Your Worst Fear for Civ 4 (The Negativity Post)

[Darkstar]

It doesn't take much to crush Micro$oft, M@C, UN*X, LIN*X, SUN, Oracle, etc etc etc. Unless it's a trimmed, well designed, embedded OS, I've probably killed it with just a few lines of code, at one time or another in my career.

It's just as easy to get support in Italy from M$ as it is in the US. Not true of many other vendors we've dealt with.

People can think all they like that there is significant technical differences in OSes that make one superior to another. But that isn't true. It only takes a few lines of code to kill any major OS. That's why you have to be careful about what you allow to run on your important machines.

[pchang]

My worst fear is a game that is buggy and crashes a lot. My next worst fear is an AI that demands I play like ICS to beat it.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Darkstar
It doesn't take much to crush Micro$oft, M@C, UN*X, LIN*X, SUN, Oracle, etc etc etc. Unless it's a trimmed, well designed, embedded OS, I've probably killed it with just a few lines of code, at one time or another in my career.

It's just as easy to get support in Italy from M$ as it is in the US. Not true of many other vendors we've dealt with.

People can think all they like that there is significant technical differences in OSes that make one superior to another. But that isn't true. It only takes a few lines of code to kill any major OS. That's why you have to be careful about what you allow to run on your important machines.

I'm nitpicking here, but I wrote my post speaking about bugs, or accidental wrong code that (in some case) can crash the system.
You are speaking of a determined programmer that deliberatly try to avoid OS protection to crash the machine.

Same things that to compare a window accidentaly broken by a (strong) wind and a window broken by a thief, IMHO. Not fair.

You are also reducing OS robustness to the ability to resist to a deliberate attack. I'm sure you agree there are a lot more points to define a good OS. In fact, the perfect OS probably can't exist in general terms, if not in really small and defined boundaries (the embedded version you mentioned, maybe).

That said, have you really tried to obtain technical assistance here in Italy? (Again, I'm not speaking about MS, but MS included).

Well, I'm really going off topic, so please forgive me if I'll accept any your reply with my respect, but I think is better to stop my rant here and go back to the game. A game we sure hope to enjoy without any crash.

[Addled Platypus]

not a major fear

replaying a video to help with my jonz'n

out of the corner I saw sheep move, a whale break the water
and what looks like a effect the makes streams seem to move

how does this effect playability?

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by Adm.Naismith I'm nitpicking here, but I wrote my post speaking about bugs, or accidental wrong code that (in some case) can crash the system.
You are speaking of a determined programmer that deliberatly try to avoid OS protection to crash the machine.

Same things that to compare a window accidentaly broken by a (strong) wind and a window broken by a thief, IMHO. Not fair.

You are also reducing OS robustness to the ability to resist to a deliberate attack. I'm sure you agree there are a lot more points to define a good OS. In fact, the perfect OS probably can't exist in general terms, if not in really small and defined boundaries (the embedded version you mentioned, maybe).

That said, have you really tried to obtain technical assistance here in Italy? (Again, I'm not speaking about MS, but MS included).

Well, I'm really going off topic, so please forgive me if I'll accept any your reply with my respect, but I think is better to stop my rant here and go back to the game. A game we sure hope to enjoy without any crash.

No. I mean just a few accidental lines can crush any of those OSes. I've done it on all those platforms. It doesn't take much to kill any OS, if people are silly enough to run your development code on their hardened test systems. One little compilable typo is all that it takes, sometimes.

I meant that it's harder to crush a dedicated, embedded OS because it does less. Of course, they will still have their own holes--- everything of any significant code mass will have serious holes and vulnerabilities/delicacies, by virtue of its framing, compilation, or just program designer presumptions.

I've never physically worked in Italy, nor tried to get tech support for a team member in Italy. But I have in other places. M$ has done a better job of being able to provide support globally then other vendors we've dealt with. That isn't to say that they made us happy and managed to fix (or instruct us how to fix) all of our issues. But they put an effort into trying, regardless of our location. Unlike SUN, Oracle or Apple, to name just a few of our major vendors that we've needed support from.

But that's OT.

As for Civ4, we are getting closer and closer to finding out just how much fun it will be for ourselves. Only a few weeks away from it shipping to shelves, since it's been bumped up to Oct 31/Nov 1 now. Who would imagine this wonder would come out of Hot Coffee?

