Civilization III v1.16f Additions/Changes/Fixes

[Khab]

Originally posted by Ramo
So is the nVidia refresh bug still not fixed?!?

I'd be happy with such a bug fix alone...

Read the news! .
Nvidia fixed this in their latest detonators.

also:

oh yeah, too bad about the Great Lighthouse fix, there goes my strategy, but a quick clarification please. Does that mean my ships can't sail into ocean squares at all? or that they just can't end their turn on an ocean square?

I believe that this means that if you end your turn on an 'ocean' square, your galley suffers a 50% risk of sinking.

I just have to say I'm glad to see that annoying governor changing what unit I'm building will be taken care of... If I just built a tank, do u tink I want to build a warrior next? Maybe no. AND a Civ disorder popup! Yay.

Thanks Firaxis, this gives me my hope back!

[ElitePersian]

I havent seen ONE coastal fortress in action once, but you guys say it works, and a couple people say it works.
I have a couple suggestions to make it worthwhile:

1) dont make them work like ZOC units, cause it'll be too easy for a ship to come in, bombard, and flee , CF's are already useless as they are. give them their own type of ZOC, say if any ship moves in the radius of the city, let it fire away.

2) MAKE THEM MORE POWEFUL! i find it too easy to weaken a civilization by getting a few battleships on his coast. and you guys also said that coastal fortresses have a very low chance at hitting modern ships anyways, so why build them? i would REALLY love to see coastal fortresses be more of a factor in the game, ships attacking the coast are too effective.

question: if i have an artillery unit fortified in a city that is being attacked by a ship, will it automatically attack the ship?
if it doesnt, i think it should cause ships are too effective on the coast.

[Grundel]

Firaxis, I thank you for making a very addictive an entertaining game. Even with the 'flaws' it still has been the only game i have been playing since getting my new computer. With the advent of the changes you are intending on making, I look forward to it even more.

However, I did have some questions regarding the patch.

1. What is meant by changing the refresh rate? Is that have to do with the graphics/animation, or is that something else?
2. Whenever you play a different rule set than the standard, the tech tree is all 'goofed' up...meaning that the advances are there, but no arrows link the boxes to each other. Also, if you click on a tech to queue the research, it does not work. whatever tech you had in the dropdown box before you clicked on the 'big picture' you started researching, whether you liked it or not. YOu did mention something in your fix list concerning the tech tree. Does that fix this problem?
3. Dan mentioned that the patch will be around 5mb. Is that compressed or non compressed?
4. In one mod I was playing with, I attempted to make barbarians tougher by changing the hitpoints for a conscript level troop. HOwever, these changes never went into effect during actual game play...barbarians were always 2 hp, although my conscripts were what i changed them to. When you mentioned that you can now edit the default barbarian combat levels, does that include this as well?

Thank you for making an entertaining, addictive game, Firaxis. I look forward to seeing continued improvements.

[cassembler]

Posted by the "Ray K"meister
ugh. I hope you are misunderstanding, or you need better programmers.

No, actually he's right when you figure in the connection of trade routes, etc.

THANKS FIRAXIS FOR IMPROVING AN ALREADY GREAT GAME.
This is from someone who's been around since Command HQ and The Bard's Tale...

No other comments, no other "add this next..."

I'm happy as is. I've gotten my $50 worth (as have 99% of the less diplomatic posters here) and everything from here on out is icing on the cake.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis Of course, this value is in the editor, so if you want to increase the probability of hitting passing units, just increase it.

Can one increase the probability of hitting passing units to ordinary fortresses as well?
And while Im at it: Why not add probabilty of missed bombardments to bombardment-units also, in your next patch.

* Palaces and spaceship parts can only be built in one city.

Im not sure i understand "Spaceship parts can only be built in one city"? Must I designate one city alone to build each and every part of that spaceship? Or is it that I cant build parts belonging to the same type, in more then one city simultaneously (engine-parts only in one city, for example)? Or what?

[Gramphos]

Will you make the Leadername_ALL.pcx (the one used by the foreign advisor) files be specified in pediaicons.txt with that patch?
They are already listed in the file, but the list is not used. Do you change this?

