v1.52 Patch results

[Mirc]

I haven't tried it yet. I remember what happened when I tried to patch civ3. Anyway, it happens usually in my games that when I build a wonder, the game crashes. Sometimes it doesn't. I hope the patch fixed this. Trying it soon.

 

[Phyr_Negator]

1.52 SUX! Solved some but don't even touched or bothered with eternal "Contacting peer" problem as well as not a single filter for MP. Great job Firaxis!

 

[S.SubZero]

I was having a stability problem where the game would start flickering and eventually crash. I thought maybe the video chipset in my laptop was overheating, but that would be strange since I've had this laptop a while and it never had a problem with other highly intensive gaming. Turning down the video chipset speed didn't help, furthering my suspicion that it was not the video chipset overheating.

Ever since 1.52, this problem has vanished. I was able to play through a several-hour long game without the slightest flicker. The game interface also feels quicker, and it doesn't start to lag heavily when I get most of the map explored.

One other nice thing is now when I toggle the gridlines it doesn't sit there for several minutes trying to display them.

 

[MadMaligor]

The problem is it becomesmore and more restrictive:
What you can't (which you can in earlier ver) is much more than what you can (which is only available in current ver). The extend is deteriorating from Civ2 to Civ3 and from Civ3 to Civ4

In the name of "making the game more challenging", "removing exploits" or "to prevent overkilling power" and so on, many features are removed or being limited in the way player can use it... So yes eventually everyone has to go with "exact same strategy" or similar way of playing in every game.

The worst part is the group of Civ fans who like "Building of big empire" is totally forgone by the game designer. A big empire of many cities is quite impossible to be managed in Civ3 and it is now even worst, it is impossible to establish a huge empire with a lot of cities. I am not talking about expending with the ICS strategy, I am talking about building in a reasonable pace, picking all reasonable location for cities and progressively building a real BIG empire (under EPIC or the newly introduced Marathon mode)

I am almost finished with my first marathon on a lakes map. I dont see what your talking about. Its true that its not an easy road to take but I have an empire now of 28 cities and growing. Expansion takes a bit of patience but it can be done. You do need to get some key Great Wonders and establish yourself as one of the top science powerhouses early on. There are also some civs that seem much more suited to expansion than others (I use Gandhi, Catherine, or Washington). But again, it can be done without hamstringing yourself. In addition if you do go the expansion route you need one or two key friends. Keep two of the larger civs happy (adopt their religions or convert them to yours early, never say no unless your absolutely certain they are coming for you, give them a free resource or two you dont need). I have the Ghengis as an ally and Peter at friendly. We three are basically tearing the other five a new hole. =)

 

[Thormodr]

As you may have read in my thread asking for save games (begging really ) the 1.52 Patch has been an utter disaster. I went from starting new games, freezing. rebooting, and then loading the autosave and playing to nothing. Now when I load the autosave, it freezes again. Thank you for all your hard work Firaxis. I love the game but I can't play it anymore. I can run Rise of Nations fine on my laptop. Is by Big Huge Games? Maybe I will just play that. At least they can put out a workable game. *Sigh*
Not angry Firaxis. Just really, really disappointed. Words fail me on how disappointed I am...

 

[hclass]

I am almost finished with my first marathon on a lakes map. I dont see what your talking about. Its true that its not an easy road to take but I have an empire now of 28 cities and growing.

I am sorry, it is my mistake, I should have mentioned about BIG/HUGE map when building BIG empire. In that case, I strongly feel 28+ cities is small in quantity and therefore an empire contains that many won't give me a sense of being BIG.

 

[MadMaligor]

I am sorry, it is my mistake, I should have mentioned about BIG/HUGE map when building BIG empire. In that case, I strongly feel 28+ cities is small in quantity and therefore an empire contains that many won't give me a sense of being BIG.

Actually I am playing on a Huge map, but I think I know what your getting at. The way the economic factors impact growth (especially huge spikes with multiple settlers establishing cities in and around the same time) is not your cup of tea. The problem though would be how would you counter a settler rush by the AI if there were less restrictions on its expansion? I could see some of the expansionist computer controlled civs dominating early and fast especially at prince difficulty or above. There would be little you could do to stop it, especially on huge maps.

 

[Traxis]

The patch worked wonders for me. The game ran ok before, but now it is even faster. I now get no lag when zooming all the way out and back. Before it would take a few seconds to render. The improved Civilopedia, Marathon game speed and the Regenerate Map feature are also great additions.

 

[hclass]

The way the economic factors impact growth (especially huge spikes with multiple settlers establishing cities in and around the same time) is not your cup of tea.

Not exactly true.
IMO, using maintenance cost as a curb on ICS is good idea. At least raising income/cutting down cost on other areas can counter that maintenance cost and gives player a room to increase the #cities. What I am really disappointed is how maintenance cost is increased when an empire is being expanded. It basically still take existing #cities (and the distance from capital) as factors - a real stupid formula. (exactly as how corruption increases in previous ver). A simple change of the factor to "increment rate of #cities" should make the formula much better if not perfect. At least the "big empire building" fans has their chance to enjoy a better Civ4.

The problem though would be how would you counter a settler rush by the AI if there were less restrictions on its expansion?

