Is 1.17f buggier than earlier versions?

Jonny · March 17, 2002, 13:27

I haven't had much problems with Civ3 crashing until I got 1.17f. Then, I've had more problems with it crashing, but still not many. I have this one game where I can't get past 1804. When I try to go to 1806, it crashes.

Anyways, do you think that 1.17f is buggier than earlier versions?

player1 · March 17, 2002, 13:49

To me, 1.07 had most bugs.
1.16f had less.

Now I have no problems (1.17).

asleepathewheel · March 17, 2002, 14:14

I agree with Player1
With 1.07 I would get that disorder pop-up crash (or whatever it was called) periodically. It was annoying, but at least that had a work around. With 1.17f I have had zero crashes, zero technical problems. Of course, I'm running Me which seems to not have the issues with Civ3 that some are having with Xp (har har-Me sucks so hard for everything else, but for Civ3 it is ok

)

simwiz2 · March 17, 2002, 14:37

Quote:

Originally posted by Jonny
I haven't had much problems with Civ3 crashing until I got 1.17f. Then, I've had more problems with it crashing, but still not many. I have this one game where I can't get past 1804. When I try to go to 1806, it crashes.

Anyways, do you think that 1.17f is buggier than earlier versions?

Same thing happened to me with the first patch. I downloaded 1.16, installed it, deleted my old games, and started a new one. Then it kept crashing at 2200 BC

Thankfully that was the only time that happened to me, and I have only had to abandon that one game.

Jawa Jocky · March 17, 2002, 16:14

I crash about every 5 hours, but I have never had a game crash on a year every time.

The most annoying bug for me is NO DIPLOMATIC LINES on my ADVISORS SCREEN.

notyoueither · March 17, 2002, 16:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Jawa Jocky
The most annoying bug for me is NO DIPLOMATIC LINES on my ADVISORS SCREEN.

Sounds like you're still on 1.16f. What does it say on the main screen? The screen where you start or load a game (bottom left corner). I've seen some other people who thought they had patched to 1.17, but hadn't.

Salve

Jawa Jocky · March 17, 2002, 17:21

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither

Sounds like you're still on 1.16f. What does it say on the main screen? The screen where you start or load a game (bottom left corner). I've seen some other people who thought they had patched to 1.17, but hadn't.

Salve

It comes up as 1.17 and the game play is definitely not 1.16f. I have unistalled and re-installed several times. The Diplomatic Lines have never worked on my computer regardless of which version I've played.

Ethelred · March 17, 2002, 18:23

It would be strange for just one or even a few persons to have this problem because of a general bug. I would guess that its something peculiar to your system.

Do you NEVER have ANY lines? Do have them turned on? Its possible to have the relationship lines turned off.

You will only see some of the lines if you don't have any embassies.

How about zipping up a save game and posting it? If it isn't modified anyway.

Capt Dizle · March 17, 2002, 21:50

There are fewer bugs in v1.17f but the main ones introduced, AI tech whoring and AI self induced starvation make playing the game pointless.

Ethelred · March 17, 2002, 22:01

You always say the game is pointless. Which makes your posts a bit pointless. Didn't you ever hear the story of the Boy That Cried Wolf?

Woof!

Last I saw you appeared to still be playing the game.

The tech trading IS excessive at the moment. I can deal with it but I would prefer it be changed.

The self induced starvation isn't something I have seen. Perhaps you are thinking of the excessive use of the whip and the city wrecking drafting. Both of those are techniques that humans have used. Drafting a city to death is one way to get something out of a city that cannot be held.

Yes those are overdone now. It may make the game pointless for you but then so does everything else. As a builder I just use it to my advantage.

Capt Dizle · March 17, 2002, 22:58

It renders the game pointless because you can just induce the AI into war and then the AI self destructs. My posts are not pointless if it induces posters to lament the flaw, thus inducing Firaxis to fix the flaw.

