A Sad Tale of Misery And Woe <- Read!

Roy H Smith · February 28, 2002, 04:56

So I re-install Civ 3 and decide to overlook the minor bugs and design issues and treat my new $50 purchase as a game totally separate from the Civ legacy.

16 Civs, Huge Map, Monarch level. I've been waiting for a big battle royal for years (literally) and nows my chance.

Starting position is tolerable..China to the south, Russia to the East, Zulu to the North and Aztecs to the West. Pop out 12-13 cities and cleverly restrict China to a small land mass - any cities he builds will be far from his capitol and pretty useless for him. Buy techs, sell them to all others...making 400...500 gold a turn...peaceful with all.

Get Knights and build 30 units and capture China except for one city...Russia takes Zululand...Aztecs take on Germans...not wanting a strong Aztec neighbor I raid his civ and capture 6 cities before going for a peace treaty.

Workers (I'm American) building like mad and I play the Demographic shuffle...have Chinese cities build settlers and workers and move them to former Atzec lands and vice versa and drop them in cities....I wind up with cities with 2-3 Aztecs and Chinese each plus Americans...never lose a conquered city to flipping! Conquest option seems viable again! Wow, this is great!

Buying selling techs...700...800 gold a turn (seriously) building Cavalry...I've got 6-7 Saltpeter, 4 horses, lots of luxeries (Mo' Money, Mo' Money, Mo' Money), and eventually eliminate the Aztecs and then the Germans because they disappointed me by crumbling too quickly.

Indians move in, Persia marched across the continent...trading maps..Russia is HUGE...but I'm not intimidated. I wait for a MPP between Indians and Russai to fade and remove the Indians ..Persia and Russia are at war and it's just a contest to see who is going to give more Persian cities first...Catherine or myself. India eliminates China.

I'm paying 1200 for a tech and making 3500 after selling it to the others (so this means free tech for me) until I can get Scientific Method....then I go from 0% Tech to 90% and 8 turns later and with a Great Leader (Washington) I get Theory of Evolution...Sanitation (which I wasn't even researching and considered useless) and Steel (I wanted to get to Electronics so I could get the Hoover Dam...oh well). Egypt has the only Coal in the game (WTF?) but I've bribed her enough to build a decent railroad.

And the game slows down to an insane degree...but this time I will not give up! Making 1000 gold a turn...build factories a plenty, going for Hoover Dam, I will have tank tech and still be two techs ahead of the pack.

My plan...drop 60 Cavalry (already built and in position) near Russia...use factories and huge wealth to rush 30 tanks and hit it even before it makes one for itself.

And then I save my game...go to work...and then when I restore it....I get an error message. WTF? I didn't install anything or even do anything special to my system....so I restore 1355 (and played up to 1500 so this is a step back) and play years 1360 and 1365 (even taking five minutes at least)...and then being paranoid I try to save my game and then restore them.

I get city cultural boundries but no city graphics..the Science advisor screen is messed up and after 30+ hours I think I've encountered bug 723 that neither Civ, Civ2, or SMAC had. And I''m not happy. This is unplayed...I cannot even click on my invisible cities.

But ever the soul of generosity I'm not going to yell or scream. I'm going to delete the game, reinstall it, add the new patch, and try again.

This will be my fourth installatiion. And happy and as cheerful as I try to be, if I encounter another game breaker I'm going to vent here. And it's going to be pretty nasty...you are warned in advance.

And I'm adjusted to the AI, Corruption, luck, Diplomacy, etc...but the inability to successfully restore a saved game is something I've never encountered before.

I'm an eternally patient 34 year old game geek. I've got 100+ games in my collection..I know software...I "get" hardware...I was pirating Space Quest back in 1987 on 5 1/4 inch disks (ah...the good old days). I can quote Civ, Civ 2, and SMAC rulebooks to you from memory. I've played more computer, roleplaying, card, and board games than most people here have even seen.

But if this final effort fails...I surrender. But before my game goes on Ebay I'll need to vent. And here is where I'm going to do it. And if you think Yin is negative...frankly you haven't seen the Master yet.

notyoueither · February 28, 2002, 05:03

Rave on.

Really, try the patch. Just don't scream too loud.

Heh, heh, heh. Tech whore? AI make you da b*tch!

Salve

Dis · February 28, 2002, 05:38

this game really is great

you just have to pretend it's fun

Jaguar · February 28, 2002, 13:04

Damn, I lost a civ2 save of a diety OCC that was gonna land pre 1000 AD. Though that was different. I saved over it by mistake.

godinex · February 28, 2002, 13:14

Poor one. You still believe...

