[cdhostage]

Woohoo! http://www.versiontracker.com/
Now the Mac version is caught up with the PC version. I hope that the company releases the updates concurrently in the future.

Now, if only I hadn't made my self promise to not buy the game until I graduate....

[P]

Originally posted by cdhostage:
<STRONG>Woohoo! http://www.versiontracker.com/
Now the Mac version is caught up with the PC version. I hope that the company releases the updates concurrently in the future.

Now, if only I hadn't made my self promise to not buy the game until I graduate....</STRONG>

The upside is that the there have been several updates to the Mac port that weren't in the PC patch.The game is _much_ faster, and it hasn't crashed on me yet.

[Carl Norum]

Best part - right mouse button works now. =) Huzzah!

That, and I get music now, which never worked before... hmmmm.

[cdhostage]

Does anyone know if multiplayer has been implmented yet? I liked the system Civ:CTP used, which allowed for a bunch of ways of playing, including the wonderful email Civ game. (Each player plays a turn and send data of changes to the next player via email)

[Colonel Panic]

arghhh...

update is great, but i'm getting frequent crashes now in 10.1 "unexpectedly quit". cube 500mhz 10.1.3 radeon.
console says something about asynchronous threads....

[Carl Norum]

No multiplayer from what I can see. And I've been having no crashing problems, either. Hope it works out for you!

[rjc3]

the new civ 3 patch has made my game unplayable. i had been playing a large game when the update became available. The game ran OK before the patch on my Pismo running 10.1, but was pretty slow, especially in later stages of large game. I just applied the patch, and now my game "unexpectedly quits" on me at the beginning of my turn. AARGH!!

[juanvaldes]

Have they fixed the preferences not sticking bug?

[Carl Norum]

Originally posted by juanvaldes:
<STRONG>Have they fixed the preferences not sticking bug?</STRONG>

Yes.

[P]

Originally posted by rjc3:
<STRONG>the new civ 3 patch has made my game unplayable. i had been playing a large game when the update became available. The game ran OK before the patch on my Pismo running 10.1, but was pretty slow, especially in later stages of large game. I just applied the patch, and now my game "unexpectedly quits" on me at the beginning of my turn. AARGH!! </STRONG>

Does this happen with new games as well? It's sort of a rule not to start old savegames in newer, patched, versions of a game.

[schwa]

Originally posted by P:
<STRONG>

Does this happen with new games as well? It's sort of a rule not to start old savegames in newer, patched, versions of a game.</STRONG>

Yes, for me.

Some general thoughts on the patch-

- Game speed is definitely increased.
- Quartz rendering is better, but IMHO still not a viable option for extended play, as it still generates a noticeable lag (Dual G4/500, Radeon).
- Sound and music work correctly!
- Group move and sentry options- YES YES YES!

I still wish, alas, there diplomacy options to ask another civ to call off war with a third civ. I miss that from Civ II

[Colonel Panic]

Originally posted by Colonel Panic:
<STRONG>arghhh...

update is great, but i'm getting frequent crashes now in 10.1 "unexpectedly quit". cube 500mhz 10.1.3 radeon.
console says something about asynchronous threads....</STRONG>

seems to be fixed now - i selected "don't change resolutions for movies" at start-up at all crashes have ceased.

great update. amazing speed increase. very playable w/full animations on a 500mhz cube. much smoother. right-click and scroll wheel as well.....sweet!

[P]

Originally posted by schwa:
<STRONG>
I still wish, alas, there diplomacy options to ask another civ to call off war with a third civ. I miss that from Civ II </STRONG>

Yeah, and SMAC... I agree, you can't play busybody and interfere with other people's business the way you can in those games, you have to go to war. Also Civ's can't surrender to you like they can in SMAC, which is a big loss, and here is no key to speed up enemy moves instantly.

Civ III is beginning to grow on me though. Cultural flip seems to have disappeared entirely, which is a bit sad but it's a lot better than before when cities flipped back all the time. The Civ's aren't entirely balanced, and the new restrictions in Wonder building are extremely annnoying (no hurry, no building one wonder in two places) but the resources make up for it. It hasn't been an instant hit with me, like Civ II was, but then neither was SMAC. The other day I played 'til 4 am, and I guess that's a sign I'm getting used to it.

