Civilization III v1.16f Additions/Changes/Fixes

[Nexus VI]

I'm glad to hear about the patch.

I just want to write a couple of lines to explain an odd behaviour of the workers.

When our cities are many and we are in modern age without using recycle centers or mass transit we get full of pollution soon.

Well, if we have a lot of workers (say thirty or forty) they head to clean the same polluted tile altogether. This is really annoying because the pollution continue to increase while the workers move in group slowly without optimizing the cleaning. This is especially true if we don't have railroads.

It seems the AI analyze the numbers of polluted tiles and put them into an array; then examine the first tile in the array and send all the workers on it. Actually it should split the group of workers and send an appropriate number of them to clean every tile (say two workers per tile).

I believe it should be fixed, it would be much easier to clean pollution.

Bye

[eMarkM]

On the 40 turns max thing. My guess is that this will only effect the beginning of the game where it's a no-brainer to set science to, like, 10% and still get tech in 32 turns. In the real early game there's virtually no difference between 10% & 100% science, they both yield tech in max of 32. So everyone maximizes cash by setting science way down.

With 40 max, it probably will dip to this if you try to set your science rate too low in the beginning. I'm betting this won't be a big deal except in the really early going. Instead of a no-brainer science setting of 10%, you'll have to make a decision if you want to increase cash and take a science hit, just as you do in the rest of the game.

e

[Dire Wolf]

EnigmaticGod,

I can't help but think Firaxians are complete idiots

I can't help but think that most of Apolyton's Civ3 forum goers are a bunch of socially inept, whiny, and rude losers - not to mention being idiots as well.

All of you that attack the developers by calling them names and insulting them should be ashamed - you give gamers a really bad reputation as being immature pea-brains.

I do not love how Civ3 turned out or how a few features that I wanted are somewhat absent (e.g multiplayer.) The difference is that I can express my opinions without resorting to babbling incessantly and verbally bashing the developers.

It's complete lack of commitment to the game. I've said it before, as soon as you say "nice patch" they'll say "Thanks, enjoy the game. We'll see you when civ 4 comes out."

It also works both ways. If you act like a spoiled little brat you have a good chance of turning the developers off of making any future patches. If you want to show the developers your lack of satisfaction, don't buy their next product. Exercise your power as a consumer instead of exercising your "lips."

I have no respect for people who cannot communicate their thoughts without turning into prehistoric nimrods. I think you must have skipped learning "Civility" in your personal tech tree

---------------

On a different note,

I really doubt that we'll see a scripting language added to the game. Unless the appropriate code is already present in the engine, it is very difficult to just add a non-trivial scripting language and engine to the game via a patch. I'd love to see a scripting language too but realistically I can't see it happening. Maybe an expansion pack will address this?

Best regards,

Dire

[Qnuc.dk]

YYEEAAHH

A very good patch list, here's my top 5 favorites, what's yours?

* Added "Show Our Manual/Our Automatic/Enemy/Friend Moves" preferences
* Corruption effects have been reduced.
* Once the UN is completed, you are no longer prompted to vote every turn.
* Added "Show Civil Disorder Pop-Up" pref (displays a pop-up whenever a city descends into civil disorder).
* Sorting columns on the Domestic advisor screen now stay sorted.

Expect the game to be MUCH faster with the numero uno patch update

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by EnigmaticGod
I'm well aware they're not the corporation. But the way they handle complaints is to say "Don't like it, don't play it". Or "Don't like it, edit it". Did civ2 need to be edited and moded in order for it to be fun? Civ2 had a standard. A standard everyone used and played and enjoyed. This game doesn't. Also, Dan and the other guys don't really address the problems. They just deal with them. It's complete lack of commitment to the game. I've said it before, as soon as you say "nice patch" they'll say "Thanks, enjoy the game. We'll see you when civ 4 comes out."

Well if you don't like it then don't play it or edit it. If someone were hitting you in the head with a bat and you didn't like it would you stand still and let them continue and simply complain about it, or would you move (i.e. don't play) or try to take the bat away and hit them with it (edit it)?

Did Civ2 need to be edited and modeled? Heck yes!! You MUST have been late to come into the CIV2/SMAC community or else you would KNOW that Civ2 and SMAC both had at least three patches (even more) EACH and some things in both games was STILL broken.

What problems did they not address? Do you think that maybe, just maybe they plan to put out MORE patches in the future and maybe they were simply rushing this patch to fix the most glaring bugs? You know, exactly how SMAC had to be patched when it first came out as well.

