Patch? Keeper or Loser?

[Exile_Ian]

Having lasted thru the painful last couple of days, I'm now close to the point where I'm tempted to go back to standard Civ 3 without the patch. Sure some things have been fixed, but I'm discovering more things that got broke in the process and overall I'm disappointed. The trouble is that I'm not sure just how many of these are truly due to the patch (so if anyone thinks they were always that way, speak up).

Here's my list of peeves:

1) There's still a bug somewhere with the civ relationshops lines on the diplomacy screen - they can still disappear. I can't reproduce it and its not as obvious as version 1 of the patch - but its happened twice now.

2) Population 1 cities now get destroyed if taken. I didn't consider it a bug in the standard game, and I hate it now. In my latest game, the Germans had spread out everywhere and seemed to be deliberately restricting their city growth - tha majority of them being pop1 - hmmm.

3) Barbarians seemed to have got more agressive (and this is one I'm not sure is due to the patch or whether I'd just been lucky before). I had a city (which admittedly was poorly defended) that got attacked by a stack of barbarian horseman. I thought that the attacks would end when they ransacked my city and took some loot - not so. Wave after wave of horsemen came in (in a single computer turn) and at least 5 of them in a row made of with some loot. This is surely a bug!?

4) They seem to have tampered with the agression level of the civs. It was already a tough game (and I haven't ventured beyond Regent level yet!). The two games I started today and abandoned just seemed much tougher than the ones I was playing last week. Unprovoked attacks, invincible spearmen (theirs) and uncooperative neighbours basically ended both games within the first 500 years. Ah well back to Chieftan level I guess.

So basically, I'm now sure I'm going to remove the patch, reinstall the whole fricking game and wait to see where we go next.

Not a good weekend after all

 

[Dillo]

I beleive they dont test this game in any way shape or form, otherwise they would have caught all this crap. Either that or they just dont give a damn.

 

[Proteus]

I´ve installed the first Version of the patch (without Problems, cos I have Win ME) and if Air Superiority is fixed, I´ll keep it (haven´t palyed till this age after patching, but nearing modern times in fast steps ).

As to the points Exile_Ian has posted:

1. Never encountered it. Not before and not after the patch

2. That´s really bad. I enjoyed reading in the Manual, that 1 Pop-CIties don´t get destroyed by capture anymore. Too bad, they changed it for worst again (as it seems to be, didn´t run across a 1 Pop-City to conquer yet)

3. No, there is one thing which is called "Barbarian Uprising". You or one other Civ gets the Message "Barbarian Uprising near City x". And after it a number of big stacks of Horsemen in the Vicinity of said city are created. It doesn´t necessary be you who gets the message, to encounter one of these stacks. Sometimes the uprising happens to a City of a Computer-Civ, but one of your Cities is nearer to one of the Barbarian-Stacks than the Computer-City and therefore they head for your city.
Maybe you encountered such an event.

4. Didn´t encounter any Differences til now.

 

[Exile_Ian]

Yes it probably was a Barbarian Uprising but the significant part was the amount of money they were able to take from me. My understanding of how an individual city's cash holdings was calculated (e.g. how much do you get if you win a city) was based on the population of that city and in proportion to your total population. In my case, this was an outlying city which represented less than 10% of my total population, but due to the repeated barbarian raids, I manage to lose 50% of my total cash in a single turn. That just has to be a bug!

 

[Lavindathar]

Is this a Windows thing??

I have Windows Me, and my patch runs perfectly!!

Except I get a black shadow on my population # box.

Proteus also uses ME, and his works fine too!

 

[OneInTen]

Nope, each successful barbarian raid takes a seemingly fixed percentage of your total cash, both before and after the patch.

I don't think it's a bug, you've just got to defend your cities better or be prepared to lose some cash.

As for aggression, I disagree strongly - it's random as it was before. I've played through the patch on regent and was only ever attacked by one civ - the zulus - and they only did that twice because i told them where to stick it when they asked for stuff. So it seems to me agression is random luck as it always was.

