Unloadable Saves

[spydermr2]

Interesting. I can't exactly turn off the firewall (Zonealarm) and/or antivirus (AVG) for hours at a time. Not sure what to do in that case.
It is functional as long as I don't let it update using the updater.

I can put it on my wife's gaming laptop, but she doesn't go to work for another 4 hours, so it'll be much later this evening (6pm Central Standard) before I can do that. It will be interesting to see what happens, as she is running a different security package than I do. I was going to switch her over to the ZA/AVG pairing, but haven't gotten around to it yet. So it should make a good testbed. It will be most curious if it doesn't work there, too... though I suspect it will. Not sure what I will do if it does work on her machine, since I regard the security on that one as wholly inadequate.

My security pieces: AVG antivirus, Zonealarm Firewall, Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit Free. There are browser-specific security add-ons, but those are only functional when the browser is open, so they shouldn't count toward this problem.

As I Said: I'll install the game on my wife's computer this evening, in about 4 hours, and let you know what happens.

I might also disconnect the wired internet connection and turn off my security pieces, let the game update itself as normal, and see if it works properly then. That would at least provide more information, and i can always copy the two files from the German site again if I need to.

[spydermr2]

er, wait a second. If the beta files from the German site work... WITH the security programs running, what's different about those files and the others? If it was the security program(s) causing the error, wouldn't they continue to cause the error in the beta files from the German site?
I'll install the game and update it properly on my wife's computer and see what happens this evening. Just a bit confused why the security programs would be a problem in one instance and not with the files from the German site. Unless there's a specific fix that "plays nice" with security programs?
Either way, right now, as long as I skip the update, the game is playable, and that's fantastic.
We'll see what I learn this evening with the wife's computer. Should be interesting.

[Xilmi]

If I where you I wouldn't try to find out what caused it once it is gone. ^^

The firewall-thing was just a therory. Could be it has nothing to do with that at all.

I don't know which of the differences between the files from the updater and those from civforum.de should be responsible for making it work.
I haven't done anything about either savegame-loading nor client-server-communication.
So I'd guess the deciding factor might be something of steam vs. non-steam version. But this would also be weird.
Or maybe the original Devs fixed something between the beta and this version without me taking notice.

[spydermr2]

It works, so I'm not messing with it. I'll just keep hitting "skip".
I am still going to try it out on my wife's computer, because I'm interested in seeing if it works or not.
It's always (fun?) figuring out the interaction of different pieces of software, when one program has a problem and it might be said interaction causing it. I am curious... but not enough to mess with it now that it is at least functional.
I appreciate your help throughout, and will post again once I see if my wife's computer will play nice with the game or not.

Given that the files at the German site work for me, and the updater doesn't, I'm unclear as to whether to try the official update once it becomes official... or not. I will sit on these files you provided, just in case. I can always come back to this point, that way.

[spydermr2]

Well, that was enlightening. I installed the game on my wife's laptop, then Eclipse, then updated Eclipse. I did not use Beta, nor did I use the files from the German site. So it's version 1.5.4 Eclipse.
I played 2 turns, saved, then dropped to the desktop. Went back in the game, loaded... and it loaded fine.

So, we have established something plainly: the problem, whatever it is, is related to my desktop. Probably related to the antivirus or firewall.
I have a functioning copy, as long as I don't let it update the game.
I might update it properly, then disconnect the internet cable, turn off the security programs one at a time, and see if the load works. That will at least identify where the problem is (probably).
I can change the antivirus (there are two others I could use that are at least of equal value, security-wise) and the firewall (one other option that is well-rated), if it comes to that. I am not tied specifically to this configuration.
Don't know; right now it works, as long as it doesn't update. But my sense of curiosity might make me test it anyway.
Haven't decided yet.
(it is interesting that the files from the German site work with this configuration of security software, while apparently the official files don't)

[spydermr2]

Oh, I am about to just give up on this game.
So okay, I can save. I start playing, set up some things to build in the production queue. Realise that there's no manual whatsoever to refer to (a very bad thing), there's no place to look up how to for instance move things out of the queue. I assume just left-clicking would move something out of the queue. I try that -- and it does nothing. The item remains in the production queue. No other clicking or dragging removes it. I cannot remove anything from the production queue, left-clicking doesn't work.
I booted up my wife's computer and tried it there, and left-clicking moves stuff out of the queue. Like I thought it would.
So now I am once again baffled and stuck. No matter what I do, left-clicking will not remove anything from the production queue, which means if I put something like "growth" in there it will be there forever.
What the heck is going on with this? How could my security software or whatever be affecting things to this degree? Now something is making the in-game interface not work (as far as I can tell, it's just the production screen, the rest seems to work fine, as far as I can tell, and since there's no manual to refer to, I have no way of knowing what I don't know, so to speak).
Any ideas? Please?

