Civ III: Conquests Patch Notice

[Tavis]

Civ III Community:

Next week, we will be releasing a BETA patch (v1.10) for
C3C that adds some new features and addresses
the corruption & gpt bugs (as well as other
fixes - see below).

QA efforts demonstrated the stability of the
code base, so we decided to release even though
the patch is not final. This was the only way to
get a patch posted prior to Christmas.

If additional issues present themselves we will
make every effort to release another BETA
update. We greatly appreciate your assistance in
notifying us of problems that you experience
(forum posts are the most convenient format).

The final update will not be released until Q2,
2004.

Thank you for all of the incredible support!!

Jesse Smith

Producer, Firaxis Games


---------------------------------------------
Updates BETA v1.10:
CIV III: CONQUESTS BETA v1.10
* Fixed issues with corruption

* Fixed issues with double gold being awarded

* Shifted minimap and unit info boxes slightly
inward to prevent problems with scrolling and
button-clicking.

* Re-enabled Intel optimizations from PTW.

* Fixed issue that caused scientific leaders to
use only the first name in the list.

* Fixed issue that caused selections on the
Foreign Advisor screen to be cleared.

* Modified combat calculations to make combat
appear less "streaky." Combat results are now
calculated multiple times before determining a
result. This should reduce spearman defeating
Tanks and other extremely frustrating combat
results.

* Optimized main menu code.

* Cleaned up INI preferences code

* Fixed issue with the audio preferences (sound
volume).

* Greatly improved the ability of Seafaring civs
to start near the coast. It should happen most
of the time now.

* Fixed numerous problems with Seafaring civs
starting near the coast in hotseat games.

* Implemented Seafaring civs starting near the
coast in MP games.

* Updated the interface on the world chooser
screen so selected options were more apparent.

* Fixed upgrade all bug (for units that do not
have the upgrade ability but are part of the
upgrade chain).

* Added feminine titles for Despotism,
Feudalism, and Fascism (for English default
rules only!).

* Editor: Added Flavors to the Import dialog.

* Corrected display of silk as luxury in city
view in Rise of Rome

* Corrected Scourge of God splash screen art in
Fall of Rome

* Build road/fort animations now show for
Legionary in Fall of Rome

* Cataphract now uses Ancient Cavalry art in
Middle Ages

* Corrected Mining tech art in Age of Discovery

* Text: Several civilopedia fixes (mostly
spelling, grammar, spaces)

---------------- Features --------------------
* Implemented ability to enter a seed value on
the world setup screen. It is located in the
upper-right corner. Any character can be entered
as the seed. If the seed is 0 (the default), it
will generate the world normally. If every
character is a number, the value is interpreted
as the seed value and used to generate the
world. In all other cases, a hash table formula
is applied to the string to generate a unique
value that is used to generate the world. While
it is technically possible for two different
strings to evaluate to the same seed, it is
unlikely (i.e., SEED is not the same as DEES --
upper- and lower-case letters will yield
different results as well).

* Implemented the "Play Last World" option. This
option appears on the main menu after playing
the first SP random-map game. When chosen, the
player is taken to the world chooser with the
seed filled in and all the previous settings
selected. The player can make any changes or
keep the world exactly the same. Note that if
ANY changes are made on this screen, the map
that is generated will be different. Next the
player is taken to the player setup screen with
all the civs and settings from the previous game
selected. Again, the player can make any changes
or keep the settings the same. If ANY civs are
changed, player starting locations MAY change
(depending on the number of seafaring civs,
actually).

* Implemented support for CAPS LOCK to work as
the SHIFT key to skip unit movement animations
(so you don't have to hold shift for the AI's
turn to skip the animations).

* The MP timer values are now read from
scenarios (the default values remain unchanged).

* Editor: Added MP timer values to the Scenario
Properties. There are 3 values: Base, Per Unit,
and Per City (with defaults of 24, 1, and 3,
respectively). They represent the Base amount of
time per turn + the amount of time Per Unit +
the amount of time Per City (number of
units/cities used each turn are based on the
player with the most units and the player with
the most cities on that turn). The values can
range from 0-100. The higher the number, the
more time per turn. FOR INTENSE FAST MP GAMES
PLAY THE CONQUESTS FAST MP scenario that is
provided with the Patch.

-- Please Thank Mike Breitkreutz for his efforts!

 

[Smellincoffee]

Wow, thank you Mike Breitkreutz! (And everyone else. )

 

[kring]

Thank you Jesse and Mike

 

[andvruss]

It sounds so tasty! Thanks Mike Breitkreutz and all!

