Civ4 Patch v1.61, SDK, PitBoss, & Low-res Movies Released!

[Watiggi]

Yeah, I am a little confused as to why they altered the firepower calculations. I thought it worked well in 1.52

 

[idle]

I'm in an SG, so I need to keep a copy of v1.52.

How do I do this?

 

[Commander Bello]

I'm in an SG, so I need to keep a copy of v1.52.

How do I do this?

By not downloading the 1.61 at the moment?

Edit: I think I once saw a description of how to maintain to independent installations of Civ4, but I don't recall where it may have been. Somebody else aware of this and willing to help this poor guy?

 

[WillShakeyspear]

No, I mean no mouse over information appears. After a battle, I can mouse over the enemy city and nothing happens, where as usually I would get a list of units stacked in the enemy city (list should appear on the left, where you would expect). It goes so far that no mouse over information appears at all - not even plot information (you know, grassland, farm, road information that appears on the left). Once I click on another unit, it fixes itself up.

As I said, it only happened twice and put me off a bit, considering I had no problem in 1.52. Since it happened, I really haven't played it, so I don't know how bad it really is (ie, the frequency of it). I assume it's a bug which came from the new '?' code that has been put it.

Anyone else encountered it? Thanks for your comments though Harrier

Watiggi

@Watiggi:
This happened to me in 1.52 quite a bit. At first I was really confused when it happened, but I figured it out. The game is just getting stuck on a worker or another unit in terms of SOME of the interface, but not everything.

Check this: Can you scroll with the arrow keys during this time? I have found that I can only go up and down, but not left or right, just like it allows when you have a unit selected and you are scolling the orders window on the bottom of the screen.

What you are describing is slightly different from what I experience, but it's so similar that I think it's the same thing. I mostly have it occur from working with Workers. Maybe you use different interface options than I do, so that might be it?

Also, I'm not sure what causes it, but by selecting another unit and then un-selecting it again, I regain all regular interface options and abilities. Try that and see what happens? I still haven't played a lot of games with the new patch, so things might have changed around a bit.

 

[BenniusCaesar]

The change was to prevent players in Classical Start games from chop-rushing Horse Archers immediatly after settling their first city on top of a Horse resource. Now the Horseback Riding tech has to be researched first, so no early rushes.

I thought there were some wonders that couldn't be built after a certain era also?

 

[Watiggi]

@WillShakeyspear

Thanks for your reply. It it different but is close enough to warrant a comment. Unfortunately (well, fortunately actually) it hasn't happened since, so I can't experiment with it. It happened when going to war, once the battle scene finished (where you zoom in on every battle), it would zoom out and the mouse-over info would stop working. It didn't have anything to do with the workers as the next unit would have been the next unit in the stack (another military unit). I don't remember having any scrolling problems either, but as I said, it hasn't happened since and I didn't really need to scroll it to click on the unit. When (hopefully 'if') it happens again, I will try to experiment with it, to see what I can and cannot do before I click on a unit.

Thanks for commenting on it. I didn't realise the problem (or a variation of such) was in 1.52. All though overall the update was good, I am noticing some minor, annoying issues that detract from gameplay a little. I never had such problems with 1.52.

An example of these annoyances: I have given the 1000ad a go (playing the Mongols - just taken out the Chinese and Barbs) and I noticed that when it shows the greatest civilizations in history (ie, the largest, the most powerful, etc), the next turn continues and shows all opponents units moving (which is how I have it set) while this screen was up. The net effect is that I miss the movments while this screen is up where as it used to stay still while it was up. It may simply be the 1000ad scenario being run from a 1.61 game as I haven't noticed this during a normal game.

Watiggi

 

[sgtfury]

I spent another very frustrating night with Civ IV and the new patch. The movies cause the games to crash now (in 1.51 they didn't). Bad memory allocation error.

How do I turn these friggin movies off??

I tried that notepad thing, but it didn;t work.

 

[Gyathaar]

I spent another very frustrating night with Civ IV and the new patch. The movies cause the games to crash now (in 1.51 they didn't). Bad memory allocation error.

How do I turn these friggin movies off??

I tried that notepad thing, but it didn;t work.

Options -> Graphics -> no movies

 

[sgtfury]

Sorry for my surly post. I will try the suggestion and see if it works any better. Thanks!