Lighten up and grow some patience. I don't know how your situation is but from my experience people generally want to help more and do a much better job when you offer positive feedback and CONSTRUCTIVE criticism instead of unfounded "feelings" and worries that have had NO basis in fact or truth.

[Gramphos]

Is there a reason that you don't allow Flat maps?

[CharlotteCivver]

Soren and Dan -

One thing that has been a large source of discussion on this site is the cost/effect of nuclear weapons. Of particular interest is their cost with respect to the cost of building of the space ship.

I think somebody did an analysis and found that something like six ICBMs cost more to build than the space station, and still cannot kill a city.

Please don't take this as whining - I am generally happy with the patch. I was wondering if you expect to see any changes in this part of the game, either in making nuke cheaper/more effective or making the space ship much, much more expensive.

[bahoo]

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis


As far as I am aware, coastal fortresses work as designed. They always fire at passing ships, but you only hear a sound effect/see a result if it hits. The calculation is the same for units with ZOC, which basically treats those units as temporary artillery units with one shot at passing units.

Also, the offense value of the coastal fortress is not very high, so one of the reason people have not seen mauch of an effect is that the coastal fortress has a very low chance of hitting modern ships. Of course, this value is in the editor, so if you want to increase the probability of hitting passing units, just increase it.

Are you SURE they work as intended?

So far in all the games I've played, I have NEVER to my knowledge witnessed one of my coastal fortresses successfully firing on an enemy ship, nor have I ever been successfully fired upon by an enemy coastal fortress. (And I've done a LOT of ship bombardment on enemy cities!)

Few questions regarding coastal fortresses:

1. What is their bombardment range?

2. What is their bombardment attack value and rate of fire?

3. Can I fire them myselves like artillery?

4. Do they get to fire back when your city is bombarded?

You say they are treated as passing shots with zone of control.... How exactly does the passing shots ZOC thing work? It's not too well explained in the book, in my experience it seems arbitrary at best. I've had cavalry in the open that HAVE taken passing shots a lot, while fortresses with fortified units in them have not taken a shot.

Anyway, a few questions about passing shots:

1. Do all units get them?

2. To get a chance at a passing shot does a unit have to move from an adjacent square to another adjacent square, or just into or out of an adjacent square? (If the latter is the case, it may explain why coastal fortresses never shoot, how often do ship "pass" by a coastal city, usually you just pull up and bombard then pull back.)

3. Does a fortress have any effect on whether a unit can take passing shots and/or the probability of them taking a passing shot?

[AnnC]

What about the problem with gaps in the upgrade path caused by replacing default units with special units? For example, in the current version, France cannot upgrade Pikemen to Musketmen even though other civs can. (Pikemen can't be upgraded to Musketeers either.)

[albiedamned]

Soren - What about reducing the AI's desire to build a city in every possible unclaimed location, even when that city is nearly certain to be culturally assimilated? You've mentioned earlier that you were reviewing this for the patch. I'm not sure what is meant by "Cultural priority of AI has been reduced" - is that this?

[kmj]

Originally posted by AnnC
What about the problem with gaps in the upgrade path caused by replacing default units with special units? For example, in the current version, France cannot upgrade Pikemen to Musketmen even though other civs can. (Pikemen can't be upgraded to Musketeers either.)

I'm fairly sure a representative of fireaxis (perhaps soren during the chat?) responded on this issue, stating that this was intended during design. They have no intention of fixing it, because it isn't considered a design problem or bug. Perhaps someone else remembers reading this, too?

[G.A]

Finally a "we have built a unit" pop-up

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by albiedamned
Soren - What about reducing the AI's desire to build a city in every possible unclaimed location, even when that city is nearly certain to be culturally assimilated? You've mentioned earlier that you were reviewing this for the patch. I'm not sure what is meant by "Cultural priority of AI has been reduced" - is that this?

That was probably poorly worded... yes, the AI is now less willing to found a city in a location in which it will obviously convert ot an enemy civ.

[Nemesis of the North]

Well, the patch is here. Hooray. Never saw that many flaws anyway, but at least, now they're gone. (not that I have the time to play 8 hours a day anyway).

Nem

[ntyatecafe]

Originally posted by EnigmaticGod
I'm well aware they're not the corporation. But the way they handle complaints is to say "Don't like it, don't play it". Or "Don't like it, edit it". Did civ2 need to be edited and moded in order for it to be fun? Civ2 had a standard. A standard everyone used and played and enjoyed. This game doesn't. Also, Dan and the other guys don't really address the problems. They just deal with them. It's complete lack of commitment to the game. I've said it before, as soon as you say "nice patch" they'll say "Thanks, enjoy the game. We'll see you when civ 4 comes out."