Thrawn05 · March 17, 2002, 23:02

Lets see, my screen flickers when a city text (ex: We love the king day) pops up above a city. And when I set my workers to automate around a city, they sometimes seems to go on strike and I have to do shift-a or just fort them). Other then that, it's okay.

Ethelred · March 17, 2002, 23:25

The AI only self destructs when you are within two tiles of the city. Even then you need to have enough troops that AI thinks it can't hold the city. Just starting a war isn't enough for them to start on that.

The thing is once the AI loses its intitial troops it tends to be fairly defenseless and that is not new to the 1.17f patch. Now its doing more to defend itself. Its overdoing it though.

To me this is more like it would be with a real opponent that is incensed with you. I know that I would never let someone the had attacked me get anything out of it. Scorched earth seems reasonable to me.

I think the main problem with the latest patch is that Firaxis didn't have the Beta test team in place yet. Whith outside input for future patches they should be better.

BUT the next patch isn't going to come out for a while. Some companies DO like to put them out with every little change but I don't think Firaxis can do that since they have to submit the patches to Infogrammes.

The only way to deal with it IF you want the city intact is to take it fast. At the moment if you besiege the city the AI will do more damage than you do. Sure is weird seeing four units pop out of the city and try to run for cover. If you take the city fast enough that doesn't happen.

I agree its need changing but Firaxis has seen the complaint umpteen times allready. After a certain point it becomes nagging and NO ONE listens to a nag.

The question on this thread is wether game is buggier not whether it has some questionable design decisions.

The 1.17f patch IS less buggy than any of the previous versions. It has a couple of things that need adjusting. Some people can't handle them and have removed the patch. Some haven't. I find it interesting to deal with. When it gets changed again that too will be interesting to deal with.

asleepathewheel · March 17, 2002, 23:37

I agree w/Ethelred that if I was heavily under seige, then I would whip my pop to death trying to buy time in the long run.

What I find to be ironic about the starvation argument is that these are (probably) the same people who can't deal with cultural flips.

If the AI city starts out at 20 and starves itself down to 3 or 4 while I am trying to crack it, it only makes it easier for me to preven the flip, with a smaller garrison. And it also means that the population will quickly rise, as the land around it is probably well developed, decreasing even further the flip problem.

Maybe this is too prevalent in the newest patch. but, I would deal with this and the tech trading issues rather than get rid of my group movement and other changes. Also its easier to discuss strategy if people have the same version and everyone is on the same page.

Pius Popprasch · March 18, 2002, 03:27

I always hade some trade glitches(cannot trade Workers sometimes after moving the Palace) but never crashes. My answer: same.

@Ethelred
Regarding draft and unhappiness: Culture flips are more likely with unhappy citizens. Cities with excessive draft will flip back more likely. That's my experience. The smaller population seems to be less important. Excessive drafting makes Bombers superfluous, though.

asleepathewheel · March 18, 2002, 03:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Pius Popprasch

Regarding draft and unhappiness: Culture flips are more likely with unhappy citizens. Cities with excessive draft will flip back more likely. That's my experience. The smaller population seems to be less important. Excessive drafting makes Bombers superfluous, though.

While its true that unhappy citizens will cause a flip, the more foreign nationals and resisters in the city, the more likely it will to flip. Check out this thread from Dan the Man, himself.

All variables being equal except for population (distance from capital, total culture, no squares overlapping etc)

Original city of size 20:
Resistors count 2x, regular pop counts once, so lets say thats a total of 35-which of course will drop as people starve and are appeased.
We will keep this 35 as our number, since it won't be going into disorder as much due to draft avoidance.

now look at the size 4 city that has been whipped to hell
Base of 8 which will rapidly drop to 4 if enough units
multiply by 2 for disorder =8

now, with everything else being equal, which of course it would not be, we find out the likelihood of flipping, each military unit (not including artillery) subtracts one from the total

so in the size 20 city, it would require initially 35 units to prevent a flip

the size 4 city will require 8 units

plus whereas the 20 city will likely starve down a bit before reaching equalibrium, the size 4 city, once finished resisting, will more likely grow, with your people, thus decreasing even further the chance of a flip.

