4241

I think jpinard just turned into Teiman.

4242

Why on earth there is a -20% production penalty on larger maps is BEYOND me…

le sigh.

4243

I did the same thing, and I still have no idea what he’s talking about.

4244

Oh God. <sticks head in sand>

4245

Need a new thread to copy and paste people’s ravings.

Either due to alcohol, ambien, or some other drug.

It can be a new meme.

4246

I’m sad that the original post is gone now. Think of how many future generations it could have puzzled.

4247

I almost quoted it earlier to save it for posterity in case jpinard decided to delete his med-induced ravings. Then I decided that if he wanted to destroy the evidence, it would be mean to thwart him like that.

4248

I hope the Mac version gets a speed, compatibility, and stability patch ASAP. Bought it last week and find that it’s really buggy. Not worth purchasing at this stage.

  1. The movies don’t play on some chipsets and the game just displays a black screen on others (new MacBook Pro with Nvidia 330M won’t show movies. Mac Pro with NVidia 8800GT just shows a black screen and never starts).

  2. The game is almost unplayably slow on the systems I’ve tried. Barely tolerable on a small map with everything set to low / off. Slideshow once you’re about 1000 years in. Shouldn’t be like that on a new MBP IMO.

  3. The game is crash-prone. Exits to desktop common as the game progresses.

Back to Civ IV for me.

Diego

4249

I’ve experienced 1 and 2. 1 is even more worrisome because when I quit the game I actually see a frame of the intro video, which means that I may very well be playing the game with the video frozen in the background, eating up resources.

I’ve got a 2010 13-inch MBP with the 320M, and the game does chug once you get past the halfway point in the timeline and all the nations are fully expanded and churning out units. I’ve lowered the graphical detail to minimal and it helps a little, but it’s a CPU problem, because i’ve got 8GB of RAM.

Number 3 hasn’t happened to me yet, and I’ve played through two games. Seems stable enough. But they definitely need to work on the blank video and on optimization.

4250

Can you get me some more information about these issues? What OS version are you having issues on? With 10.6.5, there’s a number of issues with the videos. There’s some more information on our support site about it. ( http://support.aspyr.com/index.php/kb/article/000779 )

As for the crashes, let me know if there’s a consistent repro for them. You can also send a report and crash log to our support, and we’ll be able to look into it.

4251

2010 13-inch MacBook Pro (2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo, Nvidia 320M) upgraded with 8GB of RAM. 10.6.5 and everything is updated (I check software update like 3 times a day). I start the game and the video is black, but I can hear the audio. After the mandatory, unskippable logo videos finish (again, can’t see them, but I can hear them), I can click a button and get to the opening menu screen. Game runs fine, no crashes for me. When I quit the game, the gameplay closes and I get a glimpse of the intro video on the screen. I can actually see it this time. It’s frozen, though. It’s onscreen for a second and then the game finishes quitting and it disappears.

Weirdly enough, the v1.0 of the PC version of Civ 5 had an intro video problem too, where it would start playing the intro video after the logo videos, and the first 10-15 seconds weren’t skippable. You could mash on the buttons or they keyboard all you wanted, but it took a while before it finally responded and gave you the opening menu screen.

4252

Yeah, 10.6.5 came out after we went gold. It messed up the intro videos for us. The problem is being worked on.

4253

Another from the diplomatic blunder department:

I’m fighting this huge but utterly incompetent Greek civilization, have taken a couple of his cities and killed a dozen units. He offers one of those abject surrender treaties. I take it so I can get all that loot quickly and attack someone else. Ooops… turns out he was asking for my abject surrender…

Fortunately I had so much happiness and gold I could just resume crushing him 10 turns later, but it was pretty funny while it lasted. Very cheeky, Alexander.

4254

By the way, that’s another silly problem with this game. 10 turns isn’t much, so it’s stupid for any AI civ to ever offer one of those forlorn surrender treaties with just a 10 turn armistice. Very likely nothing will change tactically or strategically in that time, so the enemy will just attack again after 10 turns, probably from an even better position with all units poised to destroy the hapless victim. After all, the goal is the enemy capital, really, and a surrender of other cities and open borders just makes it easier to stab the heart.

For a quick fix, these treaties should have a 25 turn peace period. In some cases the player will still want to sign the treaty because there will be no problem with building all those courthouses, and all the luxury and strategic goods will likely be offered. But there should also be some kind of client/vassal-state status again, so an obviously losing civilization can submit for a while without being annihilated this way.

4255

Thanks for the help! The KB somewhat describes the video issue, but not the totally blank video and etc.

I’ve submitted the crash dump along with a tech support case at Aspyr.com.

I’m running 10.6.5 on two machines:

  1. A 2010 15" MacBook Pro with 2.66 ghz core i7 and NVidia 330M
  2. A late 2006 Mac Pro with 4x Xeons and NVidia 8800GT

Thanks,
Diego

4256

If this question has already been asked in this thread, sorry for the repeat but I didn’t see it when wading thru the 142 pages so far.

I’m a regular RTS player but haven’t played a turned based game in a long, long time and have never played any of the Civ games.

Which is the best Civ to start with between Civ IV or Civ V for a Civ n00b like me?

4257

Civ V is an easier entry point, so that’s what I would suggest. Civ IV w/expansions is a deeper game (imo, of course). I also like most of the changes to Civ V, but it’s a rather contentious point for some people.

4258

Personally, I don’t think there is a best Civ out of either Civ IV or Civ V to start with. Well, okay, maybe V is a little more approachable, however there is a truck load of articles at the Civ Fanatics to help a new player and should get them to Noble difficulty fairly quickly in Civ IV.

I would personally say to go with either. Civ IV offers a different experience than Civ V will give, or in other words, each has their own unique strengths and weaknesses. I realise I am biased more towards Civ IV, however, I can not dislike Civ V.

But I agree with Dan, I do believe Civ IV with the expansions is a more deeper game.

4259

Civ V:
-easier to understand for beginners
-costs more to purchase currently
-has Steam achievements (if those matter)
-requires a decent computer to play with all settings on (though is also playable as fully 2D “strategic mode”)
-very little current mod content available, but all easily accessible through in-game mod browser
-earlier in post-release support cycle, arguably the reason why Civ V may not seem as polished as Civ IV, a game that has matured since 2005 release

Civ IV:
-steeper learning curve
-much cheaper (Civ IV plus all expansions is only $20 as “Civ IV Complete Edition”)
-no achievements
-much more mod content available, including the much-lauded Fall From Heaven 2
-with expansions and mods, offers larger breadth of content to explore once learning curve is scaled

Neither is “wrong.” Both are worthwhile places to start.

4260

I’m nothing if not a Civ V lover, but you’re asking me to compare it to my favorite strategy game of all time. No fair presenting me with that kind of Sophie’s choice.