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Here's a list of interesting AoW TS 1.36 game bugs. Mention more of them and I'll update this list. Cheers.

Three important terms: Spawning, Stranding, and Capturing. Spawning is the sequence of checks that results in where a unit is placed on the map. Stranding is a condition where a unit exists in an invalid terrain hex without being removed from the map, or respawned into a valid location. Capturing is the action of overlapping a stranded unit (or basic structure), which results in it joining your forces.

Dispel magic
1) Can be used to destroy summoned units, but the AI won't use it during combat. You won't be able to initiate combat unless you have another means of attacking (hero vs summoned great eagle)
2) You cannot dispel summoned creatures from the world map, it must be in combat.
3) You cannot dispel water walking or fire halo from an opponent when fighting on water or lava, respectively. You can however dispel water walking from one of your own units (this causes a glitch).

Walls
1) Despite being able to burn through wooden walls in tactical, units with fire can't initiate combat against wood-walled cities.
2) Goblin bombers which normally sacrifice themselves to break walls will be able to overrun empty walled cities without dying

Unusual Unit Movement
1) Ships moving under a bridge only use 4 movement points though they move 2 hexes
2) multiple bridges lined up in a row will stop ships from passing and also cause land units to skip every other bridge as though it were a ship passing under.

Unusual Boat Usage
1) Fire-Halo (FH), Windwalking (WW), and Freemovement (FM) will allow boats to move over some types of land.
2) FH allows boat movement over underground terrain that does not have large debris or basic vegetation. This includes underground land, lava, underground ice, bridges, underground cave entrances, noncast (un)holy woods, and noncast poison plants. This excludes all non-water structures. If underground hexes are used on the surface, they may also be passed with FH. If FH is removed over an invalid hex, the Units Crushed! will trigger and destroy the boat.
3) WW is basically float, but unlike float, will allow you to circumstantially initiate combat as though the unit had flying. Removal of WW kills the unit (Crushed!).
4) FM allows boat movement across any surface except lava. Removal of FM does not kill the unit (strands it).

Stranding and Capturing Units
1) If a boat moves to a flooded area that was previously land, and flood is removed, the boat will be destroyed due to "Crushed!". But, if a boat moves over land due to free-movement / windwalking and that enchantment is removed, it becomes a stationary (stranded) unit that can be captured in the same way a tower can. (In the original retail version, these units could not be conquered and would cause a "draw" outcome on every attack attempt). A unit that is stranded may move to a valid adjacent hex to become unstranded. Stranded units do not enter combat.
2) If a boat free-moves underground on inverted terrain mountains, and then loses mobility, it will prompt the "Crushed!" notification but not kill the unit.
3) Units stranded on mountains can also be captured. AI units captured in this way will sometimes cause issues with the AI refusing to end its turn.
4) If you have only one party on the map and that party includes your leader, when you capture a stranded unit, it will trigger a lose condition because you will momentarily have no units on the map as it calculates the battle outcome and redraws them. Having at least one other party of units avoids this problem.
5) If you capture an AI set to "guard area", it will move on its own during your turn if it has any remaining move points usually back to the area it was guarding or move as though to attack your other units (sea serpent, simultaneous play)
6) You can capture an opposing leader. If the captured leader dies under your control, it will trigger a lose condition for you because it triggers the condition "if leader dies...". A player without a leader on the map must be defeated by destroying the last of their units (different lose condition).
7) Captured leaders will occassionally disappear from the map under some conditions (your leader + captured leader + boat under a bridge)

Unit Crushed!
1) Cast flood to submerge underground dirt or rock that has been placed on the surface. Place any unit over the hex location. Remove flood. The unit will be crushed.
2) A stranded unit can be killed by casting fire halo or wind walking and then removing it (crushed).

Unusual Unit Vision
1) Standing atop (or below) a cave passage scouts the land at the other end as if you were standing there, based on the unit's vision in its current location
2) If you town gate (or warp party) to the underground from the surface, you will be given momentary vision based on the unit's initial location.

