Not sure what you mean? I could play Marathon through n through on standard size maps, and I had a crap rig by most standards. Its not the amount of time but the size of the map thats limited on some computers
Is "Beyond the Sword" dead?
- Thread starter toft
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Not sure what you mean? I could play Marathon through n through on standard size maps, and I had a crap rig by most standards. Its not the amount of time but the size of the map thats limited on some computers
seasnake
Conquistador
Agree with Thallatta. I love this game. I downloaded Solver's patch mostly because of the AI behavior changes (going for genetics when near conquest population, stealing techs and pillaging towns) but I had no problem with the game before or after.
Of course, when I'm poisoned I often switch to environmentalism and rush public transportation, so it rarely destroys me (thank goodness for Cristo Redentor, the coolest wonder in the game).
Of course, when I'm poisoned I often switch to environmentalism and rush public transportation, so it rarely destroys me (thank goodness for Cristo Redentor, the coolest wonder in the game).
Zhahz
PC Gamer
I wouldn't call the BTS release a disaster - it's a beefy expansion so there's going to be issues.
But I do think that Firaxis sucks when it comes to communication. Their official site sucks. This is an incredibly popular game and franchise, and they must be making bank off of it, and it's pretty pathetic in this day and age to have such a shoddy site and lack of communication.
If it weren't for folks with ties to Firaxis visiting here and Apolyton, Civ fans would be totally in the dark.
CF and Apolyton are better than your typical "fan sites" so Firaxis doesn't really need a high quality community-related site or their own forums (like almost every other game/dev has), but they could at the very least send more official news out via CF and Apolyton.
But I do think that Firaxis sucks when it comes to communication. Their official site sucks. This is an incredibly popular game and franchise, and they must be making bank off of it, and it's pretty pathetic in this day and age to have such a shoddy site and lack of communication.
If it weren't for folks with ties to Firaxis visiting here and Apolyton, Civ fans would be totally in the dark.
CF and Apolyton are better than your typical "fan sites" so Firaxis doesn't really need a high quality community-related site or their own forums (like almost every other game/dev has), but they could at the very least send more official news out via CF and Apolyton.
If the gamers are THAT casual, and don't even notice an unofficial patch (nevermind using it) and only use the "update" function in the game, then I doubt they even acknowledge most of the bugs or believe them to be THAT game-breaking, even if they visit this site. The game is still plenty of fun.
Nearly every leaderhead in Beyond the Sword appears with corrupted graphics for me (due to inability to deal with my "supported" graphics card correctly), and this bug was causing Final Frontier to crash to desktop until I got a band-aid semi-official fix for it. Wonder movies crash the game to desktop too, so that's disabled. Gameplay and balance issues aside, the game itself is still pretty unstable on my computer.
It's not gamebreaking, and Beyond the Sword is great fun when it works, but it's been much worse than my experience with vanilla Civilization 4 or Warlords (or with beta tests of other games), and I am regretting that I paid money for this.
seasnake
Conquistador
The problem is that sounds like a problem with the system. Works fine on mine, always has. The new leaderheads are the best yet.
Sorry that you're having trouble. That is terrible.
I just think it's a good expansion, and I have played many hours on it and it keeps working fine for me.
Sorry that you're having trouble. That is terrible.
I just think it's a good expansion, and I have played many hours on it and it keeps working fine for me.
Was that before or after the unofficial patch?
It's fine now, but before when you were losing -24 food per turn incremented +1 each turn... thats losing a ton of food. 12 * 24 = X if my math skills haven't faded too much since... crap im old.Molon Labe
I committed the faux pas.
Once, when I played BtS on epic speed as the HRE, I had my water poisoned. I also had war declared on me three times! To top it all off, I lost the space race to the Dutch.
I'm tired of these game breaking bugs! I refuse to spend more than 500 or so more hours playing this "broken" game until these glaring flaws are fixed!
I'm tired of these game breaking bugs! I refuse to spend more than 500 or so more hours playing this "broken" game until these glaring flaws are fixed!
Yzman
Deity
People throw around the word game breaking way too much. Seriously, I play on marathon and there is no bug that has "broken my game". That would imply I could no longer play. There is no bug that does this. And in all honestly, there really isn't any bugs I have encountered, some balance issues perhaps, but not bugs.
