Patch 1.20

[AK47]

Does anyone know exactly why the Radio tech was removed ?
I never had any problems with it...

[sabrewolf]

it was one of the useless techs which you wouldn't research if it wouldn't have been mandatory...

however, why it wasn't removed completely, but instead given as starting tech to all civs is completely ununderstandable to me

[alexman]

I don't know this for a fact, but here's a collection of reasons of why I suspect they removed the Radio:

• With the removal of Electronics from Motorized Transportation, the lower branch of the tech tree became less improtant than it was before. Therefore, you expect fewer players to research Electronics than before, and even fewer players to research the Radio. A technology which would be consistently researched last became expendable.
• The lower branch of the tech tree became unconnected from the upper branch for four whole technologies (Scientific Method to Radio), that didn't offer many benefits if you lost the race to the big two Wonders of the age. That just looked weird.
• Before this patch, Advanced Flight was not researched often enough, so the addition of Radar Towers make this tech more valuable.
• C3C added two more technologies to the Industrial Age (Fascism and Ironclads), so the period became too long.

By the way, they made Radio a non-era tech and gave it to all civs so that nobody had the option to research it in patch 1.18. Jesse did that in case he wanted to change his mind and easily add the tech back in, I suppose. I hope that the final patch is done properly, with the tech completely removed.

[E_T]

So, Jessie posted 7 days ago that this patch is in lockdown and it seems to be making the rounds of the oifficial release approval process. My question is, how long does that take??

/me has been patently waiting for the patch, but is getting tired of the wait...

E_T

[Fistleaf]

I don't have C3C but I was considering buying it. However, I am put off by Jesse's comments about Civ4 having a higher priority than C3C patches. Civ4 is still in its infancy (who knows if it will even work properly?) and yet it is already more important than the retailed C3C. That really tells a lot about Firaxis customer support.

[vmxa1]

CivIII will not bring in any money from now on, so Civ4 must be their priority. Well if they made another packakge it could bring in some, but not big bucks.

[Fistleaf]

Civ3 Gold edition and C3C are still available in stores. Since they "will not bring in any money from now on", why don't Firaxis give them away from free?
The point is if Firaxis is not confident of producing an expansion pack without resolvable bugs, they shouldn't release it in the first place.

[vmxa1]

The way it works is that the stuff on the shelf is already booked in the account recieviable. The can be returned in some cases from the dealers and actually cost the company money, but won't bring in any.

The fact is I doubt they are manufactering more for distribution. They may have some in the warehouses to sell. If they don't sell, it is just costing them money.

In any event, they are not going to see appreciable income from CivIII in the future.

As to the bugs, they are not discernable to the general public. If you asked them, they would not know what you are tlaking about. From their perspective the game has no bugs. Just the hardcore players are aware of these issues and the company has little fear that we won't buy the next iteration.

[Fistleaf]

So I take it you will be buying Civ4?
Software companies are really raking in the money when customers are all so understanding.

[Antrine]

bitxh, buy, bitxh, buy... ( for x c )

Haven't heard the song.?.

Or was that 'buy first'... umm

[player1]

Well, Firaxis custom support was very good up to this point.

Better them most other gaming companies.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Fistleaf
So I take it you will be buying Civ4?

Obviously, until it turns out to be a joke.

Civ is an excellent concept that has been furthered by every sequel, Civ3 included (the introduction of culture and of an interesting trade concept is a clear progress, as is the betterment of the AI).
I hope Civ4 will provide us with more of what we want: revolts, more sensible government model, more sensible military model, etc.

At the very least, I expect Civ4 to be a progress over Civ3, and to have a more challenging AI than Civ3, as well as better graphics. If Civ4 has only this, I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

Firaxis is known for releasing rushed products, and even the now-worshipped SMAC was rushed at the beginning. Yet, there is a good customer support, and these people do listen to their fanbase and pick ideas from us. They have convinced me to buy their products again, although I understand less patient players will be cold at the idea.

