For all the complaining about bugs/missed features.

[techy]

I'm sure most of you are aware of what goes into making a game with the wealth of options that CIV3 gives.

Think about how the operating systems move on in the time it takes to develop the game, how drivers are changed etc... Dosn't make it easy to keep bugs down.
If you can't live with it why did you buy the game when it was first released rather than wait a few months for bugs to be sorted? Or even why not go play on a console?

Reason because you want the latest and the best and you want it now!
For those that complain that the game shouldn't have been released I say there are at least 4 people or more for each of you that would rather the game was released with bugs than wait another month or two.

For those that complain about the bugs for human players only, these are quick and easy to get around by a human player in the most and can be fixed later. Some say these are show stoppers, I think not especially with the ability to customise units etc.. to remove particular issues. If you don't like something mod it for now until a patch is released.

For those that say shouldn't these bugs that occur so obviously for human player have been found in playtesting, well maybe they did show up, but maybe these were late additions to the game and time ran out before release date to put fix in.
I seem to have read alot of posts about bugs for human player but not so many for the AI, and I have even read some e-mails showing that the AI is good! Surprise attacks ignoring hard targets and going for the riches.
Now in a game with this many strategies how difficult do you think it is to program that sort of AI?

This is where this game shines head and shoulders above all else and which is why people get so annoyed with the bugs that are there. The game offers such a deep experience that when a bug brings it crashing down, the low is just that much lower.

I have played Shogun and all other major strategy releases (Not EU2 yet though) and they all suffer from poor AI. There is no substitute for a human player in those games but with CIV 3 I think the AI does a fantastic job. Don't lose sight of that. It would have been very easy for Firaxis to release a multi-player game with all the bugs fixed for human players but with crap/bugged AI but that's not what most of us would want.


Now onto posts like why didn't they put this in or that, think about this more deeply when making suggestions. Like how would you program the AI to make the decsions it has to make with these additional ideas. Some of them would be a nightmare to do and may even slow the game down considerably if implemented.
There has to be a balance. I bet the ideas people involved in CIV 3 came up with all raft of ideas during development time and would love to be able to implement everyone and make this game like real life, but it's jsut not possible to do currently.

Onto the realism and complaints like how did a swordsman kill my tank. This is a game with set parameters and rules. Units are representations not real life units etc..
A swordsman is not really just a swordsman it represents a group of men with a certain attack/defence factor. The unit name and graphic symbolises the period that you would find them in generally.

How difficult do you think it is for tanks to kill people in the open/ in trenches/ in trees/ mountains? It varies considerably. How often do you think in real life just a tank unit attacks just an infantry unit?
It dosn't happen but for this game that's the way it is.

Onto bombardment and airpower not being able to kill ground/sea units. Well I think bombardment/airpower should be able to destroy ships but not ground ground units.
How often have we seen it said over last few weeks in Afghanistan that airpower alone won't do it. You might kill 90% of a unit on the ground but you will never get them all, so I think this part of the game is very realistic and is a major step forward from past CIV games where simply getting a stack of bombers and wiping the map was too easy to win. It pushes the concept of combined arms into the CIV series and is very welcome.

All in all I think CIV 3 is a big step in the right direction and some people are just missing the main point of this game, and that is the AI!

 

[shirleyrocks]

Great post, Techy.

For a very interesting and indepth look at the Civ3 AI, I recommend reading this transcript of a chat room chat which 'stars' Soren Johnson, who wrote the AI for Civ3. There is a LOT of insight here, and the chat puts to rest many of the (false) arguments that are made time and time again in these threads. It's quite long, but Soren provides a lot of explanation about how the AI works and why certain features were or weren't included.



http://apolyton.net/misc/chat/civ3/civ3ai-1.shtml

 

[Mike C]

It is very difficult to build a house as well.

The issue is not with whether or not bugs exist or whether the game was released just to placate the fans who wanted the product buggy or not.

The issue is with false advertising. No matter how you slice or dice it, there is one inescapable and damning fact.

The game does not work in the manner as described on the box nor in the manner of the manual nor of the readme. They did not tell me before I purchased the game that it was incomplete or untested in any way, shape or form.

