... Very nice, too. A crappy little NCSoft catalogue, a purdy (if small) poster that went straight up on my bedroom wall next to the spot where my CE poster should be going, if it's not identical, and a CD that contains a bajillion more stuff than advertised.

Oh, and a tearstrip envelope containing my pre-order item CD.

"Wait, you lunatic" everyone may ask, "that's not special or newsworthy in any way. Why are you draining precious bandwidth telling us about this."

Well, it's because of this. I've alread commented on the pre-order items before. When I pre-ordered Factions, the online store I bought it from kindly provided me with a pre-order item key just before the FPE via e-mail, which I promptly put on my main account.

The key I received with my box has an identical in-game description as the one I received by e-mail.

I got two pre-order item keys.

And now I don't need to buy a pre-order for my second account.

Hi everyone,
I had a look but I couldn't find any threads here about running Civ in Linux yet so here we go
I'm running v1.52 at 1024*768 in Cedega 5.1 on Gentoo/amd64/gentoo-2.6.15-r7/gcc-3.4.6/glibc-2.3.6-r3/nvidia 8756/KDE 3.4.3 (freshly recompiled everything) with a Winchester 3200@1Ghz (not a typo, my watercooling is broken and I currently replaced it with a fan hanging from some tape from the case... so effective speed bearing in mind the fast memory etc. is probably something like a 2GHz P4 or something), 1GB DDR400, Asus A8N-SLI deluxe and a 6600GT/PCIe with 128 MB and it's still pretty slow

Even right after boot with about 100 MB memory used before starting Cedega it still runs ALOT slower than on a mates WinXP who has identical hardware except that he only has half the RAM. At least installation was simple though, and it's quite stable only crashing about 2 or 3 times on Adv5 which I've almost finished now. On my previous game (epic speed, 8 AIs, large pangea) it crashed quite often though, maybe every 5-10hrs. Okay, not that often

Anyways, there's a few problems I have, is anyone else having them?
1. As noted above, its pretty slow. Playable though, as long as keep memory usage outside Civ within reason (e.g. having OOo, kaffeine, kopete, gkrellm, a couple of shells and nedits open is fine, but if I add my 5 window 50 tab opera it slows). This also implies to me that the underclocking is not in fact the limiting factor, and the felt performance didn't suffer when I did that either. I hope the new patch helps with this but since I haven't finished Adv5 yet I can't try.

2. It sometimes after long play shows an error message that its out of graphics memory, I think it crashes soon after but I restart it if it does that as it fails to display everything... I don't think this actually has anything to do with graphics memory as I'm running on low settings with a 128 MB card.

3. I can't load mods. This is very very very very annoying actually, I really want to play the 20th century mod. I also tried the desert mod or something that came with the game but that didn't work either. Has anyone with Linux tried mods? If not can you please just quickly see if it even loads the mod?

4. It sometimes gets stuck trying to load savegames. I don't think this happened on my Adv5 yet, but it happened quite regularly on my previous game (epic speed, 8 AIs, large pangea). Just killing it and trying again usually fixed the problem, else I loaded an earlier save and once that worked I could always load the save I wanted to. After that the game liked to crash or show the graphics memory error though, so I usually just turned once, saved, and restarted it.

This problem also means that I'm running 3 autosaves which I think is against the rules. I hope that's okay though, it'd be pretty unfair to expect me to risk savegames just because I chose not to run a certain company's operating system, right? I obviously never repeat turns because of this, once I loaded an older save I immediately load the current one as described above.

Well looking forward to hear from your experiences, my first report should go up Monday when Adv5 finishes

EDIT: Thanks to some replies in this thread, I refined the rules before we opened the event. The rules below are obsolete, but left as originally posted for the curious. Please use the official rules posted with the saved game.

Good luck.


---------------------------------------------


If you are going to play, I'd appreciate a brief note to that effect in this thread. Not only will it help me to gauge how to manage the schedule in the short term, but it may encourage some momentum and bring in even more players if turnout looks high. Thanks.

Here are the variant and scoring rules I've come up with for Epic Two. If you've got a question or concern, you've got until the 16th (Easter Gem Dealers? bwaha!) to voice it, and then I'm locking it down and the game will open. 8)


Variant Rules:

* Sources of Gems must be mined and connected.
* You MAY NOT found any religions. (Your civ is too busy prospecting for precious stones!)
* You must adopt Free Market civic upon discovering Economics, and remain there all game.
* You must sell gems (for a profit, no gifts!) if a customer is available and willing to buy or trade. This includes selling your last available Gems, leaving none for your own citizens. You must always heed this mandate.
* If a customer (any civ to whom you are supplying Gems) requests that you change civics or religion (other than to change away from Free Market, which you cannot do) you will comply, to smooth business relations. You need not stick with the change, however. You may change again when the game allows you to do so.


