Bug Reports and Technical Issues

[Zanzi]

Question: sometimes it's impossible to raze a city. However, I do not always understand why. For example, there is a native city in NA which I want to raze with my french conquerors. After defeating the last defending unit, I only get the options to take over.
I would appreciate it if someone could explain what the rules are about not-being-able-to-raze Or show me where I can find more information.

 

[Lennon789]

Roman cities declared their independence when I had about 20 turns left in my campaign. An extremely demoralizing gut punch, and if this is supposed to be intended behavior, I really wish it wasn't. All of Italy is considered foreign core area, which makes it impossible to keep your stability decent, which I guess is why they broke off. But this early into the game, you really don't have any tools for helping your stability. Honestly I don't think this "foreign cities declaring independence" thing should even be happening this soon.

 

[Leoreth]

Question: sometimes it's impossible to raze a city. However, I do not always understand why. For example, there is a native city in NA which I want to raze with my french conquerors. After defeating the last defending unit, I only get the options to take over.
I would appreciate it if someone could explain what the rules are about not-being-able-to-raze Or show me where I can find more information.

It's likely that is because you have some culture in the city already, whether that is intentional or not. If you still have the save before the conquest I can look further.

Roman cities declared their independence when I had about 20 turns left in my campaign. An extremely demoralizing gut punch, and if this is supposed to be intended behavior, I really wish it wasn't. All of Italy is considered foreign core area, which makes it impossible to keep your stability decent, which I guess is why they broke off. But this early into the game, you really don't have any tools for helping your stability. Honestly I don't think this "foreign cities declaring independence" thing should even be happening this soon.

If you're unstable, they can respawn. Do you need their territory to complete the UHV?

 

[Lennon789]

I guess not, but it seems like the way things are designed (Italy being foreign core, not even contested; it being very early game so there's little the player can to do positively affect stability), you're just railroaded into losing that territory, which is honestly not very fun. In other words, it seems like the player is set up to fail. I can always just play on heir difficulty level or abuse the WorldBuilder, but that doesn't seem very satisfying either. Maybe the Phoenician UP can be changed. As of right now, the Mercenaries UP seems to go against collecting 5000 gold for the third UHV goal, so maybe it could be changed to "Cities on the same body of water as your capital will always be loyal" (or whatever the proper terminology in Civ IV is).

 

[SultanRedSnake]

I guess not, but it seems like the way things are designed (Italy being foreign core, not even contested; it being very early game so there's little the player can to do positively affect stability), you're just railroaded into losing that territory, which is honestly not very fun. In other words, it seems like the player is set up to fail. I can always just play on heir difficulty level or abuse the WorldBuilder, but that doesn't seem very satisfying either. Maybe the Phoenician UP can be changed. As of right now, the Mercenaries UP seems to go against collecting 5000 gold for the third UHV goal, so maybe it could be changed to "Cities on the same body of water as your capital will always be loyal" (or whatever the proper terminology in Civ IV is).

I can confidently assure you that each of your concerns is the outcome of skill issues. Players have succeeded at this civ. The phenomenon you call “railroading” is one of if not *the* core challenge; the name of game if you will. Regarding UHV goals in apparent conflict, some were never meant to synergize, again for the sake of challenging the player. I’m trying to say “get good” in the nicest way possible.

 

[Lennon789]

I mean I obviously want to play this game the way it's meant to be played, and in the way Leoreth envisioned. Is it actually possible to have positive stability after conquering the Italian peninsula? And if so, how? One of the strategy guides I read said to just found Carthage as my first city, but that kind of seems like cheesing it.

 

[Lennon789]

Well I finally figured out how to achieve victory, though of a slightly different sort than I intended. Leoreth, if you want to move my posts about this to a separate thread, or just delete them, be my guest.

 

[TheCleanerDragon]

Rome collapsed before I spawned but there are a few tiles that still have Roman culture and the numbers are way off.

 

[Leoreth]

I guess not, but it seems like the way things are designed (Italy being foreign core, not even contested; it being very early game so there's little the player can to do positively affect stability), you're just railroaded into losing that territory, which is honestly not very fun. In other words, it seems like the player is set up to fail. I can always just play on heir difficulty level or abuse the WorldBuilder, but that doesn't seem very satisfying either. Maybe the Phoenician UP can be changed. As of right now, the Mercenaries UP seems to go against collecting 5000 gold for the third UHV goal, so maybe it could be changed to "Cities on the same body of water as your capital will always be loyal" (or whatever the proper terminology in Civ IV is).

