Tests can be wrong too, and it is worth telling the story of one that was.
Our campaign robot plays the mid-game by jumping to day 90. Last autumn it reported something alarming: at day 90 there was not a single walled settlement on the map. Thirteen open villages, nothing to besiege. If true, the whole siege game had no target.
Before touching the game we measured the real thing: three worlds, simulated day by day. At day 90 each had six or seven closed palisades. The game was right.
The robot was the liar. Its shortcut changed the calendar to day 90 without simulating the days in between, so the "ninety-day-old" world had lived seventeen. We fixed the robot to run the world for real, and added a probe that fails if it ever again lands in a mid-game with no walls.
The lesson we took: when a test says the game is broken, check the test with the same suspicion.
Age of Medieval is developed by UnderStudio in UnderStudio 2D and published by Brasa Interactive. It releases on 17 May 2027.
Age of Medieval on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3259670/
Official site: https://ageofmedieval.com/
