v1.00 BUG Reports

[Oggog]

HOTSEAT BUG

First player can trade anything to second player, but second player cannot trade anything back to the first player. It does not matter who initiates the trade. Open borders is the only mutual trade that works. Other than that, nothing trades.

[Kool-Aid Man]

Great Person Wierdness

This is not a graphics problem, but it is pissing me off anyway.

I created a great person, who i then ordered to discover computers. it did its little dance with lights, and then nothing. the next turn, computers is one tech that i am able to research!!! this made me very angry, and it has happened twice now. when i tell them to do something else, like create an academy or whatever, it works fine. anyone else have this problem?

i have:

Pentium M 1.8
768 MB ram
80 Gb HD
x600 ATI mobility
XP Home SP2

firaxis! next time you come out with the new version of your flagship game, i will NOT buy it right away. i have lost all trust in your company, and in sid meier. this game is so buggy it should not have been released until next year.

[Rommel2D]

WAD

Great Persons do not generate enough beakers to discover advanced techs in one turn. If you select computers next turn it should show a large number of accumulated beakers, just not enough to discover the tech yet...

[opaque]

Why do half the people who report a bug finish their post with...

"OMG this game is the buggiest thing since an ants nest! Firaxis released a shoddy rushed product and they need to get their act together or I'm never buying another game from them ever again...ever..."

Stop exaggerating so much!

[Kool-Aid Man]

hey now opaque, we all have the right to have high expectations. and i didnt say i would not buy from them again, i said i wouldnt buy it immediately after release.

[opaque]

Fair enough, but the odd bug or two in the gameplay is to be expected. I have no doubt that Firaxis will release a couple of patches that will correct the major problems. It's not that buggy! I have it installed on two machines and one (my laptop) is under spec. It runs badly, but it runs.

Maybe I was just lucky but I think the serious problems come from people who expected Civ IV to have little graphical improvements and thought they could get away with installing it on an outdated machine. I really like the graphics, but I'd have liked Civ to be a game I can run quite happily on a 1 year old laptop.

[Kool-Aid Man]

i agree that many people expected civ to simply be a step up from civ 3. i was bitterly disappointed when i could not play the game well on my celeron m 1.5 with intel graphics laptop, but then i suddenly didnt care anymore when i got my new 10 lb fujitsu monster laptop last week.... it was simply a matter of my perspective.

fortunately, civ 3 is still fun to play, if some act of god takes my new sweet computer away

[Eagle Scream]

Originally posted by Venger
Still screwed up. Things works for a few turns before the renderer dies. Check the attached picture out. Game was running fine for 3 or 4 turns. Then, I clicked on the advisors, cycling through the buttons. Then I hit one... nothing, but it started to bog. Hit the close option on the advisor, think started bogging bad, like before, and you can see the results .

Color me extraordinarily disappointed in the finished product. Which sucks, because reading the manual, it seems the gameplay aims were just right (and many were ones I modded onto Civ3 myself). But there is something not right with this game engine.

Venger

Not sure if anyone answered you on this but the screen shot you posted looks a lot like what the game looked like on mine before I upgraded my video card (just bought a Nvidia 256mb card (6200). Though the drivers for that card are still not tweaked perfectly yet but the game does at least work without crashing for the most part (with the 81.85 driver and all settings on low) so I am content for now.

[piotrr]

Originally posted by Venger
Still screwed up. Things works for a few turns before the renderer dies. Check the attached picture out.

My wife got that on her ATI Radeon 9550. After several days of trouble-shooting, I finally chased the problem down to the setting for SUPPORT DXT TEXTURES (texture compression) in your ATI Drivers control panel.

How to get there:
- Right-click desktop
- Click "Properties".
- Go to tab "Settings"
- Click button "Advanced"
- Go to tab "ATI 3D"
- Make sure "Direct3D" is selected.
- Click button "Compatibility"
- Check radio button "Disabled" under "DXT-texture support".

Some button or tab names above may not be exact - I'm looking at a Swedish-language Windows XP professional for reference.


Texture compression isn't a problem on my own 9800 XT video card, but I have extensively mapped the problem here, and changing the DXT setting to off is the one way which lets her load huge savegames, and avoid that particular display corruption, where surfaces turn black.

I could have sworn the effect was a result of hardware damage, overclocking or undervoltage, but that exact computer has had my 9800XT mounted in it without heat- or power issues, so the 9550 shouldn't even make the system or PSU break a sweat. Apparently texture corruption sets in on the ATI Radeon 9550 only when texture compression is enabled - hopefully future drivers can circumvent this, but neither 5.9, 5.10 or 5.11 Catalyst drivers had any effect.

[Urban Ranger]

I am still having awful crashing problems. Turning down graphics settings helps some, in the sense that it doesn't crash that often, and when that happens the box isn't frozen solid.

[piotrr]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I am still having awful crashing problems. Turning down graphics settings helps some, in the sense that it doesn't crash that often, and when that happens the box isn't frozen solid.

Do you get it regularily? As in, would you notice the difference if I asked you to turn off texture compression and see if it has any effect?


/ Per

[Eagle Scream]

I am now in year 1956 in my settler game (I think settler, whatever is second lowest) and I am starting to have a ton of problems again (this is the second game I have played). The game has crashed on me 3 times since I last wrote and has frozen up for 10 seconds or more numerous times. Even ending the game and rebooting does not help. The game is UNSTABLE and 2k better come out with a patch soon or get Nvidia or ATI (I dont care which since I can return the card and get a new one in 30 days) to get drivers which work for their game. What I cannot figure is how the hell did gamespot and IGN give the game 9.4. Sure it is a great game but seriously did those reviewers actually play a game into the year 2000. No way cause from what I have read and experienced the game is way too buggy once you start getting past the year 1900. Too bad as the game looks great but well what is the point of playing a game that freezes/crashes regularly.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by piotrr
Do you get it regularily? As in, would you notice the difference if I asked you to turn off texture compression and see if it has any effect?

/ Per

Mine uses nVidia FX5500, so the device driver may be a bit diferent. But I will take a look at that when I get home tonight.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Eagle Scream
What I cannot figure is how the hell did gamespot and IGN give the game 9.4. Sure it is a great game but seriously did those reviewers actually play a game into the year 2000.

Likely not. They might have played the tutorial, and an hour or two of a real game at a low difficulty level setting. They probably have some pretty powerful rigs too, so they can also test the latest shooters and the like.

[sabrewolf]

Re: Great Person Wierdness

Originally posted by Kool-Aid Man
I created a great person, who i then ordered to discover computers. it did its little dance with lights, and then nothing. the next turn, computers is one tech that i am able to research!!! this made me very angry, and it has happened twice now. when i tell them to do something else, like create an academy or whatever, it works fine. anyone else have this problem?

i had this too. with the fission tech. he offered to participate something like 1800 beakers and i didn't get a single bit of it


btw, academy is nice but even if it adds 30 beakers you'd have to play 60 turns for it to break even. in the late game your science power cities will often already have an academy...