Help on negative % score Civ ratings? anyone?

[Albat]

Hi All Civ2'ers!

I've just joined site so apologies if this thread could be in a better place on site!

I have been playing Civ2 over the last 16 years and have got to say, for all its lack of graphic content, it still has to be truly amazing game - being able to run the original Micropose disc Civ2 Classic game on old 486, P1, P3 and P4 PC's and Windows 95, 98, XP Op systems etc !what value!

However I was wondering if anyone has experienced a negative % score in the Civilization Rating given at the point you log out the game (eg 'retire' rather than quit option)?
I'm probably currently in one of my highest ever scoring games, building up a population of circa 246 million in over 160 cities. I am adding about 7% - 10% to my Civilization Rating score, each year (or turn) in the final Hall of Fame display when you retire (i.e. log out of game). I am playing King Level and reaching year AD1927 everything was looking great with total domination of the A1 civs, expecting to exceed a score of 500% perhaps by the time I've done the space race just b4 I'm forced to retire.

My AD 1927 Score Card (Screen that displays after Power Graph, b4 Civilization Rating) shows the following score: -

Indian citizens 3401
Pollution 0
Barbarians 0
Indian Acheivements 380
Future Tech Score 300

Total Score 4081 - This then gives 326% as a Civilization Rating - everything fine!

My AD 1928 Score Card shows the following score: -

Indian citizens 3455
Pollution 0
Barbarians 0
Indian Acheivements 380
Future Tech Score 315

Total Score 4150 - BUT instead of my Civilization rating going up to an expected 332%? - it crashes out with a negative '-323%' ?????? Why??

So I've tried to investigate what is causing this problem. I don't think its a too many cities problem, there are 35 A1 cities and I have 162, so total cities = 197.

If I make score lower, eg by forcing a lot of unhappy citizens by setting too low a luxury rate, score for Indian citizens reduces to 2516 points (means a Points Total at 3111) and the rating returns to normal again, giving me 256% rating.
So it doesn't seem to be a problem relating to numbers of years elapsed.

Game just doesn't like any score greater than 4100 points for some reason... Any Ideas??

 

[Prof. Garfield]

What version of the game are you playing? If you are playing classic, have you downloaded the 2.42 patch? It seems to me that it is simply a bug, because I don't have such problems in my game. I have ratings in the 600% and scores of over 4000 in the HOF (those come from succession games), so it suggests that it might be something that was fixed in a patch (perhaps when they realized that people got scores that high).

On the subject of civ2 percentage ratings, I'm pretty sure that they depend on difficulty level, so if you want to increase that, you should play on higher a higher difficulty level.

 

[starlifter]

When you click "Game" then the "Game Options" submenu, what version of the game does it say at the top? If it's not 2.42 (original Civ II) or 5.4.0f 26 March 99 Patch 3 (Civ II MGE), then you should patch the game. This sounds like one of the original game bugs which was corrected in a patch. You can post your before & after .SAV and it can be checked if you want.

Some integer limits were not checked properly by the game programming; some have never been fixed, such as the 32,767+ science delivered in one turn causing negative science. The city limit is 255 (if you exceed this, the game will simply prevent new villages from being founded), and the years elapsed does work properly.

 

[Albat]

Thanks for your prompt replies Starlifter and Prof. Garfield - much appreciated...

I have checked "Game Options" submenu, it shows 'Civilization 11 1.02 4-Mar-96'.
I have always thought the game version was running was Classic Civ2, although the CD disc and box don't state the words Classic anywhere.

The CD box says straight forward Civilization 2, Copyright 1999 MicroProse Software Inc. but the disc states it as 1996 Made in the UK and there is a code 49247.331.DL if this means anything.

Selecting properties on the Civ2.exe file on my hardrive does not state a Version number, but it has created date of 05 March 1996 which tallies with CD disc and my Civ2.exe file.

I have never installed any patches prior to now. Until reading more on this site, I assumed patches were just to modify the game in some way, e.g. give more advanced scenarios, rather than fix bugs. Live and Learn!

So I downloaded a copy of civ242.zip and ran this. I could not see in the readme file anything about curing a score problem but on your advice gave it a go anyway.
It now shows "Game Options" submenu as 'Civilization 11 2.42 08-Oct-96'.

