Don't bother with BtS 3.03

[Wolfshanze]

Have been playing BtS without problems since it came out... against my better judgement (if it ain't broke, don't fix it), I installed BtS version 3.03 today.

Immediately I noticed nothing improved, but stuff definately messed-up... especially COMBAT ANIMATIONS.

Units would get killed, then magically stand right back up and keep fighting ON BOTH SIDES. An entire side might get whiped out, then it would say that side won the battle... combat animations became totally useless as to who won the battle, and the only way to tell was to view the battle text after it was over. I'm not the only person this has happened to.

Definately seems to be directly tied to v3.03. Combat animations (which worked fine in 3.00) are now broken in v3.03. I immediately uninstalled BtS v3.03 and reinstalled BtS v3.00... magically my combat animations started working again.

v3.03 is garbage... don't bother.

 

[Tinman92791]

3.03 didn't mess with any animations

From Firaxis
"- Fixes User Account Control Vista issue - Includes correct version of DirectX - Updates GameCoreDLL version"

 

[Alkyon]

So, I'm not the only one who had those crazy combat animations, it seems as though whoever "wins" in the animation is actually the loser.

Have you had any problem with crashes to desktop while surfing the civilopedia as well?

 

[Tinman92791]

wait, what? I said that the patch didn't mess with graphics or anything, I haven't had any problems with it, actually.

 

[Virulent]

3.03 does cause crashes by clicking on certain links in the Civilopedia. Honestly unless you play mulitplayer I wouldn't bother with it.

 

[weimingshi]

Ya this patch is messed up, anyway to unintalled it back to 3.02??????? There is definately combat animation anomally.

 

[Dan Quale]

I sincerely hope it fixed ...snip... poison water supply on marathon, if it did i can finally go back to diety hopefully. Seriously on immortal and above, it seems like every other turn a city is getting completely destroyed, by that ...snip... and I need to quickly slave away the whole pop, before it dies anyway.

 

[vilemerchant]

I sincerely hope it fixed ...snip... poison water supply on marathon, if it did i can finally go back to diety hopefully. Seriously on immortal and above, it seems like every other turn a city is getting completely destroyed, by that ...snip... and I need to quickly slave away the whole pop, before it dies anyway.

It doesn't, it fixes nothing. Just put 3.02 on and install the Solver unofficial patch.

 

[Wolfshanze]

3.03 didn't mess with any animations

From Firaxis
"- Fixes User Account Control Vista issue - Includes correct version of DirectX - Updates GameCoreDLL version"

You can say whatever you want reading from a TXT file... the truth is in the actual gameplay.

I'm not the only person this has happened to... I've read at least several reports from differant folks who all had the EXACT SAME PROBLEM when updating to v3.03 that combat animations get completely dorked-up. I can definately confirm from my own personal experience that pre-3.03 worked fine, switching to 3.03 messed-up my combat animations, and going back to a previous non-3.03 version restored my combat animations back to normal. Are you telling me I'm not experiencing these problems and it's all in my head because of a quote from a TXT file? I don't think so.

v3.03 ruined my combat animations, and I'm not going to use it ever again.

If anyone else has made the mistake of 'upgrading' to v3.03 and wants to go back to an earlier version, simply uninstall BtS (not Civ4) then reinstall BtS sans-3.03 upgrade. Doing so restored my combat animations to working as normal.

 

[Carch]

Yep, you're not imagining things.

3.0.3 messed up my combat animations too. I'm uninstalling it.

 

[Methos]

For those of you who are having animation troubles, what version do you have? For example, the German version, etc.

 

[Carch]

I have the US version.

People who aren't seeing problems may have the "Single Unit Graphics" preference set.

 

[kazapp]

I haven't installed any patch so far.

Waiting for some real content (bug fixes, rebalancing tweaks etc) before I do.

Then again, I'm not into multiplayer and my graphics is fine.

 

[toft]

For those of you who are having animation troubles, what version do you have? For example, the German version, etc.

I have the UK version I think... live in Denmark And have had some weird combat animations after this patch. But on the other hand it must be said, that the "patch" made my turn-waiting-times much, much better. And yes, Im running Vista

I can live with the combat animation bug, but it crashes very often in the pedia

 

[joasoze]

I have animation troubles. I live in Norway and i guess that means that I have UK version?

 

[jimbob27]

I've always had weird combat animations... with every version. Most of the time they're fine, but about 1 in 20 or so... something strange happens. I use the regular uk version.

 

[RedRalph]

I'm having combat issues... just the graphics though, the actual outcomes of fights dont seem to be affected. I doubt theres an Irish version so I presume we have the UK one

 

[Wolfshanze]

I have the US version... never had a crash or a bug previous to installing the 3.03 patch. Once 3.03 patch was installed, nothing but dead guys getting back up (literally) and continuing to fight... seemed like Night of the Living Dead... corpses would just reanimate and come back to life after you killed them!

Definately not what I expected or wanted.

Lesson-learned... if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Last time I upgrade when I don't have a problem in the first place... happy to be playing the default US version out of the box... I've had no problems or crashes or weird combat animations with the default version... Firaxis introduced a bug, whether they want to document it or not in the v3.03 patch.

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

Don't know why anyone runs with out the single unit graphics turned on. It has always made a huge difference in my game time.

 

[jray]

Yeah, classic case of a versioning mixup by Firaxis. As a software developer I've seen it (and caused it) many times . Some bit of code got accidentally propagated into 3.03 where it didn't belong. Shame they didn't do any playtesting... they undoubtedly had to rush it out to comply with the Windows Logo requirements since 3.02 didn't include the proper DirectX version for some systems.