Sounds effects stopped

[decaro]

I played several Bulge scenarios w/o any issues, but after I loaded "The Battle of the Roadblocks," I noticed that the battle sound effects -- artillery explosions, machine gun bursts, and other weapon sounds -- were silent, although the message cue sound was still working.

So I shut that scenario down, and played other Bulge scenarios only to discover that the weapon sounds weren't there either (!), so I shut the entire game down yesterday and fired-it up again today. The weapon sounds returned, except when I played the "Roadblock" scenario, and then experienced the same silent issue that also muted the other scenarios as the day before.

So what gives?

[GoodGuy]

Actually, this is a well known issue (for me at least, as it happens since HTTR), I think I reported it somewhere in the COTA forum, and other people had reported it too.

It usually happens if you reload a savegame, or if you abort a scenario to go back to the main menu and start a new scenario.
Shutting down and restarting the game solves the problem. Thing is, say things turned out well (in a current scenario), then - even if playing a scenario without sound (say when I was too lazy to restart the game) - I found it to be really disturbing to have no sound at all after a while, at times, as since you don't get any audio-feedback .... as you can't hear when your units are coming under fire, so that you have to zoom in and out on key-units constantly, to check the situation.

Reloading a savegame may then also change the course of the scenario sometimes, since I have to save and restart the game just to get the sound fixed, and since the AI might then act differently after each reload, potentially negating favorable conditions - that were present when I saved the game - are gone. The flexibility of the AI guarantees a good replayability factor, but it can also create some frustration in case you have to save and reload the game just because the sound is borked. Sometimes I just coped with the missing sound, in order not to loose some advantage I had gained by doing one or another bold/smart move early in a scenario.

Seems like PG, despite several users requesting it, either never really investigated the sound issue, or they were unable to fix it. Maybe we gotta wait for a DirectX version of the game, in order to see it fixed.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: GoodGuy

Actually, this is a well known issue (for me at least, as it happens since HTTR), I think I reported it somewhere in the COTA forum, and other people had reported it too ...

I don't recall this issue w/HttR, but tnx, it was resolved by your suggestion.

ORIGINAL: GoodGuy
Seems like PG, despite several users requesting it, either never really investigated the sound issue, or they were unable to fix it ...

After paying more than $100 US for this title, PG should have already fixed this known "bug".

[Prince of Eckmühl]

It happens in CotA, also.

However, the sound will return when it's good and ready.

One never really knows.[;)]

[DanOppenheim]

ORIGINAL: GoodGuy
Reloading a savegame may then also change the course of the scenario sometimes, since I have to save and restart the game just to get the sound fixed, and since the AI might then act differently after each reload, potentially negating favorable conditions - that were present when I saved the game - are gone. The flexibility of the AI guarantees a good replayability factor, but it can also create some frustration in case you have to save and reload the game just because the sound is borked. Sometimes I just coped with the missing sound, in order not to loose some advantage I had gained by doing one or another bold/smart move early in a scenario.

If the sound goes then I just save at that point and reload. I'm not sure how that would then be frustrating, because you never knew what the AI was going to do anyway.

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: DanO

If the sound goes then I just save at that point and reload.

That won't fix it, though. I guess you didn't get that detail.
Only a restart of the game will bring the sound back.

I'm not sure how that would then be frustrating, because you never knew what the AI was going to do anyway.

The point of frustration is where you are on something what I'd call a "winner's lane", and where you loose some of that winning streak due to the AI reassessing and the situation and possibly (in most instances) changing plans after reloading a savegame. So the pure thought of having AI reassessments let me do without a reload and deal with the missing sound for a while, sometimes, until I reached some of the sub-objectives i had formed in my mind, before restarting the game. See?

Also, you can't create a savegame in RL, that's my approach here. [:D] So I try to reduce the amount of savegames (besides using the auto-save function, which is useful in case there are CTDs).

[DanOppenheim]

Sorry, when I said reload I meant a full restart of the game. I've had the same problem. What I wasn't understanding, I guess, is why you couldn't just save the game at the current moment and then restart it straight away. You're knowledge of the future would be the same from that point as if you carried on without saving, i.e. non-existent.

