2.7 Lobby + Bots Available & Early Testing Phase

LaFayette

@Cernel not many people can still host (myself included), coudl you double check the hosting issue; with luck that should look good now.

Cernel

@lafayette

Joining the lobby, I don't see my name on the right bar (nor anyone else's, but I assume I'm the only one in the lobby at the moment).

Fixed.

Hosting via the "Host Game" button is not showing in the lobby list (as I only see the 6 automated hosts in there).

Fixed.

I cannot enter the automated host.

Not fixed.

I get

error in call: Remote method call, method name: speakerAdded remote name: _ChatControl_games.strategy.engine.framework.ui.ServerStartup.CHAT_NAME  IllegalArgumentException: argument type mismatch

Faling [sic], it prompts me to report to TripleA but also fails to do so.

Fixed.

This is the report I just made:
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/14358

I'm in the new lobby at the moment. I've just tried to type in the lobby chat, but I see nothing in there other than
Welcome to the TripleA lobby!
Please no politics, stay respectful, be welcoming, have fun.

Donation Drive
https://forums.triplea-game.org/category/41/donation-drive-2025-26

Fixed.

Summarising, everything I reported the last 24 hours was fixed except the fact that I still cannot enter bots.

Other issues (not necessarily problems):

If I join as "Cernel" while already being in lobby as "Cernel", I only see one "Cernel" in lobby. I think it was better the previous behaviour, where the second "Cernel" would be named "Cernel (1)", then "Cernel (2)" and so on. Alternatively, having that joining with a new "Cernel" has everyone already in lobby named as "Cernel" being booted out already, assuring that only the latest joining "Cernel" remains in lobby. The reason you want to join again as "Cernel", beside testing, is that sometime you get ghosted, so you join again (and you are called "Cernel (1)" while there is in lobby the ghost called "Cernel").

On the other hand, I have joined the lobby as "Cernel", hosted a game, then joined again the lobby as "Cernel" and joined my game hosted by the previous "Cernel". In this case, the second "Cernel" was actually "Cernel (1)" inside the host only.

I can right-click my name and slap myself. I'm not seeing why.

I can right-click my name and ignore myself LOL. This disallows me from seeing what I write in chat, which I don't think is a good thing.

I can mute myself. I guess this is the virtual version of biting your tongue but still LOL.

I can disconnect myself. Not sure about this.

I can ban myself, apparently. I don't think this is good. I remember of a guy who asked to be banned from TripleA because he was too addicted, but I don't think we want virtual seppuku.

In my opinion, I think it is better only to have the "Show Player Info" option when right clicking yourself. By "yourself" I mean only the user itself. For example, if I join a second time as "Cernel (1)", that is not myself as the previous "Cernel" (so "Cernel" should be able fully to interact with "Cernel (1)" and vice versa as if they are two different users).

This is not really an issue: it is just how it goes: as always, you (or at least I) cannot host while being on a VPN. I forgot to disable the VPN before hosting, so it failed. Then I disabled the VPN without closing the lobby first, and (of course) this made my connection to the lobby fail.

This is the error report I made when I got the error because I disconnected the VPN while being in lobby (I don't think this is a problem.):
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/14356

I assume it is still not possible to host with a VPN? If it is possible, I would be interested in trying it out (as it's a bit annoying having to remember to disable it each time), but I need information on what exactly I have to do to make myself able to host via VPN, but only if it does not require too much effort (meaning without having to do things like contacting anyone providing the VPN or giving away my information other than my IP).

LaFayette

@Cernel Helpful feedback, I think some of those other lesser issues might be quick fixes. I updated the bots to the latest, looks to have resolve the inability to connect.

re: VPN, I think there was a service that is available that can be configured for hosting via VPN. Overall, the efforts/focus I hope will quickly shift to implementing a TripleA 'relay', that will be a massive simplification and change how networking is done.

Cernel

@LaFayette said:

I updated the bots to the latest, looks to have resolve the inability to connect.

