Your polls are unscientific in nature and inconclusive based on nothing but the base consideration of sample size to the size of your total population, not to mention all coming from the exact same base population of this Forum.

Also please note that it is an accepted fact that ALL internet polls suffer from the same failing. They are not random sample but rather seeking out to be heard. IE: The only ones that answer them are the ones that want to.

Yes, these arguments are common tactics if one doesn't like the outcome of a poll. I'm dealing with polls scientifically and I come across these arguments very often. I do have the impression that you are no newbie regarding polls either, so you probably know what I'm talking about.

So what do you do in an environment where cannot get the ideal, scientifically waterproof poll? You make do with the ones you have, and you try to get a meta-poll based on the polls you have.

What we have are lots of polls which show that the game has issues for a subgroup of its customers, but that the criticism that is voiced here is way overblown. At the very least I would expect from the critics (who were the first ones who demanded polls, which puts their now shown reluctance to accept their results in a strange light) that they present at least some polls which support their view. So far I've seen only one site that comes close to that, that's the Amazon review average which currently shows 2.5 of 5 stars. This value has been mentioned again and again by the critics, who, strangely, don't seem to have any objection to accept the outcome of this "poll", while happily disregarding all others.

Now, the Amazon review average is a sign that the game is certainly not problem-free, as are most of the other polls (20% of people who can't or won't play the game because of bugs, as shown in one CFC poll, are nothing to be proud of and are a clear sign that this game has not seen a perfect release). But I honestly don't see anything that supports the partly outrageous claims that some of the critics have made.

This, btw, is the reason why I participate here. I don't deny that the Civ4 release could have been better (although I actually think that it was far better than the Civ3 release, but that's another story). But some people go way overboard with there criticism, and the game is far too good to leave that uncommented.

But some people go way overboard with there criticism, and the game is far too good to leave that uncommented.
You mispelled "there" in the context, it should have been "their," so your whole point is invalid. And you're avatar's UGLY! ;)

:p I'm kidding, by the way, no one send me death threats. :lol:

SilverKnight

Blue3c. lets just compare what you said in the past and what you said now.

Past:

Padma, you and others have said it works for more then it doesn't. I have asked this before, but I will ask again. Where do you get such data. Did you poll a group who purchased the game. Or are you just assuming. Please if you have a poll or this data then post it. Otherwise don't assume that it works for more then it doesn't. Scrolling around this forum and others I see more people posting problems then oh its great. I will give you the whole if it works they are playing and not posting. But, without some solid data no one can say either way.

You demanded a poll. There was no mention of the poll having to be random or this site's polls being skewed. You even took data from this site (number of complaint threads) to support your claim, and you even admitted that there might be people who may not post here because they are playing the game.

We have shown you polls. Now you say:

I said before and I will say again YOU CAN NOT USE a poll from this site with concrete numbers. This site is biased. People who come here love the whole series. Therefore they are biased. If you had a random poll like I said before and agian later I would beleive it and shut up about your numbers. But your numbers a skewed and biased.
[...]
Read what I say before you spout off. None of you posting links to these polls on this site have in fact read what I said. You just saw what you wanted to. Talk about self centered there buddy.
I did not demand I said show me numbers to support your dam post. I said show me unbiased numbers. YOU CAN NOT. They do not exist which makes your statements e7of 80% untrue because you CAN NOT BACK THEM UP WITH SOLID DATA, as I have said before.

So, suddenly polls are not enough, they have to be "unbiased". And the polls on CFC are "skewed". The only data from CFC that is acceptable is the number of complaint threads, which (so you claim) supports your claims. All other data is skewed.

To see this line of arguing fom someone who demands *unbiased* arguments is ... interesting.

When I show you your contridictions and the strange evolution of your arguments, you call me "self centered", tell me to "STFU", and resort to strange claims:

I am sorry, I should be saying go civ go. u rah rah. conform to your thorughts and expectations.

Nowhere have I said that. I actually enjoy critical discussions of the games I play, as long as they are constructive. I never said you should go "u rah rah". I'd be happy already if you'd just stop this rather pointless crusade and switched to constructive criticism.

There are a few aggressive replies here (even after my warning on the previous page). The discussion is all fine, but I don't like the style of it. There are better ways to lead a discussion. It is almost impossible for one to impose their opinion on another person who disagrees just as much with the topic. Therefore it's pointless to argue. I really don't want to see any more aggressive posts from this point on.

Polls are fine and all but as someone somwhere once said.

There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics.

I personally dislike polls, any poll can be easily managed, phrased, etc to say what you want it to. My argument has never been that the game fails for most people. My own point is that it fails for too many people. I have stated that I enjoy this game and continue to play it and try to find ways to make it run better, but my argument is if the game had been properly tested etc that I wouldn't have to do that. I am, as I see it, rightfully angry. Any angry or ugly comments I have made were likely in the heat of the moment and in response to what me seemed insulting comments/responses. Heh, you should have seen the original version of my last post, yikes... talk about flame war, happily I can say I heavily edited it and did my best for a reasoned argument at the polls DESPITE the shortcomings.

Even with the acknowledged shortcomings almost every internet sampling I have seen (even the 9.2 etc reviews when you read them instead of looking at the average score) have shown a similiar break down of a very small minority totally unable to get the game to work, to a significant minority with large problems, to a larger still minority that have a playable game that is buggy and crash prone and slow, to a about 45% to 50% majority that have no problem with it and love it, to a still smaller majority of about 1% to 2% that have a fully working great game that piss me off by insulting and attacking personally those that have the timerity to have a game that doesn't work the way they have a consumers right to expect it to work.

PS: Just try getting any higher level education in history/poli sci without taking tons of statistics courses... God how I hated that... 5 hour tests in the testing center outside of class time to solve 3 problems...
With X and Y and Z as blah blah analyze the statistical probablities links blah blah blah that produce A and B and demonstrate how they can be falsley used etc... and then the logic classes... EEGADS.

Oh great thanks for bringing out horrific flash backs!
(Actually I liked Logic... just not Statistics and especially not polling specifics, ugh... talk about manipulation of the numbers)

Edit: I accept that probably about 80% of the people with this game are happy. The primary point I make is... 15% badly buggy and 5% unusable is not acceptabl, or rather should not be acceptable.
Edit: PS: Very little here if this is the "tech support" of Firaxis would I consider to be even remotely tech support. More rants/raves/arguments/debates about the merits of the game etc and a listing of its failing by those it doesn't work for with some of those it does work for showing up everynow and then and attacking those it doesn't work for because they have the temerity to complain about a product that doesn't work for them.

Am I a broken record? Maybe so... but the whole situation really is frustrating.

PPS: I hope this isn't an aggressive Post. :)

TheOldStatesman, I will make one last reply to answer your post. You ask me what happened to my 'neutrality' and unbiased opinion. They are still there, but I am not going to pan a game which I am personally enjoying more than any other I have ever played just to create some illusion of 'neutrality'. Nor have I ever claimed that people have not genuinely experienced problems with how the game runs (or doesn't, as the case may be) on their computer-after all, I did point out that I too had some difficulties with the game in the first week or two I owned it (frequent CTD's and graphics artifacts). I should point out, though, that I couldn't play Doom3 AT ALL for a whole month-but I didn't go and B**CH at Doom sites how IDSoftware had lost the plot. Why, because I discovered that ALL of my problems stemmed-somehow-from my graphics card and, when I DOWNGRADED, everything worked great and-after the patch-Civ4 particularly has never worked better. It may seem strange, but those experiences ARE going to colour my view of the game overall. What BUGS me about the ranting going on in this forum, and what has gotten me especially pent-up and furious is NOT people expressing a negative opinion about the game (which they are most certainly entitled to do), but how it seems like everyone with a beef about the game (technical or gameplay) is starting their OWN thread to complain about it-thus drowning out the positive comments-and the fact that many are joining CFC for that sole purpose. Also, it bugs me when people claim to be part of a majority, when in fact no clear evidence exists to suggest that they are-and they dismiss all evidence, both here and elsewhere, that actually refutes their claims of majority status.
As I said above, though, to me the whole point is now MOOT-as I now intend to spend the entirety of my time either playing the game (over 12 hours alone this last weekend) and hanging out in the Strategy, Stories and Customization threads of this forum-and the Apolyton forums-with all the others apparently on the Firaxis 'payroll' :rolleyes:, and leave the rest of you lot to 'vent your spleens' in peace.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I am having trouble downloading the patch. I can access the various servers and mirrors (I think), but the patch refuses to download. I can see the download screen acting like something's going on, but the progress bar never, ever advances beyond the first green tick-mark. I don't think there's anything wrong with my connections. Can anyone help?

You use words like demanded, and take my words out of context. Even if the words solid data mean nothing to you.
I enjoy the fact that you have taken a personal crusade against me. Thats fine. Again, please read what I said in context.
The game was rushed. The games first attempt at a patch is terrible. There is no poll with solid data as ASKED for it my first post.
Define solid data, unbiased and random. neither of which there are.
There are no complete reviews of the game. Not one mentions any of the problems many have seen in here.
4 machines tested out of 5 and I get the same results with the in game update. Waiting on the download for the 5th and final machine.
I have no clue what the problem is because I am not a coder. I stick to the hardware and os support.
All 5 machines so far have shown the same error at or around the same point.
I believe by testing on 5 different machines I have ruled out hardware. The only constant is Viking memory and nvdia cards. Not a big fan of ATI, but thats for another day.
Testing on different versions of windows with different sp levels have come up with the same conclusions. There are ten other people in our lan party group. All but one have the same issues. So could I consider that a valid poll. NO. Same as here. I do not consider these polls to be valid. Sure they are a good gague of the people who come to this site all the time and those same people support this series in full.
I used to. I loved civ, civII was more fun. Once I got to civ III all the patches where there. So I have no idea what others went through with this. From a few posts on here I heard it was rough. But again I have nothing solid to base that on.
The things that really upset me are these.
1) not one review mentioned one issue with the game. At least none that I read.
2) from what little of the game I have played it looks amazing, and the pisses me off more because I can not finish a game. Talk about your all time tease.
3) people who come in and claim it is my software or hardware that is the problem
4) people who use polls to support statements (which IMO) do not come from solid data.
5)people who post here just looking to get others pissed and upset.
I would be happy to support the game if it worked. If I saw some fix. That fix will not come until a expansion pack. Which means I will have to drop more green on it just to be able to play the game I bought in the first time.
I have tried other games on these setups that civ fails on. They all work with maxed out everything. No lag, no ctd no hard lock of any system. For those wondering. BF2, BF2 special forces, DOOMIII Age of Empires III. I think that is solid testing. By the way AGE III Plays flawless with everything maxed and lagest maps as many computer opp as I can. It works wonders.
Why is it then that civ iv gives me ctd's and hard locks. And wait imagine this. AGE III works out of the box that way. I know I know shocking. Wait thats the way it should be. Side note most wanted runs with everything maxed awesome. Again this is right out of the box. Which confuses me even more.
Can anyone answer why those games all work perfectly, most right out of the box, with the exception of bf2 and bf2 sf. And civ doesn't even after a patch. Please tell me and I will make the change (if it is on my end) and never post again. But I am positive it is not on my end. It is the code. What in the code of the game causes this. Hark I think is on to it. He is a coder. Something tells me he beats firaxis and take2 to a ptach that actually fixes the game. Any takers.

I am having trouble downloading the patch. I can access the various servers and mirrors (I think), but the patch refuses to download. I can see the download screen acting like something's going on, but the progress bar never, ever advances beyond the first green tick-mark. I don't think there's anything wrong with my connections. Can anyone help?
Try clearing your cache directory, then clear your ie cache and reboot. Try the in game patch again, you should get it. :goodjob:

I am having trouble downloading the patch. I can access the various servers and mirrors (I think), but the patch refuses to download. I can see the download screen acting like something's going on, but the progress bar never, ever advances beyond the first green tick-mark. I don't think there's anything wrong with my connections. Can anyone help?

Hmm, if you can't download it from within the game, nor from Civfanatics, nor from Apolyton, then reason is very likely in your connection or in your computer. Perhaps a Firewall problem?

Can you download other large files (the patch is rather large, 23 MB) from other sites without problems?

I notice there alot of horn blowers and trash pickin going on in here maybe it about time to lock this thread once for all!

Oh, so NOW we are all on the Payroll of Firaxis/Take2 if we like this game and are having no trouble with it :rolleyes:. Sheesh, that excuse is so pathetic that it barely deserves any comment at all (and shows how desperate you have become to seem like nothing more than a VERY vocal minority). You asked me to show you a poll that showed more than 80% of people liking the game/enjoying the game and/or having little to no trouble with the game-and I showed you almost a dozen. Oh, but NOW they are all WRONG or BIASED because they don't AGREE with YOUR opinion of the game-man, this is evidence that you are such a SELF-INVOLVED little whiner Blue. If anything, I think these polls are biased AGAINST those who like the game, because most of the regular members of these forums are actually off PLAYING the game-or hanging out in the more INTELLIGENT areas of the Forum. But no, this Forum is biased against whiners, apparently, simply because actual polling shows that the whiners are nothing more than a VERY vocal minority. Oh and, let me assure you, I play HUGE maps-and often huge TERRA maps-and play a lot of online games-and I am still having incredibly smooth games with little to no lag AT ALL (with the few minor hitches I had removed by small alterations to my Civ4.ini file). I repeat, those with problems are clearly not having them due to problems with the game-or else EVERYONE would be having the same difficulties-but because of their computer set ups (I, for one, had MAJOR general difficulties with my Radeon 9550 card, but not with an older 9250 card), or HOW they installed the original game and/or the subsequent patch. Seriously, though, comparing the problems some people are having with planes falling out of the sky is a clear indication of how desperate and shrill the vocal minority here have become, and are a clear indication of the fact that-if I want INTELLIGENT conversation-then the General Discussion threads are NOT the place to come. So, for the VERY last time, I say GOOD BYE and GOOD LUCK to all the intelligent members of this forum. To the rest of you :p :mad:.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
yup... im on the payroll too according to some guys on the alt.games.civ3 newsgroup.....just because my game runs great with 2gig ram, and runs "ok" with 512mb.

I can download files of 3 meg size quite quickly. I realize this is not nearly the size of the patch. Maybe it is a firewall issue...<shrug>

OK, real stupid question...which cache directory do I clear? I have so many. I guess you mean by clearing my IE cache to delete my Temporary Internet Files. I can attempt it...

And it still does not work. The in-game patch loading gets to about 83k and freezes. I even tried doing this with my windows firewall switched off. What the hell.

Edited to add further:

I think I actually got it to work. Damned if I know what I did, but I think it had something to do w/ disabling some download block I had. <shrug>

OK, real stupid question...which cache directory do I clear? I have so many. I guess you mean by clearing my IE cache to delete my Temporary Internet Files. I can attempt it...

And it still does not work. The in-game patch loading gets to about 83k and freezes. I even tried doing this with my windows firewall switched off. What the hell.

You don't have to do it manually. Hold down the SHIFT key when you fire up CivIV and it will clear it up. I keep holding it down until I see that it is loading without a cache, then I'll release.

Thanx...I wish I knew this sort of stuff beforehand. :)

And it still does not work. The in-game patch loading gets to about 83k and freezes. I even tried doing this with my windows firewall switched off. What the hell.

I had a similar problem with the in-game patch, it got to about 5% then it would just stop and go back to my desktop. I just downloaded from the site and installed.

Patch made the game worse! Everything was working fine prior, wasn't even thinking of a patch until my brother called and said that he was having problems. The patch made all the unts move slow and choppy. All the caravels in the game turned a solid color...same as my borders. Then when I go war, the enemy units don't move during battle. I need to get rid of this patch. I've running large terra maps with a ton of civs since I got the game and have finished several, so I don't think its anything but the patch.

Anyone know how to get rid of the patch without having to uninstall the whole program?

Thanx...I wish I knew this sort of stuff beforehand. :)

Yah unless you are having problems I would not install this patch. The ones I downloaded removed the exe. The in game update seems to be the way to go if you are going to update. I would wait though. Either way good luck.

Just uninstall ur civ 4. It should have a check box saying unistall patch. Just check this box and not the whole game. This patch sucks. The game is great but it crashs like crazy. I have superceeded all the requirments for this game, have a nvidia fx 5500 card. I play on low screen quality and i still get crashs all the time. It is also silly for people who love civ and can run it ok to defend this crappy buggy thing we paid for. Too many people are having problems with this game. Im sick of reloading this game every 20 minutes.

You use words like demanded, and take my words out of context.

Well, if you dislike the word "demanded", let's change it in "asked for". No problem with that. I didn't want to imply any accusation by using "demand".

It doesn't change my argument though, which is that you were the one who *wanted* a poll, yet didn't accept its outcome, a decision that you based on an perceived "skewedness" of CFC - a skewedness that you never mentioned before you were shown that the poll really doesn't support your claim in any way, on the contrary, you did (and do) use data from CFC when you think it supports your claims.

I did read what you said in context. I followed the whole thread where you first said it. Your post is here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3348139&postcount=698). I don't see which context I missed, can you be more specific?

There is no poll with solid data as ASKED for it my first post.
Define solid data, unbiased and random. neither of which there are.

Based on these definitons: Do you agree that there is *no solid data* that supports your claims that the game does not work for the majority of users? Further, based on your definition, do you agree that there is no solid data to even prove that the minority of users who have problems is substantially large? Finally, based on your definition, do you agree that there is no solid data to contradict claims that the game works for everyone but a very small minority?

Please notice, I do not make these claims. My claim is that about 20% of people can't/won't play the game (a number which is too large, and should - and will - be fixed by Firaxis). I can make this claim because I accept the polls as the best data we have. But since you don't accept them, and since your standard of "solid data" is so high, you cannot even provide "solid data" that more than 0.5% of users are having problems. Right?

No matter which level of data "solidity" you want, you should use it for your own claims as well. You cannot just count the number of complaint threads vs "It's great" threads to support your claims, and at the same time ask for a professional, scientific, random-sample poll from us for our claims.

Now on to the topics where we don't disagree *that* much:

1) not one review mentioned one issue with the game. At least none that I read.

I agree that a good review should mention that some people are having problems. I wrote a small review myself, and my baseline was: The game is great, but check your specs, and test how it runs on your machine before you buy it.

2) from what little of the game I have played it looks amazing, and the pisses me off more because I can not finish a game. Talk about your all time tease.

I understand your frustration. For me, it was similar with Guild Wars. It ran fine for a week (so that I got really hooked), then all of the sudden it kept crashing. I saw the great graphics. I met my friends from the guild. I disappointed people who tried to do a mission with me because you cannot rejoin the mission after a crash. It was not nice. Tech support an I spent about a week before we found a solution.

But I never felt compelled to go to the forums and rant about it. That just wouldn't have helped.

3) people who come in and claim it is my software or hardware that is the problem

It can't be only the game alone because it runs fine on many (I believe most) systems. It can't be your software/hardware alone because there is no common pattern in either software or hardware among those who experience problems. Most likely it's an interaction between both.

In any case, putting the blame on your machines is as silly as putting the blame on Firaxis. Currently we just don't know for sure what the problem is. I suggest not blaming anyone, but helping Firaxis to make the game run on all these machines.

4) people who use polls to support statements (which IMO) do not come from solid data.

Your definition of solid data isn't met by any poll we could possible do. We'd need a professional poll taker to do that. You know that we can't do that. So why did you ask for it in the first place?

