Administrators - breaking bug in retribution

Hello, anyone in stardock seeing this or am I talking to myself in a very large empty room?

I can't say for sure, but Retribution might be predicated on the presence of one or more DLCs.

I went looking for references to <administration> in the xml jungles of GC3 and, while the MasterTech file in the Retribution DLC folder does seem to hint that Stardock considers Crusade to be the base game, I couldn't find any obvious cap or reset for admins. GalCiv's code has never been what you'd call lean and elegant, but it is starting to look like the conflict between legacy code and the changing "vision" for the game is approaching elemental levels of fustercluck

I'm content to wait for SD's response (I think we can expect a major update, at a guess, this week), but for now I "solved" the problem by uninstalling Retribution. Note that the wonky tech/improvement changes do still show up in the base game, so you end up getting a lot of administrators, among other things...

There is a major QoL update coming with a big patch (hopefully this month), but I've highlighted this for the Devs, thanks for the report.

Hello,

Sorry to hear you are having trouble.

Flash is a bit dated for a video format - could you perhaps upload it to youtube or post an mp4 video to a cloud service (Google Drive, DropBox, OneDrive, etc) with a link here? 

Also, whatever save you use(d) to create the video, please also include that (link to a cloud service again) with exact, detailed, steps on how ot reproduce it.

Thanks for your efforts.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

Hi,

Save game files (created before and after)

https://studenthv-my.sharepoint.com/:u:/g/personal/tobias_hv_se/EZ4dfGhxGYpOmdraeqeoBKsBPadOHG28jdmcEvyO-BugnQ?e=tKr5gA

https://studenthv-my.sharepoint.com/:u:/g/personal/tobias_hv_se/EWW3NKe_tjJFnaGzFf_H0tYBEskBLWyWjrpb3JY6znXCKA?e=OxtwX7

Screen capture, mp4 (please note that movie also shows supply ships not available in shipyard even though tech says they've been updated):

https://studenthv-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/tobias_hv_se/EZrFv_AvpPdHsPysW6NyuLIBE4Ym0a6qZKU20fG3PRQ2Xg?e=s3HNGm

best,

T

Hello idte35,

I have logged this internally and the devs will take a look.  I cannot say when it will be addressed or when you could expect a reply.  Keep an eye on this post for either.

Internal ref: 0205700

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

I have the same problem.  Administrators stay locked at 3 even after unlocking Techs that increase it.  I had the base game and a couple of free mods that Stardock offered and not all the expansions.  Removing all mods and didnt fix.  Reverting back to original base Administrators works.  Tried with patched version 3.6 and same issue.  

Pretty much unplayable since you cant get all resources from just 3 bases.

I'm very curious how this is even happening. We're investigating.

Still no fix for this? Trying to get a status update out of stardock is like squeezing water out of a stone... no response from support. Been a loyal customer since Gal civ 1, probably never going to buy anything from you again.

We are investigating the issue. I'm sorry this has not been fixed yet in the live build. Right now we are focused on releasing Siege of Centauri but we do have a patch in the works for GC3 that is coming out soon with a bunch of different fixes.

Happy to see the 3.8 update released, had a very tiny hope that this might make my game playable again but of course I should have known better than to hope for a fix for the bug that makes the game unplayable.....

Interesting to note how you handle customer complaints:

1. Customer files bug report.
2. Automated response - message received
3. Response from support (human?): "Yeah, thats a bug, we'll look into it."
4. Automated response: "Since we haven't heard from you we're closing this ticket"  (heard from ME?, I thought it was you who was supposed to fix the bug?)
5. Response from customer, "No, the bug is not fixed..."
6. Go to step 2. Sometimes skip directly to 4. Loop until customer breaks and goes away.
7. Laugh all the way to the bank with the customers money paid for a product that doesn't work.

Just out of curiosity -- Could the OPs problem be caused by not having the Crusade expansion, where admins were added?

If so, could the necessary files be put into Retribution to reduce it's dependency upon Crusade?

Not an engineer but we no longer sell GC3 and Crusade separately so this would be a very specific issue to someone who bought the game early on but did not pick up Crusade before getting Retribution.

Idte: I understand you're frustrated but we're not ignoring this.

In that case, shouldn't you guy give out Crusade to whoever doesn't own it for free to avoid this issue?

+1 to that.

I would be all for that. I bought GC3 way before Crusade came along, and looking at the current pricing, am in no hurry to 'update', since that would in effect, paying for it twice to get all the other content. If discounts for the current bundles were given to existing owners of the base game, or even free for crusade at the very least, that is something I would be interested in as well.

It has been suggested by users that Crusade is required for administrators to work but Stardock has neither denied or confirmed that. Not giving an answer to a straight question which should be extremely easy to verify tells me how much stardock care about this, from a consumer perspective at least..

Since admitting that the Retribution expansion does not work without crusade would mean that stardock has knowingly been selling a non-functioning product with fraudulent advertising I doubt there will be answer, ever. Because, if they admitted it, all their customers would have legal standing to take action against them. As it is, it is "just a bug".

That reminded me of Paradox's DLC practice. Most of their newest DLC/Expansion won't work properly without the previous one and they are not telling about it.

Thinking about admin point, Hypergate ship require admin point to build. If you don't have Crusade then it might be an issue.

Man that is a lot of hostility.

The DLC is half off on steam (currently) but it is worth the buy at full price. Played since near the beginning and the changes are drastic.

Also if you are unhappy with Stardock’s response I suggest you find a new hobby they are much more responsive then also any other dev I’ve seen. 

Buy crusade. Citizens alone make the game way more interesting and allow amazing degree of customizability. Or play the base game. The fact that they are even worried about you being unable to play the game when you are missing 3 expansion packs is absolutely astounding to me. 

I’m buying the the new DLC Day one for that.

Ok administrators came out in version 1.7 I think. I know it was out with 2.0. they started out with 30 I think. Crusades came out with 2.2. in my opinion the base game was perfect between 1.7 to 2.0. administrators came out at the end of the classic game. Buy crusades it's worth the investment.