4D - Balance gone, threading problems?

from Stardock Forums
Well, I've just killed my third game with beta 4D after being overwhelmed by the AI civilizations again. This time I cut back to just 4 other civs set to average. However, if anything, the game was even more lopsided than my first two games. I might try a small galaxy and a radically different approach from the style that let me beat the average setting in 4C, but at this point it looks like it's back to playing against dummies, again. Two steps forward, one step back.

Game three was played in a gigantic galaxy and the speed was noticeably slower than previous games. I'm running Win2000 on an AMD 1700+ with 256MB of RAM and a Radeon 7200 for video. Also, there seemed to be an ongoing battle over which window had control during turn transitions and there were several instances where project completion was not reported, resulting in empty social project queues.

The curious thing about the missing project completion reports is that if you use the event window in the lower right corner to cycle through events, you DON'T miss project completions. That is, the pop-up windows aren't picking up or displaying the same information as the event window.

End transmission.
309 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I have played a Beta 4D game until it crashed twice. I was at a stage when me and Drengins had Overlord type ships. The game was played on biggest map with all genius AI. The Drengins were the strongest, they had more planets, more ships, even more technology. But I had more resources and I built all the trade goods. I also had much greater influence, like 70% of the map.

I'd say that game was pretty even in terms of balance - AI had more stuff, but player is smarter.

I still believe AI isn't difficult enough, mostly because of its poor military strategies.. or the lack of strategy. heh

Also, given the industrial strength of AI, I was surprised that they let my influence expand to 70% of the map. I think that AI should carefully monitor everyone's influence levels and if someone starts getting the upper hand, AI should respong by building star bases with influence increasing upgrades. After all, it would be so easy for them!

Also, the stupid AI don't guard its resources. They build star bases and leave them alone, I can easily send a single big ship and take it out. AI have tons and tons of ships with nothing better to do than to fly in circles. At least make them fly circles near resources!
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Captain, I think I agree. There is a big jump in difficulty between "Dumb" and "Average". Whether Dumb is too dumb or Average is too smart, I'll let other people decide, but I would like something in between a cakewalk and fighting for my life.

I've managed to win a 4D game, but not by dominating the game. The Altairians really did that - particularly in their war with the Drengin. As soon as the war ended, I did whatever it took to ally myself with the surviving powers before I was culturally obliterated by the Alrairians.

And while Master Lame has been prattling on and on about how this game just isn't hard enough for his expert playing abilities, I don't see him on the metaverse.
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I can send you my save games and you can judge if it's really worth continuing them.

I would play to the end if the game wasn't crashing so often at the end. The auto save doesn't save every turn, and late in game it can take 10 minutes to process a turn. I really don't want to spend half hour replaying.

And if you like to gamble, you can take a bet that I won't win the games in the save files I send. I'll bet 20 bucks
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Rather than betting on who is the better player, consider that you may have found a legitimate bug at the genius level of the AI.

Make your saved games available to stardock and other players. If you don't have an easy channel to do so, upload them to ftp://tonn.ca/incoming and I'll move them to the default anonymous area for download. (incoming is write only, anonymous is readonly).

You could also try the AI at the average and smart level to compare with the genius level.

One other thing I have done in the past is to completely erase the game and download everything as fresh. Due to the nature of beta test crashes, there may be unpredictable artifacts left over that could impact the game. This is particularly likely if you have behaviour nobody else can duplicate.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
here's a bug:

In the game's main screen (with big star base picture), click Load Saved Game, then click Cancel. Watch what happens
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
another bug:
for Destabilize and Espionage sliders, it's possible to increase the spending beyond "100%" by clicking the right arrow
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
check this out: I had a star base on Influence resource. I turned it into a Terror Star, all the Influence harvesting modules stayed, but the resource itself dissappeared!

is that a feature or a bug? can I just pack up the resource in my terror star and go? heh
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
do you know what happens when one terror star moves on another terror star? the game asks to upgrade the star base and treats the entire terror star as a single constructor!
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
I had a United Planets event where they increased speed of constructors. All my ships got the speed bonus.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
I finally managed to produce a save game file that's guaranteed to CTD. My patience has been rewarded!

http://64.60.177.194/lame_game.zip
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
You Stardock people better find the above info useful, cause I slaved for entire hour trying to catch an CTD bug.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
'The curious thing about the missing project completion reports is that if you use the event window in the lower right corner to cycle through events, you DON'T miss project completions. That is, the pop-up windows aren't picking up or displaying the same information as the event window.'

The event window does miss things, but they frequently show up a turn or two late.