Reproducible crash on v1.19.27

[Spannerbag]

Apologies if this is already known.

On recruit page add search term that won't find anything.

Screen grabs showing setup prior to clicking "Recruit" button.

1.19.27 - windows 11

Short pause then game crashes (exits silently).

1.18.8 - windows 11

Recruit issues no unit recruited message and game continues.

Tried this on a couple of scenarios on both versions and behaviour stayed same.

Also noticed a change in recruitment during testing - traits do not seem to change for a specific unit when save-loading whereas, IIRC, in the past they did.
Not saying it's a problem, just mentioning in case it's related to this issue.

[gnombat]

Apologies if this is already known.

I have a strange sense of déjà vu.

Also noticed a change in recruitment during testing - traits do not seem to change for a specific unit when save-loading whereas, IIRC, in the past they did.

Do you have "Default RNG" selected? Or "Predictable RNG"?

[Spannerbag]

I have a strange sense of déjà vu.

Well I'm consistent.
Hope it won't be 3rd time lucky...

Do you have "Default RNG" selected? Or "Predictable RNG"?

Didn't spot it until you mentioned the RNG options, but seems that this version uses "Reduced RNG" by default - or my cr*ppy touchpad changed it and I didn't notice.

Reverted to standard RNG and now recruit traits change when save-loading, so that's cleared up. Thanks!

[gnombat]

Didn't spot it until you mentioned the RNG options, but seems that this version uses "Reduced RNG" by default - or my cr*ppy touchpad changed it and I didn't notice.

It appears that "Default RNG" is no longer, in fact, the default.

[Spannerbag]

It appears that "Default RNG" is no longer, in fact, the default.

Also seems that for SP you pick the RNG you want at the start of the campaign then that's it; there doesn't seem to be a way to change it.
Neither does the game report what RNG is active - but I didn't dig into everything and may well have missed something...

Update: just launched BfW and it came up with default RNG.
So I changed it but didn't play anything and exited, restarted and got default RNG again, so I think I must've somehow set it to reduced RNG...

Not tested this but am wondering what happens if I start a campaign on one RNG, play a few scenarios then restart it on a different one then return to earlier saves: would the earlier ones still have the original RNG or would the later setting override it?

Cheers!

[gnombat]

Update: just launched BfW and it came up with default RNG.
So I changed it but didn't play anything and exited, restarted and got default RNG again, so I think I must've somehow set it to reduced RNG...

No, they actually changed it.

5185dfd25b49e89a982d92b09d6a5e698d41f59b

If you delete your preferences file, then restart Wesnoth, you will see that the "Default RNG" is no longer the default RNG ... let me rephrase that ... the "Reduced RNG" is the default RNG, not the "Default RNG" ... let me try one more time ... the initially selected RNG is the "Reduced RNG".

(As an aside: apparently at some point this choice of RNG was renamed from "Biased RNG" to "Reduced RNG" to further enhance the confusion.)

Not tested this but am wondering what happens if I start a campaign on one RNG, play a few scenarios then restart it on a different one then return to earlier saves: would the earlier ones still have the original RNG or would the later setting override it?

The choice of RNG is stored in the save file, so I would presume that's what it uses.

[Spannerbag]

...No, they actually changed it...

...If you delete your preferences file, then restart Wesnoth, you will see that the "Default RNG" is no longer the default RNG ... let me rephrase that ... the "Reduced RNG" is the default RNG, not the "Default RNG" ... let me try one more time ... the initially selected RNG is the "Reduced RNG".

(As an aside: apparently at some point this choice of RNG was renamed from "Biased RNG" to "Reduced RNG" to further enhance the confusion.)

I agree wholeheartedly with your arguments and sentiments.

Also even more consufed given this!

IMHO this is a non-trivial change to the sp gaming experience, breaking with established philosophy up to v1.18 and AFAIK there's no way to change RNG once a campaign has started?
I don't understand why the devs decided to do this given that in other matters (e.g. core units) they keep things the same across mp & sp.

