Civ3 1.29f Bugs Report Thread

[ainwood]

Originally posted by eli_co
Firaxis... i saw that 3 guys are here from the company.
Now, dont be cowards, and tell us why there isnt diplomacy settings in the editor?
we all agree that scenarios cant be made this way, no ww2, no civil war, no crusador, no middle east, since it is all about who is fighting who.
Guys, we just want an explanation, and you ignoring us only makes us more upset...
act like men , and tell us the reason behind this, was it an honest mistake, or what?
once again, we know you are reading this bug/problems thread, so answer us, we deserve it.

I can't answer this for Firaxis (obviously) but if I ran the circus, I wouldn't want my representatives answering questions like this until they had been fully discussed and agreed on in-house first. This is "acting like men". Otherwise, you run the real danger that one person provides an answer which is seen as a "they said they would do...." before even the feasibility of doing it has been established.

 

[eli_co]

Originally posted by ainwood
I can't answer this for Firaxis (obviously) but if I ran the circus, I wouldn't want my representatives answering questions like this until they had been fully discussed and agreed on in-house first. This is "acting like men". Otherwise, you run the real danger that one person provides an answer which is seen as a "they said they would do...." before even the feasibility of doing it has been established.

i have to admit i didnt understand a word of what you are saying(i really didnt...)
anyway, if i get the basic idea ainwood, you say that my way of presentation was stupid, and you may be right.
but ainwood, it just bugs me off that half of this thread has been on the lack of diplomacy , and from the about 10 comments from firaxians, none of them was about this subject...
ok, let me rephrase it, firaxians, we just want to know why the diplomacy thing isnt in , thats all.
and ainwood, one last thing, if you say you are happy with things, and that you thank for what ever you get, and they dont owe you anything although you bought the game, you will hurt your own interests.
thats all, so Mike, Dan, this subject bothers us more than all the others you have answered about, and we would like an answer about why this has happened, and do you think of fixing it.
i can respect any comment, just give me one, and help me understand.
thanks in advance.

 

[kring]

I don't recall them saying it would be in this patch. Since I don't read every single new post (I do have a real life, after all), I may have missed that.

 

[Jon Shafer]

I'll say the same thing here that I said over at Apolyton.

I really don't think this is some kind of scheme by Firaxis. They had 2 months and 1 guy to make an entire scenario editor. I'm not sure anyone could have made a full-fledge scenario editor by themselves in that short amount of time. At least for my Civil War scenario diplomacy isn't really necassary (who will stay at peace for this kind of scenario? ) because there's only two sides. Something like WWII would be much more difficult. While the editor isn't everything we'd like, it's more than nothing, which is better than most companies do.

Also, while I'd like officially reasoning why, I doubt it's the team members' responsibility to comment on that without Jeff.

 

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Isak
And Dan:

Wasn't there something about the Tech Chooser screens messing up if you loaded a BIC with added Civilization Advances, as a Scenario? [/B]

The CD version (and I think one or two of the patches, I'm not positive) used a "dynamic line drawing" process to connect the tech tree if the rules had been modified (because the game had no way of knowing if the techs were identical to our "factory presets").

Now (as of 1.17 or 1.21 I believe), that's been removed entirely because so many people perceived it as a bug. Now, if you change the tech tree, you'll have to create custom science advisor backgrounds and distribute them with your mod.

So now there really isn't any reason not to keep your changes in a seperate BIC file.

Dan

 

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Yarlen
Maybe I'm a total loser for asking this but ....

Firaxis - you guys know how devoted the mod community for Civ III is and have made literally hundreds of updates to the program since release (many of which were to the editor). Why haven't you made it possible (or maybe you have and I've just not seen it) for modders to create new/alter the existing civlopedia.txt and pediaicons.txt files? These two files are arcane to deal with; it seems like you guys could add something to the editor to make it easier for people to mod them with. Furthermore, it seems as though you should be able to make it possible for alternate versions of the files to be created for specific scenarios without altering the original versions which came w/the game.

Is this unrealistic? I imagine you guys are learning a LOT of what you can (people would like you to do) for a Civ IV. ;-)

- Yarlen

I don't think that's a bad idea at all, and had I more free time I was thinking about trying to put a diplo and pediaicons.txt editor together in VB. Alas, being a new homeowner is keeping my after-work hours a lot busier than they were in the past

That said, we *have* made the formats of all those files well known, and I think it comes down to an issue of bang for the buck -- I think we tried to focus on features that would provide the greatest benefit to the largest number of customers with the time and resources we had.

Dan

 

[Jon Shafer]

Dan or Mike:
Since this thread seems to have your attention at the moment, I had a question about the editor. Is it possible to be able to choose either side in a scenario? In my CW scenario, I can pick the Union side fine (Player 1, I believe), and it works fine. If I try to switch in the setup screen to the Confederates, their color is blue, treasury is what it should be for the Union, and a couple other things like that. How should I fix this?

 

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Trip,

Email me your BIC file and I'll take a look. What you're suggesting should be doable, you might just be selecting the wrong thing..

Dan

 

[Pelman]

Originally posted by Chieftess
Update on the coal-hydro-nuclear plant test.

It appears to have chosen the last one, nuclear. It doesn't seem to have any effect (doesn't even have a factory in the city screen during the game). There should be a check in the editor for this. Plus, there needs to be a better city improvement selection.

(and worked tile management)

I was frustrated with a similar "problem" after I built Hoover Dam.
I had a hydro-plant in every city, but no bonus.
I finally realized that that Hydro plants increase Factory output by 50%. What this ultimately meant was that by building a factory in a town, I would nearly double production. The global hydro plant is useless until the factory comes online.
The fact that you can put any of those other factory-boosting improvements in without any benefit is not surprising.