The polls are the best what we have. They may be skewed towards the positive because this is a fan site. They may also be skewed towards the negative because this site is at least semi-official (linked from the game's support page, so people with problems are more likely to land here) and because many people may just happily play the game and not be concerned about forums and polls at all. Since these influence factors go into both directions, I suggest to take the poll results as they are.

Of course, it's always easy to say "But this is a fansite", when the polls seem too positive for oneself. It's equally easy to say "But the majority is playing instead of polling, and this site is linked from the game's support page" when the polls seem too negative for oneself. But this bickering about the poll quality won't lead to anything. These polls are the best data we have, either we take it, or we close the case because we won't get better data and discussion about this subject is moot.

5)people who post here just looking to get others pissed and upset.

Yes, that's a problem. I've seen people claiming that it is *necessary* to make people upset in order to create some "public dissent" to impress Firaxis. I definitely oppose this notion. Firaxis doesn't need any fan upset to work on the game, they are doing this already.

I would be happy to support the game if it worked. If I saw some fix. That fix will not come until a expansion pack.

Based on your current behavior, I don't think that any patch is likely to appease you. I have the impression that you will look foremost for things that don't work and that you can criticize. I also doubt that, when a patch truly worked, you'd really tell us about it. I base my expectations on the way you have dealt with the game so far.

An example: You said that the patch would come in two weeks and that it would not solve the issues. The patch came three days later and solved the issues for some people, but not for all. I didn't see a positive comment from you about the patch coming sooner than you expected. I didn't see you saying something positive about the fixes. Instead you concentrated on things that still don't work. I think you will continue to do this. But that's just my current impression, and I may be wrong. I actually hope I am.

MY GOD MAN. my point is you cannot say it works for x amount of people or it doesn't work for x amount of people. because x is unknown. So stop spouting off with numbers that you can not support.
I can say it is not my hardware or my software. I can say that my systems all test awesome with all other products. I can not say the same for civ on my systems. My 5 systems plus 10 from the lan parties and only one can finish a game without a ctd or hard lock.
I can say that if the game worked for me I would not be wasting my time in here. I would be playing the game. I can also say I am sick of this back and forth. I can also say go nuts. Spout all the numbers you want. Say whatever you want. do whatever you want. I can also say you and aussie should get together if there is room on the bandwagon. Good luck with that. I am done with this back and forth. Go forth with your polls and believe in santa while your at it. Either way firaxis still messed up. either way the game still does not work. Either way no patch will fix the game until the expansion pack. They need the money to pay for firaxis.

just downloaded it.... thx

blue3c, I must admit I'm disappointed. I put down specific arguments and questions, I would have preferred specific answers.

MY GOD MAN. my point is you cannot say it works for x amount of people or it doesn't work for x amount of people. because x is unknown. So stop spouting off with numbers that you can not support.

So you agree that your tallying of complaint threads vs "It's great" threads was without any merit, because you just cannot tell how large the number of people with problems is anyway? But then, why did you do it?

Also, why did ask for a poll when you knew that no one can provide one which satisfies your criteria for solid data?

I can say it is not my hardware or my software. I can say that my systems all test awesome with all other products. I can not say the same for civ on my systems. My 5 systems plus 10 from the lan parties and only one can finish a game without a ctd or hard lock.

Well, I can say that the game works for me, as for my friends. None of us has experienced crashes or any problems to run the game so far. But as you said, these are single cases that can't be generalized. They don't represent the solid data you want. But then, why do you bring them up? There's no use in that when you have to discard them for the discussion because they aren't "solid data".

As a side note, when your hardware runs awesome with *all* other products, please tell me your specs. I plan on buying a new PC next year and I don't know *anybody* who can claim that his gaming rigs perform that stellar for *all* games. It would be great to have such a system.


I won't answer to the part with "go nuts" and "believe in santa".


Either way firaxis still messed up. either way the game still does not work. Either way no patch will fix the game until the expansion pack. They need the money to pay for firaxis.

I'm sorry that you already made up your mind on that one. I think that Firaxis will disprove you, and patch Civ4 as dedicated as they patched all their other games. Let's see how it turns out.

Just uninstall ur civ 4. It should have a check box saying unistall patch. Just check this box and not the whole game.

Not seeing the checkbox. When I go to add/remove programs and click remove it launches the unistaller and asks if I want to remove the whole program and all its accessories. I clicked no...it cancelled the uninstall, should I be clicking yes?

I'm not seeing an uninstall on the cd startup either.

The game was running fine for weeks prior to downloading the patch. No offense to Blue and I don't know why your's is not working on all those different setups, but you should look to see if they all have something in common.

To let you know what's working for me, I'm just running right now on a stock gateway GT5012...2.8G Pentium D, 1G ram, 128M shared stock graphics. The game wouldn't work right on my p.o.s. laptop, Athlon XP-M, 512M ram, only 64M graphics. But my laptop always overheats with everything.

What's interesting to me is that Sid's Pirates runs slow but visible on my laptop, but is all jacked up, graphics wise, on my desktop.

I'm looking to upgrade my graphics on my desktop, but I think I'll wait until firaxis works out the quarks in civ first...too many compatibility issues. Anybody have any 256M that are working with this game?

Not seeing the checkbox. When I go to add/remove programs and click remove it launches the unistaller and asks if I want to remove the whole program and all its accessories. I clicked no...it cancelled the uninstall, should I be clicking yes?

I'm not seeing an uninstall on the cd startup either.

The game was running fine for weeks prior to downloading the patch. No offense to Blue and I don't know why your's is not working on all those different setups, but you should look to see if they all have something in common.

To let you know what's working for me, I'm just running right now on a stock gateway GT5012...2.8G Pentium D, 1G ram, 128M shared stock graphics. The game wouldn't work right on my p.o.s. laptop, Athlon XP-M, 512M ram, only 64M graphics. But my laptop always overheats with everything.

What's interesting to me is that Sid's Pirates runs slow but visible on my laptop, but is all jacked up, graphics wise, on my desktop.

I'm looking to upgrade my graphics on my desktop, but I think I'll wait until firaxis works out the quarks in civ first...too many compatibility issues. Anybody have any 256M that are working with this game?

hey joe, i think he is talking about gong throught the setup for the game you get an option to uninstall and you can choose what to uninstall. The patch being what you would check.
No offense taken. Glad you had it working. from what I can tell it could be the best one yet.
I had no prob with pirates on any setup. Whats really fun is installing the original pirates playing that for a bit and then switching to the new one. :D

hey joe, i think he is talking about gong throught the setup for the game you get an option to uninstall and you can choose what to uninstall. The patch being what you would check.
Checking this box just means that the install will leave the downloaded patch file in your "My Games/sid Mieir's Civilization 4" folder. It does not mean it will unistall the patch and return the game to the original state. Only a full uninstall/reinstall will do that.

As do the other check boxes. If you want to leave that stuff - save games, screenshots, profiles, custom configuration, uncheck the boxes.

The game will still totally uninstall except for leaving that stuff you check alone.

Also, if you have an ATI card, you must undo the 'fix' that unpaked the art0.fpk file for the patch to fully install. The art0.fpk must be in the proper place before running the patch, and the files you unpaked should be deleted.

To those saying people like me join CFC just to whine, well, there's no real technical support so of course we end up here. The Take2 site STILL does not have the patch listed for Civ4!
Plus, I used to visit CFC a lot before getting Civ4, but never felt compelled to join the forums... was happy just reading strategy articles etc.

I think something that's really missing here is the understanding that a lot of people are just frustrated - I think 95% of people love the game.
We should remember we're all Civ Fanatics!!

Those of us "whiners" just want to be able to play the game we all enjoy on pretty typical setups. As the patch has had a (it seems) generally positive effect, it looks like Firaxis are getting on top of some of the issues, so perhaps now some of the more obvious ones are out of the way they'll be able to focus on some of the more difficult issues and get the game working for the 20% of us that currently "enjoy" the "one more turn, then CTD or freeze".

holy crapsticks, as much fun as it is to read flamewars, this one is annoying me.

All i have to say is that my game wasnt working, the patch was meant to fix it but made it worse. I am not making this up. There appear to be other people with my problems, so this suggests it is not my fault. I would like the problem to be rectified, so i can play my game which i have paid for with my own money.

that is all.

holy crapsticks, as much fun as it is to read flamewars, this one is annoying me.

All i have to say is that my game wasnt working, the patch was meant to fix it but made it worse. I am not making this up. There appear to be other people with my problems, so this suggests it is not my fault. I would like the problem to be rectified, so i can play my game which i have paid for with my own money.

that is all.

What problems are you having??

It's really easy to give people the freedom to post messages on a messageboard to complain about whatever they want, but seldom do they ever try to offer suggestions as to how to fix a problem, or what exactly their problems are.

Okay, here's a weird one. When installing from CD, the installer fails at the very end. Maybe a problem with the disc or something. The installer just quits before adding to the installed programs list, but it's installed on my hard drive and otherwise plays just fine.

But, when I try to install the patch it tells me "The setup has detected that no version of Sid Meier's Civilization 4 is installed. This update requires that a previous version of the application be installed."

It is installed! I even get this message trying to update from in-game.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Okay, here's a weird one. When installing from CD, the installer fails at the very end. Maybe a problem with the disc or something. The installer just quits before adding to the installed programs list, but it's installed on my hard drive and otherwise plays just fine.

But, when I try to install the patch it tells me "The setup has detected that no version of Sid Meier's Civilization 4 is installed. This update requires that a previous version of the application be installed."

It is installed! I even get this message trying to update from in-game.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Fix it the microsoft way. Uninstall, reboot, reinstall (this time to a different directory) reboot. Download patch using in game update system. reboot and attempt to play.:crazyeye:
I don't suggest patching, especially if you are already having problems. ie ctd bsod and the dreaded hard lock. I would wait for the next patch. But if you must I would suggest the above instructions.
If you are wondering why I say the in game installer. I have downloaded from the patch from several sites and got different size patchs and such. At least with the in game update you know your crap is coming directly from firaxis/take2.
Good luck and god bless. :beer:

quick edit, is the disc clean?? do you have a different drive to install game from??

Well I got the patch, and I've joined these forums because reading them has saved my sanity while waiting for a patch to be released.
It's fixed up my leaders as eyeballs problems but I still have the fog of war problem! :mad:
I hope they keep working on this!

quick edit, is the disc clean?? do you have a different drive to install game from??

The full game installer from the CD is the problem. Disc 2 came with a bit of a ding on the edge, so the installer would almost-but-not-quite finish. I'd get an error, at which point the installer would simpy uninstall everything automatically. After about a half dozen tries, I discovered that by killing the installer at the last minute, it'd leave the game complete but for adding it to the installed programs list.

Well, I just tried reinstalling again, and for some reason this time it worked. Weird, the CD is just as chipped. In any case, the patch now installs as well. Hooray!

I think we all agree WE LOVE THE GAME!. Its fantastic and I just really want to sit down and really give it hell for hours and hours. I cannot wait to get into the nitty gritty details and micromanagement. One things for sure .... do you think I would be here wasting my hard earned gaming time if I was happy with the playability of this fantastic game? NO SIR. None of us would be .... the forum would be deserted.

Lets somehow try to just share the faults as we find them and try to see if we can isolate a pattern that may HELP Fireaxis techs. Forget the blame ... we cannot change whats happened but we CAN change tomorrow and work together to test things out. Yea I know we are not Beta testers but I for one do LOVE the Civ games. Anger is a natural response but once we get past that let us help one another.

It didnt fix the one bug that I was most aware of.

the wonder videos are corrupted and the leaderheads don't show 95% of the time.

Everything else works beautifully.

i have upgraded everything, reinstalled rebooted etc...

It seems to me that people have a plethora of different problems with the game, but no one so far has described this one.
Am I the only one with this problem?

Smite, try this-it was suggested to me earlier in this thread.

Go into your Civ4.ini file and search for 'Bink' in the text. This first Bink file you come to asks if you want Bink video to be in true colour or not. Set this value to =1 (it is set to 0 by default). This eliminated my video stuttering altogether. If that doesn't work, then I am afraid that I am at a loss (btw, you couldn't change the bink settings in the pre-patch version of the game).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

And my choppiness of opening movie was fixed by chaning SyncInput line to 1.
(was choppy both with and without patch before)

Brilliant! Now to only get the actual game as it is not yet in the stores here.

Hej!

This patch didn’t solve the problem with the game slowing down to unplayable after about 20 minutes.
I don’t even know if the patch is installed cause the installer seems to fail in the end.
I want a patch that makes this game work.
I’ve paid good money for this game. I even had to upgrade my graphics card to meet the recommended specifications.
I want a patch that makes the game work now.:mad:

Simna.

Works fantasically for me! Game runs far more smoothly, espically at the opening of the game.

It does seem to have replaced one minor problem with another minor problem for me. I used to have choppy sound while watching the wonder movies, that has been solved by the patch however I now have choopy video during the wonder movies. I am using a Creative Live Value sound card, a ATI Radeon 9700 video card and 1gig RAM with DirectX 9.0c. Does any body have any ideas how to solve this? Thank you.

http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/974/civopediarosz1bm.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

After installing the patch I got many weird text in the game:mad:

Hej!

This patch didn’t solve the problem with the game slowing down to unplayable after about 20 minutes.
I don’t even know if the patch is installed cause the installer seems to fail in the end.
I want a patch that makes this game work.
I’ve paid good money for this game. I even had to upgrade my graphics card to meet the recommended specifications.
I want a patch that makes the game work now.:mad:

Simna.

Post your specs. I don't suffer from much in the way of game slow down, on huge maps with 4 rival civs I do get a bit by the 20th century (each turn takes around 1 minute).

Also you should try to run Windows with as few background programs (such as MSN messanger / virus checkers, so on) running as possible. Press CTRL-ALT-DEL (in XP & Win2000) to get a list of applications running on your system after startup. Also run a spybot check (can be downloaded from the internet free of charge) and a virus check.

Hej balearicrazy!

Processor: Pentium 4, 2,4 GHz, Graphics: MSI nVidia 5900, 128Mb, Memory: PC 2100, 512 Mb.
I don’t have any internet connection on my computer, so I have no MSN messanger, no firewall, no antivirus checker, not anything like that.
Everything I have downloaded from the internet has been checked before it has been copied to my computer.
Any more suggestions?

Lev väl.

Hej balearicrazy!

Processor: Pentium 4, 2,4 GHz, Graphics: MSI nVidia 5900, 128Mb, Memory: PC 2100, 512 Mb.
I don’t have any internet connection on my computer, so I have no MSN messanger, no firewall, no antivirus checker, not anything like that.
Everything I have downloaded from the internet has been checked before it has been copied to my computer.
Any more suggestions?

Lev väl.

-----

i have about the same system, but with 1024 MB of Dual channel PC2700, and a leadtec FX5900-128MB instead.
i have some pretty sevire performance problems as well, im playing a game with 18 civs on a huge map tho'... what is the biggest issue for performance, map size or rival civs?

ps. it's spelled "lev vel" :P

what is the biggest issue for performance, map size or rival civs?

From my experience, map size is the bigger issue. For example, doubling the number of AIs (while maintaining the same map size) will not double the number of decisions they have to make, as each of them will have a smaller empire, fewer cities, and hence less decisions individually.

However, doubling the map size (while maintaining the number of AIs) will lead to many more AI decisions in total, as there will be (in total) more cities on the map, more units, longer paths to calculate for the units etc.

I haven't thoroughly tested though, take it as an impression.

I think we all agree WE LOVE THE GAME!. Its fantastic and I just really want to sit down and really give it hell for hours and hours. I cannot wait to get into the nitty gritty details and micromanagement. One things for sure .... do you think I would be here wasting my hard earned gaming time if I was happy with the playability of this fantastic game? NO SIR. None of us would be .... the forum would be deserted.

Not really, something wicked in there that the modern warefare couldnt even take out a longbowman or a spearman. Im still waiting on fixing those glitches before i play again.

-----

what is the biggest issue for performance, map size or rival civs?

:P

Hi! I'm almost positive it's map size.
I'm a big fan of Epic games on the largest maps possible with the most AI Civs as possible.

Sadly, even after the patch, by the time I get to the 1800's AD, the game is crawling slow, and I still get Crashes to Desktop.

I guess I'll have to resign myself to playing on smaller maps...

Anyone experience the same?

The people have had problems, if you have got Norton Systemworks, use Winproblems to clean the registery and also do a speed disk. I do that every month when my machine starts to slow down and it speeds it back up again.

Yeah, why does it say I don't have game installed? I installed just like anyone else. I keep disc in tray. Tried installing from main menu and from a downloaded versino of patch 1.9. What good is patch if I can't install it? Anyone know of a fix?

Yeah, why does it say I don't have game installed? I installed just like anyone else. I keep disc in tray. Tried installing from main menu and from a downloaded versino of patch 1.9. What good is patch if I can't install it? Anyone know of a fix?

Does 'Sid Meier's Civilization 4' show up in your Add/Remove Programs list in the Control Panel?

Try reinstalling the game from the CDs.

I’ll share my experience. Not because I need to rant or brag, but because by explaining my experiences, it may help someone else out. Also, I suspect that the game designers read this, and to clearly explain our experiences should help them as they try to fix the game.

First, my system: 2.6 ghz AMD, 1024 MB RAM, 128 MB nVidia GeForce 440 MX video card. At first installation, I would get through the setup menu fine, then when the game was to start, it would crash to desktop/low resolution. I updated my video drivers, and that solved that problem. After that, it worked pretty good…except…

When I first open the game, it tells me that my system is ‘below specs’ and it claims that the game is adjusting settings accordingly (I presume that is a video card issue).

Had the ‘two-food only’ tile output displays, and sound was choppy. I lived with the tile display problem, and just turned the volume to zero on my keyboard control. Wonder videos played fine, but again, sound was choppy…

I did have the occasional CTD…most prominently when I would try to save a game, or when I would try to load a saved game. For the most part, though, the game was playable and not at all slow.

I considered not downloading/installing the patch, but decided to give it a try. Went through the game menu ‘check for updates’ route, and it downloaded and installed quickly, smoothly, and without problem.

After patch…tile output display is fixed. Very good. I still get the ‘system is below specs’ warning, but again, it claims that the game is adjusting settings…

Gameplay remains smooth and quick…no noticeable slowdowns. I played a game on standard size world/normal speed to completion over the weekend (a cultural victory as Frederick in 1946) and the game played smooth and fast all the way through. But…

No wonder movies at all (which doesn’t bother me a bit…if they’re going to be a problem, I can live without them…and would probably try to disable them if that were the case). This may be part of the game making adjustments for my ‘below spec’ system?

Don’t know about sound…didn’t think to turn the volume back up…no idea if that is fixed. Also, after-patch I no longer get the pop-up messages when I have discovered a technology…I do kind of miss this…

So, I played a game to conclusion (with a few saves and restart/reload along the way) without issue (with the exception of the missing wonder movies and tech discovery pop-ups). Until the victory, when – after the rankings, replay, etc – it asked if I wanted to ‘Play-just-one-more-turn” or exit to main menu. I chose to exit to main menu (as it was 11:45 last night), and got the first CTD that I experienced after installing patch 1.09. Oh, well…I was done anyway…

I will try a game tonight (and I will try to remember to turn the volume back up to see if that works), and maybe I will try a large or huge world to see how far I can get with that.

Just sharing my experience…

hmm What the error ? ;/ I install new windows for new partition and again this problem .. Windows is NEW !
I have original game
HELP ME

http://xthost.info/Azazell/Civ4error.JPG

Well to add some balance to the patch feedback I must say I'm happy with it so far. Normally when I played on standard maps in the modern age with a war going on I could only play about 2 turns before it became too slow to play. I downloaded the patch and loaded one of my games and was able to play easily. My opening movies don't studder anymore either like they used to. I haven't built a wonder yet so I'm interested to see the wonder movies. I'll know later today when I play a new game.