You see, the point is you wanted the "rush" being moderated not the "total #settlers built" being reduced. So the control should not based on existing #settlers but how many settlers built over a fix #turns. (this is what I call rate of increment). So again, simple restriction, like impose "difficulty" of building a single settler is again STUPID. The restriction should be based on the "rate of increment" on the #settlers built (existing cities are considered as used settlers)

I could see some of the expansionist computer controlled civs dominating early and fast especially at prince difficulty or above.

Yes, ICS.

There would be little you could do to stop it, especially on huge maps.

In fact Firaxis does not need a lot of ways to stop it, one change to the factor of maintenance cost formula will do - the magic is the term "rate of increment"
Let me quotes an example to clearify my point just in case:
Lets say in a game which allows player to build cars at point A and move them to point B. Whoever manage to have max# cars at point B is the winner. In order to give player "challenge" in such game, one should raise the cost of building a single car based on the "#cars built within says N turns" not how many cars he/she has built...

 

[lord_graywolfe]

well the patch fixed almost all my problems. the wonder movies are working fine agian, they worked when i first got it but then got jerking with the first patch. the game is much smoother and im loving it. the only problem i have is that on large or huge maps i still get black terrain late in the game. thats not a big deal since i usally play std maps anyway and they work perfectly now. the other thing i noticed is that the mods dont work right anymore all the text in the game is gone when running them but i think with the new marathon setting ill live without the mod

 

[Pratputajao]

The patch has made Huge maps playable (only able to do that before with Hark's patch) and now can even play the regular *earth* scenarios, though those are still noticeably slow. Also, I no longer have to restart the game/change resolutions after movies and Dipl. encounters!!! That is by far the best improvement! God how that would really, really disrupt a game! Having installed the patch I have even had that 'one more turn' feeling come back!! Patch 1.09 was unable to be used as it made the game so much more slow that I hade to reinstall the game without it. But this new patch was a godsend for me. I am so happy to see hyperlinks finally enabled with this patch as well. Now it hasnt cleared all the problems. I tried to load the *earth 1000AD* scenario and this is still too slow to be played, so I am guessing most other scenarios are unplayable as well. I pray this will be addressed and fixed ( if it can?). This is what made Civ 2 have near infinite replayability- all the different scenarios depicting historical events. I really enjoy playing say, the Crusades or Age of Rome. I would be most disappointed if I could never access other players Scenarios...

For the most part I would give this patch an A.

 

[TylerDurdon]

I didnt had any big problems so far... My spec are a little low so I had the troubles that goes with it, well... i couldnt run large to huge map, the lagging made it just unplayable... with 1.09 + Harkonen patch everything was 100% running... I even didnt notice bugs except maybe the minus gold... even that I thought they were just poor

Now with 1.52 my intro movie dont run smooth at all, i'm even tempted to say it doesnt run at all... but i dont really care....

Plus... since the beginning my Wonder movie lagged toward the end.... but now... its more of a steady lag from frame 1

I'm not complainning.... to me its only minor issues... when I want to watch movies... I rent one... I'm not playing video games

 

[azzaman333]

Sometime the wonder movies crash into a brick wall for me. I even get a blue screen of death!

 

[The Condor]

Oh, that must of sucked. Anyone else like to talk about their experiences with the patch so far?

 

[grallon]

Downloaded the patch manually - installed it (upgrading version 1.0) and Lo & behold - the install didn't recognize the main executable and after selecting "ignore" and trying to launch it I got error msgs telling me the executable is not a valid one...

This wasn't a cracked copy - this was the real thing. So I opened the Control panel and removed the whole damned thing.



G.

 

[The Condor]

Come on people. There are more than 70,000 people here and I am pretty sure more than 200 have gotten the patch by now.

 

[p_boehnke]

At first it was working great. I didn't have any problems like random CTD or system hangs.

But I now have a new problem. When I get far into the game it starts to run out of video memory. I can't play any saved game if the file is too big. I can play for a couple of turns then I run out of video memory. This didn't happen before and I am pretty sure it isn't my machine.

System Specs

Asus P5AD2-E Premium MB
2.8 GHz P4
1GB Memory
Serial ATA WD Hard Drive
ATI Radeon X600 PCI Express 256MB

 

[Great_Scott]

Hmm.. i don't see a poll option for..

The Patch was a good update for me, with a few improvements & polishes.. since I've not had a single since v1.09, setting my page file size to 1.5 gig and downloading Harkonnens memory fix patch.

 

[The Condor]

That's because this poll is about your results with v1.52 and not 1.09.

 

[ZippyRiver]

Note: This patch is for all versions of Civilization IV with the exception of the Direct2Drive version.

I must hold off my vote for now. Just found out the new patch was out.

Given it's size, it will probably take all night to DL with my crappy dial-up (45.5MB) :shock:

I am just wondering if those having problems are running a game started under 1.09. I get the feeling you are suppose to be able to play current games post patch, but maybe you can't. Just a thought.

As for the quote, that is from the 2K site. Also causes wonder regarding patch complains.

I am so close to finishing my current game, not sure if I want to patch it now or not. There is probably 10-20 turns left before I either lose the space race (not even running in it) or I get a domination victory. Problem is, 20 (involved)turns will take a day or two get through with the current slowness of the game.