Give it a rest!!!
When you have your own software company, and make your own wittle games, then you can do whatever you want with them. This is someone else's batch of apples...so don't P!$$ in the barrel, okay?

I've just started playing the game myself, and I know there are some problems with it, but name one game that was perfectly operational with no errors/bugs/problems or criticisms right from the start.

Y'know, you did unintentionally bring up a good point. I'm sure that these fine folks at FireAxis have many other projects to work on right now, so why are they even wasting time building free patches for a game that is already making them money...hmmm, following that logic, they are losing a little money doing these patches...why? Because they care. They care what people think of their games, even whining insuggnificant no-goods such as yourself. Why else would they spend time reading and answering messages on a forum...why else would they spend time and money on building fixes for already released and sold games, instead of working on the next game that brings in a buck?

Someone else has already said it, but let me say it again...If you don't like the game, don't play it. Sell it or give it away to someone more deserving than yourself. And for pity's sake, please stop assailing us with your verbose and unintelligible rambling (i.e., shut up!)!

To FireAxis: I apologize for the misguided ramblings of some few people here on this forum. I hope that their pompous whinings have not turned you off of answering questions and working on any future patches. CivIII is the first Civ game of yours that I have played, and I'm not disappointed. I believe you did an excellent job, and my sincerest gratitude for releasing a patch so soon! Thank you all.

I do have one question though, I understand that units can only be combined as an army, but will it ever be plausible to do something similar to workers? I use a lot of workers to build roads, usually in teams of two, but it gets frustrating having to give each worker in each group the same order.

Thanks!

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by bahoo


Are you SURE they work as intended?

So far in all the games I've played, I have NEVER to my knowledge witnessed one of my coastal fortresses successfully firing on an enemy ship, nor have I ever been successfully fired upon by an enemy coastal fortress. (And I've done a LOT of ship bombardment on enemy cities!)

Few questions regarding coastal fortresses:

1. What is their bombardment range?

2. What is their bombardment attack value and rate of fire?

3. Can I fire them myselves like artillery?

4. Do they get to fire back when your city is bombarded?

You say they are treated as passing shots with zone of control.... How exactly does the passing shots ZOC thing work? It's not too well explained in the book, in my experience it seems arbitrary at best. I've had cavalry in the open that HAVE taken passing shots a lot, while fortresses with fortified units in them have not taken a shot.

Anyway, a few questions about passing shots:

1. Do all units get them?

2. To get a chance at a passing shot does a unit have to move from an adjacent square to another adjacent square, or just into or out of an adjacent square? (If the latter is the case, it may explain why coastal fortresses never shoot, how often do ship "pass" by a coastal city, usually you just pull up and bombard then pull back.)

3. Does a fortress have any effect on whether a unit can take passing shots and/or the probability of them taking a passing shot?

ZOC Fire works in the following way:

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. In gameplay terms, it is like an artillery shot using the offensive value of the unit (or artillery value, if it is higher). However, there is a defensive modifier to the moving unit to simulate that the unit is moving and therefore difficult to hit.

All this is done automatically, without any input from the user. However, I should note that the only time any evidence of this appears on the screen is why the passing shot hits. It was deemed too annoying to see ZOC units fire and miss as units moved around the map.

Possibly, one of the reasons that coastal fortress are seen as broken is that there is no actual animation showing the city fire at passing ships. There is a sound effect, but perhaps it is not distinct enough. Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that coastal fortresses will hit modern ships.

[Wrong_shui]

The "Whiners" here are there to balance with the "Suck-ups".

What can we say except thanks for doing your job?

[cavebear]

Thank you, Jeff, et al, for the great list of fixes. I appreciate the work you people are putting into the game.

Is the patch available yet, or when (and where) should I look for it?

[Zapaan]

FIRAXIS SUCKS!

Why doesn't my game play itself for me? I should be able to just click once and have everything done for me!

Firaxis should be able to read my mind and "GET IT RIGHT"!

How come when I said that you should be able to do ANYTHING through mental concentration, I didn't get any response from anyone on the dev team?! THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT THEIR GAME OR THE PEOPLE WHO GAVE THEM THEIR MONEY!!!!

And what about the 46th pixel being out of place in the Civlopedia entry for "Totally irrelevant data, but probably of crucial importance for nothing except the elitist retards" in the 23rd word of the 14th paragraph?! WHEN THE HELL ARE YOU IDIOTS GOING TO FIX THIS BLATANT SHOWSTOPPER?!?!

I've been playing computer games since the Abacus was the *IN* thing, so I know what I'm talking about and my opinion counts more than anyone else's! Just because I have no real clue about how a game gets made, doesn't mean that I shouldn't be the only arbiter of what's right for everyone else!