System:
P4 3GhZ
512MB RAM
GeForce FX5500 w/ 128MB RAM

On an aside I do load it up using the msconfig tool to have basically a bare bootup without Norton or anything else loading, just my video drivers.

From my experience, map size is the bigger issue. For example, doubling the number of AIs (while maintaining the same map size) will not double the number of decisions they have to make, as each of them will have a smaller empire, fewer cities, and hence less decisions individually.

However, doubling the map size (while maintaining the number of AIs) will lead to many more AI decisions in total, as there will be (in total) more cities on the map, more units, longer paths to calculate for the units etc.

I haven't thoroughly tested though, take it as an impression.

My experience shows that map size is the number one reason for slowdown. But on larger maps multiple civs also have an affect as follows.

More Civs on large map = more expanding all at once = more slowdown earlier in the game.

Fewer Civs on large map = about same expansion for Civs but fewer of them = slowdown appears later in the game.

I have most noticed this on Terra maps. While the map is larger than equivalent size maps it always appeared to run better, until you get to optics etc and start being able to expand to the new world. Then it goes to hell in a hand basket.

So more Civs = more slowdown sooner, but has no effect on the ultimate level of slowdown.

Just what I have found.

And though I have posted my problems before here is a complete in depth list of them and what I have tried to fix them and the results (as far as I can remember at any rate).
Install: Fine.
Mislabeled CD. Annoying. 30 secs to a minute to check online and change out the CDs. Ominous feeling in gut.

First time I ran it:
Standard continent map 18 civs, everything ran fine till end game whereby I won with spacerace victory on warlord difficulty (getting a feel for the game). No problems at all. Movies ran fine etc. Close the game goto sleep and wait for the morrow for more play time. Weekend YAY! Ominous feeling Gone, replaced with euphoria!

Prepatch next day until day of patch release:
Intro movie is fine. Start huge map 18 civs. Stuttering Wonder movie sound, smooth video playback. I think ok... huge map same problems as Civ3 where it runs slow start on smaller map. Still stuttering movies. Game runs fine on maps smaller than standard until end game. On Standard tends to run fine until industrial/modern age then sound begins to show some stuttering turns slowdown map moves choppy, Nemoy's voice begins to stutter towards end with more sever graphic anomalies, such as units during attacks start to seperate out, it animates single attack they just stand around then both act as if retreating and one is declared the winner and the other dies. Noticably longer turn processing choppy diplomacy animations, I have not noticed any affect on advisor screens, maybe slight increase in their loadtimes. This is all the same stuff as happens on larger maps as well now. It just happens sooner on them. The more civs = the sooner. Always by Age of Discovery/Renaissance on large or huge maps.
I get first CTD on large map play. Takes a few minutes for the screen to clear and the system to start running normally. Go online read up some stuff. Try various fixes ala unpacking the pak file checking drivers (all upto date) rolling back drivers to older versions with no effect on the game. It still runs just as badly. Reccomended cache clearing has no effect. Go back in change all graphics settings that I can find to lowest both in game and .ini put autsave to 1 turn frequency (actually I think I reduced graphic setting before going online to lowest). None of it has any effect. The game looks worse and still runs awfull with CTD dispersed at intervals in late game. If I start the game right back up after CTD it maintains the sound/graphic glitches and crashes again in 5 to 6 turns. If I reboot and load up it runs smooth again for the first turn then rapidly degenerates again and crashes in 20 to 30 turns. Eventually I get the first crash that goes to BSOD. I stop playing and decide to wait for a patch.

Patch to present:
Check the Firaxis site... no patch... check others... A PATCH! Yay. It is 1.08. It is turned off before I can try to download it. Another day or two... 1.09 comes out. Still nothing on Firaxis site about anything worthwhile, very annoying. Try to download the patch in game through advanced menu. It goes oh so very slow... but eventually finishes... and the patch installer crashes while loading the Civ patch. ARG. I posted the exact error messages earlier in this thread. I download another patch from this site. Same thing happens. I download 3 more patchs all from different sites. Next two also crash but not in same place. They crash while attempting to patch Civ4, that error message is also posted somewhere. The fifth patch I downloaded works and patches the game. I run it up and... Intro is still fine. At first everything seems to run better... then the first wonder movie... and it runs even worse! Not just sound stutter but full movie stutter. Eventually all symptoms return. Perhaps they start up a little later in game. Nothing very noticeable. Standard games stop having CTD. They just get slow endgame. Large and Huge still crash.
Go online to find solutions read about .pak file having to be in place and old parts deleted so uninstall whole thing reinstall. Make sure pak file is ok and just for kicks try the last three patches again. Once again the first two crash with same message and the last one works. No affect on patch performance still runs exact same.
Mess with the config file again set bink lines and load it up... no intro movie at all... ok... play the game and first wonder pops up and... RUNS SMOOTH... with the same old stuttering sound... and a poor quality image! ARG. All other problems still present.

Decide to keep playing until/unless another BSOD.

None so far and by quiting the game and rebooting when the sound stutter and graphic glitches get bad enough I can avoid CTD for most part. And play game in 30 to 40 turn increments in late game.

Thus is the source of my intense frustration with this game and any intemperant comments earlier/first rant.

Please note I have repaced the HD, defragged it, run multiple system scans, shut off all background tasks except Civ4, flashed the Bios, updated/downgraded drivers, everything I could think of to get this game to work right and it just won't. No problems with any other game I have installed. Doom 3 on second highest tier of settings runs just fine, Half Life 2 the same thing, Battlefield 2 on standard settings is fine, FEAR runs good. MOO3 and its videos run fine(too bad the game sucks). Heck I can even play the Civ3 WW2 global war mod with decent turn speeds.

I don't overclock or anything like that... just standard nice little system.

Hope that little story helps someone (namely the patch makers).

hmm What the error ? ;/ I install new windows for new partition and again this problem .. Windows is NEW !
I have original game
HELP ME


Did you check to see if the patch removed your exe??
There are some bad patchs out there. Even if it is the ingame installer, You may have hit a bad server? who knows. Just check to see if your exe is still there.

Just sharing my patch experience.

BACKGROUND: I'm running on a < 2yr old laptop with a substandard card but otherwise at or above minimum requirements (Compaq Presario 2195us, AMD Althlon 2500+ 1.8GHz, 512 ram, Radeon 320M).

Before- had black terrain, eyes-and-chompers leaderheads, only bread (no no hammers or coins) on resource overlay. Choppy intro movies, laggy mouse movement. Usually crashed 30-60 min into game.

The Patch: Downloaded over dialup- > 2hr download. Installed just fine.

After the Patch.

Now get pop-up message saying I'm playing below minimum requirements, my graphics settings have been adjusted but I may experience performance issues.

IMPROVEMENTS- Gameplay seems (a bit) faster, now have full, moving leaderheads, now get hammers, coins and bread in resource overlay.

STILL BROKE- stuttering intro movies, still black terrain (which is fixable with the 'reveal all terrain' fixes. Still somewhat laggy.

Only played one game for more than a few turns, but that one ended up with a hard crash. Fan was working pretty hard (and continued to work after crash), which makes me think it was either a memory leak or a thermal shutdown. haven't booted up computer again to try to find a crash log...

I have read all the posts here, and it seems that the rants are outweighing the raves for the patch, 2 to 3. I hope 2K Games takes note.

I suspect that the reason the patch doesn't show up on the official site is because the patch is not finalized, which may explain the problems everyone has been having to date. I suggest people wait for the patch to either show up on the official site, or wait until word is posted on the official site, before proceeding.

Regardless of what state the patch is in, the Company should have posted an update since its November 16 post. This is causing a lot of needless confusion :confused: and angry customers. :mad:

I have read all the posts here, and it seems that the rants are outweighing the raves for the patch, 2 to 3. I hope 2K Games takes note.

I suspect that the reason the patch doesn't show up on the official site is because the patch is not finalized, which may explain the problems everyone has been having to date. I suggest people wait for the patch to either show up on the official site, or wait until word is posted on the official site, before proceeding.

Regardless of what state the patch is in, the Company should have posted an update since its November 16 post. This is causing a lot of needless confusion :confused: and angry customers. :mad:


The T2 rep I spoke to seemed genuinely surprised that the memory leak was still in existance. I agree that they may already have another, more complete patch in the works...which is why they don't bother posting 1.09. As with several other games that I've played, the companies often release "band-aid" patches to fix a few issues here and there while the "big momma" patch is being coded. Diablo 2 comes to mind. :)

Regarding: Does 'Sid Meier's Civilization 4' show up in your Add/Remove Programs list in the Control Panel?

Try reinstalling the game from the CDs

Actually it does not show up on add/remove programs. In fact can't find a way to uninstal it at all. Ended up deleting the whole folder and am now attempting to install it on my normal C drive rather than my E partition I had it on in case it was not partition friendly. What causes it not to show up on the add/remove programs?

Again, some flavors of this 1.09 patch actually uninstall the game. Not a complete uninstall. Just enough to take it out of your addremove programs list and remove the exe.
Some flavors just hose the game. Some work wonders for people.

I just don't get it.

The fix in most cases for a bad patch is
reinstall the game.
reboot
uninstall
reboot
reinstall to a different directory
reboot
use the ingame update to patch game (at your own risk)

I think it is a good point that nothing on the offical site mentions this ummm patch.
Could this be a whoops, we will never know with such great communications from firaxis.

Actually it does not show up on add/remove programs. In fact can't find a way to uninstal it at all. Ended up deleting the whole folder and am now attempting to install it on my normal C drive rather than my E partition I had it on in case it was not partition friendly. What causes it not to show up on the add/remove programs?

How to uninstall an application when it does not appear in Add/Remove Programs

http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2005/10/30/487096.aspx

This is a much better method than deleting directories and/or mucking about in the registry. The blog in the link above describes some tools that are very handy to have whenever you encounter this type of problem.

Hope this helps.

Okay I'm confused about how to install the patch. I do not have internet capability on the computer I play cIV on so if I cant download it with the internet how else should I install it. Any help would be appreciated.

Just installed the patch and played the first complete game. Everything seemed to work fine EXCEPT the game ended unexpectedly after 2040 :sad:

but why the hell should you only be able to "see" horses *After* you've invented animal husbandry?.. i'm sure it's a bit more critical as a resource than say Cows because you actually use them for things too, but still.. it's kind of hard to imagine one *can* 'see' cows before you 'know' what to do with them, but can't horses.....

Just installed the patch and played the first complete game. Everything seemed to work fine EXCEPT the game ended unexpectedly after 2040 :sad:

Ok its offical, one post and I already don't like you :D

Ok its offical, one post and I already don't like you :D
meh.. i've had about 2 ctd's due to memleaks in 80ish hours of playing.. otherwise everything's fine (though admittedly the mem/pagefile balancing implemented in 1.09 has made the game a bit more playable)

running on 2800+ barton, 1gb pc2700 mem (kingston/corsair, value)
ati9200SE (crappy card, i know.. but it works@1280x1024, if you ignore the slightly laggy/bumpy scrolling, on 5.6 drivers (later ones make my card freeze for some stupid reason.. ati's still crap at programming drivers properly)
X-Fi XMusic (latest drivers, eax4).. hd's don't really matter i suppose

anyway, i've never had trouble with rendering, no problem with constant crashes, just slightly choppy movies since 1.09.. but i don't really watch those anyway, so who cares.

just thought i should make you happy by telling you there's more ppl without any real problems running the game ;)

Just installed the patch and played the first complete game. Everything seemed to work fine EXCEPT the game ended unexpectedly after 2040 :sad:

That's a kown bug, but it only afflicts games that have been started without the patch and are finished with the patched game. The "x turns left" count is correct though. Games you start with the patched game will run til 2050, as it should be.

Glad the patch fixed your game :)

Okay I'm confused about how to install the patch. I do not have internet capability on the computer I play cIV on so if I cant download it with the internet how else should I install it. Any help would be appreciated.

You can download the patch from one of the sites mentioned here (http://www.civfanatics.com/news2/comments.php?id=590).

Make a backup of your exe file before you run the patch though, and run the patch from within the game dirctory. I've read posts from two people who had issues with the installation of the patch they downloaded from these sites. The recommended patching method is to connect to Firaxis from within the game, but since that won't work for you, you'll have to download and transfer the file manually.

but why the hell should you only be able to "see" horses *After* you've invented animal husbandry?.. i'm sure it's a bit more critical as a resource than say Cows because you actually use them for things too, but still.. it's kind of hard to imagine one *can* 'see' cows before you 'know' what to do with them, but can't horses.....

It's a balance issue. Horses provide a major advantage in early wars. Some players beeline for horse archers as soon as they see horses. For the other line of military offense (axemen / swordsmen), you need copper or iron, which you only see after you researched the respective tech. Apparently the wanted to even this out.

I have come across a few other people that the game worked perfectly out of the box, v1.00, without upgrades under the Intel GMA series graphics cards. I have a GMA 950 and the v1.00 worked perfectly. The patch seems to mess things up for this card. If you have an Intel GMA card I wouldn't suggest downloading the patch.

Does anyone have a different card that is working with the pre-patch version? Or anyone with the Intel GMA have problems with v1.00?


Blue3c, were any of the setups you tried using this card series? Or were they all nvidia, Geforce, and ATI Radeon?

Hi! I'm almost positive it's map size.
I'm a big fan of Epic games on the largest maps possible with the most AI Civs as possible.

Sadly, even after the patch, by the time I get to the 1800's AD, the game is crawling slow, and I still get Crashes to Desktop.

I guess I'll have to resign myself to playing on smaller maps...

Anyone experience the same?

i dont have many crashes, but sometimes it tab's out automatically and then it can take up to 5 min. to tab in again

Have any of Intel users tried using "HideMinSpecWarning = 1" in their INI file?

It seems it should help since:
-cards were good in playing the game before the patch
-"reset to minimum with warning" is feature of the patch

Which means that Intel cards got shafted in "bad GPU" group by mistake of developers.

have they fixed the super-generous peace treaty exploit?

if they'll talk to you and will sign peace treaty, demand everything they have left, gold tech etc (haven't tried with cities yet) they won't accept the treaty of course, so you click "how can i make this deal work?" an advisory window opens to tell you you can't make exchanges during peace treaties (ie you can't have peace and tech trade etc). fair enough but now the AI finds your exhorbitant demands acceptable, click "its a deal" and his tech/gold are yours.

I have come across a few other people that the game worked perfectly out of the box, v1.00, without upgrades under the Intel GMA series graphics cards. I have a GMA 950 and the v1.00 worked perfectly. The patch seems to mess things up for this card. If you have an Intel GMA card I wouldn't suggest downloading the patch.

Does anyone have a different card that is working with the pre-patch version? Or anyone with the Intel GMA have problems with v1.00?


Blue3c, were any of the setups you tried using this card series? Or were they all nvidia, Geforce, and ATI Radeon?

All my machines have nvidia. I do have an old pIII that I have been testing with. It has the intel onboard, but I do not use it. So ummm nevermind. Its morning and I have yet to complete that first cup of java.
You could try the steps with out the patch. If the patch has alread hosed your install.
patch bad, game bad. make the bad man go away. :eek:

As of today, 11/29, 2K Games is posting a link to the 1.09 patch, at 31.5 MB (I think elsewhere folks were indicating a somewhat smaller file). So, I think they heard us, and responded.

Now, I hope the patch works. :goodjob:

Civ4 worked fine for me with v1.00...that stupid init renderer message never came up. the only thing that happened the longer i played is that it would crash to desktop every now and then. so i waited for patch. now when i updated to 1.09 it gives the stupid init renderer msg so i cant even play now. i installed new drivers it worked fine the first time and then it crashed to desktop and now i get the init renderer msg again. This isnt a patch its another pos. Why cant get they get the greatest game ever to work properly!! I have a Athlon 64 3500+ 1gig RAM and a X800. Should work perfect! Anyone know anything about this or have this same issue?

but why the hell should you only be able to "see" horses *After* you've invented animal husbandry?.. i'm sure it's a bit more critical as a resource than say Cows because you actually use them for things too, but still.. it's kind of hard to imagine one *can* 'see' cows before you 'know' what to do with them, but can't horses.....

thats how the game works- in the same way you cant see uraniuim or oil straight away.

have they fixed the super-generous peace treaty exploit?

Yes, that's fixed.

As of today, 11/29, 2K Games is posting a link to the 1.09 patch, at 31.5 MB (I think elsewhere folks were indicating a somewhat smaller file). So, I think they heard us, and responded.

Now, I hope the patch works. :goodjob:

It is the same size as the other patches. Not 31.5 but 24. Just makes me wonder what is up with the site update people... days to post about the patch and then the information about it is wrong. :mischief:

Hopefully it just indicates they are all hard at work on the next patch.

It is the same size as the other patches. Not 31.5 but 24. Just makes me wonder what is up with the site update people... days to post about the patch and then the information about it is wrong. :mischief:

Hopefully it just indicates they are all hard at work on the next patch.

now maybe its just me. But I am hoping the web geeks are not working on the patch. This would be bad. Let the web geeks stick to the page and the programmers stick to fixing the game. If they are one in the same it would explain alot. :eek:

As of today, 11/29, 2K Games is posting a link to the 1.09 patch, at 31.5 MB (I think elsewhere folks were indicating a somewhat smaller file). So, I think they heard us, and responded.

Now, I hope the patch works. :goodjob:

No offense there sgtfury, but lets look at this. The patch is not the size they say it is. Attention to detail is important when making a game. This sloppiness shows in the entire game and now in the website. Sounds like and looks like take2/firaxis is just one large cluster **** right now. To top it off you have sid touring to promote the game. LOL. Talking about how take2/firaxis would like to take over PC gaming. Please for the love of god somebody shoot the dam anti-christ. If this is how the plan to take it over. He is the anti-christ.
Do not let him put us through another game (at least that is what they are calling it), that needs patching to patch the patching. :eek:
Sid I say this with all my heart. YOU ARE THE ANTI-CHRIST.

P.S. yes the coffee has kicked in:goodjob:

I just downloaded the patch, but got the same '1706' Error that Graun reported. And yet it kept on going, and said I was patched to v1.09. I guess I'll see.

... OK. Started up (choppier beginning movie). Game 'kindly' tells me my system is sub-par. However, selecting Play Now, I get a starting postion without 'Dark Terrain'! A definite improvement! Too late to do much now, but I'll check it out more later.

I have a Pentium IV, 2.4 GHz, 512 MByte RAM with an Intel 82845G Graphics card.

I got '1706' error too but it just continued patching the game, have no problems with the game other then my previous save game files are not compitable.(before 1.09)

OWNER DOES NOT REPRESENT, WARRANT OR GUARANTEE THE QUALITY OR THE PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE OR ACCOMPANYING MATERIALS OTHER THAN AS SET FORTH IN THE ABOVE LIMITED WARRANTY. OWNER ALSO DOES NOT REPRESENT, WARRANT OR GUARANTEE THAT THE SOFTWARE OR ACCOMPANYING MATERIALS' CAPABILITIES WILL MEET YOUR NEEDS OR THAT THE SOFTWARE WILL CONTINUOUSLY OPERATE, BE ERROR FREE, OR THAT PROBLEMS WILL BE CORRECTED. OWNER DOES NOT REPRESENT THAT THE SOFTWARE WILL OPERATE IN A MULTI-USER ENVIRONMENT.