However! I think you mean you'd have to revert to a save some time before the current point, apparently because of some odd masochism. [;)]

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: DanO

However! I think you mean you'd have to revert to a save some time before the current point, apparently because of some odd masochism. [;)]

Lol. Kinda, minus the maso-part .... [:D]

Say you load an early savegame, there are 3 objectives, objective number 1 is occupied by the enemy (AI), number 2 is occupied by your own forces, and number 3 is not occupied by any force. You then decide to challenge the third objective and seize it. Say, on the first run (without restarting the game), the AI decides to throw a mix of armor and grunts at the unchallenged objective (3), and it sends foot units to the objective (2) you're holding atm. You've got armor too, so you take the challenge and try to be the first to have armor at number 3, as you're sure your grunts at 2 can handle it.

Say you reload: For some reason, the AI throws most of its armor at your rear-guard troops at number 2 now, while sending the bulk of its grunts to number 3.

The first example would be a winner card (where I wouldn't restart just to fix the sound), the second example may be a looser card where I wouldn't hesitate to restart the game. Did that make sense? [:)]

Like I said, the unpredictable AI is THE reason why this game offers so much replayability. With the sound bug, the flexibility of the AI is almost some sort of a little downer, IF you really don't wanna use a savegame. [:)]

[DanOppenheim]

Yeah, I understand what you mean. I just find it odd you wouldn't want to save the game to fix the sound bug. You could just promise yourself not to use that save again (alt-tab out and delete it!)

[GoodGuy]

hehe, Dear DanO.

Having to create a savegame (in order to fix the sound) is what I find to be disturbing in the first place, since I may NOT face the same situation after reloading the savegame (as the AI may totally reassess stuff). If the savegame would contain infos say about the last 10 orders (of the enemy AI) and if reloading would deny the AI to reasses plans for X time, the savegame would actually be more like savegames in other games.

Pls say you're getting it now ! [:)] [&o] (GG begging for mercy... *cough* for DanO [;)])

[DanOppenheim]

I do get it, but I think it's weird, and I believe that some of your beliefs are incorrect. If you pause the game, save it, quit out of the game, restart it and reload the save game, you're in no different a position than if you'd not done that at all. OK, under the hood the game might follow a different path, but for you, as someone with imperfect knowledge of the thinking of the AI, the AI behaviour is as good as the same - it's like Schrodinger's enemy: you can't know what it's going to do until it's done it. There's no point fretting about it.

Anyway, I can't believe insufficient information is saved out about the current state of the AI that it isn't effectively starting from the same initial conditions as if it hadn't been saved at all. Maybe the developers can clear that up.

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: DanO

....it's like Schrodinger's enemy: you can't know what it's going to do until it's done it. There's no point fretting about it.

In general, and in theory, I can't know what will happen, correct. But it won't be hard to figure whether an enemy entity is sticking to a developed plan (without saving and restarting) or if it's rearranging plans and redirecting forces (after reloading a savegame). I've observed the latter, so I actually don't wanna know if something will change and ship around the possibility that the enemy changes plans in the middle or prior to a planned major offensive, in the first place. While I don't want to do gamey things with my forces, I don't want the enemy AI to shift things just because loading of a savegame was involved either, see?

Anyway, I can't believe insufficient information is saved out about the current state of the AI that it isn't effectively starting from the same initial conditions as if it hadn't been saved at all. Maybe the developers can clear that up.

Yes I'd like to hear Dave's take on that.
Since the AI is pretty free in its decision process, I could imagine that savegame data doesn't hold all the details (say all the commands that were issued by the enemy AI sub-bosses at the time of creation of the savegame), and even if it does, the AI is still free to rearrange plans (there's quite some chance that this will happen), which it may not do at all, if no savegame is involved.

[FredSanford3]

I would hope that saving a game has no impact on AI reassessments. That could be manipulated in the manner opposite to GoodGuy's scenario- e.g. if you don't like the way the battle is going, reload until the AI decides to do something cooperative. Either way, the act of saving or loading the game shouldn't impact how the AI behaves.

[DanOppenheim]

The following is predicated on reloading a save not being the cause of any reassessments and we're just talking about the progress along the possibilities of what the AI can do.

I'd expect reloading would have a difference on how the AI behaves as the AI has an element of randomness. Each time you load a save there will be a difference in how things play out, at least after a decision with randomness has been reached.

However, all that wasn't really my point, though, which was simply that, as GoodGuy doesn't know *how* the AI was going to behave, saving or not is irrelevant. For all intents and purposes the results are the same - the AI follows some path down its branching set of possibilities, but you can't know what that was going to be, so you can't say how it changed (or even if it did - they'd just need to save the current seed of the random number generator for the "random" result to be the same next time).

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: Franklin Nimitz

That could be manipulated in the manner opposite to GoodGuy's scenario- e.g. if you don't like the way the battle is going, reload until the AI decides to do something cooperative.

