Civilization III v1.16f Additions/Changes/Fixes

[UltraSonix]

:-(

Firstly, I haven't been back to Apolyton Civ3 in about a year... and I'm pretty sad - I wasn't going post here and was just going to read the posts a see people's reactions on the patch.

Unfortunately the reactions were mostly... uncalled for. Why does everyone feel such negativity here now? I think for Firaxis to even get the game into its current state, with all the playtesting and balancing that's required is quite an effort.
So what if it's not up to [insert your name here] standards? I think Firaxis had to make a choice between mass market appeal and satisfying hard core players like us - like Markos said somewhere, this is a captalist society - hey, at least I had fun playing it, despite the quirks.

Once upon a time threads surfaces time to time about what features we wanted in Civ3. Always two were on top: AI and improved diplomacy. I think in these main aspects Firaxis has done well... and they deserve credit for that, why so much negativity now.

Ah well, that was my two cents worth - I think it's pretty sad that the game I was looking forward to for so long has now cause the Apolyton Civ3 to end up like this

[edit]
Wow... even after this post people just don't care - quite sad indeed - ah well... I think this login will lie dormant now.

Bye all.
[/edit]

---


Ah well, to make this post relevant to the thread, though this certainly isn't the only irrelevant thread here - the patch is a good start - a minor fix that is VERY welcome is the UN thing. And I havent read any of the other threads here - but is the massive corruption even under democracy intended? Like I'd conquer half the world and most of my conquered towns will be producing 1 shield per turn and losing 15 to corruption...

[Doc Paradox]

After a long time of not playing CIV anything I finally got CIV 3 as an early xmas present and came back to the forums to see what was up.
It's made for some interesting reading during downtime.
One thing that does stand out is that there IS a huge difference of opinion on what a finished product should be. All this fuss over a product that costs a shift at McDonald's (or a billable half-hour) to buy. Granted, I've only put in 20-30 hours of gameplay on CIV3 and haven't run into many of the bugs mentioned (although not being able to run air superiority would send me through the roof) but the one sentiment that seems to make the most sense in all these bug threads is that it is a GAME folks, a really, really complex game. Hopefully the patch will fix the most egregious faults like precision bombing and air superiority and corruption. It just seems odd that some of us armchair Napoleons are ready to blow a gasket over it. What would a REAL leader do with a situation that didn't go as expected or planned, or with a less than perfect product. You work around it. The way I see it (even though I DO want the bugs fixed) is that CIV with bugs IS realism, the "Whoops, we just spent half the GDP on missle defense and it don't work" variety. It ain't a perfect world so why should we expect a perfect game?
BTW, even WITH the bugs CIV3 is computer crack and my fiancee is beginning to regret buying it for me. I just wish I had as much time to play it as some people obviously do.
P.S. This has not been a paid commercial announcement from Firaxis or Infogrammes

[vihutuo]

"Air superiority is fixed"

Thank God!!

[rjpageuk]

Doc Paradox: I agree with everything you said, I wish I had enough time to play it too!

The Moaners: I am sorry the game doesnt meet your infinite expectations, and in which case I suggest you take your lazy rear ends to a computer where you can program yourself the game you want. And stop moaning!

The Programmers: Fantastic list of fixes/additions in the patch, I hope you keep up the good work.

Note: I have been playing the Civ games since CivI, and while not really into the mod community, I have enjoyed using such mods with CivII. I have no problem with automating my workers, and watching them improve my tiles, and they have done so well, in my opinion.

I have to say that CivIII is without doubt the best Civ yet.

[Barchan]

Originally posted by Libertarian
Yin

Are you truly so isolated from ecoculture that you do not understand the difference between a developer and a producer? If your boss orders you to skimp on the cherries in your banana splits, but you try to make it up to your customers by adding a bit of extra carmel sauce, and they rag on you that you've released to them a shoddy banana split ...

Could you explain to me why those customers aren't jackasses?