If Brad just could finish the Carbon beta of SMAC, I could alternate between them and get absolutely no work done at all.

[qyn]

I thought I was noticing some other minor changes in the patched version as well:

After building the evolution wonder, you now get to choose your advances (as opposed to getting the two cheapest). Not a huge change, but defnitely affects strategy at that point. And for scientific civs at new ages, now the cheapest is always picked (used to be that it wouldn't pick the one you were researching).

I also think the rival civs are trading with each other more, because it seems much harder to get a commanding tech lead.

Or maybe I'm just hallucinating.

BTW, all my old crashes disappeared and no new ones came. Just in case anyone is counting...

Originally posted by P:
<STRONG>
If Brad just could finish the Carbon beta of SMAC, I could alternate between them and get absolutely no work done at all.</STRONG>

Try getting Black&White. I'm scared to.

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by P:
<STRONG>
If Brad just could finish the Carbon beta of SMAC, I could alternate between them and get absolutely no work done at all.</STRONG>

What do you want fixed?

Brad

[juanvaldes]

beautiful. Great job, I LOVE the right click. Most missed feature IMO. Also noticed that now it tells you how many turns before the next cultural expansion. Also nice. Too bad its' 2:19am and I should goto sleep or I might even play a few more turns

[P]

Originally posted by Brad Oliver:
<STRONG>

What do you want fixed?

Brad</STRONG>

I sent crash reports to the pobox email you posted - I can resend if you want. Essentially, I get crashes when loading a savegame from within another game, 100% of the time. If I load from the main menu it seems to be fine, but if I load when another game is active, it crashes when showing current files in the Open dialog box. Same goes for saving, only just sometimes, which is much worse. Sort of like playing with the Iron Man setting always on...

[rjc3]

I can confirm that disabling "change resolutions for movies" (or something life that) prevents an unexpected error crash in my large saved game. thanks for the tip, Colonel Panic! the game played ok (but god-awful slow!) prior to the patch, but crashed at the beginning of my turn every time after applying the patch.
Now if the speed issue could be resolved....

[NickKohn]

Originally posted by Brad Oliver:
<STRONG>

What do you want fixed?

Brad</STRONG>

I actually haven't checked the update yet, but if it's not in it, Can you add a way to minimize or hide Civ3? I find myself not playing the game that much because it's a hassle to launch the game, play for 20mins, quit, go back to work, launch the game, play for 20mins, quit, etc...

[schwa]

Originally posted by NickKohn:
<STRONG>

I actually haven't checked the update yet, but if it's not in it, Can you add a way to minimize or hide Civ3? I find myself not playing the game that much because it's a hassle to launch the game, play for 20mins, quit, go back to work, launch the game, play for 20mins, quit, etc...</STRONG>

Cmd-P pauses the game and drops you in the Finder.
Still waiting for game-in-window!

[Herr Newton]

Originally posted by qyn:
<STRONG>I also think the rival civs are trading with each other more, because it seems much harder to get a commanding tech lead.

Or maybe I'm just hallucinating.</STRONG>

You're not -- the game's AI designer made the AIs trade tech agressibely to mitigate player tech whoring... the general consensus on the fan sites is that he went a bit too far in his tweaking. Personally, I've sacrificied the nice new UI commands and reverted back to 1.16f to avoid the "Player v. World" default scenario

[Thanar]

Originally posted by schwa:
<STRONG>
- Sound and music work correctly!
</STRONG>

I don't know about you, but since noone else has posted my way, I guess I'm the only one having this problem:
At the beggining of the civilization, when the music played is composed of loops, there are cracks and gaps for me. I tried copying the mousic files off the CD and onto the HD, but no luck!
G4/733/GeForce2MX.
Anyone facing the same audio problem?

[Pinky]

About that player VS world thing...

I had just got into that & realized I couldn't win it (damn russians ), since everyone was connected to the main continent. I simply reloaded a few turns before, made a defense alliance with the french (at the cost of a few luxury ressources), and now, thanks to multiple mutual defence pacts, it's half the world VS the other half...That simple diplomatic effort changed everything .
Hope it lasts....

