1.29f PATCH README

[Palleon]

It's not totally unrealistic. You've just turned Earth into Coruscant. Welcome to the Star Wars universe, the whole world is one big metropolitan sprawl

[cbraund]

I liked the CtP public works, but now having played Civ3 I'd never go back to that system, I like the workers.

You can automate them if you're fed up of them.

As for the road/rail sprawl, it's quite realistic really, think of our world lol...

As for railroads, I personally love them the way they are, it allows for a mobile defence...

Chris

[MJW]

Yea!

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Need someone to ask these questions for me!!

HI Guys,

I'm afraid that I'm limited to net access at work only, so I'm not going to be able to join in the patch chat tonight!! I was wondering, therefore, if someone could ask a few questions for me, mostly directed at Mike?
Here are the questions:

1) Does Mike envisage making further improvements to the editor in future patches?

2) Would it be possible for him to alter the editor, such that you can make an improvement a prerequisite for building a unit, either in place of, or in conjunction with, existing strategic resource prerequisites?

3) Would it be possible for Mike to remove the hardcoding relating to movement on enemy roads, or general movement on RR's? Also, would it also be possible to remove the hardcoding for the points neccessary to achieve diplomatic victory?

4) Are pooled editor flags for units/Wonders still on Mikes "Wish List"?

5) Does Mike have any plans to add more editor flags for the purpose of modding the game?

Anyway, if someone could ask those questions, I'd be most appreciative

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Xuenay]

It's not a scenario editor, just a powerful map editor...
You can't make scenarios, just maps with units and cities already there.

Well, that didn't take long.

The patch has been out for a few hours, has pretty much all the features everybody has been begging for ever since CivIII was released, and people are already coming up with new complaints and reasons to whine.

Get real folks, this is a map editor, not a HAL-series supercomputer smart enough to fulfill all of your wishes.

[Palleon]

Originally posted by Xuenay
Get real folks, this is a map editor, not a HAL-series supercomputer smart enough to fulfill all of your wishes.

Then it shouldn't be called a SCENARIO if it can't set teams, missions, or objectives. I agree, it is just a map editor, and the patch did a great job of making a MAP editor. But the hype was that it would let us make scenarios, and it can't do that, so people are a little upset. I think the patch was a great step forward, and hopefully PTW will finally finish up on that. It's a shame we'll have to pay to make scenarios, if PTW even has it, but that's the way it is.

[Xuenay]

To make a real complaint, why is the editor so bulky AND unstable (or is this just my comp)?

If the map editor in CivII didn't lag while I was placing out terrain on a 486, neither should the CivIII editor lag while I'm placing out terrain on an 1000 mhz Athlon.

Not to mention that it has been freezing while trying to load maps...

[Palleon]

What OS are you running? I'm running a basically comperable computer with 2k, and Civ3 and the editor run great on me, takes about 5 seconds to load up a map.

[Xuenay]

Windows ME. If this, too, turns out to be ME's fault, then I'm definitely going to switch to 2K soon .

[Colwyn]

Expectations

My point about the patch is that it did address a lot of things but not allowing us to set a movement rate along railroads is quite a big miss as it really does unbalance the whole game.

(And to be frank it should not have been hard to code in the patch (as roads have this option already)

Once you get railroads its game over for the AI, simple... Being able to move all your units to one point and back again unlimited movement is too much of an advantage for the player, you don't see the AI moving 10 artillery pieces along their railroads to gang up on the player.

Knowing that once you develop railroads there is no competion makes Civ3 unplayable in my opinion. I can do without the editor etc etc as long as I can play a challanging game to the end.

[UltraSonix]

i noticed that the new patch was out... really impressed me

just came back to say that Firaxis is probably the best game developer that I know - it's really impressed me that they would work with the community so much to develop the game - from so long ago most of us though it would never have been released to long after it's been finished

cool stuff

[Palleon]

ME is a horrible, horrible OS, especially for gaming. Do yourself a favor and get 2k, you'll run everything a lot faster. Run out and buy it today, you'll be amazed how much better everything runs. I still think 2k is the best OS out there, XP is too slow, takes up too much memory, and hardware is still pretty incompatable with it.

[Boris Godunov]

Was it advertised as a scenario editor? All they said was "editor." I don't recall them making a big deal about scenarios.

At any rate, I did get my biggest wants (civ placement, minimap, adding units), but am a little disappointed you can't set diplomacy. But most of the changes/additions are VERY welcome.

[alva]

Re: Expectations

Originally posted by Colwyn
My point about the patch is that it did address a lot of things but not allowing us to set a movement rate along railroads is quite a big miss as it really does unbalance the whole game.

(And to be frank it should not have been hard to code in the patch (as roads have this option already)

Once you get railroads its game over for the AI, simple... Being able to move all your units to one point and back again unlimited movement is too much of an advantage for the player, you don't see the AI moving 10 artillery pieces along their railroads to gang up on the player.

Knowing that once you develop railroads there is no competion makes Civ3 unplayable in my opinion. I can do without the editor etc etc as long as I can play a challanging game to the end.

Main reason why I never finish a game ( not one under civ3). I like the game very much right up unitk railroads come along. Then it becomes (and I don't play on chieftain btw )

[Bambul]

Railroads

It is a pity about railroads. In the middle ages when I have knights and pikemen/musketmen preparation for war is one of the most fun parts of Civ3 for me. Building enough units, finding choke points or creating them, building fortresses, spotting potential threats and arming nearby cities with enough units to protect it for one, two or maybe three turns after war is declared while I get reinforcements in. I could go on the offensive and take out the AI and not have to worry about it, but it's much more fun to pre-empt their attacks at a time when they are usually superior to me in military force.

But come railroads this is all gone. All I have to do is protect my outer cities from first turn Cavalry (and later Modern Armour, but often the game is over by then) attacks and then the rest is taken care of with counterattacks.

If railroads were like CtP 1/2 and gave a 5 or 10 movement bonus rather than infinite movement then we would still have to plan ahead and split our forces, allowing the AI's concentrated attack on one point to be more powerful and more likely to suceed. Currently the only thing that is like this is when you have land holdings on two far away islands and at war with another civ on both. To get reinforcements from one island to another you can either send them by sea (which can take a while) or airlift them (which requires many airports and you have to wait until next turn and even then is limited to a handful of reinforcements a turn).

I would hope that Firaxis would put an option in the editor for road/rail movement bonus. Well, they have it for roads right now, but not rail.