Or, to make it perhaps more relevant to Yin:

Let's say your boss orders you to use pork in the beef bulgogi, because it's cheaper. You try to make it up to the customers by giving them a little extra soju on the side. This fails to quell their anger over being given cheap pork bulgogi, so they drag you outside and, using their best drunken Tae Kwan Do, kick your a$$ right into the Han river. Is this fair to you?

Firaxis is trying to make good what Infogrames made wrong, i.e. a hard release date to meet when the product wasn't quite ready. Complain about the product if you must (although if you don't own it, really, why are you still complaining? ), but please refrain from disparaging the employees at Firaxis for trying to do their best to make a bad situation better.

Lastly, for all the people who think the game is a worthless, bug-ridden piece of cr@p, try building a better one. It is far easier to destroy a thing than to create one; judging by the posts of a few malcontents on this board it is far easier still to sit idly by and criticize something. Rest assured, if you can create a better game than CivIII, I will gladly hand you fifty bucks for your efforts.

[Binni]

Hi, I'm new here and I registered because I wanted to submit my opinion on what would be a very welcome fix to the game.

The game only runs in 1024x768 resolution which IMHO is a huge mistake. Many people these days have only laptops as their primary computer and a large number of these laptops can only display 800x600 resolution. My father who is a huge Civ fan was very dissapointed with this because it means he can't play it. My girlfriend also has a 800x600 resolution only on her laptop and she wasn't very happy as well. An option to change the resolution would be a very welcome addition. I realise that playing the game with a smaller display area wouldn't be an optimal performance for the game, but at least it would mean that more people could play it.

Does anyone else have any views about this subject?

Cheers,

Binni

[Yog-Sothoth]

Originally posted by Doc Paradox

After a long time of not playing CIV anything I finally got CIV 3 as an early xmas present and came back to the forums to see what was up.

It's made for some interesting reading during downtime.

One thing that does stand out is that there IS a huge difference of opinion on what a finished product should be. All this fuss over a product that costs a shift at McDonald's (or a billable half-hour) to buy. Granted, I've only put in 20-30 hours of gameplay on CIV3 and haven't run into many of the bugs mentioned (although not being able to run air superiority would send me through the roof) but the one sentiment that seems to make the most sense in all these bug threads is that it is a GAME folks, a really, really complex game. Hopefully the patch will fix the most egregious faults like precision bombing and air superiority and corruption. It just seems odd that some of us armchair Napoleons are ready to blow a gasket over it. What would a REAL leader do with a situation that didn't go as expected or planned, or with a less than perfect product. You work around it. The way I see it (even though I DO want the bugs fixed) is that CIV with bugs IS realism, the "Whoops, we just spent half the GDP on missle defense and it don't work" variety. It ain't a perfect world so why should we expect a perfect game?

BTW, even WITH the bugs CIV3 is computer crack and my fiancee is beginning to regret buying it for me. I just wish I had as much time to play it as some people obviously do.

P.S. This has not been a paid commercial announcement from Firaxis or Infogrammes

Why should we threat software different from everything else. When you pay for something, you expect it to work (reasonably) well don't you?

And I don't think that "but software is so complex" is a good excuse for selling a buggy product. A car is a very complex machine too, but you still expect the damn thing to not break down after the first left turn.

I think one of the biggest reasons for publishers to push unfinished products out the door, is because they _know_ people will buy it regardless of bugs and patiently sit and wait for the patches to come along. As long as the public don't expect and demand relatively bugfree products, we will never get them.

/Rant of the day

Y-S

[deanco]

Urg, no sentry command there...but the build queues have been fixed, that's cool. I DO miss the sentry command, though, I gotta admit.

Originally posted by barefootbadass


Why? So your troops can prance around back and forth like the ai does?

Heheh...Yeah, patrolling the borders, making the world safe for Despotism...