Spawning Units into Unexplored Territory
1) when producing units, the unit will spawn at the nearest unoccupied, and unclaimed valid non-city location. If this is in the darkness, and is not a structure location, your unit will appear beyond your reach and you will be unable to control them until you see them. The unit can be selected by cycling through unused units but you will be unable to use them. (Example: build shipyard beside water node in Oracle's Eye)
2) If a shipyard builds a ship with no valid spawn location, it will stay at "0 days remaining" until a spot becomes available (the spawn condition is rechecked at the beginning of the turn of the player that initiated it).
3) If a dungeon with a mermaid refugee has no valid spawn point, it will give a "Tstructure" error and not spawn the unit (the dungeon becomes empty).
4) Long distance spawns can capture non-city structures, if they are not owned by a player, are unoccupied, and are the nearest valid hex.
5) Long distance captures will work with summon spells too (summon mermaid, empty water node) but the unit will only appear if you are within two hexes. If you are out of range, the location is captured, but the unit is not summoned, your mana is unused, and if the spell was queued, it will remain in queue.
6) Cities are not valid spawn locations, but ruined cities under construction are. Reconstructing cities are susceptible to long distance capture.

Tactical combat unusual behaviour
1) When two boats start tactical combat under a bridge, the battlefield is grass instead of water. Neither boat can move. One player needs to surrender in order to end the combat.
2) When occupying a city in warmode, tactical combat starts your troops within the city without any escape routes. The available escapes are outside of the walls. The gates only open for the opponent.
3) If you are attacking an enemy hero with waterwalking on water, you can't dispel it, but they can use dispel on themselves to remove it. This cause the hero to damage down to zero health, but can't die, and can't move on water for the duration of tactical combat. Attempting to cast spells with this hero will crash the game. The hero will still be able to move on land in cases with mixed terrain (water nodes) and attack during the tactical combat.
4) If you surrender forces during a TC with a friendly AI or player fighting with you against an opponent, your units will damage down to zero without disappearing, and you will be unable to end your turn (soft-lock resolved by loading a save file).
5) If you have an item allowing a leader or hero to stand on a terrain type (water/mountain/lava), and that item is removed during combat, if that unit survives the battle, it will spawn at the nearest valid terrain location within 30 hexes.
6) If you are attacking a city with only one army, the incumbent army will wait until you are in range to perform a damaging attack. If you attack a city with two armies, the city's army will advance on your position immediately instead.
7) Flying units can be used as a physically impassible shield for long ranged units as a melee unit is unable to target or move through a flying unit.

Disappearing Act
1) Occasionally, units have been known to disappear between turns (Astra over water). The exact mechanic behind this is unknown but may be due to some of the checks related to units on water.
2) If you fully surround a city, and then attack, and dominate to gain a surplus of troops, the additional unit(s) can spawn over top of another stack of units (superimpose). You can repeatedly click the hex to cycle through which group you are trying to select in the same way that you would between a unit and a city it stands on. If you save and reload, or end your turn, you will lose one of the stacks for the rest of the game (your leader can disappear due to this).
3) Water cave glitches (see Map Making Issues below) can cause ships to superimpose over one another as separate stacks. Save/reload or ending the turn will cause one stack to survive and the rest will disappear.

End of Post 1.
Post edited June 12, 2020 by Thereunto
Cool, I assumed boats would die if dispelled like I think they do in aow2.
That's very interesting. I kinda knew about the Call Flames thing, and definitely about the goblin bombers which is very silly. I don't actually know how (if at all possible) to use Goblin bombers in auto combat... they usually run away unless there's a wall to explode.
i) Ships moving under a bridge only use 4 movement points though they move 2 hexes
ii) standing atop (or below) a cave passage scouts the land at the other end as if you were standing there, based on the unit's vision in its current location
Did you know there is a character limit on posts? I'll continue the list here:

Animate Ruins
1) Ruins rebuilt with a builder will always return a city without upgrades. If a ruined city is rebuilt with animate ruins, it will restore any upgrade the city had before it was destroyed.
2) You cannot cast AR on reconstructing ruins that you control, but you can cast it on reconstructing ruins that you do not control.
3) If you cast AR on reconstructing ruins controlled by another player, the undead soldiers will spawn outside of the city at the nearest valid hex(es).
4) If you cast AR on reconstructing ruins controlled by another player, instead of producing a city of that player's race, it will complete a city of your race. The city will still state "(x) days remaining" for construction despite being complete. The owner needs to double-click the city (or cycle cities) in order to access it. If the ruins had an upgrade level prior to being destroyed, it will reinstate those upgrades until the (x) days for construct elapses, and then the city loses all of its upgrades and reverts to the recon race.
5) If you reconstruct, then Animate Ruin on an upgraded city ruin, and then try to perform an action such as installing a higher level unit, the city will cause handling errors if the higher level action hasn't resolved before the upgrades revert (including TEndTurn errors which requires a save/reload to resolve). The turn will refuse to end until you enter the city and cancel the action. The action will appear as "Unknown" with "0 days remaining" and no icon.
6) A city that was reconstructing, then animated, and then destroyed again will produce units of the original race that was reconstructing it instead of the race that it was at the time of destruction.
7) A recon-AR city can be migrated to a third race during the reconstruction period, but it will still revert to the recon race