Joined the automated host successfully and played the first turn successfully but got these errors in the chat:

Bot-Bot-us-west-103:  [ERROR] Failed to save game to file: /home/bot/triplea/savedGames/autoSave/autosave_Bot-Bot-us-west-103_autosaveBeforeBattle.tsvg
Bot-Bot-us-west-103:  [ERROR] Failed to save game to file: /home/bot/triplea/savedGames/autoSave/autosave_Bot-Bot-us-west-103_autosaveAfterBattle.tsvg
Bot-Bot-us-west-103:  [ERROR] Failed to save game to file: /home/bot/triplea/savedGames/autoSave/autosave_Bot-Bot-us-west-103_autosaveBeforeEndTurn.tsvg
Bot-Bot-us-west-103:  [ERROR] Failed to save game to file: /home/bot/triplea/savedGames/autoSave/autosave_Bot-Bot-us-west-103_autosaveAfterCombatMove.tsvg
Bot-Bot-us-west-103:  [ERROR] Failed to save game to file: /home/bot/triplea/savedGames/autoSave/autosave_Bot-Bot-us-west-103_autosaveBeforeBattle.tsvg
Bot-Bot-us-west-103:  [ERROR] Failed to save game to file: /home/bot/triplea/savedGames/autoSave/autosave_Bot-Bot-us-west-103_autosaveAfterBattle.tsvg
Bot-Bot-us-west-103:  [ERROR] Failed to save game to file: /home/bot/triplea/savedGames/autoSave/autosave_Bot-Bot-us-west-103_autosaveAfterNonCombatMove.tsvg

EDIT: The game I played is "270BC Wars". Only did the first "Carthage" turn (and previous "barbarians" sub-turn).

Cernel

Where is that thing which you were able to open to see all the log of the errors and else you got while playing the game (I mean both for local gaming and while hosting)? Has it been removed? I think it was a good thing to have.

LaFayette

@Cernel I created https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/14391 to track the bot game save error.

LaFayette

@Cernel said:

Where is that thing which you were able to open to see all the log of the errors and else you got while playing the game (I mean both for local gaming and while hosting)? Has it been removed? I think it was a good thing to have.

It was removed some time ago. There is a log file that lands on disk though with that same info. I do miss the console a bit as well myself.

LaFayette

Day started off with about 300 issues, we're down to 213 now. A number were cleaned up, but a large number fixed.

Notable Updates

Big memory performance boost fix#14377. In order to render the mini-map, we were rendering the whole entire map at game start, each territory at full resolution, and then shrinking that down to fit the minimap. We now render that directly. For World of Warcraft map, that translated to a 500MB spike in main memory at start, now completely removed, no spike in startup memory.
HTML will display different. @cernel deftly pointed out that the width/sizing was off by about 33%. cc: @roiex , turns out swing by default treats 'px' as 'pt' sizing. There is a flag avaialble to tell swing to use W3C compliant rules, that keeps "px" as "px". Thus, formatting map descriptions should render more faithfully compared to how they render in a web browser, and should generally be easier to "get right"
using edit mode to move units that are in combat to a new territory with a new combat, should generally work now.
some very subtle and rare AI crashes that could happen essentially at any time.
#14360 will help with "auto-focus", pop up windows generally won't have focus when rendered, space will no longer activate the 'main button' of the pop up (the enter key will still activate the primary button though, something for us to still fix)

Todays Fix List (25)

