Civ4 Beyond the Sword Patch v3.17 is out

[Öjevind Lång]

You may not consider it a bug, but why would anyone buy anything already owned? Anyway, (haven't gotten to Corps yet, but) I can confirm you can no longer trade resources an AI already has.

If you own a certain corporation, your profits increase with the number of each of the resources for that corporation you have. If you have five fish resources, for example, that is more advantageous than having one if you own Sid's Sushi. So trading for more fish, rice, clams and crabs is very advantageous if you own Sid's Sushi. Check the Civilopedia entries about corporations to learn which resources you should own more of. There's a reason why Sid's Advice tells you, when you found a corporation, to try to get more of the resources for that corporation. It doesn't simply mean having one of each of them.

 

[a4phantom]

my opinion may be relevant to Firaxis.

Nothing personal, but that seems highly unlikely given the bug and patch behavior reported here. It seems like they're too successful to still care about the fans.

 

[Breunor]

I have to admit I do like the fact they put new features in the patches. A lot of game playing goes on after release; Firaxis is listening to gamers and trying to make it better.

I thought 3.03 was better than the first release; 3.13 was better still, and 3.17 is better yet. Of course this will never be unanimous but I suspect the majority of gamers (and Firaxis) feels this way.

If it isn't OK to put new features in patches, what about expansions? Is it Ok to put new features in expansions? Then people pay for them -- I would rather get them for free.


Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Mesousa]

If you own a certain corporation, your profits increase with the number of each of the resources for that corporation you have. If you have five fish resources, for example, that is more advantageous than having one if you own Sid's Sushi. So trading for more fish, rice, clams and crabs is very advantageous if you own Sid's Sushi. Check the Civilopedia entries about corporations to learn which resources you should own more of. There's a reason why Sid's Advice tells you, when you found a corporation, to try to get more of the resources for that corporation. It doesn't simply mean having one of each of them.

Yes, but that's not what this is (or was) about. The problem was that the AI would trade for resources it already had even if it didn't have a corporation that made use of it. So in the example Calder gave

For example in my latest 3.13 game (I'm finishing off before patching) I was able to gain all of Khmer's 6 iron resources in trade for multiple resources the Khmer already had, to aid my Mining Inc. Corp. I don't consider this a bug. Is this now not possible with the new patch?

the Khmer aren't gaining anything from this. It's just the human player exploiting a bug (the AI failing to redline resources it already has on the trade screen). If an AI has fish, and doesn't have Sid's Sushi, it doesn't gain anything from trading for another fish resource, yet it would do so.

And please don't anyone start they could trade the fish away to someone else. That's just rationalizing the use of the exploit, learn to do without it.

 

[SirPleb]

Nothing personal, but that seems highly unlikely given the bug and patch behavior reported here.

I agree but still I hope.

Two quotes from Firaxis in May 2004 (after the last C3C patch was released):

"We will be creating a new patch to make bug fixes (no new features) that will be released ASAP."

"We have learned from the Civ3 experience and won't allow anything like it to happen again."
(This was said in the context of of a discussion of Civ3 bugs and patches.)

There was no further patch. And the Civ4 experience in this regard seems remarkably similar to the Civ3 experience.


"Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana

 

[Calder]

Yes, but that's not what this is (or was) about. The problem was that the AI would trade for resources it already had even if it didn't have a corporation that made use of it. So in the example Calder gave
the Khmer aren't gaining anything from this. It's just the human player exploiting a bug (the AI failing to redline resources it already has on the trade screen). If an AI has fish, and doesn't have Sid's Sushi, it doesn't gain anything from trading for another fish resource, yet it would do so.
And please don't anyone start they could trade the fish away to someone else. That's just rationalizing the use of the exploit, learn to do without it.

Sure the Khmer may appear to not gain anything (apart from our loyal diplomacy built up during the game), but neither would corporations! Whats the point of corporations if you can't trade for its benefits? Its not a human exploiting a bug, its a human exploiting the benefits given from corporations as the game mechanics dictates.
The Khmer in this example have in trade from me multiple oil, uranium, luxury resources that they are free to trade to others for iron, or anything they want. Thats what trade is all about.

