Use oil step changes production

[Courtenay]

The Use Oil step somehow causes production to be recomputed. Below are two screen shots of the CW production summary. The first was taken during the Chinese Use Oil step. The second was taken immediately after the Chinese said they were done. There are several changes. Most importantly, because it was unrecoverable, is the disappearance of 6 build points in trade. Now the French gain those build points, but at this point in the game, a French build point is not worth very much, while a CW one is worth quite a lot. Other changes were made as well; the convoy routes have been changed, and not to the CW's benefit.

While changes in oil could affect production, just opening the CW use oil step should not have these drastic effects. Yes, all the convoys that were needed to ship the CW resources are still there, and no, the CW is not burning any oil in production.

(Saved game available, if desired.)

[paulderynck]

Is it possible you selected an oil to re-org with that was designated to go to a factory? The oil for production dropped by one.

Edit: I may be confused as to where you are in the step. You said you'd only just opened the CW Use oil step? What happened when you completed it?

[Centuur]

It's not the oil that's the problem. It are the trade received build points which suddenly disappear in the CW production planning. Strange, very strange, because the number of unused convoys isn't changed too (or is that due to the fact that the French CP's are transporting the build points?).

Question: can you recreate this every time you restart this game with a save from before the oil usage phase? If so, than it would be a good idea to send the saved game.

[Courtenay]

Is it possible you selected an oil to re-org with that was designated to go to a factory? The oil for production dropped by one.

Edit: I may be confused as to where you are in the step. You said you'd only just opened the CW Use oil step? What happened when you completed it?

The first screen shot was produced during the Chinese Use Oil step. The second was produced by hitting cntl-P the first thing after the Chinese had finished their step. Thus, no, it was not possible that a saved oil had been used because the CW had not done anything when the screenshot had been taken. Even if they had, no CW saved oil was being used in factories this turn.

When I completed all the oil steps and got to final production planning, the production summary was almost the same as it was on the screen shot, except, of course, that the CW had used some of its saved oil. The trade resources were exactly the same -- still just one. However, the number of unused convoys had increase by six, which makes sense, as six trade build points had vanished.

It's not the oil that's the problem. It are the trade received build points which suddenly disappear in the CW production planning. Strange, very strange, because the number of unused convoys isn't changed too (or is that due to the fact that the French CP's are transporting the build points?).

Question: can you recreate this every time you restart this game with a save from before the oil usage phase? If so, than it would be a good idea to send the saved game.

You are right; the convoy points are strange. All convoy points in the Bay of Biscay are CW, so the convoy points unused should have changed.

Yes, this is a stable bug, or at least it repeated on three different tries. I will send in the report.
MadExcept@MatrixGames.com, right? (If not right, I have sent a lot of bug reports to the wrong address!)

[Courtenay]

I'm sorry; suddenly, I can't duplicate the bug; I am now getting the French build points. Trust me when I say I wasn't. Unfortunately, now I have an even worse problem. Below are two screen shots. The first is taken during German production. I have the production summary open to show anticipated US production. At this point, I close the summary window, and click on Done Production. This moves me to the Italian production, at which point I again bring up the summary screen for US production. Note that 19 saved build points have vanished. I have reported this before. I will send you a a save file from the Breakdown units step.

I am not sending you a file from the production step, because when I open such a file, I get stuck, as the production window does not come up, and the program just stalls. The production window is not behind any other windows, as there are none, except for the Main Form, the detailed map, and the two little map lists, and then I close the detailed map; there is no room for the production screen to hide. Single monitor, main form on the upper left, detailed map below it.

[Courtenay]

OK. I had not realized that one should attach game files directly to the forum. I will now give that a try.

[paulderynck]

Hi Courtenay. I loaded your file and did production. Every power had the number of build points to build with that was shown when I clicked finalize production for each. When I got to the US, I clicked to view the production summary and the 19 saved BPs were not shown. But the Build Form said I had 29 BPs to work with. So I built nothing and then was given the opportunity to save all 29 BPs.

Aside from the known bug that prevents me from putting more than one BP per city, I didn't see anything else wrong except the cosmetic issue of bringing up the production summary from the Build Form and not seeing the saved BPs. In a way, it is correct. You have the 19 saved "in hand" so to speak and at the point of production the production summary is only showing this turn's production. It's actually a good thing that you get to redistribute where the saved BPs are, IMO. (Aside from the limit of the one per city bug - that is.)

I ran through it twice.

[Courtenay]

This time, when I tried it, you are right, and the problem was cosmetic. I think, but am not certain, that at least once the build points really did vanish. At any rate, the cosmetic disappearance of the build points caused me just as much anxiety as their real disappearance would have done.

Thank you; I can proceed with my game now.

[markb50k]

Courtenay, this will not be the last time you see issues like this. There is definitely something amiss in all of this..

Examples:

France has trade agreement to give CW 15 BPs.
- On the first turn of the agreement, checking during the turn only shows 4 BPs being sent.
- At end of turn, total of 6 BPs are now being sent.
- Restoring a save during the End of Turn phases shows 10 BPs being sent
- After designating one Oil Point In Winnipeg to get railed to Regina (which has no impact whatsover to convoys in the Bay of Biscay from France to CW), the sent BPs changes BACK to 6 BPs. This is similar to the original issue you were having where BPs get affected by your Oil Usage choices, which have nothing to do with convoyed BPs.
- later on, restoring a save after Final Production planning in the Production screen, the 10 BPs are back to CW.

The point is, you just need to be paying alot of attention to this stuff during the end of turn phases, make sure you take a number of saves, preferably just prior to Final Production planning phase, just in case things get screwy. Overall, you can make it through these phases not losing anything but you need to just take it slow, expect possibly weird things, and restore when you see something amiss. Just my opinion.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

There have been instances of players reporting a similar problem with "disappearing build points" that were not bugs.

The confusion arises from how many build points have been saved in each city/port. It is quite possible to have more build points saved in a location that the number that can be used in production. The most common place this happens in in Murmansk when the USSR is receiving BPs and just collecting them there. There is a rule which limits how many saved build points (say, X) can be used from a given hex. If you have Y more than that number stored in the hex, then you will have X available for production and X + Y shown on other forms.