v1.16f: Issues? Bugs? This is the thread

[Conqueror]

Originally posted by PN
...but since I installed the patch I have had 8 crashes, all with new games (not old save games). I had no crashes with the out of the box version.

On the last crash, the game gives me DataIO Operation System Error: RPLE errors and will not load my newest save games.

I've attached a listing from Norton CrashGuard which trapped all the crashes and logged them.

I'm running Win98SE UK
AMD K6-III 450MHz
128MB RAM
Matrox G400 16MB
Creative SB Live! Value
MS Intellipoint Mouse
Diamond Supra 56K modem
A-Open DVD-9632 (my install drive for the game)
Crative Blaster 1210e CD-RW

I have also logged this fault at Infogrames.

I think this could be an issue with SB live, because i am experiencing similar crashes and only thing i have common with your computer is SB Live!

And these crashes occur ONLY with the NEW patch. (have reinstalled whole civ3, doesnt help)

[SeanK]

Some things I've noticed:

1. The AI is ALOT more agressive. Perhaps too agressive? I do agree that it was a bit to passive before, though.

2. I get the lost lines in the Foreign Advisor screen.

3. Settlers no longer show where the city radius will be. Very annoying.

4. Units do the attack animation when they pillage. Don't know if it's intentional or a bug, but I don't like it.

I'm running Civ III on a vanilla HP laptop (530? 590? I bought it early this year) that uses Windows ME.

[aburtt]

The Great Lighthouse?????

Pre-patch I would build the Great Lighthouse and was able to travel out to sea. Now I build it and about 60% of the time the ship sinks!!!!! Why build it if your ships sink? Is this a bug or a new feature?

[Morbid]

Aburtt, this is from the patch readme:

* The Great Lighthouse no longer permits Galleys to travel on Ocean tiles.

Thats your answer. Personally I approve of this change, and it is one of the things I will miss the most if I go back to Civ III pre-patch (the other being the fixed air combat). That is if Firaxis would be so kind, PRETTY PLEASE , as to answer the question I asked on page 1 of this thread.

[PN]

Originally posted by Desert Dog


Just a little word on the "old" AMD processors. They are not 100% compatible as they were touted. The K-6 III has less problems true, but still not very stable. I owned one myself had many problems. (I build computers for a living in case you are wondering where I am coming from Good luck!)

Desert Dog

Thanks for the tip. I've had my PC for over 18 months now, always running Win 98SE. I can honestly say that this is the only software that has been so unstable in that time (and I am a games junkie, a developer and use my home PC for intensive spreadsheet work when my works-supplied laptop PC can't hack it).

For example, my Norton CrashGuard has logged 25 crashes since 18-October. 8 of those were Civ III yesterday, and 17 caused by an incompatibility between DirectX v8, my drivers, and an unofficially patched version of Rollercoaster Tycoon, so nothing attributable to the processor.

For what it's worth, I have done a complete Civ III/patch de-install and reinstall and it does seem more stable now. It tried very hard to crash at one stage when the diplomacy screen did not update properly and went very, very slowly after that, but recovered enough for me to save, reboot and restart.

Unfortunately after the reinstall, the previous corrupt save game files are still corrupt and the game reports a DatIO error.

[aburtt]

Then what is the point of the Great Lighthouse? The civlopedia still says that it allows you to travel on ocean squares. I am able to travel sometimes.

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by Morbid
The problem with techtrading AI, is not that it trades techs and contacts in a superfast way, nor that the AI start with more techs and get techs/contacts faster than the human player. You can call that cheating, but it is "fair" in the sense that at least they either start with the tech, trade the tech/contact fair and square with someone else, or acquire the tech/contact by exploring the map. Ognid and Player1, you do not mention the real problem, although you might mean it right.

The problem is that civ A can mysteriously "give" civ B a contact/tech, that the human player just gave civ A (through trading), before the human player hits "END TURN".