Am I making any sense? I don't even know.. late.. get to bed

anyway, this is what I've seen, so its a casestudy of only a few games.

ZigZac · March 18, 2002, 04:10

I haven't had a problem with the patch, yet.

But so far I have enjoyed every part of Civ3. I loved Civ2, and CTP/CTP2. This one seems to have the potential to be better than it is, but I am going to have fun with it anyway. The only thing I can't get over is how complicated the Editor is.

player1 · March 18, 2002, 04:58

For those who have problem with AI draft try to do this:
Editor -> General:
Unhappines timer for rushing & draft: chage to 20 (from 40)

That way you'll make game playable for yourself.

P.S.
I am 100% sure that it will be done in next patch.

Wanna bet?

Ethelred · March 18, 2002, 05:48

Quote:

Regarding draft and unhappiness: Culture flips are more likely with unhappy citizens. Cities with excessive draft will flip back more likely.

Thats true. However if you build a temple or library or better yet both the expanding city borders will eventually take care of the reversion problem in most instances. I have had very few cities flip and I am pretty sure all of them did it before the culture reached 100 and most before it reached 10. If there is a city you particularly want the best thing to do is raze the enemy cities in the neighborhood. That way the key city will not have overlapping borders.

The main item, even before foreign nationals, for culture flipping is not the culture of the civs but the number of a city's tiles that are within your own borders. The reason I say that is that the check is apparently is done on a per tile basis. I do know that its exceedingly rare for a city with full controll of all of its tiles to flip either way.

That vague formula that Dan posted was for the 1.16f patch. The affect of your military units in the city has been increased with the 1.17f patch. Firaxis as usual was rather vague about it and people have run with what they THINK Firaxis said.

A number of people are going around claiming that a city can be protected if you put enough units into it now. That is NOT what was said in Soren's clarification. What was said that IF the city had ALL of its tiles in your own borders THEN military units could guarantee that you would LIKELY hold it. I found that if I have full controll of all the cities tiles I almost always hold the city no matter which patch is used.

Here is what was Soren REALLY said:

From
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...287#post751287

It is now possible to completely suppress a city's cultural reversion with enough military units.

Precisely how many are enough?

*Well, that depends. If you take over someone's capital of size 20, are surrounded by enemy territory, and are inferior to them culturally, then you are going to need a LOT of units. However, cities with 2 or 3 foreign nationals and full control of their city radius probably will be under no risk with 4 to 6 units. The number of units would be even less if your civilization has more overall culture.*

Notice the part about "full control of their city radius".

It pretty much functioned that way before 1.17f so the change must have been pretty minor. I suspect the change log overstated the case for holding a city with troops. Overstated it a lot. Possible is nowhere near the same as feasible.

Its possible for a bird to fly around the world but only one species out of thousands actually does it.

Here is something pertinent from the chat.

(Beard_Rinker) What's the dirt on completely suppressing a city's cultural reversion? My first experiments with this with the new patch cost me some good units.

(Soren_Johnson_Firaxis) beard: this will probably only be effective for cities with small risk of flipping. we were worried about the "I just lost 20 units when a size 1 city flipped!" issue.

So worried they did nothing about it. That one annoys me. I hope its because its hard to make a change to do it right rather than they think the present way is the right way.

That a player loses some units when a city reverts is reasonable. That a city can lose the entirety of a huge stack of units that is twice the city's population is ridiculous.

So I don't allow the ridiculous to happen. I keep most of my units out of the city untill it has all twenty-one tiles within my cultural borders.

I don't play that game of trying to cripple a civ by attacking but not killing it either. If I go after a civ its to the death. I only lay off if I cannot continue in my efforts to liberate the poor abused people of the vile enemy. They are so much better off under my munificent rule. I can't understand why they resist my bladishments for so long.

notyoueither · March 18, 2002, 05:59

Jawa Jocky.

