Bugs under Mac OS9

[Gemini]

This message is directed primarily to Brad Oliver, from whom I would very much appreciate a response.

I am currently running CIV III version 1.17g under Mac OS 9.2.1, and find that there are still serious (and obvious) flaws involving sound effects and other matters as listed below (this list is probably by no means exhaustive):

1. Most of the sound effects associated with combat do not play. In particular I have noted this for combat involving riflemen, infantry, artillery, tanks, mechanized infantry, naval units from galleys to battleships, etc etc.

2. Sound effects associated with movement do not play, such as the running sound of archers,
infantry, riflemen etc etc.

3. The sound effects associated with the workers do not play, such as clearing forests and jungles, irrigating, building roads and mines etc.

4. The volume of the music regularly and suddenly increases dramatically, which means that the volume has to be reset regularly while playing.

5. While patch 1.17f fixed the bug which prevented cruise missiles from attacking units with 1 hit point remaining, the same bug still exists for air units such as jet fighters, stealth fighters, bombers and stealth bombers.

6. Wheeled units such as cannons, artillery and tanks can move in mountains without roads.

7. Artillery, Destroyers, Frigates, Iron Clads, Bombers, Stealth Bombers, Stealth Fighters, Jet Fighters (and possibly other units) effectively have an infinite bombardment range. These units can bombard any square on the map as follows. Activate the unit in question, and select a target in its legitimate bombardment range (as indicated by the bomb or cross hairs icon). Then, without moving the mouse, use the arrow keys to move the map so that the bomb/cross hairs icon is over the intended target anywhere on the map. Finally, without moving the mouse, click the mouse button and the bombardment commences. A similar bug applies to performing recon missions.

While the game concept is very good, it is simply not good enough that a product which is obviously not finished has been shipped as completed. While following patches may solve all the problems, I for one would like to have the finished working product on CD (including the editors) as I expected to when I bought it. There must also be many people without internet access who have no way of getting these patches. Overall it is a most disappointing state of affairs.

Finally,

Will the problems listed above be fixed in a soon to be released patch, specifically for MAC OS 9. ?

Will people who have already purchased the product (in good faith) be able to get replacement CDs for the finished working product (including the editors).?

 

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by Gemini
This message is directed primarily to Brad Oliver, from whom I would very much appreciate a response.

1 , 2, 3 re: missing sounds

Yes, any sounds that are in the .amb format are not currently played in the Mac version. We're hoping to have this sorted out soon, but we don't have working PC code that plays them, so we have to do a fair amount of reverse-engineering.

4. The volume of the music regularly and suddenly increases dramatically, which means that the volume has to be reset regularly while playing.

I cannot reproduce this issue. Any additional information that would help reproduce it would be helpful.

5, 6, 7: general gameplay bugs

As you might imagine, these are issues that affect the PC version as well. As they continue to patch it, we'll roll those changes into the Mac version. I'm not privy to the changes they make until the code lands in my lap, usually 3 days before they release a patch for the PC.

Will the problems listed above be fixed in a soon to be released patch, specifically for MAC OS 9. ?

I'm sure the Mac-specific issues will be addressed, but I can't specifically speak towards any core gameplay issues. My guess would be yes, given that they've already patched it twice on the PC side and have another patch in the works.

Will people who have already purchased the product (in good faith) be able to get replacement CDs for the finished working product (including the editors).?

For a definitive answer to that, you'll need to talk to MacSoft, the Mac publisher. I work for Westlake Interactive, the porting house. My involvement is limited to actual programming issues - I don't make business decisions of this nature. Specifically regarding editors, there is currently only one written by Firaxis, so whack the 's' off that term.

Brad

 

[Gemini]

Thanks Brad for your quick response. I do have some more questions/comments though:

Originally posted by Brad Oliver

Yes, any sounds that are in the .amb format are not currently played in the Mac version. We're hoping to have this sorted out soon, but we don't have working PC code that plays them, so we have to do a fair amount of reverse-engineering.
Brad

I have noted that each unit has a .ini file that contains references to both .amb format files (corresponding to sounds that do not currently play) and .wav files (sounds that do play). The .amb files are not sound files but rather appear to tell CIV III how to play a number of distinct .wav files in sequence. My question is this: by reverse-engineering do you mean that such distinct .wav files are being combined into single .wav files so that the .amb files are not needed ? This appears to have been done already for Jaguar Warrior
(in the case of JaguarWarriorDeath, JaguarWarriorFortify, JaguarWarriorFidget and JaguarWarriorVictory). If so, does this mean that the Mac Version will have inferior sound effects to those of the PC Version, with a loss of randomization?

Originally posted by Brad Oliver

I cannot reproduce this issue. Any additional information that would help reproduce it would be helpful.
Brad

I have a saved game for which this issue arises, that I could email you if you like (it is too big to attach here - 1.7MB).

 

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by Gemini
The .amb files are not sound files but rather appear to tell CIV III how to play a number of distinct .wav files in sequence.

That's a simplistic but somewhat accurate appraisal. What makes it complicated is that the amb files are actually MIDI files that use wav files as channel voices, with provisions for key frames that sync up certain channels to the visual effects.

I have a saved game for which this issue arises, that I could email you if you like (it is too big to attach here - 1.7MB).

That would be fantastic. Send it to bradman@pobox.com along with a description of how to reproduce it and I'll get right on it.

Brad

 

[Gottesfreunde]

I have attempted to overcome my dissatisfaction for Civ III resulting from all the things that I feel the game lacks over what is hyped and what has been down-graded from what Civ II brought to the game by trying to overlook the games faults and just play it through. In process I have found some anomalies that I am confused as to whether they are bugs in the game, or just further limitations. I am using the latest patch of the game 1.17g

• I can only use tactical missiles in cities, they can not be loaded onto ships that not only makes them practically useless (although they are good in coastal cities to attack enemy ships) but is incredibly unrealistic as these small missiles are used on ships in reality and have had this capability in past games.