 

[casey1966]

The new combat system was implemented with the 1.61 patch. Could someone tell me what file this is in & exactly what I would have to change to update a mod, specically Snaift's Great General mod. Thanks.....HELP!

 

[Giaur]

Well, to be honest, technologically superior armies can easily be overwhelmed by numerically superior, technologically inferior foes. Those grenadiers you mentioned almost never used actual grenades because the grenade technology of the day was extremely unreliable. They mostly used muskets which have a notoriously slow rate of fire.

Well ... I thought Grenadiers used bayonets (I had a paper game once). But there 'grenadier' concerned to elite soldiers. These were Napoleonian times.

However ... Grenadiers in Civ4 are very commercial, attracting many players . I like the most Grenadier sitting, smoking cigarette, and waiting when his grenade do its job.

 

[Watiggi]

Okay. I am a tad unhappy. While playing Civ4, the game CTD'ed. This is the first time I have crashed to desktop whilst playing Civ4 ever since I bought it (back when it came out). The crash happened the turn after a strange battle occured: My keshik (which had a 94% chance of success) fought a Jaguar (Monty's UU) and lost. I mean I watched the units battle and Monty's unit killed mine. Well, later on I find that not only did the my Keshik win (in the combat logs) but my unit had disapeared (the flag was still there, but no Keshik) and the Jaguar was not there either. This strange event just killed the system next turn. Essentially my unit won the battle, but the graphics showed the Jaguar winning instead.

On top of that, the graphics has become really choppy - the ingame graphics that is, I didn't build a wonder to find that out - and this is on a small map, about the 1200's and with only 4 other civs. This never use to happen. It isn't hard drive loading either. I can't for the life of me figure out why the ingame graphics stutter. In this particular game, the globe view does 30 fps and yet it stutters when I move a Keshik. I have no idea. This has never been this bad before - bordering on unplayable.

I also had that 'thing' where I couldn't get any mouse-over info again (it happened twice). I could scroll though but no mouse-over info would appear until I clicked on a unit. I got the feeling it may have happened when I was holding down the right mouse button when one unit finished it's move and it then cycled to the next unit.

These are things that **never** used to happen prior to 1.61. Before 1.61, I never really had a problem, apart from frame rate drop in late game.

I have a P4 2.8G
1Gb RAM (just upgraded from 512mb)
X800 PRO, 256mb AGP

I am feeling a little annoyed and somewhat disillusioned right now. Thanks 1.61.

Watiggi

 

[Giaur]

I have a P4 2.8G
1Gb RAM (just upgraded from 512mb)
X800 PRO, 256mb AGP

I am feeling a little annoyed and somewhat disillusioned right now. Thanks 1.61.

Watiggi

I have:
Duron 700MHz
512MB RAM
Radeon 9550 128MB

and I'm satisfied. However my games last longer :]

 

[Roland Johansen]

You have a good computer system. I would first try to empty the cache (at C:\Documents and Settings\[Your Name]\Application Data\My Games\Civilization 4\cache )

Just delete the folder, the game will recreate it.

If that didn't work or if you had an error while patching the game, then I would do a complete reinstall of the game and then patch it. That should not take more time than about 10-15 minutes.

It could also be a problem with spyware or a virus. Are other programs performing slowly? It's a strange thing that you're observing.

 

[Watiggi]

You have a good computer system. I would first try to empty the cache (at C:\Documents and Settings\[Your Name]\Application Data\My Games\Civilization 4\cache )

Just delete the folder, the game will recreate it.

I just held shift. Is there a difference (beside that fact that one deletes it and the other probably doesn't)? I mean would the game treat it differently? Whenever I start the game, I always load it uncached. It is a little habit I got used to with v1.0. I don't feel comfortable letting it load cached when I intend on having a long session.

If that didn't work or if you had an error while patching the game, then I would do a complete reinstall of the game and then patch it. That should not take more time than about 10-15 minutes.

It could also be a problem with spyware or a virus. Are other programs performing slowly? It's a strange thing that you're observing.