OMG LOL. Basically you bought it. Deal with it. All they are saying here is that I have you money, you paid for nothing and it is not a multiplayer game.
LOL. Sucker born every min. PT you said it best.

I will be starting my own webpage against everything sid and everything firaxis/take2. My mission in life is to show the world what a terrible product these two put out. I am here to put them through the hell they have put me through for over a month now. I will point out how the lowly EA is even better at patching and support. I will point out how the don't even know the size of the patch they put out. They use third party support thats not even on site. It basically a service that answers phones and has a script. They really know nothing about the game. If you ask them one hard question they point you to take2's homepage.
You all can go along with the dream that is civIV actually working. I will go on with the reality that is the shortsighted early release of the game has lead to a raping of the customer.

I have the boxed version of the game that I got at Best Buy and I get the same "no version of Civ 4 is installed."
I have the same problem as well. I've tried the ingame downloader about four times, and three different web-hosted patches, and all of them say "no version of Civ 4 is installed" no matter what I do with them.

My hope is that my CD (straight from a brick-and-mortar EB) somehow ended up with the Direct2Drive version and that THEIR patch will work for me :(

How about some of us with problems share them with the wider community?

Go to Amazon.com, IGN Games (http://pc.ign.com/objects/620/620513.html) etc and rate the game - how it should be rated, and explain why. You may see the one I wrote at http://rr.pc.ign.com/rr/620513/035/035400.html. If you agree, or otherwise, with the review please rate it.

You might have to create accounts at some of these places, but it's worth it. I spent $90 on this game, every other game I've spent that much on has been A-OK, but not this one.

Perhaps that might prompt Take2/firaxis to _provide tech support_ and FIX THE CTD ISSUE!!

I'm tired of having to try workarounds etc when no other software I have has any issues whatsoever. I shouldn't have to fix a newly released game, I should only have to play it. The only frustration I should be feeling is losing a city to barbarians, not wanting to yell at the creators of the game.

edit: valid criticism of original post incorporated.

I have the same problem as well. I've tried the ingame downloader about four times, and three different web-hosted patches, and all of them say "no version of Civ 4 is installed" no matter what I do with them.

My hope is that my CD (straight from a brick-and-mortar EB) somehow ended up with the Direct2Drive version and that THEIR patch will work for me :(

This is highly unlikey. I doubt that a D2D version on disc exists. I'm not even sure whether Take2 *has* a D2D version which they could accidentally put on the discs. Take2 obviously has the unprotected version that Firaxis sent them, and the retail version where Take2 added the copy protection. When they sent D2D the unprotected version, upon which D2D then placed their own copy protection, then there is no way how you could have possibly received a D2D version on an official disc.

Regarding your problem: Perhaps your Civ4 installation is incomplete. Did you have any problems installing? Did Civ4 register properly, does the game show up under "Settings -> Software"?

I have the same problem as well. I've tried the ingame downloader about four times, and three different web-hosted patches, and all of them say "no version of Civ 4 is installed" no matter what I do with them.

My hope is that my CD (straight from a brick-and-mortar EB) somehow ended up with the Direct2Drive version and that THEIR patch will work for me :(

Dude, here it is, Check the shortcut on your desktop. Does it lead anywhere.
If there is no shortcut, check the folder you installed the game to for the exe.
My guess is that file is gone. I have seen many versions of the patch that have nuked the exe file that starts the game.
If that happened you will more then likley have to go through a few steps and reboots to get this back to your original install.
Without the exe the game will not uninstall. So you have to reinstall, reboot, uninstall (because the patch did update somefiles, you will have to uninstall to get back to your original state), reboot install game to different directory then you install the first time. I suggest this to help with a totally clean install. Old reg keys that are not removed in the uninstall will not be pointing to your old install. No files that may have not been installed will be there in your install.
If you feel you need to patch again after this. God be with you.
As I have said before, Sid is the Anti CHrist.

This is highly unlikey. I doubt that a D2D version on disc exists. I'm not even sure whether Take2 *has* a D2D version which they could accidentally put on the discs. Take2 obviously has the unprotected version that Firaxis sent them, and the retail version where Take2 added the copy protection. When they sent D2D the unprotected version, upon which D2D then placed their own copy protection, then there is no way how you could have possibly received a D2D version on an official disc.
I know it's virtually impossible, but I couldn't think of much else, so I figured it might be worth a shot, since it seemed similar to the symptoms reported by people trying to use the initial retail patch on their D2D versions :sad:


Regarding your problem: Perhaps your Civ4 installation is incomplete. Did you have any problems installing? Did Civ4 register properly, does the game show up under "Settings -> Software"?
Didn't have any problems installing, and it should be properly registered. I don't know if it shows up under "Settings -> Software" off the top of my head, I'll have to check it when I get home (no internet connection there at the moment, so I'm ferrying stuff from work via a USB drive).

If the patch doesn't work (which, like you said, it most likely won't), I'll try just uninstalling/reinstalling Civ4 and see if it decides to patch after that. Next time I manage to get back here, hopefully I'll have a better idea of what's wrong.


Edit:
Dude, here it is, Check the shortcut on your desktop. Does it lead anywhere.
If there is no shortcut, check the folder you installed the game to for the exe.
My guess is that file is gone.

Civ4 is still there. I played it repeatedly over the past couple of days between patch attempts, including this morning before leaving to go to class. There's nothing more sinister than the patch simply not working.

"...There's nothing more sinister than the patch simply not working..."

Sure there is, the patch that removed my exe. By the way, cool mental note.

edit, I know you had to dl the file to usb, maybe you should find someone here who got a good patch, and compare the size. I heard there where different sized patchs.

Man any way I put that last one I knew it would sound bad.

"...There's nothing more sinister than the patch simply not working..."
:D

Sure there is, the patch that removed my exe. By the way, cool mental note.
I meant on my end ;)

If you agree with the review please rate it!!

I just went there. I don't agree with your review. I hope you don't mind me rating it nevertheless. (Telling people to rate the review only if they agree to it puts the intentions of a review in a rather dubious light in the first place, btw.)

I honestly fail to understand how you can praise gameplay (and give high marks to other aspects), yet give it nearly the *lowest* possible overall score because of its technical issues. To me this looks more like an attempt to skew the rating average than a fair evaluation. If such things are going on, then the very high marks that Civ4 keeps achieving on many customer rating sites are to be regarded even higher.

But providing (fair) reviews is actually a good idea. I think I'll put one up that I wrote for some friends of mine. And no, I won't give the game the highest mark, not in its current state. That would be as silly as giving it the lowest.

Silly Rabbit Tricks are for kids.

I just went there. I don't agree with your review. I hope you don't mind me rating it nevertheless. (Telling people to rate the review only if they agree to it puts the intentions of a review in a rather dubious light in the first place, btw.)
I don't mind you rating it other than my own opinion. I'm really just trying to warn people that they may experience major issues with this game, and if those that have experienced these issues rate it, it's clear it's not just me (as all the posts in the forum would suggest).

I honestly fail to understand how you can praise gameplay (and give high marks to other aspects), yet give it nearly the *lowest* possible overall score because of its technical issues. To me this looks more like an attempt to skew the rating average than a fair evaluation. If such things are going on, then the very high marks that Civ4 keeps achieving on many customer rating sites are to be regarded even higher.

I can easily give gameplay a great score, because the gameplay IS great when it all works fine (which it can, sometimes, for a while). The technical issues are what drags the whole thing down, hence the overall low score.

But providing (fair) reviews is actually a good idea. I think I'll put one up that I wrote for some friends of mine. And no, I won't give the game the highest mark, not in its current state. That would be as silly as giving it the lowest.

You might not think my review is fair, or maybe you do. In my eyes, it's a fair review. A great game let down by many bugs. And yes, I did give it a low mark partly to drag down the average, but also, at the end of the day, I felt it was deserved. I paid $90 for the game, and I can't play it. You can't really return games these days because the shop thinks you've pirated it etc, so for me, I may as well almost not have the game.

still CTDs, crashes freeze my entire computer and give me a black screen, and oh..a new one..a blue screen of death
On the good side, I can actually play on high graphics settings now (was way too slow before), and the crashes happy every 3 hour or so as opposed to 20 minutes...

I don't mind you rating it other than my own opinion. I'm really just trying to warn people that they may experience major issues with this game

I agree that this possibility should be mentioned in a fair review. Actually, the first line in my review to my friends was something like "It's a great game, but watch your specs, and try whether the game runs before you buy it."

I can easily give gameplay a great score, because the gameplay IS great when it all works fine (which it can, sometimes, for a while). The technical issues are what drags the whole thing down, hence the overall low score.

My problem with this is that if your technical problems are so rampant that they merit a score of 1.0, then you simply wouldn't be able to play enough to rate gameplay at all. I also think that you don't make clear whether your review is meant as your private experience with the game (as the score suggests), or as an overview about how the game is generally received (as the usage of CFC polls suggests, which you chose and interpreted a little one-sided imho). But you're entitled to your opinion of course.

Anyway, this is vastly off-topic here. I do hope that Firaxis manages to fix your game soon.

I do hope that Firaxis manages to fix your game soon.

Me too : )
All this angst, it's not good for a person :)

My problem with this is that if your technical problems are so rampant that they merit a score of 1.0, then you simply wouldn't be able to play enough to rate gameplay at all.

Unlike some, I've been able to actually launch the thing. Playing with CTD and freezes, well, it's called persistence and a lot of saving the game :)
I haven't played past Steam Power yet though.

I'm considering buying a second PC to be able to play this darn game! (well, that's the excuse which the significant other _might_ just buy : )

Unlike some, I've been able to actually launch the thing. Playing with CTD and freezes, well, it's called persistence and a lot of saving the game :)
I haven't played past Steam Power yet though.

I'm considering buying a second PC to be able to play this darn game! (well, that's the excuse which the significant other _might_ just buy : )


Don't count on that being the end all fix all. It is not. At least not for everybody. I guess it all depends on which stars are over you house at what time.
Or if sid the anti christ deciedes you can play. I guess you must worship this antichrist to be able to play. A deal with devil, whatever it may be. :devil:

Hey, on another thread in this forum dealing with memory leaks, a member named The_Kangaroo posted some changes he made to his .ini file. It's the last message on page 13:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137706&page=13

These are the changes:

AllowScreenShots = 0
SyncInput = 1
D3D9Query = 1
LoggingEnabled = 1

I tried them and I was able to play for the last couple of hours with not one single CTD; from 1951 to 1988. Prior to making the changes, it was crashing on me every 1-3 turns. I wouldn't have tried the changes but another member posted that it had worked for him so I decided to try it.

I don't know what these changes do or why I didn't CTD tonight, but I hope they keep working for me (and hopefully it'll work for some of you as well even though our machines are different) The only drawback from the changes is that a) it seemed to take longer to load and b) the one wonder movie I got (the Internet) was choppy. But gameplay was good.

For the record, I had reduced all my settings to the lowest possible prior to this and I didn't change them to make them higher. I just wanted to try out the .ini changes first. I would have kept going but I had to stop for the night. I have an Athlon 4000+ at 2.6 Ghz, 1 GIG RAM and X600 ATI. EDIT: I have the 1.09 patch (which I downloaded from in-game and installed without problem)

Just thought I'd let you guys know in case you wanted to experiment with your .ini file -- but just in case, make a clean copy of it before messing with it.

HA! you can play. You made the list, NO SOUP FOR U!

I agree that this possibility should be mentioned in a fair review. Actually, the first line in my review to my friends was something like "It's a great game, but watch your specs, and try whether the game runs before you buy it."



My problem with this is that if your technical problems are so rampant that they merit a score of 1.0, then you simply wouldn't be able to play enough to rate gameplay at all. I also think that you don't make clear whether your review is meant as your private experience with the game (as the score suggests), or as an overview about how the game is generally received (as the usage of CFC polls suggests, which you chose and interpreted a little one-sided imho). But you're entitled to your opinion of course.

Anyway, this is vastly off-topic here. I do hope that Firaxis manages to fix your game soon.

I think you're missing his point; a point I agree with BTW. If you cannot play it, you might as well be looking at screenshots of it on the internet, which is to say it's worthless. Now his criticism didn't cover my angle on it, that I can play it up to mid-point, but it occurred to me that if I can play it up to mid-point and it crashes every time, without any hope of progressing beyond another 6 turns, only to see it crash again, it's almost worse than worthless, but just a tease. In other games, there are bugs which can be 'tolerated' so to speak, since even though it falls short of it's goal, it at least enables you to finish it. When the bug is being unable to finish it it's a complete waste of time to play it if the leak is never fixed. If they ever make civ into some kind of FPS hybrid - WATCH OUT!!!

The football equivalent of the memory leak bug, is that the coach says you're the best player in practice, that he knows you would be great in the game. Only he doesn't ever let you play in a game. The praise, or the gameplay in this case, is totally worthless if you can't actually finish and thereby win. A lot of guys have been out here practicing for a long time, and really want to play it "when it counts".

Hey, on another thread in this forum dealing with memory leaks, a member named The_Kangaroo posted some changes he made to his .ini file. It's the last message on page 13:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137706&page=13

These are the changes:

AllowScreenShots = 0
SyncInput = 1
D3D9Query = 1
LoggingEnabled = 1

I tried them and I was able to play for the last couple of hours with not one single CTD; from 1951 to 1988. Prior to making the changes, it was crashing on me every 1-3 turns. I wouldn't have tried the changes but another member posted that it had worked for him so I decided to try it.

It worked!! It worked!! I just played for 75 mins without a crash, then exited normally to come here and post. I had behaviour like Yrth, but it seems that memory leaks from the game are the problem!

I don't know what these changes do or why I didn't CTD tonight, but I hope they keep working for me (and hopefully it'll work for some of you as well even though our machines are different) The only drawback from the changes is that a) it seemed to take longer to load and b) the one wonder movie I got (the Internet) was choppy. But gameplay was good.
I didn't get any slower behaviour from the game - I run reasonable specs but not ultra high end (A64@2.4ghz, 6600GT, 1G ram). Movies weren't choppy.

For the record, I had reduced all my settings to the lowest possible prior to this and I didn't change them to make them higher. I just wanted to try out the .ini changes first. I would have kept going but I had to stop for the night. I have an Athlon 4000+ at 2.6 Ghz, 1 GIG RAM and X600 ATI. EDIT: I have the 1.09 patch (which I downloaded from in-game and installed without problem)

Just thought I'd let you guys know in case you wanted to experiment with your .ini file -- but just in case, make a clean copy of it before messing with it.
I left my settings as is - 1280x1024, no AA (though I'll try it now, I disabled it to try and get the game running - didn't make any difference) and all other settings to "high".

I'm happy someone has figured out something that helps - I'm just disappointed that there's no word from Firaxis about tips like these. If they've narrowed down a memory leak to something associated with those variables in the .ini, the could suggest trying some of the changes - ANYTHING other than the 5 basic Q&A they have on the "support" section of their site.

Yay for The_Kangaroo and Yrth for bringing it to my attention :)
I can finally start to enjoy the game a bit!

edit: I'm still unhappy I had to muck around in an "ini" file to get a game to run without problems, and don't think this should be necessary, but - I can play the game! That makes me happy :)

For you guys who think it works, I caution you to realize that immediate gains do not obliterate the memory loss problem. You guys have just seen it worse than the rest of us. I too thought seeing an immediate gain in the processing beforehand was a good sign that the memory loss had been dealt with, but the crashes have been more frequent if anything (about even actually).

I got so desparate that I actually uninstalled/reinstalled all over again to do it via the ingame download, whereas before I did it another way (I did want to have the actual zip if nothing else saved somewhere for later use).

If with your problems you can then play a large or huge game with the default amount of civs, past the midway point you may be on to something. For my part I will delay doing this until my latest attempt goes down the toilet.

hello, i downloaded the patch 1.09 but can't get the game started, i guess that's because i am using the original windows xp, not the windows xp sp2. perhaps i should update my os to sp2. please let me know if you have encountered the similar problem, thank you.

I'm only in the early game (started right at the start) on a large map, but it's a definite improvement on things. I'm a definitely concerned about problems arising when I play on huge maps or the late game, but for now, it's working. Fingers crossed.

hello, i downloaded the patch 1.09 but can't get the game started, i guess that's because i am using the original windows xp, not the windows xp sp2. perhaps i should update my os to sp2. please let me know if you have encountered the similar problem, thank you.

I'm pretty sure they recommend SP2, especially if you have an ATI graphics card - it's pretty much compulsory in that instance.

Read and weap all you ati lovers. But of coarse it does help to worship the antichrist himself (Sid) to get all this to work.

Minimum System Requirements

Operating System:
Windows® 2000/XP
Processor:
1.2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent
Memory:
256 MB RAM (Windows 2000) / 512 MB RAM (Windows XP)

Hard Disk Space:
1.7 GB Free

CD-ROM Drive :
4X Speed

Video:
DirectX 9.0c-compatible 64 MB video card with Hardware T&L support ( GeForce 2/Radeon 7500 or better)

Sound:
DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card

DirectX®:
DirectX® version 9.0c (included) or higher



Recommended System Requirements

Operating System:
Windows® 2000/XP
Processor:
1.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent

Memory:
512 MB RAM

Hard Disk Space:
1.7 GB Free

CD-ROM Drive :
4X Speed

Video:
128 MB Video Card w/ DirectX 8 support (pixel & vertex shaders)

Sound:
DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card

DirectX®:
DirectX® version 9.0c (included) or higher



Supported Operating Systems

Windows 2000
Service Pack 1 or higher WITH Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher
Windows XP
Home or Professional w/ Service Pack 1 or higher




It is very important that you ensure that you are using the latest drivers and versions of all of your software. While doing this you might encounter some specific conflicts with the minimum specifications for Civ4.

For example, if you have an ATI video card and you are using Windows XP you must (it says recommends but when problems are present and no solutions present themselves it is sometimes necessary to make recommended a requirement) have Service Pack 2 installed to meet the requirements of the ATI driver.

I spent most of my evening last night updating my computer, defragging it, uninstalling Civ 4 and reinstalling it. Then, I tried unsuccessfully to download the patch. When downloading from the website, i get some kind of "file not found" error (sorry, I'm not a techie and don't remember the specific error language). Very frustrating. So, I tried to download from the game, which was impossible. I clicked on "check updates" and the game basically froze and refused to let me shut down. I had to actually unplug the computer to get it to reboot. :eek:

I appreciate all the tips and tricks to get the patch to work, but I am not very computer savvy and dont understand most of the instructions. Frankly, i am mystified at such poor quality. I understand patching for some gameplay tweaks and fixing goofy little errors. But, when the game is basically unplayable, you're not really trying to get a patch so much as rebuilding something that was unfinished. :mad:

I am really kind of my wits end here.:cry:

I spent most of my evening last night updating my computer, defragging it, uninstalling Civ 4 and reinstalling it. Then, I tried unsuccessfully to download the patch. When downloading from the website, i get some kind of "file not found" error (sorry, I'm not a techie and don't remember the specific error language). Very frustrating. So, I tried to download from the game, which was impossible. I clicked on "check updates" and the game basically froze and refused to let me shut down. I had to actually unplug the computer to get it to reboot. :eek:

I appreciate all the tips and tricks to get the patch to work, but I am not very computer savvy and dont understand most of the instructions. Frankly, i am mystified at such poor quality. I understand patching for some gameplay tweaks and fixing goofy little errors. But, when the game is basically unplayable, you're not really trying to get a patch so much as rebuilding something that was unfinished. :mad:

I am really kind of my wits end here.:cry:

While you were downloading the patch from the in game installer. How long did you let it sit before you unplugged? Was the HDD still going, activity and such. Did you try to alt tab between windows? Did you try a ctrl alt del?
When you say froze, what do you mean? Could you still move the mouse?
What kind of internet connection do you have?
Can you play at all with out the patch?
Do you have lots of money you like to give away to people who help you?
What are you system specs? OS? SP level?

