Beware when temporarily changing a territory variable

[moblet]

I'm finding RRT3 1.05 is playing an interesting trick when I temporarily change a territory variable. RRT3 creates a "Temp offset" event (visible in the editor during play) to change the variable back to zero, but instead of changing the variable for only that territory, it sets that territory variable to zero for all territories. This isn't very nice.

On the plus side, I now finally know why my scenario keeps going berserk.

[EPH]

Be certain you are testing against a specific territory and not ALL territories.

[JayEff]

Well you can write two events, with permanent effects in each direction.

Also, take a look at what is happening with other effects applied to territories, like territory access fees or production rates.

And I wonder if we should all take a more careful look at company and player effects too.

Maybe the safest course would be to have not temporary territory, company or player effects.

[nedfumpkin]

I used temporary effects in New France with great success. I had a risk index that changed depending on your choices, and sometimes the risk was higher for a short period of time. I would test this out before getting too concerned.

[moblet]

Be certain you are testing against a specific territory and not ALL territories.

Both the conditions and effects were confined to one specific territory.

Also, take a look at what is happening with other effects applied to territories, like territory access fees or production rates.

Same deal. I temporarily assigned for a single territory, but the offset event was applied to the whole game.

One thing that went pear-shaped in my scenario as a result of this "all-territories" offset was that my temporary assignments were not always allowed to expire before another temporary assignment was applied. RT3 handled this very badly, and somehow managed to offset a +20% change in price with a -1,000% change.

And I wonder if we should all take a more careful look at company and player effects too.

Just tested those too, and the same thing happens. It would only matter, though, if we were using these variables for AI companies and players, which we rarely do.

I used temporary effects in New France with great success.

I had a look through New France and all the temporary variables are player variables. I haven't run the scenario and inspected the editor to confirm RT3's behaviour but as the scenario makes no use of player variables for the AI players, it would be of no consequence.

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I don't know if 1.06 does the same thing as it handles temporary variables a bit differently (resets them to their former value rather than zero, according to the documentation).

[Gwizz]

This is interesting. I've used temporary events many times and have never had a problem with the game not following my coding. I have created glitches but they were always fixable.

Often I just had the wrong box checked or had events out if sequence.
I always set a variable to a whole number + or - and I try to never use a zero number.
Order of operation has to be correct, as I have caused myself problems by not being careful with this.

I remember Steve Larson telling me: Write out you events with a pencil first, as it is easier to find any mistakes.

[RulerofRails]

Wasn't looking to do it, but I did a little research into this. The problem is that the game doesn't remember all the trigger information that you enter into such an event. The game will remember Territory Variable 2 for example, but doesn't retain the information about WHICH territory the event was setup to apply to.

An event to Set any of the Territory Variable 2 values to 10 temporarily, will on the conclusion set all Terrritory Variable 2 values to 0 (tested in 1.05). No territory is safe.

An event to Add 10 to Territory Variable 2 value temporarily (+10), will upon rewind Subtract 10 from ALL Territory Variable 2 values (-10). The original event will be "unwound", but all other Territory Variable 2 values end up -10.


Any effects that apply to specific territories and some of those that apply to companies are the same. If I try to temporarily increase Lumber production by +10% in one territory, upon un-wind production there will return to normal, but elsewhere will be down by 10%. If I temporarily increase stock prices by 50% for the player's company, upon un-wind my stock prices return to normal, but all other companies are down -50%.

The problem is the "automatic" event that RT3 automatically creates to unwind each effect. These are called "Temp offset for {EVENT NAME}". If you look at these you will find that they LOSE the trigger conditions that we specified in the original event. Consequently the un-wind effects will be applied to ALL Territories (specific territory), the WHOLE GAME (specific company/ies), or ALL Players (specific Player, variables only?).

I did find that some Company specific effects were un-winding correctly, bridge building and track maintenance cost worked, overall track cost and stock prices did not. The Temp. events look the same for all. More investigation is in order, and maybe eventually a list of what works and what does not for companies. Maybe that's why this issue hasn't been talked about much before.

On the bright side, maybe it can occasionally be subverted to get an all-but-this effect. Also, thought it was important to add that temporary events work as advertised if they are used game-wide or if you only need to use one of the variables as Ned did in New France: when he only used the Player Variable 3 for the human player and ignored those for the 2 AI players.

[Gumboots]

What a mess. I thought they had beta tested this crap. Looks like it barely made it through alpha.

Obviously you can work around it. The easiest way would be to only use permanent events. So if you want your company stock price boosted by 50% for six months you would write an event to boost it permanently, then follow that up with another event 6 months later to set the price for your company, and only for your company, back down by 50%. In effect you'd be writing your own "temp offset" events. If the game doesn't write them for you, they shouldn't bug out all over the price.

This is handy to know, and not that hard to implement, but what a massive collection of attempts at reproduction this old game is.