I realize that this might be a counter to the tech-whoring "strategy", but if it IS that, it is just too obvious a cheat by the AI. As I said I can live with the extra units, reduced costs and the prooduction bonuses. But what is the point of trading with civ A, if by that trade the score is like this:

You pay 1-2 techs and gold + get 1 tech
Civ A gets the 1-2 techs and gold from you, and pays one tech to you.
Civ B, C, D get the same tech that you get for free, the same second you finish the above deal.

I would never make that trade! It is that easy! Since now, I never know whether this is the possible scenario of ANY tech trade, why trade mid to cutting edge tech with anyone AT ALL?

If this really is an attempt to counter tech-whoring, then making the AI less tech/contact hungry (willing to pay less, especially gold per turn deals), and/or much more aggressive with the trading of techs/contacts (BUT IN THEIR OWN TURN!!) would be much better solution.

Still, PLEASE, I would like a response from Firaxis. It doesn´t have to be much. Just say that it was a design decision (meaning I go back to pre-patch), or that the game in its patched state, should not be doing this.

This looks like a bug to me... If you really can't enjoy the game with it, then I would recommend reverting to the original version. Needless to say, this will be fixed.

[XarXo]

GAME ERRORS

- The Audio options waste a lot of time and usually frozes my computer (WinME - 128 RAM - 30G HD - InMotherBoard Audio Device).
- When quitting, no progression bar to know if the computer freezes.
- In the foreign table, when a civ is destroyed nobody replaces the empty space (in games of more than 8 players).
- To know the info of a civ we must contact with it always (to see the bargain table), this (I believe) annoy him.

EDITOR ERRORS/BASIC SUGGERENCES:

Really needed:

- no-random starting points, or possibility to combine them with random and no-random.
- flat map supported.
- free size supported (ie: 40 x 300), editor doesn't allow non-quadratic shapes, and its maximum isn't based in the total squares, so the maximum in rows/cols is always 256.
- the editor always is "disabled" in a new scenario, for have the options turn on I have to open an older scenario and modify it (or probably I don't found how to activate it).
- icecap only in one pole supported.
- no nasty graphical errors near icecap.
- correct icecap execution.
- correct icecap in front of a land coast (ie.: Antarctica coast).
- minimap to navigate.
- CTRL+Z zoom in the editor.

Another great ones:

- dynamic knowledge table.
- doughtnout map supported.
- possibility to edit within the minimap.
- Minimap is resizable.
- climatic area supported (in a minimpa select all this is cold, so automatic snow mountains, icecaps, tundra...).
- multimapping supported.

[Morbid]

The Great Lighthouse still serves a purpose. You have always been able to go into ocean and sea squares with the galley. It is just pretty likely that you will lose any boat that ends its turn in a sea or ocean square.

The new Great Lighthouse still gives you access to the sea squares without risk, so you can still reach Islands and Civs that your rivals cannot. Heck you can even park your fleet in sea squares, and be certain that your rivals will have to risk losing their fleet if they want to attack you. Just make sure that they have to end the turn in a sea square if they want to attack you.

The principle benefit, IMHO, that came toning the Lighthouse Great is that you will not be able to discover the New World, if such a world exists in your game, in 100 AD, and enjoy exclusive trading of rescources, luxuries, maps, contacts and techs for a 1000 years or so. Allegedly, the Great Lighthouse served in guiding ships across the Mediterranean Sea from 280 BC, and not the Atlantic Ocean. Historically, if that can be called an valid argument in an abstracted gaming enviroment, the New World was discovered by the spaniards in 1492 AD using Caravels, and not by the egyptians in 280 BC via the Lighthouse.

[codemast01]

Originally posted by Whohangs
Well, I don't know what to do. I've downloaded the new patch a third time. I've uninstalled both the patch and then the main game. Reinstalled both and still have the same problem. If I run in Compatibility mode Win98/ME (the mode I ran in originally that worked without the patch) I get the locked up process. If I run in any other mode or without the Compatibility mode the screen goes into power saving mode. Is there a fix for this? A workaround? Is this being looked into? This is kinda bugging me. The game runs fine in compatibility mode Win98/ME without the patch. I'm running in Windows XP.