/sarcasm

Geez. Some people need a little more bran in their diet or something...

- Z

[Oerdin]

Firaxis,

V1.16 looks like a fairly meaty patch that will address many of the concerns players have had with Civ3. Great job. I have been holding back from buying Civ3 until I saw that it wouldn't be abandoned the same way CTP2 was by Activision; I now plan on buying Civ3 the day the patch is release.

Now I have a few questions that I would like Dan or Soren to anwser for me. Will this patch be a one of or can I expect further patches to be released by Firaxis? Also how will Multiplayer and senerio support be handled? Will they be added as a patch or will they be sold as an add on? I really wouldn't mind paying more to get these features because I know they will be expensive and time consuming to produce, however, I would appritiate being told upfront by Firaxis so that I don't get stuck buying the same game twice. Thank you for your consideration.

Oerdin, A.K.A. John Jackson

[cavebear]

Zapaan - ROTFLMAO!

[Raleigh]

I agree that these are awesome changes and thanks for listening to us.

I also agree a few things were missing that should be fairly non-debatable (like combat system):

a. coastal fortresss
b. movement stacks
c. sentry command

Other than than that, the editor options look intriguing and fixing really annoying things like bumping into subs will immensely improve the game!

[Childe Roland]

Wow, if I ever developed a game I would NEVER interact with this kind of fanbase. We have a self proclaimed civ god who claims that he was the best civ2 player ever blasting the dev team because some of the fundamental dynamics were not changed. (You know who you are)

Going on and on about how terrible and wrong this patch is because the game is crap and the patch did not change the design of the game to your liking. how arrogant is that? The overwhelming majority of reviews flooding in are positive. But they are all wrong and you are right? Iv'e seen references in this forum about PC Gamer haveing no journalistic integrity because they positively reviewed the game. Just bowing to the commercial demand. Well, I agreed with the review. I love this game

There is no firepower. That's not a bug, it's a design decision. People go on and on about how Civ 3 is just a poor extension of Civ 2. Then we hear Civ3 is so poor for breaking away from the great concepts of Civ2, like fp. Well, which is it?

Civ3 is a different game. If you prefer Civ2, then by all means go play it. I loved Civ2 but I truely enjoy the departures civ3 has taken. It makes the game play so differently.

And what is with the eliteism on this board? Unless you have x number of posts your an idiot? Some fool who puts a happy face in each thread is a better player than I am?
Those who talk about the game know more then those who spend there time playing it?

Sigh....


I apologize for the poor spelling and grammer. Rushing to post before lunch hour is up....

[Pyrodrew]

Overall great update for the 1st patch for 1month. I did notice none of the "ADD" buttons were implemented for the editor (ADD Resource, ADD Civilization, ADD Improvement/Wonder, etc.) Are these planned to be added in a future patch?

As far as I am aware, coastal fortresses work as designed. They always fire at passing ships,

I've never seen them work.

Thank you for telling me that. I appreciated that.
But I would also appreciate if you could please tell us why did you increase the standard!
Lockstep, I never "heard" any of those prayers...

Then you should read this forum more. I've seen SEVERAL posts of people complaining about how the game "rewards mediocre play" & units becoming obsolete too fast. People are going to complain no matter how they change or left the tech rate. Those that complain "reward mediocre play" & units becoming obsolete too fast never seem to argue with those who complain about tech research being too slow... and vice-versa. Instead complainers like to each set up their own little thread where fans of the complaint can gather & moan.

In my experience, through Regent level, the AI seemes to have too LOW of a priority on culture, allowing non-core cities to build no culture at all for centuries on end.

Agreed. I hope this doesn't mean the AI will build more obsolete units.

It has to do with the way the city network is calculated (for determining resource access and other things). Since each civ needs to have all this data stored in memory, the memory footprint expands exponentially as a factor of the max number of cities. Increasing this further would dramatically increase the amount of RAM needed to play the game from what I understand.

Only 32RAM is required & only 64RAM is recommended. Many of us can dramatically have more RAM than that, especially with how cheap RAM is now. Would it be possible to edit this (with a warning) with some rough chart of if you have 512RAM you can set the max # of cities to... x.

Any idea on when\if we'll be able to cut down jungles for shields

There should be some benefit to the jungle start position for better game balance, especially since they replaced the banannas with disease.

[Slax]

Can you give a ball park figure on the size of the patch file?

[IBNobody]

I'm very pleased with this first public patch, but I had a few questions I wanted to ask...

