Aaarrrggghhh!!!

[John-SJ]

The amount of time that I am able to spend on EU is far less than I would desire anyway, so my recent experience was all the more frustrating!

I started a GC game as Spain, played for awhile, then saved and quit. Next day, started save game, played, quit for dinner. Came back after dinner and started decided to take the ships I had out of port and take them out for a spin. To my surprise when I clicked on the port, right clicked on a sea zone and then waited for the ships to arrive, when they arrived they were invisible! I could see the selection oval around where the ships should have been but no ships! As long as they were selected I could move them, but as soon as they were deselected I could never access them again. The next (and last) indication of the location of my ships was the sinking animation.

I started experimenting and found that some other save games had the same problem, and if I played on a game without the problem it eventually would (or could) develop it as well. I thought I had a video problem, I thought the game must be full of bugs, I thought a lot of things. I updated my drivers, tried playing with acceleration off, tried setting my desktop to 800x600 (blecch!) before starting the game, I even reinstalled the game!. Altogether I spent over 2 full (and FRUSTRATING) days trying to figure out how I could work around the problem. Finally I discovered that the problem was simply that before I took my fleets out of harbor I had switched the map to political view! In that view PART of the ship graphics are displayed, but not the most important part!

Man, was I relieved to find out the problem was as simple as that. I was very close to uninstalling the game and trying to sell it! Glad I get to play it instead, EU is a great game! (if confusing at times)

John-SJ

[Steve Clark]

Most of the morons that post in forums would have screamed, "EU SUCKS", "FATAL BUG", "PARADOX SUX" or "I'M RETURNING IT" in the same situation. You, sir, are clearly a refreshing exception.

[ravagon]

Ouch! Sounds nasty. John, I'm making a copy of your post to keep on my hard drive for when I finally manage to get a copy of EU. Have you checked the EU forums or notified tech support by any chance, as this sounds like the sort of thing they were planning to fix in 1.08?

[Edit: coz sometimes I just can't punctuate for peanuts]
[This message has been edited by ravagon (edited March 09, 2001).]

[John-SJ]

I did post this on the Eu Support forum. Unfortunately, but probably since they are doing beta on 1.08 right now, they weren't responsive to the problem.

I think I'll go back after 1.08 quiets down and mention this problem again. They don't need any more players getting burned by this.

John-SJ

[Imran Siddiqui]

This is something I've noticed should DEFINETLY be fixed. You should be able to see troops on the political map (it'd make a whole lot of sense). Hmmm, I should play EU again, but damned memory hogging program

[John-SJ]

Well, I tried my best with EU, but for me it was an incredibly frustrating waste of time. Check out my post on the EU forum.

John-SJ

[Kyle]

I did read it and I think you should read the responses. The fact that it's a political map means that you're not supposed to control your empire with it. It's an informative map.


And the other issue was answered on your thread there. It takes about a month for the game to recalculate the income.


No bugs or problems, just the way the game is.

[John-SJ]

Kyle,

I did read the responses. I knew the map problem wasn't a bug, it was just a HUGE 2 day frustration, and I was glad to see the money problem isn't either. I still can't explain why once when I loaded the save game I had no income at all and the next time I had normal income. This wasn't explained on the thread either.

But none of the explanations on the EU forum can change my major complaint. For me the game is not fun. Who knows, maybe someday I will reinstall the game and give it another try. But I know for sure it won't happen until I have tired of both Black & White and Tropico, and it may be a lot longer than that. This of course assumes that I haven't sold it in the mean time.

John-SJ

[Imran Siddiqui]

Mmmm, Black and White...

As for the income, it rights itself after a month... at the beginning it shows 0. I myself am waiting for B&W. EU has problems being a memory hog for me for me to play it that often.

[Steve Clark]

I won't get defensive about EU because it is not quite as fun as Civ2. But a game with history sure beats the **** out of any games with f***in' monsters and magic. I would say, 'Grow up', but it's probably a generational thing. [sarcasm]Have fun playing with monsters in BW[/sarcasm].

[Kyle]

quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui on 03-10-2001 08:02 PM Mmmm, Black and White... As for the income, it rights itself after a month... at the beginning it shows 0. I myself am waiting for B&W. EU has problems being a memory hog for me for me to play it that often.

I really hope B&W lives up to the hype, though I think that's almost impossible. I'm just glad I have a computer that will be more than enough to play and enjoy it.


BTW, how much memory do you have on your system? Have you looked into any memory programs (eg MemTubro, reclaims memory)?

[Dr Strangelove]

I too have had little time to spend on EU. I haven't even managed to finish the tutorial. I 've got to find a way to keep the woodpeckers from eating my house, and it's time to start doing the taxes. It's going to be a few weeks before I can get into the game.

I've been reading the manual, and I have aquestion. According to the manual there are places, such as Africa, where it is difficult to colonize, but it is possible to set up a trading post. The problem with that approach is that a colony can eventually put up a fort, but I don't see where it is possible for a trading post to do so, so trading posts seem to be extremely vulnerable. This would appear to be a historical inaccuracy in the game, because European trading posts throughout the world were often well fortified.

[John-SJ]

quote: Originally posted by Steve Clark on 03-10-2001 09:32 PM I won't get defensive about EU because it is not quite as fun as Civ2. But a game with history sure beats the **** out of any games with f***in' monsters and magic. I would say, 'Grow up', but it's probably a generational thing. [sarcasm]Have fun playing with monsters in BW[/sarcasm].

Hey Steve,

Are yousure it's a generational thing? Since your age is not listed on the Age FAQ I don't know how old you are, but I'm 48.

Isn't it more likely that it's just a difference in interests? [sarcasm]Of course, if you want to insist that it's generational, I suppose I can get used to the fact that you're pushing 70. [/sarcasm] Just kidding.

John-SJ

[Par4]

There's been lots of talk about stuff like the trading posts, colonies, attrition in the EU forums, another big one is why the best way to set up colonies is just to annihilate the natives where in real life natives helped many colonies succeed. But really it's just a game so complain on the EU forums where Paradox is and hope they change it but I don't think it affects the game that much. If you drop it because of this I don't see how you could have gotten though Civ2.

Anyway trading posts are ok, they generate about as much money as a colony until they get to about 1500 people, and they only cost like 10 ducates to settle and have a better chance of settling where colonies cost around 50-100 and fail a lot.

[Par4]

Hey don't go dissing BW until you play with the Pet AI some, man I can't wait to make a stomping pet

or a fire pet, or a water turtle pet, or something

Anyway once you get it working I'm sure you'll have a blast, the game doesn't run fast on my old P2 but it's playable and I'm having fun.

Hmm I probably should have made 1 post....
[This message has been edited by Par4 (edited March 10, 2001).]