Weird but minor bug

Trading with pirates?

from GalCiv2 Forums

So, after my last game (DL, version 1.53), I was randomly going through the debug.err file to read up on the AI's tech trading, and I came across something weird. One of the tech trades was:

Debug Message:  Year: 2232. Snathi traded Shields to the Pirates! in exchange for Impulse Drive

This is truly bizarre. Not only is it impossible to communicate with the pirates in any fashion, as they don't have planets, but the only pirates to appear all game were those that popped up after a breakout on the UP Galactic Prison in 2227 or so. I destroyed them all in a few turns, which makes me wonder just what was going on here.

This had no effect on the game, which I played without errors for some time afterward, and the Snathi are now dead. Nonetheless it seemed very strange and I thought I might as well report it. The debug messages before and after this were normal enough.

 

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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

This is indeed very interesting. It has been hinted/complained by many players that the AI can trade techs in a way/amount that the player can't follow, and you've just found a proof of this.

I wonder from where the Pirates got those techs? I mean, they have no planets so they can't research, they have either (1) traded for it from another civ, or (2) did start out with it?

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

This reminds me of the Peacekeeper bug I encountered.  They did not attack me or the Torians, but more than that, they would contact me "begging for help" (even though they destroyed every ship in the galaxy, several civs were large and strong in economy, influence, etc). 

So even though they didn't have a planet so I could contact them, I was able to perform trades when they contacted me.  The Torians also traded with the Peacekeepers, I assume the same way by the Peacekeepers initiating contact, by giving them ships (I don't know what, if anything, they got in return).

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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I've heard those complaints about AI tech trading, and I saw some of that here, but this wasn't quite the same thing. The complaints are about AIs trading techs easily that they refuse to trade at all with the player, but trading with the pirates should be flat out impossible. I've never seen anything like this before, but I don't read a lot of debug.err files either. I doubt this has any bearing, but I've also discovered that the evil minors (Snathi & Dark Yor) begin at peace with the Dread Lords in "Dread Lords on Parade" scenario, unlike all other major and minor races.

As far as the pirates gaining techs goes, I'm pretty sure they have all the techs of the most advanced race, sort of like the new minor civs that appear (Vegans and so forth).

DamienShade - now that's weird. What did they look like? What techs did they have? I've heard of instances where players could contact the Dread Lords by clicking on GNN messages of the DLs making peace with a race, but at least they have a planet.

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting qrtxian, reply 3
DamienShade - now that's weird. What did they look like? What techs did they have? I've heard of instances where players could contact the Dread Lords by clicking on GNN messages of the DLs making peace with a race, but at least they have a planet.
End of qrtxian's quote

Their racial portrait was the same one the Scottlingas use.  As for techs, they had the whole Influence tree, high Beam and Mass Driver tech (but not the top tier stuff), the entire Shields tree, the whole Planetary Invasion tree (rather odd) and all Extreme Worlds techs researched.

 

As you can see, they contacted me.  Your pirates, even though they didn't have a home world, were probably able to do the same with the Snathi.  Some glitch occured upon the event spawning where hostility toward the Snathi was not enabled, and that allowed contact and trading.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Huh. Weird. According to the description of the event, the Peacekeepers are robotic drones, so why they look like the Scottlingas is beyond me... As far as the pirates not being at war with the Snathi, it might have do with, as I mentioned above, evil minor races starting at peace with the Dread Lords. Maybe something's similiar here.

On the other hand, I've read accounts of the Pirates Mega Event where the pirates did not attack the minor races at all, so that the minors became the strongest races in the galaxy. Maybe minors and pirates are always nonhostile?