Does this game's quality just deteriorate over time?

from GalCiv2 Forums

I love this game, but there is one thing that is starting to annoy me.

It seems that the more I play this game, the more bugs show up and occur with much more frequency. 

In my current game, at least twice I've had to reload previous saves to correct bugs.  And I may have to do it a third time.  Just recently I discovered the game bugged and dropped the Krynn's productivity to zero.  Ships take hundreds of weeks to build and planetary improvements are simply listed as "Never".  This was not due to any Mega Event.  The Krynn just have limited productivity.  Going back to a previous save to correct this problem will unfortunately set me back a year or two in game time.

You want to hear something funny?  I can go back to an even sooner save game where the Krynn problem isn't present, but that one includes ANOTHER BUG, in which the Altarians accidentally (and yes, it was an accident) attacked one of my ships and started a war with me.

When I first loaded this game, bugs were rare.  Now every game is flawed, and every hit of the Turn button comes with a tinge of paranoia that another glitch will fowl things up.

Anyone else getting this feeling?  That the game just deteriorates the more you play it?

 

11,692 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

  Set auto-save frequency to "1" (then it saves at the end of every turn):digichet: .  The bug I get most is:  the game crashing back to the desktop when the mouse is moved quickly to near the edge of the map. 

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Zarnick, reply 1
  Set auto-save frequency to "1" (then it saves at the end of every turn) .  The bug I get most is:  the game crashing back to the desktop when the mouse is moved quickly to near the edge of the map. 

Want to hear something funny?  As I read that, I thought "Where is my Autosave?"  So I went back and looked.  Apparently I have it set that Autosave enables every 10 turns.  So I load my Autosave, and the timeframe it was on was most definitely more than 10 weeks back.  More like 10 months.

So yeah.  Add another glitch to the list.  Haha!

 

Guess I'll just load up the save where a glitch put me at war with the Altarians.  I'll defend my stuff and negotiate peace when they'll talk.

 

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I've run into some of the same problems.

 

It's a huge shame, because GalCiv II is an awesome game that feels like it was never really finished. For a while, the dev team did an admirable job of post-release support, but unfortunately the patches stopped before some of the nastier bugs were taken care of (late-game memory issues, races randomly deciding not to expand, broken diplomacy, etc).

 

I still can't wait for GalCiv III though. Hopefully when that gets released, there won't be any bugs messing up an otherwise stellar game.

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

It's a huge shame, because GalCiv II is an awesome game that feels like it was never really finished. For a while, the dev team did an admirable job of post-release support, but unfortunately the patches stopped before some of the nastier bugs were taken care of (late-game memory issues, races randomly deciding not to expand, broken diplomacy, etc).

Change "GalCiv II" to TOA and your statement matches my experience. I've almost never experienced bugs with DA or the original GalCiv II; it's one of the secondary reasons I mostly play DA. TOA's unique tech trees added a lot of depth to the game, but they seem to have come hand in hand with bugs.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Sorry, did mean TOA, I should have been more specific. I assumed that whoever was still around the boards after all this time had also upgraded to DA and then to TOA.

 

Maybe I'll fire up DA again sometime soon and see if it runs more smoothly.

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Well, I own them all - but because of the bugs and certain other reasons, I play DA more often.

Don't get me wrong, TOA is still a great game, but does have flaws that make it less enjoyable.

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Going back to a previous save to correct this problem will unfortunately set me back a year or two in game time.

Maybe you should save more often?

 

And, just curious, how can the Altarians accidentally attack you? And, how are you so sure it was an accident? In fact, how can anyone attack another ship by accident, except to send a ship to an occupied space that is covered by the fog in which another ship is located? And even then, you get a warning message that you are attacking someone. I doubt that the AI is so stupid that it would go to war over occupying an otherwise neutral space - by accident. If that were so there should be many more incidents like this being reported.

 

Also, if it was nearly bug free when you first installed the game but it gets ever worse - why not simply remove the game and reinstall it? Everything else being equal, you should come out with a bug free (or nearly so) game.

Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Moosetek13, reply 7

Going back to a previous save to correct this problem will unfortunately set me back a year or two in game time.

Maybe you should save more often?

I Quick Save every turn, and a Full save every few turns.  I also mentioned that my Auto-Save is supposed to enable every 10 turns, but that has screwed up too.  This bug that occured isn't readily apparent unless you look at the Krynn's planets' productivity and I had no reason to do so.  So by the time I DID notice it, all my recent saves had gone PAST the point the bug occured.  So saving more often doesn't help unless the bug is immediately noticible.

It's like another bug in my current game, the Iconians and Torians only produce planetary improvements on half their planets.  A large number of their worlds have no buildings on them at all. But I won't see that glitch until I've let both races colonize fully and I've reached a spy level that will allow me to see their planetary improvments.  At that point, it wouldn't matter how many times I saved.  I'd have to go back so far anyway, and I wouldn't even know when the glitch occured.


Quoting Moosetek13, reply 7

And, just curious, how can the Altarians accidentally attack you? And, how are you so sure it was an accident? In fact, how can anyone attack another ship by accident, except to send a ship to an occupied space that is covered by the fog in which another ship is located? And even then, you get a warning message that you are attacking someone. I doubt that the AI is so stupid that it would go to war over occupying an otherwise neutral space - by accident. If that were so there should be many more incidents like this being reported.

No, it was an accident.  I know because I reloaded and they didn't attack me the second time.  One of their fleets was right next to one of my planets with a fighter in orbit protecting it.  They attacked that fighter.  It's as if they wanted to move and instead assaulted my planet.  My relations with the Altarians were Close.  They had no reason to attack me.  The Drath were not part of this game, so they couldn't have asked them to.  The Altarians liked me.  I liked them. *shrugs*

 

And yes, reinstalling is looking like an appealing option right now if it is true that this game just devolves over time.