[ElitePersian]

did the patch fix the deposing thing?
i hate it when a city reverts back to my enemy, and he takes all my units with it. the population of the city should at least decrease to reflect the battle between the cititzens and the units.
why hasnt the patch fixed this?

[El hidalgo]

Kudos to Firaxis for the patch and for being extremely responsive on this thread. I hate to nitpick, but I wish someone would answer the questions about flat world maps and placing units/starting locations. I'm starting to get concerned . I'm putting off buying the game until I know these features are in. If I couldn't make flat maps and set starting locations and make/play scenarios, a big element of the fun would be absent for me (I hardly ever played Civ2 on random or non-earth maps).

Also will we able to add, for example terrains and resources? Swamps and glaciers need to be put back, as well as bananas and oases. Thanks for any info you can give as to when or at least if these things will be added.

[Harm]

Thank you for the support and excellent game.

Harm

[ElitePersian]

ok so soren said that it will be less likely that the AI will build cities in the midst of your empire where it will definately be overthrown. (even though the list didnt mention anything about this). SO does the AI respect borders now? right now the AI always comes in and out of your borders even though u dont have a ROP wiht him. did the patch address this issue at all?

[August Borms]

Originally posted by Grundel
1. What is meant by changing the refresh rate? Is that have to do with the graphics/animation, or is that something else?

The refresh rate of your monitor

[Ahlyis]

It is growing almost as fast as I can reload and read the new posts!

Anyway, the patch looks great. It addresses most of my concerns. Like many here, I am disappointed that I must still move all 20 of my horsemen one by one instead of in a single group. Hopefully, this will be in the next patch.

There is one other thing I would really like to see in the next patch that hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet. On the starting menus, you can change the name of any Civilization you pick to suit your own names, and can even set the Random one to your choice of names, but it doesn't remember any of that. Next time you start a game, you have to enter them all over again.

I would prefer it if the game would remember my preferred name and Civ names. It would also be GREAT if we could change our name after starting the game. Too many times I've started a game only to realise my name was Hamurabi or Joan d'arc because I forgot to specify Ahlyis.

Allowing us to change our name during the game will also allow tournament games to be more personalized. After downloading the starting position, we are currently locked into whatever name was given at the start. Furthermore, viewing other players submissions clutters up my high score table with indistinguishable scores. How am I to tell my high score from all the others on the high score list when it is full of Hamurabi listings? I don't mind having other players high scores on my list, but I would like to be able to distiguish them.

[greggbert]

Looks like a great patch. I am also embarrassed by the butt holes that have been posting this "this game sucks I'll wait for civ 4" crap. That is uncalled for.

Anyway, my question is, now that air superiority works the way it is supposed to, HOW IS IT SUPPOSED TO WORK?

Does anyone know?

[BeBro]

Thanks for the patch Firaxis, looks like a good job so far

However, there are a lot of things that still need work, exact starting locations for the civs for example.

Also for scenario makers there are still too many obstacles, no flat maps, no events language etc, etc...I would love to see such features in the next patch - or do we have to wait for an expansion pack here?

[Simpleton]

You know I'm happy for the patch. But I never knew that so much was wrong with the game. Some of the problems I can accept but I don't know how some of them never got noticed. Some of the Fixes are so obvious how could Firaxis' playtesters not notice??? Poor QC in my opinion. Perhaps, there is something to all this negativist jive talk? Probably not but I won't be quite so harsh the next time I respond to a whine thread.

[eMarkM]

now that air superiority works the way it is supposed to, HOW IS IT SUPPOSED TO WORK

If you have a fighter in a city and set it to "air superiority" than if a bomber comes within it's range (which I assume is same as its recon range), it's supposed to go and shoot it down. I'm not sure if this is a guarantee that the fighter will shoot down a bomber in its space or, like bombardment, it sometimes fails. I assume it fails occasionally. I know it will only do it once a turn, so to fight off multiple bombers striking the same area (normally the case when AI bombs you), you'll need multiple fighters to intercept. So unlike Civ2 where you had to manually guide the fighter to take down the bomber, here you just set them and it does it automatically.

e

[eMarkM]

Some of the Fixes are so obvious how could Firaxis' playtesters not notice???

