Patch v3.13 change list

[bonafide11]

Ummm... Bardolph: I don't think Sid Meiers is going to leave Firaxis at any point...

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Hm, I haven't seen anything about this in the patch log, so I guess it remains unchanged?

Which reminds me that I don't really know whether State Property does pay colony maintenance at the moment (since I play on rather crowded maps, I didn't have colonies so far). So ... does it?

Well Colony Maintenance is capped at 2* Distance Maintenance

You pay 0 Distance Maintenance under State Property

so it seems that you might pay 2*0 Colony Maintenance under State Property

Unless it is
1. calculate Distance Maint.
2. calculate cap for Colony Maint.
3. if State Property set Distance Maint. to 0

I think it might be a good change if Corporations are being made worthwhile, since if corps are really good, SP will need a buff to keep up.

 

[Psyringe]

so it seems that you might pay 2*0 Colony Maintenance under State Property

Whoa. Good thinking!

That would certainly buff State Property a lot - but I thought it was consciously being *nerfed* with BtS? I think "no colony maintenance" might make State Property too strong again - it's still awesomely powerful for larger empires, even after the nerfing.

 

[entwood]

I did get a bit of extra sleep the past few nights, not playing, yet I continue to be disappointed. There was every indication that a patch was imminent.

To be fair, most every other major and popular game, at least those that I have been playing and have played in the past, have the same sort of problem with patches. I keep 3 games on my PC and sort of hop from one to the other.

I started with CIV IV, then Warlords, and I knew about BTS being published, knew I would purchase it and play it, and waited a bit before I did buy it; just not long enough. I should have waited longer until the game settled down.

I have not purchased each and every expansion product from other developers, for these patch reasons, late or never, and just need to improve my own patience and stay off the bleeding edge.

Sure, it is a great game, that's why I play it, the game works pretty well as it is now, can be enjoyed, but it is intricate and this pending patch or patches are obviously necessary especially for Fanatics.

The forum is named a Fanatics center after all, so "take a chill pill" advice vs. passionate customers doesn't hold water very well.

 

[ButSam]

I don't know what you're mumbling about. They gave one message saying "they won't release it this week due to new bugs found" and another saying "early next week" which was on a Sunday. If a week begins on a Sunday or not depends on definition, but one should assume when they say "early next week" on the 23rd they mean the 1-3 of October, or they'd have stated in a couple of days.

Unfortunately, online communities are full of crybabies and this is why we rarely see game developers communicate at all. Of course, one could argue about messages being a little unclear and far-in-between at times. Be glad, however, that they gave us patch notes and are posting at all. Like I said, most companies don't even bother, so give them some credit for doing it.

You also ask for a "real date", which is something they can't give you. QA/playtesting will go on until they are done, and then the patch will be released. It's hard to schedule such things to the day, especially when new bugs show up forcing the whole cycle to repeat itself.

I didn't realize they had said a bug delayed it. I also didn't think about "early next week" could have meant next Monday/Tuesdayish. The post was made on a Saturday (Eastern Time, which is Firaxis Time).

Was I really whining too much though by asking for the real story? I said a real date OR some news, and at the end I say even a generic "sometime in the next few weeks" would be fine, as long as it is the real story that we get this time. I just want them to stop giving out an expected timeframe for the patch to be released, and having that timeframe come and go without a patch.

I'm not losing any sleep over it though; my reason for wanting the patch is to get the BotM competition kicked off sooner rather than later. The sooner the patch, the more likely we are to have a BotM by mid-month (after the HOF mod can be developed for 3.13). I still get plenty of play time out of BtS the way it is written. I play on Normal speed and love all the new features.

Sam

 

[Psyringe]

The forum is named a Fanatics center after all , so "take a chill pill" advice vs. passionate customers doesn't hold water very well.

Well, even within fanaticism there are levels - I think there's a difference between feeling passionately about something (and being disappointed when things don't work out as desired), and running amok and attacking the next scapegoat available as well as anyone who happens to have another opinion. I gues that sometime one fanatic has to tell another to calm down a little and find back to less destructive ways of fanaticism.