 

[dozenlong]

I appreciate it. While playing without an FP has been an interesting challenge on larger maps, it will be nice to get that back. We also appreciate the effort to expedite -- software development is not an easy task, and in something like Civ3 there is no way a limited group of Beta testers can catch everything that the "fanatics" can. We also appreciate the opening of the editor as time went by -- modding and scenario creation are ways that Civ continues to entertain and grow.

 

[Chieftess]

The string seed option sounds nice. Just think - type in Thunderfall, and you'll be playing on Thunderfall's world. Of course, tHunDeRfaLL would be different too.

 

[CivCube]

Oooh...world seed options...I like. Thanks, Mike!

 

[cgannon64]

Make it less "streaky"? I'm suspicious.

I like the rest though.

 

[user37852]

Brilliant news! Cheers, Firaxis!

 

[Chieftess]

You do know this is a BETA patch... Guess that means all of CFC, Apolyton, and other civs sites have to sign an NDA! j/k! Actually, it just goes to show how much Firaxis supports the Civ3 Community, and that they DO read the forums. (you know all those posts from users wanting a patch before Christmas?)

 

[GenMarshall]

Excellent . Thanks Fraxis.

 

[derekroth]

I think the thing about making combat less streaky sounds good myself. I suppose before every cycle was only "rolled" once. Having to calculate the results multiple times would increase the likelyhood of the highest value winning. Especially when the differences are great like in tank spearman. I love this idea.

I don't get the SEED thing though. Could someone explain exactly how that works?

BTW, thanks too all involved for the early patch release and the info above.

 

[Tavis]

Originally posted by cgannon64
Make it less "streaky"? I'm suspicious.

The Change was having the random number generator (rng) calculate the Results 4 times instead of 1.

Possible Outcomes: AttackerLoses, AttackerWins

If there is a tie, it retries.


This forces the combat system to be more accurate and less "streaky"

 

[Chieftess]

Originally posted by derekroth
I think the thing about making combat less streaky sounds good myself. I suppose before every cycle was only "rolled" once. Having to calculate the results multiple times would increase the likelyhood of the highest value winning. Especially when the differences are great like in tank spearman. I love this idea.

I don't get the SEED thing though. Could someone explain exactly how that works?

BTW, thanks too all involved for the early patch release and the info above.

Ok, suppose you typed in CIV3 as the seed. The algorithm would convert the letters into numbers. A simplified way would be to think of something like a cipher (i.e., a = 1, b = 2, c = 3 and so on). The algorithm (a bit more complex than that), would change it to numbers. When you build a world in the editor, you'll see a random seed. That's what it does.

 

[Tavis]

The SEED allows you to type 'CIVILIZATION' and it generates a map. Anytime you use the SEED: CIVILIZATION you will get the same map (only type in the SEED, ignore the other settings)

 

[Tavis]

you are so fast =)

I have to be. Thunderfall beat me to the news posting by mere minutes! But never underestimate this 56k modem.

 

[derekroth]

I see, if I understand right this allows all people to play the same map simply by entering in a specific combination into the SEED. Thanks for the quick respose. I was under the impression that it allowed you to fine tune worlds by using some kind of code.

 

[Redking]

Might you please (pretty please) implement a flag for unit attrition at some point before the release of Civ 4? It seems that the pieces are there: units can suffer loss from disease, and it can't be difficult to count distance from cities/roads/colonies/forts.

Please.

And maritime colonies (exploitation of distant maritime resources) too, so there's a reason for naval warfare.

That's all. Just those two things. I beg you. I'm begging here.

 

[playshogi]

Originally posted by Tavis


The Change was having the random number generator (rng) calculate the Results 4 times instead of 1.

Possible Outcomes: AttackerLoses, AttackerWins

If there is a tie, it retries.


This forces the combat system to be more accurate and less "streaky"

Seems to me, if the attacker has a 60% of winning after taking account all factors, and you now run the battle 4 times, the attacker will now win more than 60% of the time. Seems to me this will make the combat results more streaky, not less and it will make it impossible to determine the worth of fortifying a spearman in a metropolis on a hill behind a river with civil defense and radio tower support.

Otherwise, this looks like a great patch.

BTW, I'd like to see the civs alphabetized on the setup screen. Sometimes, it's hard to find the civ I want.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Looks great, and thanks for the effort guys. Only thing that concerns me is that it doesn't seem that it address the MP load game problem we are having. But I guess you can't have everything in a beta patch

CS