It would've been appreciated if the devs had approached players and UMC creators for feedback first.
But perhaps, as sp appears to be the poor relation vs mp minor rant deleted), it was thought we wouldn't understand the implications sufficiently to provide coherent rational feedback.

If said feedback was requested than I, for one, missed it completely...

I think I'll see if there's any way to preselect the default RNG at [campaign] level (tho' I suspect RNG selection is invisible to WML).
I could go on...

Really don't understand the rationale behind this.

Thanks for the info, much appreciated.
Cheers!

[gnombat]

If said feedback was requested than I, for one, missed it completely...

There was some discussion of it on Discord/IRC:

https://irclogs.wesnoth.org/2026/06/%23 ... -06-19.log
https://irclogs.wesnoth.org/2026/06/%23 ... -06-20.log
https://irclogs.wesnoth.org/2026/06/%23 ... -06-21.log
https://irclogs.wesnoth.org/2026/06/%23 ... -06-22.log
https://irclogs.wesnoth.org/2026/06/%23 ... -06-25.log
https://irclogs.wesnoth.org/2026/07/%23 ... -07-20.log
https://irclogs.wesnoth.org/2026/07/%23 ... -07-21.log
https://irclogs.wesnoth.org/2026/07/%23 ... -07-22.log

[Spannerbag]

Thanks for taking the trouble to compose and post these logs, much appreciated.
Sadly didn't have time to read in detail all your posts (might get chance during coming week).
However I understand, to some extent, the pressures that underpinned the discussion and decision, but still feel it would've been courteous and considerate to at least post something here.

My campaigns are generally intermediate difficulty (mainly 'cos I'm not a good or patient enough player to be considered "expert" ... experienced yes but nowhere near a top tier player).
So to keep things "intermediate" I buffer vs poor RNG, by gold provision, map design (kinda), ai tweaks etc. plus cloaked cth manipulation occasionally.
Using a more deterministic RNG will muck this up, especially (as has been noted in the discussions) specials like poison and slow are buffed.

I also feel that it would be useful to provide a way to change the RNG selected at campaign start later in the game.

FWIW I feel that if new/novice players are put off by poor RNG could I humbly suggest that maybe campaign designers are being a tad too clever?
I've given some passing thoughts to writing a campaign for novice players but have never had the time to properly think the idea through.

If players really want a more predictable gameplay experience then fair enough, let them have that.
However I really don't feel that defaulting to a more predictable RNG is the right approach; just design campaigns with more focus on the likely capability of the player. This does not mean a scenario must be strategically easy, just that combat is likely to be more survivable. To win the player must still make correct (or at least avoid stupid) decisions.

Thanks again for the post - never used discord (prefer this forum because - I imagine - time zones don't matter so much).
Cheers!

[gnombat]

Thanks again for the post - never used discord (prefer this forum because - I imagine - time zones don't matter so much).

I also prefer this forum to Discord, but I'll just note that Discord allows you to reply to other people's messages, and the Discord user interface makes it pretty clear what message you are replying to, even if the original message was made a long time ago. (So in that sense Discord bears some resemblance to a forum rather than simply being a real-time chat application.) You could even reply to one of the messages in the above logs (from June and July) and it will work fairly well. If you want to provide feedback, that might give better results than posting here in this forum, since the developers seem to mostly use Discord these days and rarely (or never) use this forum.

[Spannerbag]

...If you want to provide feedback ... developers seem to mostly use Discord these days and rarely (or never) use this forum.

Mmm, I've noticed a few "regulars" seem to have stopped posting. Maybe they're now only active on discord ... or they've moved on.
Oh well, I'll give discord a try sometime...

Cheers!

[Wedge009]

Was this ever logged in GitHub? A Discord conversation means nothing as it's ephemeral and some may not even get access to it.

I'm surprised to see that this is still an issue with current master at time of writing. So this hasn't been resolved.

[Wedge009]

https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/issues/11533