Scoring:

25 pts - Victory (any sort)

10 pts - EACH source of Gems you control at game's end. (If you "pop another one" it counts too!)
5 pts - EACH source of Gems you control in 1500AD. (Must be within your borders, mined, and connected.)
3 pts - EACH source of Gold you control at game's end
2 pts - EACH source of Silver you control at game's end

10 pts - Build the Oracle (remember, you must not found any religions!) AND use it to discover Mathematics or Currency!

8 pts - Build Globe Theater in your capital
4 pts - Build Globe Theater at any other city with Gems in its radius

5 pts - Build the Taj Mahal
4 pts - Build Magellan's Expedition (circumnavigate the globe first)
3 pts - Build the Great Lighthouse
2 pts - Build the Hanging Gardens

5 pts - Build a Laboratory at the city closest to every Gems resource on the planet (only applies if 3+ opponents remain -- and cities must be on the same island as the Gems in question).

7 pts - Fastest Cultural Victory
5 pts - Fastest Diplomatic Victory - only counts if your population is below 40% at time of winning vote.
3 pts - Fastest Space Launch
0 pts - Conquest or Domination Victory

1 pts - Each island (of ANY size) under your complete cultural control at game's end.

8 pts - For EACH city of size 25+ at game's end. (Must be a city you founded by 1500AD).

4 pts - Build the Strategic Missile Defense
2 pts - For EACH unit of Future Tech you research
1 pts - For EACH ICBM unit you possess at game's end (maximum of 10).
1 pts - For EACH sea-based resources that is controlled and connected by 1500AD

3 pts - First player to have two Gems sources connected.
3 pts - First player to have three Gems sources connected.
3 pts - First player to have four Gems sources connected.
3 pts - First player to have five Gems sources connected.

5 pts - First player to control all Gems sources in the world AND also have all six rival civs as Customers.
3 pts - First player to control all Gold sources in the world.
2 pts - First player to control all Silver sources in the world.



- Sirian

1.61 has finally arrived, more than eight weeks behind schedule. (You knew it would as soon as Sirian opened up Adventure Five!) Go to the official website for Civ4 to download it or check the "check for updates" option on the main menu screen.

Quote: Changes:

* randomized processing order when multiple players try to move on the same turn slice
* only the host can set the admin password
* Horseback Riding now a classical tech
* Kremlin now gives -33% hurry production cost
* can't airlift from foreign cities
* expanded subject for PitBoss e-mail
* lightened the color of some civs' text
* mp retire fix
* less hammers from chops the farther away from a city
* reduced hammer yield from forest chops to 20…
* Mathematics increases forest chop yields by +50%
* SDI cannot be built before the Manhattan Project.
* increased SDI cost
* marines and SAM Infantry now upgrade to Mech Infantry
* better AI-to-human diplo in team games
* no more diplo penalty for helping to end wars
* city production popups stay on city when entering/exiting
* can now set units to Sleep and Intercept in wbs
* Continents map script now produces large continents
* game options and victory conditions now saved in ini file
* invalid buildings now removed from city queues
* Free Trade: Medium Upkeep
* State Property: Low Upkeep
* Representation: +2 happy in X biggest cities.
* Hereditary Rule: Low Upkeep.
* Representation: Medium Upkeep.
* Slaver: Low Upkeep
* Nationhood: No Upkeep
* firepower is now average of curr and max strength
* Gunships now move faster over rails
* No Cheating option renamed to Lock Modified Assets
* city management no longer uses "forced" specialist states when not automated
* Expansive: +3 Health
* Financial: No longer give production bonus for Banks
* Prompt for admin password when loading a game containing one in LAN, Internet, or Pitboss play
* Don't allow players to play non-playable civs in Pitboss
* Do not display SP only mods in Pitboss
* Allow hotseat/PBEM scenario host to select which civ s/he will play
* Force non-playable civs to be AI in Hotseat/PBEM games
* Allowing for AI slots in player defined scenarios for Hot Seat, PBEM, and Pitboss games
* Do not display duplicate buddy request popups from the same guy
* Peer address handling improvements
* Number keys perform leaderhead actions on Civilopedia leader screen.
* Custom game SP screen remembers difficulty level last played
* Reduced rounding error for population and land victory condition test
* Loading a multiplayer game as a PBEM/hotseat converts it to non-simultaneous turns
* When the city names of your civ are all taken, choose a default name from a random civ
* Timelines more uniform across game speeds
* Military Advisor shows Barbarians
* Tech chooser screen now observes CvGameInterface.cannotResearch() and shows the tech in a red pane if the function returns true
* Fixed American Revolution scenario to work with Pitboss
* PBEM password reminder popup no longer disappears when the game starts
* Wonder description on Wonder Movie screen more legible
* Top Civs screen no longer appears in online multiplayer
* Civilopedia main page sorted in columns rather than in rows
* Pressing escape when selecting goto points now cancels the goto waypoints
* Military advisor now works like foreign advisor: clicking on leader buttons clears previous leader selections unless you hold down the shift key.
* Teams in multiplayer once again share all the players' starting techs, not just the last player's
* Great person point generation from Wonders continues after Wonder has become obsolete
* quicksave doesn't prompt for overwrite