This is bizarre. I had the same problem as soon as I installed 1.16f. I uninstalled. I updated drivers. I reinstalled. I repatched. Same problem.

Then I swung the chicken, hummed rythmic African tunes, and burned incense while praying to the the great god Matrox. No luck.

Problem gone as soon as I installed 1.17f.

Salve

notyoueither · March 18, 2002, 06:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Ethelred
I don't play that game of trying to cripple a civ by attacking but not killing it either. If I go after a civ its to the death

Someone else has discovered the key to avoiding flips.

Salve

Panag · March 18, 2002, 11:10

hi ,

huh , i would say that the game as a whole is bugy , i read somewhere that the game shall be stable and the multiplayer as well around X-mas , ............2002 , pffffffffffffffff , okay they did an excellent job , but , huh , would someone please make a final fix , hey , i would not mind to wait until may or so .

an other thing , i have noticed , there are a lot of people here on this site , who could program the game , unleash them , and huh , the game shall be stable , critic , no , just facts !!!

allez , remeber i said that i love the game , BUT , it needs to improve , okay , no one like's to wait , but still , there was Q-control and beta testing , hmmmm , maybe some people where assleep , allas , who knows the song , in the year 25-25 , yeah by then it shall be fixed .

i know that i am going to get unhappy feedback , mainly offlist , but i lot of people feel like me , even their site is "bogus" , take a look at this site , ..................

have a nice day

the above is something to think about , and maybe together we can do something about it

Jawa Jocky · March 18, 2002, 17:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Ethelred
It would be strange for just one or even a few persons to have this problem because of a general bug. I would guess that its something peculiar to your system.

Do you NEVER have ANY lines? Do have them turned on? Its possible to have the relationship lines turned off.

You will only see some of the lines if you don't have any embassies.

How about zipping up a save game and posting it? If it isn't modified anyway.

I never have any lines. I can click them on/off with no effect. I must have read about diplomacy in the manual 100 times trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. When other people had this problem, I tried everything that worked for them. I got really excited when 1.17 fixed the problem for everyone. When I was finally able to download the patch myself I discovered that I am now the last Civ3 player on Earth without diplomatic lines. I will post a saved game (no mod) when I get home tonight.

Ethelred · March 18, 2002, 19:44

Please post your system specs as well. For instance here are mine

Abit BE 6II version one motherboard with on board ATA 66 controller disabled as the first version of that thing was buggy.

Promise Fastrack 100 RAID controller

Pair of Maxtor 60 gigs in one RAID 0 array
Pair of Maxtor 30 gigs in another RAID o arry

PIII 700 no overclocking
384 megs SDRAM
Sound Blaster Live original version with latest XP drivers. Latest was a in December I think. No it was end of November. Just checked the site.

Radeon All-in-Blunder with 6.13.3281 leaked beta driver for XP

XP profesional

Direct X 8.1 which is what XP is shipped with

Key item here is probably you video card. Assuming you do have direct X 8.1 installed. Apparently the game will run with Direct X7 but will have strange bugs.

Also some tweaks can mess things up. VCache tweaks can make a system unstable. Those tend to produce BSODs much like the ones I was getting with a bad memory stick the last two weeks.

Panag · March 18, 2002, 22:28

hi ,

direct x 8.0 at least , by the way , that one is included with the game ! if ya dont have it on your system , it install's itself before the game !

allas , ya can get 8.1 from microsoft upgrades , and it should be with the pro XP

have a nice day

Jawa Jocky · March 18, 2002, 23:20

Here is a current game. It was played on 1.17 with no mods.

I just upgraded direct X 8.0 to 8.1 but it didn't help. I also re-checked my drivers but they are all current. To be honest I know next to nothing about hardware. Here are some general specs for my poor old computer (1999).