I think that many posters misunderstood me, when I said "gamebreaking" bugs. The expansion is the most stable version yet, and I have not yet had a CTD.
The problem is that I find it pretty annoying when I play on marathon with mapsizes 160x100 or larger, and then after several nights of playtime I discover that many of my cities have had a visit by a foreign spy - causing a huge negative health that lasts for ages. There are other bugs, but this one irritated me the most. And problem is that when playing ONE game for that long... its kinda wasted. Even more wasted, when a patch that isnt backwards-compatible - forcing me to start a new game... that then again might show another bug.
And "solutions" as turning off combat-animations because they dont work is just hilarious.
And Firaxis might have a lot on their hands at the moment, but how hard can it be to write 10 lines about an upcoming patch? I think that Firaxis should either patch often, or use 20 minuttes to write a little about what is planned to be patched. All they are doing now... is leaving everybody in the dark...
The problem is that I find it pretty annoying when I play on marathon with mapsizes 160x100 or larger, and then after several nights of playtime I discover that many of my cities have had a visit by a foreign spy - causing a huge negative health that lasts for ages. There are other bugs, but this one irritated me the most. And problem is that when playing ONE game for that long... its kinda wasted. Even more wasted, when a patch that isnt backwards-compatible - forcing me to start a new game... that then again might show another bug.
And "solutions" as turning off combat-animations because they dont work is just hilarious.
And Firaxis might have a lot on their hands at the moment, but how hard can it be to write 10 lines about an upcoming patch? I think that Firaxis should either patch often, or use 20 minuttes to write a little about what is planned to be patched. All they are doing now... is leaving everybody in the dark...
For me not dead but really annoying.
1) I only play on marathon which is the most broken part of civ 4
2) please insert the correct CD rom running vista 64 this really is a game breaker for most people, i'm running a mini image on one machine and put XP back on the other but mostpeople will be stuck with nocd patches and all the risks that go with them
3) performance 4gb Ram 3.8Ghz dual core and an xt1950 graphics and on huge maps it crawls along late game compared to warlords or vanilla
4) no real communication from firaxis but its been like that since alpha centurai
and yes i still like it
Simon
1) I only play on marathon which is the most broken part of civ 4
2) please insert the correct CD rom running vista 64 this really is a game breaker for most people, i'm running a mini image on one machine and put XP back on the other but mostpeople will be stuck with nocd patches and all the risks that go with them
3) performance 4gb Ram 3.8Ghz dual core and an xt1950 graphics and on huge maps it crawls along late game compared to warlords or vanilla
4) no real communication from firaxis but its been like that since alpha centurai
and yes i still like it
Simon
Lurking Liu
Prince
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2007
- Messages
- 344
Oh, I friggin' wish, man... My computer SUCKS =P
I do marathon with standard maps, but usually with one fewer Civ than normal. Even then, after a few hours I start to get serious slowdown, and the later ages take, well, ages per turn anyway! Doesn't change my preference, though. I wuvs me my Marathon <3 !
Was that before or after the unofficial patch?
Before. I still haven't installed the unofficial patch. No disrespect to Solver, I'm sure he did a fantastic job. But the way I figure it is that I'm going to play the game the way Firaxis intended (warts and all, I admit there are an inordinant number of bugs in the game, I just don't think they're game-breaking is all). When they patch it, I'm sure it'll be pretty close to what he put together, but until then...
Anyhow, yeah, it's 24 unhealthiness for 24 turns, reducing at a rate of 1/turn, you're right. Going into Anarchy for three turns on the first turn, however, saves you 70 food, which can go a long way to saving you some damage. As I said, it's not the optimal solution, but by that point of the game I've usually got enough units to attack and defend, so whatever the rest of the civilization is doing can wait a few turns.
Actually, I turn them off because they don't add anything. What's the point of the animations other than to entertain simple minds? I read books without pictures, so I don't mind playing games without complex animations that fundamentally add nothing.
The fact that it also stops a strange bug is a side bonus.