First of all I am glad that your game worked out in the end. There are two different points to this that are worth discussing though.

One, I don't think you are railroaded into losing that territory. The stability system is not a system of railroading but a system of pressures, and especially on the expansion side the pressures are based on historical territory. The pressure exerted on you by holding the peninsula is not equivalent to a script that forces your collapse (or a secession) - it is always possible to remain stable enough to prevent these outcomes. With overexpansion, you can address it both by managing your population and expansion into other areas, and by generating enough positive stability elsewhere to offset the expansion penalty.

That sometimes requires making choices that are otherwise not optimal (in terms of civics or city development etc). Carthage controlling Italy is not historical, so you are pushing against history here, and the stability system is history pushing back. You have to bend a little if you don't want to break.

Second, I would like to encourage you not to view a setback like that as losing. In the context of what you're going for, it doesn't even matter - you don't need to own that territory anymore, the goal that required it is already completed, and the remaining one doesn't depend on it. Of course it would be nice to retain that territory, and it isn't impossible, but I want to foster a "roll with the punches" attitude for this game, especially when it comes to UHVs. You always have to grow and you can never lose anything is a mindset encouraged by base Civ4, but it doesn't have a lot in common with history. So for a historical game, it should be abandoned to some degree. UHVs exist exactly to give you a way out of this mindset: you don't have to ride the growth curve until you dominate everyone at the end of the game, you just have to use your situation correctly to meet your very specific goals.

As for your specific suggestions, is there really any justification for making Italy historical territory for Phoenicia? Is there really any historical justification for giving them a unique power uniquely suited to guaranteeing stability?

I am actually deliberately trying to not frame this response as "git gud", but more as encouraging the idea of "losing (a few things) is fun".

 

[banzay13]

Ivan Serov was the head of the KGB in the USSR, but born in Turkey))

 

[Leoreth]

I think it's an issue with the message - pretty sure the spy is actually Russian and actually was born in Kahire (great spies are created from existing spies). It's just that the civilization mentioned is always the owner of the city, rather than the unit.

 

[banzay13]

Netherland respawn (they colapsed in ~1820 after Germany captured Amsterdam), and got second conquer event. First one was as usual, about 1760-1770
1.17
It's not firts time i see conquer event from Netherland after respwan, but it's first time - then they got second attemp

 

[Lennon789]

First of all I am glad that your game worked out in the end. There are two different points to this that are worth discussing though.

One, I don't think you are railroaded into losing that territory. The stability system is not a system of railroading but a system of pressures, and especially on the expansion side the pressures are based on historical territory. The pressure exerted on you by holding the peninsula is not equivalent to a script that forces your collapse (or a secession) - it is always possible to remain stable enough to prevent these outcomes. With overexpansion, you can address it both by managing your population and expansion into other areas, and by generating enough positive stability elsewhere to offset the expansion penalty.

That sometimes requires making choices that are otherwise not optimal (in terms of civics or city development etc). Carthage controlling Italy is not historical, so you are pushing against history here, and the stability system is history pushing back. You have to bend a little if you don't want to break.

Second, I would like to encourage you not to view a setback like that as losing. In the context of what you're going for, it doesn't even matter - you don't need to own that territory anymore, the goal that required it is already completed, and the remaining one doesn't depend on it. Of course it would be nice to retain that territory, and it isn't impossible, but I want to foster a "roll with the punches" attitude for this game, especially when it comes to UHVs. You always have to grow and you can never lose anything is a mindset encouraged by base Civ4, but it doesn't have a lot in common with history. So for a historical game, it should be abandoned to some degree. UHVs exist exactly to give you a way out of this mindset: you don't have to ride the growth curve until you dominate everyone at the end of the game, you just have to use your situation correctly to meet your very specific goals.

As for your specific suggestions, is there really any justification for making Italy historical territory for Phoenicia? Is there really any historical justification for giving them a unique power uniquely suited to guaranteeing stability?

I am actually deliberately trying to not frame this response as "git gud", but more as encouraging the idea of "losing (a few things) is fun".

What an excellent and well thought out response, I confess that I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist, which I suppose is an attitude not entirely conducive to enjoying what was actually a really fun campaign. I think I just had some misconceptions about the actual limitations put on the player. And having read your response, I think I have a much better understanding of your design philosophy, and I have to say, I like it! And I suppose learning to roll with the punches is a good attitude to have not just in this game, but life in general. Let me just close by once again thanking you for taking the time to draft this response to my concerns, your mod has given me literally more than a decade of excellent fun, and spurred me to learn more about world history and the societies we live in, and I can't thank you enough for inspiring me to remain curious.