[P]

ally posted by Pinky:
<STRONG>About that player VS world thing...

I had just got into that & realized I couldn't win it (damn russians ), since everyone was connected to the main continent. I simply reloaded a few turns before, made a defense alliance with the french (at the cost of a few luxury ressources), and now, thanks to multiple mutual defence pacts, it's half the world VS the other half...That simple diplomatic effort changed everything .
Hope it lasts.... </STRONG>[/QUOTE]

Yeah, only restoring a previously saved game counts as cheating... The main strategy is valid, though - try to get at least one ally on your side and things get a lot easier. Your ally will then try to get more allies, so you get two or three allies for the price of one. Pretty soon the game is World War style, Axis vs. Allies.

The first downside to this is that that first arrangement is now the weak link. Look close at the conditions for how long that deal will last: If either side gives away a tech, a city or fixed sum of money, it will cancel automatically after 20 turns. This can make for a nasty surprise when someone attacks you and you're all alone in the world

The second downside is that the war never ends, and Democracies and Republics are going to hurt from that. Having Universal Suffrage doesn't help as much anymore - you can't have a Republic and fight like there's no tomorrow, the people will get tired of the war eventually.

Finally, a little bully tactic I thought I'd share: renogtiate peace! Just click "Active" on the Diplomacy screen, click the Peace treaty and see what you can squeeze out of your opponent.

[Herr Newton]

Originally posted by P:
<STRONG>If either side gives away a tech, a city or fixed sum of money, it will cancel automatically after 20 turns. This can make for a nasty surprise when someone attacks you and you're all alone in the world
</STRONG>

Not quite true: Diplomatic agreements can be peacefully cancelled after 20 turns. If they aren't cancelled by either party to the agreement, they continue indefinitely.

[schwa]

Originally posted by P:
<STRONG>

Yeah, only restoring a previously saved game counts as cheating...
</STRONG>

Oh, I don't think I'd go that far. If you're going to constantly reload a game to win individual battles, yeah that's cheating. But if you reload to make up for a brain fart (like accidentally moving a unit to the wrong place- I do this all the time) or getting out of a sure-lose situation, who cares?

<STRONG>Finally, a little bully tactic I thought I'd share: renogtiate peace! Just click "Active" on the Diplomacy screen, click the Peace treaty and see what you can squeeze out of your opponent.</STRONG>

Wow, great tip. Thanks!

[ 03-06-2002: Message edited by: schwa ]

[G Barnett]

Heh, you sure can't do the SQUOG cheat in Civ III like you could in the original. I admit it -- I used to abuse the original Civ like there was no tomorrow. I don't remember how I found out -- but I did discover it on my own -- that in the original Civ, saved games didn't keep track of which units had already moved in a given turn.

So, if I came across an overly aggressive opponent (usually the Zulus or Russians, as I recall) that could hand me my ass in a protracted war, I'd whip up a good-sized army, and then move all my units except a settler. Save the game, quit, reload, repeat. It was tedious, but I could take an entire continent in one turn. With 10 chariots.

Shameless? Youbetcha. Still, I'm glad that little oversight went away in Civ II and later games. It was just too easy....


G Barnett

[Thanar]

Originally posted by Thanar:
<STRONG>

I don't know about you, but since noone else has posted my way, I guess I'm the only one having this problem:
At the beggining of the civilization, when the music played is composed of loops, there are cracks and gaps for me. I tried copying the mousic files off the CD and onto the HD, but no luck!
G4/733/GeForce2MX.
Anyone facing the same audio problem?</STRONG>

Well?

[P]

Originally posted by Herr Newton:
<STRONG>

Not quite true: Diplomatic agreements can be peacefully cancelled after 20 turns. If they aren't cancelled by either party to the agreement, they continue indefinitely.</STRONG>

Read exactly what I said: If you give away a one-time thing (tech, one-time gold), they will cancel automatically. If you provide them only with luxuries, or per-turn payments, they can be canceled after 20 turns but won't cancel automatically.