That said, I totally understand any disappointment about the fact that the patch still isn't there despite having been announced several times now. I just don't think that lashing out against Firaxis, or other Fanatics here, is a good way of dealing with that. Personally, I find it far better to play a (shorter than usual) game of Civ and see myself that this game is very enjoyable and complete in its current state. (I've tested Quechua rush strategies on a duel map with 34 civs yesterday, los of - rather unexpected - fun. So it works for me, at least.)

 

[JFLNYC]

Well, that's exactly what I meant.

I raise a criticism against your behavior here. That is something you should be able to endure, after all you're the one who keeps insulting other people as "fanboys" just because they happen to have another opinion about a topic you got all worked up about.

However, you show no willingness whatsoever to deal with the criticism I raised. You neither demonstrated me that your argument was on-topic, nor have you actually delivered any kind of argument at all. Instead, you resort to a simple rhetorical retaliation that doesn't even make sense if you look at more closely. Just look at what's happening: Basically, I'm telling you "Let it go for a moment and come to your senses, *please*", and you're telling me "You're not constructive either". But dealing with criticism by pointing fingers at other people's alleged mistakes is not a mature way to handle criticism, now is it?

Actually, if (say) Alexman reacted to your criticism in the same way you just reacted to mine, you would bash him with no end. You would demand that he addresses the criticism itself instead of retaliating with rhetorics.

So please, for one minute, don't be concerned with the question whether *other people* are being constructive or not. Ask yourself whether *you* are being constructive and what *you* want to achieve (I'd still like an answer to that question). Then answer my criticism in the same way you would like Firaxis to react to your criticism.

When you can do that, in a calm, self-reflective, and non-aggressive manner, then continuing the discussion might make sense. Otherwise, I still recommend the chill pill.

Since I find your criticism baseless, I see no need to defend myself nor to heed your call for self-reflection.

 

[PericlesOfAthen]

I worked for several years in software and I found that often just letting your clients know you haven't forgotten them and are still working on their issue helped ease their anxiety (actually this is applicable in just about any customer service situation). Clients/customers weren't happy about delays but at least they knew you were working on it. I'm not implying that Firaxis has forgotten their customers. Actually I bet they're working very hard on the next patch. However I think they could handle public relations a lot better with only a little effort. IMHO if Firaxis came out and explained the debug process is complicated; we can have unexpected delays because a new bug may require us to start all over therefore we can't give any ETA on the release but we are working hard on it etc., etc. it would have silenced much of the complaints on this thread.

 

[Bhruic]

The point, once again, is that Take2's handling of the last two patches are a reflection of larger, systemic problems within their organization. Wall Street knows it, Take2's Board knows it, their shareholders know it and we've seen a glimpse of it. Your continued attempts to defend them with inaccurate information, unsupported arguments and invective have become tiresome.

And my point is that (a) that's a completely unsubstantiated claim, and (b) it's not relative to the discussion at hand.

Not that it matters, your posts to Psyringe have made it quite clear (if it was in any doubt) that your mind is entirely closed (and irrational) on this matter, so further debate with you is pointless. Guess I'll just ignore your whining from this point forward.

Bh

 

[JFLNYC]

Guess I'll just ignore your whining from this point forward.

One can only hope.

 

[Venger]

I vote - State Property should pay colony maintenance. Makes sense, colony maintenance is separate from city maintenance, justified on different grounds. Yes, 2*0 is 0, but there is no reason to think the game mechanics simply zero the distance variable (well, maybe there is if someone has looked into the guts of it). It could simply be an if/then=0 kind of thing. In fact, I would almost bet it is the latter since the distance from capital variable would be useful for other game mechanics purposes...

But back to the tardy slackers who, according to the very FIRST post, "are done with the patch".

You know, if this was just a feature tweak and bonus graphic patch, then it may not be so important. Rather, GAMES HANG at end of turn - and you can't go on without doing things like going into WorldBuilder and deleting entire CITIES of other Civs in order to get past the bug, which, of course, renders the game somewhat spoiled at that point.

Perhaps they tried to upload the patch, but their software uploader keeps blinking "Waiting for other Civilizations..."

It has been HALF A MONTH. Say SOMETHING.

This silent treatment is beginning to smell like slothful cowardice...

