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My friends and I here in Albuquerque have been playing a lot with the current Civ IV Warlords patch, v2.08, recently and in comparing notes we are chagrined to observe difficulties we have experienced from an earlier Civ IV (vanilla) version.
It “feels” like the current version Warlords patch, v2.08 is using an earlier Civ IV design (engine?) that had several design flaws which we felt were corrected with the Warlords (vanilla) release. Here’s what we are seemingly detecting:
1. The AI levels, in difficulty, have reverted to “easy” at Noble and “excessively difficult” at Prince. We suspect the AI’s bonuses for research and hammer production seem overly high when compared to prior patchs’ Prince levels. Our experience is that a human player falls behind quickly as the computer expands rapidly and there seems little we can do to stem a human players rapid demise. Earlier patch versions of Civ 4 and the release of Civ 4 Warlord had seemed to correct these early deficiencies from Civ 4 vanilla. Now the AI difficulties seem to be back. We have been remarking about the frequent futility of our experiences of getting midway thru a game and getting overrun in both tech and our militaries and either crushed or so far behind in tech that inevitable demise follows.
2. Diplomacy relations ratings (once again) seem to make little difference in the AI’s belligerence. A “pleased” civilization now (again) attacks unexpectedly even when the new vassal option is turned off. This had been corrected we had thought in earlier versions.
3. Our biggest suspect is now game speed. Early vanilla versions of Civ 4 had a large lag time buildup as a game progressed. Subsequent patchs to Civ 4 actually corrected this where lag time virtually disappeared even deep into the game. Such lag time was also absent in the initial release of Warlords. Now with version 2.08, we are back to significant lag times. This suggests to us, a reversion to an old Civ 4 engine where lag time had been a problem.
All three of us (independently and jointly in multiplayer games) have experienced this with two of us having 2 meg of Ram and fast processors. I have also read here on Apolyton of others experiencing similar lags. It requires frequent saving and rebooting to restore lag time to acceptable levels.
For the record, we are playing huge map, normal speed, 10 AI nations, vassals, space race and technology trading turned off. These issues are encountered in both single player and multiple player games. Our game details are:
Civ Version: 208
Save Version: 200
Build Version: 2.0.8.0
Could the Warlord programmers have used an underlying older Civ 4 version for this current Warlords patch upgrade>? Is anyone else experiencing this? We’d be interested in some feedback. Civ 4 IS and has been THE Game du jour for us on and off since Civ was invented.
Thanks,
Befuddled in Albuquerque
__________________
"Pain is Scary?"
Jayne, from Firefly
It “feels” like the current version Warlords patch, v2.08 is using an earlier Civ IV design (engine?) that had several design flaws which we felt were corrected with the Warlords (vanilla) release. Here’s what we are seemingly detecting:
1. The AI levels, in difficulty, have reverted to “easy” at Noble and “excessively difficult” at Prince. We suspect the AI’s bonuses for research and hammer production seem overly high when compared to prior patchs’ Prince levels. Our experience is that a human player falls behind quickly as the computer expands rapidly and there seems little we can do to stem a human players rapid demise. Earlier patch versions of Civ 4 and the release of Civ 4 Warlord had seemed to correct these early deficiencies from Civ 4 vanilla. Now the AI difficulties seem to be back. We have been remarking about the frequent futility of our experiences of getting midway thru a game and getting overrun in both tech and our militaries and either crushed or so far behind in tech that inevitable demise follows.
2. Diplomacy relations ratings (once again) seem to make little difference in the AI’s belligerence. A “pleased” civilization now (again) attacks unexpectedly even when the new vassal option is turned off. This had been corrected we had thought in earlier versions.
3. Our biggest suspect is now game speed. Early vanilla versions of Civ 4 had a large lag time buildup as a game progressed. Subsequent patchs to Civ 4 actually corrected this where lag time virtually disappeared even deep into the game. Such lag time was also absent in the initial release of Warlords. Now with version 2.08, we are back to significant lag times. This suggests to us, a reversion to an old Civ 4 engine where lag time had been a problem.
All three of us (independently and jointly in multiplayer games) have experienced this with two of us having 2 meg of Ram and fast processors. I have also read here on Apolyton of others experiencing similar lags. It requires frequent saving and rebooting to restore lag time to acceptable levels.
For the record, we are playing huge map, normal speed, 10 AI nations, vassals, space race and technology trading turned off. These issues are encountered in both single player and multiple player games. Our game details are:
Civ Version: 208
Save Version: 200
Build Version: 2.0.8.0
Could the Warlord programmers have used an underlying older Civ 4 version for this current Warlords patch upgrade>? Is anyone else experiencing this? We’d be interested in some feedback. Civ 4 IS and has been THE Game du jour for us on and off since Civ was invented.
Thanks,
Befuddled in Albuquerque
__________________
"Pain is Scary?"
Jayne, from Firefly
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