Was FP Corruption Bug fixed? - Page 4

notyoueither · December 28, 2003, 20:02

Let's see here, you don't like Culture therefore the game is bad in some objective sense. Do I have that right?

Oh, and it's business is it? Which rival publisher do you work for?

'Acting honorably'? So some of the CivII and SMAC die hards are po'ed that the game is not Civ2.5, and that means that the designers of 3 'dishonoured' the Civ legacy? I'm sorry jimmy, but I have to observe that you have a very well developed sense of the role of your personal tastes in the overall scheme of things.

notyoueither · December 28, 2003, 20:06

Quote:

Originally posted by jimmytrick
The computer gaming universe is full of ex-this and thats who probably wish they hadn't settled for releasing buggy half finished, poorly designed games. Firaxis is headed for the scrap heap. Mark my words.

That's an interesting prediction. I disagree that it is likely, but I will think of you should it come to pass, because it's quite startling given the nature of games in general to be released and then patched.

Capt Dizle · December 28, 2003, 20:07

Oh, and for the record I do have copies of Civ3, PTW and C3C. Which gives me the moral right to speak my mind. Of course Mark will not agree and he will ban me. He is nothing if not consistent.

notyoueither · December 28, 2003, 20:10

I doubt you'll get banned for civil discussion of your views, even if negative. Personal attacks, on the other hand...

Jeem · December 28, 2003, 21:06

Does anybody know the exact change to corruption from PTW? I play the French most games and I've got to say they seem really, really weak under conquests - IMO, Commercial is a complete joke now, in fact it's like a waste of a trait.

I had corruption figured at around 5% per square distance from your capital in PTW (under a despotism). It seems higher now, and being commercial doesn't seem to make much of a difference until very late in the game.

Does building a road to cities actually decrease their corruption like it says it does? If so, it's so unnoticable to be not worth the code.

I really hope this isn't a case of serious 'overfixing' by Firaxis. The FP might have been too good before but a blanket rise to corruption doesn't help much.

I'd recommend corruption was changed in the following ways :-

Roads/Harbors/Airports should really make a difference.

Distance from capital should be less of a problem than the number of cities held (not the other way around as it is now). Harsh corruption forces players into tight city placement and that is not how many of us like to play.

Courthouses/Police Stations should have less of an impact than they currently do. The communal corruption of a Communism could be set just a little bit higher across the board.

What we seem to have is too many useless peripheral cities that are set to worker building until a nearby FP can be built. On a huge map, 75% of your cities can often end up as nothing but a drain on your economy because they are so corrupt (yet still require a garrison).

If anyone has the exact changes/figures for corruption then please tell us.

Capt Dizle · December 28, 2003, 23:10

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither
Let's see here, you don't like Culture therefore the game is bad in some objective sense. Do I have that right?

Civ3 is bad, objectively, subjectively, from any perspective and it is not fun. I could write up six hundred to one thousand pages of non repetitive faults that this game exhibts but you would not agree with any of it because you are a fan boy.

Just like all those people who voted in Clinton and supported him, it reached a point where he could have been caught in the act of rape and people still would not condemn him because they had too much invested in him already.

It is very hard to admit you are wrong about something.

The many people who apparently like the game is a testimony that people can really enjoy hot dogs if hot dogs is the only food choice on the menu.

As someone who has been playing games of all types since long before color was introduced to television, I can confidently tell you that Civ3 is a really, really, sucky game.

I still like the civ format and by continuing to point out that the imp is naked I hope that somehow good will win out in this universe and the civ series can be wrenched from the hands of these wretched folk and restored to the realm of: "Games are meant to be fun!"

notyoueither · December 28, 2003, 23:16

You don't understand just how much of a joke that last post of yours is, do you? Or maybe you do and you're laughing as you type.

Jeem · December 28, 2003, 23:28

Jimmy - Civ3 is not everyone's cup of tea. I despised it at first, and in fact up to 1.29f thought it was still a poor game. PTW made it better, and once Conquests is fully patched it'll be better still.

I bought Civ1 in 1989 and played it so much my eyes started to bleed. Civ2 was too easily broken and too easy. Civ3 is a tough game. Try to remember it was the players of Civ's 1&2 that demanded the extra challenge, and 'smarter' AI (in the form of aggressive expansion instead of leaving all the land to you).

Maybe they went to far? Who knows? The current Firaxians might not be the very best top drawer programmers that the series deserves, but at least they are trying. That's more than QSI did when they destroyed the MOO series. Give them a break man. There are plenty of software houses out there that deserve bad press far more than Firaxis do.

vmxa1 · December 29, 2003, 00:30

It is good to know that your pserspecive is the only valid one and all the others are fools. How about we accept your premise and you enjoy yourself, since nothing is to be gained from your endless rants. The same ones you gave us the last time around. They were tired then BTW.

Cerbykins · December 29, 2003, 02:11

Perhaps. But that depends on how they continue, not just what they've already come up with. Personally, I quite like culture, although it's permanently a thorn in my side

And yes, while Firaxis do seem to be making bad releases, they ALSO do listen when moaned at. There are plenty of games - online included - where suggestions are rarely taken and developer presence rarely ever felt. Yes, their poor starts annoy me, but it's tempered by the fact they tend to fix their messes afterwards.