 

[Endureth]

Hey, check out the GOTM forums. In the lset GOTM (pre-patch) I fell victim to three barbarian uprisings no more than 2 turns apart. There was a grand total of 72 horsmen (24 per raid). I lost all my money, all my improvements from one city and all my citizens from another. It sucked pretty bad for me but whatcha gonna do? Just have better defenses is all you can do.

I wouldn't worry about 5 barbarian horsemen, look out for the big ones!

Endureth

 

[Bugg]

1) There's still a bug somewhere with the civ relationshops lines on the diplomacy screen - they can still disappear. I can't reproduce it and its not as obvious as version 1 of the patch - but its happened twice now.
This happen to me in the saved game I was playing before the patch, in my new game it works fine.
2) Population 1 cities now get destroyed if taken
In civ2 cities with a population of 1 were destroyed, so maybe that was a bug that was corrected.
3) Barbarians seemed to have got more agressive
If you havent had 60-70 barbarians attack you before you have just been lucky in your positioning or not playing ragingbarb. How to prevent barbarians, make sure that all the land on your continent is under a cultural boundary. If you get put in between a couple of civs you may never see this problem as land gets gobbled up quickly. This might be why the A.I. put cities in wastelands because if they are not in you borders you will have barbarians coming from the tundra.
Endureth were you ahead in the game? When this happened( the barbarians from hell).Ive noticed that when i'm ahead or on the verge of pressing an advantage, this is when I get attacked. In my last game I had just built Great Library ,contacted all other civs and gained five techs which pushed me into the new age( i'm playing Germans get free tech. Two turns later about 40 barbarians attack and take about 80 gold.

 

[Proteus]

Originally posted by Bugg
[2) Population 1 cities now get destroyed if taken
In civ2 cities with a population of 1 were destroyed, so maybe that was a bug that was corrected.

Definitely No
In the Game Manual it says:
"When you take over an enemy citys, you have the option to raze ist, rahter than taking controle of it. Also Cities of size 1 are not destroyed, when you occupy them"

See Chapter 5, Page 43.

Therefore it was intentional, that you had the Option to keep Size 1 cities.
Either the Patch is buggy or they have altered some Game Principles without mentioning it.

 

[Zant]

Originally posted by Exile_Ian
Here's my list of peeves:

1) There's still a bug somewhere with the civ relationshops lines on the diplomacy screen - they can still disappear. I can't reproduce it and its not as obvious as version 1 of the patch - but its happened twice now.

Haven't had this problem at all... but I've only played new games since I patched.

2) Population 1 cities now get destroyed if taken. I didn't consider it a bug in the standard game, and I hate it now. In my latest game, the Germans had spread out everywhere and seemed to be deliberately restricting their city growth - tha majority of them being pop1 - hmmm.

pop1 city's don't always seem to get destroyed... I noticed I was able to capture a few of them. I also think they may have been capitols cause the only one I recal taking for sure was a capital city.

3) Barbarians seemed to have got more agressive (and this is one I'm not sure is due to the patch or whether I'd just been lucky before). I had a city (which admittedly was poorly defended) that got attacked by a stack of barbarian horseman. I thought that the attacks would end when they ransacked my city and took some loot - not so. Wave after wave of horsemen came in (in a single computer turn) and at least 5 of them in a row made of with some loot. This is surely a bug!?

I've had this before and after the patch.

4) They seem to have tampered with the agression level of the civs. It was already a tough game (and I haven't ventured beyond Regent level yet!). The two games I started today and abandoned just seemed much tougher than the ones I was playing last week. Unprovoked attacks, invincible spearmen (theirs) and uncooperative neighbours basically ended both games within the first 500 years. Ah well back to Chieftan level I guess.

I noticed the same thing. I was attacking with a pretty good army and just couldn't kill that last spearman defender. a few turns later I got annoyed and sent in 1 lone unit to let i get butchered but instead it killed the spearman. It seems to just be a matter of luck I guess.

Anyway I haven't had many problems with the patch at all. It runs well on my win98SE system.