[Provost Harrison]

My worst fear is that they release another world map like that

[Swissy]

My worse fear has happened, a game released beacuse the publisher needs the finacial bump, not that the game is anywhere near ready. My new greatest fear is that many feature we expect to be in the game will be pushed off to X-packs.

Looks like TTI is no better than Atari when it comes to the civ franchise. Looks like we have been sold another bill of goods.

[Russian_King]

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
My computer, even though it meets all requirements, is extremely slow and crashes occasionally while I play Sims 2.

I really hope Civ 4 doesn't do this

LOL!! i live in australia, and being an expensive land for technology, i bought a P4 3.2GHz, 512 ram, 9800XT and a good motherboard for
900 dollars!! u dont need to change ur monitor, dont need a new keyboard or mouse!, just the comp, come on!!! comps are dirt cheap these days, i don wana hear another complaint about a bad machine!

negative thing about civ4... hmmm

the combat system is different, but i dont think its so much improved, as a matter of fact, a unit's defense and attack values shouldnt be determined by the actual values, but all forces should be combined into armies, and each fight will be a short 1 minte RTS bout between 2 armies (or more, depending on how many are selected to attack and how many are on the defending square)
i think the WORST thing about civ2/3 was attacking the same position with one unit at a time over and over and over and over and over and over and over again ridiculous! so that is my worst fear.. while the combat system changes, itll still be the same repetitive crap

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by Swissy
My worse fear has happened, a game released beacuse the publisher needs the finacial bump, not that the game is anywhere near ready. My new greatest fear is that many feature we expect to be in the game will be pushed off to X-packs.

Looks like TTI is no better than Atari when it comes to the civ franchise. Looks like we have been sold another bill of goods.

Well, remember, that the MP has been being played for over a year. That means that at least a good bit of the game should be decent/polished. The parts that we have been told that were being concentrated on were the graphics and the AI. Now, the graphics can be patched later. No biggie there. But the AI? If it was left for last, it's going to suck. But then, the AI in Civ has always sucked, so that isn't really a change, is it?

[Drakan]

A dumbed-down version of Civ III.

"Ooohh, fans are whinning on pollution, corruption, worker movements, micromanagement ... you name it. Let's go simplify everything and automate it in Civ IV. They'll only have to go as far as hitting the space bar every turn ..."

[Nikolai]

You know that ain't going to happen.

[Aro]

Originally posted by Drakan
A dumbed-down version of Civ III.

"Ooohh, fans are whinning on pollution, corruption, worker movements, micromanagement ... you name it. Let's go simplify everything and automate it in Civ IV. They'll only have to go as far as hitting the space bar every turn ..."

Not Civ IV, it's already done.

But I'll put it in my "Civ V wish list"...

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by Drakan
A dumbed-down version of Civ III.

"Ooohh, fans are whinning on pollution, corruption, worker movements, micromanagement ... you name it. Let's go simplify everything and automate it in Civ IV. They'll only have to go as far as hitting the space bar every turn ..."

There are always a faction in these sorts of games that actually want that sort of thing, and ask for it. The GalCiv devs got the same kind of requests for GalCiv2, which lead them to ask the GC2 Beta forum if they should provide for that capability. We said no, of course. But then, if you are in on the Beta of a complex TBS game, you probably aren't into just hitting the space bar and watching the pretty colors.

BTW, Sid isn't against the concept. You can actually do that in SMAC (by automating everything). Indeed, by just doing the big stuff, and only controlling "important" units in SMAC and automating everything else, you can play a fast game of SMAC (ie, just 2 hours from start to win). Actually, that is a fun way to pass the time, as you feel more like the big boss in charge, rather then the only single brain involved.

[Sava]

My worst fear? The AI sucks because they worried about Multiplayer because of all the MP whiners.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Drakan
A dumbed-down version of Civ III.
"Ooohh, fans are whinning on pollution, corruption, worker movements, micromanagement ... you name it. Let's go simplify everything and automate it in Civ IV. They'll only have to go as far as hitting the space bar every turn ..."

You can't do this with "out-of-the-box" Civ IV, but you can hope in modder community.
Just ask for "the spacebar mod" into the dedicated Civ IV mod thread: someone will help.