Civ4 Beyond the Sword Patch v3.17 is out

[PieceOfMind]

There are guite a few good ways you can find out about a game before you purchase. Even a casual gamer (purchases 1-2 games every couple of years) can easily to this.

Would you buy a washer and dryer without comparing features and reliability reports? Some people would. But, it's silly to expect that the product you buy is free of imperfections without doing due diligence as a consumer.

Of course.

I think you ARE entitled to such, but ONLY to bugs that render the game unsuitable for its purpose. 99% of so-called "bugs" are superficial and/or subjective.

The company issuing a patch for the 99% is for customer relations, or to improve grassroots sales, and such. But you're hardly "entitled" to it.

And for the 1%, I might point out that there are other recourses available to you besides not purchasing one of the company's products. Register a claim with the BBB (even people not in the US have this option because you complain to the BBB where the publisher is located, which is in the U.S.), write the chamber of commerce, pass word of mouth to friends and at your local software stores, sue the company in small claims, complain online, write to software mags' editorial sections, etc. But, that's only after you have first contacted the company tech service and been told that they have no intention of fixing it. If you do any of those things without first taking that critical step, then that's not right.


See my point above. Doing due diligence as a consumer and investigating the product before you buy (gasp) is just one option. Even if you buy, if you find the game is unplayable then you have some resourses. These recourses amount to the same thing as voting with your wallet, because you are costing the game company resources (they have to respond to the BBB, or they suffer lost sales from OTHER consumers, etc.)


I think you two are talking about two different classes of bugs. You're talking about the 1%, while SJN is talking about the 100% (which includes the 99%).

Never at any point have I actually complained about the current state of the game (I think at one point I said I was slightly annoyed they included more features). I'm certainly nowhere near a position where I would want to send a complaint of any form. Anyway, this is not actually something I care much about at all so I'll drop it. Otherwise I'll keep getting rebuttals to a point I'm not supporting or even trying to make. (I know you're only trying to help, Wodan)

 

[Wodan]

Never at any point have I actually complained about the current state of the game (I think at one point I said I was slightly annoyed they included more features). I'm certainly nowhere near a position where I would want to send a complaint of any form. Anyway, this is not actually something I care much about at all so I'll drop it. Otherwise I'll keep getting rebuttals to a point I'm not supporting or even trying to make. (I know you're only trying to help, Wodan)

No worries.

 

[CHEESE!]

Barbarian uprising events can occur only if you can build a counter unit

YAY!


When i load it, there is no usual patch load screen, is this intentional?

 

[ImperialGuard]

New patch that fixes alot of broken things ??? Good

Call me a cynic and guilty of seeing a conspiracy eveywhere ... but I don't think Fraxis has been sitting around "ringing their hands" worrying about how poor a job they've done delivering a quality product.

Noooo ...... two words for you: Colonization - Q4 2008.


Hmmmm....who's going to by Colonization ?? Why it's all the same people who bought CIV 4.......well we better get a patch out, and make the CIV4 people all "warm and fuizzy" ... so they'll drop another $50 bucks .... so we can start the poor quality cycle all over again !

but as I said .... Call me a cynic

 

[Balderstrom]

Don't believe I will be, I was definitely interested when I first heard about it (Never having played the original). Now that I have read more of the previews - it "feels" like a MOD. Slightly different mechanics. No OceanFaring vessels. "Better" (if you want to call it that) Graphics. Fans of the original will probably want it.

For a game like Colonization to be even remotely interesting to me, it would need to include Revolutions, Civil War, allow for competing British Canada/ US land areas that aren't crippled by the way "culture" soaks into & spreads across tiles. Possibly have options for earlier starts 1000AD with Vikings, China or the like.
Firaxis in general seems to be far too focused on simulating reality. Maybe thats why people like CIV... I like CIV in spite of that focus.

It's amusing to read those Sid interviews where he is quoted as saying "They believe BTS is the ultimate CIV experience". One doesn't need to peruse the boards very far into the "Ideas & Suggestions" to see the fans certainly don't believe it to be the ultimate CIV experience.

 

[a4phantom]

I have BTS on my computer with Bhuic's awesome patch for the 3.13 patch. I want to patch to 3.17, but I don't have all the installation disks with me (in Korea). Can I remove Bhuic's 3.13 patch without reinstalling? How?