Its not techie. techie sounds to much like trekie, which most of us are but won't admit. Try Geek.

:worship: All hail sid :devil: the anti christ :worship:

Mine froze as well when I first tried to patch through the game. The problem was my firewall. The Firewall popped up asking if the program was allowed but CIV refused to release control of the screen so I never saw it and couldn't alt-tab ctrl-alt-del etc out and had to restart computer manually.

Simple Solution: Manually allow CIV to access the net on firewall. Even then it took CIV like 12 minutes to make the connection and find the patch in game... and that patch didn't work for me. :P

Maybe that is your problem maybe not. Just sharing.

PS: I could still move the mouse around just not click on anything and when I moved the mouse over the part of the screen the firewall query normally pops up from it changed from CIV cursor to windows cursor but no amount of clicking worked.

When I tried to download the patch from the game, the following occurred:

Lots of churning noises, which died down but not completely. I let this go on for about 20 minutes, with no message prompt or screen change.

I was able to move the cursor around, but could not select anything. Nothing came up showing that a download was in progress.

I tried crtl+alt+del to no avail.

I have a Dell Dimension XP (I have updated the service, I think it is SP2), a 2.4 gig hard drive with over 80% of available disk space, lower end of memory. I was online through Earthlink during the download. I have a dial-up, so it is slow.

If I try to play the game without the patch it crashes within the first 2-3000 years of gameplay.

Just tried the D2D patch last night. As expected, it didn't work either (gave the exact same "no previous version installed" message, too :( ). Was going to try reinstalling Civ4 after playing another turn or two on my current game...so the reinstall kinda hasn't actually happened yet :blush:

Regarding your problem: Perhaps your Civ4 installation is incomplete. Did you have any problems installing? Did Civ4 register properly, does the game show up under "Settings -> Software"?
Yes, there was a Civ4 entry under Settings -> Software (unless I looked in entirely the wrong spot, which is certainly possible).

If I try to play the game without the patch it crashes within the first 2-3000 years of gameplay.

I think that still happens for most people after the patch too.

It took me a couple of tries to get the patch to download; it always started and the progress bar moved, but would stop after 5% or so then say an error had occurred. This is on a 1.5mbit connection, not dialup. On about the 5th attempt it went straight through in about 5 or 10 mins and installed fine, which slightly astonished me. Didn't make any difference to my CTD though - I had to use the .ini tweaks described above to do anything.

Just wanted to add my 2 cents.

Athlon XP2100, 768 MB ram, FX5600, XP SP2. Never crashed to desktop, but frequent black map and stuttering after a few hours of play, runaway ram use. Upgraded to 1.09 and newest Nvidia drivers (I know, I shouldn't have done both at the same time), now get black map whenever I scroll to undiscovered areas or other civs contact me. I've disabled movies and run at the lowest graphical settings.

I got some strange graphics behaviour after I updated my Nvidia drivers - they went away (for the moment) after I started the game with the shift key held down (clears cache).
Give this a go if you haven't - I hope it helps, we all need it with this game!

I was already deleting the cache before starting every game. Thanks for the tip though, Natronomonas.

My graphics were fine until I installed civ iv.

firaxis is fire axis, fire is what hell is all about. Hell is evil. So firaxis = axis of evil. hmmmmm. :hmm:
sid and soren are the devil and they run the axis of evil. :eek:

:worship: all hail sid :devil: soren the antichrist :worship:

Uhm, yeah. Could you put down the bong and wander into another thread, blue3c? That'd be great.

My graphics were fine until I installed civ iv.

lol. It's funny except that it's true.

The problem is that there's no comprehensive diagnostics on the Take2/firaxis website, ie, try these things in this order, and you'll probably get the game working, just the same old 5 useless "tips".

I'm not sure even this forum has it - just "check your hardware, drivers etc". It's not really the job of forum volunteers to collate this information though, Firaxis tech support needs to do their job (if there are any people actually employed for this - I fired off an email about 3-4 days ago and am yet to get any sort of response).

N.

Uhm, yeah. Could you put down the bong and wander into another thread, blue3c? That'd be great.

Wow these words of wisdom coming from you who have said so much in the thread.
With such a compelling argument I would have to reply.... umm well NO. STFU. :mad:
So my answer would be no, I will not.

:worship: all hail sid :devil: soren the antichrist :worship:

I hate to be a pest, but could someone be so kind as to give me some step-by-step, idiot-proof directions on how to download and patch this game. please? :blush:

I have a 2002 dell Dimension XP (sp1? sp2? maybe). I have a 2.4 gig harddrive and plenty of hard drive space. Maybe 128 mb of memory. Thanks for whatever help you can provide. :)

I hate to be a pest, but could someone be so kind as to give me some step-by-step, idiot-proof directions on how to download and patch this game. please? :blush:

I have a 2002 dell Dimension XP (sp1? sp2? maybe). I have a 2.4 gig harddrive and plenty of hard drive space. Maybe 128 mb of memory. Thanks for whatever help you can provide. :)

I wouldn't try to run this game on 128 mb of RAM.

What's your video card??

I agree-unless that 128MB is in your video card, then I just don't see how the game will work on your computer. Get an extra 256MB of RAM, and you will be in business :)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I hate to be a pest, but could someone be so kind as to give me some step-by-step, idiot-proof directions on how to download and patch this game. please? :blush:

I have a 2002 dell Dimension XP (sp1? sp2? maybe). I have a 2.4 gig harddrive and plenty of hard drive space. Maybe 128 mb of memory. Thanks for whatever help you can provide. :)

Sgtfury,
Dell does not make a 2002 unless you meant the year. Even then the lowest I could find for that year was 256-512. My guess is you are talking about your vid card, which would have been top of the line in 2002.
If you right click on your my computer icon on your desktop, goto properties.
It should give you your os and sp level
who it is regeristered to
processor speed and total mem.

I agree-unless that 128MB is in your video card, then I just don't see how the game will work on your computer. Get an extra 256MB of RAM, and you will be in business :)!

I just upgraded my RDRAM form 512MB to 1G and it still crashes after a turn or two. There is less virtual memory thrashing, but the crashing is just as frequent. Factoring in the video card upgrade (GeForce 5500) with the memory chips, I have already spent nearly $300 on PC upgrades to get this turkey to run correctly and it is still no go!

I just upgraded my RDRAM form 512MB to 1G and it still crashes after a turn or two. There is less virtual memory thrashing, but the crashing is just as frequent. Factoring in the video card upgrade (GeForce 5500) with the memory chips, I have already spent nearly $300 on PC upgrades to get this turkey to run correctly and it is still no go!

Careful now. You have hit a sore spot with alot of people. Some people claim it is your hardware lacking some claim it is the software (civ iv).
From my experiance with the newer games that are being released, 2G of mem seems to be the target area. A good video card goes along way. Setting your swap to a different physical hdd can also help.
Personaly I do not see the crashes going away until a patch comes out that fixes the mem leak\manager. But that is just what I have tested and experianced.


As for special idiot proof instructions on how to download and install the game.
The best is the ingame installer. But you (sgtfury) are on dialup. Which seems to be a problem. It is either very slow or locking your machine. Hard to tell from your last. It may be that you have to install a downloaded patch. I mentioned before about the size difference. I personally have not been able to download a patch that worked. I had to use the in game installer. That is why I suggested one of the supporters in here actually help you out with the exact size and a good download site.

If all else fails you could take up devil worship and I am sure the game you then work for you. Because it is straight from HELL.

:worship: all hail sid :devil: soren the antichrist :worship:

I hate to be a pest, but could someone be so kind as to give me some step-by-step, idiot-proof directions on how to download and patch this game. please? :blush:

I have a 2002 dell Dimension XP (sp1? sp2? maybe). I have a 2.4 gig harddrive and plenty of hard drive space. Maybe 128 mb of memory. Thanks for whatever help you can provide. :)
If you really have a 2.4 gig hard drive, you have a system which isn't worth upgrading. I'm sorry to say that the only reasonable solution is to get a new one.

1 Gig of RAM and a 128MB video card and my game NEVER crashes-and I mean NEVER. It doesn't even really slow down on large terra maps with the entire map revealed (perhaps a 0.5 second delay AT MOST). Had LOTS of CTD and graphics problems with the Radeon 9550 card though-even though it was rated HIGHER than my 9250. Needless to say, I have gone BACK to the 9250 now.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I just upgraded my RDRAM form 512MB to 1G and it still crashes after a turn or two. There is less virtual memory thrashing, but the crashing is just as frequent. Factoring in the video card upgrade (GeForce 5500) with the memory chips, I have already spent nearly $300 on PC upgrades to get this turkey to run correctly and it is still no go!

I considered the upgrade path but found the .ini tweaks mentioned a page or two back in this thread stopped most of my crashes. I have I gig of ram and plenty of swap space, etc. The .ini tweaks apparently stop most of the memory leak bugs which allows longer play between crashes - I managed about 3-4 hours last night with only one crash, and that may have occurred as I alt-tabbed back to windows (should be able to do that without crashes, but it's better than a completely unexpected CTD).
Once you've implemented the changes don't forget to start the game up with the shift key held down (clears cache). If you haven't, give the .ini modifications a try and let us know how you go.

1 Gig of RAM and a 128MB video card and my game NEVER crashes-and I mean NEVER. It doesn't even really slow down on large terra maps with the entire map revealed (perhaps a 0.5 second delay AT MOST). Had LOTS of CTD and graphics problems with the Radeon 9550 card though-even though it was rated HIGHER than my 9250. Needless to say, I have gone BACK to the 9250 now.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I thought you were gone. Oh right, your just here to start arguments. By throwing things out in caps.
Once again I congratulate :clap: you on it working on your **** system. Good for you.
But the rest of us have NEVER and I mean NEVER played a game in full without CTD'S, LOTS of CTD'S.:smoke:
But thats right you think there is no problem with the game, but you also think there is a problem. :crazyeye:


:worship: all hail sid :devil: soren the antichrist :worship:

1 Gig of RAM and a 128MB video card and my game NEVER crashes-and I mean NEVER. Had LOTS of CTD and graphics problems with the Radeon 9550 card though-even though it was rated HIGHER than my 9250. Needless to say, I have gone BACK to the 9250 now.

It's this sort of thing that really gets me - ATI and Nvidia provide unified drivers etc, and still a simple card swap can make all the difference! We should all be using Macs - less configuration variety :D
Other game publishers can deal with this - what's going on that Firaxis is missing? With all the tech support emails they must be getting, plus the fact people on the forums here are figuring things out must surely bode well for the success of any future patch (1.09 being a bit underwhelming for most is my impression).

It's this sort of thing that really gets me - ATI and Nvidia provide unified drivers etc, and still a simple card swap can make all the difference!

Personally, I think that a lot of hardware that's being sold is sub-standard - including, but not limited to, video cards. Fifteen years ago you could by any video card (or any memory chip) - the chance that you got a lemon was infinitesimally small. I think that has changed a lot.

(1.09 being a bit underwhelming for most is my impression).

I wouldn't say underwhelming for most; the poll about the patch shows that the majority sees it as an improvement. However, the ratio of people who fare better now to the people for whom the patch actually made matters worse is just 2:1. I wouldn't call that especially successful either. But they continue to work on it, and I'm confident that the issues will be solved. (Yes, blue3c, I hail the antichrist. Probably that's why my game works flawlessly on just about minimal specs ;) ).

(Yes, blue3c, I hail the antichrist. Probably that's why my game works flawlessly on just about minimal specs ;) ).

Sigh. I need your luck, or else your computer. Alternatively, you can pass on the midnight ritual you performed to get it to work. I don't have hemlock, bloodwort or a goat to sacrifice, but I'm hoping a supermarket chicken might do the trick ;)

Is there any word on the v1.1 patch? It will be a great game if they release a version that doesn't crash every tenth turn.

The hardware incompatibility claim doesn't hold any water. I don't doubt that there are hardware incompatibilities in some peoples machines, and that these are responsible for some problems, but the memory leak/CTD problem is clearly a software flaw in CIV IV itself.

If it's wasn't hardware problem it would spoil game for all players not for just minority.

Which does not mean it should not be solved with software solutions (aka patch).

I figure that it seems most people are having problems because the majority of the people posting are having problems because those that work are playing instead!

I figured I'd post my success story to give the rest of you hope!

PC: Inspiron 8500 (P4m 2.2Ghz, 512MB RAM, GeForce4 4200go 64MB)

Before patch: Worked usually. Huge maps crawled once you had a view of the majority of the world (RAM related I'm sure). I increased the Virtual Memory to stop the message popping up but using VM in the virst place isn't good because the hard drive is so much slower than real RAM. 1024x768 (non-stretched) with everything on low worked quite well on normal sized maps. I had a few CTD, a few "video not found" and such things, but not too bad compared the amount of time I played. The opening movie would stutter about 50% of the time I actually watched it. Wonder movies would also stutter about 1/3 of the itme.

Patch Procedure: I simply downloaded the patch from File Shack and installed it. Didn't install the extra prog/chat client. No errors whatsoever.

After 1.09 Patch: Works fantastically. It did reset all my settings in the options menus (Graphics, Game Settings) and until I rememered hearing that it did this, I thought it had slowed down a lot since the graphics were set back to HI. Haven't played a huge map yet, since I loaded my 1.00 game (no problems whatsoever loading a prepatch game). Played for a couple hours. The game seems much more responsive in general. No stuttering in the opening movie. No stuttering in wonder movies.

Simply judging by my experience the most important aspects in the game are the graphics card and the RAM. I have temperature monitoring on my proc and it was definately not full load all the time. It obviously LOVES to eat all my RAM especially on bigger maps.

My Vote: Patch 1.09 gets 5/5 stars!

If it's wasn't hardware problem it would spoil game for all players not for just minority.

Which does not mean it should not be solved with software solutions (aka patch).

It is pretty clear that it does spoil the game for most users.

If it were a hardware problem, we would hear what hardware it was compatible with or incompatible with. If it is not compatible with Nvidia or ATI graphics cards and ASUS motherboards, what IS it compatible with? Some no name obscure video card?

If it were incompatible drivers there would have been an announcement regarding WHICH ones it worked with. There would be specifics, not vague suggestions that some incompatibility probably exists.

If it were defective hardware it would affect software other than Civ IV.

I have been buying software for about 20 years now, and I seen my share of bugs. I have also seen plenty of PR spin, and it isn't that hard to tell the difference between the two. When a software company starts blaming anything and every thing for the fact that their product doesn't work, despite the fact that the items they blame work fine with anything else, it is spin.

Oh, Blue3c, didn't you KNOW? I just could no longer survive without your pleasant replies to my posts :mischief:.
I will say, though, that my Radeon 9550 card caused problems with ALL of my more graphics intensive software-not just Civ4. Doom3 and Google Earth-in particular-constantly suffered Blue screen crashes-assuming the former worked AT ALL. Truthfully, Civ4 was the game LEAST harmed by the Radeon card, but it does suggest that the hardware was my problem. However, I also have an 18 month old processor, so it might not even be ATI's fault-just that there later video cards are not as compatible with older systems. WHO KNOWS?? What I do know is that a Radeon 9250 card allows all of my games to play smoothly and without glitches or crashes. I am sorry that this has not been everyone else's experience, but I still fail to see how software ALONE could be the cause of the problem-given the variability in performance between different systems.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie_Lurker
I would agree and wouldn't even start my efforts in 'memory leak' thread, should game graphics deserve such memory consumption and video requirements.

I understand when 512Mb is small for Doom3 or a problem with FarCry and such. Their graphics level deserves higher requirements.... But civ4 has graphics of 2002-2003 year if not year 2000, but requirements of year 2005-2006.

Also, they demand T'n'L but it's so sluggish DUE TO GEOMETRY even when there is enough memory (no swap), just because there are too many triangles to render or they are still rendered by CPU just because they don't fit into video memory. I speak about 9800 Pro which is fast T'N'L card.

If they use damn-so-detailed models to make zoomed view looking good, I think they should've been coded some LOD (level-of-detail) algorithm on models, but still some things use around 5'000-10'000 vertices - more then pixels they use on the screen...

I've downloaded the 1.09 patch because it's needed for the GOTM-games for CIV.
At this moment the game works fine, no problems. I'm concerned that there will be problems after I install the patch. Will there be problems?
Redman

I successfully downloaded the patch.
The game works fine for the short time I’ve played, but I have a lot of video stops and stuttering on the opening movie.
Before the patch, the video ran fine, but I had the break in the music that everyone mentioned.
I know the opening movie is no big deal, but I guess my feeling is… I paid 50 bucks, I want everything to work.
I have a GeForce FX 5500 / 128MB DDR PCI card.

I’ve tried the earlier suggestion of changing the BINK and SYNC values in the .ini files, but no effect.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

@Redman: If you didn't see patch-introduced problems until now, it's very likely that you won't see them at all. Most people who had problems due to the patch either didn't get the game to work any more, or they were told by the game that their hardware was insufficient (despite that noz being the case), or they had stuttering videos (which many people could fix with new ini settings). If you haven't encountered either of those, chances are that you will remain free of patch problems.

@Redman: If you didn't see patch-introduced problems until now, it's very likely that you won't see them at all. Most people who had problems due to the patch either didn't get the game to work any more, or they were told by the game that their hardware was insufficient (despite that noz being the case), or they had stuttering videos (which many people could fix with new ini settings). If you haven't encountered either of those, chances are that you will remain free of patch problems.

Thanx Psyringe! :goodjob: I will install it and will start the CIV-GOTM1! :D

Spectre, I have suggested this previously, but will happily repeat it for you.

Go into your Civ4.ini file and search for 'Bink' in the text. This first Bink file you come to asks if you want Bink video to be in true colour or not. Set this value to =1 (it is set to 0 by default). This eliminated my video stuttering altogether. If that doesn't work, then I am afraid that I am at a loss (btw, you couldn't change the bink settings in the pre-patch version of the game).

Unless I am completely mistaken, this should make ALL of your videos run completely smoothly :)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie_Lurker -

Thanks.. I already tried that (when I mentioned "I’ve tried the earlier suggestion of changing the BINK and SYNC values in the .ini files, but no effect." in my earlier post.

I'm having a lot of difficulties since I have installed the patch. It all starts when I have revealed 2/3 of a standard map. I'm now almost 30 turns from the end, but the game keeps on crashing. I really don't know what the problem is. I have got a Radeon 9600 with all the right things I suppose, because I didn't have the problems before I installed the patch. Is there any news yet about a enhanced patch.

Does anyone knows how much are the increments in techs and SS parts? And if they did tweaked the worker AI in some way?

ive been on holidays without a comp for 2 weeks. i just got home and am amazed that there have been 2 patches released! ive flicked though the forum and read the patch details on what it does and what not but noone has mentioned the whole black screen thingy. does the patch fix that? or has it been fixed by sumthing else? or am i still stuk wit a dud? i have no other probs besides the terrain and cheshire cat... its never crashed and movies run smooth... i just wana c my game!

good to know

YOu know whats funny. I do believe all the mods here work for firaxis take2. I put up a thread suggesting everyone who feels ripped off by this company should send it in and list the us govt website to report such things. and they close it automatically with the excuse that all software has bugs. LOL. FUNNY FUNNY. Well at least I know where the workers of this company spend there time hiding, cause they sure as hell are not working on this package.