It boils down the tricking the customer into buying a product which did not perform as advertised. If it was any other industry, Firaxis would have been in big trouble.

Should Firaxis have come out in a public statement prior to the game or labeled visibly on its box that the game was untested or had bugs or had incomplete features, there would be no avenue of complaint.

 

[Endureth]

Can you imagine how it would have went over it Pac Man was buggy. Wouldn't have sucked if every time you took one of the paths that led to the other side of the screen made Pac Man lock up?

Imagine buying a fiction novel with tons of spelling errors and missing chapters that you're told will be released later.

Or even going to McDonalds and buying a Big Mac only to find out there is no meat.

In my eyes, that's how I feel when I buy a game with bugs the publisher/designers are aware of. You could easily say making games was easier then and bugs were easier to avoid but then you're missing the point.

The point is quality. Sure Civ III is a great game but the quality is just not up to par. Games should not be released with bugs that make it unplayable. The air superiority bug, to me, is a showstopper and it should have stopped the game from being released.

It's okay to be a fan of the game or of Sid Meier personally but don't let that blind you to the idea of how ALL game makers are starting to get into the habit of releasing half completed games knowing they're going to get your money anyway.

It's just sad. A good game, yes, but very sad.

Endureth

 

[Kimi]

The issue is not so much that it has bugs, but that so many of the bugs, such as locking up at the intro movie, could have been avoided with better beta testing.

 

[jdurg]

I think a problem that many people are having here is that they expected a completely bug-free, perfect game. In today's market, it is IMPOSSIBLE to release a game without there being any bugs. You just have to hope that any bugs which do exist won't be showstoppers.

That brings me to another point, I think people here are confused about the term "showstopper." A showstopping bug is one that makes it so that you CANNOT complete a game. That means a bug that causes a crash, locks up your computer, or erases a saved game. The air-superiority bug is not a showstopper. You can still complete the game without the air-superiority. Therefore, it is not a showstopper, but more of a nussiance. At least Firaxis is working on a patch. It could be much worse. They could have just decided never to release a patch, or released a patch that created true showstoppers. When they said that the patch was in its seventh testing phase, that's great news. It means that they are making sure that nothing is broken with the addition of the patch. I think this game is great, and the patch will only make it better. Will I remove the game just because the air units are useless? NO! I'm more civilized than that, and I can still play even without them.

 

[Mike C]

Originally posted by jdurg
I think a problem that many people are having here is that they expected a completely bug-free, perfect game. In today's market, it is IMPOSSIBLE to release a game without there being any bugs. You just have to hope that any bugs which do exist won't be showstoppers.

Ofcourse it is impossible. But there are some things which are the blantant result of lack of testing.

Once again, i will point out that this is a bug of exceptional magnitude. One that would have been discovered if a single person had managed to play through the game ONCE. There is no avoiding the fact that Air Superiority doesn't work.

Releasing software like that is unacceptable.

And no we don't have to just sit there and HOPE that they didn't have a lot of bugs. We as consumers have the right to demand a product be thourghly tested.

The AS 400s that run the business apps at my place of work nver have bugs. And this is a complex operating system many times more complicated than Civ 3. Does it have bugs? Sure. But none which are so devestating on the same level as Air Superiority affects Civ 3.

The fact is the game was pushed out the door with ZERO TESTING. That is WRONG.

 

[PaulNAdhe]

Originally posted by jdurg
I think a problem that many people are having here is that they expected a completely bug-free, perfect game. In today's market, it is IMPOSSIBLE to release a game without there being any bugs. You just have to hope that any bugs which do exist won't be showstoppers.

If someone wants a 'bug free' product they should look somewhere else (and don't look in the produce aisle of the market).

Microsoft, arguably the largest and most sophisticated software company in the world, is on patch 6a of their WinNT4 released 4 years ago.

I'll suffer many problems with a game, if I know the vendor is listening to my wails; and working to fix them.

 

[Thomas Davie]

Up above, you made the comment that

'It boils down the tricking the customer into buying a product which did not perform as advertised'.