You've mentioned that in another thread, and it's a good point. It could be used to gain an advantage over the AI.

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: DanO

The following is predicated on reloading a save not being the cause of any reassessments and we're just talking about the progress along the possibilities of what the AI can do.

....

I'd expect reloading would have a difference on how the AI behaves as the AI has an element of randomness.

Actually, it's like an additional randomness on top of the general randomness, which gets triggered by loading a savegame. That's what I suspect (and partially observe), and what I don't like, so I try to avoid it if possible. It's not about "GoodGuy" complaining about the fact that he "doesn't know *how* the AI was going to behave".

... so you can't say how it changed (or even if it did - they'd just need to save the current seed of the random number generator for the "random" result to be the same next time).

And that's where I say that you're wrong, as you can observe different outcomes and shifting of plans etc. even after each reload, sometimes. It's not so much about randomness (there's no generator involved, except for the tiny one which is used for picking say 1-5 alternative entry points / drop zones), but about the AI assessing what's going on (what objectives are occupied?, which objectives remain to be taken?), and its ability to even cull objectives in order to focus on another (remaining... or more rewarding) objective.

Once you understand that part of the engine (and say the corresponding scenario design details), you will understand that the AI is allowed to act very autonomously, but that it still needs defined objectives in order to act (and develop/apply a plan), along with the need to have predefined types of missions (say secure or defend order), so that it can allocate a sufficiently sized force for each mission, .... freely btw.

If I reload a savegame, I suspect that this can trigger a reassessment. On top of that, the entire course of a scenario may develop differently each time you load a savegame anyways, as the AI adapts to new situations (eg. the user chooses a totally different approach after loading a savegame) brilliantly, and that's not because of some imaginary randomness, but due to the AI checking the current situation every X seconds or minutes and using the defined doctrine.
Dave could shed some light on how the assessment routine actually works.

These are slight differences (say because of the layout of the terrain, as approaches are limited) on some occasions, but they can also be huge on other occasions.

The way the AI acts sets this game apart from other wargames, it feels like the high replayability is achieved by having a sophisticated set of random generators under the hood, but it's in fact a certain level of artificial intelligence (well, a good number of scripts and routines) that is able to make decisions, set priorities and act and issue orders accordingly, imho.

[DanOppenheim]

I'm not saying you are complaining about how you don't know how the AI is going to behave, I'm just saying that you can't know because you don't have sufficient information, so worrying about the path it takes from a certain set of initial conditions is fruitless.

Of course you can observe different outcomes after reloading. If things are random, you're going to get a different outcome each time, whether you're reloading a save game or simply going back in time in a time machine. You're starting from the same initial conditions, but the randomness in the system means the AI can take a large number of paths.

BTW, I'm not trying to say it doesn't have decent AI or that the intelligence of the computer is purely due to random factors. I don't know why you think I think that. The AI must have randomness in it, however, otherwise the choices become deterministic and reloading a save game would lead to the same outcome each time. There *must* be randomness in the system, otherwise all paths are linear. I very much doubt the AI would feel half as human as it does if it was entirely deterministic.

All that having been said, however, you may have a valid concern about a reassessment being conducted after a save. I don't believe it happens and I can't say I've ever seen it occur, but that's something only the developers can answer.

edit: And before some clever sod points it out: yes, I know computer "randomness" is entirely deterministic.

[Panther Paul]

Hi,

A save game saves ALL the current game state.

But you will never get two results the same if if keep replaying from a save.

Why, because you, the player, never do the same thing twice, therefore the AI reacts differently each time (friendly and enemy).

The only what to try and get the same result is to not give any orders after reloading, a boring prospect at best!

[DanOppenheim]

ORIGINAL: Panther Paul

Hi,

A save game saves ALL the current game state.

But you will never get two results the same if if keep replaying from a save.

Why, because you, the player, never do the same thing twice, therefore the AI reacts differently each time (friendly and enemy).

The only what to try and get the same result is to not give any orders after reloading, a boring prospect at best!

Thanks for clearing that up. However, surely there's randomness in the AI behaviour?

[bairdlander2]

ORIGINAL: Panther Paul

Hi,

A save game saves ALL the current game state.

But you will never get two results the same if if keep replaying from a save.

Why, because you, the player, never do the same thing twice, therefore the AI reacts differently each time (friendly and enemy).

The only what to try and get the same result is to not give any orders after reloading, a boring prospect at best!

I will test that later tonite.I will make the same moves and see what happens.