10-11-2003 02:35									#1
	What exactly is an overrun? Support Apolyton

Ok, I think I am officialy too stupid to figure out what an overrun does.

The IG message is like..

'research blabla completed. In addition there were some unexpected new discoveries which have given us a positive overrun.'

Seems to be pretty positive. Maybe additional techs becoming visible in the tech matrix or something?

The manual says..

Scientific research is never entirely predictable. Unexpected roadblocks sometimes appear, and promising theories sometimes turn out to be false leads. Ultimately, perseverance will bring success, but sometimes these roadblocks, known as Project Overruns, can cause a project to cost more money or take longer than expected.

Seems to be a pretty bad thing here. Longer research time and possibly even skipped techs?


Not to mention the describtions for creativity in the race creation.. this stuff confuses the heck out of me.


Please enlighten me, what this ominous Overrun is and if it is desireable or not. Thanks

	10-11-2003 03:21									#2
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

An overrun is like where moo3's release date is pushed back because they decide to do more work on it :P

Positive overruns, don't know what these do, but they do contribute to the stuck tech factor so they are bad and evil for the time being, get rid of positive overrun leaders. They may contribute to the amount of research in a given field, no one knows. Once more is known about how the save file stores information about technology fields and techs it may be possible to determine what effect they have.

Negative overruns, and overruns in general make the tech take longer to progress from the prototype phase to the "you get to use it" phase.

To reduce overruns overall, Get the no spy mod which will allow you to reduce the oppressometer to 0, supposedly having it high increases overruns, get rid of +% overrun leaders positive or negative, get leaders that reduce the % of overruns, and be wary of the 3rd antaran X that increases overruns.

Short answer: Due to the tech stuck bug they are not desirable(unless someone found out that something else causes them.)

Creativity reduces the chance of an overrun, and makes it more likely to be a positive one if it does happen, if what the game says about creativity is correct however.

	10-11-2003 05:41									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Positive overruns provide a research bonus...though exactly how they changed it after I designed it, I don't know. The basic idea was to give you a bump on your tech level advancement, however.

	11-11-2003 16:18									#4
	Put an end to popups!

Thanks for the explanations and since there isn't much one can do about overruns I'll just stay away from tech-leaders and leave it at that. I won't install any no-spy mod however. Where am I supposed to get my tech then? Spying is a PITA sometimes, agreed, but it can be fun.... one turn out of 1000

But after playing ~600 turns on a normal sized map with 16 races I remember why I've shelfed moo3 in the first place. The Interface (I think my left mouse button will die on this game) and Diplomacy is a joke. The computer races randomly declare war on me (they'll often ask for research/trade on the same turn ) and will ask for peace 3 turns later only that he may backstab me again after another 3 turns. My standing with them will stay at harmonious however . Stupid, period.

Oh well, I'll just finish my current game and shelf it again. Btw. which victory has the better end sequence? Xs or Conquest? Got to see at least one of the victory movies.

	11-11-2003 22:24									#5
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Conquest victory is better in my opinion, action,explosions.

As for getting techs, conquest works very well, like you mentioned, the AI is pretty much on a hair trigger and will declare war for very little provocation.

	30-11-2003 00:06									#6
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

quote: Originally posted by Torious Thanks for the explanations and since there isn't much one can do about overruns I'll just stay away from tech-leaders and leave it at that. I won't install any no-spy mod however. Where am I supposed to get my tech then? Spying is a PITA sometimes, agreed, but it can be fun.... one turn out of 1000 But after playing ~600 turns on a normal sized map with 16 races I remember why I've shelfed moo3 in the first place. The Interface (I think my left mouse button will die on this game) and Diplomacy is a joke. The computer races randomly declare war on me (they'll often ask for research/trade on the same turn ) and will ask for peace 3 turns later only that he may backstab me again after another 3 turns. My standing with them will stay at harmonious however . Stupid, period. Oh well, I'll just finish my current game and shelf it again. Btw. which victory has the better end sequence? Xs or Conquest? Got to see at least one of the victory movies.

I keep the tech leader with than pos overrun as I notice by doing so my reasearch does speed up. The npspy mod people are missing the point that hight leval of secerity does slow down research in real life.

	25-12-2003 14:50									#7
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I notice that postive overrun allow you to reasearch the next level in than area while still reasearch the current level, Your current Reasearch level in the area donot go up as far as I see.

	26-12-2003 10:40									#8
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Can't say that I've run into the tech bug yet. How bad is it and how can it be avoided? I may go back to this game again after I finish my epic game of C3C.

	28-12-2003 21:43									#9
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I think I might have encountered it myself already in my second test game the other day: I achieved an Antaran X and it was shown being researched in the tech window, with I recall 16 turns until completion; just below that was another tech, with 1 turn remaining, and for which I had eagerly been waiting for some turns.

To my surprise, that tech didn't complete the next turn as I'd expected: it took several more turns. After the first delayed turn, I assumed that perhaps the Antaran X tech had "inserted" itself as a higher priority in the queue, and that I might perhaps have to wait 17 turns before I'd see the anticipated tech completed. Of course that wasn't what happened, either, and I had no other explanation until the last few minutes when I've been reading about this tech bug for the first time.

I have no authoritative confirmation, though....

	29-12-2003 03:33									#10
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

One of the joys of my (ex-)position is never recalling when or where one has discussed various things. I've been watching talk about the tech bug, and been playing games carefully, and I haven't seen anything I could identify as a definite bug.

One thing that was originally designed into the research was uncertainty of delivery times...in essence, the "turns left" was to be based on an estimate made when the project started. That's one reason why techs will occasionally show up early, and certainly why they will sometimes show up late...your researchers simply misestimated the amount of time it would take. Overruns also play into the latter, adding time to a project, and you don't always (if ever) get informed.

Since I didn't write the code, and since I obviously didn't get to finish up the game, I cannot guarantee this, but it is my studied opinion that the "tech completion bug" isn't a bug at all...it's a feature of the design which is left to look like a bug because messages informing the player got cut out and the manual provides no real warning that such a thing can happen.

	29-12-2003 06:58									#11
	Support Apolyton

It's definitely a bug.

- People are reporting a tech stuck for hundreds or even a thousand turns
- the "turns left" estimate has repetitive patterns (like 1-1-1-1 or 4-3-2-1-1-1-1-1-4-3-2-1-1-1-1-1-4-3-2 etc)
- you can get a sit-rep message saying "Good news, tech x entered the prototype phase" for dozens of turns in a row.

I cannot believe that this is the intended behavior.

Setting the "additional research spending" slider to zero, and setting the Economics slider to 100 % (or perhaps any school but the one with the stuck tech) and all others to 0 % helps sometimes, but not always.

	29-12-2003 18:28									#12
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Okay then. I've never seen anything remotely like that happen, but it's definitely not intended behavior.

	29-12-2003 22:44									#13
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

The Atari forums are still the best place to find answers.

The game is suppose to be variable as to when anything is done, especially with techs.

Unrest on a planet may slow down production, and as such.

This is not a game, where it is cut and dried. It is variable, as to make it seem more real.

Get the 1.2.5 patch also if not gotten, since all the diplomacy was suppose to change and not allow species to quickly change their mind.

Perhaps, Atari Support has the patch, I downloaded long time ago, so now I do not know where it is at.

Still probably at moo3mods.com where I downloaded it, along with lots of other mods.