Technical bugs

[Arne26]

Hi!
I just got Civ4 now for 3 days. Installed the latest patch, but still have a lot of bugs.

First is that traded technologies were not recognized as purchased. I had to research them again. Sometimes, not always which make it hard to reproduce the error. I think this and the following 2 error occur specially if you played a game, stopped it and start an other game or load a previouse game without a reboot between.

If I build wonders which should put a building in each city they don't do it. I have to build this buildings again.

If I have hospitals I get only 1 promotion like with the barracks, not 2 like it should be.

In generall the usage of the CPU (AMD 3000 XP) is definately permanent on the limit which causes overheating problems. After a few hours I have to switch of the computer because the hardware alarm is beeping. Some help is to switch of the musik. Some advice or warning you should tell everybody.

I didn't found a possiblity to change the 540 rounds which ends the game. My typical problem is that in normal difficullty you can hardly research all the techs or conquer the whole planet. If you have disabled the Spaceship and diplomatic victory you can not win and the most fun of the battle with hightech units is not given.

I tried "always peace" and wanted to conquer by expanding the empire. It just didn't work. You should adjust the game for this opption for example by increasing the kulturell expantion by a factor of 4 or even higher.

I couldn't figure out how you can use missionars in conquering cities. Even entering a territory is normally not possible only if you have open borders. If you have introduced a religion in a foreign city just nothing happens. You can do it anyhow only once. They don't work as promoter of your own civ.

[MightyTiny]

Answering to some of your questions/problems here:

If I build wonders which should put a building in each city they don't do it. I have to build this buildings again.

I think that with such wonders, they provide the effect of the improvement, without actually putting it in the other cities. So, for example, if you build a stonehedge, obelisks won't magically materialise in all your cities, but your cities will generate culture as if they had an obelisk. You don't need to build obelisks after this, although you can - I don't think that building obelisks in addition to the stonehedge has any effect.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong here.

If I have hospitals I get only 1 promotion like with the barracks, not 2 like it should be.

You aren't supposed to get a promotion from having a hospital in a city that builds the unit - hospitals don't do that. The Red Cross national wonder is what gives you the medic promotion, and it only provides that promotion in the city it was built in. I think that to be able to build the Red Cross, you need to have a certain number of hospitals built in your cities throughout your empire. Don't really know how many though.

I didn't found a possiblity to change the 540 rounds which ends the game. My typical problem is that in normal difficullty you can hardly research all the techs or conquer the whole planet. If you have disabled the Spaceship and diplomatic victory you can not win and the most fun of the battle with hightech units is not given.

In custom games, you can also disable the "Time" victory condition. Then the game won't end with time running out.

I tried "always peace" and wanted to conquer by expanding the empire. It just didn't work. You should adjust the game for this opption for example by increasing the kulturell expantion by a factor of 4 or even higher.

Hmm... I don't personally understand why you think one SHOULD be able to conquer a signficant number of cities through cultural influence faster. I'd imagine that such a way of conquering cities is theoretically possible, but would take a VERY loong time, which is, I think, as it should be. I mean how often do you see cities "flipping" over to other nations through revolt in the real world?

I couldn't figure out how you can use missionars in conquering cities. Even entering a territory is normally not possible only if you have open borders. If you have introduced a religion in a foreign city just nothing happens. You can do it anyhow only once. They don't work as promoter of your own civ.

I don't know where you got the idea that you should be able to conquer cities with missionaries. Spreading your religion to your opponent's cities certainly doesn't mean that you gain control over those cities! And quite naturally, if you don't have an open borders agreement with another neighbour, your missionary can't cross the border. Missionaries aren't offensive units used for conquering, OR covert units that could cross borders without permission like spies.

But this doesn't mean that missionaries or religion are useless; there's a lot more to the game than just conquering cities. If you found a religion, AND build the holy shrine of that religion, and THEN spread the religion to your cities, and the cities of your adversaries, then you get 1 gold per turn per every city that has that religion, and you gain intel into what's happening in all the cities that have that religion. (Now that I think about it, for this intel, you might have to have the religion you founded as your state religion - somebody confirm this please.) To build a holy shrine for the religion, you need to get a Great Prophet, take it to the city where the religion was founded, and you can then use the GP there to build the shrine.

Also, several civics give bonuses to your cities with your state religion, so that's the reason to use missionaries to spread the religion within your own empire.

Also, if you spread your state religion to the cities of another nation, you will then be able to ask that nation's leader to switch to that religion. If they then agree to do this, you get diplomatic bonuses for sharing the same religion with them.