 

[Mesousa]

Sure the Khmer may appear to not gain anything (apart from our loyal diplomacy built up during the game), but neither would corporations! Whats the point of corporations if you can't trade for its benefits?

If you want the Khmer's three Irons for your Mining Inc, trade them three different resources they each do not have yet (or gold per turn) for them. Otherwise the only one benefitting is you.

Anyway, it was fixed.

 

[Balderstrom]

Beh.. I really wanna update. >.<
I'll at least wait until BAT. I know BUG is ready, but I really like the graphics changes included in BAT.

FYI: You can get ~90% (or more) of what BAT is, by installing: Veritas Delicat as a MOD. And install BUG into Custom Assets

 

[Calder]

If you want the Khmer's three Irons for your Mining Inc, trade them three different resources they each do not have yet (or gold per turn) for them. Otherwise the only one benefitting is you.

Anyway, it was fixed.

Wouldn't this be very limiting, especially if an AI doesn't have anything unique to trade, which happens most of the time.
I take it that "being fixed" affects corporation bonus buys in the game.
I agree with Sir Plebs arguments about the way some patches can affect a game design, as I remember well with CivIII, but at least you have the choice to use whatever version best suits what you believe to most closely resemble the ideal playing conditions, making do with the least unsettling changes, which is easier to come to terms with in Civ IV than in CivIII. So far there is very little in this new patch for me to warrant a download, due to some apparent fixes to things that I don't believe were broke in the first place. At least I'll wait a little longer and see what the concensus is.

 

[Balderstrom]

You just need to get the later Resources of Hit Movies, Songs, etc. The AI will give a lot for those.

 

[Opferlamm]

I thought 3.03 was better than the first release; 3.13 was better still, and 3.17 is better yet.

3.03 made the unplayable unpatched game playable, 3.13 introduced more bugs and 3.17 is still far away from a perfect game.
The only good thing about 3.17 is that they fixed some issues with mods that came with BtS, like Final Frontier and Next War

 

[Woody1]

I agree but still I hope.

There was no further patch. And the Civ4 experience in this regard seems remarkably similar to the Civ3 experience.

That's odd. I could have sworn a patch was just released for Civ4. Oh yeah... that's what this entire SUBJECT is about!

Okay, since you have never even played Civ4, I guess it's understandable you haven't tried out the latest patch.

I realize that there will always be a vocal minority that whines about every patch. What is surprising, is that there are some (i.e., yourself) that whine about a patch when they don't even own the game!

 

[Mesousa]

Wouldn't this be very limiting, especially if an AI doesn't have anything unique to trade, which happens most of the time.
I take it that "being fixed" affects corporation bonus buys in the game.

Just to be clear, with 3.17 (or with 3.13 with Bhruic's patch) anyone who has a corporation can still trade for extras of that corp's resources. If you have Mining Inc, you can trade for all of Monty's twentythree Coppers. You just can't give him something he already has, whether you're trading for your corporation or not, unless he can use an extra for a corporation of his own.

 

[Balderstrom]

Yeah I was using Bhruic's - and didn't necessarily keep track of all the little fixes it included. So didn't quite get what ppl were complaining about here with 3.17 heh.

 

[Agent327]

Is there a detailed changelog available somewhere for what files were changed exactly in FF mod? (I need this info to update MOO2Civ to patch 3.17, which I haven't had a lot of luck with so far...)

 

[Psyringe]

Is there a detailed changelog available somewhere for what files were changed exactly in FF mod? (I need this info to update MOO2Civ to patch 3.17, which I haven't had a lot of luck with so far...)

I don't think such a changelog is available.

In your case, I'd do the following:
- Put FF 3.13 in one folder and FF 3.17 in another
- Either use a freeware explorer that has a directory comparison feature, or simply check which files had their date or size changed
- Load the 3.13 and 3.17 versions of a changed file into a file comparison tool (like ExamDiff; personally I use a Notepad++ plugin) to track down the actual changes.

An update of the MoO2 mod would be much appreciated, btw.