PBEM Issues
1) (Possibly only for TS1.0) Creating a PBEM game as the first player and playing that turn without emailing it first can cause issues with heroes designed to offer to join. The issue can be resolved by changing the local email address before starting the first turn to allow the turn to be emailed to yourself.

Fire in Combat
1) Autocombat - flame damage that deals lethal damage to units sometimes doesn't remove them from combat. The unit can then reappear after combat with 1 hp.
2) Using call flames (or other fire attacks) only gives experience if it deals the lethal blow. Flame damage resulting from a fire attack does not grant experience if it kills the unit.
3) If you notice an autocombat with lethal flame damage that does not remove the unit from combat, recheck the autocombat event. Try pausing and replaying sections of it. You will observe that the match replays differently! Sometimes the flame damage is counted as part of the fire attack and other times it is a separate event. Sometimes additional attack attempts (post-flame-death) are not shown if you pause and play the event.

Water bugs
1) You can apply a water underlay to subterranean cave openings, ruined goldmines, ruined mana-nodes, and ruined shipyards. This will cause land units to be unable to pass over the terrain, normally.
2) water mines, mana-nodes and shipyards can be frozen with freeze water.
3) These water ruins can be rebuilt. When they are finished building, the picture disappears, leaving only a flag, or no flag if it is owned by independents. Shipyards can still build ships, goldmines gold, and mana-nodes mana.
4) If you save and reload, rebuilt water ruins disappear.
5) Water ruins can be placed over top of other terrain including lava and dirt walls. Lava becomes impassible even with water walking and fire immunity (this terrain may only be passed by float or fly). Dirt walls are impassible without exception (this makes them functionally the same as rock).

Underground Ice
1) If you freeze water underground, and leave a unit standing on it, the ice will never melt / the unit will never drown.

Warp Party
1) Warp party has a finite range of 19 hexes for surface to surface.
2) Warp party has a finite range of 9 hexes for underground to surface.
3) Warp party cannot be used to travel between the surface and the depths.

Spawn Checks
1) Unit spawns have a finite range of 30 hexes (origin + 29 hexes)
2) Spawn checks are always performed clockwise starting at the top hex (12 o'clock position). Once the layer is checked, it starts at the top hex of the next layer.
3) Bribing stacks of mixed units (some will join and some will not) causes a spawn check when it splits the party. Typically this means the bribed units will join your stack, but if that stack is an invalid spawn point (such as having a stack of 8), the acquired units will spawn elsewhere.

Town Gate
1) May only be performed on cities you control, but is hex specific. It performs spawn checks starting at the selected hex.
2) Has a finite spawn range of target +3 hex radius.
3) You may cast Town Gate while on a boat. Based on the restrictions of the party, the party will spawn at the nearest valid hex. E.g. an unenchanted boat party will cause your party to spawn at the nearest water hex to that city block, a fire-halo boat will spawn at the nearest valid hex for a fire halo boat, etc.
4) Because the spell is hex specific, the nearest body of water to each city hex may differ. Additionally, the use of freeze water to invalidate spawn locations, or fire-halo to enable more spawn locations, will give the player the ability to guide where the boat will appear.

Subterranean Inversion Behaviour
1) Terrain modifying abilities with damage, such as from the divine tower, will erase underground terrain unless there is a structure on it (or a sign).

