Can someone tell me if this is a bug or normal?
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Okay, I'm going to post this for my wife since I doubt she'll ever come here and actually post...she hates searching web sites and such for answers. 
Anyway, she was playing a game (her first one) last night. She'd saved the game and quit for a bit while we watched some TV and had dinner. When she quit the game, she controlled (as in had influence enough that sectors were her color) most of the board....all of the middle as well as all the way up and to each side. There were only small pockets of "resistance" to her cultural domination in the top corners and along the bottom. Additionally, the Victory Conditions showed her at something like 86% of a Cultural Victory.
So she saved and quit. Then, when she loaded this game back up, as far as I know before she even took one more turn (ie, it should have been in the same state it was when she quit and saved), her cultural influence had been halved. She'd lost some sectors to the races in the corners and the bottom, shrinking her territory and changing it to their colors. But even weirder, along the very top and the farthest sides, sectors she had controlled had turned back to black, showing no one with control over them. When she checked her Victory Conditions, Cultural Victory was down to around 44%.
Is this even possible? First off, I can't see how this could be right as she had *just* loaded up her saved game and therefore nothing should have changed until she hit next turn (or, in her case, let auto-turn progress by moving all her ships) at least.
Second, is it possible in the normal course of say one or two turns to lose *that* much sector influence that quickly? If so, how? Enemy destabilization? Low morale? I could see those, but surely not on that massive a scale and that rapid a pace (not to mention on multiple "fronts").
In addition, she mentioned that there was some glitch that when she was on some of the "subscreens" it was showing the "Ships In Orbit" box when it shouldn't have. She'd been playing the game for probably 10 or 12 hours at least, so I'd think she'd notice if that was normal...for myself, I'm not sure what she meant entirely. I've certainly opened up subscreens yet still had that right side panel showing ships in orbit and such if I had a planet highlighted before going in. Still, in her case, I had click a couple of other display buttons to get it to go away and start displaying in a way that looked appropriate.
When she told me all this, I thought maybe it was some kind of corruption of her saved game (though I don't know how). And, yes, it was a game she manually saved, not an autosave. So, I suggested she load up her most recent autosave and take a look at that. She did so and showed me how she controlled most of the galaxy...again, I thought it might be a save file corruption, so I suggested she just take the few turns loss and play from there. She agreed to try that, took care of that turn's business, and let the turn progress. And then, pow, next turn her cultural influence/sector control dropped nearly in half. And again, we saw several of the same sectors turn black for being under no one's control.
So....it seems the sudden and massive loss of cultural influence was actually in-game events....but neither of us understood how and why it would happen, not on that kind of scale anyway. Also, even if this is possible, how did her save game state change from when she saved it to when she reloaded it?
Can anyone help us figure out what might be going on?
Whether it's a bug or whether we're just not understanding something about how some of this works?
Thanks!
Anyway, she was playing a game (her first one) last night. She'd saved the game and quit for a bit while we watched some TV and had dinner. When she quit the game, she controlled (as in had influence enough that sectors were her color) most of the board....all of the middle as well as all the way up and to each side. There were only small pockets of "resistance" to her cultural domination in the top corners and along the bottom. Additionally, the Victory Conditions showed her at something like 86% of a Cultural Victory.
So she saved and quit. Then, when she loaded this game back up, as far as I know before she even took one more turn (ie, it should have been in the same state it was when she quit and saved), her cultural influence had been halved. She'd lost some sectors to the races in the corners and the bottom, shrinking her territory and changing it to their colors. But even weirder, along the very top and the farthest sides, sectors she had controlled had turned back to black, showing no one with control over them. When she checked her Victory Conditions, Cultural Victory was down to around 44%.
Is this even possible? First off, I can't see how this could be right as she had *just* loaded up her saved game and therefore nothing should have changed until she hit next turn (or, in her case, let auto-turn progress by moving all her ships) at least.
Second, is it possible in the normal course of say one or two turns to lose *that* much sector influence that quickly? If so, how? Enemy destabilization? Low morale? I could see those, but surely not on that massive a scale and that rapid a pace (not to mention on multiple "fronts").
In addition, she mentioned that there was some glitch that when she was on some of the "subscreens" it was showing the "Ships In Orbit" box when it shouldn't have. She'd been playing the game for probably 10 or 12 hours at least, so I'd think she'd notice if that was normal...for myself, I'm not sure what she meant entirely. I've certainly opened up subscreens yet still had that right side panel showing ships in orbit and such if I had a planet highlighted before going in. Still, in her case, I had click a couple of other display buttons to get it to go away and start displaying in a way that looked appropriate.
When she told me all this, I thought maybe it was some kind of corruption of her saved game (though I don't know how). And, yes, it was a game she manually saved, not an autosave. So, I suggested she load up her most recent autosave and take a look at that. She did so and showed me how she controlled most of the galaxy...again, I thought it might be a save file corruption, so I suggested she just take the few turns loss and play from there. She agreed to try that, took care of that turn's business, and let the turn progress. And then, pow, next turn her cultural influence/sector control dropped nearly in half. And again, we saw several of the same sectors turn black for being under no one's control.
So....it seems the sudden and massive loss of cultural influence was actually in-game events....but neither of us understood how and why it would happen, not on that kind of scale anyway. Also, even if this is possible, how did her save game state change from when she saved it to when she reloaded it?
Can anyone help us figure out what might be going on?
Whether it's a bug or whether we're just not understanding something about how some of this works?
Thanks!
