Technical bugs

[Willem]

Re: Technical bugs

Originally posted by Arne26
I didn't found a possiblity to change the 540 rounds which ends the game.

Try Marathon speed, it has 1200 turns. Granted the techs take longer to research and things take longer to build, but I found I had time to get into all the later techs. In my first game I started researching Future Tech 1 when the game ended.

Oh and BTW, there's a huge difference between Civ 3 and 4. Obviuosly you haven't played it much if you can't see that.

As for Missionaries, as was pointed out, you don't conquer with them. All you can do is establish your religion in a city. When you do that, if you have built the Shrine, you get 1 gold in your treasury, and if it's also your state religion, you can see every unit that's in that city plus one square around it.

[Silbeg]

Originally posted by 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.

Not sure that is always the best option... from what I understand there is a large benefit to actually keeping it closed... and making sure your fans are set up to route air into the case on one side and out the other. I usually have intake fans on the front (where they have better access to cool air), and output on the back. If you have the case open, air doesn't always flow... just can sit there.

Another thing, have you updated to 1.52? You may see some improvements there.

[Arne26]

Another thing, have you updated to 1.52?

Sure I did!

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Jabutron
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.

Nope. I always get the Great Person.

[Henrik]

In the first version I missed out on the great merchant when using liberalism to get economics. Instead this merchant was given to the second civ to develop economics...
Haven't had that in the newer versions though.

[MightyTiny]

Originally posted by 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.

Weird timing... Very soon after I had followed this discussion I started getting an overheating beep alarm from my computer while playing Civ4. (Last night actually)

Checked my CPU and motherboard temperatures, and no problem there.... Then I checked my graph card temperature, and it was pretty close to the boiling point of water!

Turns out my graph card fan had died. Just installed a new (somewhat overkill) cooling system on my graph card, so problem dealt with.

I probably contributed to my graph fan dying though being very negligent in cleaning my case out of dust; won't be making that mistake again. So people, DO bother to clean the insides of your computer occasionally!

But what really got me was that the cooling system I bought had my graph card on it's "compatible products" list, but in reality, it was only MOSTLY compatible... meaning that while everything else fit together perfect, it had two types of power-connectors to chose from to use in getting the power from the graph card, and NEITHER was compatible with the socket on my graph card.

I ended up doing some rather inelegant jerry-rigging, involving cliping/stripping cords, and replacing a connector with the connector from my broken fan. Yeah, I know, I can kiss the warranty goodbye....

Got it working fine, and sent feedback to the manufacturer of the cooling system containing an appropriate level of and .

So anyone with a Connect 3D Ati Radeon 9600XT - The ATI Silencer 1 (Rev. 2) by Arctic Cooling is NOT fully compatible with your card, despite what the manufacturer claims. You can get it to work, but only with warranty-killing jerry-rigging.

[Quillan]

Arne, my first thought is that something is wrong there. If your CPU is running at 80C, I assume that either your heatsink is clogged with dust, the fan isn't turning full speed (if at all), or you've lost all the thermal compound between the heatsink and processor. On my old system, I had a really good (and really HUGE) heatsink with an 80mm fan on it, which kept the CPU temp down. I never saw a CPU temp higher than 51C, and it was usually in the 40s even under load. I'd start by cleaning it and checking the fan, then try removing it, cleaning it, and reapplying a new coat of a good thermal compound (Arctic Silver 5 would be my recommendation), and reattaching it. If all that doesn't even help, then I'd look into a new heatsink. My old one was an Alpha, but it won't fit all motherboards. My current one is a Thermalright.

[Orky]

Note: you need a very THIN layer of thermal compound between CPU and fan, because it needs to fill any irregularities in the metal contact surfaces of those two devices. It conducts heat better than air, but worse than the metal itself, so you need a thin layer to fill all the tiny gaps, but keep as much of the metal contact surfaces as possible touching eachother.

[Arne26]

Hi!
My computer system was always a little warmer in the 50-60C with an Arctic cooler on top, but never made any problems until now with CIV4. I don't want to over stress this heating problem, but just use it as an indicator for very full load processing on a constant time.
This is something that the developer of the game should address at least in future games. It is nice if a game is running with the newest hardware feature sponsered by the manufactures of graphic cards, but a game should run although on computer which are 3 years old and have an onboard graphic card. If they developed 2,5 years on the game they should be able to be played on a normal consumer PC out of the box from the supermarket at the time they started to program the game. This would mean something like a AMD XP 1800 with a NVIDIA Geforce 3 MX or even less for the CIV4. In a lot of countries they still sell such computers, for example in eastern europe.
Actually the first thing when starting a new project is: go and buy consumer computer in midprice range at a local supermarket, even not a special computer store. Maybe even in different major market countries. And then they should NOT make any changes to the system. No updates to anything. If the game is runnig on this maschine then on most of all computer of the buyers of the game.

A test on a super power computer of some hardcore game freaks with the oldest part of their computer just 3 month is no test! And beta tester are such hardcore gamer!

I personally always swith off all the graphic features anyway, because I prefer a fast game follow. After 1 game you have enjoyied the beauty of the graphic, pace is really what counts! I wouldn't need 3d graphics at all.

[MightyTiny]

While I agree in principle that the speed at which the technical requirements build up from game to game is ridiculous, I don't think that a game developer can afford to do what you suggest.

With that sort of a tactic, the graphics would look very dated compared to what was out there when the game came out, and while it wouldn't matter that much to low-end users, there most probably would be a significant reduction in sales to the majority that uses PC:s for gaming. If ALL games were required to do this, then I think it would be feasible, and even desireable. But as it is, we're stuck with the sub-optimal (for consumers) requirement that if you want to be able to play newly released games, then you do have to update your components more often than you otherwise would.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MightyTiny
With that sort of a tactic, the graphics would look very dated compared to what was out there when the game came out, and while it wouldn't matter that much to low-end users, there most probably would be a significant reduction in sales to the majority that uses PC:s for gaming.

Not necessarily. Even integrated graphics cards can handle 1024x768x16 quite handily. The only games that make a demand on the graphics capability of your computer are the action games (shooters, etc.) Strategy games should not be that graphical heavily.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Not necessarily. Even integrated graphics cards can handle 1024x768x16 quite handily. The only games that make a demand on the graphics capability of your computer are the action games (shooters, etc.) Strategy games should not be that graphical heavily.

*points to Age of Empires series*

Even strategy games are getting graphic heavy (or what we consider to be graphic heavy)

[Arne26]

I was playing hot seat game and used a GP to research "göttliches Recht" (whats the correct translation?), but the GP was dissolved but never got the tech. The next GP were overing the same tech all the time again and finally I had to research it myself again.
A clear technical bug!

Also the use of same technology and wonders if you have alliances are not really working, but this was just a feeling. Was missing all the time something but didn't know what. Ressources were definately not shared.

[snoopy369]

I've researched Divine Right literally dozens of time w/GPs without problem. However, you don't get the full tech with a GP at that level of tech - only some beakers toward it. It warns you of this in advance.

"Permanent" alliances, the sharing seems to work fine for me ... that's the only time they're supposed to work that way (either ahead of game set up, or way late in the game as a diplo option, like modern era).

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
*points to Age of Empires series*

Even strategy games are getting graphic heavy (or what we consider to be graphic heavy)

There are strategies to those games?