Pentium(r) II 400 - Intel MMX(TM)
256 ram
Win98
ATI Rage 128XPERT 128
ASUS P2B-F AGP Motherboard

Please let me know what additional information would be helpful. I completely agree with your conclusion that the problem must be unique to my system. I just have no idea about how to correct it. My guess is that new video card would be the cheapest solution, but I really don't want to upgrade this computer without being 100% sure it will work. I could also load Win2k, but I know some of my other games don't on NT.

Thank you for your help

I guess there IS still room for civility

Ethelred · March 19, 2002, 02:12

I see blue lines. Thats it though. You don't have any embassies so I was only able to see the lines from you to the other civs and not the lines between the other civs. Those you won't see without an embassy.

You don't say what OS your using. Assuming Windows 98 then the latest Rage driver is 4.13.7192 on ATI's site. Its from October of 2001. Same thing on the Rage3D site so if thats what you have thats the best you're going to get.

The problem is the Rage chip has never been made to function fully. Its pretty obvious that it isn't just the usual ATI garbage drivers. There seems to be a fundamental flaw in the hardware that ATI has not been able to workaround.

I have the Radeon All in Blunder myself. The ATI Radeon has never had the hardware fog working but everything else appears to be functional with most of the drivers that have come out. I think that fog problem is hardware based but ATI has never admitted it. Their lack of success with the problem for over a year however makes it fairly clear. They have admitted that the RAGE chip has some problems they cannot fix.

So at a guess the Rage card is your problem unless someone else here has one of those things and isn't haveing the same result you are getting.

Here is a link for the Rage3D site. Its the best site to learn about all things ATI:

http://63.231.44.178/

and the page for the Rage drivers

http://63.231.44.178/files/drivers/r128driver.shtml

As for the game you posted. That is bad. Really bad. I just finished a similar position last week. Stuck on an island. Yours is farther out into the middle of nowhere. Your way behind on tech. Only England is worse off and they were only ones worse than me in my game. That was my first attempt at Emperor.

Through heavy tech trading I was able to keep close on tech but the vile Indians managed to launch the SS long before I could. The only reason I was still around is that my island was pretty impregnable. Only marines could have landed as I could block any place a ship could reach. Held of two leading countries in one war. Through diplomacy I managed later to get everyone but the hopless English to attack the Indian leader. Didn't help as I could not muster the strength for a successfull landing. I would have need to get a Great Leader even if I was able to take and hold a city. A leader would have been needed to move my Palace.

If you can win that game I would be really impressed. Frankly I recommend giving it up unless you know how to pull that thing out.

If you do play it out you might want to change a few things you are doing. Your capital's growth is pinned at twelve yet you have a major excess of food there. Mine its tiles so you can get some production out of it till you reach the hospital tech. The southern city is set to build a library. Change it to a courthouse. That city had only two usefull shield and three were lost to corruption. A courthouse should improve that enough to be worth building.

Set your research low 10% or all the way to zero as you need to get money to buy tech. The AI is about to explode in tech. Two of them are working on the Theory of Evolution and one is working on Womens Suffrage yet you are stuck back on metalurgy.

notyoueither · March 19, 2002, 02:45

I too get lines in diplomacy (Matrox). Other people mentioning glitches have had ATI cards (Aeson has Radeon). But your's seems to be one of possession. Does your monitor turn completely around at unexpected times? Sorry, I'm trying to be helpful, but I'm clutching at straws at the moment.

Hmm. I wasn't going to do a number on your game (as Ethelred seems to have done). I would have let it sit at saying: watch out for the Russians.

Salve

Ethelred · March 19, 2002, 03:04

Quote:

I would have let it sit at saying: watch out for the Russians.

Catherine is ALWAYS evil.

Step CLOMP, step CLOMP, step CLOMP

Have you seen the Great White?

CLOMP step, CLOMP step CLOMP step

Moby Catherine is EVIL.

No I haven't use the joke before, why do you ask?

NO I HAVE NOT.

Well yes a bit. Now and then. Every where really.

notyoueither · March 19, 2002, 03:12

Yes. And in JJ's case she (the b*tch) is the candidate for winning power I would think.

Dosvedonya. Or something like that.