Upgrade to 1.21?

[Falcon02]

With so many of the Officials having 1.21 installed on their computers and having to install a new copy of Civ III on their computer to have 1.17 we should decide whether to upgrade to 1.21 now and risk a change, or try and hold onto 1.17 until the issue of upgrading comes up again or we are Victorious.

I intend to have a Cabinet vote on this later, but we need to discuss first to give everyone a chance to voice their concerns and encouragement for the upgrade.

 

[allhailIndia]

My lord, I suggest we continue with the 1.17f version till we finish the game or else we might have the embarrassing situation of having to lose the game or reload somewhere in the middle

 

[Lovro]

I'm for upgrading, just because 'so many officials have 1.21 installed'.

It would, of course, be better to stick with 1.17f, because of the modified rules (rushing, corruption), but it's a nuisance for those who actually play the turns, so my vote's for upgrading.

 

[chiefpaco]

Here is a list of changes I compiled from the 1.21 readme that I believe might affect our game. There are many more changes, but, aside from some bug fixes, only these should reallly affect us:

* Editor: Added multiple AI strategies for units.

* Added "Abandon City" to right-click menu.

* Game settings are now stored in any save file that uses them. This prevents players from altering their BIC file and using it in an existing game.

* Increased corruption/waste fighting ability of courthouses and police stations.

* Increased waste fighting ability of We Love The King Day.

* Draft anger and hurrying unhappiness reduced to 20 turns.

* Adjusted advance trading rates for AI.

* The maximum food a tile with a city on it can produce has been changed to 2.

* Improved army healing AI.

* Fixed bug with how shields were calculated for population hurrying. The first citizen is now worth 20 shields instead of 40 shields, just like all the other citizens.

* Technology costs were slightly modified

I believe, and have heard the same from others, that our 1.17 game, when saved under 1.21, will adopt the 1.21 rules from the saver's civ3mod.bic file. Once we save our game in 1.21 format, those rules are permanent because they are then stored in the .sav, rather than the default civ3mod.bic file. If anyone thinks otherwise, or even agrees, please post.

I would also like to make a proposal, if my assumption holds true. The person converting the game should save with the default 1.21f version civ3mod.bic, so the rules are 1.21 default. It will limit confusion and controversy on how the game is played and should be played out.

If I can elaborate a bit on some points:
- The multiple strategies means the AI will often use balanced units for attack or defense. Example: Infantry will be used to attack.

- If one good change comes from pop-rushing, it is that our first citizen was worth double the shields under 1.17, and unhappiness is halved under 1.21. That is, if unhappiness is calculated during the game, not set as a counter...

I'm for the upgrade, it should be smooth. What will affect us the most is the ability for most of the cabinet to play the game, should the President not be available, since most of us are running 1.21f and currently can not play it out.

 

[Immortal]

either way is fine with me, as I have reinstalled civ 3 without any patches for the time being, then later tonight I will install the patch we decide to use for the remainder of the demo game

 

[Cyc]

I vote for upgrading to the current patch. Thanks for the info chiefpaco. Doesn't it make the saved files smaller too?

 

[Lovro]

It does make the files smaller, but zipping is a bit more effective. Also, it seems that SAV files get corrupted either during uploading or downloading, so we should still zip them.