Fixes:

* exploit fix that allowed multiple players to extract the same gold/resources from the AI...
* Don't set localhost address as public addr for peers on same computer
* fixed gunships capturing cities bug
* game doesn't end on ties
* fixed mp UN voting bug
* Leaderheads on a radeon 9000 64mb - fix for strange skin shading
* Fixed crash that happened when a spy sabotaged an improvement outside cultural borders
* The full mod path is no longer stored in the save when the mod is installed under the user folder
* Double-clicking on a save of a mod now loads the proper DLL
* fixed Out-of-Sync from exiting to main menu
* fixed anarchy/specialist resetting bug
* fixed bug where environmentalism doesn't affect new cities
* fix for missing head mission crash
* fixed stack attack bug with groups of units with more than one move
* fixed premature end-turn unit cycle bug
* fixed State Porperty cumulative effect in team game
* fixed plot list button scrolling for multiple resolutions
* fixed some AI attitude issues for team games
* Strip chat messages of color tags before displaying in Pitboss
* Fixed logic bug that determines the number of open slots in a Pitboss game
* Improving how the host determines if the game is full - number of connections rather than number of players - before, the host wasn't considering joining players when determining if the game was full
* Set status to CLOSED when a computer player dies in the game
* The full mod path is no longer stored in the save when the mod is installed under the user folder
* Load proper DLL when a mod is specified in the ini file
* fix for tech chooser showing known techs as unknown
* Clear map data (like latitudes) when you exit to main menu
* Fixed error in combat calculations when a zero-strength unit was involved
* Fixed bug in Info screen "rival worst" calculation
* End of game sequence plays correctly for hotseat/pbem
* Diplomacy screen no longer allows end-turn events to go through
* Diplomacy screen gold popups respond to ESCAPE and RETURN
* Right-click select-all no longer causes large stacks to slide off the screen
* No longer possible to attempt to take over unplayable civs in multiplayer scenarios
* Fixed PBEM infinite movement exploit
* Fixed rush production per population for game speeds other than normal
* GNP graph is now consistent with demographics table
* Fix Gunship being almost invisibile in Frozen mode
* fix mod name in progress bar
* New DX9 code takes screenshot without requiring lockable back buffer
* Fixed the vertically launching torpedo for the submarine unit
* Movie playback optimized
* Significant reduction in video and system memory usage
* Fixed some memory leaks
* Fixed crashes with modified SDK
* Fixed XML failures with non-default locale
* Many translation fixes
* Memory related crash fixes
* Fixed diplomacy crash fix (when expanding an empty tree control with space bar)
* Internet lobby -> LAN fix
* fixed pedia and menu buttons disappearing after leaving tech chooser
* PitBoss no longer crashes on victory
* can no longer see number of units in darkened tiles by moving the flag
* No more Archers holding all their weapons and Workers holding all their tools
* No more fog of war missing from the southern ice and from trees/jungle on the dateline
* Pushing "go back" while joining a mp game, no longer causes background music to disappear
* Wonder movie effect and zoom no longer happens when you have disabled Wonder movies
* City billboards no longer choke on text formatting
* Many tutorial issues fixed…
* Fixed checksum folder order difference between NTFS and FAT32 filesystems
* Many worldbuilder issues fixed…
* Fix: Black eye shadows
* Fix: Some leaderheads appear to have white eyes when the low-res textures option is on
* fixing crack in huge globe view maps
* fixes the problem where animals were not animating in the fog
* Prevent Terrain crash when reloading EarthMap twice
* fixed crash on too quick quickload
* fixed city yields being revealed in FOW
* fixed ability to see cities in FOW via defense modifiers
* ICBM no longer flips upside-down when fortified/awaken
* Fix for combat bug across a map seam

