Conquests Beta Patch Now Available

[JazzToucan]

Originally posted by The_Inforcer
Let's remind ourselves that these programmers are working, that means their getting paid by firaxis, to release a patch that will bring no income or cover the loss of the pay once so ever.

Ok, two final thoughts on that:

1) Yes, the programmers are working and getting paid. End of story regarding the programmers. It's not the same as donating time at a soup kitchen.

2) Although technically you are right that the patch itself will not generate immediate money, all companies have -- in some form or another -- a thing known as "customer service." This includes taking phone calls, responding to e-mails, and fixing problems and mistakes in the product. All of this is provided at no charge to the consumer. Why do companies do this? Ethics? No, they do it as it makes good business sense. A company that provided no or relatively poor customer service would experience a drop off in future sales. Consider the patch part of the overhead cost of customer service: the return in investment is not immediate, but it also isn't non-existant (since Civ 4 is on the horizon).

That said, I think Atari/Firaxis/Breakaway has done a good job in the customer service department of releasing the patch.

 

[JBConquests]

I work in development for a large company (not games) and agree that software can and should be released with high quality. Obvious bugs like the corruption issues and the FP shouldn't be missed. However, there are always bugs that will be missed, that is the nature of software development. Being as familiar with management as I am, I am guessing that this was pushed out the door sooner than probably the developers would have liked. So please, if you are going to flame anyone, flame the management, not the developers. Developers don't typically have a say when a product releases. The developers should be applauded because I would guess they are putting in way more hours than the typical 40 hour work week and that Is NOT JUST DOING THEIR JOB!!!!!!

As far as this beta patch goes, releasing a public beta IS a service and the company should be applauded. You, the game player are receiving a benefit, you are allowed the opportunity to provide feedback and possibly get something changed in the patch before it releases. They could have just released the patch and ignored these boards completely as many game development shops do.

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[betazed]

This maybe off topic but I have a feeling that we are not going to see a completely bug free conquests patch anytime soon (call me a pessimist). I say this owing to two reasons

(a) It seems new bugs (features?!!!) are creeping in as unintended side effects. This usually points to poorly designed software that has not been architected with sound software engineering guidelines (specifically in this case no loose coupling of code blocks; instead tightly coupled blocks). Thus as they fix each bug there is a potential that new ones will be introduced.

(b) I get the feeling that major parts of conquests were a rewrite. Known working modules were tampered with (combat calculator, corruption, trade etc. etc). Being a rewrite is usually not a problem unless it was poorly architected. Which seems to be the case because of (a).

I am hoping I am wrong and come january/february 2004 a nice patch comes out to prove me wrong. But I am not holding my breath here...

 

[JazzToucan]

Originally posted by JBConquests
The developers should be applauded because I would guess they are putting in way more hours than the typical 40 hour work week and that Is NOT JUST DOING THEIR JOB!!!!!!

Mmmmmm.... ggghhh... ooooohhh....

I can't bite my tongue... Yes, it is their job. Just because somone works over 40 hours a week and isn't working on an hourly wage basis, doesn't mean what they are doing is above and beyond their job description. My salary is fixed, but if I went into the managing partner's office and said I wasn't working more than 40 hours a week I would be fired because the firms workload requires me (and most every other attorney, or any other job really) to work more. If they are getting paid on an hourly basis, well, that just shoots down the argument altogether.

Hey, look, I'm sure they are all nice guys and gals and I have been pleased with the work in the past, that's why I shelled out $25 for Conquests, $25 for PTW, and $40 or whatever I paid for Civ 3. Without our consumers dollars, they wouldn't be getting a pay check. And if Firaxis or Atari or Pepsi or any number of large corporations didn't sue each other, I wouldn't have a paycheck. I did my part, they did theirs. Another happy business transaction and the cycle of life continues.

 

[Salamandre]

FP is not working, as you can notice... even worse than before the patch. Anyone got this nonsense screen? I dont know how to put the screen here, but is 6 shields RED out of 7


Shame


How do you put image here please?

 

[JBConquests]

quote:
Yes, it is their job. Just because somone works over 40 hours a week and isn't working on an hourly wage basis, doesn't mean what they are doing is above and beyond their job description.

You are right, they are most likely expected to work lots of hours, but... They could just quit and go get a job somewhere that pays high wages and work only 40 hours a week. Those jobs are easy to find if you are a talented developer. But they don't. They are dedicated enough to sacrifice their personal lives for these projects. And that is what should be admired.

 

[JazzToucan]

Well... I can't know for sure if that's true. But if it is, hat's off!

 

[JazzToucan]

Originally posted by Salamandre
FP is not working, as you can notice... even worse than before the patch. Anyone got this nonsense screen? I dont know how to put the screen here, but is 6 shields RED out of 7


Shame


How do you put image here please?

Quickest way is to use the attach file function below under the text box.

