v1.16f: Issues? Bugs? This is the thread

[Minuteman]

Jeff,

As several others have stated before me, the wait between turns while playing on a huge map (256x256), with 16 rival civs, is intolerable. It literally and effectively eradicates any enjoyment that one might derive from playing a game in such a large and diverse environment.

In addition, you may also want to increase (yet again) the number of cities that can be constructed by both AI & human players. Apparently, once 512 cities have been constructed, a bizarre hiccup of sorts occurs, with the remaining settlers that have already been built by the AI causing the game the slow down even further. The annimation produced when a settler tries to build a new city is simply looped ad nauseam until the game can finally proceed. Perhaps this is what is causing the game to run so slowly on huge maps?

Thank you, and good luck, Jeff

 

[Trancas]

I absolutely agree with Minuteman. I myself experience large amounts of time between giving the order of building a city and the actual city screen appearing. It seems that the computer does a lot of processing in that time. Everything freezes. Incredible.

And AI tunrs + my turn processing time (that is, the time the CPU is dealing with my turn but not allowing me to move units for instance) is getting unplayable. And I'm talking here of a huge map with 8 civs. NOT using 16 here. Working on a P3 with 256 ram. I wonder why this happens.

Please FIRAXIS give it a look and give us some kind of reply stating what you are currently doing. Thanks.

Bruno Trancas

 

[CurtSibling]

I agree with the Minuteman.

The slowness becomes really bad around 1300-1500 AD.
I hope some sort of fix is made for this glitch.

And my computer is fast and runs all current games software, like a dream!

I'm sticking to standard map size for now.

 

[Charles]

Does anyone have any idea what happened to Apolyton? I keep getting either a bad gateway, or no connection at all. Is everyone having the same problem, or is it just me?

Charles.

 

[Agent Roo]

this is why you should read the threads before posting.

original post by seb794, Dec 17 2001 at 10:35

____________________________________________________
More on Swapfile/Gradual Game Slowdown
I may owe an apology to Firaxis )

Turns out that Windows 9x (and maybe other versions of Windows as well) have a known issue with swapfiles ...

It seems that Windows can wind up spinning its own wheels reading and writing paging information to the swapfile itself, depending on how much information it has (i.e., the size of the swapfile). The remedy is rather counter-intuitive ... REDUCE the maximum swapfile size, so it has less paging data slots to have to manage.

For example, when I was running a 256MB swapfile (with 256MB of RAM), the game would slow down/lock after five or ten turns). I reduced my swapfile size to 64MB and haven't had a lockup since. 320MB total is probably cutting it close, so I may have to up my virtual memory to 96MB at some point, but it will probably be to your advantage to limit your maximum virtual memory settings to the smallest amount you will be using.

Adding extra virtual memory "just to be safe" may not be the wisest course of action, if I'm right on this ...

Good luck to all ...
____________________________________________________

big hint: check the treads for the solution, and don't always assume that a problem is caused by firaxis

as for the barracks q in page 7, the island based city *definately* had a barracks, usually it's the first or second thing i build after a defensive unit. have to check the other, but i think at the time i had a barracks, as i was producing a Swordsman who i remember to have been regular when built.

 

[Minuteman]

Agent Roo wrote: "this is why you should read the threads before posting.

original post by seb794, Dec 17 2001 at 10:35 "

As a matter of fact, I did read through this thread quite carefully before posting, and Seb794's solution didn't remedy the aforementioned problems.

As implausible as it may seem to some, there are actually a few glitches that exist in this program that are independent of Windows and need to be addressed. Isn't that why Jeff encouraged us to post our assessments here in the first place?

 

[Interface]

I usually like to play a game where there are many islands and scattered civ's so we can all build up before contact, but it seems that after installing 1.16f, whenever it came out, I cant seem to generate a random map where I get this situation. I select archipelago and large spaces between islands, but whenever I start there is always a civ, and usually several, right near me. I have not selected the "Culturally Linked Starting Locations" so it cants be that. I just wonder what I can do to get a situation where we all start out on our own little islands - I even selected a huge map, with only three civ's and they bloody started right near me. Only once or twice have I got a situation where I have my own little strip of land, but 99% I dont.

 

[Desert Fox]

Originally posted by Interface
I usually like to play a game where there are many islands and scattered civ's so we can all build up before contact, but it seems that after installing 1.16f, whenever it came out, I cant seem to generate a random map where I get this situation. I select archipelago and large spaces between islands, but whenever I start there is always a civ, and usually several, right near me. I have not selected the "Culturally Linked Starting Locations" so it cants be that. I just wonder what I can do to get a situation where we all start out on our own little islands - I even selected a huge map, with only three civ's and they bloody started right near me. Only once or twice have I got a situation where I have my own little strip of land, but 99% I dont.

Hey thought I was the only one who liked this situation. I perfer to build up my civ on myown land myself. What I do is set up a scenario file changing the stats on world sizes. Make distance between all civs at 32. I have had problems playing on a 230x230 map with 8 civs. It crashes everytime at industrial age or modern age. I had to generate quite a few maps to get one to edit easy. Just look for a decent peice of land, either separate from other civ through editing or spend time like you did regenerating over and over. They really need some major work on the editor very poor, but has the potential of being the most powerful editor out there. Hopefully they will follow through!
Not much help but that is what I did. Peace!

Desert Fox

 

[Interface]

Thanks Desert Fox I appreciate your tip and its really helped

 

[gebanks]

I don't know if these are bugs, but...