I dunno, I gotta vent a bit. Seems like a several 'fixes' are actually a step backwards. Like, now the cities will build the same unit over and over again. Great news. I can't tell you how annoying it was to see my size 3 city want to build Sun Tzu's Art of War. But Civ 1 had that feature, as did Civ 2, CTP.... Communism evens out corruption now. Great. But Civ 1 had that as well, and it worked out of the box. Now you get a popup if your city is in civil disorder. Fantastic. Where did they get that idea from? The sentry command is still not there. Why? It was incredibly useful in Civ 1, and it's gone, adding to micromanagement hell.

What I'm saying is, you've got a situation where the developers took features that were basically not broken, and broke them. Now they're putting them back they way they were. I'm not ungrateful, but I'm just asking myself how many 'kudos' they really deserve for this.

DeanCo--

[Risky]

Does the patch solve the bug that some of the vivs didn't show in the diplomacy screen (F4) making it impossible to see who had alliances etc?

Otherwise sounds useful.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Yog-Sothoth
And I don't think that "but software is so complex" is a good excuse for selling a buggy product. A car is a very complex machine too, but you still expect the damn thing to not break down after the first left turn.

would you accept it if companies went out and said: "ok, we'll release 95-99% bug-free games but they will take 9-12 months more to release and their price will be double"???

[Kokuei]

Originally posted by Binni
Hi, I'm new here and I registered because I wanted to submit my opinion on what would be a very welcome fix to the game.

The game only runs in 1024x768 resolution which IMHO is a huge mistake. Many people these days have only laptops as their primary computer and a large number of these laptops can only display 800x600 resolution. My father who is a huge Civ fan was very disappointed with this because it means he can't play it. My girlfriend also has a 800x600 resolution only on her laptop and she wasn't very happy as well. An option to change the resolution would be a very welcome addition. I realise that playing the game with a smaller display area wouldn't be an optimal performance for the game, but at least it would mean that more people could play it.

Does anyone else have any views about this subject?

Cheers,

Binni

Binni,

If you check the readme file, or have a look at the threads in the Civ3 help forum, you'll see that there is a resolution setting you can set in the "civilization3.ini" file.

The line KeepRes=1 in this file will force the game to display in the same resolution as you're already in. I know this works for bigger screens, not sure what it does with smaller ones though.

Another thing to remember is that game clearly states that you have to have at least 1024x768 to play the game in the way it was intended.

Another thing is that although I know a lot of laptops will default to 800x600 resolution, that doesn't mean you can't change them to higher resolutions in Windows Control Panel.

Hope this helps.

Kokuei

[Risky]

Originally posted by MarkG
would you accept it if companies went out and said: "ok, we'll release 95-99% bug-free games but they will take 9-12 months more to release and their price will be double"???

The important thing is that patches appear early and often. In a game of this complexity there are going to be a few bugs to fix and features to tweak. Always.

[Yog-Sothoth]

Originally posted by MarkG

would you accept it if companies went out and said: "ok, we'll release 95-99% bug-free games but they will take 9-12 months more to release and their price will be double"???

You were probably just making a point, but I hardly agree that making a more or less bugfree will double it's prize. Why does it cost double to fix them before release than after?

Are you implying that software companies newer tries to make their software bugfree, because that's to expensive?!

And I would gladly have waited while Firaxis hacked away on civ3 for a few more months, if that would make the game better.

[Binni]

Kokuei, thanks

Let me clarify one thing though. I'm not talking about the default setting on laptops. Many laptops just can't have higher resolutions than 800x600 and therefore can't do anything about this.

Civ 3 is the perfect game to play on laptops so I'm sure this was a big dissapointment to many people because I know at least 3 or 4 personally who were saddened by this

[Matthevv]

"Any unit which moves from one tile adjacent to a ZOC unit to another tile adjacent to that same unit has a chance for a passing shot. "

This would explain why the coastal fortifications never shoot. The enemy ship moves in adjacent, fires, then moves away. They don't go from one adjacent square to the next.

Coastal fortresses seem to work like magic for me so far though. I've never seen the AI bombard one of my cities after I built one. I can't see if the AI city has one though. Its a pity there isn't a graphic change, as there is for city walls.