Add Refresh=60 to your civiliation3.ini file. If the problem still occurs try lowering the number. This solution is listed in the list of fixes for the patch under the additions section. (list of fixes can be found on on the official civ3 web page) Btw I run XP home edition and the same problem occurs when I try to run in Comp mode. Turn this off after doing the above.

As for the patch:
The good :
The addition of prefs to not see AI moves really speeds gameplay.
Workers staying on auto even when there is nothing to do also speeds up gameplay.
The issues :
I've noticed a worker irrigating any tile it moved to even when the tile is outside my border. Irrigating occurs instantaneously without the usual delay. Haven't found any others yet.

[pchang]

For me, the Foreign Advisor Screen no longer shows treaty/war/diplo agreements links between the pictures.

[Jaybe]

Could the AI routines be 'fixed' so they build some culture in their outer cities, regardless of whether culture is a priority with them? Just 1 culture would be fine -- just something so their borders expand. After all, 'more territory' would be a goal of everyone.

[Morbid]

Soren Johnson, thank you ever so much!!

I don´t know if this makes any sense, but those two lines of text in your reply made a WORLD of difference.

The frustration came from not KNOWING if it was a bug, not with the game itself. I really cannot connect with the style of using every possible exploit you can find, and then have the nerve to complain about the game being too easy and sloppy made. Of course, everyone is free to play the game that way, if they want to. After all they payed good $$$ for being able to do just that. I just think that it is a bad scene to to the community and the developers about the results of that specific style afterwards.

My rule of thumb is that if you would not play the move against a good friend, you shouldn´t play it against the AI. Thus, Palace bouncing, IFE, REX, ICS, training camps, combat settlers and their likes are not something that I enjoy or employ. With a mindset like that, the AI does a very nice job and presents me with plenty of challenges at Monarch, even though I have played the bejesus out of CIV I, CIV II, Colonization, SMAC and SMAX.

I will uninstall 1.16f and continue to have fun. I can easily wait for another patch. It will come when it is done.

And once again thanx for helping me to go from to .

[Ognid]

Morbid,


Yes, that is what I meant, but didn't express it clearly. I am going to reinstall the game without the patch. As it stands now every CIV in my game has the exact same tech advances as soon as they have contact. So if I trade a tech to one, they all will have it before my turn is over...

I think the AI doesn't differentiate between CIVs. I think the techs are just pooled along with communications. So if one AI gets a tech it is dropped into the AI pool and they all have it.

[Saint Marcus]

The AI doesn't understand the 512 city limit and will try to build a new city time after time after time after time after time, for over a 100 times per turn per settler, thus making the game unplayable.

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by Ognid
Morbid,


Yes, that is what I meant, but didn't express it clearly. I am going to reinstall the game without the patch. As it stands now every CIV in my game has the exact same tech advances as soon as they have contact. So if I trade a tech to one, they all will have it before my turn is over...

I think the AI doesn't differentiate between CIVs. I think the techs are just pooled along with communications. So if one AI gets a tech it is dropped into the AI pool and they all have it.

No, the AIs do all their research separately. I have actually taken great pains to ensure that the AI trade techs fairly between each other (in other words, using the same functions to determine the "cash value" of techs as used during negotiations with the player...) Thus, you might notice that if one civ starts running out of cash, they will start falling behind in techs too because they will be unable to participate in trading.

The bug I was referring to was a change which allowed the AI to trade with each other during the human's turn, which could lead to aggravation... however, the trades which do happen are still "fair." (whether any trading between the AI can ever be truly fair or unfair is another matter altogether...)

[jbrians]

Originally posted by Ognid
Tech Trading

As far as I can tell the computer automatically trades techs and contacts to all the CIVs in the game as long as they have contact with each other.

So if you trade techs or not the computer civs will basically have all the techs from each other. Once you trade to one civ they will trade it to any civ they have contact with.