When I bought the game, I was well aware that it would contain bugs. I was never under an impression that it would be bug free. Were you under the impression that it would be bug free? No, this isn't a snarky question; I'm really curious about it.

When I bought the game, I was doing so as a time killer, fully expecting it to be patched.

Now, about the air superiority bug? I can honestly say it doesn't affect me since I suck so badly at the game I've never gotten air power yet


Tom

 

[Kimi]

Originally posted by jdurg
That brings me to another point, I think people here are confused about the term "showstopper." A showstopping bug is one that makes it so that you CANNOT complete a game. That means a bug that causes a crash, locks up your computer, or erases a saved game...

There are more than enough of THOSE to go around also. I have 3 computers I can try the game on. All of them are WELL over the recommended specs - and all are different brands/models.

Yet on EVERY one I cannot get the game to run. On one it locks up at the into movie. On another I get a divide by zero error as soon as the game starts. On the third I get some kind of unable to draw error the first time I try to move a unit.

This tells me that the beta testing was almost nil, and that the game shipped with more bugs than AO - which was pretty much conceded to be one of the buggiest games ever released.

 

[slothman]

If you can't live with it why did you buy the game when it was first released rather than wait a few months for bugs to be sorted? Or even why not go play on a console?

I don't like consoles and when a game or any program, or anything for that matter, is released there should be no showstoppers.

posted by jdurg
hat brings me to another point, I think people here are confused about the term "showstopper." A showstopping bug is one that makes it so that you CANNOT complete a game.

What if there was a bug such that your, but not the AI's cities were ALWAYS had the minimum commerce,prod,food? You could play but it wouldn't be fun. It's a "showstopper of funness". You could play but only technically.

 

[Dearmad]

there is no meat in a big mac

 

[Galen Dietenger]

Sorry to say but I find your post to be a mix of non-sequiters and one that suffers from takeing too long to state a fairly simple message:

You dont like 'complainers' okay,that much is clear, what follows however often fails to follow through logically- like this one:

[/QUOTE]
Reason: because you want the latest and the best and you want it now!For those that complain that the game shouldn't have been released I say there are at least 4 people or more for each of you that would rather the game was released with bugs than wait another month or two.


- cite examples please? Im not sure what this is supposed to mean or how it can be even be demonstrated to be a factual (or even a good broad generalization). That ones a real stretch.


Then you speak about the AI
[/QUOTE]

This is where this game shines head and shoulders above all else and which is why people get so annoyed with the bugs that are there. The game offers such a deep experience that when a bug brings it crashing down, the low is just that much lower.

I have played Shogun and all other major strategy releases (Not EU2 yet though) and they all suffer from poor AI. There is no substitute for a human player in those games but with CIV 3 I think the AI does a fantastic job. Don't lose sight of that. It would have been very easy for Firaxis to release a multi-player game with all the bugs fixed for human players but with crap/bugged AI but that's not what most of us would want.


-Ok, here your saying All TBS's suffer from Poor AI and state that Civ3 is somehow does a fantastic job, how so?. Id have to challenge you to prove that one too, because its somewhat overstated. I myself cannot find any evidence Civ3's AI is any different to any other TBS or any other Sid Meir title. You seem to have forgetten Sid Meir titles have a well deserved reputuation for AI cheating and Civ3 is no different. In fact you can tell that (most) AI coders have abandoned any effort at improveing AI over the simpler(cheaper) time-proven method of AI buffing. Sorry to say there nothing revlolutionary or even evolutionary for that matter to Civ3. Imo, SMAC factions and leaders display much for consistency and 'believeabilty' to give an example.

The you continue on with yet another Non-sequiter about combat results.
[/QUOTE]
Onto the realism and complaints like how did a swordsman kill my tank. This is a game with set parameters and rules. Units are representations not real life units etc..
A swordsman is not really just a swordsman it represents a group of men with a certain attack/defence factor. The unit name and graphic symbolises the period that you would find them in generally.