I have looked for spyware and viruses and there is nothing. I reloaded the game *while* the antivirus and the spyware were scanning and the game worked fine (at full speed, dispite the scanning in the background). Maybe the crash was what slowed it down - somehow destablised the game and I accidentally restarted it loading the cache or something. I have been playing it since (for about 6 hours straight), sort of wondering if it would happen again. Nothing has happened, no slowdown, no crashes. The mouse over issue pops up every now and then. I learn a bit more about it before it corrects itself. But the slowdown was as if it was never there. Strange.

If this happens again or things get worse, I will delete the cache folder or I might just reinstall it all together and see.

Thanks for your suggestions Roland

EDIT: Come to think of it, I have noticed programs like Internet Explorer (and the normal Explorer) sometimes taking much longer than normal to load, but the anti-spyware doesn't pick anything up. I mean, I have clocked it at 20 seconds from click to on screen. It doesn't happen all the time though.

Watiggi

 

[Gordon Farrell]

Did this patch affect the way victory ratings are calculated? Can anyone tell me?

 

[Roland Johansen]

I just held shift. Is there a difference (beside that fact that one deletes it and the other probably doesn't)? I mean would the game treat it differently? Whenever I start the game, I always load it uncached. It is a little habit I got used to with v1.0. I don't feel comfortable letting it load cached when I intend on having a long session.

Yes, holding SHIFT should work. But I don't like the word SHOULD in that sentence. I've seen reports of people where they said they had to startup civ holding SHIFT multiple times to clear the cache. So I just created a quick link to the cache folder and delete it when I've done some modding and want a clean cache to start.

I have been playing it since (for about 6 hours straight), sort of wondering if it would happen again. Nothing has happened, no slowdown, no crashes. The mouse over issue pops up every now and then. I learn a bit more about it before it corrects itself. But the slowdown was as if it was never there. Strange.

It's always nice when problems disappear by themselves. However it is more satisfying when you know why the problem was there in the first place.

If this happens again or things get worse, I will delete the cache folder or I might just reinstall it all together and see.

Thanks for your suggestions Roland

You're welcome.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I have noticed programs like Internet Explorer (and the normal Explorer) sometimes taking much longer than normal to load, but the anti-spyware doesn't pick anything up. I mean, I have clocked it at 20 seconds from click to on screen. It doesn't happen all the time though.

That's strange and really shouldn't happen on a fast computer like yours.
It's really difficult to help someone with computer problems and I'm not an expert in things like this.
I use Norton Internet Security as anti virus software and
Lavasoft Ad-Aware, Spybot - Search and Destroy and Spywareblaster as anti - spyware software.
There's another anti-spyware program that I've once used and it's called HijackThis. But it's a bit technical to use. It will find everything that looks suspicious but won't tell you if it is a virus. You can't just go delete the stuff it finds. But you can do an Google search with the things it finds and see what it is. There are also certain forums that ask a HijackThis report and then there are knowledgeable persons who say what's wrong with your computer and what to do. It is a hard and unsafe way to find spyware and you should only use it as a last resort. Use at your own risk.

You can also check the startup list in System Configuration Utility (Start -> Run -> msconfig) to see if there's something strange in there.
You could take a look at the processes that Windows is running according to Windows Task Manager and compare it with this list.

That's about all the advice, I could give you. I hope that some of it might be helpful. Good luck

 

[casey1966]

May I add if not already mentioned, download the video drivers from the card manufacturers website. Just because ATI or NVIDIA have the latest & hottest drivers don't mean a thing. As i've read on these boards people using older drivers & solving their ctd's.

Also lower your video card settings...use 16 bit color quality for your screen. Right-click desktop,settings, advanced, select your card. Lower the performance settings as I have my image settings on "performance".But I believe it's just a driver problem. On most motherboards you can add more memory to your video via the bios,I have done this but I have 1.5 gigs of ram. Your cutting it pretty close there with a gig cause this game hogs memory,resources.

I wish you luck but in no way am I an expert either....

 

[Mod_Mephisto]

I'm new to this! I tried to install the 1.61 patch, but I got a message, that Civ 4 is not even loaded on my computer!

Now, what do I do?

 

[Roland Johansen]

I'm new to this! I tried to install the 1.61 patch, but I got a message, that Civ 4 is not even loaded on my computer!

Now, what do I do?

That's a strange error. The only suggestion that I could do is completely reinstall civ (do a thorough uninstall with Add and Remove Programs so that nothing of civ 4 is left behind) and try again. But I have never heard of that problem before.

Good luck.