good to hear some of these are known, and others weren't. Hopefully I helped the dev team with some issues that can be easily resolved. I know game testing can be a difficult task, especially with a small team and community, so I always try and help where I can. I've been beta testing games for over 10 years now, so I try my best to point out things I notice in a way that hopefully is detailed enough to make sense, and doesn't sound condescending.

Again, if I remember or discover some more, I'll add them to this post. Thanks again for the responses!

 

I am aware of the cooldown. In fact there is another hint that says as much. However this hint could stand to be updated to explain a bit more. Or perhaps perhaps combined with the hint regarding Centurions. As it stands, it's just a bit confusing to potential new plays which most of these tips seem to be aimed for.

As for the Thoth's thing, it seems odd to me, and isn't explained well anywhere in game. As a person who doesn't read a lot of things outside of the game, I see "Reduces by X" and expect the in game values to be the same because that's what makes sense to me. With your explanation it makes sense, but it doesn't exactly appear in game anywhere.