Maybe it's enough, maybe not. Only time will tell us that

In the meantime...

I still want my commerce back, but at least the major flaws are gone now. And other than that, I pretty much got everything I could want out of Conquests

*awaits response that said expectations couldn't have been very high then...

*

Edit: added topic.

Andydog · December 29, 2003, 05:23

I've spent a bit of time trawling through the various civ sites and their forums, and are led to believe that corruption is now fixed.

For cities placed the same distance from capital (ie RCP), city rank is now based on database order. Therefore corruption around your primary core will no longer increase when the FP is built as it did pre-patch.

The difference in the corruption system between PTW and C3C now appears to be that rank corruption for cities around the FP is no longer affected - only distance corruption is reduced. Thus the FP is not as powerful as it was in PTW, but still worth building when correctly placed.

I assume that Firaxis introduced this new system to address the major game imbalance that was present in PTW - namely the power of the FP and the associated second core of hugely productive cities.

In PTW, to remain competitive against the AI’s on the higher levels, or other humans, you needed sufficient land to house a bunch of cities around both a palace and a FP. Thus you’d always have to go to war for the land and cities and hope for a GL to rush your FP. War was essential, and it got tiresome.

Furthermore, the person who built the FP first more often than not got a big advantage over the others, and if they built it really early, the advantage would be so big the game would essentially be over before it had even begun. This to me represents a major game imbalance.

Now, in C3C, the FP no longer provides a second core of hugely productive cities. It only makes sense to build it in the middle of a group of corrupt cities so that you can combine that with careful corruption management to get those cities somewhat productive - not as productive as your core cities – but still productive enough to be of use.

So it is no longer essential to build the FP, and therefore early war is no longer as essential as it was in PTW. With the introduction of SGL’s and the removal of the ability of MGL’s to rush wonders, the builder player now stands a chance. You can still warmonger if you want to (the new armies are devastating), but it’s much tougher than it was and therefore requires more thinking and strategic planning. The warmonger now needs to build up their core cities a lot more than before and be much more mindful of the tech race. A domination/conquest victory is no longer easy.

The game has changed a lot since PTW, I believe it is more balanced and allows more game styles to be played and a larger range of strategies to be adopted. This can only be a good thing imho. I really think they’ve got it right with this expansion.

DrSpike · December 29, 2003, 07:20

Jeem: The old corruption model is well documented. Check out Alexman's corruption thread. He has also suggested how the FP works with regard to distance and OCN corruption in the new patch.

NYE: Don't feed the troll.

jshelr · December 29, 2003, 11:47

Congrats to the folks at Firaxis, IMO.

My impression about the new FP is very favorable, in fact, extremely favorable. I think the FP change interacts with other changes to produce a new and better game, a more balanced game that makes simple warmongering much harder.

Size no longer necessarily is the best path to tech superiority and there may be a very important improvement in the tradeoff between going for an SS win and going for a domination win. (I mean that going for domination, you may find yourself screwed on the tech front and actually lose a game or two.) This is a tremendous improvement that makes the later stages of the game much more fun.

On the domination path, only your core cities will really be significant unit producers and war weariness will shove you off democracy unless you fully use your bag of war tricks to reduce the impact of WW. (Get the AI to attack, no AI units in your territory after every turn, none of your units in AI territory after every turn, etc.) It's worth emphasizing that you can no longer simply go to republic and pay little attention to WW while you slug it out without much lost efficiency versus a democracy government. You have to use democracy to both cut corruption, without the FP to bail you out easily, and also to cut the cost of maintaining units in a big industrial era army.

It looks to me like the scientific and religious traits have gone up in value. (Does anyone know whether the science civs no longer get an extra tech at the start of the modern era? If they are supposed to, I think I ran into a bug playing Greece and did not get the modern tech.)

Anyway, my suggestion would be to give this new version a very complete trial. It may be much better than the tone of some of the above comments suggest. New is not necessarily bad.

Arrian · December 29, 2003, 12:06

Hmm, interesting. I haven't applied the patch yet, so I didn't run into the new FP rules. But I'm intrigued. I did like the "second core" you got from the old (PTW & prior) FP, but this could be cool too. I'll have to set up the patch and try it out...

-Arrian

Bonaparte · December 29, 2003, 13:14

Quote:

Originally posted by jimmytrick
I still like the civ format and by continuing to point out that the imp is naked I hope that somehow good will win out in this universe and the civ series can be wrenched from the hands of these wretched folk and restored to the realm of: "Games are meant to be fun!"

Yo dude PLEASE take your medication...like you said it's only a game so relax will ya!!!

Aggie · December 29, 2003, 13:43

Well I've decided to install it, but will make sure to save the old conquest files as urged. Also is there a way, to change the attributes of the FP so it operates correctly.

Mainly because I'm pretty sure that this current FP functionality will be corrected and don't want to create a whole new play style for a change that will be fixed(and IMHO it needs to be fixed, corruption is TOO high and should not be increased, if you think that the FP unbalances the game play sid level). Also when this is fixed my scores for the games I play with the patch will be equivilant with the new game I'll play.

