Civ 4 is being released tomorrow

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-11-06 08:28pm

Does anybody know where I can get a no-cd patch for this hunk of junk? I realise that such a request may be taboo but I am so fed up: I want to try a new fix for my terrain problem that I read on the forums but the problem I experienced earlier on is coming back to haunt me: the game simply will not load! The cd is recognised in the tray but try as it will, the game will not initialise. I am really, really losing my patience with this game - I have no encountered so many bugs in an initial release since Championship Manager 4 or maybe even ST Armada I.

If people want I will post a picture of me holding my legit copy of Civ 4 and today's newspaper to prove that I own it...

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-11-06 09:00pm

The same place we get all of our cracks, Pinky... www.gamecopyworld.??? mystery!!!

What do people mean by 'like what they've done with the combat system'? Do people like how the AI always gets to defend with the best unit in a stack (ie, + vs archers or gunpowder or whatever)? Or how bombardment does essentially no damage to the stack in the city? I've turned the ridiculous little combat animation off, because I just got sick of seeing one pikeman kill three machinegunners.

The game momentum, by which I mean the critical mass of say six cities letting you spam out new cities and research, means that the early game is slow and boring and the late game is ridiculously fast (sending a sailboat with troops to attack, and inventing AND BUILDING modern oil-transports before they get there). Your civilisation spends three or four thousand years saving money - it's not good for anything else - and then blows it on a massive army and kills everyone. Start new game, repeat.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-11-06 10:33pm

IT WORKS!!!

Didn't need the crack - the game just randomly decided to let itself work. The new Omega drivers worked perfectly for the game.

As for the game itself. WOW. I love it. I started a new game just to test if it was stable with the new drivers and didn't intend to go past a few turns ... well three hours later the year is 1300AD and I am suffering from the dreaded 'one more turn' syndrome! Too tired to write a full review but all I can say is that I am enjoying it a great deal and I hope to hell that when I get a chance to play it again tomorrow it will start up!

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-11-07 12:16am

Are you using the same version of Os? It'd be strange if the O tweaks were enough to fix the issue by themselves...

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-11-07 08:51am

Stark wrote:Are you using the same version of Os? It'd be strange if the O tweaks were enough to fix the issue by themselves...

I was using 71.89 drivers previously - these Omega drivers are listed as 1.6693 and I chose quality settings rather than performance, as per the thread I read over at the civ forums.

I forgot to mention before - just how big is that Huge map?! I have a feeling I will struggle to run it big time when I discover a few more nations later in the game.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-11-07 01:49pm

Does anyone else here have the problem of the game simply not starting sometimes? I thought I had solved the problem with the new video drivers but it hasn't and it's really frustrating. I couldn't find a no-cd either - is all this trouble caused by copy-protection problems or something else?

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-11-07 06:54pm

It sounds like you've got other problems: I'm not a C4 fan, but it's never crashed on any of my systems. You should try GCWs mini-image: it's a .iso with just the copy-protection stuff. I have never, ever started the game with the actual disc in the drive: first thing I do for any game is crack the shit out of it. Discs go in the neat tidy box.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-11-07 07:03pm

ALI_G wrote:Does anyone else here have the problem of the game simply not starting sometimes? I thought I had solved the problem with the new video drivers but it hasn't and it's really frustrating. I couldn't find a no-cd either - is all this trouble caused by copy-protection problems or something else?

Maybe your CD drive is a little busted? I've got an old, cheap dvd-rom drive on my old socket A, half the time it won't read the cd, gota go in and out a few times, my laptop drive does that on rare occasions too.

Also, which Omega driver are you using now (use catalyst equiv.)? I haven't tried the newest one, and well.. I'm too damn busy playing civ4 to try them

Setzer · Post by **Setzer** » 2005-11-08 05:31am

I bought a copy. Neither the map nor the character's faces show up. All the leaders are reduced to eyes and a floating pair of teeth, which is rather scary for the British.

What on my computer needs upgrading?

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2005-11-08 07:51am

Setzer wrote:I bought a copy. Neither the map nor the character's faces show up. All the leaders are reduced to eyes and a floating pair of teeth, which is rather scary for the British.

What on my computer needs upgrading?

Graphics card.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-11-08 08:07am

Setzer wrote:I bought a copy. Neither the map nor the character's faces show up. All the leaders are reduced to eyes and a floating pair of teeth, which is rather scary for the British.

What on my computer needs upgrading?