 

[Calder]

Just to be clear, with 3.17 (or with 3.13 with Bhruic's patch) anyone who has a corporation can still trade for extras of that corp's resources. If you have Mining Inc, you can trade for all of Monty's twentythree Coppers. You just can't give him something he already has, whether you're trading for your corporation or not, unless he can use an extra for a corporation of his own.

Thanks for clearing that up for me Mesousa. I never used Bruics patch so most of these changes are new to me. This explanation does have a more balancing effect.

 

[Inky]

Wouldn't this be very limiting, especially if an AI doesn't have anything unique to trade, which happens most of the time.
I take it that "being fixed" affects corporation bonus buys in the game.
I agree with Sir Plebs arguments about the way some patches can affect a game design, as I remember well with CivIII, but at least you have the choice to use whatever version best suits what you believe to most closely resemble the ideal playing conditions, making do with the least unsettling changes, which is easier to come to terms with in Civ IV than in CivIII. So far there is very little in this new patch for me to warrant a download, due to some apparent fixes to things that I don't believe were broke in the first place. At least I'll wait a little longer and see what the concensus is.

If you are playing with 3.13 without Bhruic's unofficial patch, then 3.17 is a major upgrade fixing a lot of bugs (which the unofficial patch addressed, and were also fixed in 3.17).

The 3.13 trade bug worked like this. Say you had 4 excess resources, and the AI had three of them. Even though the AI had them already, they'd ask for them in the trade. You'd need to remove them from the list in order to get a fair trade. Pre-corporation, excess resources are worthless to you, and taking them only deprives your trading partner.

The other part was that it didn't properly show whether you already had a resource, requiring you to remember when trading.

Fixed, you can't trade for resources you already possess unless you either have a corporation or are a vassal to a master. A master can take resources, in trade or as tribute, no matter what. Resources you already possess are removed from the trading table (actually, redded out), because there would be no advantage to trading for them.

I'm running 3.17 with Solver's unofficial patch, and it seems pretty good to me. No bugs, no big balance issues, and pretty much everything works satisfactorily.

 

[Breunor]

3.03 made the unplayable unpatched game playable, 3.13 introduced more bugs and 3.17 is still far away from a perfect game.
The only good thing about 3.17 is that they fixed some issues with mods that came with BtS, like Final Frontier and Next War

Well, I don't agree, I think each release was better. Everyone here is going to have his/her own subjective opinion on this.

For people who don't like the impact of the patches, they can just play without the patch anyway -- no one if forcing a buyer to use it. Since the patches are free, there is absolutely no downside to these patches.

So, what does that mean? If someone has my view tha the game is better with the patches, they play with the patches and enjoy the game more. If people think he game is worse, they don't use it. Therefore, some people are better off and no-one is worse off. To me, that makes it very good. The only issue then is should they have done it better?

No patch can concentrate on issues that every person wants. I do think Firaxis concentrated on issues that interested most players; I suspect they don't concentrate on issues brought by people who don't play the game!

Clearly the work of Solver and Bruhic helped a lot too. A key feature of Civ IV was its moddability, and for people with the interest of going on websites like this one, the variety of changes and special game rules are very large for any group that wants to make common changes.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Opferlamm]

Well, I don't agree, I think each release was better. Everyone here is going to have his/her own subjective opinion on this.

For people who don't like the impact of the patches, they can just play without the patch anyway -- no one if forcing a buyer to use it. Since the patches are free, there is absolutely no downside to these patches.

So, what does that mean? If someone has my view tha the game is better with the patches, they play with the patches and enjoy the game more. If people think he game is worse, they don't use it. Therefore, some people are better off and no-one is worse off. To me, that makes it very good. The only issue then is should they have done it better?

No patch can concentrate on issues that every person wants. I do think Firaxis concentrated on issues that interested most players; I suspect they don't concentrate on issues brought by people who don't play the game!

Clearly the work of Solver and Bruhic helped a lot too. A key feature of Civ IV was its moddability, and for people with the interest of going on websites like this one, the variety of changes and special game rules are very large for any group that wants to make common changes.

Best wishes,

Breunor

sure each patch had some good sides to it, but especially the 3.13 patch showed that they were not finished yet and I would have liked if they would have made some announcement that they were working on a another patch after that. I´m quite happy that they release patches.