[spydermr2]

I have the answer. To all of it.
I uninstalled AVG Free Antivirus and installed Panda instead.
Switched to release Eclipse, updated. Ran the game, played 2 turns, the interface works (left-click moved stuff out of the production queue). Saved, dropped to desktop, went back into the game, load... all of it works fine.
So the answer to all of this fiasco is: AVG. AVG does not play nice with this game.
So that's great.
However, Panda is not that great -- it is seriously bogging down every single program, making everything take a good 10 seconds longer than it should. I'm going to have to switch to one of my remaining alternatives -- BitDefender or Avast. Hopefully, neither of them will collide with the game... but at least I know what to do if they do.
So, to everyone who has helped, a tremendous and heartfelt thank-you.

[VPaulus]

Actually, yesterday, when I have replied to your Matrix tech support ticket, one of the suggestions that I was going to suggest was this... check your anti-virus.

You can always try to create an exclusion area/rule for the game on your AVG. It's not guarantee that it will work, but still it's something you could try if you like so much AVG.
We had also some issues in the past with Pandora and Avast, so I don't advise to install it. As for BitDefender, I don't remember if there was any false positive with Pandora, but it also tends a lot for false positives in generally.
Personally the best for me is nod32 anti-virus. I've been using it for years, never had any false positive or any conflicts. It's a low footprint anti-virus. Never had any protection issues since I begun to use it four years ago. The only issue is that it's not free.

[Xilmi]

So okay, I can save. I start playing, set up some things to build in the production queue. Realise that there's no manual whatsoever to refer to (a very bad thing), there's no place to look up how to for instance move things out of the queue. I assume just left-clicking would move something out of the queue. I try that -- and it does nothing. The item remains in the production queue. No other clicking or dragging removes it. I cannot remove anything from the production queue, left-clicking doesn't work.
I booted up my wife's computer and tried it there, and left-clicking moves stuff out of the queue. Like I thought it would.
So now I am once again baffled and stuck. No matter what I do, left-clicking will not remove anything from the production queue, which means if I put something like "growth" in there it will be there forever.
What the heck is going on with this?

Sorry for that.

The files from civforum.de are experimental patches and apparently you downloaded the wrong one. (the file attached to post #4 instead of the file attached to post #5?)

I realized right after uploading that it was buggy and reverted the cause of the bug.

[spydermr2]

Panda as I said had a terrible drag on literally everything -- opening a browser, opening Word, etc. So it had to go. I installed BitDefender and it has not had any problems with Pandora. And it is much less a resource hog than Panda was. So I seem to be set.
I had created a set of exceptions in AVG for Pandora (specifying each .exe file), but it still stopped the game from working right. So while I actually loved AVG for all other purposes, the inability to get it to work with Pandora, even with having set exceptions, annoyed me enough to switch. Everything worked with Panda, it's just such a resource/memory hog that it swamped every activity.
BitDefender does not slow anything down, nor apparently (so far) have any interaction issues with anything. So it's the current winner (it helps that it's also got high marks at A-V Test and elsewhere).
If the exceptions had worked like they were supposed to in AVG, none of this would have happened. And that's also why I didn't consider the AV in the first place, because I'd already set up exceptions and it shouldn't have been colliding with anything.
Then again, I found several forums where people seem to be commenting on AVG not recognizing its own exception list properly, so I appear to not be the only one with that issue.
Anyway. It's all working now, and quite smoothly, and that's fantastic. Next time I post on these forums it can be as an opinion of the game itself and not in tech support!
Thanks again.

[spydermr2]

And I am breaking my "next time it won't be in tech support" comment, to answer Xilmi's last comment. I did indeed grab from #4 (while I had classes in German, three years of them to be exact, that was twenty years ago, and to call my German rusty would be polite) and not #5. Was the weird interface issue actually caused by that?

[spydermr2]

Ugh. Couldn't load this morning. Shut down each piece of security then brought them back one by one, loading between each piece.
The culprit now (and possibly always??) is Zonealarm Firewall. If I shut down Zonealarm and leave Bitdefender and Malwarebytes AntiExploit running, the game loads and works fine.
Turn ZA back on, and it doesn't.
This is repeatable and does exactly the same thing each time. I've done so four times now.
What I find most interesting is that ZA has been here all along, and at different points I was able to get the game to work. Yet now, it is plainly ZA that is causing the problem. As I said, I can repeat the problem and solve it by turning ZA off.
So the saga continues. I'm going to find a different firewall. I might even put AVG back (with the new firewall) and see if it was ZA all along. I prefer AVG over the others, so if it actually was ZA at the root of all this, that would actually make me happy. I am far more attached to AVG than ZA.
Nonetheless, this is a ridiculous and ongoing mystery of interactions -- I am hoping that it was ZA all along intermittently colliding with other things to create problems. I will let you know once I'm done going through this one piece at a time.
FUN!

