trade window and army setup glitches
Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 3:45 pm
Spartan usually runs fine for me, but after playing a campaign for a while I eventually develop two technical glitches. These glitches have cropped up repeatedly in several different scenarios, they are not isolated incidents. I can clear them by quitting and restarting the game, but they are quite annoying.
The first is in the trade window. When this glitch takes effect, clicking on either the plus or minus symbols to adjust a resource's buy and sell amounts no longer has the normal effect. Instead, any click on the plus or minus symbols causes the associated resource's trade amount setting to change sign. I.e., a -12 becomes a +12, a +43 becomes a -43. Clicking again on either symbol flips the sign again. It doesn't matter if I left click, right click, shift or control click, any click flips the sign without changing the absolute value. When this glitch crops up it effectively makes the game unplayable, trade management is crucial to the game.
The second glitch is in the army setup window. This glitch manifests by tying units together in groups so that they cannot be moved individually. It is in effect the instant the window opens, I will start with multiple units selected as though I had picked them up with a group selection box but I haven't. And they won't unselect normally. I have a couple of times managed to get this to clear by repeated random left-right-shift-control click combinations on one or more of the units involved, but I was very frustrated during these incidents and don't really remember what I did that cleared the problem. This isn't quite as game stopping as the trade window glitch, but tends to cause a lot of casualties I could avoid if I could set up my units properly.
I am not 100% certain, but I suspect this might have something to do with my habit of occasionally using ctrl-esc to drop out of the game window to my desktop. I have tried to keep track a couple of times and it seemed I was able to play normally for quite a few turns but then I wanted to check a game forum or something and a few turns after reenterring the game one of the glitches crops up again. I know ctrl-esc has caused problems with stability in other games I have played.
The first is in the trade window. When this glitch takes effect, clicking on either the plus or minus symbols to adjust a resource's buy and sell amounts no longer has the normal effect. Instead, any click on the plus or minus symbols causes the associated resource's trade amount setting to change sign. I.e., a -12 becomes a +12, a +43 becomes a -43. Clicking again on either symbol flips the sign again. It doesn't matter if I left click, right click, shift or control click, any click flips the sign without changing the absolute value. When this glitch crops up it effectively makes the game unplayable, trade management is crucial to the game.
The second glitch is in the army setup window. This glitch manifests by tying units together in groups so that they cannot be moved individually. It is in effect the instant the window opens, I will start with multiple units selected as though I had picked them up with a group selection box but I haven't. And they won't unselect normally. I have a couple of times managed to get this to clear by repeated random left-right-shift-control click combinations on one or more of the units involved, but I was very frustrated during these incidents and don't really remember what I did that cleared the problem. This isn't quite as game stopping as the trade window glitch, but tends to cause a lot of casualties I could avoid if I could set up my units properly.
I am not 100% certain, but I suspect this might have something to do with my habit of occasionally using ctrl-esc to drop out of the game window to my desktop. I have tried to keep track a couple of times and it seemed I was able to play normally for quite a few turns but then I wanted to check a game forum or something and a few turns after reenterring the game one of the glitches crops up again. I know ctrl-esc has caused problems with stability in other games I have played.
