amusing turn of events

from Stardock Forums
I imagine similar things have occurred to a number of you, but I found this amusing.

In December 2187 of a game in a gigantic universe, with me owning three planets in the lower left corner, a wave of defections to my side began. By the end of January, at least twelve planets had come over to me, because I was "culturally superior." After January, the rate of defections slowed considerably, but there still were a number of months when more than one planet came over.

Unfortunately, I had not been tracking my stats and didn't think to check anything until January. At this point, I was 3rd in population, last in military, last in economy, 3rd in tech, 1st [somehow] in influence, and third in manufacturing. Not particularly impressive stats, despite all that I gained from having at least a dozen planets defect to me. Previous to the defections, I imagine that I was doing even worse.

Additionally, in December, the same month during which the mass defections started, my party lost the election in my senate. So, while all these foreigners were flocking to my banner, my own people were trying to vote me out. Pretty strange, huh?

Since then, the game has been a breeze. I expect to win some sort of non-military victory, pretty much at my leisure. Most of the map is covered in Terran blue, and the defections, while much rarer, continue. Immediately prior to the shift in the balance of power, the Torians had attacked me, but I was able to buy them off very cheaply--all it took was offering them Communications Technology. Since then, no one has made any aggressive moves toward me, and I've been too busy trying to acquire everything I can get without a fight to bother with starting a war myself.

So, I just wish I knew what I had done, so I could do it again another time. I haven't got a clue what caused the defections, especially since I don't seem to have been in any kind of dominating position. But, compared to the times when the computer players kicked my butt, this is a pleasant experience!
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
If you have more influence in a sector it really does not matter how you rate in the galaxy. Planets in a sector you dominate can and will defect. You also mentioned you are not playing as a warmonger this helps you. Other races will respect your peacefull ways.

Building starbases is the only way to convice people not to switch. Ever colonize a system in a sector dominated by aliens. The planet will defect if you can not build you influence.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I think it will be different in beta 4. If 90% of the people are happy, they should be no reason to defect.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
I understand the things you're saying; however, as I noted, it was early in the game, and I only possessed three planets. I had not yet constructed any starbases. The majority of the planets which defected to me had NO contact with me--they were way across the galaxy, and I hadn't even sent a scout to their sectors yet. As a matter of fact, the defections greatly assisted my ability to explore the map, because suddenly I had bases scattered all over the universe. Before this, my three planets were in two sectors in the lower left corner of the map, so my navigational range was limited to, at most, the southwestern quadrant of the map.

By the way, I am playing as the Warmonger party [since I've had no success as the Federalists], but I am choosing "good" options whenever they come up. Since my position is overwhelmingly dominant, I can easily afford the consequences of the "good" choices, and have actually become a "Good" civilization--as shown by the GUI [and the music?]. However, I am certain that I was confronted with no more than one ethical choice prior to the beginning of the defections, so I doubt that this could have had much impact in prodding the "struggling masses" of the universe in my direction.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Hi Folks,

It's a new game, and I seem to be experiencing a repeat of what I reported above. In June 2193, with only two planets after having the Altarians steal the others I had, I badly lost the election, leaving me with only ten percent of the seats in the senate. I'm slightly in the red, since I have no economic base to speak of.

However, the next turn, EIGHT planets defected to me because I'm culturally superior! I certainly wasn't feeling culturally superior to anyone. In fact, I was anticipating losing my last two planets in the near future and starting a new game. After the defections, I checked the graphs in the middle of the right side of the screen. I've got a decent military rating, only because the Drengins gave me some ships to help in my war with the Altarians. In every other field I come last--except for influence, which spikes right at the end of graph. I then checked the graphs in the domestic display, where it says that my influence is 85899! This just can't be right. I've got maybe eight ships, two planets, and one starbase--at the lowest level of developlment. How I got such an astronomically high influence, I haven't a clue.

This is two games in a row where this has happened, and in neither of which did it seem justified. It's got to be a bug, and one with a serious impact on game play. The last game, I went on to win easily. The rate of defections gradually slowed, until it became only an occasional event, but I was able to take over the rest of the universe without a battle, just by using all the resources and production acquired though the defections to plant starbases everywhere and wait for other planets to join me. I'll see if things proceed in similar fashion this time.

If somebody wants to see the saved game, let me know where to send it.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I ended up scrapping the game above, because something screwed up in the research screen. I went there to check how long 'til the current tech I was researching would be finished, and it said 1000 months! I experimented with switching to the other techs, but the time remained 1000 months no matter which tech I chose.

I played a few more turns, but every time I went back to the tech screen, the time remaining was still 1000 months. Without being able to research new techs, there was little sense in continuing the game, so I scrapped it and am starting a new one. However, I've got the save game files, if anyone wants them.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
There seems to be some bug with influence. Occasionally for no explained reason your influence jumps through the roof. I suspect that it's an overflow somewhere. I went from +142% to + 1400% in a single month last night. Suddenly everyone wanted to join me! Still trying to duplicate before I send a saved game to stardock though.

Paul.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
"In every other field I come last--except for influence, which spikes right at the end of graph. I then checked the graphs in the domestic display, where it says that my influence is 85899! This just can't be right. I've got maybe eight ships, two planets, and one starbase--at the lowest level of developlment. How I got such an astronomically high influence, I haven't a clue."

IIRC, that number (85899) in the games way of saying "-1" with an unsigned int, right? What actually happened is that your influence became so low it went below 0 to the other side of the number line.
I keep seeing that number show up in bug posts. I think Frogboy has called it an unsigned int in the past.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
-1 as an unsigned short (presuming 32-bit int, which is generally the case now) is 65535. As an unsigned int, it would be 4,294,967,295.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
There is an overflow if you lose an election and your influence drops. This will give you 4B influence (as mentioned by acturus), and the game quickly finishes with cultural victory.

Paul.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
So, it's tied to losing the election, huh? Hopefully, this will get fixed, otherwise losing the election will become a popular path to victory.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Yeah, new game, lost the election, my influence went thru the roof and everybody and his brother is defecting to me again. I hope this gets fixed for beta 4. So far, every game of 3Z that I've played has either resulted in a cultural victory due to this bug, or has been scrapped after some bug caused a crash or a freeze-up which I was unable to get past. This is making it hard to get a grasp of how the game is developing in terms of balance, etc.