A petition for Firaxis: please fix the gameplay bugs remaining in the next patch

[WeaselSlapper]

Sorry if I'm being utterly stubborn here, but I'm really not seeing how the courthouse thing is being attacked so agressively on the boards.

Not as intended, sure, but quite frankly it's doing us a favor. Especially when the AI gets it's own happiness modifiers.

Of all the things that could be fixed, I wouldn't even put this one on the list. You get penalised for annexing a city anyway through culture and number of cities unhappiness so I really don't believe that the courthouse issue is as dire as it's being made out to be.

Personally, I would tend not to let a developer know that something doesn't work as they intended but works pretty well for me!

The only problem is that when you reload a saved game this bug goes away for cities that build a courthouse since your last load. So unless you play your games in one sitting you can be in for a big surprise on reload.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The only problem is that when you reload a saved game this bug goes away for cities that build a courthouse since your last load. So unless you play your games in one sitting you can be in for a big surprise on reload.

Definitely interesting.

Anyways, currently it makes Annexed cities better than Settled ones

Settled should be Slightly better than Annexed.

Puppets need a different nerf (thier culture doesn't go to social policies, etc.)

 

[WeaselSlapper]

Definitely interesting.

Anyways, currently it makes Annexed cities better than Settled ones

Settled should be Slightly better than Annexed.

Puppets need a different nerf (thier culture doesn't go to social policies, etc.)

Personally I like the way they do it now (at least in theory). Annexed and settled are the same except for the 4 GPT cost of the courthouse.

I think puppets are find as is, while they do produce culture and don't cost for policies they also grow uncontrollably and chew up happiness.

 

[Pep]

Added "Can't swap units" bug: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=436485

Removed, because it's not a bug. My mistake.

 

[Baleur]

I think it's time to fix the remaining Single Player bugs that affect gameplay (not the graphics issues).

Why NOT the graphics issues? I know you added that to be more resonable and prioritise what is important, but frankly, the game has been out for a long time already and it should not have all these graphics glitches either even at launch!
Heck, they should have been fixed in the first patch at the latest.

I agree with your thread, though there is no reason to not request ALL bugs to be fixed, after all we paid for the game.

 

[Strategist83]

I think it's quite naive to create a 'petition' thread here and expect that to be the final word on the 'remaining' bugs. There are a lot more problems (and more severe) than those you've listed. It's not that I don't appreciate the effort (I want the bugs fixed as much as anyone) but I'm going to remain highly skeptical towards this.

What you/we really should be gunning for is what Louis proposed: A 'state of civ' update blog sort of thing. That is a much more realistic goal though once again, I'm pessimistic about it and doubt it will happen because frankly, I don't have a lot of faith in Firaxis or 2k - which I think is a fair stance, given the state of the game almost a year after release. Fact is, though, that it is ludicrous to create a game like Civ 5 that sells millions of copies but is in fact released in a half-baked state and taking months (years!) to get patched out of even very serious issues - and all the while keeping the huge and loyal customer fanbase (who paid good money for this piece of software in the first place) in the dark about future developments. They really could learn a thing or two from Blizzard - and they could start by at least informing the fans (who pay their salaries) of what's going on with the game. But, again, with rare exceptions like Blizzard and Valve, highly unlikely to happen because PC gaming as a whole is years behind practically every other type of business in that regard.

 

[Pep]

Added two new bugs:
- I'm waiting 'for other human players' .... In single player?: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=435465
- City center yields not being counted in total city yields calculation: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=436713

 

[Knut_Are_M]

1) Unique ranged units keep getting the 33% ranged strength penalty. Crossbowmen/archers get 0 penalty.

2) Cities produseing settlers cannot starve. Makes settlers too cheap in big cities as you can focus everything on hammer tiles/ unemployed citizens.

 

[headcase]

2) Cities produseing settlers cannot starve. Makes settlers too cheap in big cities as you can focus everything on hammer tiles/ unemployed citizens.

Also, why, why are apples not counted towards Settlers?

And if there is a good reason for that, then why, why does the governor not avoid growth by default when making them?

 

[Knut_Are_M]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=436139

a way to seriously exsploit the fact that you cannot starve when building settlers.
Also food only stacks up to +3, the rest is wasted.
food does not benefit from collective rule.
negative food does not reduse hammer production.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'd like to spend more time playing the game than waiting for it personally.......

 

[Becomedeath]

They really could learn a thing or two from Blizzard - and they could start by at least informing the fans (who pay their salaries) of what's going on with the game.

This.