[Arne26]

I think that with such wonders, they provide the effect of the improvement, without actually putting it in the other cities. So, for example, if you build a stonehedge, obelisks won't magically materialise in all your cities, but your cities will generate culture as if they had an obelisk. You don't need to build obelisks after this, although you can - I don't think that building obelisks in addition to the stonehedge has any effect.

You wonna say that you can build "twice" the same building?
You have the "The Three Gorges Dam" and can additionally build Hydro Plant?

You aren't supposed to get a promotion from having a hospital in a city that builds the unit - hospitals don't do that. The Red Cross national wonder is what gives you the medic promotion, and it only provides that promotion in the city it was built in. I think that to be able to build the Red Cross, you need to have a certain number of hospitals built in your cities throughout your empire. Don't really know how many though.

You are right. You need 6 hospitals to build Red Cross.

Hmm... I don't personally understand why you think one SHOULD be able to conquer a signficant number of cities through cultural influence faster. I'd imagine that such a way of conquering cities is theoretically possible, but would take a VERY loong time, which is, I think, as it should be. I mean how often do you see cities "flipping" over to other nations through revolt in the real world?

Hej this is a game! It would be a interesting new kind of strategy. I read about this in articles and was very curious about it, but it works basically just once in a game. The rest of civ4 is just a nicer graphic of civ3. It's boring old and not worth to pay more than 50 Euros if you have already civ3, especially if you have to reduce all graphic features because of your hardware.

[MightyTiny]

You wonna say that you can build "twice" the same building?
You have the "The Three Gorges Dam" and can additionally build Hydro Plant?

Actually you wouldn't be building the same building twise - The Three Gorges Dam in one city is physically one single structure, a single dam, and has the EFFECT of having a hydro plant in every one of your cities, since it provides electricity for those cities. You don't actually get the hydro plants, you just get the benefit you could alternatively get by building hydro plants. You can still build hydro plants, there's nothing stopping you from doing so, but since you already have all the benefits that such a plant would give, having built the Three Gorges Plant, you'd gain nothing extra by building a hydro plant.

Hej this is a game! It would be a interesting new kind of strategy. I read about this in articles and was very curious about it, but it works basically just once in a game.

Well, in many of my games, I've had several cities flip to my side through the expansion of cultural influence. And I certainly understand that it's a game, and not realistic in many aspects, but I still think that maintaining certain level of realism is a good thing.

In addition, you do of course understand that if it is possible for you to expand your cultural borders enough to engulf border cities from other cultures, then it is of couse possible for your opponents to do the same. If they see you striving to flip cities through culture, then why shouldn't the AI's react by increasing the production of culture in their cities, and thus counteract your efforts to get more cities?

I just don't think that extensive conquests through cultural flipping only is doable without making the AI simply play very idiotically, "blind" to culture development.

The rest of civ4 is just a nicer graphic of civ3. It's boring old and not worth to pay more than 50 Euros if you have already civ3, especially if you have to reduce all graphic features because of your hardware.

I wouldn't jump to conclusions that fast - your questions do reveal that you couldn't have played many games on it yet. I didn't play Civ3 when it came out, but from what I've gathered from reading these forums is that Civ4 is a HUGE improvement, simply because it adds depth to the game that isn't apparent immediately. You might draw the conclusion that it's just more of the same if you judge it after just a few games, without trying out different things, simply because most of the improvements are below the surface.

On successive games you'll notice new things just about every game, find new strategies, learn to use your leader's traits more effectively, learn to use diplomacy to your advantage to add a new dimension to your games, and generally will see that there truly are a multitude of different strategies and playing styles you can go for to achieve a win.

Also, it's worth it to try different game speeds: playing a game on Standard speed or Marathon provides a COMPLETELY different game experience (I heartily recommend Marathon for anyone interested in conquest/domination type of games).

Also, Civ4 doesn't seem to have any glaring exploits that would make the game unbalanced; it isn't just about learning one good trick, then using it in all your games and beating every computer AI senseless so easily that you'll get bored soon.

If you think that changes and improvements in Civ4 are only superficial, then you just haven't played it enough to discover the deeper improvements.

[alva]

In generall the usage of the CPU (AMD 3000 XP) is definately permanent on the limit which causes overheating problems.

How hot is it getting? It seems odd that it only starts to overheat after a couple of hours, why not sooner?

I have the same processor and while I do have a very good fan, it's the only one I use (other than the one for the powerbox). No motherboard fan, nothing but silence.
My cpu temp at the moment (lot's of programs loaded (Visual studio, SQL Server, and others) and my temp is 43° C and the MB temp is 36° C.