As a software engineer myself I can tell you that it's likely they knew of many of the bugs at release and they went ahead anyways. It's a trade off that has to be made between feature set and getting everything perfect and meeting a "carved in stone" deadline. Obviously the company wanted to get the product to market for the Xmas rush. That's a business decision that the programmers likely had very little control over. So as a programmer, when you HAVE to get a product to market by corporate edict and you perhaps don't have the budget to add manpower (probably unwise anyway--adding people late to a software project generally makes it later) than you can only do one thing--cut features.

They made excellent choices, IMHO. Cut MP, scenario bells and whistles and the like. Let's face it, most casual users who'll play this game don't care about MP/Scenarios/add-ons as we geeks, er, uh, people here that are far more passionate about the game. We're a smaller segment of the overall audience they're shooting for. This was certainly on their minds when they decided to postpone these.

And, yes, it was released with bugs that they probably were well aware of. I mean, how could they not know of something as fundamental as the air superiority thing. But they figured they weren't "showstoppers" enough to hold off release and, anyway, this could be dealt w/ in a quick patch. Which they appear to be following up on now in a short six weeks.

It's a world of trade offs the software developer has to deal with everyday and there's not a product in the world that didn't have to deal with balancing these issues. And on the whole I think Firaxis and their team did a fine job dealing w/ these tradeoffs.

e

[August Borms]

Originally posted by greggbert
I am also embarrassed by the butt holes that have been posting this "this game sucks I'll wait for civ 4" crap. That is uncalled for.

Why would that embarras you?

[Gromit]

Originally posted by Ray K
1) stack movement

You mean an army?


My two things would be -

1. Who starts where ability.
2. Placing Units/Cities (you know, like Civ II)

Still, thanks for spending time and energy to make a great game better.

But don't think we're gonna let you leave it there

[Bad Ax]

First of all, I would like to thank everybody over at Firaxis for getting this patch out to us. A number of issues I'd hoped would be addressed were, and overall I'm very pleased with it as a first patch.

I'm curious about the "irrigation sorts differently" item. Does this mean that the AI will no longer alternate mines and irrigation in a neat little checkerboard on grassland squares?

I'm also demystified by the fix of the railroad production increase typo. I would like to point out, however, that this accounting provides a substantial incentive to clear-cut which doesn't, at least to my mind, reflect reality. With things as they are, forests produce 1f, 2s, and commerce dependent on the gov. Mined grassland with a railroad now produces a minimum of 2f, 2s and commerce. As such, you're enticed to clear cut your forests and mine the ground beneath. I'm not sure there's any example of such a phenomenon (the clear-cutting, yes -- it's the mining that gets me) in real life. I think you should either let railroads increase production in forest squares (which isn't to me entirely unreasonable), or forbid mining in grasslands, which just looks weird anyway.

If anyone at Firaxis reads this and has an answer, I would like to know whether the following are under consideration for a later patch:

1) Editor -- ability to add new civs, techs, units, resources, etc...

2) Fix constant recentering near poles.

3) Editor -- designated Civ starting positions

4) Editor -- flat map capability

5) Editor -- option to make global warming dependent on forest/jungle coverage. This would be hard to implement, so I'm not really looking for it, but it would add an interesting dimension to gameplay and provide a disincentive for clear-cutting.

6) Editor -- city/unit placement

Obviously the editor is a consideration secondary to the gameplay fixes, but I would like to see some more flexibility.

Thanks again for your hard work!

[Edit: patched for spelling ]

[Libertarian]

eMarkM ,

What a splendid and insightful post!

[ajbera]

Great job, Firaxians, and keep up the good work.

[AustralianJeremy]

Originally posted by Zapaan
FIRAXIS SUCKS!
/sarcasm
Geez. Some people need a little more bran in their diet or something...
- Z

Er - Zapaan, unless Jeff, Dan and Soren were reading carefully in order to pick out sarcasm, I think you just got added to their ignore lists...