* Added "Culturally Linked Starting Locations" (civs are placed on maps in close proximity to other civs of the same culture; please note that not using this pref can lead to sub-optimal arrangements of civ colors)

If I turn this flag off, are "random" Civ choices actually made random? Meaning, If I play on a 3-player map as the Chinese, will I still be pitted against the Japanese and the Indians? Or would this setting be worthless?

* Added "Show Our Manual/Our Automatic/Enemy/Friend Moves" preferences

Friendly units are units controlled by civs at peace with you, correct?

How does the game handle territory violations with these prefs deactivated? Are they ignored? Will we have to constantly monitor our borders?

* The cost of building a Palace is now based on the number of cities in your civilization.

How much is it reduced?

* Irrigation sorts slightly differently.

This change doesn't make sense. Can you please clarify what it does?

* Cultural priority of AI has been reduced.

Does this mean that enemy civs skimp even more on building temples/libraries?

* Improved City Governor Performance.

How was he/she improved?

And finally...

Has anything been done to curtail the AI from building cities on those occaisional unclaimed shoreline squares? Soren mentioned something before, and I'm just following up.

- Nobody

EDIT: Ahh...I found Soren's reply on the Cultural Priority change. Did I mention that I'm thankful yet? Did I mention it enough ?

[Dravin]

I'd like to thank the folks at Firaxis. First for fixing the game, I know it seems a simple thing but they could probably get away with leaving all of us high and dry. Secondly I’d like to thank you for taking the time from you probably busy schedule and posting the fixes included in that patch, yet another thing they could have decided not to do.

I am saddened though that a Safe-Disk fix doesn’t appear on the list, as it stands I’ve gotten around it by using a cracked .exe but still. I’m not about to get up in arms about it, but one would assume a fix for such incompatibility would be first on the list. (I may have missed it, but I didn’t see it.)

Also, it's amazing how contradictory some people on the forum are, they scream for a patch this instant and complain when said patch does not fix everything in the game to their liking. You can't have it both ways folks, patching takes time and resources. The longer the patch is worked on the more fixes are usually included, not the other way around.

[scientist]

Dear Firaxians,

I'm really glad to see a fix is coming out soon. I guess in releasing the game before it was really ready, you satisfied a lot of people (myself included) with an earlier, but buggier and less polished release. I look forward to continued improvements.

There are, however, a few problems that you will address in future patches:

1) Allow for stacked movement. I know armies allow this, but especially towards the end of the game, It would sure make things easier to be able to stack and unstack units like an army but without the additional army benefits. It just is a pain to move 20 tanks and mech. inf. individually.

2) Make automation of settlers more controllable, as in SMAC. I really wish there was more than the generic "automate" button, and more choice, like "automate build roads" "automate remove pollution" etc.

3) The game rules editor is not resizable or scrollable. I'm on a 1024 X 768 screen, and there is no way to view all the options without resizing the monitor resolution, which is a pain in the butt.

4) allow the viewing of aggregated unit types being built on the military advisor screen, like in SMAC.

5) Allow diplomacy to request cessation of hostilities versus a third party, like in SMAC.

All of these are mostly playability questions, where the player can automate many repetitive tasks. Civ's greatest failing has always been the micromanagement at the end game, where there are many tasks that could be automated, but the game is too dumb or the documentation is too sparse to achieve this.

I have a few other concerns, but they may be addressed by the future patch.

Civ III has the potential, I hope it eventually gets to be a great game.

[zapperio]

This is from Dan, from civ fanatics forum:

"The starting locations issue isn't really one with the game as much as it is one with the editor, just FYI. Not that that changes anything, but it's an important distinction. It really covers the same ground as the need to place cities and units for scenarios.

Of course, you know what I'm going to say next: I can't tell you if/when this functionality is going into the editor, sorry

However, we are fully aware of it. It's "in the books", so to speak.


Dan"

and regarding coastal fortresses. Soren's explanation helps me understand the puzzling attrition I've seen happen to my ships during war time. In my most recent game I took a fleet of early battleships and ironclads through the coastal waters of egypt, for some sail-by bombardment and I couldn't figure out why their hps kept dropping. I thought they must have had artillery on shore but I never saw any bombardment during their turn. After 10 or so turns, half my fleet was in the red and I was forced to send them home.

I can testify that the fortresses are very effective if you expose yourself to them.

Zap

[gnome]

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis


That was probably poorly worded... yes, the AI is now less willing to found a city in a location in which it will obviously convert ot an enemy civ.

HOORAY!

Thanks for being so responsive... receiving good information about the game and the patch is almost as addictive as playing it!

Wait, it's been 10 minutes I need more info... what about that starting locations thing in the editor?