Conquests Beta Patch Now Available

[Commander Bello]

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. 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.

Sorry, but I really get the impression that you didn't get the point.

The point about which most people at this thread are complaining is not, that there still is corruption. It is not, that the corruption model (which since the very beginning was very... hmm.. 'strange') hasn't been changed according to the people's expectations.

The point IS that is has been changed back and forth and doesn't follow the stated rules. It didn't at C3C 1.00 and it doesn't at C3C 1.12. And that is, what people are complaining about.

It is the mess, which the guys at Firaxis, Atari, Breakaway, where ever did with game functionality as it was known and the description given in the civilopedia.

And (funny enough that noone took notice about that!) the 1.12 patch is NOT Beta!

From the readme.txt:

v1.12
* Fixed Crash with MP Random Civ selection
[...]
v1.11
* Removed additional combat calculations
[...]
Updates BETA v1.10:
CIV III: CONQUESTS BETA v1.10
* Fixed negative corruption from Forbidden Palace
* Fixed negative corruption from Secret Police HQ
* Fixed corruption calculation error
[...]

Patch 1.10 was Beta. 1.11 and 1.12 obviously are not beta.

From the editor help file:

If checked, the selected Small Wonder acts as a second "capitol city" and reduces corruption throughout the empire correspondingly

If I as a player cannot rely on the descriptions coming with the game AND even not with the explanations given from the people involved in the game development, then I think I have a very obvious right to blame them for that!

If you think, FiraxAtarAway are the best companies in the world in regards to what they are programming, fine.
To be honest, in the meantime I have come to the conclusion that they should have let passed by the christmas holidays and should have released C3C in Q1, 2004. And then they should have done it as one could have expected them to do.

 

[Commander Bello]

Originally posted by microbe


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.

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.

I absolutely agree. Nothing more to be said.

 

[planetfall]

ANY OLDTIMER INPUT?

What was corruption like in C1 and C2? And more importantly how did the FP function in those games.

 

[planetfall]

ANY NEW PLAYER INPUT?

What are you expecting to be accomplished by the FP?
Is this an issue for your play at all?

 

[planetfall]

HOW WOULD WE LIKE CORRUPTION AND WASTE TO WORK?

Since there won't be a fix to this issue until next year, what do you think should be the best solution? Would a new thread with poll help?

IF not for C3C, what about for Civ4?

-- should there be wasted shields to penalize large empire?
-- should there be wasted gold to penalize distance from capital?
-- how would you keep the largest empire from automatically always being the most powerful or most scientific?
-- how much should improvements be allowed to mitigate this corruption and waste, i.e., FP, Secret Police, Courthouse, Police Station, etc. ?
-- should effect of growing beyond the OCN ideal empire size be more strongly enforced?

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate.

Live long and prosper to all, regardless of season's celebrations.

Chat next year.

== PF

 

[The Last Conformist]

Originally posted by planetfall
ANY OLDTIMER INPUT?

What was corruption like in C1 and C2? And more importantly how did the FP function in those games.

I don't recall exactly how it worked in those, but the basics was like in CivIII; a small compact emipre had less corruption that a big sprawling one. However, there was no waste in CivI, and CivII had gov'ts with zero corruption.

Neither game had any Forbidden Palace-equivalent.

 

[Commander Bello]

Originally posted by planetfall
HOW WOULD WE LIKE CORRUPTION AND WASTE TO WORK?

Since there won't be a fix to this issue until next year, what do you think should be the best solution? Would a new thread with poll help?

IF not for C3C, what about for Civ4?

-- should there be wasted shields to penalize large empire?
-- should there be wasted gold to penalize distance from capital?
-- how would you keep the largest empire from automatically always being the most powerful or most scientific?
-- how much should improvements be allowed to mitigate this corruption and waste, i.e., FP, Secret Police, Courthouse, Police Station, etc. ?
-- should effect of growing beyond the OCN ideal empire size be more strongly enforced?

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate.

Live long and prosper to all, regardless of season's celebrations.

Chat next year.

== PF

I think, corruption (I will use that term for both, corruption and waste) has been very poorly set up in CIV.