 

[eli_co]

dan, since you are here, and since me and some more people here are wondering, please comment on the diplomacy absense in the editor.
it might not be as important as bic files or pediaicons.txt editor together in VB, but some of us are interested.
thanks in advance.

 

[kingjoshi]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS


I don't think that's a bad idea at all, and had I more free time I was thinking about trying to put a diplo and pediaicons.txt editor together in VB. Alas, being a new homeowner is keeping my after-work hours a lot busier than they were in the past

That said, we *have* made the formats of all those files well known, and I think it comes down to an issue of bang for the buck -- I think we tried to focus on features that would provide the greatest benefit to the largest number of customers with the time and resources we had.

Dan

Would it be possible to make the formats for the BIC or SAV files more well known? What worries me is cheating, especially if there was play by email or something and I forget that there is a fair amount of people that cheat/lie/steal etc..

However, I want to create a program that gives me a report on my civ and what I'm supposed to know. Such as, people have complained about having to search for resources with CTRL-SHIFT-M. Well, if I understand it correctly, each tile has information on whether the civ has seen it. So, it wouldn't be hard to go through the sav file and have a list of all the resources you've seen, where they are, and who owns it if any. Also, a list of techs that other Civs that discovered but you haven't. Both of these processes have legit methods, but they're inconvenient and slow. But these are just two examples of stuff I'm going to put into my program. The more information I know about the file formats, the better my program can be...

 

[RobO]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
The CD version (and I think one or two of the patches, I'm not positive) used a "dynamic line drawing" process to connect the tech tree if the rules had been modified (because the game had no way of knowing if the techs were identical to our "factory presets").

Now (as of 1.17 or 1.21 I believe), that's been removed entirely because so many people perceived it as a bug. Now, if you change the tech tree, you'll have to create custom science advisor backgrounds and distribute them with your mod.

So now there really isn't any reason not to keep your changes in a seperate BIC file.
Dan

I'm sorry, Dan, but I don't understand how keeping the changes in a separate bic file will help as regards updating the advisor screens. It seems to me that when you edit the tech you will need to provide new advisor screens and thus you might as well provide a new civ3mod.bic. There is only on set of advisor screens after all, so if you play with the modified tech you can't play with the original ones without replacing the advisor screens.

Is that correct?

 

[kingjoshi]

Originally posted by RobO


I'm sorry, Dan, but I don't understand how keeping the changes in a separate bic file will help as regards updating the advisor screens. It seems to me that when you edit the tech you will need to provide new advisor screens and thus you might as well provide a new civ3mod.bic. There is only on set of advisor screens after all, so if you play with the modified tech you can't play with the original ones without replacing the advisor screens.

Is that correct?

And since I play the DYP mod, but would like to view other peoples' games in the original, I want to know if there is a way I can improve my Mod Manager to have DYP installed and still play/view the original. I just need an efficient method or something and I'll program it (or try to at least).

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by eli_co
i have to admit i didnt understand a word of what you are saying(i really didnt...)
anyway, if i get the basic idea ainwood, you say that my way of presentation was stupid, and you may be right.
but ainwood, it just bugs me off that half of this thread has been on the lack of diplomacy , and from the about 10 comments from firaxians, none of them was about this subject...
ok, let me rephrase it, firaxians, we just want to know why the diplomacy thing isnt in , thats all.

What I meant, is they probably won't answer until they have all agreed on a response. They won't want to commit themselves to anything by posting in this (or any other) fora.

and ainwood, one last thing, if you say you are happy with things, and that you thank for what ever you get, and they dont owe you anything although you bought the game, you will hurt your own interests.

I haven't even downloaded teh patch (am doing so now). Didn't say anything of the sort in my post anyway (honestly, I really didn't )

I do appreciate feedback from Firaxis; generally they are fairly good and fairly responsive to the people. However, as I don't write scenarios, the lack of diplomacy will go unnoticed by me.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by ainwood
What I meant, is they probably won't answer until they have all agreed on a response. They won't want to commit themselves to anything by posting in this (or any other) fora.

Correct. Any of the members has had quite a while to answer, they're not going to give one spur of the moment now. Just be patient.

(It feels weird saying this knowing that the Firaxians will be reading it. Just know I'm sticking up for you since I know how the industry works, even if I do want diplomacy )

 

[Level]

Originally posted by Wise a** at apolyton

Err... When you save one map and load another... Some of the cities will be on the new map.

I saved my map then loaded the earth map and saw some of the cities that were on the other map.

Has any one else had this problem?

 

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

Non-existent diplomacy editing is not a bug.

Yes, I'm disappointed we don't have it yet - just like some of you - but please discuss it/badger the Firaxians in a different thread.

 

[dikwhit]

Firaxians.... werent they assimilated by the borg at the end of season 3? But seriously guys, its 3-6 months to PTW. My guess is that you are pretty much stuck with what ya got. Regardless of wants,needs,hopes,prayers,dreams.... face it you have got your moneys worth. What is it, 4 patches now? Even at 50$ for the game thats cheap. PTW (hopefully) will give you every single bit of control you want.
For most of us though, fixing editor issues or working on the expansion is not really a difficult choice, get that puppy in the stores.


If you eliminate the bit..ing about the editor, i havent seen any real complaints with the playing of the game, which is the main reason most of us bought it

good job firaxis

 

[IceBlaZe]

Yeah but think about it - If Mike B. (Firaxis) works a few days and adds the Diplomacy thing, people here will worship him like a god!

Go Mike go, you could always use a few passionate kids as your worshipers.

 

[kingjoshi]

I do think the lack of an option to edit Railroad bonus is a unfortunate and does change "the playing of the game". It's a great patch and we appreciate everything they've done. But ... we're human too