Finishing Games

[Rapier]

How often have you actually finished a game of RiFE?

In this latest patch I haven't made it to the end of any game from Standard to Huge, with a variable number of civilisations (usually a little more than the size recommends but sometimes less). At some point there's always some kind of constant crash, or else every other turn is a crash and the will to keep going begins to wavier. This point is usually several hundred turns in (it was more than 450 in my current Cuali game, and that's huge size with 14 or so civs. )

I noticed this was mentioned several times by different people throughout the bug thread and thought it deserved highlighting in it's own thread. It may just be me and a few others getting a rare issue that most people don't get, or it may be a lot more common.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I usually can finish a game when I force my self to do it. But this said, I usually quit when a victory is within reach to bored to pursue it. So I count that as completing a game.

Also, I usually play under the same conditions you do. But I newer play above large to avoid the kind of problems you are having. And for the most part, the game works fine for me. I also avoid raging barbarians, barbarian world, wild mana or any of the other options that strain the game too much.

 

[Jarwy]

I rarely get permanent CDTs nowadays. Usually it's just a random crash that goes away with a reload.

 

[Rapier]

I usually don't play such large games as this one. (it's the largest I've tried since the patch), I however, seem to get issues in all games at some point, even in a tiny map with no added teams.

I too usually get random crashes that don't persist after a reload (except in multi-player where if both people crash at once it seems to be over). However I often find that the crashes begin to happen every few turns, and eventually it becomes too much.

 

[inuyashasama]

Try deactivating all modules.

 

[Gravage]

Fraid I hardly ever finish my games due to crashes at the end. Then again, Im probably taxing my comp too much with raging barbs, 20 civs and a huge map. Still though, recently started a 8 player large map which started crashing just after the AC hit 100, which was a shame, cause all my units were pretty much gone and it was turning very, very interesting.

Anyway. As annoying as it is that I cant get to finish a game, my score always goes up at an exponential rate, so the most interesting stuff happens in the beginning, after a while I just know that a conquest victory is inevitable if I put enough time in it, and that just gets boring after a while.

 

[LordDeTracy]

I keep running into a crash somewhere between turn 70-140 on quick speed. I dont believe its a specific civ or a module(cause i have turned them all off before), i pointed out in the bug thread that it wasnt a building/unit being made by a civ, so it lead me to believe it being a barb spawn or a great person spawn. So after alot of games of trial and error each with different settings, i can now completely finish a game with wildmana, full mods, basically completely customized the way i want EXCEPT the thing that is causing the crash bug. I disabled barbarian civ and demon spawn civ, so its one of their units that is spawning that crashes the game. (the big boss barbs still spawn)

 

[Calavente]

no crash.
But at the ends it becomes a bit boring.
once the first tier IV is reached, everything becomes a bit too easy.
virtuous cycles:
1st tier IV leads to next civ crush leads to big empire, leads to more cities + much more ressources, leads to corporation/guilds very very useful, leads to plenty , , leads to tier III techs in 1-2 turns, tiers IV techs in 3-4 turns; leads to another tierIV tech, leads to ability to crush anybody in 3-4 turns... but they are so far away you need 20 turns just to amass your units and get to the very-good-friend-that'll-become-the-(soon-dead)-bad-guy.

 

[Jarwy]

no crash.
But at the ends it becomes a bit boring.
once the first tier IV is reached, everything becomes a bit too easy.
virtuous cycles:
1st tier IV leads to next civ crush leads to big empire, leads to more cities + much more ressources, leads to corporation/guilds very very useful, leads to plenty , , leads to tier III techs in 1-2 turns, tiers IV techs in 3-4 turns; leads to another tierIV tech, leads to ability to crush anybody in 3-4 turns... but they are so far away you need 20 turns just to amass your units and get to the very-good-friend-that'll-become-the-(soon-dead)-bad-guy.

Typical problem of the civilization series.

It is not present for me in FFH2 because I approach each game from a roleplayers perspective and if it gets to the point where I am overpowering everyone else and I know I will win soon I can happily call the game finished. I don't see why you would absolutely *have to* finish every game to enjoy playing.

 

[Oranos]

Typical problem of the civilization series.

It is not present for me in FFH2 because I approach each game from a roleplayers perspective and if it gets to the point where I am overpowering everyone else and I know I will win soon I can happily call the game finished. I don't see why you would absolutely *have to* finish every game to enjoy playing.