Venger

 

[entwood]

Unfortunately, online communities are full of crybabies and this is why we rarely see game developers communicate at all. Of course, one could argue about messages being a little unclear and far-in-between at times. Be glad, however, that they gave us patch notes and are posting at all. Like I said, most companies don't even bother, so give them some credit for doing it.

You also ask for a "real date", which is something they can't give you. QA/playtesting will go on until they are done, and then the patch will be released. It's hard to schedule such things to the day, especially when new bugs show up forcing the whole cycle to repeat itself.

online communites tend to be filled more with happy, interested, curious, and information sharing folk. People are signing on partially to see if the purported patch is available and get a bit of news about it, installation issues, download sites, and the like, plus whatever else they do on these boards. I don't see anything remotely resembling what I might consider to be a "crybaby".

Why is it that a date cannot be given? They have no clue what they are doing? everybody is out sick? On or about MM/DD/YY is perfectly reasonable.

I do give some credit for a release of the change list; "Here is a picture of what we will get with the patch"

Ok. when will that be?

 

[methane]

Really? I've been playing quite a bit lately and haven't run into any loops. What exactly is happening? I'm curious, now.

You hit enter at the end of turn, and some AI starts doing something that leads to an infinite loop...you get 'waiting for other civilizations' forever and ever and ever. This might be the drafting issue or it may be something else with colonies.

I'm not the only one who's reported it. This is the thread (though I think it might be reported on some other threads):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=232292

 

[Wodan]

Ok. when will that be?

The last information gave indication it would be Oct 1-3.

Wodan

 

[bardolph]

Ummm... Bardolph: I don't think Sid Meiers is going to leave Firaxis at any point...

D'oh! Well, that's a disappointment...

 

[whb]

You know, if there was an option to, I'm sure an awful lot of people here wouldn't mind playing the "latest build" before the QA process had finished -- Valve's experiment of doing this with Team Fortress 2 (a public beta that receives regular minor updates through Steam) seems remarkably popular. I doubt Firaxis would themselves gain much extra from it (AIUI they have a trusted cohort of very good beta testers), but it would make their customers feel much more special and included, which is usually a good thing.

 

[yatta77]

Back to the changes list. I'm wery happy with that except that I would like to see the culture point needed for a city to get to legendary level being increased. I don't know if somebody already said that.

The balance between victory conditions in warlords was good, now in BtS they added turns and technologies in the game, which means that a Space Race or Diplomatic UN victory is "harder" to achieve (in terms of turn needed) compared to Warlords, while the culture visctory requires the same culture points than before.

I'm very heppy that the Ai now try cultural victories, the problem is that the way the game it is now, this kind of victory is too frequent. I play on Imperator Marathon speed standard games, and:
- if I play since the beginning targeting a cultural victory I win quite often (pratically every time I can avoid my 3 best cities being captured) when the most advanced civs have granadiers, riflmans, cavalry or infantry;
- if I play targeting another kind of victory I lose almost every game beated by an Ai targeting a cultural victory.

I'm not complaing about losing, I repeat, I like to lose by a civ that tried a cultural victory, IMO that's the bigger improvement to the Ai in Bts. I'm talking about making the cultural victory a little harder to achieve for everybody increasing the culture point needed, to balace with the more turns needed for the other type of victory. So target a cultural victory won't be an insurance to win, and winning playing another type of game would have the same probability of success it used to have in warlords.

I think that increasing the culture point needed to reach the "legendary" level of 20-25% would be a good deal. I know this could be easily modded in the xml files, but I like to compare my results playing the standard official game.

Any chance this change could be included in the next patch?

 

[axident]

Has Firaxis come out with a revised ETA? I've been spending all my civ-time updating my Dutch thread instead of playing, because I don't want to start a game under 3.02 only to have the patch come out right afterwards... I'm looking forward to finally using corporations.

 

[Shoot the Moon]

I think that culture is balanced simply because of the position it puts you in. In essence, your three best cities are having to focus on culture instead of science or military, which puts you in a bad spot. I think it is pretty balanced overall.

 

[Shoot the Moon]

Just realized that you do pay colony maintenance in State Property (latest ALC game is running SP and has colony maintenance)