[Admiral PJ]

All evidence points to C3C still being supported, there weren't any catastrophic bugs with it to begin with, anyhow. If civ4 is getting more attention or priority which no one knows for sure, then its not surprising.. its a completely new and large project. the c3c Patch updates won't take up a lot of work, it seems most of the bugs are to do with Mod Editing which isn't important.

Alpha centauri and Civilisation 3 worked fine on release, so your statement that firaxis produce rushed releases, 'comrade' spiffor, is unfounded. Firaxis public style Beta testing system seems to work well. I don't know if its a true public beta system , but there seem to be a lot of people on this forum who are betatesters.

Admiral PJ
Creator of the 7 ages of man civ3 MOD

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Fistleaf
So I take it you will be buying Civ4?
Software companies are really raking in the money when customers are all so understanding.

Yup.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Admiral PJ
All evidence points to C3C still being supported, there weren't any catastrophic bugs with it to begin with, anyhow.

Not to be awkward, but no it doesn't, and yes there were.

What has made people post their concern in this thread is an official post declaring Civ4 is the focus and declining to make a comment on when further fixes (and one would hope balance and AI tweaks) will appear, if at all.

As to your second point there were 2 huge bugs upon release, despite the beta testing. The corruption bug took Alexman a matter of hours to document, and the gpt one was noticed by many early on. To their credit we were able to get our hands on a beta fix for these problems, albeit a long while after release.

[Rommel2D]

Catastrophic? You'd put the corruption and GPT bugs in the same catagory as the ones that caused MP drops and corrupt files with PtW?

[Antrine]

by Admiral PJ ...it seems most of the bugs are to do with Mod Editing which isn't important.

I wish to counter this ‘nefarious’ statement.

Modders are one; going to salvage the bloody game.
Two, modders will smooth over Firaxis poor service and buggy game.
Good modding full to brim with finely tuned, painstaking ‘work-a-rounds’, a list of which is longer than any of us really want to admit to is saving the ‘future’ of CIV.

These are not positions of arrogance, rather of cold logic. I buy poor games I might otherwise like, IF someone has modded ( fixed) them. Then the investment is worthy.

Someone in marketing can go boldly figure out the ‘numbers’. Moreover, if we here ‘keep’ trashing the game even though we may be justified so doing, new players will be scarce as hen teeth.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Admiral PJ
Alpha centauri and Civilisation 3 worked fine on release, so your statement that firaxis produce rushed releases, 'comrade' spiffor, is unfounded. Firaxis public style Beta testing system seems to work well. I don't know if its a true public beta system , but there seem to be a lot of people on this forum who are betatesters.

The public beta was performed to playtest conquests. A much more restricted beta was made for PtW, with much fewer testers. IIRC, Vanilla Civ3's betatesting was entirely internal.

As for Civ3 not being a rushed game back in Nov 2001, let's just say that the entire new aerial model was dysfunctional, since interception didn't work at all. Later, some Firaxians admitted they only tested seriously up to the middle ages, and didn't have the time to give serious tests for later eras.

And the editor was definitely incomplete as Civ3 came out. It wasn't even possible to place a city or a unit on the map, nor even mere fixed starting positions.

If Civ3 had the same kind of customer support as CtP2 did, it would have sucked really badly.

[LzPrst]

I would hope they are not using any code form any previous games in Civ4.

I'm hereby starting a rumour that Civ4 will be based on a hybrid of the civ 1 and the half-life2 engine, since they were so easily accessible

But seriously, until conquests came out I found civ3 and PtW to be insanely annoying. (may Sid strike down the idiot that did the civ3 combat system). conquests has made the game playable. BUT THATS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!! It should have been playable when they started selling it. The idea of SELLING US the game fixes (ptw and C3C) is disrespectful at best. the original civ3 was a disappointment. now its workable. A free word of wisdom to atari/firaxis/infogrames/whateveryoucallyourself: Dont mess up again! MAKE YOUR CUSTOMERS SATISFIED FIRST TIME AROUND!!!
That they built civ3 from the old smac/civ2 engine is IMO INSANE!!! civ3 is actually just civ2 v.12.1 (not true, but not entirely untrue either..)