This manages to be both blantanly obviuos AND yet somehow manages to mangle logic at the same time(some trick). ALL wargames units are abstracted to a certain degree-some more some less. Civ has always been very vague(very highly abstracted) on what a 'unit' really is but really..so what. The problem here is (Ill use my own experince on my game tonight to illustrate). Some of my mech. Inf (elites) were takeing 80% damage and forced to retreat-(and this happened fairly often too0 ..to Riflemen. Now heres where your poor anology falls apart. I *know* myself that a unit of modern mechanzied -trained infantry, with automatic weapons and tactics-would slaughter any riflemen(which are in effect civil war type units useing 19th century tactics and smoothbore rifles. I could discuss at great length why -but lets keep it short. Therefore when I see my MI retreating with 80% losses, I feel compelled to say..thats not right-and so do others.
You also go on about CIv3 bringing 'combined arms' to the forefront .Not quite im afraid-i myself have used 'combined arms tactics' in SMAC CIV2 and other TBS games ive played.(im sure others have as well outside civ3) I should also point out that CA is not as practical as you credit it. Artillery is too slow to keep up with my assault units and airpower in CIV3 is so impractical and in the end-hardly needed.Others have said the same thing-All you need is fast assualt units en masse-infantry to follow up. No airpower or cannons needed really. So much for CA's...

-Onto bombardment and airpower not being able to kill ground/sea units.(rest sniped)
The only really sensible point you make(sorry) and one we both agree on.

You finished again by referring to the AI being Civ3's 'big thing'-As I said above-im not really sure how this is the case. The AI is hardly awful -but then again-I dont see what makes it so special either.

Sorry man

 

[techy]

Oh dear Galen Dietenger you just about make my point for me.

In reply to my line:

A swordsman is not really just a swordsman it represents a group of men with a certain attack/defence factor


you come out with this trash:

This manages to be both blantanly obviuos AND yet somehow manages to mangle logic at the same time(some trick). ALL wargames units are abstracted to a certain degree-some more some less. Civ has always been very vague(very highly abstracted) on what a 'unit' really is but really..so what. The problem here is (Ill use my own experince on my game tonight to illustrate). Some of my mech. Inf (elites) were takeing 80% damage and forced to retreat-(and this happened fairly often too0 ..to Riflemen. Now heres where your poor anology falls apart. I *know* myself that a unit of modern mechanzied -trained infantry, with automatic weapons and tactics-would slaughter any riflemen(which are in effect civil war type units useing 19th century tactics and smoothbore rifles. I could discuss at great length why -but lets keep it short. Therefore when I see my MI retreating with 80% losses, I feel compelled to say..thats not right-and so do others.


A mech inf has 12 attack, a rifleman has 6 defence. So a rifleman would win 1/3 of the battles on average with no other modifiers in play. Any yet you seem totally suprised that Rifleman win at all.
If they are fortified they get 50% bonus!

So stop thinking like real life and start looking at the rules of the game and play to them and stop complaining it's not like real life!

As for the rest of my post it's from my own experience and the number of problems reported on this BB compared with the number of people talking about strategies etc...

As for the AI you'll just have to go read that link that Shirleyrocks posted.

 

[baberg]

It's becoming more and more aparent that the people who are complaining about software bugs, poor AI, and unrealistic battle results have never tried to program anything more complex than "Hello World".

I work in the flight simulator business as a computer programmer. Right now, I'm working on a simulator that has no AI to its threats, no visual displays, and nothing more complicated than "push button X, light switch Y". And it's hard as hell. I don't even want to IMAGINE having to try and write any kind of artificial intelligence to the threats, or trying to simulate a dogfight? Give me a break!

Software has bugs. We recently shipped a simulator that worked fine at our headquarters, but when they tested it at the Air Force Base, it had about a dozen bugs in it. Unexpected things do happen. Deal with it. To those of you who say that you've tried it on three different computers... when was the last time you updated drivers? Cleaned the registry? Reinstalled Windows? These things *do* have to be done, you know.

Last night I had a veteran mech infantry lose to a regular spearman fortified in a city. Did I get mad? Yes. Did I gasp and yell "No way!"? Yes. Did I stop playing the game because it was "horribly unbalanced"? Hell no. Battles are not deterministic. They are random. Read a book on statistics, then go back and try to complain about the battle results. Better yet, write yourself a computer program that will simulate the results of a million battles between your two favorite units, and see the results.