Blue, you really ought to start taking your Meds again-all of these paranoid fantasies of yours suggest that the voices in your head are having WAY too much influence on you. Seriously, I only say it because I am concerned for you :mischief: :p.

Aussie.

""Moderator Action: There've been tons of threads like this, and they get nowhere. First of all, if you have problems with the game, try patching it, or seeing if there's any fixes for your hardware. All games and software have bugs in them, it's a fact of life. Thread closed. ""

This is why I posted that. That and they actually removed a few of my posts from a different thread. Just made them go away. No reason, just gone. No space to even suggest I did respond. It just went away. Which leads me to my point that the only people who would defentd this game in its current state are the people who tested it and now are defending there own work. Those same people would feel offended by suggestions that this go to consumer affairs. These same people would be offended if you suggested they did not infact do there job. Which would have been to test the game on different platforms with different hardware. This game was rushed. This game in its current state sucks ass. Its getting to the point where I hate this game and the company. Sid and soren should not be out signing the game they should be back fixing the dam thing. Instead they are out promoting crap and getting away with it.
Its a fact of life that if you spend your hard earned money on something you should expect it to do what it says. Otherwise it is reasonable to expect your money back.
You do not go to McDonald and order a double cheese burger, pay for it, only to find you just got a single burger with no cheese, and just go hmmm thats just a fact of life and walk awway.

""Moderator Action: There've been tons of threads like this, and they get nowhere. First of all, if you have problems with the game, try patching it, or seeing if there's any fixes for your hardware. All games and software have bugs in them, it's a fact of life. Thread closed. ""

This is why I posted that. That and they actually removed a few of my posts from a different thread. Just made them go away. No reason, just gone.
Its a fact of life that if you spend your hard earned money on something you should expect it to do what it says. Otherwise it is reasonable to expect your money back.
You do not go to McDonald and order a double cheese burger, pay for it, only to find you just got a single burger with no cheese, and just go hmmm thats just a fact of life and walk awway.

I agree with your comments. If a thread is deleted it should be left closed with a brief comment as to why. If there are tons of threads, maybe there are in fact problems!! More than just teething troubles, too.

Also, I would suggest Civ4 has a much higher level of bugs that just most released games by the tech support email I just received from Take2:

"Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for contacting Take 2 Technical Support.


We are currently experiencing a very high volume of e-mails and telephone
calls. Due to this there is a delay on providing support although we are
doing everything we can to help.

We will be in touch shortly with an answer to your query. Thank you for
your patience.



Please be sure to delete all previous correspondence when replying. This
will help us to process your response in a more timely and efficient manner.

Kind Regards,
Take 2 Technical Support"

An AUTOMATED response 5 DAYS after sending the email. Amazing! At least I got the game working after support in this thread, but the fact Take2 can't get onto it would suggest most people aren't trying places like this and are just stuck at home wondering what the hell to do with their new plastic frisbee, since the software on it won't work for them.

I've also noticed that threads that don't follow the party line tend to get shut down pretty quick. Hmmm...

Well, they will need to censor my posts as well, then. The patch has made the performance of my game worse--and it was bad already. I have an Nvidia Geforce 5200 card, 500+Ram, 1ghz graphics card. I meet and exceed all system requirements. Still the game simply doesn't function.

I downloaded the latest Microsoft updates. Then I waited patiently for the patch. The patch made my lags worse. And now the game freezes entirely about the time gunpowder shows up. Any wonder pop up window around that time crashes the whole game. (Standard sized world.)

This is NOT--*NOT*---standard minor bugs for a new program. This is a failure to sufficiently test a product before it was put on the market. If I could find my receipt, I would ask for my money back.

Reporting this to the better business bureau is a great idea.

I've also noticed that threads that don't follow the party line tend to get shut down pretty quick. Hmmm...

Sorry, but this is simply not true. At times there were (and are) so many complaint threads (often complaining about the same issue) that I had wished that some of them had been shut down or at least merged, so that the useful information in this forum doesn't get pushed down. Blue3c even used the number of complaint threads as an argument for his position.

I suggest to look around what's being closed down before throwing out censorship accusations. You'll find that people who were *defending* the game have been warned or banned or had their threads closed as well, mostly because of language. The forum rules are very clear on this subject.

But since discussion of mod activities is not allowed in these forums (the same as in any other forums where I'm active), that's all I'm going to say about this topic.

(Mods: Feel free to edit / delete this post if it's not along the rules; it feels borderline to me too.)

I don't think blaming the Mods solves anything. Everybody hates "mods" for varius reasons, but at least these ones here go out of their way to explain what's going on. For that they deserve some respect.


if you're feeling abused by a mod then you might try Private mesaging him/her.

Anyone know how to delete old version profiles? Kinda insignificant but it's annoying having a profile in the list that doesn't even work.

shaqarava
C:\Documents and Settings\<USER>\Application Data\MyGames\Civilization.IV\Profiles

(might be not C: but if it's not C: I think you know that :))

It is a poorly tested game that is at issue. Not anyone at this forum.

The game is buggy beyond the possibility of enjoyment for many people who have the stated system requirements.

jrosiek-

What version nVidia driver are you running??

If you have a newer version, try rolling back to the 71.89 version. It worked wonders for me- no more stuttering graphics or blackout, and better performance in general.

Good luck.

Hi Folks,
Does anyone know if any more patch's are going to become available or do we have to live with what we have been given? The work done by the inventive users of this software and posted in this forum is very good and thay deserve a great "HAZZAH" (so "HAZZAH!! HAZZAH!! HAZZAH!!!"), but it would be nice to have the people who can really make the software run right come up with true program fixes to the problems it contains.

Many thanks to all,
Yeldaoh

Hi Folks,
Does anyone know if any more patch's are going to become available or do we have to live with what we have been given? The work done by the inventive users of this software and posted in this forum is very good and thay deserve a great "HAZZAH" (so "HAZZAH!! HAZZAH!! HAZZAH!!!"), but it would be nice to have the people who can really make the software run right come up with true program fixes to the problems it contains.

Many thanks to all,
Yeldaoh

Given that Take2 are "experiencing very high technical support volumes" or whatever, they must know there are lots of problems, so you imagine that they are working on something. If they're not, word is going to continue to spread that Civ4 has many issues, and they're likely to find Civ5 (when, not if) doesn't sell very well at the start as all the unhappy Civ4 buyers let others "beta"-test Civ5 for a few months...

I've got the min sys requirements, play on Small World, and my biggest problem is it will crash often after hitting "enter" to go to the next turn. Much of the time this is repeatable, meaning reboot, hold shift key down, whatever, and the crash keeps happening. My only fix is to redo the previous turn to get units & stuff different somehow and eventually I get things enough different that it won't crash.

Pretty crappy s/w IMHO. Pretty crappy playtesting too IMHO. I design & playtest military boardgames all the time, I do tons of technical writing in my day-job, and implement/test new engineering s/w all the time. While I do love Civ4, I am rather shocked at how poor the QC obviously was and how poor some of the high level planning was. Sheesh, if they'd had me "playtest" it, in 1 day I would have red-inked all over the Civilopedia, the game itself, etc. Great work in one respect in that it is indeed a great game when it works, but just atrocious work/quality in other respects. Word spreads, getting full up on production before Xmas and meeting their time-to-market schedule maybe wasn't such a good idea ...

Chris, I agree with your comments regarding playtesting etc. I think a lot of us feel that way - and word will spread - I for one won't be buying Civ5 when it first comes out!!

If you are experiencing the CTD issue, a fix that worked for me is described here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=135019#7

I'd also recommend you email firaxis/take2 about your problems - not just tech support, but Firaxis too - there are plenty of likely candidates here:
http://www.firaxis.com/company/contact.php

including Fan Concerns and Game Feedback.

I for one have been telling my friends about my experiences with Civ4 - basically if you can get it to work it's a good game, but they released some seriously buggy software, which is very disappointing.

To put the other side I can't recommend the game highly enough not yet experienced a single CTD.

Though I play on standard map or below - haven't tried a larger map so maybe that is part of the reason identified earlier in the thread. Apologies for posting on a more cheerful note I was keeping out of all the negativety - but I think a positive angle is needed to keep this in perspectibe lest we believe everyone has an issue with the game.

I feel for anyone experiencing issues - would really love to add something to assist but their seems to be so many variants to it :(

In terms of high technical support volume - don't read too much into that unless you have previously experienced Take 2's support :) I logged an issue a week ago, its no longer an issue - if they're still working on it then they're wasting their time.

I would suggest the best place to air problems is here - swamping the guys who are developing the product is not going to assist and push resources in the wrong places. Particularly if the problems are similar - a more organised breakdown of the problems would be more productive than that.

Tals back into Lurk mode

To put the other side I can't recommend the game highly enough not yet experienced a single CTD.

I realise that many people haven't had any issues, and think that's good, but also how it should be for everyone. The number of people with issues does seem disproportionately high.


I feel for anyone experiencing issues - would really love to add something to assist but their seems to be so many variants to it :(
....I would suggest the best place to air problems is here - swamping the guys who are developing the product is not going to assist and push resources in the wrong places. Particularly if the problems are similar - a more organised breakdown of the problems would be more productive than that.


I think a lot are either video card or memory leak related from what I've read - by directly telling Take2 of your issues, they (I hope) will create a profile of the most common issues and direct their resources to those areas. I'm sure they have some common sense here and retain an overview of the problems occurring at the same time as dealing with the specific issues people email them about. If they never hear about some problems, they may never be addressed.
While the forums are great, I have yet to see any official comment from Take2 or their tech support about "this is being worked on" or "this is the fix we recommend" - I'm not saying not to use the forums, on the contrary, but to -also- tell Take2 (and email them back if you fixed a problem).

Does it add support for greek characters? (pleaseeeeeee!!:cry: )

patch fixed the black map / leader faces problem on my dell inspiron w/ ATI mobility 7500. very happy!

AMD64 3000+
PC3200 512meg x2 (dual channel)
6600GT 128meg - latest non-beta nVidia drivers
Audigy2 ZX sound
Turned off virus scanner and non-needed services
WinXP Pro SP2

huge map, 8 civs (including myself), noble level

The good after the patch:
- wonder movies now play much smoother, not choppy*
- dont crash to desktop in the start/middle of the game**
- several of the gameplay bugs resolved as noted in the patch read me

*except gets choppy near the latter stages of the game, see below
**Again, near the latter part of the game crashes are worse then pre-patch

The bad after the patch
- stablilty quickly decreases near the latter part of the game. By the time I hit the year 1900 or so (and the map fully reveiled) things started to take much longer. Not only the AI turns but during my turn scrolling across the map became a nightmare. At times takes 30+sec for the main screen to refresh and draw the units/terrain. At times the scrooling is smooth, othertimes tiakes quite some time. Animations/sound became choppy as well at this stage in the game. Seems like a memory leak when the units/civ size gets beyond a certain point.

The ugly after the patch
- The crashes become quite common when you get to this stage of the game. early/mid 1900s. When the game crashes about 50% of the time its to the desktop, the other 50% of the time causes a blue screen of death with a reference to a nvidia driver .dll At this point I can only play 5-6 turns at a time before one of these crashes happen. In essence my game is unplayable.

I am very disappointed in this game and lack of quality. I realize and accept some amount of bugs. The world is not perfect nor is the s/w industry. But to release this with game stopping bugs is unacceptable. There was no way these bugs could not have been noticed before ship unless their QA dept is compleatly inept.

I shall think twice about buying another game from Sid or his company.

Edit: Duplicate post, please delete

I just wanted to put my 2 cent's worth in regarding the 1.09 patch.

Hearing all the bad reviews of the patch, I was very reluctant to upgrade, in fact, abandoning the download after reading many negative comments in this forum. However, I decided to give it a try last night after wrapping up a game. Initially I tried installing the patch through the in-game update option. It downloaded no problems, but I got an 'access denied' error when trying to update civ4.exe, afterwhich the game didn't work. I turned around and downloaded the patch from the web and installed that, and it fixed the problem.

Furthermore, while playing I noticed dramatic improvement in performance. So much so, that I turned the graphics options up from 'low' to 'medium'
with no loss in performance at all. Load times seem to have improved and so far I have not seen any bugs.

I was not having any problems with the game before, other than bugs, so I was happy to see that it only got better.

P4 @ 2 Ghz, 512MB RAM, 64MB GForce3 Ti 200

I have two computers: One that has 256 RAM, and my laptop, which has 512 RAM....I downloaded the patch yesterday, and on a lark installed it with the game on the 256 RAM computer.....Here is my report:

Before the Patch on 256 RAM computer:
Game would load to the Main Menu screen, but when I would start a game, it would CTD immediately...Also, with my lame Intel 8 series graphics card, I couldn't see the leaders, or much of the map when it did load

After the patch on 256 RAM computer:
Game loads...
I can see the leaders, and the map...
I can play a game to conclusion on a small map with 3 rival civs, without any discernable slowdown or CTDs....

Needless to say, I quite content with that, and I haven't even tried it on my laptop yet...I much prefer playing small worlds with a few civs than a big one with lots of civs, so I am esctatic this morning, to be sure....

AMD64 3000+
PC3200 512meg x2 (dual channel)
6600GT 128meg - latest non-beta nVidia drivers
Audigy2 ZX sound
Turned off virus scanner and non-needed services
WinXP Pro SP2

huge map, 8 civs (including myself), noble level

The good after the patch:
- wonder movies now play much smoother, not choppy*
- dont crash to desktop in the start/middle of the game**
- several of the gameplay bugs resolved as noted in the patch read me

*except gets choppy near the latter stages of the game, see below
**Again, near the latter part of the game crashes are worse then pre-patch

The bad after the patch
- stablilty quickly decreases near the latter part of the game. By the time I hit the year 1900 or so (and the map fully reveiled) things started to take much longer. Not only the AI turns but during my turn scrolling across the map became a nightmare. At times takes 30+sec for the main screen to refresh and draw the units/terrain. At times the scrooling is smooth, othertimes tiakes quite some time. Animations/sound became choppy as well at this stage in the game. Seems like a memory leak when the units/civ size gets beyond a certain point.

The ugly after the patch
- The crashes become quite common when you get to this stage of the game. early/mid 1900s. When the game crashes about 50% of the time its to the desktop, the other 50% of the time causes a blue screen of death with a reference to a nvidia driver .dll At this point I can only play 5-6 turns at a time before one of these crashes happen. In essence my game is unplayable.

I am very disappointed in this game and lack of quality. I realize and accept some amount of bugs. The world is not perfect nor is the s/w industry. But to release this with game stopping bugs is unacceptable. There was no way these bugs could not have been noticed before ship unless their QA dept is compleatly inept.

I shall think twice about buying another game from Sid or his company.


I have a nearly identical computer as you:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
512 x 4 MB DDRAM (Yeah yeah, I know about the memory controller issue with all the slots filled.)
6600 GT
Audigy2 ZX
WinXP Home SP2

Before the patch, I had several seemingly random hard locks and other crashes where strange artifacts apeared on the screen and then locked up. Since the patch, I have had only 1 such occasion. I don't know what the big difference is between our two systems... Maybe the extra ram? I doubt the slightly higher clocked CPU would make much of a difference. Or maybe it's XP Home? dunno.

Well, I just went out and bought a 512 stick of memory and am going to reinstall this game tonight along with the magnificent patch.

I plan on playing the hugest world possible with as many empires as possible. And so help me God, if the game takes longer than 5 seconds to so much as scratch its ass and ponder the meaning of life - I am going to lay down a Gypsy curse on every single person who helped develop the game...and their children. Just to make an example.

I mean it.

I found a great way to pass the time until the next patch comes out. I fired up Classic Quake 1. :)

Well, I just went out and bought a 512 stick of memory and am going to reinstall this game tonight along with the magnificent patch.

How much memory will you have then? 512 MB in total will not be enough to play the game on huge maps. 1 GB should do, according to my tests, although I haven't played the savegames I tested with for longer periods. A huge map with 8 rivals in modern times used about 750 MB of RAM (with Win2k and some other processes using another 130 MB).

the new patch puts naked ladies all over my pc...

oh, wait...

never mind....

oops....:smoke: :smoke:

Well, I just went out and bought a 512 stick of memory and am going to reinstall this game tonight along with the magnificent patch.

I plan on playing the hugest world possible with as many empires as possible. And so help me God, if the game takes longer than 5 seconds to so much as scratch its ass and ponder the meaning of life - I am going to lay down a Gypsy curse on every single person who helped develop the game...and their children. Just to make an example.

I mean it.

You are too naive...
It should work better, but what are you asking...

Dark Helmet and all others

This might solve memory issues:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146309

I have a hotseat game I could only play a few turns with before a CTD before the patch going for almost three hours so far..no problems.

ledhed
Do you mean 1.09 patch alone or my memory-fix with that patch?

That RAM purchase put me up to 1Gb of memory. Although I am peeved at BestBuy, the memory was in the row with a price tag of 75$ but when I checked out the price was actually twice that. I bought it anyways, but still....

Oh! And the game runs wonderfully - albeit I haven't gotten very far in the game because I have been messin' around with all the bells & whistles. But I am sure nothing else could go wrong.

I really don't know why all you people are complaining about the game - works fine on my system. Must be something you did wrong :crazyeye:

You are too naive...
It should work better, but what are you asking...

I think what he is saying is he is pissed off. Are you saying 512 of ram is not enough. Hmm I am confused.
Minimum Hardware
Operating System: Windows® 2000/XP
Processor: 1.2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent
Memory: 256 MB RAM (Windows 2000) / 512 MB RAM (Windows XP)
Hard Disk Space: 1.7 GB Free
CD-ROM Drive: 4X Speed
Video: DirectX 9.0c-compatible 64 MB video card with Hardware T&L support ( GeForce 2/Radeon 7500 or better)
Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card
DirectX®: DirectX® version 9.0c (included) or higher
Recommended Hardware
Operating System: Windows® 2000/XP
Processor: 1.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 1.7 GB Free
CD-ROM Drive: 4X Speed
Video: 128 MB Video Card w/ DirectX 8 support (pixel & vertex shaders)
Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card
DirectX®: DirectX® version 9.0c (included) or higher If you need more help you can contact a technical support via email or phone.

Oh wait. If you believe these you believe that take2 firaxis actually tested the game with these settings. On more then one machine. LOL.
testing and firaxis/take2. LOL.
Hey lets release a patch. 1.08. whoops.
hey lets release a patch. 1.09, so heres the plan we don't announce anything until a week after we do release it. That way if we still suck at testing (which we do). We can just pull it and go with 1.10. Yah thats it.
Hey you stop working on the game and get back in that forum and post positive things about our game. Defend us. Cause dam we need it.
Remember we are stalling until the expansion pack. We need more money. I mean who is going to pay for sid and soren to go around the world signing this game instead of working on it.

Warned for trolling. Not a good start after coming back from your ban.

I finally got the patch to work! I finally finished my game and successfully resisted the temptation to start another, and reinstalled. It was the damnedest thing, too... I couldn't find any "uninstall" option anywhere, and Civ4's entry in Change/Remove Programs in the control panel didn't have a "Change" or "Remove" button, but the game was still running, and autoplay didn't give any install/uninstall option :dubious: . Had to manually explore the CD to find the setup.exe and run it from there.