[Arne26]

How hot is it getting? It seems odd that it only starts to overheat after a couple of hours, why not sooner?I have the same processor and while I do have a very good fan, it's the only one I use (other than the one for the powerbox). No motherboard fan, nothing but silence.My cpu temp at the moment (lot's of programs loaded (Visual studio, SQL Server, and others) and my temp is 43° C and the MB temp is 36° C.

Which Fan do you use?
Normally the mainboard alarm for the CPU is around 80°C. Didn't check it because was just shuting down.

I think it is overheating if the game progresses in bigger maps with more Units. The music player also seems to heat quit good when he was playing my own musik. If I switch off all sounds it is much better, especially because it is constantly processing the musik.

[alva]

80°C

Is the fan cluttered with dust or something? I know I had to clean my previous one quite often.
Also, how is your airflow? (that's one quetion that could taken the wrong way if taken out of context. )

I don't use the stock cooler but can't remember it's brand. I set me back about 30 - 40 €, so it wasn't cheap but well worth it imo.

[Jabutron]

I'd like to add one more possible bug:

has anyone been the first to research a tech that gives a Great Person, but not get the GP? Once I researched Liberalism, which gives a free tech. I chose Economics for the free tech, which gives a Great Merchant. I never got the GM. Same with Music and Fusion; I never got the GA or GS.

Am I misunderstanding something, and the free people show up as super specialists? Is the AI beating me to the the tech by 15ms? Also, what is the order of play? If an AI and I are set to get the same tech on the same turn, who gets the freebie?

[GeoModder]

If you see those techs tradeable to the AI civs after you researched it (provided they have the prerequisite techs of course) then you should have received the bonus. If not, they beat you to it.

Also, for Liberalism, there's a notification: "the [insert civ] civilisation is the first to discover Liberalism."

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Arne26


Which Fan do you use?
Normally the mainboard alarm for the CPU is around 80°C. Didn't check it because was just shuting down.

I think it is overheating if the game progresses in bigger maps with more Units. The music player also seems to heat quit good when he was playing my own musik. If I switch off all sounds it is much better, especially because it is constantly processing the musik.

I think you need to plug your PC out open it up, and hoover the dust inside it and inside the CPU fan Grills (as much as you can)... after that you should not have so many problems with heat.

80 is very high temp btw... I used to run AXP's up to 70, but no more, and the highest temp I got on a proc while it was still working was 90, but that was the old XP 1400+ and they might have had better temp resilience than the newer ones.

Anyhow hoovering and removing dust should be one of your priorites Just make sure that you unplug your PC, and try not to touch anything with your hands if you don't have to.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

btw... any game is processor hog, so this shutdown should be happeining if you play just about anything for the same period of time.

[alva]

Be carefull with hovering though. Don't turn on your PC immediately afterwards.

BTW, the AMD 1400 (Thunderbird) was indee renowned for it's temperature. I too had one of those...for a short while anyway.

[MightyTiny]

Just one more cautionary:

Whenever you open up the computer, be sure to touch some grounded metal before touching anything inside; you want to be sure that you don't have any static electricity in you that might produce a spark. The electronic components are very sensitive to that sort of thing, and you can do damage with a little spark.

(Happened to me once, when I forgot to ground myself when installing some new hardware - a tiny spark of electricity jumped from my finger to my sound card. Fortunately it was a relatively cheap component that got the spark, because it killed it.)

[Arne26]

Hi!
My computer is always open for cooling and good air circulation. I'm almost permanently on with a lot of programs and games and this overheating only happens with civ4. Also playing civ3 for days didn't heat it up this much. I'm hardcore gamer for years.

Cleaning the dust is always a good thing from time to time.

BTW: Did anyone else also experience complet crashes of the game?
I had it in 6 games now already 2 times. Just by ending the turn it crashes and shuts down to Windows desktop with error sending report.

has anyone been the first to research a tech that gives a Great Person, but not get the GP? Once I researched Liberalism, which gives a free tech. I chose Economics for the free tech, which gives a Great Merchant. I never got the GM. Same with Music and Fusion; I never got the GA or GS.

Yes, I also had the feeling that I didn't recieved the free tech or GP, but never could proov if already another civ has discovered it.

[Lembit]

Re: Technical bugs

Originally posted by Arne26
First is that traded technologies were not recognized as purchased. I had to research them again. Sometimes, not always which make it hard to reproduce the error. I think this and the following 2 error occur specially if you played a game, stopped it and start an other game or load a previouse game without a reboot between.

I've noticed that if you trade one of your expensive techs for two of the AI's cheaper techs you only recieve one of their Techs.