[spydermr2]

OK. Here's what was happening:
Zonealarm Firewall has Program Control. In that area, there are four columns that are ?, check, or X. When you tell it to allow a program, it puts a check in the first two columns.
For Pandora to work with ZA Firewall, all program files listed in ZA Program Control for Pandora have to be checked in all four columns.
Once i did that, the game works fine.
I assumed, since I had told ZA to allow Pandora, that it would do so. I did not realise that it would only allow 2 of the 4 columns, nor that the game would require access to the other two columns. I have learned, I suppose, that hard way.
It is weird that ZA doesn't completely allow something even when you tell it to -- you have to manually go into Program Control and make it do so. Kind of irritating, that.
Anyway. It seems to all be working fine now, so... (crosses fingers)

[Xilmi]

And I am breaking my "next time it won't be in tech support" comment, to answer Xilmi's last comment. I did indeed grab from #4 (while I had classes in German, three years of them to be exact, that was twenty years ago, and to call my German rusty would be polite) and not #5. Was the weird interface issue actually caused by that?

Yes, exactly.
It was a bug that prevented certain user-interactions to be processed because I requested a condition that was unable to be met.
So if you could use the file from post #5 it would be very valuable for feedback about the improved AI. (But then again: If you've never seen the old AI, it'll be hard to comment on the new one)

Firewall was also my first thought when I had a look at the log-files.
Pandora.exe and PandoraServer.exe communicate over an IP-protocol. Who is known to mess around with IP-connections? Firewalls!

[spydermr2]

Just can't get Zonealarm Firewall to play nice. It keeps resetting the outer two columns of its program control to ? instead of leaving them checked. Irritating.
So I can play with it on, just can't load. So I turn it off, start the game, load the game, and then drop back to the desktop to start the firewall, then go back into the game. Works. It's annoying, but it works.
I really need to find a different firewall. Comodo ran smack into a known problem with Bitdefender -- let me just say, don't ever try to run those two at the same time. The installer for Comodo breaks in the middle of installing if BitDefender is present and it crashes the system. It was ridiculous.
I'm considering going back to AVG for antivirus (which I preferred anyway) and then installing Comodo's firewall and seeing if that configuration works. I don't know. I can play and load right now, just have to accommodate Zonealarm.
We'll see.
On a different note: having now played enough for the Messari (spelling?) to arrive, I have one question -- is there a way to play the base game + Eclipse and NOT have the stupid Messari expansion thing active? I love the game -- right up to the point where the invasion happens. If i could have base game + Eclipse - (messari) I'd be thrilled.
Probably not. Just thought I'd ask.

[spydermr2]

OK. AVG + Comodo Firewall = working Pandora.
Admittedly, for anyone not familiar with Comodo's security products, the setting-up of the Firewall took a while. It's a lot more detailed and offers more control to the user than, say, Zonealarm (or Norton, or ...). But, once i allocated the .exes from Pandora manually as "recognize as allowed application", and clicked "allow" for each action the program took that went between those files, once that was all done, it now works smoothly.
So, Comodo is a bit of headache to get configured, but once it is configured, it's brilliant.
And more importantly, I can now play Pandora without having to jump through stupid hoops (I'm looking at you, Zonealarm).
I would make add "doesn't play nice with Zonealarm" to the list of security products you have listed as having issues with Pandora.
(now, to go play... )

[Xilmi]

On a different note: having now played enough for the Messari (spelling?) to arrive, I have one question -- is there a way to play the base game + Eclipse and NOT have the stupid Messari expansion thing active? I love the game -- right up to the point where the invasion happens. If i could have base game + Eclipse - (messari) I'd be thrilled.
Probably not. Just thought I'd ask.

You can mod the arrival of the messari to a time that is so late it won't happen during your normal game.

The file describing that is:
<Your Folder Where Pandora Is Installed>\Data\World\Invasion.xml

If you open it you'll find a line like this:
<invasion durationToImpactMin="190" durationToImpactMax="210"

If you change those numbers to arbitrarily high numbers like 10000 or so, the invasion will not happen within a normal game.

Btw.: I never bothered to get a firewall since starting from "Vista" or even earlier Windows had a built-in-firewall.

[VPaulus]

I too have Comodo firewall installed and actually didn't even had to configure or create an exclusion area for being able to play Pandora.

[spydermr2]

Yup, Comodo + AVG + Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit = other programs work! Including Pandora.
Is there a way to modify (or has someone already made a mod to do this) the size of the maps? I'd love to play on bigger maps. Is it a setting in the .xml, or would changing that collide with other things? I don't want to start experimenting and wind up breaking other stuff.

[Xilmi]

Map-sizes are in WorldParameters.xml
I never tried to modify it though. I usually play on Medium or Large. Huge is a little too big for my taste already.
I know you can crash the game if you try to play with too many factions on a tiny map and the game doesn't find enough starting-locations. ^^

Note that with the current betas and the AC-Factions-Mod you can play with up to 13 factions.
Theoretically I could allow for all (7 + 14) factions but I'll have to modify the game-setup-interface for that.

If someone really wants this, I could do it.