Spec · February 28, 2002, 17:16

I'd just say your one unlucky sob! It never happened to me or my friends...but still...I heard so many nasty stories like this one here that I always save my game twice, Cesar of the Romans 1200 AD and then another save Cesar of the Romans II 1200AD. If one doesn't work I hope that the second will.....if it ever happens to me.....

Spec.

Zachriel · February 28, 2002, 17:50

Don't forget the auto-save files.
Also, try a standard map. It is less likely to error.

yin26 · February 28, 2002, 21:13

Sounds like the experience of typical beta tester to me. Never fear, though, they plan to charge you soon for the Beta+. Expect to pay again later for Version 1. By that time, you will have paid a solid $100 to test shoddy Firaxis software.

Let's face it, folks: Those rookies at Firaxis couldn't code a good game of Tic-Tac-Toe.

Zachriel · February 28, 2002, 21:27

Quote:

Originally posted by yin26
Sounds like the experience of typical beta tester to me. Never fear, though, they plan to charge you soon for the Beta+. Expect to pay again later for Version 1. By that time, you will have paid a solid $100 to test shoddy Firaxis software.

Let's face it, folks: Those rookies at Firaxis couldn't code a good game of Tic-Tac-Toe.

Never had a crash myself. Not one. Just offering suggestions to help out a fellow player. There is not a single game currently in existance I would rather play.

Whoha · February 28, 2002, 21:44

I never had a crash until 1.16f, but 1.17f seems to have fixed whatever it is they screwedup for my personal computer in 1.16f(I hope).

Arachno · February 28, 2002, 22:02

You should try the autosaves ...

And by the way, isn't sanitation what leads you to being able to build an Hospital ?! If I'm correct, how can you consider this useless ?!

Encomium · March 1, 2002, 01:02

Quote:

Originally posted by yin26
Sounds like the experience of typical beta tester to me. Never fear, though, they plan to charge you soon for the Beta+. Expect to pay again later for Version 1. By that time, you will have paid a solid $100 to test shoddy Firaxis software.

Let's face it, folks: Those rookies at Firaxis couldn't code a good game of Tic-Tac-Toe.

Yep.

We all paid $45+, plus Strategy Guide, for the privelege of beta playtesting a game rushed to market for the Christmas buying season.

Roy H Smith · March 1, 2002, 08:33

To Arachno:
I didn't even think of the autosaves, d'oh! Worth a try but all post-1355 saves seem cursed...hopefully your suggestion will work out.

And I built my cities relatively close together (thanks Corruption) so my core cities could only work 10-11 tiles each. A Size 12+ city wouldn't give me any extra Production and in my games Production is the game winner for me. A Hospital gives me one extra gold or beaker every 7 turns or so and if you are making 1000 gold/turn it is sort of proportionally useless.

To notyoueither:
AI isn't that tough. Just expand, expand, expand in the beginning. The AI doesn't realize you have crappy Warriors while it is running around with Swordsmen giving you plenty of time to wait for Knights (Chivalry). Even SMAC was more militarility agressive in the beginning, especially the Spartans.

Buy a tech for 1000 and sell it to 10-12 others for 3000? I have had 10000 gold and 1000/gold/turn. AI only has a chance if it MPPs against me since I can always have insane amounts of gold, cutting edge tech, and thanks to factories (which are easily built) I can outproduce civs 3-4 times my size.

To Spectator:
I haven't seen a game with this many bugs since Centipede (but I think there it was intentional)

To Yin:
"Let's face it, folks: Those rookies at Firaxis couldn't code a good game of Tic-Tac-Toe."
Sorry Yin, still not negative enough. If this latest patch doesn't fix things I'll show you cynicism that'll impress even you.

To Encomium:
Yeah, I feel like a beta tester. But why did you buy the Strategy guide? We could wrte a very detailed Strategy guide and it would be 10 pages at most. I could do a good one in 3 pages. Maybe 2.

Zachriel · March 1, 2002, 09:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Roy H Smith
Yeah, I feel like a beta tester. But why did you buy the Strategy guide? We could wrte a very detailed Strategy guide and it would be 10 pages at most. I could do a good one in 3 pages. Maybe 2.

And is that why you play Civ3 instead of another computer game, or tennis anyone?

Shadow_Cougar · March 1, 2002, 10:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Arachno

And by the way, isn't sanitation what leads you to being able to build an Hospital ?! If I'm correct, how can you consider this useless ?!

Well, he had a good reason, but if you are planning a war anyway, growing your cities is just asking for unhappiness problems. I get more out of a size 12 city with WLTK than most 18+ cities. Temple, cathedral, marketplace, 4+ luxuries and Sistine make for a very happy empire.
This much happiness also allows for the drafting of defenders.

12+ Cities require Suffrage and Police Stations under democracy.