 

[ori]

just install the 3.17 patch - it will overwrite Bhruic's changes

 

[a4phantom]

I'm trust you on this Ori, because my subway station is named after you so you must be a reputable person.

Son of a . . . How long is this autopatching supposed to take? How do I know if it's working properly or stalled?

 

[ori]

I meant to tell you: do not autopatch - download the patch from here - the autopatcher is behaving buggy with this patch

 

[a4phantom]

I meant to tell you: do not autopatch - download the patch from here - the autopatcher is behaving buggy with this patch

Yes, pulled the plug after 20 hours.

Now you're gonna tell me it takes 21!

 

[deanej]

I wonder why so many people have trouble with autopatch. It worked fine for me. Granted, this was within 6 hours of the patch coming out around 10:30 pm EDT. I'm guessing that it's either overloaded or can't handle connections that are either faster or slower than 1.5m.

 

[a4phantom]

I wonder why so many people have trouble with autopatch. It worked fine for me. Granted, this was within 6 hours of the patch coming out around 10:30 pm EDT. I'm guessing that it's either overloaded or can't handle connections that are either faster or slower than 1.5m.

Well, it didn't work for me in 20 hours, and ALT-CTL-DLTing to stop it so I could get on with my life somehow ruined both BTS and the underlying Civ4 game. Oops.

 

[demon59]

Might have just overlooked the posts, but has anyone else had problems with Wonder Videos causing a CTD, after installing the 3.17 patch?

 

[shamus21]

Just a quick one on this patch, I have just done a reinstall of all 3 games (civ4,Warloads,BTS) do i need to patch with BTS v.3.13 and then BTS v3.17 or just install the V3.17 only.

 

[draaibaar]

just install the latest patch, as always.

 

[deanej]

You don't need the previous patch to install a patch. The only exception is vanilla v1.74 (it requires 1.61 for some reason).

 

[a4phantom]

Does anyone know a (free) program I can use to scrub the fragments of Civ4 Vanilla off my computer so I can reinstall? The autoupdater broke it so it couldn't play or uninstall, so I erased all the Firaxis files in the Programs folder (WinXP), but the program is still technically installed.

 

[deanej]

You're supposed to use the uninstall program.

 

[Woody1]

Just delete it using the control panel remove programs area. Then, clean up any stuff left in Program Files\2K Games and your My Documents\My Games area. Then reinstall.

 

[ori]

Does anyone know a (free) program I can use to scrub the fragments of Civ4 Vanilla off my computer so I can reinstall? The autoupdater broke it so it couldn't play or uninstall, so I erased all the Firaxis files in the Programs folder (WinXP), but the program is still technically installed.

You're supposed to use the uninstall program.

Just delete it using the control panel remove programs area. Then, clean up any stuff left in Program Files\2K Games and your My Documents\My Games area. Then reinstall.

well almost - the control panel leaves lots of stuff - do the stuff below for a clean reinstall (its the gazillionth repost of this here - so I did not adapt it to your case, but it lists all possible remnants):


install the most recent version of DirectX 9c from Microsoft

then do the following for a clean reinstall:

Uninstall and Reinstall Civ4 Warlords BtS :

Try to follow this order when doing stuff:
Use Control panel to uninstall Beyond the Sword, then Warlords, then Civ4
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\my documents\my games\sid meier's civilization 4" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\my documents\my games\warlords" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\my documents\my games\beyond the sword" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\application data\my games\sid meier's civilization 4" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\application data\my games\warlords" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\application data\my games\beyond the sword" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\local settings\application data\my games\sid meier's civilization 4" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\local settings\application data\my games\warlords" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\local settings\application data\my games\beyond the sword" manually
(note: application data is a hidden directory so you need to configure windows explorer to show hidden files, also these directories in application data are sometimes removed by the uninstall routine)
Delete "...\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{CFBCE791-2D53-4FCE-B3FB-D6E01F4112E8}" (Civ4)
Delete "...\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{3E4B349F-10B5-4586-9D99-489A90A8B228}" (Warlords)
Delete "...\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{32E4F0D2-C135-475E-A841-1D59A0D22989}" (BtS)
(note: InstallShield Installation Information is a hidden directory so you need to configure windows explorer to show hidden files).
Install Civ4, immediately patch it to 1.61 (download it fresh from here)
Install Warlords, immediately patch it to 2.08 (download it fresh from here)
Install Beyond the Sword, immediately patch to 3.17 (download it fresh from here).