The Official Apolyton Bug List

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Zzyzx
And courthouses DO NOT WORK.

Oh yes they do! At one point I had around 15 shields wasted in a city. A turn later, then the courthouse was built, the number of wasted shields was reduced to only 11-12 per turn, if I remember it correctly. You just have to learn to play the game according to these new rules. Dont expand too far away, and dont build beyond 8-10 cities under despotism & monarchy.

If they change these corruption-rules, they so limit themselves to a small adjustment only, in order to avoid 1 shield produced vs 8-10 shields wasted situations. They shouldnt change the current corruption-levels - only make courthouses a little more worthwhile and effective then they are at present. But not 50% reduced corruption - thats too much.

[Skard]

Originally posted by Skard
I've seen this on the buglist, but just to make sure that it isn't mistaken for a mac-only error:

Whenever I try to run Civ3, I get the splash screen and then I get an invalid page fault on ~DF394B.TMP. Oddly enough, if I re-install DirectX or change my video card drivers, Civ3 wiill run, however, rebooting will cause the error to return. This seems to be copy-protection related, as the no-CD executable from gamecopyworld.com will work.

Windows 98, P2-350, 256mb RAM, TNT2, sb128PCI

I've found a workaround for this - removed my CD-RW, and the game works perfectly.

Note to Firaxis: This had better not be like this post-patch. This is the worst workaround I have ever had to do to make a game work. The mere fact a CD-RW is in the system should not affect if a game runs or not.

[RobC]

Originally posted by bahoo


What's the point of having colonies then? If I had known they weren't permanent, at least while guarded, I'd have just used a settler their instead. Invariably, with the way the AI operates, any colony you build will at some point (probably early in the game) be inundated with opposing settlers.

The point is that the resource may be in an inconvenient spot to build a city and/or you may need/want the resource sooner than you want to actually expand your empire in that direction. The most common strategic resource that I've done this for is iron, which is often in a location that's not really great to build a city in. If I want to build swordsmen quickly to sack my neighbor, but don't want to waste my settler on a poor town that won't grow, I will use one of my workers (not a captured one, because you don't have to pay maintenance for those) and plant a colony on the iron (after building a road to it). You can even access colonies across friendly civ's roads, so if the only source of iron is on the other side of your neighbor, you still have a chance to build a colony and at least temporarily have access to it. Yes, eventually colonies are worthless as culture borders expand to cover all the world's land, but in the ancient era and early middle ages, it can be useful for securing iron or horses long enough to build swordsmen or knights to take out the nearby civs so the resource will eventually be in your borders. It can also be useful for taking advantage of luxury resources that are far enough away that you don't want to build a city there yet due to the horrible corruption you would have.

[Starlite]

I can't believe how buggy this game is. Especially since I've so
been waiting for it, and now I can't play it at all. Anyway, here's
my experience.

The game shows a splash screen for about 10 seconds, then
quits (I can hear the window exit sound). As suggested in the
FAQ, I reduce my resolution to 1024x768. The game now runs
and the intro movie plays. Of course, I do not consider this a
solution, as every time I restore my resolution, I have to
reposition my icons and resize all my windows (I blame Microsoft
for a poorly designed desktop system).

Next, I experience the fonts problem mentioned earlier. I figure
it's because, yet again, no-one thought to test for Large Fonts
(IMHO, any programmer who doesn't test for Large Fonts should
not only be fired for incompetence, but preferably shot). From
what I've read here, though, Large Fonts may not have anything to
do with it.

Naturally, I try to ignore the problems for now and start a New
Game. I select the default world settings but with extra Barbarians.
But as soon as I try to move on from the world selection screen,
the program performs an Illegal Operation and Windows tells me
so with an unequivocal error message.

Fabulous.

I'm running Windows 95c on a Celeron 450 with 192MB RAM and a
LeadTek GeForce DDR video card. My normal resolution is
1280x1024x32bpp using Large Fonts. This is the first time that's
been a problem.

While I'm at it, has anyone noted the problems with the manual?
It's poorly written, frequently ambiguous (so can Tundra be
transformed to more friendly terrain or not?), and the tutorial is a
disgrace.

Add to that the absence of easy-to-access cards for the terrain
and unit tables, and the fact the CDs in the Limited Edition come
in a cardboard folder that's certain to damage them...

There seems to be a real lack of care in the release of this
much-anticipated game. Surely they could have held off
another month and still made Christmas?

OTOH, I did love the intro movie!

[phix]

Anyone else run into this?

It was 2030. I was notified that the game would end in 2050 (Chieftan level - Hey I felt like kicking some easy ass)

It was a HUGE map, with 16 civs (13 left) I was the English, and decided to restart my war against the babylonians half way across the map.