• When I attempt to turn off the music, it will turn itself back on unless I quit the game and then start back up again. If I turn it down, the volume keeps getting loud again when I enter or exit diplomacy and other screens.

• Other nations NEVER seem to clean up their own pollution and this results in practically every turn global warming that affects my own civilization where there is NO pollution.

• I engaged in a trade embargo and it would not turn off for 116 years.

• Any time I use Bombard with my Stealth Bombers I get the message that "The bombing run failed". In addition, precision bombing does NOT give me an option of what I want to precision bomb, the game just bombs as usual even though I have all the tech. required to enable this and have the button available that I press with the mouse that is supposed to permit precision bombing.

• Finally, I was playing the game on my iBook and the battery ran completely down without my knowledge. I had been playing for some time and had saved the game at practically every turn—which was at least twenty turns or more (no kidding). My iBook shut itself down automatically without warning. When I plugged the power cord in and went to resume my game, none of my saves were available. This was repeated when my computer crashed while I was playing the game and none of the saves I made were actually on the hard drive when I rebooted (on my desktop B&W G3).

• I was playing with over 8 civ’s but the other civs would not show up in the diplomacy screen, although I could contact them via the screen that pops up if you hit the "D" on the simplified bottom access menu.

 

[KingMid]

I too have had the phenomena of losing all saved games when low battery power put my Powerbook G3 to sleep. I was playing on a huge map with the full complement of 16 civs (although I had conquered 5 at this point) when I lost 4 turns worth of saves!

 

[King Zulu]

- Preferences won't save (I have to reset them every time I play)
- Audio preferences won't save
- Music slows game play DRAMATICALLY
- Some preference controls don't seem to work, or only work erratically. (Animation, autosave, volume control, music on/off, show moves)
- autosave doesn't always work
- saved games aren't always saved - I have to save, then ask it to save again to see if the original save shows up. Even then, sometimes I come back and the save is missing.

While these bugs are incredibly frustrating, what I find even worse is the automatic queueing of my units. I'll assemble several for a battle, and after one unit moves, the game skips to some random worker, or a ship, or who knows what. While this game is vastly superior to the last turn-based strategy game I played (Imperialism), this drives me nuts. My solution - in the next patch, allow this feature to be turned off. Perhaps have some warning if we don't use all of our available units.

 

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by King Zulu
- Preferences won't save (I have to reset them every time I play)

This was fixed starting with the 1.17f patch, as were most of the other issues you mention. Double-check that you're running the latest version. Failing that, more info on your OS and version of CarbonLib would be helpful.

Brad

 

[King Zulu]

I should add that these problems were much worse until I downloaded the patch, which I believe is 1.17f. Before the patch, the Prefs and Audio prefs were basically useless. Now they're a pain, but workable.

I'll check on the OS and CarbonLib when I get home.

 

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by King Zulu
Before the patch, the Prefs and Audio prefs were basically useless. Now they're a pain, but workable.

I guess I still don't understand. The prefs didn't save before, and you're saying they still don't save now - how is that "workable?"

Brad

 

[King Zulu]

I meant to post a reply but got a new thread instead. Look under bugs...

 

[Cinnabar]

I too have had the phenomena of losing all saved games when low battery power put my Powerbook G3 to sleep. I was playing on a huge map with the full complement of 16 civs (although I had conquered 5 at this point) when I lost 4 turns worth of saves!

This has also happened to me, and I didn't like it either.

However, I'm not sure it isn't at least in part a MacOS problem, as I've seen it in other applications as well.

Anyway, the way to beat it (without a warranty, but it works for me so far) is to pause the game after you save [CMD]-P. That way, it seems, you allow the finder to process all those waiting "save" commands.

Oh, and I usually quit the game every hour or so to make sure it won't choke and die. I figure it also saves me from growing into a curve over the keyboard.

 

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Gottesfreunde
• I can only use tactical missiles in cities, they can not be loaded onto ships that not only makes them practically useless (although they are good in coastal cities to attack enemy ships) but is incredibly unrealistic as these small missiles are used on ships in reality and have had this capability in past games.

I thought that too when I first saw them. Here's the clincher: They are ground artillery units, NOT missile units or aircraft. Move them like Artillery. I suggest you do NOT try to associate them with what we know to be cruise missiles in real life -- will lead to confusion and frustration.

• Other nations NEVER seem to clean up their own pollution and this results in practically every turn global warming that affects my own civilization where there is NO pollution.

Especially if a civ is engaged in warfare on his own soil, all their workers will generally hide in their cities. If they are not at war, perhaps they just don't have the workers (or can't afford them, ...). (If you are playing an easy level, remember that they are more expensive for them than for you).

• I engaged in a trade embargo and it would not turn off for 116 years.

Many people miss this at first. Engage in diplomacy. At the bottom there are legends "New" and "Active". Click on "Active". It shows current agreements in force. A number in parentheses shows how many turns remain in its 20-turn span. Once that number is gone, you may click on that item to renegotiate (or to just cancel the agreement). Note that terms of even a Peace Treaty are negotiable! Agreements stay in force for minimum of 20 turns, or until someone wants to cancel or renegotiate! You may want to record when agreements are to expire if you want to do some extortion.

• I was playing with over 8 civ’s but the other civs would not show up in the diplomacy screen, although I could contact them via the screen that pops up if you hit the "D" on the simplified bottom access menu.

On the F4 screen, Shift-Cmd-Click (MIGHT be Shift-Ctrl-Click, sorry) on a head to switch to another you are in contact with (pop-up menu).

JB