I play as a tech whore most of the time and I have NOT seen this problem before the end turn button. They do seem to aggressively trade tech with each other, but when I learn something cutting edge I am normally able to offer it to 90% of the other civs. I assume the ones that I can't just learned it before me.
-Brian

[mr.buddylee]

EDIT: Need to read the whole thread before posting. heh.

One more thing I have noticed that I don't think anyone has posted is that my workers seem to be having a harder time navigating. They tend to get "Stuck" more in enemy territory where I have a right of passage agreement and I have to manually move the around units that are in their way.

This may have happened pre-patch, but I never noticed it this bad.

[Pythagoras]

I think the simple solution to the "tech whoring" 'cheat' is to make it so only the civ that developed a tech can trade it. This sorta makes sense since they would be the ones with the most complete understanding.

[Ognid]

Soren Johnson,


I was trying to say the same thing as Morbid. Meaning that when you trade a tech to the another CIV, it is like its put in a pool that distributes it to all other races during the players turn. Or maybe the AI trades it during the players turn.

I made a test scenario with America(the player), Greece, Iroquois and Japan. The Americans are the only ones with Masonry. The ZIP contains the Auto SAV file where the player is about to contact all the races. None of the races have Masonry. If the player trades Masonry to one of the other races, all the other races will then have Masonry during the same player turn.

[Ognid]

Err...Here is the file.

Just move the Scout North twice, giving contact with all the races.
Thats the Autosave one.

Alright, this is weird. If you load the Autosave.SAV file all the races will get the techs with one trade to any of the races during the players turn.

If on the other hand, you save the game after meeting the races than trade the tech to one race, only one race gets the tech.

Hmm...

Under Autosave.SAV
Move north with scout to contact all CIVs.
Trade tech Masonry to Iroqouis.
All Three CIVs than have the tech.

Under the Test.SAV
Contact is already made with the other CIVs.
Trade Masonry to Iroquois.
Only Iroquois have the tech as should be.

[Obi Wan]

Originally posted by justin_sayn
Playing Under Windows 2000, with the updated for win2k version of the 1.16f patch.

I had a trade going with the aztecs.
They got in war with the Iroquois.
I think the Iroquois destroyed their trade routes because it hadn't been 20 turns when I got the "We lost our supply of dyes" message.
Then the game crashed.
I had saved a couple of turns back.
Reloaded.
When I regot the message, the game crashed again.
I reloaded a third time, and the same thing happenned.

Now I saved the game at the end of the turn just before it happens.
I have attached it here.

Soren, I got the same crash with one of my saved games. I downloaded the game from justin_sayn and it crashes, too. Like justin_sayn I'm using W2k and the 1.16f patch. Do you have any idea how to avoid this problem (I mean any idea except waiting for the next patch or just starting an new game ...)

[Master Marcus]

Obviously the tech trading will be fixed ASAP in the second patch, on the other hand this unrealistic AI cheating is NOT a major issue for a well-played game. I can live with that since the 1.16f patch works fine for me so far, it has good fixes also. Some guys having problems with it seem to share some compounds I have like WinMe and SB Live! ( So far I'm not experiencing more sound crashes -lock-ups or freezes - than before the patch ). Are you sure you have installed it between 2 games, just before starting a new one ? Reboot before the new game. I know so well it can be messy to install a patch in the midst of an existing campaign.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Whohangs
I've posted this in about three other threads and there are a couple of other people having the same problem. I also sent you an e-mail Jeff, but you're probably swamped with mail, so here's the problem:

I installed the "updated" patch but can't get the game to run. All it does is hang with the civilization3.exe taking up about 5 megs and another temporary thread running. I'm running Windows XP Professional. I had no problems before installing the patch. Can someone help me? I even tried reinstalling. Reinstalled the game ran fine, installed the patch it doesn't run. I tried turning off Win9x/ME compatibility this morning and it ran, but was getting the same black screen (monitor goes into power-saving mode) that made me turn it on. Please help.