1) I started a game with more than 7 civs and one of the civs (Greek) doesn't appear on the foreign advisor page. The only way I can contact Alexander is to click on one of his units, then he comes up.

2) I have another game going where I have destroyed 4 different civs (Romans, Zulu, Persians, and French). The Romans and Zulu disappeared as I expected, but the Persians and French didn't, even though they have no cities left. They still have a few ships. Do I have to track down and destroy all their units? Is this a change from CIV II? I can't get Joan of Arc to even talk to me, so I can't make peace with her, even though I conquered all her cities. The Persians made peace.

 

[rangers85]

1) Hold shift and right click on a leader and choose Greece and they will replace the ohter leader's head.

2) They most likely have a settler floating in one of those ships, which means they still have the ability to create a city whereever it finds space and start up again. A Civ doesn't die till it has no cities and no settlers wandering around.

 

[Azreq]

(First post) The waiting times for 16 civs is unbearable. I had to quit my current game simply because in about half an hour's play, I'd have only taken a few turns. My computer might be pretty old but it is at the recommended specs level (500 mhz, 128 ram) so this shouldn't be a problem.

The other problem that I get a lot of (I don't know whether this has been mentioned because I haven't read the whole topic) is the Illegal Program message. I get this every 20 minutes, even when I've left the game as it is and I have to restart the game.

I've also had several serious crashes (I couldn't even switch the computer off manually, I had to pull the plug) and the music does not play properly (I've read that someone else has had this problem).

Another patch please, Mr Meier .

 

[DrJambo]

Jeff, i have another bug for you

Basically, Civ3 crashes when i try to kill off the Iroquois civilization, which doesn't have any cities left but has at least one galleon left...

It's in this attached saved game.

The Iroquois have been essentially wiped out by myself and the English and all that remains is one or two vessels...one being the galleon beside my Ironclad..when i attack and kill the galleon, the game crashes back to desktop mentioning that civ3.exe produced an invalid page fault or something similar..

CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in
module CIVILIZATION3.EXE at 0167:0052c290.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=0167 EIP=0052c290 EFLGS=00010246
EBX=00000780 SS=016f ESP=00abf138 EBP=0cae3880
ECX=00680dc8 DS=016f ESI=00000000 FS=263f
EDX=07919ba8 ES=016f EDI=00000780 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 56 10 8b 46 1c 8b 4e 14 89 54 24 14 99 2b c2
Stack dump:
0afc325c 00000780 00000600 00629c54 00000000 00000013 0cae3a44 00000000 004026e9 00000001 00000013 00000000 00629c40 00000600 00629c54 00493898

Hope you can solve this problem, along with the aforementioned naval blockade sham

Good luck...

 

[Gnomos]

Originally posted by Plimitree
I decided to steal technology from a rival civ and was successful, however, my spy kept on prompting me to choose another technology to steal even though that civ didn't have anything I didn't already know.

I had to end the game from the o/s program manager to escape this bug! Has this happened to anyone else?

Config.
PIII866
ME
256MB
w/ patch applied.

This happens only if you steal the tech you are currently researching. What happens is, when you gain the tech, it calls the tech tree function again so you can select the next tech to research, but the status variables are all set to steal tech mode, allowing you to steal a second tech if it's available. If it's not available, you cannot exit the screen, and will have to give the 3 finger salute.

 

[Gnomos]

Originally posted by Peteus
I can't build rails in neutral territory on the Zulu island in this save. I can't imagine why - the neutral section is directly connected to my city, where I can build rails. A couple of turns later I declared peace with the Zulus, which incidentaly cancelled my wartime footing, and suddenly I could build rails in the neutral territory. And no, there was no Zulu territory blockading me. Could wartime footing prevent one from building rails in neutral territory?

I have found that if you put a few workers in the square, pillage it, then build a road, when you complete the road there will be a pause as the game adjusts land ownership, and then you can build railroad in the neutral territory.

 

[Gnomos]

Originally posted by Agent Roo

as for the barracks q in page 7, the island based city *definately* had a barracks, usually it's the first or second thing i build after a defensive unit. have to check the other, but i think at the time i had a barracks, as i was producing a Swordsman who i remember to have been regular when built.

If you built a regular unit you had no barracks, cities with barracks build veteran units.

 

[Luca Brasi]

Finally installed 1.16 after 1.07 started to crash on me. Was playing the Chinese, killed their last city. Didn't get the "You killed the Chinese" box. Turns out they had a settler in a galley. Fine, I use a frigate to kill the galley. CRASH. Reload, try again. CRASH. Use a saved game editor to delete the galley, reload, kill the settler. Get the "You killed the Chinese" box. No crash.

And the two workers per square on auto pollution is incredibly annoying.

 

[ainwood]

When I buy/get the tech I am currently researching from the AI, then I am not prompted to select a new tech to be researched - one is chosen for me.

This can be very frustrating when I am rushing towards a specific tech that I feel will give me an edge in the game.

 

[Jimmicus]

Originally posted by ainwood
When I buy/get the tech I am currently researching from the AI, then I am not prompted to select a new tech to be researched - one is chosen for me.

This can be very frustrating when I am rushing towards a specific tech that I feel will give me an edge in the game.

Hit the F6 key to go to the tech research screen. You can change the tech currently being researched just by clicking on the new one. Not sure if you lose the benefit of the research already done on the old topic or not though.

 

[ainwood]

Thanks!