Patch News!

[Fredrick]

A memory leak is NOT like a dripping tap. If you dont DO anything in the game, there wont be a memory leak.

A memory leak is where the code asks for some memory and then, when its done with it, forgets to give it back to the system. If the code isnt doing anything, it isnt going to be asking for more memory, and therefore it wont be leaking.

true to some point but a game always need to iterate "even in pause" so windows dont blacklist the game as a crash, hopefuly the memory leak in this case is not part of the game "loop" that directly...

cheers!

 

[LeSphinx]

The patch will be coming soon...
Let's started CIV4 GOTM!!!!!
LeSphinx

 

[Zertez]

Curious why they decided to change horses, even the manual says they are always visible. I dont see how having them visible can be overpowering, unless they plan to make them more commonplace upon researching them. I dont have to many problems finding horses, but Ivory tiles seem very scarce and out of 15 games or so Ive had Ivory maybe 2 times. I got it much latter wiping other civilizations out, but by then they were obsolete for military units.

 

[kroym]

That sounds great. I hope it will let me play on huge maps


animal husbandry reveals horses? WTH? it's not like iron which you have to mine for...it's a friggin horse...it's a little hard to miss even if you don't know how to put a saddle on it.

Good one Mythrl!

 

[warpstorm]

Curious why they decided to change horses, even the manual says they are always visible. I dont see how having them visible can be overpowering, unless they plan to make them more commonplace upon researching them.

Why? Because they are overpowering in MP. If you see that your city has horses from the first turn you can steer your research to exploit this and get chariots on your neighbor right away. You can't do this with the metal line. In that path you may research bronze only to find that you have none. in a tiny two player duel the player withthe horses will almost always win because they will choose the correct tech path.

 

[jened]

Kind of funny that they mention (rather minor) in my opinion play fixes first and then mention the memory/vid card/ programming issues almost as an afterthought.

SERIOUSLY! we just knew the other crap would get patched once people got past the video card & memory stuff.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Thank you, Firaxis, for being so diligent about hearing and responding to user game concerns and problems. This is excellent news.

 

[MarcAntiny]

As far as our ancestors hunting horses??? How the F$#% would they do that if that didn't have their own horses to ride? In case you didn't know, horses are frigin' fast!!! No way they were like, hey why not eat those big horses, when they had lot's of other animals they could hunt that weren't so hard to catch... hunt smart, not hard!

 

[shaglio]

Good news.

Hopefully there are also some interface / advisor screens improvements, especillay the military advisor which I currently think is pretty useless.

I finally got around to buying Civ 4 and am currently playing my first game. The only gripe I have so far is that you can't upgrade units from the Military Advisor screen. It would make life a lot easier to see which units still need to be upgraded, and to be able to upgrade them, all from the same screen like in Civ 3. Like you said, that screen is pretty useless.

 

[Dida]

This is thursday, i expect the patch tomorrow.

 

[NKVD]

That sounds great. I hope it will let me play on huge maps


animal husbandry reveals horses? WTH? it's not like iron which you have to mine for...it's a friggin horse...it's a little hard to miss even if you don't know how to put a saddle on it.

exactly! lol

 

[Draax]

As far as our ancestors hunting horses??? How the F$#% would they do that if that didn't have their own horses to ride? In case you didn't know, horses are frigin' fast!!! No way they were like, hey why not eat those big horses, when they had lot's of other animals they could hunt that weren't so hard to catch... hunt smart, not hard!

A human being (that's in good shape) can outrun horses and darn near every other four legged animal given enough distance. Two legs are slower than four, but they use much less energy per meter traveled. Ancient hunters would track while running at a slow jog. Eventually the horse herd would be too tired to sprint away. It got interesting then. Also, partnerships with whatever canines existed back then came about veeeery early in the evolution of man. Similar hunting styles and really cute puppies/babies and all that.

Horses were great hunting before they were domesticated. They traveled in herds, spooked easily, and had lots of meat. They were a hard target, but a good reward. Kinda like mammoths but that's another story for the next time I feel like rambling about the good old days.

 

[DrJambo]

That sounds great. I hope it will let me play on huge maps


animal husbandry reveals horses? WTH? it's not like iron which you have to mine for...it's a friggin horse...it's a little hard to miss even if you don't know how to put a saddle on it.

I think the argument for it would be that even though man has ridden horses for a long long time, at the very beginning neanderthal man would have simply seen them as any other animal.

Learning Animal Husbandry to reveal horses as a valuable resource therefore makes sense as this is simulating the point man appreciates the value of horses in other ways.

Plus, from a gameplay sense it gives more worth to that particular line compared to the obvious religious and bronze working paths.