[P]

Originally posted by G Barnett:
<STRONG>Heh, you sure can't do the SQUOG cheat in Civ III like you could in the original. I admit it -- I used to abuse the original Civ like there was no tomorrow. I don't remember how I found out -- but I did discover it on my own -- that in the original Civ, saved games didn't keep track of which units had already moved in a given turn.

So, if I came across an overly aggressive opponent (usually the Zulus or Russians, as I recall) that could hand me my ass in a protracted war, I'd whip up a good-sized army, and then move all my units except a settler. Save the game, quit, reload, repeat. It was tedious, but I could take an entire continent in one turn. With 10 chariots.

Shameless? Youbetcha. Still, I'm glad that little oversight went away in Civ II and later games. It was just too easy....

G Barnett</STRONG>

_That's_ cheating! I agree that I also occasionally load a game after finding out that I moved a unit wrong, but this...

There was something similar in Civ II, but only if you played the Romans (or another white Civ). Save when the game stops for End-of-Game. Quit and then double-click the savegame in the Finder. The rest of the old turn is lost and the game starts a new turn with the first player. First is barbarians, but the white Civ (e.g. Romans) are second, so the other Civs can't move at all.

AC had none of those bugs, but there was some imbalance in that the choppers were way too good. Their limitation was their range, but you could get around that by flying them up to an enemy city, have them use all turns but one shoting its defenders and save it while using another chopper to repeat the same. Go on until all defenders are dead. Send in a paratrooper to capture the city and land your choppers in the newly captured base. Use the next turn to move in some more defense and repair the choppers, and you can go again.

543%... it's just too easy.

Originally posted by Colonel Panic:
<STRONG>

seems to be fixed now - i selected "don't change resolutions for movies" at start-up at all crashes have ceased.

great update. amazing speed increase. very playable w/full animations on a 500mhz cube. much smoother. right-click and scroll wheel as well.....sweet!</STRONG>

Since I installed the update, I've had a couple of crashes and one lock-up that required a reset. (450 Cube) After resetting, the HD had a tendency to thrash a lot with occasional unhealthy clicking noises. I ran a disc repair last night and the thrashing seems to have stopped, but I'm nervous about trying Civ again, even with the fix above.

Has anyone else seen this behaviour?

[cheerios]

just to let y'all know... new update on Versiontracker! version 1.1.7g is up

Here's what it does, straight from VT:

Fixed issue where the game soundtrack would not fade down properly when playing the space-race movie
* Fixed issue where the Mac port would crash when loading some types of custom games created on the PC. As a result, some save games created on the Mac in 1.17f and earlier may no longer work, but odds are that they were pretty unstable to begin with.
* PC bug: fixed random crashing during turn upkeep.
* PC bug: fixed crash when disposing of certain types of units, mainly transports.

[ 03-09-2002: Message edited by: cheerios ]

[Herr Newton]

Originally posted by cheerios:
<STRONG>just to let y'all know... new update on Versiontracker! version 1.1.7g is up</STRONG>

And a link to the VT page http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=13096

Kinda' sad that I'll likely lose my current game... finally managed to pull a decent tech lead over the AI's New World Order style of tech trading.

[ 03-09-2002: Message edited by: Herr Newton ]

[cdhostage]

Why is it that old games can't be played in updated versions of the app without the thing crashing? Just asking for when I buy it in June.

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by Herr Newton:
<STRONG>Kinda' sad that I'll likely lose my current game... finally managed to pull a decent tech lead over the AI's New World Order style of tech trading.</STRONG>

You'll probably only lose your save game if you started it from a scenario custom-created on the PC. Most save games should still work fine.

Brad

[Herr Newton]

Originally posted by Brad Oliver:
<STRONG>

You'll probably only lose your save game if you started it from a scenario custom-created on the PC. Most save games should still work fine.

Brad</STRONG>

True -- still playing the current save and it's working fine.

[Thanar]

I am using the latest version and the sound still doesn't play as it does on the PC version. On the PC version, during battles there are continuous battle sounds. On the mac, sound plays only at the beggining of the attack and at the end of it. Apart from it, I have NEVER heard a longbowman die! He just drops down to the ground making no noise!

[Thanar]

Sorry to bother you again...