[Libertarian]

Not so sure of that. I've been one of their staunchest supporters and defenders, and have yet even to get the slightest acknowledgement, thanks, or answered question. I think they probably just get so bombarded that they oil the squeaky wheels.

[yinyan8]

Originally posted by Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS
* The maximum number of cities permitted in a game is 512.
* Modified advance trees now load correctly.
* A save corruption problem was fixed.
* Fixed fatal related to tiles on the edge of the map.
* Fixed infinite loop with automation.

Cool! the "tiles on the edge of the map" fix is just what I was looking for. It should work on old save games right? This means no more having to go around razing cities that the computer had placed to close to the edge.

The 512 maximum city limit is useful. I believe that in 1.07f on huge maps or even larger custom maps, the game would crash after a certain number of cities were built. The 512 cities limit probably addresses this.

And the modified advance trees loading correctly, woohoo!

I guess they've got the showstopping bugs, and game balance has been addressed, and maybe now there's some more time for more niceties, like civ3 editor fixes, and additional features like scripting/setting starting position/hall of fame that is specific to a scenario? Or maybe it is time to take a well-deserved holiday break as well as a holiday bonus?

I really like all the specific difficulty settings in the coming patch. Those who want a real challenge will now be able to turn everything all the way up but will these impact the difficult setting being recorded on the Hall of Records?
Also, being able to change the tech advance level is useful to pace the game slower or faster. Last, the borders showing on forests and jungles are just one of those nice fixes where a person knew something was wrong with the map display, but just wrote it off as a 'feature'.

Thank you FIRAXIS!

ps: one extra nicety for future patch is more info in the hall of fame, such as either the world size if using the default civ3mod.bic or the name of the scenario that was played. Also maybe increase the records in the hall of fame to 100 per country and more specific difficulty information?

[Steve Clark]

Originally posted by BeBro
Thanks for the patch Firaxis, looks like a good job so far

However, there are a lot of things that still need work, exact starting locations for the civs for example.

Also for scenario makers there are still too many obstacles, no flat maps, no events language etc, etc...I would love to see such features in the next patch - or do we have to wait for an expansion pack here?

It has been alluded by Firaxis that those features (and the 12 scenarios) are there, it's just not known how or when they are going to be completed and delivered. I am content to wait as long as it takes so they can have the time to work out as many issues as possible.

eMarkM: excellent posts. As a software manager, I find it very distracting to read the ignorant posts from those that have no clue as to the development cycle and the time/complexity it takes to even to resolve simple issues (let alone the 'fix one problem causes two new problems' syndrome).

One more thing. FIRAXIS, please continue the great work that you have been doing. I look forward to the day I can change my signature.

[David Weldon]

Soren regarding Communism:

IOW, if you have 40% corruption in your capital, you will now also have 40% corruption in you most distant city.

Hoooray for Hoooooliwood! (or for communism, same thing really )

Thank you very much for your clarification, and for fixing it!

Now how about those defecting cities wiping out Bravo company...

[Admiral PJ]

FIRAXIS, great patch, but please would you update it so that you can use MOBILE air units (by turning off the immobile flag) -
players seem able to use these , but the AI dosen't appear to.
Maybe the air superiority fix will apply to this problem too, but It would help a lot for adding attack helicopter units(that can land in open fields) etc.

Alternatively allow us to set aircraft ranges of a greater amount.. such as 32 (for things like far reaching helicopters or air tankers etc)

And theres also the problem of cities being disbanded ( when they have 1 citizen) into workers not making the right nationality worker, this bug means when they're added to another city they began your own nationality of your players country so its a way of cheating.

But I think all of Firaxis should be awarded the Gold medal for this game

[Grim Legacy]

Well this patch does seem to address a lot of issues with the regular game. I do hope other aspects of the game -like scenarios and MP will get the attention they deserve in the near future.

As for another suggestion for the regular game: I'd like to be able to see more 'stats' on various things in Civ3. Like just *how* strong that Coastal Fortress is. Some combat bonuses remain (officially) undocumented as well.

[wunder]

What about that scenario that was promised with LE?

I love the new patch.

More flexibility in the editor is needed though.