Civilization III v1.16f Additions/Changes/Fixes

[Ray K]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS

My hobbies are stamp collecting, impersonating Wayne Newton, and badminton, and I enjoy long walks on ... ... uhhh sorry, I mean yeah, so that's what I do around here...
Dan

Glad to see that you can trudge through all of the vitriole here and still keep your sense of humor.

There's hope for you guys yet!

[Rage]

Ive been hanging around this site for a few hours-thinking that the patch would come on here as soon as it was released.
Got sick of waiting so went over to civ3.com to find that it was available for download there!

[cutlerd]

"Maybe I'm wrong -- maybe I'm one of those dopes in that psychological study -- but based on how effective I believe modern units should fare against obviously outclassed enemy, it just seems to me that the underdog 'saves the day' in a manner that is NOT random. If it IS random, then I can only assume that the random numbers are generated PER TURN, and not PER BATTLE, such that on certain turns, certain units are verily immortal, and on other tuns, state-of-the-art units attack as though they'd left their ammo at home."

It doesn't mean you are a dope...it means you are in the 90% of people who also perceive average results as biased.

Random number generation is streaky. Ever go to Las Vegas and watch the roulette tables? I have. And at those tables where they have a digital display showing the last 20-25 spins you can almost always see what looks to be a biased pattern....until you start to track the spins over a long period of time.

The ONLY way to prove it even to yourself is to write down the results. Trust me. Any other sort of observational/antecdotal opinion is almost certain to be coloured by your naturally perceived bias.

Devin

[LordLynch64]

16 pages and the answer was staring us all in the fact all along... how foolish we've all been!

I can see how Venger being in possession of wrong as you believe, necessarily denies everyone else from having wrong too, however it does not preclude the possession of right by all others...

Shocking, nonetheless.

We would like to exchange World Maps

Interesting how that worked out.

will exchange world maps for 25 gold per turn

[Frosty]

...

Patch plz or I release this beast!



btw, thx for the patch info Dan. Do you think we can have the patch ready for the week-end?

[Wolfar]

Rage

Thanks I was doing the same thing because I have a T1 connection here at work and wanted to download it here vs at home on my 56k. 7.3 megs in size would take a few on that.

Thanks again geting it now!!

[JC Woodman]

Originally posted by Risky


Well this wasn't unplayable. I suppose my point is that I value developers commitment to keeping the development going post-release. As longas they keep releaseing =the patches, I am happy.

This is a game, not a piece of mission critical software. I am happy to play it in its evolving state rather than wait a few more months.

Thank You! A voice-o-reason! I dont get these guys! If ya dont like the game... play somthing else I have had no significant bug issues at all, sure some issues which are bothersome, but in no way a show stopper. I see it as the patch(s) will make a great game better. Then again maybe i'm just easily entertained...Always did like pong.

[player1]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS


If I *really* wanted to make you paranoid, I could have replied to the thread right after yours

I saw your post on unit obsolesensce but that's WAY out of my league in terms of stuff I can answer. I have *no* idea quite honestly...


Dan

You know, Dan, that question you should give to Jeff & Soren and hopefully they'll fix (or resolve) that issuse in second patch.

The main thing wich make porblems is that obsolence is not tied to new unit then to new unit upgrades. Figates are not upgadeable so they never get obsolete (obsolence liked with upgadebility). Thing need to be chaged to Frigates can't be upgadeable (as it is), but if you can build Destoyers (have resouces & techs) then you shouldn't be allowed to build Frigates anymore (tieing obsolence with new units).

This thing can't be done from editor.


It's nice to have people from Firaxis listening us.

P.S.
Although Dan, is there ANY chace for us to get MP Hotseat in some sort of pacth (not exp. pack)? Or, you are not allowed to tell us about MP plans.

[zoyd]

Re: More Ramblings

Originally posted by Ozymandous


Hmm, and we all know that ALL games, even those 3+ years in development like Diablo2, NEVER need any sort of patch right?

So... I'm supposed to be HAPPY that a company takes 3 years to develop a buggy product?

And other than a graphics face lift what made Civ2 more than an evolutionary product from Civ1? Not much. Civ2 still had patches as well. I don't remember armies, or being able to trade stuff on the diplomacy screen or resources in Civ2. I guess these are all minor updates to the series, yes?