Final word of advice: firaxis, hire me as creative consultant, you need me

[Jarred]

Firaxis should take a page from Rareware, when deadlines didn't matter as much as getting it right...I doubt that they lost money, if anything, got some due to free publicity out of it.

[Boracks]

Originally posted by LzPrst

The idea of SELLING US the game fixes (ptw and C3C) is disrespectful at best.

[Old Argument]

Its actually a time honoured tradition. Back in the days of board games (remember those?), if you wanted the latest errata and clarifications to the rules, you had to buy the company magazine. Examples were 'The General' (Avalon Hill), 'Strategy and Tactics' (SPI) and 'Nexus' (for Star Fleet Battles). You could easily spend as much on magazines then as you do today on expansion packs.

But then, today patches are free to download so its actually better!

[/Old Argument]

Actually, given the content that was included in both expansions, I have no quibble with what I paid for them. And I have no problem waiting for patch 1.20 either. At least we're getting stuff fixed which is a lot better than some games I've bought.

Boracks

[Gunter]

I think the best answer that Firaxis can give is a strong patch this time ( also a precise readme ) ,otherwise I am forced to play Sid Meier Golf......


Gunter

[GarP2]

Comments about how Firaxis is raking in money and how we've had to pay $100 for a semi-working $30 game prompted me to make this post.

Originally posted by Andydog
I’d love to be proven wrong in all this – Civ is the only game I play – all the others just don’t interest me.

Me too!

It may not sound like it, but I do enjoy conquests immensely. I think that in general it's better than PTW, and that it's the best of the civ type genre that you can get.

Me too!


There is no other form of entertainment that I can carry out so cheaply, i.e., on a $/hr basis.

Book$/hr > cableTV $/hr > cable modem$/hr

not to mention the fact that I couldnt stand to watch TV as much as I play Civ.

canoeing/camping/fishing require equipment and transportation costs. Live music? hardly. Driving my 280Z? no.

The lack of total functionality of the game is frustrating, as is the fact that a lot could be improved, but it's still a great game, even in its present form. The high number of posters and lurkers in the forums shows how many think so, and the little labels by the posters names (chiefton, etc) show that a lot of people get as much from discussing the game as playing it. Add to that the realities of the computer game business, as nailed by vmxa1, and the bottom line is that we're lucky that we have a game this good. I'm not saying we should be satisfied and not suggest changes, because that is another important reason why we have a game this good, along with people like Jesse. But what I am saying is that when Civ IV comes out, will I buy it?

originally posted by vmxa1: yup.

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by GarP2
There is no other form of entertainment that I can carry out so cheaply, i.e., on a $/hr basis.
[...]
The lack of total functionality of the game is frustrating, as is the fact that a lot could be improved, but it's still a great game, even in its present form.

Which makes me wonder: can we pay more to get a better game? CivIV Pro anyone?

[Antrine]

We need sub-licensing so we modders can start raking in the big bucks.

[Brundlefly]

:sigh: SO..... How about the fvcking patch, Firaxis?

[DrSpike]

Everyone's busy designing the '4' to go on the box of a different game.

[Wittlich]

@ Doc

[LzPrst]

why cant we at apolyton and civfanatics just design everything we want and have firaxis make it. of course there would have to be a consensus or at least a majority on each issue, but then I think we'd get what we wanted... and the source code could be released after a year or two so we could fix the things that firaxis wouldnt bother with cause they'd be working in CI:V

oh, the dreams of naivety...
fair enough, civ3 has given me a lot of game time for the $ i've spent, but almost equally much annoyance for each time something has buggered and not worked right. but I'd gladly pay 100€ if it was THE ULTIMATE civ game with everything working perfectly and me liking 99% of it. but civ 3 aint it. and I doubt Civ4 will be
but I hope...

[Harovan]

Conquests was close to be the ultimative Civ game. It looked very promising after release. It looks hopelessly effed up now.