Once I got it reinstalled though, the patch worked flawlessly. My loading times are cut in half (if not better), and bringing up the tile grid takes a fraction the time that it did in 1.00. Post-patch "default" graphics also performed better than prepatch "everything minimized and/or turned off" settings had, including messing with the .ini to disable screenshots.

:D :D :D :D :D

aargh!!! playing game on a huge map, but still seeing the crashes in the modern era just like in vanilla!!! so ive had it with this thing, im gonna shelf it until this gets resolved. the memory leaks are ridiculous. now it even crashes when i try to talk to other civs in modern eras! so ive had it with this thing, im gonna shelf it until this gets resolved.

SuperSloth
Did you try solution at the top of this page? (post #681)

Can't wait to get home and try harks patch. only 1 hour 7min to leave, 15 min to get home, then start dl ing and installing. God I hope this works.

SuperSloth
Did you try solution at the top of this page? (post #681)
dosent the solution require that the game be played in windowed mode? i thouaght about justing wait for the next patch so i can play it in full screen with all the effects. but ill give your patch a shot anyway , thanks.

ledhed
Do you mean 1.09 patch alone or my memory-fix with that patch?

I have not used the memory fix yet . Just the patch ...I am getting decent performance now on huge maps , with lag late in game that I can live with until my new rig gets delivered...if I have a problem then...:scan: :mischief: :crazyeye:

Well, I can't take out a final verdict on the 1.09 patch yet. I'm undecided. On the one hand it made Civ IV run on my Laptop with a 852 Intel Graphics Chipset :eek: - never thought this would work. On the other hand the patch seems to have screwed up MP games via direct IP on my desktop PC. Pre-patch things worked wonderful, I finished several MP games with a friend of mine with almost no problems. Post-patch the game just hangs up if I want to connect to his PC - and I made no changes to any of my settings ! Tried it two times, always same result: type in the IP, hit Connect, and ... yeah, music runs on and you can move the mouse, but everything else is just frozen like the north pole. Beautiful, but I just don't want to use Civ IV as a jukebox, as nice as the music may be though. I even can't return to Windows. Nice as hell. I'll now try to connect via Gamespy - and if this doesn't work either, I'll kick this patch off my system and go with good ol' v1.00. Don't ask me why I've patched, I don't know it myself :D . Fortunately I've made a system recovery check point in Windows, so I should be able to get back to pre-patch mode easily...

Regards,

Lord Timon

P.S.: If anyone has a solution to my problem - you're most welcome... :king:

hey harkonnen, i just tried out yur patch and i can say that i was shocked by the performance. the lag was almost nill in my late game. take2/sid should personally thank guys like you who can help cover up their mistakes. nice work:goodjob:

SuperSloth
I'm happy to hear that :) I will rewrite my post there, so that less people get confused with 'windowed' mode. Windowed mode is preferrable if you want to go 'insane_mode=1' with frequent alt-tabbing, but it's not a must at all.

This patch was a godsend.

It fixed the chesire cat and black terrain bug. Now the game is at least playable!

Ok sorry about not getting back in here last night. But after getting the files for Harks patch and installing I found myself playing a game until 3 in the morn. Hark rocks!! I will try another game tonight.
For all of you who are now thinking I will cut take2/firaxis some slack. Think again.
This just shows that they are not working hard on any fix. Or if they are indeed working hard, they need to reconsider those who are coding and testing.
In no way should Hark have been able to beat an entire company to patching a game. From what I understood in the mem thread, Hark picked up python tested with the help of others. Identified a problem. Solved the problem.
Firaxis/take2 need to get with Hark ASAP and find out what they could not see. I understand a second pair of eyes is great sometimes. But I would think with the resources at Firaxis they should have seen these problems.

blue3c
Thanks a lot! :) The most funny thing here is that this patch was created without any game source code... That's the cornerstone which will probably make game industry remembering this patch and treat it as a punishment for lazy coding.

I hope that Firaxis incorporates Harkonnen's patch, and that Harkonnen gets what he deserves for it. :goodjob:

However, I don't think that this is something that Firaxis must have seen. Firaxis was working with Gamebryo. If you read Harkonnen's thread, then you'll know that his patch optimizes memory use by applying a nifty low-level algorithm to reuse *parts* of the existng geometry that probably cannot be accessed from Gamebryo. This is a quite creative idea that requires serious out-of-the-box thinking.

Don't diminish Harkonnen's idea by saying Firaxis must have had the same idea much earlier. Please don't belittle his achievement by using it for a crusade against Firaxis.

Btw, I find it al little odd that by applying Harkonnen's patch, the game suddenly runs stable on your PC, when it wouldn't at all before. As far as I can see, the patch optimizes memory usage. If this makes your game more stable, then playing on smaller maps (which would have reduced memory usage as well) should have achieved the same effect.

Psyringe
The only strange thing here is that Firaxis used Gamebryo engine (FPS-oriented as of Oblivion) for rather specific graphics like that one of Civ4/Pirates. As for me, it would be faster (in terms of development time) to code everything in D3D directly rather than adopting GameBryo layer to specific all-on-sphere/all-on-plane engine needs.

Yes. There may have been suboptimal design decisions - perhaps because of lack of experience with 3d programming, but that's speculation. However, I think that they seriously overestimated the amount of geometry they could reasonably put in the graphics for a game such as Civ.

Since the triangles get very small, I wonder whether some performance could be gained by limiting display to triangles of a certain size (perhaps modified by view distance). There was a fan-made patch for Morrowind which did this. I'm not sure however; if *all* the triangles are small, it might not be worth it, because then they'll all be hidden when viewed from a certain distance.

psyringe
Little confused. I praised Hark. I cut on firaxis for not solving it before Hark. In no way would I cut on someone who made the game playable for me.
My point is that firaxis should have beat Hark to the solution. Not the other way around. No offense Hark.

Don't diminish Harkonnen's idea by saying Firaxis must have had the same idea much earlier. Please don't belittle his achievement by using it for a crusade against Firaxis.

Again, I think Hark did a great job. I did not say firaxis must have had the same idea. I said they should have. Out of the box, in the box, who cares. They wrote the game. They know the game. If tested properly I believe they should have been able to patch this problem.

Personally I believe you are just trying to start an argument here. Because I said something. And that is truly sad.

I will state this again for those who may confuse things.
1) Hark did an outstanding job in identifing a problem and solving it on his own.
2) Firaxis should have been able to indentify this problem and then solve this problem.
3)Firaxis should get with Hark and discuss what he found and how he was able to solve this issue.

I will add one more thing. Firaxis should get with Hark and offer him whatever he wants for fixing an issue with there product. One that they were unable to fix.


psyringe If you want to argue, find someone else I to tired to play this back and forth with you today.

Thunderfall if this is truly a fan website, you should look at Harks work and post it on the front page. So those who are having problems will be able to play this game. Hark deserves all the credit for this.

So far with Harks patch I am able to play this game.

THANK YOU HARK

I certainly don't want to argue about that. Actually my point was that Harkonnen's achievements should not be abused for any kind of arguments, which you did by using it for another round against Firaxis. I think that his achievements are far too good to be abused this way.

Your point was that Harkonnen's idea is great, but that the game designers, having the better resources, were to be expected to get it first.

My point is that Harkonnen's idea is actually so great and clever that this was not to be expected, no matter how much resources the designers have.

This is why I think you're diminishing his achievements.

And I agree that we should not argue further about this subject. This would be a disservice to Harkonnen.

Psyringe, blue3c
I think you both are saying good words to me (hop so :) ), just some very-good-words sometimes need to be read 3-4 times to see how good they are. No offence to anyone, and let's stop that... again, no offfencce.

Psyringe
That's the future of my patch, but this will require me to match vertex and index buffers at 'draw-primitive' call which isn't so easy. I think modifying 'dds' files will make it better.

As I explained in memory-fix thread, the fact that antialiasing of 2-4 gets 2-4 times slower proves too-small-triangles hypotesis.

Slow globe view with a lot of cities proves it as well.

Harkonnen- you should put a link to this in your signature!

Is your fix likely to work on a slightly-out-of-date laptop? compaq presario 2195 US, 1.8ghz Althlon 2500, Radeon 320M, 512MB ram. My game is more stable after the 1.09 patch but still has memory problems (I left it running the other night for an hour and it had crashed when I came back). Also, I have the black terrain...

bio_hazard
At least I've become "warlord" through writing this patch. Before it I was just a reader playing C3C :)

Well, just give it a try... I don't know for sure. Many people not only had their game running smoother, but also got visual problems fixed. Also this patch worked (and improved playability) for 64Mb video memory configurations, I didn't expect this either.

I have an old pIII that I am going to test this on with low res tonight. I am curious to see if this works on even this lowly machine.
its a pIII 1 ghz, 512mb ram, sb live game, geforce3 ti 64mb, 200 gb drive. xp pro sp2, win2000 and mandrake installed with the latest and greatest drivers.

blue3c
Heh, my system is close to that, except video is better :)

I certainly don't want to argue about that. Actually my point was that Harkonnen's achievements should not be abused for any kind of arguments, which you did by using it for another round against Firaxis. I think that his achievements are far too good to be abused this way.



They aren't being abused. It is an excellent point.

If the problems with the game are easy enough for an individual working in his spare time to fix, then they should have been fixed sooner by a company with a staff of professional programmers. Especially since it is taking peoples money for this program.

On the other hand, this makes me worry about the future of Civ IV, especially since Take2 bought Firaxis.

I vote that Harkonnen should recive a "Civ4 Golden Hammer" award for tenacity and persistance chipping away at this issue...

Outstanding, Mr. Harkonnen! :goodjob:

I just wanted to add my thanks to Hark. I run a P4, 2.8 Gig PC with an NVIDIA 5700 FX Ultra video card, and I upgraded to 3 gigs of RAM to accommodate CivIV.

The 3 gigs of RAM eliminated almost all crashes, but the game, especially towards the end, would run sooooo sloooooww, especially since I like to play on huge maps. Hark's fix makes a great, positive difference, even though I run at medium graphics.

My video card is 128 megs and my AGP aperture is 64 so, originally, I tried to compute the formula myself and ran at 92 on video memory usage. I've now tried 72 (splitting the difference between 64 and 80, since I'm running at medium graphics). Occasionally, I lose graphics in a popup leader screen or wonder movie, but no biggy. I'll try both 80 and 64 just to see which is best. (IOW, I basically have no idea what I'm doing! :crazyeye: )

Again, my thanks for saving me lots of time and frustration.

Well, I can't take out a final verdict on the 1.09 patch yet. I'm undecided. On the one hand it made Civ IV run on my Laptop with a 852 Intel Graphics Chipset :eek: - never thought this would work. On the other hand the patch seems to have screwed up MP games via direct IP on my desktop PC. Pre-patch things worked wonderful, I finished several MP games with a friend of mine with almost no problems. Post-patch the game just hangs up if I want to connect to his PC - and I made no changes to any of my settings ! Tried it two times, always same result: type in the IP, hit Connect, and ... yeah, music runs on and you can move the mouse, but everything else is just frozen like the north pole. Beautiful, but I just don't want to use Civ IV as a jukebox, as nice as the music may be though. I even can't return to Windows. Nice as hell. I'll now try to connect via Gamespy - and if this doesn't work either, I'll kick this patch off my system and go with good ol' v1.00. Don't ask me why I've patched, I don't know it myself :D . Fortunately I've made a system recovery check point in Windows, so I should be able to get back to pre-patch mode easily...

Regards,

Lord Timon

P.S.: If anyone has a solution to my problem - you're most welcome... :king:

Okay - it's easy to bash Firaxis if something concerning Civ IV is not working. Dear Firaxians - I'm apologizing for my post. Because I made the fault - I should have recognized that the 1.09 patch changes the civilization4.exe as well and that my firewall - like with any new program - will ask for admittance if this program wants to access the Internet. This caused the hangup. I made an entry in the firewall settings for the 1.09 - exe, and tadaaa - direct IP works as fine as before. The patch has solved my sound problems, and the wonder movies - though seemingly a little bit choppier than before - run now with unbroken sound and a little bit faster. Added to that, I'm able to play large maps on MP games in a fair and smooth speed. Well, sometimes the biggest mistake sits ind front of the computer... :D

Regards,

Lord Timon

Well, sometimes the biggest mistake sits ind front of the computer... :D

In software development, we call that PEBCAK- Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard.

:D

blue3c
Heh, my system is close to that, except video is better :)

Well it worked. Again this is why I was not posting.

Note to t2/firaxis, if I am playing I am not complaining. LOL.

Ultimate test is tonight. Lan game between 5 computers. woo hoo. :crazyeye:

well I seem to have solved the problem...I just went and bought a new computer with a petium(r) cpu 3.00 ghz / 2.99ghz @ 2 gigs of ram , with a ge force gtx 256 meg nvidia graphics card...so it only cost around three thousand dollars to solve the problem .:crazyeye:

The game runs like a [Deleted] after a rock .

Watch the expressions and language please.

The game runs like a [Deleted] after a rock .

So, quickly?

hot seat game with 9 players late in the game ...no problems . File size over 546mb ..the largest I ran before was 469 .

Love the patch. Wasn't sure at first about it, but now that I have had plenty of time to get to know the game I am satisfied. This doesn't mean I am no longer upset about the whole release fiasco - Firaxis still has plenty to do in my opinion before they redeem themselves in my book, but it is a fine start. Only issue I have so far is the 5 minute re-load time, and that is something I can live with as I do not re-load the game much while playing.

Ok...... so when does the next patch come out?

I just want the wonder movie choppiness to be fixed now.

They can't give a fixed date. Any patch has to go through QA, and may be rejected by QA, so they have to work on it again etc. Generally, patches are ready when they are ready.

What are the main advantages in applying the 1.09 patch?

What are the main advantages in applying the 1.09 patch?

The game runs more stable and smoother for some people which had problems before. The endgame takes a *little* longer. Ironworks works now. The other fixes and changes are really minor imho, unless you're playing multiplayer, in that case you'll appreciate that an AI diplomacy exploit has been fixed, and that the list of open games in the gamespy lounge doesn't reset every second now.

Need help.

I do not have internet at home so I have downloaded patch v1.09 onto a DVD at work. I now need to install the patch onto my PC at home.

Q. How do I install the patch?

Any help gratefully appreciated.

fung3: The patch should be a self-executable, so you can just double-click on it, and the patch *should run*.

So has the rumor mill updated the any info on the patch of the patch?

So has the rumor mill updated the any info on the patch of the patch?

Give 'em a break, man. They put the first patch out QUICK.

It's the holidays, ya know? Let them catch their breath!

Are you kidding me. Really. I could care less if it is the holidays. The facts are that they have not patched the game to a working state for all who PAID good hard earned money for this. They RUSHED the game to production so they could sell more. Knowing the product was not fully tested. THEY DID NOT put out the first patch QUICK.
A person in these forums has identified and fixed more then they have. He is one person. They are a team and have taken money for this game. He paid money to have to work on a game. HMMMMMM.
Give who a break. What was that again.
You are mighty quick to defend them. Do you work for them. Own stock. What.
I asked a simple question.
you replied as if you have something to hide. Like maybe you work for them and feel guilty you put out such a terrible product. Like maybe just maybe you know the game should not have been released when it was. But you wanted to beat aoeIII out to the stores. Figuring you could just patch it later. Cause hey we are just gamers, what the hell. Its not like we work for our money right. What the hell, gamers always pay for unfinished crap. Then they do your work for you and patch, mod and basically finish the game. So it is 1000 times better then the crap you put out. And the best part is you can keep your name on it. Incorporating all the hard work by the gaming community to fix your crap into an official patch. That way you can say you did the work. But hey what the hell its your business model so why not stick with it.
You also know that you will have mindless drones following you. Supporting everything you do. The few that do complain, will be drowned out by the hundreds of thousands of drones you have created.
But hey your not really stealing the money, right. Its not stealing if you sell them unfinished untested crap. I mean they are the ones that are stupid enough to do all your work for you and pay you for that, right.
So we shouldn't be blaming firaxis for putting out a crap game, we should blame our selves for continuing to let them put this crap out. By buying unfinished products. By letting these so called game reviewers write glowing reviews on crap games. By watching the gaming industry pat it slef on the back with awards they awarded themselves.
Yah thats it, Cause what the hell, its our business model. Besides gamers are just to stupid to do anything about it. Right?????

Are you kidding me. Really. I could care less if it is the holidays. The facts are that they have not patched the game to a working state for all who PAID good hard earned money for this. They RUSHED the game to production so they could sell more. Knowing the product was not fully tested. THEY DID NOT put out the first patch QUICK.

Well, I , for one, noticed that the gripe threads really dropped in number after the patch came out. Is the game still not working for you? If so, I'm sorry. There are a lot of fixes out there for people's numerous issues, which seem to have dwindled to "the game runs slow in the late game on big maps". And, for the record, the first patch was out in what, about 6 weeks? I'd call that quick.

A person in these forums has identified and fixed more then they have. He is one person. They are a team and have taken money for this game. He paid money to have to work on a game. HMMMMMM.

I appreciate what Harkkonen did, however, I'm not about to download an unofficial patch. It's great that a lot of people are getting utility out of his patch, however, it seemed to me (from reading the related threads) that the patch is something he wanted to do. I'm glad he cared about the game enough to try to fix it- it's so much easier to sit back and rant or take cheap shots *ahem*.

Give who a break. What was that again.
You are mighty quick to defend them. Do you work for them. Own stock. What.

No, I don't work for them, but I have to say that I have yet to read a post of yours on these forums that wasn't horribly negative, I'm just trying to understand, do you WANT this game to suck?

Do you have a job? Would you like receiving constant feedback that you're a hack, or a corporate cheat, or a thief, if something you did wasn't 100% perfect, the first time, every time?


I asked a simple question.

The question you asked was in the spirit of criticism, not in the spirit of genuinely hoping that there is another patch coming out. How do I know this? I inferred it from your other numerous, game-ripping posts.

you replied as if you have something to hide. Like maybe you work for them and feel guilty you put out such a terrible product. Like maybe just maybe you know the game should not have been released when it was. But you wanted to beat aoeIII out to the stores. Figuring you could just patch it later.

Well, you couldn't be more wrong on that, frankly. I don't work for Firaxis, Take2, or anyone associated with this game. I just don't like it that people come here and post uncaringly and with impunity about how bad the game sucks. And, for the record, AoE III came out in stores BEFORE cIV, so that part of your argument makes zero sense.

Cause hey we are just gamers, what the hell. Its not like we work for our money right. What the hell, gamers always pay for unfinished crap. Then they do your work for you and patch, mod and basically finish the game. So it is 1000 times better then the crap you put out. And the best part is you can keep your name on it. Incorporating all the hard work by the gaming community to fix your crap into an official patch. That way you can say you did the work. But hey what the hell its your business model so why not stick with it.
You also know that you will have mindless drones following you. Supporting everything you do. The few that do complain, will be drowned out by the hundreds of thousands of drones you have created.
But hey your not really stealing the money, right. Its not stealing if you sell them unfinished untested crap. I mean they are the ones that are stupid enough to do all your work for you and pay you for that, right.
So we shouldn't be blaming firaxis for putting out a crap game, we should blame our selves for continuing to let them put this crap out. By buying unfinished products. By letting these so called game reviewers write glowing reviews on crap games. By watching the gaming industry pat it slef on the back with awards they awarded themselves.
Yah thats it, Cause what the hell, its our business model. Besides gamers are just to stupid to do anything about it. Right?????

