Conquests Beta Patch Now Available

[Ebomb808]

This is one interesting group of society. It seems that many on this board expect all products to be fully functional (which I agree with) as well as designed according to their specifications as to how said product should look, act, perform. Let me remind everyone that when buying a product, you are at the mercy of whoever developed that product and how THEY think the product should look and work.

Case in point the FP changes. C3C is an expansion pack to the original game. Any changes to the game that Firaxis wants to make is completely their choice. Now instead of adapting to the product that was made and changing strategy accordingly, people post messages to the tune "I can't believe Firaxis didn't make the game just how I imagined."

This beta patch does fix the negative corruption which was dissapointing from the beginning as well as everything else it claims to do. Yes it changes game mechanics. Yes it changes how we as players must approach the game. But instead of changing their approach, players blame firaxis for some of their game strategies becoming obsolete.

If i am an RCP player, than the new fix from my point of view becomes a bug because i don't like it.

If i am someone who has a large empire and need the unrealistic FP to fix my realistic corruption problems, then the new FP rules become a bug because i don't like it.

The point i am trying to make is that instead of seeing how the new FP acts and playing accordingly, having dialogue on the new rules and formulating new strategies, and trying to master a new set of rules, the overwhelming consensus is I don't like it, I won't play it, and I demand it be changed to the way I like it.

Feedback is one thing and explaining your rationale on how you think things should be is positive. But threats, negative attitudes, and blame are not going to help others, especially firaxis see your point of view.

 

[randallman]

Hey Ebomb... its not a matter of 'point of view'. The Civlopedia claims it works in one way, and it appears to be working another way. Either the functionality or the civlopedia is bugged Most speculate that the funcationality is the bug since the functionality in the original game is more in line with what the civlopedia states.

Anyway, there is no 'valid opinion' on this issue. Its a bug. One way or the other, it's a bug.

EOF

 

[Ebomb808]

Originally posted by randallman
Hey Ebomb... its not a matter of 'point of view'. The Civlopedia claims it works in one way, and it appears to be working another way. Either the functionality or the civlopedia is bugged Most speculate that the funcationality is the bug since the functionality in the original game is more in line with what the civlopedia states.

Anyway, there is no 'valid opinion' on this issue. Its a bug. One way or the other, it's a bug.

EOF

The new system is more in line with what Tavis said in this thread. Since he is involved in making the game, it sounds like the civilopedia is wrong along with Most speculation.

 

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Nexushyper

Oh, BTW, isn't corruption in the Capitial set to be somewhere between 1% - 5% so in a large size capitial you could see some corruption, is this right or wrong? [/B]

As mentioned earlier, this has been the expected results in C3 and PTW, BUT as noted in previous quote from Civopedia, there should be NO, none not even one shield waste/corruption in the capital city. I never played C2 so I don't know how that worked, but there has always been a difference between what reference said Capital was supposed to do and actual corruption observed in game.

== PF

 

[The Last Conformist]

That was one long read ...

On the whole, I think this looks like good news; gpt fixed and FP no longer increases total corruption. That was what we really wanted, wasn't it?

Based on Tavis's posts and various civilopedia entries, I've come to the conclusion that "acts like 2nd Palaces" does not mean that the city in it will function as a second capital. It appears to merely be the (confusing) name of some sort of flag that has some as yet as to its details unknown effect on corruption.

Thus, I'd like to ask Tavis what, exactly does "acts like 2nd Palace" mean. And I don't want any common-sense answer; I want to know what it actually does, game-mechanically.

 

[planetfall]

Bottom line need
Either change civlopedia so FP is not longer described to act as second capital with NO corruption or waste

--OR--
educate Jesse and others to program FP to work as described in in civlopedia.

With the fix of negative effect of FP where planting FP increased tribal total corruption and waste, we seem to have an inadvertent failure to impliment FP as expected. I really don't care which system is adopted:

System A
FP works as second capital and there is no corruption in the city with the FP, or

System B
FP reduces corruption by about 1/2 and helps to deal with empire waste.

Just bring civlopedia and patched code into sync. Then as a player I can decide to either play PTW or C3C. Currently I prefer C3C for scenarios and PTW for epic game. But I would like to just play one flavor of Civ and not 2 flavors.

== PF

 

[warpstorm]

I've seen corruption in my capital cities since Civ3 first came out if my empire got big enough. Having a palace does not mean no corruption in a city.

 

[warpstorm]

I guess Firaxis should update the Civilopedia to have the FP entry say what it currently does.

 

[Arrogant]

Originally posted by The Last Conformist
Thus, I'd like to ask Tavis what, exactly does "acts like 2nd Palace" mean. And I don't want any common-sense answer; I want to know what it actually does, game-mechanically.

