[Bug? 1.05] The SHARDS are taking over!!!

Are they spawning when you research Adventure techs (some unlock previously hidden resource nodes), or just at random?

I had a water shard spawn near a city in v 1.05 from a save/reload.  To be more exact, I lost a child in a tatical battle so I reloaded the autosave which was approximately 3 turns old.  When the autosave was restored a new shard was 3 squares from an existing city.  Well within my ZOC for that city.  No new research, no city expansion, no new exploration just BAM! new water shard.  At the time, I only owned one functioning shard which just happened to be a water shard.  It, however, was in the ZOC of a different city.  I hope that helps.

Are you still seeing new shards spawn on save/load under 1.06?

I haven't had a chance to play with 1.06 but I will tonight and tomorrow.  I"ll post again if I notice similar behavior.  I'll also intentionally save and reload autosave a few times to try and force a reoccurence.

It's called TIBERIUM. Nod will soon be there to get you!

No seriously, I think your problem is that EVERYONE is researching the Adventure techs, not just the player. This is also my theory on why the monsters are also getting so powerful so quickly. If your playing a game with the full amount of computer players then eventually everyone will research the Adventure techs and expedite the problem.

In the beginning of the small game, for example, three players research Adventure. Monster rating is increased by three, no big deal.

In the beginning of the large game, though, eight players research Adventure. Monster rating is increased by eight fold! Suddenly HUGE armies of spiders, bandits, and goblin dudes are running around when we've still got spears and padded armor.

Now consider the impact of late game shard research with a full set of players. Going to have the same problems.

I hate to say it but I think you guys need to either slow down or reduce the number of shards discovered or put a cap on them. Also, consider slowing down the monster spawn too while your at it, please.

I think it is caused when I load the game.

I played and finished this game in 1.5 not in 1.6, I'll let you know about 1.6...

Yes I had all of the computer players, but still when the last set of shards appeared, the last computer sovereign had 0 cities and was walking on the map alone....

Also when other players research more resources, are these new and extra? I always thought that all players get a common set of those, so the only reason to research the techs would be to be the first one to grab them.

Actually I had shard spawned atop my gold mine back in 1.05 right after loading autosave.

1.06 still has this problem.  Or, in my case, started having this problem.  In my current game I have no less than 14 shards under my control, with three more currently being built upon.  Six more are visible from my borders.  Unfortunately, I cannot provide a screenshot to prove this, as every screenshot I take ends up being a 1680x1050 black rectangle.

As with the OP, this happens most often when I reload, but have seen it happen between turns.

I think one of the most likely explanations is that loading a saved game after doing the research re-applies the research, thus spawning more and more shards. I've also seen some funkyness with new shards appearing out of nowhere when I load a game.

I've gone and tried a game where I had a few cities, saved at a point quit, then loaded, new shards appeared (2 earth shards each near a citiy) so I decided to test it, so I basically, saved, quit, loaded a few times, each time new shards appeared. In someways it's annoying but in other ways fun due to when you go back on and load a save theres new areas that you are battling the AI over to get control of the new shards.

I have the exact same problem.  I have shards spawning all over the place, and it has nothing to do with research.  In fact, at one point, I had a Lost Library get replaced with a shard.  It was weird because the Lost Library image was on the map, and some game elements thought it was still a lost library (like the exclamation mark that told me I could build on the Lost Library), but whenever I hovered over the tile, it said "Water shard".

I could never build the Lost Library, but I did finally build on the Water Shard.  At that point, the image changed to a proper Water Shard.  I haven't researched any of the Lost Resource techs, and I was seeing this happen within the first twenty turns anyway, so I think research has nothing to do with it.

As far as some of the research comments above, I don't think everyone researching something makes any difference.  I've read that it's only the HIGHEST tech among all players that applies to monsters/etc spawning.  Now whether it's working the way it's supposed to is another question. 

As to the Lost Resources techs, does that open up the resources to everyone?  That doesn't make any sense at all.  What's the point in researching "secret" or "hidden" resources if it opens them up for everyone?

2kyro

OK I tested v 1.06.  A fire shard appeared 2 squares from my first city at turn 48 after a save/reload of the autosave file.  It is so early in the game I do not have the ability to harvest the fire shard.  All of my research has been in Military.  I think that confirms the bug still exists.

Yup, we know about this.

Thanks for the acknowledgment this is a bug.  I've been running into this issue a lot.  An area of the map that had two shards at the beginning of my last game, ended up with 12 shards by turn 80!

I've also encountered other weird issues related to loading saved games, for instance on one save, sometimes when I loaded it, I would immediately get the message that the Kingdom of Altar had been destroyed, and sure enough, all the cities belonging to Altar would just be gone, yet their influence ring would still be there... then I could load the game again and Altar would be back, then I could load the game again and Altar cities would be gone again...

Similar issue with my food resource disappearing and reappearing on loaded games.  I can have a global food resource of 7 when I save and quit, then when I load that game, the global food resource is at zero!  Even though when I inspect the individual cities they still say they are producing the right amount of food, the global resource says zero.  When I continue to the next turn, the global food resource goes back up to where it should be...

Hopefully these "Loading Issues" can be ironed out.  They are obviously quite problematic.

I thought it was caused by the Fallen? I thought they had a research that makes new ones pop up?