Of course I have to admit I might end up like that guy in Green Eggs and Ham and when I try it I'll like it, but we shall see. Either way with the removal of the GPT bug the game at worst is probably break even from the original.

Aggie

vmxa1 · December 29, 2003, 13:59

Looking at the track record of all gaming companies, it is not a place with much longevity.

ducki · December 29, 2003, 15:33

Quote:

It is very hard to admit you are wrong about something.

It sure is, jimmy. It sure is.

And in that vein, I'm impressed and gladdened by some of the detailed analyses regarding usage and effects of the New FP and can't wait to finish my pre-beta-patch game so I can start a patched game and find out "what's the buzz, tell me what's a happenin'".

If it makes the AI more competitive without exponentially increasing micro-management, then Woo-freakin'-hoo!

Catt · December 29, 2003, 20:41

In response to the thread title "Was FP Corruption Bug Fixed?" the answer seems to be: yes and no.

Jesse Smith posted over at CFC:

Quote:

Originally posted by Tavis [aka Jesse Smith of Firaxis] at CFC
Corruption

The evaluation regarding RCP working as it was originally intended is correct.

FP's and SPHQ should reduce corruption whether they are located 10 tiles away or they built on another continent 40 tiles away. This is a bug and will be addressed in the January update.

Thanks for all of the great feedback, I'm going to be kept very busy this year =)

Tavis

Haven't seen this posted here yet, but I've not gone through all the threads yet either, so it may be old news.

EDIT: I now see that Jesse has posted more or less the same comment in the "Do you build the FP now and how has optimal placement changed?" thread:

Quote:

Originally posted by JesseSmith
It is a bug that the FP doesn't provide a new set of city ranks. The fix was stopping the negative corruption calculation which presented this problem.

The design is that your FP or SPHQ should "reduce corruption" whether its 15 tiles away or on the other side of the map.

END EDIT

Catt

joncnunn · December 29, 2003, 20:55

Depends upon the particular conquest.

In the discovery conquests playing one of the MesoAmericans, then right after contact with Europe, you can make a GPT fortune due to the bug.

MesoAmerican also had some money to be made from the GPT from all playable civs after Monarchy becomes adviable.

But agreed about it being much less than in epic games due to Harbors being delayed and the shorter timeframe so good roadnets don't develop unless you RoP with your neighbors just to road connect empires.

Quote:

Originally posted by Master Marcus

The GPT bug IS fixed, yes. Good for epic games of course ( no more extra money for artificially-enhanced mass rushbuilding each turn ), but speaking for the official scenarios it's not a feature that's gonna really change something, since only scarcely can we incite the AI for gpt deals and the amounts involved are much smaller than a standard epic game, but still...the most important bug is fixed; and in my mind if we want to play by the standard rules, we must accept the way the corruption is since it's an intentionnal feature- the most important thing about it for the devs is to code it right that it applies to every civ the same way. Personnaly, I still find the FP useful.

Good job Soren and the devs

dexters · December 30, 2003, 04:52

Catt, so this universal corruption reducing effect will be fixed in January?

Did I read Jesse's post correct?

bTW, why do apolytoner's not hear from Jesse directly on this issue while CFC people gets his undivided attention -_-

dexters · December 30, 2003, 04:55

double post. ignore.

OPD · December 30, 2003, 07:16

Quote:

Originally posted by OPD
The FP is fixed and works as it was intended to, only reducing distance corruption.

The fact that the FP now has a reduced effect is a different matter, it is certainly not a bug.

Quote:

Originally posted by JesseSmith
It is a bug that the FP doesn't provide a new set of city ranks. The fix was stopping the negative corruption calculation which presented this problem.

The design is that your FP or SPHQ should "reduce corruption" whether its 15 tiles away or on the other side of the map.

I don't think what I said could have been more obviously contradicted

DrSpike · December 30, 2003, 07:21

I wasn't sure exactly what Jesse's post meant either.........so there are still FP changes in the pipeline?

Arrian · December 30, 2003, 09:45

Sounds like it, yeah.

Seems that they meant to have the FP provide a second core ("It is a bug that the FP doesn't provide a new set of city ranks").

-Arrian

Alex · December 30, 2003, 12:46

well, all those who were complaining were actually right... the "new" FP is a bug.

hey, at least those who liked this change have the option of not installing the January patch.

DrSpike · December 30, 2003, 16:07

Nah, in the battle of the FP bugs this one is preferable to unpatched C3C.

They'll get it right eventually.

Cerbykins · December 30, 2003, 23:17

While they keep working on it...it's good enough for me

When the bugs STOP being worked on, THEN we complain

notyoueither · December 30, 2003, 23:58

No, then we riot.

Sir, Apolyton has lost all productivity, due to flaming and general complaints!
The people want patches, more expansions, and Civ4..
What shall we do?

* I'll deal with 'the freaks' of Apolyton, later
* Ahhh, give 'em a patch
* Start posting about Civ4

Cerbykins · December 31, 2003, 00:09

You'd better pray they don't 'whip' us afterwards to reduce our numbers, then