[Release] Grepolis 2 bot

[pappism]

Hi Utharnl -

First of all, very sorry I haven't posted in a while. I have been very busy, with holiday travel and then back to work. but i have been running the 1.1.9 bot.

Now i owe you $150. I hope this gets me premier access to request new features

Anyways, i tried to donate from your blog page, but i can't get it to work from there. If i send you money from paypal

Also - I have noticed a small bug. I was running 1.1.9 fine for a few days and have not previously seen it until now. It may be related to me having my first 2nd city on the bot.

Anyways, after running the bot for sometime - some of the farms no longer get resources from demand. They drop off. So if i had a city with 7 farms - it will go to 6 and stay that way until i close the bot and restart it.

Also worth noting - and maybe this is more of the issue. I am running the bot simultaneseously ( 2 sessions - with each session connected to a different world). This has worked fine for 1.1.8 and i thought 1.1.9. But maybe I am seeing this problem now b/c the farming processing takes longer and the two bots are "overlapping". They are probably sharing the same memory file somehow?

The interesting thing is the problem happens on both both bots at the same time, and my first bot has only 1 city - so scratch the multi city theory. So if in world 20 - i had 5 farms, and in world 21 - i had 6 farms, i think if they connect and demand resources at the same time there becomes a memory problem, and world 20 gets stuck at 4 farms and world 21 at 5 farms.

maybe a couple simple refresh commands when farming runs can fix this to avoid restarting the bots. Also, if it is a shared file or memory, maybe you can segregate the file / memory by world so that it is not longer shared.

just some thoughts. let me know where to send donation. cheers.

[Utharnl]

Yes that is the correct paypal address. Remember that everyone can make feature requests you don't have to donate for that. As a donator you will however get access to some donator only features which will (maybe) be ready next week or at the end of the month if I don't have them ready before I go on vacation.
The first donator only features will be incoming attack warnings by email (maybe sms but that is giving some problems at the moment) and automatic festivals.

The farming feature probably works just fine. Since grepolis 2 there is a maximum amount of resources you can get from farmers each day. The server will give a message as soon as a farmer has reached his limit, when this happens the bot will stop looting that farmer and check every two hours if the daily limit has already been reset.
You can see if the limit is reached by going to the farmers tab and check the resource icon. If it's grey the limit has been reached.

If you want to run multiple instances of the bot at the same time you have to copy the bot directory. Most of the time I have 3 bots active and they don't seem to interfere with each other.

~Uthar

[pappism]

Hi Uthar -

It's definitely not the farming limit thing. I am aware of that, and once I restart the bots, the farms come back online. However, I have been running both bots out of the same directory and I am sure If i make a copy as you suggested, It will work just fine. Thx for this simple, yet genuis solution .

please verify my donation to you, should be sent. I hope more peeps donates to you, even if they are small ones. you have done some nice work here. you are a talented developer.

[Utharnl]

Sometimes the server gives an other error when attacking farmers which causes the bot to think the limit is reached. When you have the same problem again make sure to check the farmer tab and look at the icons. If the resource icon is grey you know what the problem is. It should work fine again after two hours.

Only received 3 donations in 2 years time so it's not going that fast :P But maybe I'll get some more when the donator only features are ready.

If you donated directly from your paypal soldo I should have it tomorrow morning. If I remember correct paypal has a few more options that take more time but I'll let you know when I receive it.

//edit
Just checked my paypal account and successfully received the donation. Really appreciate this, gives some good motivation to work on new features.

~Uthar

[pappism]

hi uthar - well attacking the farms might the issue then.

I do not have any grey icons, but on my 2nd city I am rapidly expanding farms. and maybe that is causing other farms to drop off.

but i still had a farm drop off on a separate bot session connected to a different world. i am running both bot sessions in different directories now.

could "trading" with the farms, have the same effect as attacking the farms?

p.s. - removed your info on previous post.

[Utharnl]

Did a few tests with trading and that doesn't interfere.
When you notice again that a farmer is skipped could you look at the next available loot time?
I'll also watch my log but haven't seen anything suspicious yet.

And if you run the bot from two different directories they can't interfere with each other so something else is causing this.

~Uthar

[rooster7734]

i would gladly donate now that i have used this for about 2 weeks and know how great it is. where can i donate

[Utharnl]

@rooster7734
Thanks rooster, there is an donation button on my .

@pappism
You probably know this, but just to be sure Are your towns on the same Island? Because the timer of the farmers will be the same for both towns then.

~Uthar

[pappism]

no they are on separate islands. it happened again once today. still trying to identify a pattern. its not a huge deal though, a simple restart makes it all work fine.

[pappism]

Hi Uthar - i think i figured it out.

i am using the bot , but also playing heavily in the browser window.

i think when i create / do an action that does a server request in the browser at the same time that the bot is demanding resources - then the drops off.

does this generate some server error and then the bot does not try that farm for some period. you mentioned 2 hrs. is it possible to reduce that time.

its actually kinda of hard not to step on the bot. i have 13 farms now, and it takes 2 - 5 secs between each farm and i hate waiting.

let me know your thoughts.

[Utharnl]

The requests should be able to run parallel, atleast that was the idea. What kind of actions are you talking about? There is a small chance that adding units to the barrack/dock could interfere. And of course requesting resources from the farmers , but besides those I can't think of any others.
Will do some tests and see if I can reproduce the error.

Can you check something in the log tab? (Except those towns were the warehouse is full)
Does every cycle of requesting resources end with this:
"No farmers available at the moment"?

//edit
Maybe I can put the reset timer on 1 hour but not shorter. The bot will make too many invalid requests otherwise.

~Uthar

[galonim]

Another idea: if you would make a signal sound at a time when attack icon drops ?
3/4 day I play at work and grepolis is enabled as a tab, do not look in there every 10 minutes, so no such sound is easy to surprise me.
I think that evolution will be not a problem?

[Utharnl]

Yeah I'll probably do something like that.
The next version will already have warning by email, which should get your attention too

~Uthar

[magic3sergio]

thx

[Utharnl]

New version ready! Everyone can try out the donator only features this month, I enabled a trial account for that. After that those features will only be available for users who have donated.

Version: 2.0.0 Date: 12-07-2011
New features:
-Enabled donator only features.
-Added automatic festivals.
-Added attack warnings by email.

~Uthar