Yeah, Civ3 f-ed up on Air Superiority. So what? Don't use it. It's like sitting on a broken chair. You know that it won't work like it's supposed to, so instead of sitting in it, hoping that someday it will work, wait for the carpenter to come by and fix it for you.

I get so frustrated with people that have no experience, no logic, and most of all, no patience. If it was really that bad of an experience, then sell it on Half.com or auction it off at eBay, by yourself an Atari 2600 with a couple hundred of games, and stop wasting my time on this board.

 

[Kimi]

Originally posted by baberg
To those of you who say that you've tried it on three different computers... when was the last time you updated drivers? Cleaned the registry? Reinstalled Windows? These things *do* have to be done, you know.

Uhm, well how about last week?

Everyone of those things have been done and MUCH more - including a complete reinstall and total windows/driver update - and I STILL get the same error.
I have checked every single driver that might possibly have an effect, all to no avail - the game simply will not run on any of the 3 past the initial first 5 minutes or less.
On one computer I went out and installed a brand new video card, with all the latest drivers - woopdedoo - at least now DAOC runs faster. Too bad that CIV3 still crashes - I did make some progress on that one tho - I can now make *2* moves before it locks up instead of just one...

The game suffers from crappy beta testing among other things.

 

[VoodooAce]

Sure the ai is good, but just like the other games you mentioned, it doensn't come close to humans. Surely you're not suggesting it does.....

You try to say that in those other games, the ai is no substitution for humans. NO AI in ANY game can come close to playing against actual humans.

The AI is much smarter than before, but even the best ai is stupid in comparison.

 

[baberg]

Originally posted by Kimi

The game suffers from crappy beta testing among other things.

So, because you have found a system that cannot run the game, it must therefore have crappy beta testing? What?

Do you think that beta testing involves buying every piece of hardware available, and changing all the parts, getting each and every combination and permutation of them? What?

You have a problem running the game. That sucks. I think you should return the game, explaining to the store that it doesn't work. If they don't take it back, just uninstall it and sell it on eBay. In either case, just stop whining about it here.

 

[arnel]

I agree with baberg! there is just no way to test the system in all combinations. This is just fact of life on an open standard platform such as the PC.

Besides, there's hardly any game out there released initially that would work in all systems. There migth be some but it may be rare. If you are going to buy a new release game, a PC GAME for that matter, expect that there may be problems. It may work great on your system but that doesnt guarantee that it will work on others.

I have a lot of games and some of them still crashes even with all patches applied, all drivers updated, etc. It turns out is my PC Memory. I have to change the timings on my motherboard to make the game run correctly.

This is not to say that CIV3 doesnt have problems. It does, several of them in fact (air superiority, coastal fortress, etc) but these are not showstoppers. I would ratehr have the game now than wait until they have it all fixed (of course different people have different priorities). Just hope that they get fixed in the patch.

I dont mind people posting complaints here. Hey, its a free country. It even helps those that do not have the game yet to give them a much better insight about the game (As you know, magazine game reviews are not always accurate nor are they in-depth.) Its just that people should know that any new release PC PLATFORM SOFTWARE MAY NOT WORK 100%. THIS IS VERY DIFFERENT WITH CONSOLE GAMES WHERE THE PLATFORM IS ALWAYS IDENTICAL.

 

[Kimi]

Originally posted by baberg
So, because you have found a system that cannot run the game, it must therefore have crappy beta testing? What?

Do you think that beta testing involves buying every piece of hardware available, and changing all the parts, getting each and every combination and permutation of them? What?

If you had read any of my past 3 messages, you would know that you are totally full of it. First, it is not *A* system, it is *3* sytems.

All 3 systems are VERY widely sold systems: one is an HP9694 800 mhz, one is an IBM 1.2 ghz, and one is a Dell 1 ghz. All have basic standard setups - their is NOTHING unusual about them - their is no exotic software or hardware on any of them. Every one of these are COMMON - it is not like these are systems with unknown parts that are sold of the back doors of warehouses.