Is it really that bad?

from GalCiv2 Forums
I keep seeing bug reports. Is the game really that glichy? Is it really not worth buying?
16,882 views 17 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Must bugs are things you only notice after your 10th game, there are minor "problems" like "hey the moon is rotating the wrong direction", shure, that might be a bug, but hey it's nothing preventing you from gaming.
When 1.1 gets final (it is announced for next week) many improvements and minor bugs are fixed.

I guess there will never be a complete bugfree game, there will always be a glitch. Or you run in situation where A and B say "it's a bug" and C and D say "that's ok" so what to do? Note it as bug or not ?

The game is great, it's worth buyig it, otherwise the board wouldn't have so many posts and the irc-chat would not contain users who doesn't have anything else to do than playing gc2
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The way the forum is setup is rather deceptive. Most of the bug reports you are seeing is the result of the betas currently in testing. When you add new features, there are plenty of things that can go wrong, and thus why the beta process is needed (we really need to separate out the beta section). However, the core game (v1.0x) is rather stable for the majority of us. There are definitely some people who have encountered problems with it, but it is usually a driver related issue. So if you're planning on playing on a laptop or something like that, you might want to check to make sure you have an up-to-date video driver available before buying. But if you're using a decent PC and either know how to work with your system or are willing to update your drivers, then you probably won't have any major problems stability wise.

Gameplay wise, there are definitely some kinks that still needs a lot of ironing, but overall the game is great. If you can look beyond the little annoyances, you'll most likely enjoy the game. If you still have doubts, give the demo a try...
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A lot of the bug reports right now are also of the beta version, which ironically fixes a fair chunk of the old reported bugs (and introduces only a few new ones). Most bugs are minor and hard to notice, though there have been a couple oddly obvious ones.

Most technical errors with the game are occuring because people either don't properly ventilate their computers for the hot hardware they have within, or don't properly update their hardware's drivers. Those are easy to avoid. If the demo works for you, the full game will be fine.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Every piece of software has bugs-- the number of bug reports is a function of both the number of bugs and the number of users.

I haven't found the bugs to be particularly severe.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A lot of loud mouths here like to say the game crashes a lot (and it did for me at one point until Brad personally helped me find out why). But once you have your drivers updated to a reasonable point, the game will only occasionally crash.

Name me a game that has -never- crashed and I will personally come congratulate you in the future for finding said game. I have played a lot of games. All of them will crash. Such is the nature of PC gaming.

That said, Gal Civ 2 is one of my top 3 PC games of all time, and I have quite the list, dating back to when the TRS80 was new and shiny.

I highly recommend it. Highly.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There's also people misreporting bugs, coming straight to the forum and insisting the game is buggy as hell or etc.. and they haven't updated their drivers in 2 years. Or claiming a "bug" on a feature that was designed/implemented to do something one way (albeit one they don't like ).

The released version is very stable. The betas have 'limited' bugs. There's no show stoppers and nothing preventing us from dishing out a galactic arse whooping to those pesky aliens. Sure, there can be a bug when using a beta and it should be reported. However, there isn't an epidemic situation. A few voices shouting loud on a forum make it seem worse than it really is.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If the bugs in the game weren't mentioned here, I wouldn't have known that there were any bugs. My copy runs fine. I've played the game multiple times and enjoy it. The things mentioned I would have never noticed, but I haven't sat down and analyzed every detail of what's going on. I just don't play games to do that. However, if the patches make the game more enjoyable, then I'm all for them.

And thanks for the mods. They're really cool.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also a lot of the crash reports are coming from people that have buggy computers. In addition to outdated drivers there are malware problem, computers with over 80% of disk space used and barely met system requirements.

And then there are the buggy users.

Like someone said there is no bug free software. I would like to know how many that are having problems are running Norton AV.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In my playing of just the original (and then the patched version--the approved patch, not the betas), I've only noticed one glitch, and it's scheduled to be fixed as soon as the final version of the next patch comes out (less than 2 months after release, I think that is?).

In general, I think a lot of the complaining is by people who downloaded the beta but don't realize it, or just malcontents.

The fact that the board admins, lead developers, etc. actually vigorously participate in the discussion seems to draw a lot of people out of the woodwork.

I don't know that that's a bad thing, but this game is a lot less buggy than various games that have been totally successful (Rome Total War's AI was absolutely crippled when it came to maintaining sieges across saved games, and I know Civ IV crashed on me every time I built a Wonder of the World until nVidia released a patch of THEIR drivers about a month after purchase).

The game is NOT bug-free, but it plays pretty well. If you're worried about buying it, try out the demo and see if you notice any bugs. If you don't, you'll notice even fewer when you download the patches!

Stardock also is in the habit of frequently and regularly updating software for a year or more after release--that's not so common in the gaming industry, but it's uncommon in many other segments of the software business, and frankly, it makes for cool game play.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
most surely a BUY! great great game with the single best support i have ever experienced. great players who offer loads of help when asked. buy it, steal it, borrow it... just get it.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've had a couple of crashes, but i've had many more with gamse with starwars battlefront. It's an amazing game, and with this many people playing the updates are being thoroughly beaten up. The betas are working great, and the few bugs are being fixed. I would suggest this game to anyone who has ever played any computer games. I loved galciv, and this galciv 2 adds every component I wanted to see.

Not buying it would be the mistake. If minor bugs are really upsetting, don't play the betas. And of course, don't forget, Windows, and the Mac OSs are rife with bugs, too...(although you might be using linux, I guess...it's just something to note, even the most heavily invested in projects have a ton of them)
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
the sheer amount of bugs being reporting in because many players here are beta testing the 1.1 patch. And you know, bug and patch go together. The 1.1 patch beta is optional for those who want to help out fastening the process of making the patch, it's not an official release. The latest official release is the 1.0X, if you get that one you won't run into bugs, only very few and by the time you notice those bugs, 1.1 probably will be out.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I keep seeing bug reports. Is the game really that glichy? Is it really not worth buying?


This game is so worth your time and money. It's really wonderful, and I've had nary a problem - and the issues I've had (gameplay) Stardock has already fixed up! They're an A+ company.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Alot of the bug reports are from people who either haven't updated their drivers, are using the beta, or who have system problems unrelated to the game.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
As long as your pc is fullfilling the following,

100% directx 9.0c compliant hardware and drivers
resolution minimum 1024x768
colors on HIGH 32 bit
recomending video card with 128 MB
and memory not less than 256 MB

you should not have serious problems, at least with the game version 1.0X.2.

Mostly the 'bug' sitting in front of their screens, and the louder they yelling the more stupid they are.

Playing the beta versions and crying about how buggy the game is... i lost the words.

Wish this guys had to made their personally boot disks, like in older days,
that would be sort out some of this 'bug' reports...

Sorry, but that's my opinion.

No this game isn't so buggy .
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Name me a game that has -never- crashed and I will personally come congratulate you in the future for finding said game. I have played a lot of games. All of them will crash. Such is the nature of PC gaming.


Including roguelikes?

But yeah, although I still see some rare crashes, the vast majority of ctds I've seen were related to the fixed GPU throttling issue. Haven't seen those since.

Other than crashes, other issues are just that, issues. You have to look at what the problem is before judging how important it is.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ok, Thanks.
P.S. Starcraft has never crashed on me. Ever lol. Which is a good thing sense its the only thing I'm playing right now til my PC gets upgraded and I can get Galciv 2.