 

[Goober]

Ok, I am terribly confused. Some questions/comments:

1) From what I understand, I DO NOT see what this whole fuss is about. The FP is suppose to ACT LIKE a second palace, not BE a second palace and completely reduce corruption. I have a solution to this:

a) Don't build the bloody thing. If you believe that it actually INCREASES corruption, then don't build it, and stop complaining.

b) Is the FP realistic anyway? Historially, nations have had ONE capital city, with ONE Palace. I do not see where a FP fits in with history. If we just removed it from the game, and made Police Stations remove more corruption, or have another city improvment to reduce corruption, would this not solve the problem?

2) How does does this affect Communism and the SPHQ? this is very important to me since I almost always end my game in Communism, my favorite government type. The SPHQ is supposed to be a second FP, does it actually INCREASE corruption as well, as some claim the FP does? And will Communism have more corruption spread around?

3) Just to clarify: We CANNOT choose "random" for our Civ in MP games. This applies to all HUMAN players only, correct? And can we still choose random for all the game settings, such as land size, type, etc.?

(Just to put my 2 cents into this whole debate raging here: I think C3C is still the greatest thing since Chocolate, and I think, no, I KNOW that Firaxis did an excellent job putting it together. Comgratulations for creating an excellent game, and making me very happy, BTW. I have actually never noticed the "increased" corruption of the FP btw, or the SPHQ, for that matter. Firaxis made this product, and they are providing a FREE Fix for it, based on complaints, the way things should happen. Great customer service, BTW.)

As a last note (long post, I know), I havent actually installed the patch, and I might not depending on the answers I get to my communism queries.

 

[JazzToucan]

Originally posted by RealGoober
Ok, I am terribly confused. Some questions/comments:

b) Is the FP realistic anyway? Historially, nations have had ONE capital city, with ONE Palace. I do not see where a FP fits in with history. If we just removed it from the game, and made Police Stations remove more corruption, or have another city improvment to reduce corruption, would this not solve the problem?

It might be a stretched analogy but how about the division of the Roman Empire with Rome and Constantinople?

 

[Goober]

Originally posted by JazzToucan


It might be a stretched analogy but how about the division of the Roman Empire with Rome and Constantinople?

Stretched analogy. Rome really split into TWO seperate nations, East and West Rome. Those two cities had palaces of two seperate nations. And that would account for 1 Civ, what about the other 30?

 

[GenMarshall]

Oy, quite a big DL here o_O

 

[Birdjaguar]

In the past, Monarchies often had summer and winter palaces; The "capital" was where ever the king and court were at the moment. If I recall correctly, the notion of a single capital city arises when elected or selected representatives need a place to meet on a regular basis. As representative governments became popular a single seat of power was more important.

Saddam had lots of palaces in Iraq and I'm they reduced corruption considerably.

 

[SirPleb]

There seems to be some disagreement about what the Forbidden Palace should do.

I suggest using its description from the Civilopedia. If you disagree with this, please suggest why another definition should be considered to be more correct

The Civilopedia says that the FP:

"Gives the benefit of a second Palace located in the city that builds it."

That seems pretty clear. It doesn't say "Gives part of" nor does it say "is like". Exactly what it says is the way that most players assumed FP worked in CivIII and in PTW, before the rank bug was noticed. And aside from the rank bug, that's the way it did work. And there's been no suggestion from Firaxis that they've decided it ought to start working differently.

 

[kring]

Originally posted by SirPleb
There seems to be some disagreement about what the Forbidden Palace should do.

I suggest using its description from the Civilopedia. If you disagree with this, please suggest why another definition should be considered to be more correct

The Civilopedia says that the FP:

"Gives the benefit of a second Palace located in the city that builds it."

That seems pretty clear. It doesn't say "Gives part of" nor does it say "is like". Exactly what it says is the way that most players assumed FP worked in CivIII and in PTW, before the rank bug was noticed. And aside from the rank bug, that's the way it did work. And there's been no suggestion from Firaxis that they've decided it ought to start working differently.

Post 122 (second post on the link below):


http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72774&perpage=40&display=&pagenumber=4

Originally posted by Tavis
Save Games - You can continue your save games. However, the problem is the save includes the corruptionandwaste for each city so when you load it thats where it continues the calculation. As your progress through turns the calculation will take affect.


It should be noted that Forbidden Palaces are not supposed to 'eliminate' corruption in the home city. They just 'reduce corruption' and act 'like a 2nd palace'. A city that has a Forbidden Palace will not be corrupt-free. However, combinations of good trade ways, city placement, government choice, local military forces, and other buildings can reduce your corruption to a minimal amount.

Also, this 'minimal corruption' is amplified when playing on higher difficulty levels.

Keep the feedback coming! We hurried to get this out and couldn't run through the lists making more fixes. You will see the focus more heavily on the issues you have been announcing.