Yeah, I'd say they were. Much like every new iteration of C&C has a couple new twists, and every sequel to EVERY game has new features. These do not make it revolutionary. And yes, Civ2 had patches (2.41?)... and they improved the original game. So what? I'd bet you'd rather play Civ2 version 2.41 than Civ2 version 2.00, right? Why?

Stacked movement should have been included, as well as MP and starting positions, but it wasn't. *shrug* Game still plays well for me with no crashes and is much more fun than the same stale Civ1 clone ala Civ2. Civ3 isn't perfect but IMHO it added a lot more to the series compared to Civ2 than Civ2 vs. Civ1.

Mine doesn't crash either... never said it did. It is fun... it does have improvements over Civ2... but you said something interesting... Civ2 not being very much different than Civ1. So that's your benchmark? Weren't you disappointed that Civ2 didn't improve on Civ1 MORE than it did? Or are you just hopelessly happy at anything they throw at you?

Sorry, but ALL games are patched, even if only for minor issues. It's not optimal and I know I have grown tired of having to download a patch for most everything, but face it, with sortware there are always things you look back on and see a way to make it better or fix something minor that didn't appear in the first 6 months of the game, etc.

Console games don't have updates... and I think they probably take more time to check for bugs in those than in PC games, because they KNOW they can patch PC games. Look at Madden 2k2. On the PS2, it plays great. On the PC, it was VERY unfinished on release. I'm happier to HAVE patches as opposed to NOT HAVING patches, all other things being equal. I'll ALWAYS be happy to have bugs fixed. The point is, not enough bug-checking is done. Civ3 is a very good game, don't get me wrong... but that first patch list is a LONG one, doncha think? I applaud their post-release bug-fixing, but am sorry there even needs to be such a need.

Would you rather there was no such thing as a patch and you had to buy X-packs every three months after release to get fixes? I wouldn't.

Sorry, you're making idiotic arguments. Understand where I'm coming from before making dumb statements.

Hmm, this isn't a problem with Civ3 but ALL games. Do you think the people who bought Diablo2 and it's expansion liked how the item generator was BROKEN by the X-pack and only fixed with a patch? Do you think people who bought Pool of Radiance have to get a patch to keep the game (in rare cases) from deleting system files when it un-installs?

Are you on my side now? See what happened? They released a buggy product, and consumers got pissed. Gee, kind of like MY argument, right? Maybe if they'd checked to see if the X-pack would break the generator before RELEASING it, they'd have more happy customers, right? Maybe I'm not up for cutting people slack for doing stupid things like you describe. You, though, you want to just praise every breath.

Most games *will* get some sort of patch, it's up to the game company to make sure that any required patches are small and only tweak minor things, and aren't 10+ MB in size and have to essentially re-work the entire game.

Oh, making demands now? But patching is REQUIRED! Who are you to now ***** about filesize?

If you bought a book and it had several typos on every page, would you be happy about it? Would you maybe suggest to the publisher that they do a little better QA before publishing their books? Would it be ok to be upset at having dropped coin for a book with 1000 typos in it?

But with software, it's ok by you. It's ok to make 14.4 and 28.8 modem users suffer that download (what's it? 7.3 MB?) And those w/o internet? If there are, say, 4 patches, each on average 4 MB, then you've got 16mb's worth of download on top of everything else.

[MustPost]

Console games don't have updates... and I think they probably take more time to check for bugs in those than in PC games, because they KNOW they can patch PC games. Look at Madden 2k2. On the PS2, it plays great. On the PC, it was VERY unfinished on release. I'm happier to HAVE patches as opposed to NOT HAVING patches, all other things being equal. I'll ALWAYS be happy to have bugs fixed. The point is, not enough bug-checking is done. Civ3 is a very good game, don't get me wrong... but that first patch list is a LONG one, doncha think? I applaud their post-release bug-fixing, but am sorry there even needs to be such a need.

Don't console games have to meet standerds set by the console maker for the game to be released?
Thats why console games have so few bugs, not because they can't be patched.

[Venger]

Originally posted by sophist
Acquisition is always cheaper than maintenance. At least in the real world. Plus it works for gameplay here. I mean, I guess maybe it was fun for some people in civ2 to build up slowly then blitz the whole world in just a few turns. But that got a bit silly, doncha think? This is more realistic and makes for a more balanced game. In some cases that leads to extreme results, but there are ways around it. Like bombing the city down to a tiny population. Really, now, do you think that if the Soviets had walked into New York City or Los Angeles they could have just held it?