Seconded, thirded, fourthed and fifthed. I don't mind bugs so much as the fact that I don't freakin know what exactly is going on.

 

[Padma]

/me throws out a sudden insight:

Of course, this being a beta patch, it could also mean that the Civilopedia hasn't been updated yet!

 

[Goober]

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

This is from the first page. I am going to go into Conquests pre-installation of the path, and check out the definitions for the palace, FP, and SPHQ, then I am going to install the patch, and see if the definitions change at all.

 

[SirPleb]

If the new code is right and the Civilopedia wrong, what should the new Civilopedia say? Perhaps something like this:

"The Forbidden Palace acts sort of like the Palace by reducing corruption in the cities around it. The amount it will reduce corruption will vary depending on factors including the map size, the difficulty level, and the number of cities closer to your Palace than your Forbidden Palace. Depending on these factors, which will change as your empire grows, it will reduce corruption in its region by anything from not-at-all to nearly 100%."

 

[vedoreus]

With the 1.12 ScenarioEditor i made a proof setup with seven cities.
7 size 13 Metro's placed in a straight line 4 tiles away from eachother (see picture).

The setup was generating the following results:

Without a FP in city 7, wasted shields / total shields,
1/20 5/20 9/20 14/20 18/20 19/20 19/20 total waste 85

With a FP in city 7
1/20 4/20 9/20 13/20 11/20 8/20 6/20 total waste 52
You can see here the "new benefit" from the FP


Then i reverted C3C back to v1.00
I loaded the proof setup again (made with the 1.12 editor !)
and these remarkable figures came out:

With the FP in city 7
1/20 4/20 9/20 14/20 9/20 4/20 1/20 total waste 42
The Forbidden Palace is acting exactly like the Palace.

I tried to upload the biq file but failed.

 

[Goober]

I do not know how to attach pics here, but I have a pic of a corruption-free city pre-patch with the FP

Edit: pic did not attach. I havent figured this thing out yet.

 

[The Last Conformist]

That's bizarre!

I can't even begin to think of a reasonable explanation ATM ...

 

[SewerStarFish]

Having waded through all the griping:

Thank you Atari/Firaxis. I appreciate the patch. Truth is it should be called gamma testing. With PTW I felt like a beta tester -- C3C is awesome and obviously derived from a more thorough beta test cycle.

The FP bug is fixed, and most of these gripes are "it's different -- I don't like it". A civilopedia omission or inaccuracy is not a bug.

 

[Qitai]

Well, I wouldn't say that yet. It looks like it is, at the very least doing what it should - Reduce corruption. But since nobody seems to be able to figure out what is going on at the moment, it could be "as designed" or "a bug" or maybe "as designed with a bug". The situation seems like we simply do not know yet.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by SewerStarFish
The FP bug is fixed, and most of these gripes are "it's different -- I don't like it". A civilopedia omission or inaccuracy is not a bug.

I think you might have read a bit quickly and not understood some of the posts on this thread.

The concern is not that the FP is different.

Some concerns are that the FP now:

1) Is very hard to understand. Only players who are both obsessed and mathematically inclined will be able to predict its effects accurately and gain the most from it.

2) Will have no effect in some situations. Particularly in games with very large empires, which are arguably the games which most want a Forbidden Palace.

If effects like those are intentional, I'd find that more discouraging than if they're the result of a bug

 

[Tharak]

Originally posted by SirPleb

2) Will have no effect in some situations. Particularly in games with very large empires, which are arguably the games which most want a Forbidden Palace.

A question here. Corruption is capped at 95%, but "actual" corruption could be much higher...correct? Couldn't this mean that if your empire is large enough (both number of cities and land area) that the FP actuall does have an effect, but just not enough to be noticed....similar to building courthouses in really corrupt cities? Ie - if your corruption is 300%, and the FP reduces it to 100%, you are still capped at 95% and thus see no difference, despite the large effect it "actually" had?

I'm phrasing this as several questions intentionally, as I am not sure about all the facts...any clarification would be helpful...

While I realize that if this is true, it would explain the potentiall low effect, it might not be what a lot of people want to see....those that are used to building large empires and winning by domination will have a much harder go of things than they used to.

 

[microbe]

Originally posted by Ebomb808
This is one interesting group of society. It seems that many on this board expect all products to be fully functional (which I agree with) as well as designed according to their specifications as to how said product should look, act, perform.

I find the above normal and deserved.

What's the problem of corruption? Why is it so hard to fix? Because it's just damn too complicated and obscure (otherwise, why wouldn't Firaxis document it clearly how this is supposed to work?).

I think the folks at Firaxis really need to sit down and have a meeting. Try to come up with something simple and correct. There is no point in fixing the implementation if the algorithm or approach is wrong.