I am recently facing various problems with Civ 3. I always play Huge maps with the max number of civilizations on them. I also use to neggotiate with all of the other leaders each turn. On EACH game, here's what happens:

- At the first 5-6 turns, everything is OK.
- When I reach turn 6 or 7, the game seems sluggish when the "Press SPACE or ENTER for next turn" shows up... The FPS falls to something aroung ONE! If I select a unit, everything gets back to normal. When no unit is selected (everyone has finished its move) there is trouble again!
- After that, at some random time, when neggotiating or when the other civs make their moves, (apart from the fact that the other civ's moves take forever) the game crashes.
- Loading the last save works fine.
- If Civ 3 crashes LOTS of times (it does), I experience a total System Freeze! Not even a KP. Nothing works at all! However, I haven't experienced this while playing, only during periods of inactivity, without the Civ3 app running.

I have tried reinstalling the game, but no luck...
I am facing no other issues on my OS X 10.2 installation.
I am always running distributed.net client at the Console with memory-only buffer at 2666 packets.
No other major apps are running.
Oh, I have 512 MB of RAM.

I am suspecting that there is a memory leak somewhere, don't know whether it is caused by Civ 3 or the System itself. Any clever way to find out what's wrong?
I was facing some KPs issues with Myth 3, but heard from some OpenGL developers that there at some major memory leaks in the OpenGL.framework in the current versions of OS X.

[schwa]

Originally posted by Thanar:
<STRONG>Sorry to bother you again...

I am recently facing various problems with Civ 3. I always play Huge maps with the max number of civilizations on them. I also use to neggotiate with all of the other leaders each turn. On EACH game, here's what happens:

- At the first 5-6 turns, everything is OK.
- When I reach turn 6 or 7, the game seems sluggish when the "Press SPACE or ENTER for next turn" shows up... The FPS falls to something aroung ONE! If I select a unit, everything gets back to normal. When no unit is selected (everyone has finished its move) there is trouble again!
- After that, at some random time, when neggotiating or when the other civs make their moves, (apart from the fact that the other civ's moves take forever) the game crashes.
- Loading the last save works fine.
- If Civ 3 crashes LOTS of times (it does), I experience a total System Freeze! Not even a KP. Nothing works at all! However, I haven't experienced this while playing, only during periods of inactivity, without the Civ3 app running.
</STRONG>

I have the same problems on my Dual G4/500, with 832MB RAM. No system crashes, though. The game crashes tend to happen if I do several negotiations via the Foreign Advisor panel (going through Shift-D always seems fine). But yeah, the end-of-turn lag after the last unit moves is really annoying.

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by Thanar:
<STRONG>I am facing no other issues on my OS X 10.2 installation.
I am always running distributed.net client at the Console with memory-only buffer at 2666 packets.</STRONG>

These two things jump out at me. Ditch 10.2 (it's definitely got issues in the current incarnation) and quit the distributed.net client. If you then get a crash under 10.1.4, e-mail me the crash stack trace from the Console and I'll take a look.

Brad

[schwa]

Originally posted by Brad Oliver:
<STRONG>

These two things jump out at me. Ditch 10.2 (it's definitely got issues in the current incarnation) and quit the distributed.net client. If you then get a crash under 10.1.4, e-mail me the crash stack trace from the Console and I'll take a look.

Brad</STRONG>

Brad,

I'm not running 10.2 on my side. I'll see if I can dig up some Console info, but I can reliably crash the game by going to the Foreign Advisor screen and trying to initiate trade with each civ- it'll crap out after 3 or 4.

Any news on the update?

[P]

Considering the thread subject: any news on the 1.21 patch?

[Thanar]

Hello,

I tried 10.1.4 and have the same problem. No dnet running! I believe it is a memory leak, since the crashes occur after the game has begun to crawl at the "End of Turn" message. I am now leaving one unit active at the end of turn and initiate the End of Turn by clicking on the round orange button. It works fine now, except from the fact that Mac Civ3 is still WAY slower than the PC build!

Any ideas on the 1.21 patch? "Abandon city" is very usefull!

[cdhostage]

Memory leak? I thought one of the points of OS X is that each program has "protected memory" which another program can't touch.