This is called the 'Cheshire cat' bug. I have read about it at the civ forums but not come across a fix myself. My first bet would be to update your drivers - that's what worked for me.

---

Urghh, the game really slowed down for me last night all of a sudden. It happened when I swapped maps with a nation who had revealed most of the world. Turns used to take 30 seconds - now they take upto 5 minutes. The fact that Japan declared war on me that same turn, and that there are less than a hundred turns left, means that I will start a new game later on today. I really need to start building more military units because my cities are always huge but hopelessly exposed.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2005-11-08 04:41pm

Though I said I would put off playing Civ4 for a while I ended up still playing it. It is an amalgam of Civ2 and 3 with some extras thrown in. I like it but I wish the maps even on standard could be a bit bigger.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-11-08 07:05pm

ALI_G wrote:
Setzer wrote:I bought a copy. Neither the map nor the character's faces show up. All the leaders are reduced to eyes and a floating pair of teeth, which is rather scary for the British.

What on my computer needs upgrading?
This is called the 'Cheshire cat' bug. I have read about it at the civ forums but not come across a fix myself. My first bet would be to update your drivers - that's what worked for me.

---

Urghh, the game really slowed down for me last night all of a sudden. It happened when I swapped maps with a nation who had revealed most of the world. Turns used to take 30 seconds - now they take upto 5 minutes. The fact that Japan declared war on me that same turn, and that there are less than a hundred turns left, means that I will start a new game later on today. I really need to start building more military units because my cities are always huge but hopelessly exposed.

Yep...
Best bet is to set ships and units to explore, have most of the map already revealed when you finally get the whole thing (trade/satts). It's not such a shock to the system.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-11-08 10:25pm

Actually I found that changing drivers again and setting the map size to standard fixed it rather well. I just finished a game on noble, finishing third. I really suffered with no access to oil, but I now have a well and thus am continuing the game past 2050. Been playing this game way too much.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-11-08 10:35pm

Remember, if you uncover the map quickly, when you get access to oil or uranium or coal or whatever, it magically appears all over the world! Even in places you haven't been for THOUSANDS OF YEARS! Even worse, if it's in someone else territory (but they don't have the tech to see it) you can't let them know and negotiate a mining arrangement: you've got to ignore it or take it by force.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2005-11-08 10:44pm

weird. After a while all of the water disappears leaving behind grasslands. My small world is much bigger.

Though I would like to know why the water disappeared.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-11-08 11:13pm

Are you playing simEarth? Admit it!

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-11-09 01:00am

Fun thing I found, Single Player -> Custom Game gives you the "good" options, set civs, advanced options, victory conditions (yay no time limit!), Era, many other nice options. I'm very pleased I finally found this, I'm sick of always getting a Space Race victory.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-11-09 01:18am

You've been playing with the default rules? Oooer.

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2005-11-11 08:42am

IT WAS FINALLY OUT HERE. BOUGHT IT. INSTALLING. CAN'T WAIT *PANT* PANT*

1123581321 · Post by **1123581321** » 2005-11-11 06:33pm

I went ahead and got the game even though I really won't have time to play until after Thanksgiving. Despite that, I still installed it and played for 1 turn. The game had me during the opening sequence when Leonard Nimoy narrates the forming of Earth and the evolution of life. For those that don't know, he speaks the exact words from the original Civilization's opening, which was in text since that was way back in 1992. It brought back great memories.

Can not play until Thanksgiving...in flight school...must have strength to resist.........aw fuck it, I can study later. *back to Civ 4*

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-11-11 06:52pm

Now that you mention it, what's with all the load screens getting to 'done', then being unresponsive for several dozen seconds afterward? I fucking HATE that bullshit intro, but no matter how much I hammer esc, return, ctrl, strg, any etc, I have to hear the first few lines. Same with save-loading, but less annoying due to no intro.

When it says it's 'done', it clearly isn't.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-11-11 07:20pm

For some strange reason the game decides to autosave upon loading. I cannot fathom why you would need a quicksave after you just loaded from a save, but it happens, and takes time too I suspect.

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2005-11-12 06:54am

Played it for hours in a row allready. Addictive as i feared. However, I got one annoying glitch with the Civilization Wonder movies which run pretty much like a square wheel.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2005-11-12 07:04am

I'm fairly sure there is a memory leak. So if ultra long games start taking forever todo turns, save & restart the game "fixes" it.

Some anoyancies;

The end-game tech & units are rather disappointing.
The world-editor is a fucking POS.