The Blob That Ate Byzantium

Dinorius R.

Somnambulist
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I don't recall seeing the enemy's cities as grey blobs before, as if a zillion spiders had made a web all over them. Is this normal?
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Jeebus cripes! Ummmm.... I think this sets the record for weirdest bug ever. Could you, uh, post the save game file?
 
On a related note, it looks like one worker is running away, one is looking at it in awe, and the 3rd hasn't noticed it yet. But jeez....
 
I've seen something similar happen with the advisor images -- some of them (domestic at least) started to appear like photographic negatives (black face, white hair etc). Seemed like the color pallette had got screwed up somehow. Saving and reloading fixed the problem IIRC.

- rev
 
I had this happen once before, where scattered cities had their pictures become covered with static. I reloaded the game and it was fixed.
 
hmm..did you alt+tab out of the game? For me, that can sometimes mess up the coloring of some things.
 
It's just the game succumbing to corruption.

If you play too many games you reach the Optimum Number of Games. This varies on whether you bought the PC, Mac or Special Edition version of the game. After you hit that mark, you start getting more and more corruption in your games, which includes those messed up graphics. It's a feature! :D

hehehe

Okay, just being fecetious for those dull enough not to notice. It's just the game files probably becoming corrupt in memory or the game starting to succumb to its memory leaks. At times if you play long enough you'll notice that the icons in the F6 science advisor will disappear, the graphics will have anomalies like that. It's all part of the rigorous testing standards games undergo nowadays.
 
..well at least I know it's NOT me going crazy now.

It was my first game on a huge map, so yes, maybe memory has something to do with it (cripes, isn't 256MB big enough??).

If I can reproduce it from a saved game, I will post the file. Otherwise, "The Blob" may just become another Civ3 legend...
 
My educated guess is that a bug caused the game to use Windows palette instead of the one the game uses. You can sometimes see the change in palette if you exit the game and while it's shutting down, examine the windows bar at the bottom of the screen.
 
Originally posted by Razorwing
My educated guess is that a bug caused the game to use Windows palette instead of the one the game uses. You can sometimes see the change in palette if you exit the game and while it's shutting down, examine the windows bar at the bottom of the screen.
right on, had that with costal tiles once. restarting fixed it!
 
quote:
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Originally posted by Razorwing
My educated guess is that a bug caused the game to use Windows palette instead of the one the game uses. You can sometimes see the change in palette if you exit the game and while it's shutting down, examine the windows bar at the bottom of the screen.
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You may be right, but why was it only the enemy civ's cities that became blobs and not mine too? (I was German in this game). I would have thought the city graphics files are common for all civs.

I haven't had time to go back into this but when I do, I will check what happens in the Windows task bar as I exit the game. I'm not all that worried by it, it's more a curiosity really.
 
It probably happened to all the Middle-Eastern civs, but not the European or any other groups. Those are separate graphics, with separate icons and separate textures.
 
Looks like the graphic for that city style got messed up in memory. I've had a more annoying bug before - the game loaded up on the wrong resolution and I couldn't see or click on most of the screen - couldn't alt-tab out of the program either so I had to find the 'quit' button by trial and error.
 
I had a similar problem with irrigated flood plains for a while. It went away on its own after a while.
 
Dateline: Byzantium 1415 AD

Blob Relinquishes Hold On City

Reports coming in from Byzantium indicate "The Blob", which held the people of that city in its evil thrall for 2 terrifying days, has gone, leaving as mysteriously as it came.

Yet, as our artists impression below shows, nobody amongst Byzantium's booming population of 3 was killed.



Naturally, business in the market quarter has come to a standstill as everybody speculates for hours about this astounding phenomenon.

"It's a warning from the great god Alt-Tab, I tell you" says NoDice, a local carpet vendor. "People expect Alt-Tab to instantly change the world for them. They abuse His generosity too often. When enraged, he destroys the very colours we see, turning everything to grey as a foretaste of the death which awaits us all. It serves us right".

"I blame the government!" complains Maleficence, an army Spearman. "They built this city 10 bloody squares away from Rome, that's just too far. Naturally all our officials are totally corrupt because..er...because, well you know..er..it's the distance...it um..corrupts things...somehow. I hate distance, don't you? Ah, excuse me, I just have to demolish this here tank..."

"This so-called Blob thingy is nothing to worry about" declares citizen Razorwing, a contrarian from Lutetia. "If people would just clean their Windows a bit more often, they'd be able to see the true colour palette of this most wonderous city. Of course everything looks grey if your Windows are dirty, what do you expect?".

Whatever the reason, the world was Saved and 2 days later, when the good citizens of Byzantium woke up, the Blob had vanished. Let us pray it never comes again.
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