I'm experiencing the exact same problem, except I have XP Home instead of XP Pro. When I first got the game I would see the opening movie, but after that it would go to a black screen while the music played. I discovered the game was still running (I could use the keyboard to select options) I just couldn't see it. I finally got it to work by running it in Win96/Me compatibility mode. One quirk that I'm sure is related it that before the patch when I did it that way there would be a second civilization3.exe (using app. 5000K of memory) showing on the Processes tab when I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del, and I could not start the game again after ending one without ending that process (it would stay on after the game was ended) - basically in 98 mode it would start two civilization3.exe processes but when you ended the game only one would close on it's own. Since the patch when I run Civ3 in 98/Me mode it acts exactly the same as when I tried to start a new game with that extra civilization3.exe showing in the Processes list - the hourglass would show up for a second, then nothing would happen (no CD spin, no HD activity). I tried running it in 95 emulation mode and that does the same thing as the 98 mode.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by codemast01


Add Refresh=60 to your civiliation3.ini file. If the problem still occurs try lowering the number. This solution is listed in the list of fixes for the patch under the additions section. (list of fixes can be found on on the official civ3 web page) Btw I run XP home edition and the same problem occurs when I try to run in Comp mode. Turn this off after doing the above.

Thanks, this worked. I was about to get upset. 8^)

Firaxis, you might want to make an official announcement saying that if you had to run it in Win98 compatibility mode before the patch, to add the Refresh=60 line to the civilization3.ini file and running it in regular XP mode. This will save a lot of people some grief.

[Zanzin]

The "problem" in the foreign advisor screen -

Is it possible that everyone has deselected all this civs? This would result in the lines not showing up. To reslect them, hold down shift and click the leader pic. HTH.

[Desert Dog]

Hey Jeff,
Are we having fun yet? I sure am not at all. Listen, let us be blunt and to the point, my system is up to date with all the latest drivers, I have a high end PC with 256 megs of ram the newest Radeon All-In-Wonder Video card. I am an OEM system builder NeoTech Solutions. I am 46 years old been doing this stuff since 1979 on an Atari 16k computer okay? Just so you know where I am coming from.

I had crashes before the patch and now even more. I have yet been able to enter the Industrial age without a major crash just at the time of picking my next research, shows the new age pictures, fatal crash. I have tried it on 230x230 map, 220x220 map and before on a normal map. There are NUMEROUS BUGS throughout the game. I would like to know if I am wasting my time posting my problems or should I just swallow hard on the $70.00 I put out for the LE Edition (another joke!)? I have been patient but having not been able to complete one single game since I bought it because of a variety of bugs. How in the world you guys was able to get all the good grades from the mags is beyond me! I have been referred to as a whiner I am a customer and this seems to be the only way to vent or get your attention.
PLEASE ADDRESS THE BUGS ASAP! Thanks

Have a Merry
Desert Dog

[ChrisShaffer]

What you are experiencing with the AI acquiring technology during your turn is a normal part of the game. The technology cost is calculated as follows (I might have part of this wrong, but the basic idea is correct):

Cost = (Base * Map) * (Lack / Civs)

Where:

Base = base cost for that technology, viewable in the editor

Map = map modifier, a constant set by the size of the map

Lack = number of civs that lack the technology

Civs = number of civs in the game

Thus, when a technology is traded, the cost to research that technology is reduced. If the AI is researching that tech, the reduced cost might be less than the stockpiled beakers, giving the AI the tech. This works in reverse too - and explains why the number of turns to complete research often drops without a corresponding increase in beakers collected.

It's easy to verify this. Just take a save game where everyone is at the same tech level, research a new tech, and compare offers. As you trade the tech to each AI, the other AIs will reduce their offers - and if you trade it enough, some of the AIs will suddenly have the tech.

[Redstar]

this has probably been said on another thread.
I do see references to sound crashing here.

I just wanted to add that i get the same 2 songs until an era change..then i get another 2 songs over and over.

I know you can use mediaplayer..and firaxis is right..that works great. But, i would not like the game music to go to waste. Some1 worked hard on it.

[E_T]

Sorry, Bad Post .

E_T