So, I went into diplomacy, and with our peace treaty only 5 turns old. I demanded that the Babylonians give me ALL 25+ of their cities. They declined.

Then I demanded all of their cities and their world map, territory map, all their available resources (oil and coal and rubber) and all their money (20 gold) and 50 gold a turn.

Once again, they declined.

Then I attempted the same demands, in trade for one gold.

And the game froze. Never coming back... 15 minutes. Win2k Task Manager showed it as "Not Responding"

Anyone else run into the game crashing or freezing while demanding everything a country has to offer or during a rediculous trade?

[Sevorak]

I was recently trying to play with the espionage a bit, I went to 80% tax or something like that, for 800+ gold a turn, and planted a spy and started fooling around trying to do some odd little things. Since I wasn't using too much gold, in due time my spy got captured. I was then booted back - to the Espionage screen, where I was able to order my spy to try to do something else, even though she was technically exposed/captured/dead. She got caught and killed about ten times. I don't know whether that was an auto-failure due to the game's realizing that the spy's not there, or only because I was trying all the "Immediately" low-probability options.

Could someone try to fail a few times with their spy to see if they experience this as well?

-Sev

[Raging Mouse]

Originally posted by Ralf


I agree - I have never enjoyed any "free shoots", like the manual states.

But, in addition to above: shouldnt a string of fortresses 2 tiles apart, with the correct units in them (cavalry, for example) also prevent enemy land-units from slipping through altogether - actually forcing them to attack some of these fortresses if they want to advance further? Or have the Civ-2 style ZOC-ability, been softened up in Civ-3?

1) Free shots do work; it's happened to me. They're just uncommon, that's all.

2) Yup, ZOC-rules are different. Check out the manual in the chapter for experienced players (that's you and me who have played other civs -not necessarily good players).

[sophist]

multiple palaces under construction simultaneously

I accidentally ran into a bug where I could be building the palace in multiple locations at once. What's odd is that I couldn't build it all over the place; at about 10 or 12 simultaneous palaces, the option became greyed out. Even more oddly, I couldn't do that at another point in the game (the save from 1790 allowed this; the save from 1838 didn't). I don't know what's up, but I've got screens (had to upload cropped ones; vbulletin rejected bigger files). I also still have the save game file.

[sophist]

From the domestic advisor screen. I have bigger shots, but vBulletin isn't cooperating. And I have the save game for it too.

The palace images look different because of an artwork-only mod that I'm using. Nothing else has been touched.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Raging Mouse
1) Free shots do work; it's happened to me. They're just uncommon, that's all.

Free shoots that occur rarely, and/or with frequent misses are next to 100% useless, the way is see it.

2) Yup, ZOC-rules are different. Check out the manual in the chapter for experienced players (that's you and me who have played other civs -not necessarily good players).

If above is true, then fortress-related ZOC is not "different". It simply doesnt exist. Its gone all together.

[cousLee]

pollution bug affects more than just food. It affects all 3 items from that tile. And once the pollution is cleared, I can replace the worker there and reap double benefit. It corrects itself when the population grows. If I stagnate the city growth, it will remain for the rest of the game. (which allows me to use the worker previously needed to get the food for stagnation to be used on a no food tile. ie, mountain/mine). I know it's on the first page, but there it only mentioned the food. Pollution is a boon if it strikes hill/gold with railroad/mine.

[Ralf]

A harmless, but strange bug:

When my computer goes into "sleep-mode" (= everything saved to RAM, while the rest of my PC closes down) - then start up my PC again; the official brown/yellow Civ-3 Uninstall/Play screen pops up automatically.

My mainboard is EPOX 8KHA+ (VIA KT266A).

[sophist]

That's most likely a flaw in the Windows sleep-mode implementation. Do other CDs auto-run when coming out of sleep mode?

Originally posted by Ralf
A harmless, but strange bug:

When my computer goes into "sleep-mode" (= everything saved to RAM, while the rest of my PC closes down) - then start up my PC again; the official brown/yellow Civ-3 Uninstall/Play screen pops up automatically.

My mainboard is EPOX 8KHA+ (VIA KT266A).

[Gramphos]

Graphical issue:
When you are zoomed out on a game and loads a game the only redrawn area is the one in the middle. (See the attached image)

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Gramphos
Graphical issue:
When you are zoomed out on a game and loads a game the only redrawn area is the one in the middle. (See the attached image)

I've tested again, and it seem to happen when you load a first turn game over a game with more sight, and all FOW in the back-game is removed as well.