[schwa]

Originally posted by cdhostage:
<STRONG>Memory leak? I thought one of the points of OS X is that each program has "protected memory" which another program can't touch.</STRONG>

True, but that won't stop an individual program from gobbling up excess memory or mismanaging its own store. So, you can wind up with a runaway app taking up every spare byte of RAM, but it shouldn't bring down the rest of your system.

[cheerios]

Originally posted by schwa:
<STRONG>

Brad,

I'm not running 10.2 on my side. I'll see if I can dig up some Console info, but I can reliably crash the game by going to the Foreign Advisor screen and trying to initiate trade with each civ- it'll crap out after 3 or 4.

Any news on the update?</STRONG>

Juan still being lazy...

in Applications/Utilities open Console.app. When open goto preferences and then the 'Crashes' tab. Check "Log crash info" and whenever a application crashes a file is made in /user/Library/logs.

Then send that off to Brad and hopefully he can fix it.

btw brad I have lost the first two weeks of summer to Civ 3 any chance at getting corruption turned down a little? And are you going to be bringing us the Civ 3 expansion? if so when it comes out or a few months later?

[ 05-24-2002: Message edited by: cheerios ]

[P]

Originally posted by cheerios:
<STRONG>
btw brad I have lost the first two weeks of summer to Civ 3 any chance at getting corruption turned down a little?
</STRONG>

He's not the one that decides such things - Firaxis does - but I can inform you that the 1.21 patch increases the effect of Courthouses and Police Stations, effectively bringing corruption down a bit. In the meantime, you can:

* Choose a Commercial Civ
* Put faraway cities in We Love the King Day-mode
* Build Courthouse and Police Station everywhere
* Place Forbidden Palace with care. If necessary, move the main Palace to a better location
* Use Democracy or Communism

I also had troubles with corruption at first, but recent patches have dialed it down, and I've learned to live with what's left.

[juanvaldes]

Originally posted by P:
<STRONG>

He's not the one that decides such things - Firaxis does - but I can inform you that the 1.21 patch increases the effect of Courthouses and Police Stations, effectively bringing corruption down a bit. In the meantime, you can:

* Choose a Commercial Civ
* Put faraway cities in We Love the King Day-mode
* Build Courthouse and Police Station everywhere
* Place Forbidden Palace with care. If necessary, move the main Palace to a better location
* Use Democracy or Communism

I also had troubles with corruption at first, but recent patches have dialed it down, and I've learned to live with what's left.</STRONG>

I know he dosen't but I had to vent.

• Which are those? I left the manual at home and this (I think) is new from Civ 2 so I don't really know much of it.
  How do you do that?
  Did.
  stupid city buidling what they want grumble grumble.....accadentaly built it right next to my palace Will move my palace when I finish killing the frence
  In Democracy.

The problem with it is though that it dosent' take a whole lot of distance from your capital to go from 10% corruption to 90% corruption. I run my game at 1600x1200 and I can SEE both citys at once and corruption is that bad.

oh well, just venting

[P]

Originally posted by juanvaldes:
<STRONG>


I know he dosen't but I had to vent.

• Which are those? I left the manual at home and this (I think) is new from Civ 2 so I don't really know much of it.
  How do you do that?
  Did.
  stupid city buidling what they want grumble grumble.....accadentaly built it right next to my palace Will move my palace when I finish killing the frence In Democracy.

The problem with it is though that it dosent' take a whole lot of distance from your capital to go from 10% corruption to 90% corruption. I run my game at 1600x1200 and I can SEE both citys at once and corruption is that bad.

oh well, just venting </STRONG>

When you chose Civs, it says right there what abilities they have. The Civ profiles are also here

We Love the King-mode is when you have more happies than contents and no unhappies in the city. You need at least size 7 city to do it. Make people entertainers to push cities over the line.

[juanvaldes]

Originally posted by P:
<STRONG>

When you chose Civs, it says right there what abilities they have. The Civ profiles are also here

We Love the King-mode is when you have more happies than contents and no unhappies in the city. You need at least size 7 city to do it. Make people entertainers to push cities over the line.</STRONG>

yes of course. but you made it sound like you can SET them to be in 'we love' mode. Also, I started this game back in January right after I bought the game at MWSF