 

[Prince David]

As far as our ancestors hunting horses??? How the F$#% would they do that if that didn't have their own horses to ride? In case you didn't know, horses are frigin' fast!!! No way they were like, hey why not eat those big horses, when they had lot's of other animals they could hunt that weren't so hard to catch... hunt smart, not hard!

Plus, the really smart hunters had things like bows and arrows, or throwing spears, or friends to hunt with and tactics.

Horses arrived in the new world with the Spanish in the 15th and 16th centuries. Prior to that Native Americans were hunting big, fast, tough bison for millenea with just their own feet and their brains*.


* Which tended to go "squish" when they threw them at the bison, but it so grossed them out that they didn't notice the friends sneaking up with throwing spears . . .

 

[Picky1999]

I hope they don't "soften" the pillage sounds too much...that was one of the fun parts of new game so far...the screams & lamentations when you pillage.

Otherwise, good news.

 

[Gulio]

A human being (that's in good shape) can outrun horses and darn near every other four legged animal given enough distance. Two legs are slower than four, but they use much less energy per meter traveled. Ancient hunters would track while running at a slow jog. Eventually the horse herd would be too tired to sprint away. It got interesting then. Also, partnerships with whatever canines existed back then came about veeeery early in the evolution of man. Similar hunting styles and really cute puppies/babies and all that.

Horses were great hunting before they were domesticated. They traveled in herds, spooked easily, and had lots of meat. They were a hard target, but a good reward. Kinda like mammoths but that's another story for the next time I feel like rambling about the good old days.

Draax, I pray you are joking with that thread, if not you need to spend some time outside and with real people in a real world.

A human can NOT out run a horse. A horse runs around 40-70 KM/H. Horses have way higher endurance, and stamina than Humans. They also have 4 legs which lets them run faster.

Man would approach horses and the horses wouldn't run away. Or they used a horse and they hearded them into coralls.

Cheetas and other feline animals can run up to 80 km/h. Bears run around 50km/h (grizzley).

Humans are weak and fail compared to these animals. Heck a 2 year old Cat can outrun most humans because we're so fricken lazy and fat now.

Personally, they need to make horses like the roaming wild life (bears, cougars etc.) and have them move around the map, non-aggresive.

When you research horses, you'd be able to then corall them in your city limits.

 

[qaturn]

It would make life a lot easier to see which units still need to be upgraded, and to be able to upgrade them, all from the same screen like in Civ 3. Like you said, that screen is pretty useless.

You can upgrade all units at once, hit alt when selecting a unit and then upgrade-cant remember if you have to select all cities first.

 

[gippy]

Draax, I pray you are joking with that thread, if not you need to spend some time outside and with real people in a real world.

A human can NOT out run a horse. A horse runs around 40-70 KM/H.

I've heard the theory before, but I don't know how well it's attested. There was an amusing piece on public radio (probably This American Life) a few months ago about a guy and his brother who decided to test the theory. I guess it had been floating around for a while as a theory about how humans could manage to hunt what seemed to be much faster 4-legged animals. The idea, as Draax says, is that in a sprint the 4-legged animal wins, but a human can win the endurance race. Partly because of humans' superior cooling systems (most 4-legged animals have very limited ability to sweat) and partly because of superior intelligence (taking straight-line paths instead of running in circles, etc.). I'm not sure about the energy efficiency itself of 2-legged vs. 4-legged running.

So, this guy and his brother, both fairly serious amateur runners, decided to try to catch an antelope this way. They gave it a good shot, and thought they saw some signs of success, but never managed to actually catch one.

I'm not sure what anthropologists think of the idea - whether it's seen as plausible or nuts.

Seems to me that humans could alternately get by like wolves, and rely on camouflage, stalking, etc. and prey on the young, sick, or old animals.

On the issue of when to reveal horses - I like it fine to have them revealed by a tech. But, why animal husbandry? Is the idea that horses were draft animals before they were ridden? Is that true? Otherwise, it would make sense to reveal them either at the chariot stage (as in Civ 3) or at the horseback riding stage (do we have a horseback riding tech again? I don't have my manual handy).

 

[The Last Conformist]

There's this docu in which a bunch of Bushmen run down and kill a giraffe. I don't suppose horses are significantly faster or have much more endurance than giraffes.

A well-trained human can keep running for longer than most terrestrial animals (the best-known exception being the wolf, I suppose).

But if we look at hunters from ~4000 BC, they had much better options available than spending hours running them dry, the most obvious being shooting them.

 

[gippy]

But if we look at hunters from ~4000 BC, they had much better options available than spending hours running them dry, the most obvious being shooting them.

Perhaps. How universal was the bow and arrow? I imagine thrown spears were probably very wide spread, and spearthrowsers seem to have been also.

But, it wouldn't surprise me if humans consumed tasty, but speedy, prey before any of this technology was available.