[Fix#14390] fix(missing flags images): add placeholder image if flags are missing
[Fix#14389] fix(race condition): resolve crash if a latent move validation is executed during battle phase
[Fix#14388] fix(retreat): patch V2 games to take into account movement restrictions when retreating
[Fix#14387] fix(move): reset unit state when only a combat move step exists (#10590)
[Fix#14385] fix(placement): resolve undo bug for fighters moved to carriers
[Fix#14384] fix(updating-maps-NPE): resolve potential NPE when updating maps
[Fix#14383] fix(modal deadlocks): always allow background task runner to be cancelled
[Fix#14382] fix(toolbox UI): expand banned username width to 25
[Fix#14381] fix(css & csv): 2 fixes, fix CSS 30% width increase and invalid CSVs
[Fix#14380] fix(bot games): the window opened by 'roll dice' menu did nothing
[Fix#14378] fix(battle UX): change button name from 'remain' to "don't submerge"
[Fix#14377] fix(minimap): render minimap directly without downscaling
[Fix#14375] Fix(capitals): return empty instead of throwing when no capital
[Fix#14374] Fix(edit combat): resolve incorrect attackers/defenders
[Fix#14373] Fix(battle): resolve crash when subs submerge and fighters cannot land
[Fix#14370] fix(client prefs): downgrade error message to warn & reduce writes to ClientSettings
[Fix#14369] fix(forums): add handling for when forums is down or returns empty
[Fix#14368] fix(error message): log a warning instead of an error on bad save game loads
[Fix#14367] fix(battle calc): avoid crash when 'createWorkers' throws (also could impact AIs at any time, usually when system resources are low)
[Fix#14366] Fix(AI crash): fix OOL cache collision (caused AI to randomly crash, somewhat rare but could happen anytime)
[Fix#14365] Fix(crash): do not crash when blitzing through a territory being bombed
[Fix#14363] fix(NPE): do not crash when hosting network game is cancelled
[Fix#14360] Fix(UX): remove auto-focus on pop-up windows (avoids accidental confirmations while typing chat messagse)
[Fix#14355] fix(multiplayer): listener leak (helps resource usage for hosts when players repeatedly join/disconnect)
[Fix#14354] fix(multiplayer): always release latch when players fail to join (fixes a 3 minutes wait for a timeout when a joiner disconnects midway or fails to join)

Features

[Feat#14357] feat(map download window): add map counts to tabs

TheDog

@LaFayette
Thanks for the large number of fixes to TripleA engine yesterday, you were very busy! The biggy is the faster mini-map fix.

Im busy testing with the latest versions.

Latest pre-releases
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/releases

Cernel

@LaFayette said:

Big memory performance boost fix#14377. In order to render the mini-map, we were rendering the whole entire map at game start, each territory at full resolution, and then shrinking that down to fit the minimap. We now render that directly. For World of Warcraft map, that translated to a 500MB spike in main memory at start, now completely removed, no spike in startup memory.

The minimap looks a lot different than before (I tend to think for the better at least in World At War). Now in World At War the land territories have considerably thicker borders, actually about the same thickness as in the actual map, meaning that the minimap appears to be more faithful to the original map without tiles than beforehand. (The central-western European part is almost the same as before because the many units almost completely hide the territories and their borders in the minimap there.) Anyway, this is mostly a curiosity: I don't think it actually matters significantly for any users (and I actually guess that almost nobody will notice the change).

TripleA 2.7.15510:

TripleA 2.7.15533:

If feasible, I would make those little squares representing units in the minimap smaller (50% than current dimension on both axis, for a quarter of the area) so that you could see the borders in the most clustered parts of the map like central-western Europe (where you can see almost nothing but the mass of squares representing the units). Or maybe just removing the units from being displayed in the minimap at all: I never look at units in the minimap. Does anyone want to see the units in the minimap?

TheDog

@Cernel
In map.properties, so per map, this controls the unit size on the mini map, in this case turn them off and makes them 0 in size.
smallMap.unit.size=0

This will make a turn ever so slightly faster, as it is not trying to draw each unit on the mini map.

From 1941 Global Command Decision

#========== SMALL MAP PROPERTIES ==========
# 0.0-1.0 (transparent to opaque)
smallMap.territory.alpha=0.1
# size of unit in pixels square 0-4
smallMap.unit.size=0
# C0C0C0
smallMap.viewer.borderColor=FFFFFF
smallMap.viewer.fillColor=191919
# 0.0-1.0 (transparent to opaque)
smallMap.viewer.fillAlpha=0.25