If you think having 20 units disappear one turn because of cultural defection is okay gameplay, enjoy.

But spare me the life lesson about how balanced and realistic it is, because as I and numerous other have pointed out, it's neither, and it's not fun either, it's just dumb. So dumb in fact that apparently they've included some work on it in the patch. So, now that they changed it, will your city defection nirvana be harmed?

Venger

[maggot]

Console games don't have updates... and I think they probably take more time to check for bugs in those than in PC games, because they KNOW they can patch PC games. Look at Madden 2k2. On the PS2, it plays great. On the PC, it was VERY unfinished on release.

Console games have *one* architecture they are designing for when they release a game for a platform. Every PS2 is the same. Every X-box, Nintendo, and Pong box have one composition that designers have to work towards. It is much much easier to design a game that way that to try and anticipate every eventuality for numerous OS versions, video and sound cards, user preferences, etc.

Furthermore, games that are released on console don't have a lot of incentive to be terribly good on a PC as the bulk of their revenue is going to come from the console market.

Civ3 doesn't even come close to the amount of gameplay bugs that some games have been crippled by, and no product in *any* market stays the same for years on end without having gone through a long integration process into the market. There's only so much Q&A can do for you before you have to cut it loose to see that those Firestone tires are coming off in 1 out of every 100,000 cases, or that new diet drug is causing hemmoraging in one out of every 500,000 cases.

The fact is that *most* people can plug in Civ3 and play it from beginning to end. If you're not happy with it, you can do what you do with your perfect console game when you make the mistake of buying the latest Sonic-namely sell it at a loss on eBay. Or, you can wait for the patch and see what comes up.

I for one am encouraged at the speed of this patch, but at this time I've already played a dozen games, which is more than I can say for any other game that's come out this year.

[Master Marcus]

Originally posted by Master Marcus
Civ III is a great game and the bugs are minor, and the fixes listed for the first patch confirm this to me: mostly details here.
My general comment is about the cultural fixes which will tend to render the cultural victory more affordable for the player. Clocking the tech at 40 turns instead of 32 will slow down a bit the beginning, but without tweaking the editor and accepting the standard rules proposed, I'm eager to say that most of advanced games will finish a bit earlier - the reduced corruption of course, which I hope is not toned down too much ( HOW MUCH, Btw???). For now I finish my games in the 1800's- 1900's, and many warmonger players told us much earlier. I don't really want to see peaceful victories achieved in the 1500's-1700's with spaceship parts and stealth bombers and so on.

--Ask for build orders after unit construction: if enabled, does this work only on blank queues (nothing else listed )or also with already loaded queues?

--culturally linked start loc for same culture civs: hope this affects only colors and nothing else in gameplay?

--SHOW enemy/friend moves: if disabled, DOES THE SPEED DURING AI TURN INCREASED SIGNIFICANTLY ON HUGE MAPS?
seconds instead of minutes on fast systems?

--shield bonus from clearing forests...once per game: ????? more details please?

Thanks

Well, well, well, almost 24 hours later, 5-6 more pages in this thread and not a single answer to what I consider simple questions. Dan, Jeff, or EVERYONE who knows the answers - please we want to know - Surely the patch was tested before release...

[sophist]

Originally posted by Venger


If you think having 20 units disappear one turn because of cultural defection is okay gameplay, enjoy.

But spare me the life lesson about how balanced and realistic it is, because as I and numerous other have pointed out, it's neither, and it's not fun either, it's just dumb. So dumb in fact that apparently they've included some work on it in the patch. So, now that they changed it, will your city defection nirvana be harmed?

I'm intelligent enough to play with the game, not against it. If you did the same, this wouldn't happen. Seeing as it was practical to play even before the patch, this is just another "The game doesn't play how I want it to!" complaints.

As far as the life lesson goes, take your attitude and shove it. Clearly you have no interest anymore in getting people on your side. I don't even know why you bother trying anymore.

[Bambul]

Finally!

17 long pages...and I somehow read all of it!

I just downloaded the patch, or rather I downloaded it about 4 hours ago while I was reading this thread.

I'll give it a go soon, but from what I've gathered I glad to see that many bugs/problems have been fixed up and I'm eagerly awaiting the next patch!