As far as I see it, corruption is not a matter of size of the nation in regards to the shere number of inhabitants, nor it is a matter of size in miles.
Corruption is a matter of both, poverty and richness. In a very poor society, corruption will happen since people would like to survive. In a very rich society corruption occurs, since people have enough money to perform it.
Both would be modified by the cultural history of law enforcement. If the society has a long history of being law obedient, corruption will be less than in a society where law hasn't been obeyed very much in the past.
Taking that into account, the distance of a given city from the capital is of less interest as far as corruption is concerned.

So, I think that corruption should be based on the 'annual' income of both, nation and the given town/city/metropolis. This could be done in a way of calculating it on both extreme sides:
a city with less than 10 gpt income could have a corruption of 30%, and a city with more than 50 gpt could have a corruption of 50%, the rest would be somewhere below 30% (all figures just being examples, could be anything else).
Then, there could be an additional modifier for the distance to the capital to almost eliminate the effects of corruption in the early game, so that you would have a proper chance to develop your nation in the beginning. Additionally, courthouses, police stations, policemen should become more effective, the longer they are in place (just to simulate the effects of having a law obeying nations for a long time).
Personally, I think that corruption should never be more than let's say 75%.
I think, this would limit the further growth of large empires well enough, so that they can't just run away.
The concept of the OCN (optimal city number) is weird as the whole, current corruption model, as far as I see it. For that, it shouldn't be part of Civ4 anymore. Even more, as the current discussions show that even the developers seem to be totally lost in this rotten, silly concept.

 

[The Last Conformist]

As already indicated, I think the basic principle of corruption going up with distance and # of cities is sound; both makes central control harder, increasing the scope for corruption and waste.

I do think, however, that the actual levels of corruption we see in CivIII are a tad high. And I think a Courthouse should always have an effect; perhaps increasing the min uncorrupted production to 2 shields/commerce or 15%, whichever is highest. (The current system gives a minimum of 1 s/c or 5%, whichever is highest, which would be kept in cities without a Courthouse.)

And that artificial "break points" like the OCN should be avoided as much as possible goes without saying.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The distance aspect of corruption should change as communications change. A large empire in Ancient times would have more corruption at the edges (farther from the palace) than one in the modern age. The more technological a society gets should reduce distance corruption. It may increase corruption from commerce.

As a non competititive (official games etc.) player, I am not particualrly bothered by corruption. It is just part of the game. I live with it. Less would be nice, but so would a lot of changes. I like the civil engineers because my distant cities can now produce things.

 

[Qitai]

In the original design, the distance aspect does diminished as you advance in technology from the original design. The courthouse, police station and government type can reduce the distance corruption by 1/12 to what you have when you started out. The larger empires suffer more from rank corruption than distance corruption a actually. The far cities cities seems to suffer more is mainly due to rank and not distance.

 

[kettyo]

Corruption (and waste) should always affect lagre empires.
Without that, the winner could always be announced at around 0 AD.
Small general corruption would mean the empire manage to get the most territoy at start would always win the game which would make the game rather pointless.

Just like it almost was with civ1.

 

[kettyo]

...with CIVNET of course.
Beating the AI is possible in almost all situations.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Patch 1.10 was Beta. 1.11 and 1.12 obviously are not beta.

Why, just because they didn't include 'beta' after the numbers? Or just because they weren't the first version? Beta can have several versions. 'Beta' does not mean that only the very first version (1.10) can be called this. If that was the case, then very few people actually tested the 'true' beta version, because there was updates to the original beta version during testing.

Example: The programmers probably make a new version on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. They make changes and send (version 1.10) to Quality Control, then QC finds some errors, bugs, or they decide to add/change more stuff. The programmers do that stuff and then by the next week or so release 1.11 to QC for more testing. Rinse and repeat.

Don't be fooled by the numbers.

They had already said that we would be getting a BETA version, and that the final version won't be released until January.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

Are volcanos working different for anyone?

So far in my present epic game, all volcanos have only polluted the actual volcano tile and no surrounding tiles (that i have noticed thus far.)

edit: never mind

 

[McBeer]

it seems, that i'm the only one who has problems after installing the beta-patch

everyone of u is able to play c3c v.1.12

i can't play c3c v.1.12

but when i'm the only one, there will be no help for me

so, i have to re-install c3c and wait for the "real" patch

btw: i like c3c but i want the aerial view back in sp-scenarios

 

[tomart109]

As we seem to be awaiting clarification of what v.1.12 does (and whether this is what it's supposed to do!...) ...I've been playing civ3, ptw and c3c almost every day for two years now, and I just want to add my .02 on corruption.