I'm with you here. Roleplaying each civ makes the game fare more enjoyable, even if I rarely finish a game. It is a little disappointing that the games get monotonous in the late game, but that has been a problem since the beginning of time.

 

[Calavente]

Well, I don't feel constrained to finish.
It's just that once in a while I would like to finish.

Maybe the issue is that I forbid tech brokering... so the AI tech slowly ?
or that they are not powerful enough ? they don't even reach tier III, or not enough cities ? not enough improvements ?

 

[opelcity]

so far not once.

No matter what Civs I take, how small/big the map ist or what modules I use, I usually get to a point around Turn 300 when the game crashes on every second turn.

 

[Rapier]

I have no problem with calling a game when I'm going to win but haven't yet - and more rarely I've called games when I'm going to lose (that only really occurs in multi-player where my team would rather start a new game than peruse a clear loss).

I also generally enjoy playing civs to there theme (although I also enjoy getting to play oddball versions due to quirks in the map, like Cuali with earth mana all game because of the Mountain special feature).

However I'm not really talking about getting to a clear win then crashing and deciding that's game. I'm talking about not having a clear win but having crashes start, obviously the larger the map, the more civilisations and so on, the greater taxation so the higher risk (which I accepted going into the game I mentioned in post 1, I wanted to see how much better it was with the new patch, than in the previous version).

The general theme of answers (admittedly that's only 8 or so of us) is that we don't get to finish, and I think that's something which needs looking into. While I agree that the late game could do with being fleshed out a bit more (Although I think late game Rise of Erebus is far better than late game CivIV: Beyond the Sword), it doesn't seem like it's worth the time to develop right now because I at least, so rarely get to play it for more than a 20 turns or so before I get tired of reloading.

It's especially annoying when you need really late game techs to get out your hero units and so can't stomp around with them much/at all. In any case I'm glad that I'm not the only one that has noticed this trend in my games.

Oh and, you definitely should play with technology brokering allowed, the computer is massively hurt and very poor competition if you don't allow it. (It's better than base civ without it, but not by much ), even though thematically I've never really liked the idea of trading tech the ai really can't handle not being allowed.

 

[Schwarzbart]

I usual End my games when I could start the Final Step of Tower of Mastery or the Altar.

 

[Sarisin]

A better question might be who's STARTING games?

I've played quite a few games with the version released on 8/1 and just grew tired of the things awaiting a patch to be fixed, CTDs, etc. and decided to give it a rest until the new version magically appears. I haven't started a game for about 3 weeks or so.

I can appreciate the time and effort that goes into this game and also the lack of time the developers have to devote to its patching/improvement/new features. However, there just comes a time when you get a little tired of having the same Blight bug burn you twice, health issues, CTDs, etc. ruin an otherwise fun game.

So, I am just being patient and waiting for that glorious day when I open this forum and see activity in the Change/Download thread.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

A better question might be who's STARTING games?

Not me. Between the constant tinkering with my module I don't actually get to keep one working save game any more.

 

[Jarwy]

A better question might be who's STARTING games?

Started a huge erebus map few days ago, playing Am-i-rite, with ice age so that frost slowly melts away for extra difficulty except... that it doesn't. 500 turns in and most of the world is still frost and tundra. Poor AI is so confused while I now sit in my terraformed piece of paradise in the middle of frozen earth.

I think it has something to do with *huge* map. Ice was melting for a while, then it just stopped, having only melted a fraction of the continent.

Luckily Illians did not spawn for this was really a flavour map for them.

 

[Tschuggi]

2 months ago I tried my last game with rife... today I gave it a new try: all modules disabled, fresh start via "play now". Turn 95 CTD. See ya in two months... with rife 1.????.????

 

[Calavente]

I turn off (for the Ai) :
Jotnar,
Mazalt,
Cualli,
Scion,
the Legion of D'tesh
(As I think they are Imba or that the AI won't know how to use them)
Never Had any CTD in 4 games.

Maybe there is a link... (or maybe it is that I still use xp and not win7)

 

[Torugu]

Neither those civs nor using Win7 causes any problems for me.

My guess is that most repeatable CTDs are caused by dying treasure chest, a bug which has been fixed in 1.31. Of course I can't say for sure until Valk gets around to releasing it to dirty non-team commoners like myself .