Once you've put yourself in the position of patching issues you are obligated to open a dialogue with your users to get clear feedback and furthermore to explain why a widely recognised, or widely disputed, issue is not being addressed.

Heck, I received the last patch and didn't even realise I'd been patched until I saw it discussed here!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Why NOT the graphics issues? I know you added that to be more resonable and prioritise what is important, but frankly, the game has been out for a long time already and it should not have all these graphics glitches either even at launch!
Heck, they should have been fixed in the first patch at the latest.

I agree with your thread, though there is no reason to not request ALL bugs to be fixed, after all we paid for the game.

Actually perhaps the most offensive thing is that design didn't start with core gameplay #'s running basically w/o graphics, building the strategy, and THEN making graphics/UI. The game was fundamentally approached the wrong way and it shows in the june patch rather severely.

The second most offensive thing is that the game is poorly coded and runs incredibly slowly on machines running at or above "recommended" specifications. It's recommended to wait 30+ seconds between turns? Really? That's on small/standard maps. A machine running at exactly recommended specs would take an eternity between turns on huge maps; that's a part of CORE gameplay.

I'm glad multiplayer got (partially) fixed, but this game will struggle to be enjoyable to fast-playing veterans and newbies alike until it stops making people watch paint dry.

As it stands now, if you average 30 seconds between turns and play 300 turns, you are literally spending two and a half hours doing absolutely nothing while "playing" civ V. Comparable and equally productive activities that could have been performed during this time:

- Picking scabs
- Picking nose
- Staring at the ceiling fan and trying to watch the blades as they spin around
- Eating dinner, four times
- Spending 1/4 of a work day doing something productive
- etc

Now let's say, on average, you can complete a game in 3 hours if there were no wait time. That is actually slower than someone like me can play civ...by a decent margin too...

Yes, Firaxis as it stands right now literally wants us to spend 33% to 50% of our time "playing" the game doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

It's amazing that the outcry over this isn't much larger, honestly. For every 20 hour/1 game player out there (mind you he's still losing over 10% of his time doing nothing) there's a 5 hour or less player. Show me another AAA title that forces players to spend over 1/3 of their time doing nothing because gameplay lags that badly and blocks player input. You can't do it. I guess people tolerate it because they spread the pain over many turns...but TWO+ HOURS OF NOTHING? Really? That doesn't bother people a LOT?

 

[Becomedeath]

That doesn't bother people a LOT?

Not really. I'm very rarely just playing Civ anyway as I'm either doing work at the same time, watching a movie, sending e-mails and Civ just sits in the background awaiting my next whim. I think most people will have something else going on around them to break the tedium, I would hope so anyway.

However, turn times as you've said are extremely long, even in the early game (T0-T50) they take far longer than they should for whatever little is happening.

Whatever the game is doing, it's not doing it well in that time and that is most likely to poor architecture or sequencing the AI turns rather than unifying them.

If it's processing each AI as an individual player rather than moving the units as individuals and then just running through city/civilisation objectives collectively, then its going to be repeating the same tasks over and over instead of running one smooth sequence, and I suspect this is where that slow down is coming from.

Maybe there is a reason it's done that way due to the higher level AI, but even if there is, the AI isn't of a level where you can actually appreciate that time.

This is indicative of Civ 5 overall in my view, the capability for greatness that would let you overlook it's flaws, but executed in such a haphazard fashion that those flaws become highlighted.

If it were my project, I'd pull it offline and go back to the drawing board. (Actually if it were my project it would never have been released until it had a list of known issues that had fixes in development.) But Civ 5 has all the hallmarks of too many chiefs and not enough indians in the software world, big sales, pretty graphics, lack of punch.

I seriously doubt they can patch their way out of this mess, it's an expansion at best or Civ 6 at worst. There are too many fundamental issues to just apply fixes to.

(I do love Civ 5, but it's clear that it's room for improvement is vast.)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^ after hearing what idiot 2k CEO said and seeing the state of civ IV and V in terms of basic game coding/running, civ VI needs something different from the firaxis/2k marriage or it has no chance.

 

[Becomedeath]

The problem is that they have to fix it. I doubt seriously that anyone else would want to pick up the franchise at this point in time.

It would be greatly dissapointing if Civ 5 was the end of the franchise. The innovations it's brought really do bring the series into the modern era and the problems it has aren't impossible, they're identifiable and therefore manageable if someone had the will to do so.

But do they have the inclination to really really fix it? Are they just fixing bugs or are they actually trying to make it work to the original vision?

I know the interview you're refering to, the 2K CEO is universally accepted as an idiot and if I were a shareholder I wouldn't want someone with no confidence in one of the companies most famous products running the boat.