Thanks,

Jesse

 

[planetfall]

For what it's worth, here are my preliminary testing results:

1. Patch seems stable
Has not crashed the game yet. Installation was a nightmare on XP but seems to be working as expected.'

2. Unrecorded bug seems to be fixed.
In initial C3C, a roaded luxury resource, i.e. spice, on a tile 3 tiles from city center and without a colony, still was counted in the luxuries available to AI civ.

3. RCP is fixed
The same size cities in equal distance from capital now have different waste and corruption values.

4. Excess corruption is removed
I don't have figures from C3 or PTW but C3C patched feels like similar corruption to old.
Thus epic SP game seems playable as a patched version, but it is not yet at a version equal to C3 or PTW. However since I have finished the scenarios, it does give something to explore.

5. Games have to be restarted
Unlike PTW patches, applied the patch only applies the benefits to new games and not to existing games.

6. FP effect drastically changed
In C3 and PTW, corruption in a FP city was very close, if not the same, as the Capital. Shield loss would be at most 1 or 2 shields.

With beta patch, and city size 12 11 tiles from capital and no cities at further distance, we see bad corruption and waste even after building the FP and waiting one turn to be sure recalcs have taken place.

Shields available are 7/14, 50%.
Commerce available is 9/16, 56%.

Expected values were: shields 12/14 or 13/14, commerce 14/16 or 15/16.

I presume this is either an unexpected consequence of fixing the RCP problem, or new programmers/managers not understanding how the FP was supposed to effect the game. Since the definition has not changed, I presume this will be THE BUG to fix before FCS of Public Patch.

7. RFE for XP
It would be very, very helpful to have a log file created during the install so we can verify files were installed properly. This patch broke my user's ability to run C3C on XP and I have to use creative workarounds just to play C3C.

== PF

 

[Goober]

So then the FP IS another palace, located somewhere else, is NOT LIKE a second palace that gives only some of the benefits. If I understand this latest development, the FP and the SPHQ should eliminate corruption in the cities they are cuilt in. Going with that, Firaxis has indeed messed up, and my previous comments may be wrong. Only a reply from Firaxis will likely ever solve this dispute.

BTW, Firaxis did make some changes to the Civilopedia with the new patch, was the patch installed when you read the Civilopedia?

 

[planetfall]

Kring,

Jesse's quote you referred to shows the NEW understanding of the FP but not the traditional definition as distributed in C3 and PTW.

The problem with C3C is not with a change per se, but with an unannounced change of a basic method of combatting the games corruption and waste. Without highlights of significant changes in game play, results after the Patch are to be correctly interpretted as a bug with the patch.

== PF

 

[planetfall]

Originally posted by RealGoober

BTW, Firaxis did make some changes to the Civilopedia with the new patch, was the patch installed when you read the Civilopedia? [/B]

AFTER PATCH, definitions are:
Palace
It eliminates corruption/waste in the capital and decreases it in nearby cities

FP
Gives the benefits of a second Palace located in the city that builds it.
Cumulative with Secret Police HQ.

Secret Police HQ
Gives the benefits of a second Palace located in the city that builds it.
Cumulative with Forbidden Palace


THUS, I was wrong. According to definitions there should be ZERO, 0 red shields or red gold in any of the following cities:

1-- capital city
2-- forbidden palace city
3-- Secret Police HQ city.

In both C3C and PTW the FP worked exactly as the Capital and yet both were broken and had some red shields and red gold.


Begin rant.
Since I hate the way corruption and waste has been developed in this game, if this problem is not adequately addressed in the final patch, I will have to reevaluate my participation. No, this is not a threat, it is just building frustration with a key component of the game. People who have played awhile should not have to start at square one every time a new patch comes out. Maybe with a new version, but definitely not with a any patch.
End rant.

== PF

 

[SirPleb]

I've been doing a bit of testing and the results are not pretty.

I used a huge map with a Palace and FP widely separated but connected by road. (I connected all cities I added in the tests.) I used Regent level. So NOPT is 33 for the tests I think. Note that the results I report below will almost certainly happen with many less cities if one tries this with smaller maps and higher difficulty levels.

I put 4 cities near the FP.

I then added more and more cities around the Palace to see whether that affected corruption in the FP region, and it did.

With 25 cities around the Palace, waste at the FP was 2 of 6 shields.

With 35 cities around the Palace, waste at the FP was 3 of 6 shields.

With 70 cities around the Palace, waste at the FP was 5 of 6 shields.

And in all cases, waste in the four cities around the FP was as one would expect, a bit higher than waste at the FP (except when it was already maxed out of course.)

Bottom line: It seems that if you put enough cities around the Palace (the number will depend on map size and difficulty) then the Forbidden Palace will have no effect on your game - it and the cities around it will remain fully corrupt.

This sure doesn't seem right to me. I think I won't be playing Conquests until at least one more round of patch.