Dude, take the tinfoil hat off and relax for a second. I've never understood the logic behind "we'll just put out a crap game, screw the consumer". It simply doesn't happen- that is a HORRIBLE business attitude, and one that conspiracy theorists seem to be all too willing to accept as plausible.

Dude, take the tinfoil hat off and relax for a second. I've never understood the logic behind "we'll just put out a crap game, screw the consumer". It simply doesn't happen- that is a HORRIBLE business attitude, and one that conspiracy theorists seem to be all too willing to accept as plausible.

No tinfoil. Just countless games that need countless patchs. Watching games come out that gamers fix not the companies. As a regular business model, yes it sucks. But in the gaming industry they can and have gotten away with it. Why because it has become the standard. Something to expect. The gaming standard seems to be going to the do not buy before the third patch.

Yes you are right I am totally negitive when it comes to this game and this company. I expected more. I expected a game with sids name on it to work. A game with the civ title to just be mind numbing fun. I expected to take that first weekend off and just game all weekend on a hard awesome game of civ.
I did not expect to be watching my game slow to a crawl and lock my system, ctd, kill a hard drive etc etc etc.
So yes I am pissed. Yes I am sick of early releases. Yes I am saying something anytime I feel ripped off. Yes I will speak up until this problem is solved. Yes I have contacted them. And yes they have only returned one email and it was a form letter suggesting I run scandisk on a xp computer. Considering scandisk does not exist in XP. Thats a good trick. Scandisk was last around in 98se. I understood they meant to say checkdisk. And if that was the only mistake there, I would just say common mistake. But do not tell me to go to start programs accesories and run scandisk. Like you copied it out of a 98se how to page, when even checkdisk is not there. Eye Dee Ten Tee award goes to...... Firaxis.
So after all this I would say you meant to say there is no work on a upcoming patch. Is that correct mr firaxis man. I mean it is the holidays. Who cares if the product they sold does not work for all who bought it. The have the money and derserve some time off right. Like with sid and soren doing the little tour instead of fixing the game. Hell they have our money, what should we really expect form them. A working game. That would be asking to much. I mean considering we paid for one and all. But hey its the holidays.
Straw that broke the camels back. Firaxis is.

Well, in the interest of not getting into a flame war, I'm not going to respond to your individiual points, but I would like to say, if the game doesn't work for you, you're pissed at Sid and Soren, and you don't plan to play it, WHY ARE YOU STILL COMING TO THIS FORUM? Just to complain?

Seems to me like there are much better ways to use one's time...you're just a hater, apparently. It isn't constructive, it's just vitriol, the way you cut on Firaxis and their staff.

I would like to be able to play the game with an offical patch. I would like to be able to say that sid soren and the boys have put half the time Hark has put into figuring out this game. But I will say from current work they have not.
If a hater is someone that is pissed off because they spent money for something and got nothing but headaches in return. yes I am a hater.

i have to say, i agree with blue3c. if u buy something, you expect it to work. FULL STOP. not, it will work when we get the 4th patch out in a years time. work the first time round, then you would not have arguments like these. its the same with all things in life. If you bought a car and the brakes didnt work, would you still think, "hey man, dont worry, its the holidays, the rest of the car is fine". Or if you bought a pair of scissors that didnt cut anything, you wouldnt say "its ok, its the holidays" no if something doesnt work, its up to the manufacturer to fix it.

personally dude, i think if ur that upset with the game, just return it, and buy AOEIII or something.

I actually agree with blue3c too, but I'm the screamer at the other forums... (not about civ4, it's the tendency as blue3c has spotted).

Yes, I wanted to make this patch. For glory, for recognition - well yes. For possible bonus from Firaxis - yes... but all of that wasn't primary. The primary goal was to show what game industry is... If a coder (no matter skilled or not) can make it so better without any source code, then where are we heading??? Game industry seems to me like a car rocking on a usual russian road under 200mph. Yes, it covers a huge distance per second, but sooner or later it's gonna catch its pillar...

I don't think that people will refuse buying games, that's kind of food for them (for me at least), but I am damn surprised how online reviewers live... I mean they have a lot of paid advertising in them, but that implies that they are being read. So why are they being read with so much lie behind the lines? As long as I've got busted with civ4, I personally won't visit, nor I will recommend anyone to use all those reviewers who gave civ4 unacceptably high score and haven't posted any bugs it had.

Avoiding buying games isn't possible thing to follow, but avoiding public reviews (at least from top 10 reviewers) is a possible things. If many will follow, game developers will be more quality-driven like they did in year 1993.

I can get put more phylosophy in this. Today's way of business is good and robust in everything except allowance of unlimited advertising. It supersedes product quality, and the shorter the world seems for us (flight, internet), the worse effects it has... People are evading racism, terrorism, whatever-else-ism from being spreading. Even simply talking positively about that is illegal. People also understood that monopolies are bad, and there are treatments to such situations in developed countries. But that hasn't yet happened to advertising, and I am not sure it's ever going to happen since it is considered as a foundation for sales nowadays...

Give 'em a break, man. They put the first patch out QUICK.

Odd. Most other companies have any critical patches for the release out before the first week, and fixes any remaining bugs with series of patches every few weeks.

The first patch came out VERY SLOW, and the second one is repeating the VERY SLOW timing.

I agree 100% with blue3c. I am furious about this. The number of gripes have dropped because people can only spend so many weeks trying to figure out how to fix this unplayable piece of crap. This is one of the most deservedly successful video game franchises of its kind. They are obviously not strapped for cash. And yet they tossed this sub-beta garbage onto the market with complete disregard for all the havoc it would cause because they are money-grubbing scumbags. Period. Money-grubbing scumbags. Because I foolishly assumed they were legitimate businesspeople interested in providing a product that acually works, I am out $50. That is the least of it though - I'm also out many dozens of hours which I've WASTED trying to update drivers, futzing with every possible patch and mod and .ini file suggestion, and scouring these boards day after day after day in vain trying to find ANY way to make this defective garbage work.

I've been playing Civ series games for much of the last decade. But screw Sid Meier, I will never buy another piece of crap with his name on it as long as I live.

Money
Grubbing
Scumbags

Come on, anomalek, tell us how you REALLY feel!

:D

Odd. Most other companies have any critical patches for the release out before the first week, and fixes any remaining bugs with series of patches every few weeks.

The first patch came out VERY SLOW, and the second one is repeating the VERY SLOW timing.

I believe the first "critical patch"- the one that fixed the ATI error, was out in the first week, wasn't it?

As far as patches that optimize the game to run on low spec hardware...well, we've got one. I doubt another one is going to come out before the end of the year...and I hearilty disagree with the poster that claims that people aren't complaining any more simply because they don't have time to complain. They aren't complaining any more because between the official patch and Harkonnen's patch, most people that couldn't play it before can play it now, IMHO.

That was not a patch, A patch is something you install that fixes a problem. The first work around came out in the first two weeks. You installed a third party program, unpacked a file to a certain directory. That is not a fix or a patch. That is a WORK AROUND.
low spec hardware, high end machine as long as it is listed on the side of the box. I could care less. It should work with any setup listed. Or they should reconsider what they put on there box. But again that would assume they properly test the program to see what hardware it will work on. Cause as we have seen with the ATI cards and the first work around you spoke of. Guessing just ain't gonna cut it.
And as for your HO on why most of the people complaining have stopped. I believe just the opposite. I believe alot of people have just given up. New gamers and not so technical gamers think it is something they have done and give up.
Others who have come here, who are not so technical, have also just given up.
After all, as you have pointed out. It is the holiday season, and I am sure the average gamer has more things to do then struggle with a game. There are to many new games out there that actually work right out of the box. I know that sounds hard to believe, but it does exist. The game the works right out of the box. Sarcasim intended. Sorry.
The only thing I can say is we could go back and forth here all year, or at least until they fix this game. At which time I will be playing and not have time to come in here and chat. Lets just agree to diagree. Lets just agree that you love this piece of crap company that couldn't program a simple game of tic tac doe, and I see it for what it really is. :P

Lets just agree to diagree. Lets just agree that you love this piece of crap company that couldn't program a simple game of tic tac doe, and I see it for what it really is. :P

No, I'm not going to agree to that statement. What right do you have to call Firaxis a piece of crap company? Because you're one of a small percentage of people that can't get the game to run?

TOTALLY unfair. You seem to think that I have some strange forbidden love of Firaxis, I could care less WHO put this game out, I simply don't like people that take cheap shots on message boards and will never have to answer for them.

Do you think that Firaxians are superhuman, or something? That the nasty things you are saying have no effect? Okay, they probably don't, you're just one shmuck on a message board. Still, someone at Firaxis is reading your vitriol and I'm sure it's not improving their day.

I asked before if you had a job, and how you would feel about constant nasty criticism, and you never answered, so I'll just assume that you don't have a job and haven't experienced it firsthand.

It's real easy to rip Firaxis on these boards, but I guarantee that if Sid and Soren showed up at your house, you'd clam up with your puerile and baseless insults REAL quick.

All I can hope, blue3c, is that your latest outburst will finally see you consigned to the banned list where you belong, so that we can be spared your incessant outbursts and diatribes against what has been-for the majority of people-a fantastic gaming experience. Oh, but thats right, everyone who says they love the game and having few-if any-problems with it are all just lying through their teeth. Only YOU have access to the naked and unvarnished truth-for you are some god-like being who has the power to pull a perfectly working computer game (covering over 6000 years of history) out of his rear-end. Seriously, perhaps you need to take a month off and take your meds. Then try and make a game of your own-from scratch-just so you can see how easy it really is!!! :mischief:

some people are never happy....


they release a patch to fix the game, and they complain.....

No, I'm not going to agree to that statement. What right do you have to call Firaxis a piece of crap company? Because you're one of a small percentage of people that can't get the game to run?

TOTALLY unfair. You seem to think that I have some strange forbidden love of Firaxis, I could care less WHO put this game out, I simply don't like people that take cheap shots on message boards and will never have to answer for them.

Do you think that Firaxians are superhuman, or something? That the nasty things you are saying have no effect? Okay, they probably don't, you're just one shmuck on a message board. Still, someone at Firaxis is reading your vitriol and I'm sure it's not improving their day.

I asked before if you had a job, and how you would feel about constant nasty criticism, and you never answered, so I'll just assume that you don't have a job and haven't experienced it firsthand.

It's real easy to rip Firaxis on these boards, but I guarantee that if Sid and Soren showed up at your house, you'd clam up with your puerile and baseless insults REAL quick.

Yes I have a job. Two if you must know. Three if you count my happy existing in the Army.
If I did in fact write a game full of bugs like this. I would expect people to be upset.
Yes I have messed up and yes I have heard about from my customers. If I did do something to deserve it I happily shut my mouth and take my lumps. I also do all that is in my power to keep my customers informed on what I am doing to fix whatever it is that I may have messed up on. If I did not do this I would not have these customers.
If sid and soren did show up at my door I would show them every error I see. I would also point out that they did infact drop the ball on this one. I would also say that I will never buy another product they make until it has been patched three or four times and sits on the bargin shelf. That my trust of any product they may come out with is gone. I would also ask why they are out signing a game and not back in the lab working on a fix.
As for your guarentee of what I may or may not do. You do not know me. Do not assume anything.
As for cheap shots. I have not said anything in here that I have not forwarded on to firaxis, with my name number email and address. So that kinda blows that out of the water.


Aussie Lurker, I see you have joined in. Tell you what. Give me the staff and resources sid and soren have, and I will make that game. I will also throw in a new wrinkle. I will actually test it on more then two boxes.
As for minority or majority, well as stated before you can not say that. You can say a majority in here.... blah blah blah. We have been over this.
I love it when you chime in. You always have so much to say and yet still end up saying nothing.

I do find it funny that instead of defending the game you both turn your attacks to me. So be it. But the game is still full of bugs. The official patch did not fix the game. The only patch that has really made a dent in the real issues with the game was made by a person who paid for the game. Not one who works there.

The gaming industry is not doing well here folks. and just accepting it is not going to make it any different. If you really enjoy having to fix what somebody else sold you. fine. Enjoy it. Personlly I call that garage saling. Where you buy something that you know needs to be fixed, cause usually it is used.
Well guess what, these games are not used. They are new. They even have a little section on the side of the box that says if you have this it will work. Not maybe, not kinda.
To back this all up we even have game reviewers who do not even review the game. Are you telling me that not one of those reviewers had an ati card? hmmmmm. :eek:

Yes I have a job. Two if you must know. Three if you count my happy existing in the Army.
If I did in fact write a game full of bugs like this. I would expect people to be upset.
Yes I have messed up and yes I have heard about from my customers. If I did do something to deserve it I happily shut my mouth and take my lumps. I also do all that is in my power to keep my customers informed on what I am doing to fix whatever it is that I may have messed up on. If I did not do this I would not have these customers.

Do your customers do nothing but slander you? Or do they offer constructive criticism? You've done a lot of the former, almost NONE of the latter.

If sid and soren did show up at my door I would show them every error I see. I would also point out that they did infact drop the ball on this one. I would also say that I will never buy another product they make until it has been patched three or four times and sits on the bargin shelf. That my trust of any product they may come out with is gone. I would also ask why they are out signing a game and not back in the lab working on a fix.

*cough*bullcrap*cough*. I wish I had a better response to this, but I have to call it how I see it...


As for your guarentee of what I may or may not do. You do not know me. Do not assume anything.

It's a forum. All I have to judge you by is your posts, and your posts are negative, immature, nasty and pointless.

As for cheap shots. I have not said anything in here that I have not forwarded on to firaxis, with my name number email and address. So that kinda blows that out of the water.

Uh, just because you forwarded your little diatribes to Firaxis doesn't mean they aren't cheap shots.

I do find it funny that instead of defending the game you both turn your attacks to me.

You don't listen to defenses of the game, anyway, so what is the point? I am addressing your attitude, which seems to be that you are just going to b!tch and no one is going to stop you. Go ahead and b!tch, I don't think anyone CAN stop you, but if this is the way you deal with people you feel slighted by, good luck in life man, you're gonna need it.

Here's my theory- you were banned recently, it made you sad, and now you're seeing how far you can push the line before you get banned again. Not a constructive use of these fine forums.

Actually, could a mod delete this whole thread of conversation, if they haven't already? This is a sticky thread, and I'd rather not contribute to the flaming here....apologies for not ignoring this guy in the first place, he just rankles me- not one positive or constructive post, just "Firaxis sucks, they are con artists, only I am in possession of the knowledge by which this is realized, etc.,etc."- it's getting ooooooooold in a hurry.

Well, thats funny blue3c, 'cause I tend to think that you must be talking within an echo chamber or something-because you just seem to repeat the same claptrap over and over and over again-you're starting to sound like Rainman, only not quite as intelligent. I have shown you poll after poll after poll-all of them with a MAJORITY of people supporting the game-in spite of such polls often being skewed in favour of complainants. Yet you blithely write them off as 'inaccurate' because they don't back up your point of view (the sign of a delusional degree of narcissism). At no point have I ever said there were never problems with the game, simply that you and a few of your acolytes love to blow the thing WAY out of actual proportion, a true attention-seeking exercise that proves you have a very narcissistic personality. I will simply end by saying that-if you have such a genuinely low opinion of the gaming industry, and Firaxis in particular, then why don't you either put your money where your mouth is-and set up your own and/or simply stop buying their products. Just don't keep coming here with your circular arguments and name-calling that simply lowers the tone of an otherwise excellent forum.

Aussie_Lurker.

So what if I was banned. Truthfully I could care less about that. I have already addressed that, expressed my feelings on that matter and it is done as far as I am concerned.


*cough*bullcrap*cough*. I wish I had a better response to this, but I have to call it how I see it...

Try glasses then. Cause you blinded by your dronish following of firaxis.

You don't listen to defenses of the game, anyway, so what is the point? I am addressing your attitude, which seems to be that you are just going to b!tch and no one is going to stop you. Go ahead and b!tch, I don't think anyone CAN stop you, but if this is the way you deal with people you feel slighted by, good luck in life man, you're gonna need it.

You have not defended the game. You have not even attempted to.
You said there was a critical patch in the first week that was in fact a work around. The first patch came out 6 or 7 weeks after release. Not sure on the exact date. Then you said that was quick and it is the holidays give them a break. That was your whole defense of the game. Everything else was directed at me personally. When all I asked was
So has the rumor mill updated the any info on the patch of the patch?
Then had a few people say they agree with me. Had you attack me again. Then had aussie lurker talk much about nothing again. God that never gets old.
You still have failed to defend the game.

I will say it does work great for some and it works horrible for some.
It needs more work. Which goes back to my original question. Has anyone heard anything official from firaxis about a patch of the patch?
Has anyone heard anything form firaxis at all since they released this patch?

Yah thats what I thought. Nothing, nadda. Zip zero zilch.
Please if I am wrong here tell me. I would love to hear that they have updated the patch, or said they would. And where I can read this on the official site. Have they communicated with there customers at all? I for one would love to here they are doing more work then the person in these forums that worked on a real fix for the game. But they have yet to prove it. :mad:

I'm not going to read all of your arguing, I just want to say that the game design rocks, but the technical implementation completely sucks.

The developers and publishers both deserve to be criticized and *****ed at for shipping it before it was done. It's crap, just like every other piece of crap from any game company who ships early to meet the quarter/holiday season.

It sure is a fun piece of crap, though.

I would love to hear that they have updated the patch, or said they would. And where I can read this on the official site. Have they communicated with there customers at all?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=147375&page=3#52

Not the most discursive update, but at least some official comment...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=147375&page=3#52

Not the most discursive update, but at least some official comment...

Errr...what exactly should I be looking for in that thread? I can't find anything official. "Official" info should really be on their website, anyway. I can certainly understand the complaints that they aren't making any effort to keep thier customers informed.

Official in the sense it's someone from Firaxis....

I agree something on the website would be better, but in the meantime, at least the company is directly communicating with forum-goers that a patch is coming soon that fixes some of the most common problems presently described here.

Believe me, I was (and still to some extent) saying that Firaxis should say something - their tech support page is still a joke. Sending people here is one solution but as there's now documented solutions to some problems, it would have been good for them to supply them directly IMHO.

It is amusing watching the amateur Ari Fleischers try to spin this issue. I don't understand the motive though.

Is the reason the bugs haven't been fixed because the programmers who are supposed to be fixing them are here trying to persuade people that there are no bugs? It it just the challenge of making an obviously absurd argument? Who knows?

What is obvious is that Civ IV was released before it was ready. The motive isn't that hard to understand. A company working on a product has to pay development costs until it is released. The purpose of developing a product is to make money. Nothing else. No there is no money made until the product is released, hence the motive to release it on schedule, even if it is not ready.

With a physical produce like a car, the cost of fixing the product after it is sold keeps this under control, as well as consumer protection laws.

If you ordered a computer on line and found that it didn't work because there was a coupon where the motherboard should be stating that they would send you a motherboard when they got the bugs out of their design there would be a lawsuit. Maybe someone would go to jail.

Unfortunately, most lawyers and jurys aren't very computer literate and they stupidly bought into the notion the notion that implied warranty of merchantability shouldn't apply to software. This is why the option of releasing a product that only partially exists is more of a temptation for software companies. Once you buy it, they have your money and you can only hope you eventually end up with what you pay for.

That is what I hope anyway.

The alternative is doing what GM did what the Cadillac brand in the seventies. If you want quick cash you can take a valuable brand name, slap it on a piece of crap and rake in the profits until people figure out that "Cadillac" isn't synonymous with quality anymore.

I hope that Take two didn't buy Firaxis with the second possibility in mind, because then those of us who really enjoy the Civilization series are screwed.