Map Making Issues
1) Water Cave Glitch. You can apply water over the exit point of a cave entrance with the standard map editor. The appearance of the cave changes to look as though it is an opening down one level. This effect allows water units to ascend up map levels. The upper cave is a land-only hex, and the bottom cave is a water-only hex. This means water units can only travel one way (up), and land units can only travel one way (down). This also results in units being stranded when they reach their exit point (susceptible to capture but may unstrand if they move to a valid adjacent hex). This is the only circumstance in the over-map where a land unit can stand on water terrain and not drown. This is the only circumstance where a water-only unit and a land-only unit can attempt to initiate combat. Because the exit point strands the unit, one of the forces will not appear in combat (automatic renders a draw, tactical gives glitchy effects that may soft-lock the game if facing an AI, or produce a battle with only one army and no exit points). Initiating battles between land and water units causes visual artefacts in the over-map.
2) Creating a leader, assigning levels and stats and then changing the player race will return the leader to level 1 without stats. If you do not re-adjust the leader, the game will assign a negative score to ability points. Every time the leader gains a level, it works against the ability point debt. (-100/-100 points shows on the first level up if 110 points were assigned prior to the race change).
3) Starting a PBEM with a modded version will initialise units on the map with the modded stats. Reverted the mod will not revert the unit stats. This allows for unique map setup opportunities.
Post edited February 15, 2020 by Thereunto
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DaemonVirus: I don't actually know how (if at all possible) to use Goblin bombers in auto combat... they usually run away unless there's a wall to explode.
Goblin bombers generally act a lot like battering rams. Explosive battering rams.

If the bomber attacks an unoccupied city, then a goblin bomber will simply capture it.

If the bomber is involved in a battle that has enemy walls (like a defended enemy city), then the goblin bomber will use the battering ram AI. If the walls are still 'alive' on the bomber's turn, then it will attack the walls (and die in the explosion). If the walls have been destroyed, then the bomber will flee. Elephants will attack walls first, then they will participate as a melee unit.

If the bomber is involved in a battle WITHOUT enemy walls, then it will explode on 1-3 units. I don't know how the game calculates which units and how many units get caught in the explosion; I assume at least one of those units will be the AI's current "kill this guy next" unit.
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Thereunto: Did you know there is a character limit on posts?
GOG posts are limited to 10,000 characters. There might be an exception for posts that are merged together because they occurred within 10 minutes of each other.
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Thereunto: Did you know there is a character limit on posts? I'll continue the list here:

PBEM Issues
1) (Possibly only for TS1.0) Creating a PBEM game as the first player and playing that turn without emailing it first can cause issues with heroes designed to offer to join. The issue can be resolved by changing the local email address before starting the first turn to allow the turn to be emailed to yourself.
Do you have TS 1.0???

I could REALLY use the 1.0 map editor, if you have it!
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DaemonVirus: I don't actually know how (if at all possible) to use Goblin bombers in auto combat... they usually run away unless there's a wall to explode.
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Bookwyrm627: Goblin bombers generally act a lot like battering rams. Explosive battering rams.

If the bomber attacks an unoccupied city, then a goblin bomber will simply capture it.

If the bomber is involved in a battle that has enemy walls (like a defended enemy city), then the goblin bomber will use the battering ram AI. If the walls are still 'alive' on the bomber's turn, then it will attack the walls (and die in the explosion). If the walls have been destroyed, then the bomber will flee. Elephants will attack walls first, then they will participate as a melee unit.

If the bomber is involved in a battle WITHOUT enemy walls, then it will explode on 1-3 units. I don't know how the game calculates which units and how many units get caught in the explosion; I assume at least one of those units will be the AI's current "kill this guy next" unit.
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Thereunto: Did you know there is a character limit on posts?
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Bookwyrm627: GOG posts are limited to 10,000 characters. There might be an exception for posts that are merged together because they occurred within 10 minutes of each other.
Is that true? So far I've only experienced my Goblin Bombers running away if there isn't a wall to attack. The only time they seem to do anything is if they DON'T have the option of running away.
Observed in a recent turn in Kin slayers - the game has a bug that seemingly allows units that die of burning in autocombat to continue attacking, even with the death-cross symbol over them, and they are then granted 1 hp and come back alive [not a levelup hp])
Part 3

PBEM mods
1) A PBEM game initiated with a mod retains the modded attributes for units and structures initially present.

Special Mana Nodes
1) The menu screen for special Mana Nodes is accessible through the event history or through the Realm menu. If you have modded the game to have producible units at these nodes, you will be able to access the menu and produce them.