Oh, rotten. That's pretty gamebreaking, yeah. I'm glad I've won (or lost!) my games since buying BTS before that point, then =)
Solver has been closely involved with the development of the game since the beginning. Anything he comes up with as far as fixes are concerned will no doubt become official when the Firaxis patch is released. His patch also includes some changes to the AI routines by Blake, who is the AI programmer for BtS. So that patch isn't quite as "unofficial" as you might think.
Spearthrower
Thrower of spears
Quagga has got my answer - yes there are some minor gameplay bugs, but calling them "gamebreaking" is flatly ridiculous and so typically comical of fan sites.
Even if you have a problem personally, that hardly equates to the world having that problem.... perhaps it's your computer?
ezwip
Prince
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2006
- Messages
- 389
I am a fan of Command and Conquer which sold it's name and franchise to EA games. Last night I played my first round on Marathon. I am hoping to get home later and play some more. I've not encountered any game breaking bugs yet but I'm only at 685 ad. I'll definitely test the poisoned water bug right away. All of my concerns were pretty trivial and not unique to this mod. Such as Shaka being worthless to the human race.
Anyways, those of you familiar with EA games would not compare Firaxis to their likeness. It's a whole nother ballgame. For instance, they will sell you the same game with the same major exploit over and over and over as a new mod or an entirely new chapter of the series. They never have any intention of ever fixing it. Here at Firaxis, we complain a bit and the problem gets solved. If not by the company itself then by one of the programmers who takes pity on us while we await an official patch. I'll choose Firaxis everytime.
Anyways, those of you familiar with EA games would not compare Firaxis to their likeness. It's a whole nother ballgame. For instance, they will sell you the same game with the same major exploit over and over and over as a new mod or an entirely new chapter of the series. They never have any intention of ever fixing it. Here at Firaxis, we complain a bit and the problem gets solved. If not by the company itself then by one of the programmers who takes pity on us while we await an official patch. I'll choose Firaxis everytime.
They're just operating like most game developers do. It can be a really, really bad idea to mention what's going to be fixed in the next patch because they might encounter an unforseen problem that prevents them from doing so right away. Then they'll have the fans even more irate because they didn't deliver on their original promises. A good example of this is with Civ 3, when an AI would declare war on you because they ran into an "invisible" sub of yours. Because of the limitations of the game engine, they weren't ever able to fix that without breaking something else.
They'll fix what they can within a reasonable amount of time and leave the rest for later, when they've had more of an opportunity to figure out how to go about it.
Most companies I know have given up the practice of releasing patch change lists before the patch. Maybe a day or so before is okay, not any more than that. Mentioning the occasional fix is fine, but not more.
I understand how everyone wants info and how everyone wants communication, but these things aren't so easy. Giving info might turn out to be a bad idea, and developers are never free to say everything they may want to - not to mention that any post seems to result in an avalanche of "will you fix this..." messages
I understand how everyone wants info and how everyone wants communication, but these things aren't so easy. Giving info might turn out to be a bad idea, and developers are never free to say everything they may want to - not to mention that any post seems to result in an avalanche of "will you fix this..." messages
If the game works relatively well on standard settings then it's not "game breaking".
If I were a manger at firaxis, the first thing I would have my beta testers working on is standard/normal/7. In fact I'd put at least 90% of them on testing standard/normal/7. And if you play Standard/normal/7 you will have a good time and a playable, balanced game with few bugs that definately need to be fixed.
I have good confidence that in the near future, after rolling their eyes at your troll e-mail, Firaxis will fix your problem with Marathon/huge/18. Comparing this to the release of any other expansion pack, I think it holds up well, even great titles like shivering isles and burning crusade had bigger bugs than this game.
If I were a manger at firaxis, the first thing I would have my beta testers working on is standard/normal/7. In fact I'd put at least 90% of them on testing standard/normal/7. And if you play Standard/normal/7 you will have a good time and a playable, balanced game with few bugs that definately need to be fixed.
I have good confidence that in the near future, after rolling their eyes at your troll e-mail, Firaxis will fix your problem with Marathon/huge/18. Comparing this to the release of any other expansion pack, I think it holds up well, even great titles like shivering isles and burning crusade had bigger bugs than this game.
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