First thing I notice visually is the grid has extra white lines marking the squares utilised by each city, which is something I missed having after seeing this on a friend's version I used to play.

It has also fixed the bug where units lost their city of origin. Prior to the patch being added, newly created villages started creating units with a 'NON' tag rather than 1st three letters of village name. Probably this started happening when I created my 100th city or so. I could send units made in early cities to these newer villages and by clicking 'Support from this city' change the unit's city of designation to 'NON'. This was obviously a bug and a huge advantage (cheat) as I was able to keep all my production shields for production rather than supporting units (inc. engineers having free food upkeep as well, not to mention no happiness penalty for large quantities of attacking units such as battleships and bombers). So my score of 4100 points cannot really be considered a genuine score!

It seems to have fixed the negative score problem in HOF too! Brilliant! Getting 332% for my AD1928 game and AD1932 gives 355%! I've just got to shed some units now as the quanitity of attacking units is causing dire consequences on my happiness rating now the game is corrected. 160 cities to go through and re-manage is going to be a task for a rainy day I think before I can save a stabilized game that is heading in the right direction again!

If any one is interested in looking at 'before and after' patch versions of my .SAV files I will gladly post them for you.

Are there any more patches I should run? I'll browse this site and see what I can learn. Thanks for your great help guys!

 

[starlifter]

There are 2 primary variants of Civ 2: Civ II and Civ II MGE (Multiplayer Gold Edition).

You are running Civ 2; your version is now 2.42, after your patching, according to your post .

All the examples you cite, are known and documented, and fixed with the 2.42 patch.

Regarding your units... you can let them die, disband them, attack and get them killed, rehome them, etc.

You can also fix happiness by making (rush completing) Women's Suffrage.


In Democracy: WS will reduce each unit's unhappiness penalty (since WS acts as a Poice Station in each village) to one Unhappy Citizen (2-1=1, instead of 2).
In Republic: WS will remove all unhappiness due to units away/bomber/missile/helo. That's because 1-1=0, Zero !


You can also just change to Fundamentalism for a few turns, wipe out the enemy, redistribute/remove, make wonders (WS, JSB, Shakespeare). In Democracy, put Shakespeare in high-shield output city, and then home your Nukes, key ships, etc. to it. Distribute the rest of your units; if you need to, use a large mature village to soak up quite a few units that concentrate the red dudes so that other villages can freely grow.

Rehome/disband your NONs, and then you will basically have a normal 2.42 game I think.



General Info for any Civ II player:
Civ II should be patched to 2.42. If it is, then the version check will read:
"Civilization II 2.42 Custom 08-Oct-96".

Civ II MGE should be patched with Patch 3, and its version check reads:
"Civilization II Multiplayer Gold 5.4.0f Multiplayer 26-March-99 Patch 3"

Are there any more patches I should run?

No. You're done.

A Patch not the same thing as a scenario or a mod (modification). However, some scenarios might want to "patch" your game.

There are also things like No-CD patches, CPU-reduction patch, giga-map patches, etc. These are all not "official".

But before you apply or test anything else, back up your Civ II installed directory, which has only the official 2.42 patch applied.

You can run different directories of Civ 2, with different patches applied. Copy the original directory to a new name, then apply the patch(es) you want to test/use, like No-CD, and then if you don't like it, your original still works.



NOTE 1:
Civ II MGE saves cannot be read or played by Civ II. Civ II MGE can, however, read Civ II saves... though it will play the game from that point forward with the Civ II MGE ("hostile") A.I.


NOTE 2:
Its not applicable to your case, but possibly for others who read: other versions of Civ 2 are things like "Future Worlds", but these should be downgraded to 2.42, or else upgraded to 5.4.0f. Cedric Greene has "conversion" patches he has made to do this, though its not "official".

"Civ II" Call To Power (and CTP II) is not Civ II, and has nothing to do with Civ II, despite the name and deliberate marketing similarity. Its a different game.

Civ II ToT (Test of Time) is not Civ II nor Civ II MGE, though it can read prior game saves. Its not fully backwards compatible, and has major differences. Once again, its a marketing thing.