The game is supposed to be fun. Overcoming challenges is part of the fun, but being forced to waste time and precious shields building things whose sole purpose is to not waste so many shields... that's not fun, it's punitive. But over the top for me, was building Courthouses and finding that sometimes They Don't Help At All. Frustration, anger and disgust. Please let them WORK.

Try the (excellent) Age of Discovery Conquest. You'll see that they sharply reduced the corruption factor so that (imagine this!) Overseas Colonies Can Be Worth Building! Gee, What a Concept!!! (Is this historical? The answer is yes.) I asked why this clear lesson wasn't brought back to the epic game, but i guess they had their reasons.

I don't mod my games, but since they built a corruption/waste slider into the editor, I've reduced their chosen level to "more reasonable", and now enjoy the games immensely, as I love to build large empires. (And hate to see my civ's life blood hemorraging into the sand.) Some players enjoy a different corruption factor than others, and that's fine. It's a Solitaire Game. So I'm extremely grateful for that innovation. I increased the OCN also.

And for the record, we've gotten used to how the FP works, and FYI, it worked that way all through the beta test. For someone to come along now and say, "oh, they can fiddle with it if they want to" is throwing away, ignoring all the months of time and effort hundreds of people put into making this game work, and balancing the elements. Not to mention that this would open another can of unnecessary worms that should be tested all over again. So please, if you've changed the FP, let us know, so we can REALLY start to rant!!!!!!!

Remember when that patch (the 9th or 10th wasn't it?) broke the FP? It didn't work at all for the week or so til the next patch. This was from the unholy fixation with some corruption "exploit" that I and 98% of civvers still don't understand or care about. The fix broke the game. I suspect that's what happened here, again.

Please don't fix what ain't broke.

 

[Commander Bello]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy


Why, just because they didn't include 'beta' after the numbers? Or just because they weren't the first version? Beta can have several versions. 'Beta' does not mean that only the very first version (1.10) can be called this. If that was the case, then very few people actually tested the 'true' beta version, because there was updates to the original beta version during testing.

Example: The programmers probably make a new version on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. They make changes and send (version 1.10) to Quality Control, then QC finds some errors, bugs, or they decide to add/change more stuff. The programmers do that stuff and then by the next week or so release 1.11 to QC for more testing. Rinse and repeat.

Don't be fooled by the numbers.

They had already said that we would be getting a BETA version, and that the final version won't be released until January.

** off-topic mode on **
Bamspeedy,

I know about how version number are built and for that, your description is correct.
Nevertheless, the magic word "BETA" has been thrown in the discussion once in the beginning and everyone hopped onto it. Quite understandeable, since we were all desperately waiting for a fix and so the chorus claimed: "oh.. please release it, even if it is BETA".
Now, if we would assume that versions 1.11 and 1.12 are Betas as well, then this would put a very bright light on what is going on over there:
The change made the game functionality to not longer being in accordance with the states rules. That means, they obviously are not clear about the rules by themselves. At various points in the description it has been mentioned, how the FP was intended to work in the past. Since it is not that difficult to change these lines, the pure fact that they haven't changed them already strengthens my position. They just don't know, that they are no longer following their own rules (This would explain, why they didn't mention this changed functionality at all)
Then, after they have done something (still, they just don't know exactly, what they did), they release the "patch" internally and somebody has the task to maintain the readme.txt. This person obviously is not informed about, what is going on, either. Otherwise, 1.11 and 1.12 would have been described as BETA as well (since they made pretty clear that 1.10 wasBETA)
But, since it is that obvious in the readme.txt that 1.10 was marked as BETA, it is very strange that the same expression is not used for 1.11 and 1.12 - as long as they are still considered to be BETA. If they are not, the readme is correct.
However you turn it, they definetely have a problem in the area of project management at the moment.

** off-topic mode off **

 

[Azadre]

Why is everyone complaining? It isn't an official release, you can't find it on Civ3.com now can you?

 

[The Last Conformist]

If anyone from Firaxis is following this, please answer my question from post #205:

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.

 

[NiteCreature]

Wow, what a thread lot of concerns...I haven't patched my civ yet, but i wanted to say This patch IS a beta, because there will be another patch Since the first patch cam out it was a beta, because patches followed... HEY even c3c is beta No THAT's a revelation! Beta is the state which the programm is in after most development has been done but it isn't finished yet... is c3c finished?