As to the last point you raised, contemplation of potential retools to Phoenicia's UHV and UP, maybe something more fun for the third goal would be "Spend 5,000 gold on Mercenaries.", or "Collect 5,000 gold and spend 2,500 of it on Mercenaries". Just a thought though, there's no real problem with just collecting 5,000 gold.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah absolutely, I don't think the third goal is as good as it could be, and I would like to replace it.

 

[Enyavar]

I switched to 1.17.0.
Has the conditional changed for the Turkey spawn?

• [...stuff...]

How is Byzantium supposed to prevent the Ottoman spawn? Do I have to remain solid throughout 1160-1300? Do I have to be solid both around 1170 and 1240? Do I have to shrug off losing half of my core area for a successful Byzantium game?

IIRC they always spawn if the human player controls cities in Turkey. I guess if you really wanted them to not spawn you could gift/abandon these cities to the AI before the check is made, but I don't if Constantinople is itself concerned.

Thanks to Dracosolon, unfortunately Turkey is seems almost unbeatably strong; their strength appears to be scaled to outmatch the strength of the player owning Constantinoples, i.e. me as Byzantium. What also still makes me mad is how my great productive coastal city with a third of my wonders gets erased to create the first Turkish capital; and I see no chance to prevent this disaster from happening.

I waited a short while, but am still hoping for an answer. Is this an error which might get fixed; is there a condition I can meet to prevent the Turkish spawn, or is this an intentional challenge for the player to beat? I mean, if I manage to beat back the Turkish invaders, I might have a chance if most of the Solid Byzantine Empire gets released into independence, and then I need to retake the cities for the control for the Eternal Empire shortly before the deadline...?

 

[Leoreth]

That's a fair point, I think the balance needs to be adjusted a bit when expansion benefits target a player core. I will look into this.

 

[Publicola]

Finally got around to installing 1.17.
a) The installer wanted me to create a new C:/Mods/RFC Dawn of Civilization folder rather than putting the data in the standard BeyondTheSword/Mods/RFC Dawn of Civilization folder. I had just installed the GOG version with a filepath at C:/Games/Civilization IV/Civ4/BeyondtheSword; did the installer not recognize that for some reason?
b) At the end of the installation, the installer was not able to launch the game, and the shortcut it automatically created pointed to the wrong location. I was able to fix the shortcut and point it to the correct folder, and the game did start up correctly after that, but I couldn't figure out why this error occurred.
c) For some reason the 'Quit to Menu 'button is causing me to either 'Quit to Desktop' or outright CTD. I'm wondering if this might be related to the above and there's a problem with my install, or if it's some known issue.

 

[LostPenguin]

Not sure what happened but in this round of game the Americans begin with a Golden Age.

 

[Leoreth]

Finally got around to installing 1.17.
a) The installer wanted me to create a new C:/Mods/RFC Dawn of Civilization folder rather than putting the data in the standard BeyondTheSword/Mods/RFC Dawn of Civilization folder. I had just installed the GOG version with a filepath at C:/Games/Civilization IV/Civ4/BeyondtheSword; did the installer not recognize that for some reason?
b) At the end of the installation, the installer was not able to launch the game, and the shortcut it automatically created pointed to the wrong location. I was able to fix the shortcut and point it to the correct folder, and the game did start up correctly after that, but I couldn't figure out why this error occurred.
c) For some reason the 'Quit to Menu 'button is causing me to either 'Quit to Desktop' or outright CTD. I'm wondering if this might be related to the above and there's a problem with my install, or if it's some known issue.

The installer is sometimes unable to find the installation location in the registry. That should also affect the desktop shortcut.

Is the CTD reproducible? Does it also happen when you turn off sound?

Not sure what happened but in this round of game the Americans begin with a Golden Age.
View attachment 657618

Do you have the initial save for this game? When autoplay starts?

 

[LostPenguin]

The installer is sometimes unable to find the installation location in the registry. That should also affect the desktop shortcut.

Is the CTD reproducible? Does it also happen when you turn off sound?

Do you have the initial save for this game? When autoplay starts?

Hmmm I don't have one. It is a 1700AD start and I believe the 1775AD one is the earliest autosave I have. Is there any setting for it so I can also have an autosave on the initial start? Maybe next time I can get one for you.