Undeclared Spell Abilities
1) Dispel Magic can kill summoned units
2) Magic Masteries produce high level summons on each of the mana nodes of their type.
3) Masteries also increase the damage done by storms of their type.
4) Firestorm (and Fire Altar's ability) can destroy poison clouds. The entire poison cloud needs to be targeted.
5) Anti-Magic Shell protects units against poison clouds.
6) Warp Party can relocate your units into an Anti-Magic Shell
7) Healing Showers will extinguish fires on the map.
8) Healing Showers transforms surface terrain (even underground). It will change blight to steppe, steppe to grass.

Troubleshooting and Extras
1) you can enable debug mode in the registry (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Triumph Studios\Age of Wonders) by adding a DWORD value "Debug Mode" to the "General" key and setting it to 1 (gives infos on selected hexes and tactical combat)
Post edited June 12, 2020 by Thereunto
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DaemonVirus: Is that true? So far I've only experienced my Goblin Bombers running away if there isn't a wall to attack. The only time they seem to do anything is if they DON'T have the option of running away.
That's been my experience. My bombers happily blow themselves up unless a wall has already been destroyed, in which case they sulk away in disappointment.
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southern: Observed in a recent turn in Kin slayers - the game has a bug that seemingly allows units that die of burning in autocombat to continue attacking, even with the death-cross symbol over them, and they are then granted 1 hp and come back alive [not a levelup hp])
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Thereunto: Neat! I've never seen that one before. Are you able to reproduce it? Was it from fire magic, call flames, fire breath, or fire strike?
It was from the flame thrower - is that Fire Breath or is it Flame Throwing? Anyway, I highly doubt it matters what the source is.
I haven't bothered to reproduce it. I suspect that it's specific to autocombat, and I suspect that it's because autocombat was somehow set up only to deal with units dying on the enemy turn, and wasn't set up to deal with them dying on their own turn. My theory is that the game checks what units are alive to take actions, then starts their turn, and only then inflicts burning damage - so, the bird dies, but is already on the list of units that can take actions that turn because they're alive. And then, somehow, taking actions defines it as alive, which is why it regains an HP and loses the cross a few turns later?

Or maybe it's just that death can only be taken note of on the unit's own turn?
Post edited August 21, 2019 by southern
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Thereunto: Neat! I've never seen that one before. Are you able to reproduce it? Was it from fire magic, call flames, fire breath, or fire strike?
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southern: It was from the flame thrower - is that Fire Breath or is it Flame Throwing? Anyway, I highly doubt it matters what the source is.
I haven't bothered to reproduce it. I suspect that it's specific to autocombat, and I suspect that it's because autocombat was somehow set up only to deal with units dying on the enemy turn, and wasn't set up to deal with them dying on their own turn. My theory is that the game checks what units are alive to take actions, then starts their turn, and only then inflicts burning damage - so, the bird dies, but is already on the list of units that can take actions that turn because they're alive. And then, somehow, taking actions defines it as alive, which is why it regains an HP and loses the cross a few turns later?

Or maybe it's just that death can only be taken note of on the unit's own turn?
So Fire Strike and Flame Throwers are even worse? Awesome. :)
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southern: It was from the flame thrower - is that Fire Breath or is it Flame Throwing? Anyway, I highly doubt it matters what the source is.
I haven't bothered to reproduce it. I suspect that it's specific to autocombat, and I suspect that it's because autocombat was somehow set up only to deal with units dying on the enemy turn, and wasn't set up to deal with them dying on their own turn. My theory is that the game checks what units are alive to take actions, then starts their turn, and only then inflicts burning damage - so, the bird dies, but is already on the list of units that can take actions that turn because they're alive. And then, somehow, taking actions defines it as alive, which is why it regains an HP and loses the cross a few turns later?

Or maybe it's just that death can only be taken note of on the unit's own turn?
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Bookwyrm627: So Fire Strike and Flame Throwers are even worse? Awesome. :)
I just saw this take place again in the Green Valley game. My forces were attacked by the Humans which included a Hell Hound, one of the archers on the Human side took TWO damage during that fight due to burning and at the end of the battle regained two health even though he "died" during the fight. Very interesting thing to happen I must say.

Too bad there isn't a way to play out the battles in tactical combat during PBEM games... would make the games turn out SOOO much different.
So Burning hp loss gets refunded in autocombat.