Additions;

* PitBossSleep ini setting
* unit cycling optimization
* Africa, Europe, East Asia, Eastern U.S., and South America maps
* Fantasy_Realm, Fractal, and Shuffle map scripts
* unit health bar for plot list buttons
* Require Complete Kills game option
* No Movies is now a graphical option (instead of an ini option)
* Warn all users when a player with a different version of files joins the game
* Display a popup warning the host when a joining player has different versions of XML/Python files so he can make sure this guy can be trusted
* Indicate which players have an active turn in the Pitboss admin screen
* Synch Logging now an .ini option
* Able to load mods from the Pitboss
* Hotseat and PBEM scenarios
* Display name of peer you are contacting in join screen if available
* Saving DirectIP join address
* Added culture rate popup help to culture bar in city screen
* Added Admin password field in PBEM/Hotseat staging screens
* Added HideMovieBackground ini option for further movie speedup
* Added HideOutOfVRamWarning ini option
* Exposed many more functions to Python
* Hooked up modern whaling boats
* support for movies in customAssets folder

Troubleshooting Connectivity

If you are encountering problems when connecting to multiplayer games over the internet, chances are strong that you are not the cause of the problem. It is likely that players running firewall software that rejects incoming connection attempts may have already joined the game. Since these players do not have their firewall configured correctly, their computers are rejecting your attempt to connect. Therefore, it is vital that all players who wish to play multiplayer games ensure that their firewall is set up to allow Civilization IV to construct the necessary peer-to-peer network.

If you are running firewall software, please verify that Sid Meier’s Civilization 4 is listed on the "Exception List" of your firewall, and that incoming messages will be accepted for this process. If your firewall software does not offer an exception list, please open port 2056 for UDP traffic on your firewall. This will allow the required traffic through.

Although Civilization IV contains logic to negotiate around many firewalls and NAT devices (routers), it can run into trouble under certain circumstances. The solution Civilization IV employs works with a vast majority of routers, but does not work with all brands. Very old models may have more problems than newer ones. Additionally, Civilization IV will have problems negotiating through 2 levels of network address translation (ie. a router behind a router). Also, negotiation may fail if you or an existing peer is running the game on a very large and busy LAN.

This turned up in my email today:

Quote:

Overnight we have received some disappointing news from our overseas suppliers
in regards to the Collector's Edition of Guild Wars Factions.

NCsoft have decided to do an exclusive deal for this edition with one retailer
throughout the UK and Europe - meaning we are not able to be supplied with our
stock. Naturally, we are very very disappointed and upset, and we will be
expressing our extreme displeasure to NCsoft direct shortly.

Unfortunately this means we have had to take the Collector's Edition off the
site as we can no longer guarantee stock for your order. The good news is that
we will have plenty of the Standard Edition of Guild Wars Factions available, so
we can change your order across to this version if you would like.

Please let us know if you would like us to change your order over to the
Standard Edition by emailing us at orders@gpstore.co.nz and quoting your order
number for reference.

We hope you understand that this situation is totally out of our control We
are very disappointed that we will not be able to supply you with the
Collector's Edition - we know how much you would have been looking forward to
it, just as we have been

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about your order.


Regards,

Gameplanet Store

Kakuro. it's the new japanese puzzle game taking over the world.
You should check it out, here's the sites i use to play kakuro online (don’t worry, it's free)
kakuro

Stories of your Oblivion characters, and a place to ask questions. Beware, you'll likely see spoilers in this thread.


Sanguine's dinner party: All was going well. The greater daedra Sanguine wanted me to sneak into the Countess of Leyawin's boring dinner party and cast 'Stark reality' over the party guests. Sneak into Castle Leyawin, past the guards and to the dining hall? No problem. Find the guests? Hardly an issue. However, I notice the spell "Stark reality" has a hostile effect. Once I cast it, ... the guests will be mad at me, and so will their castle guards. Luckily, I had invisibility ready to be cast aftward.

So... the spell went off without a hitch, and the guests went batty! Especially the countess, running around with 'stark reality' cast over her while wanting to kill me. The guards were summoned, and the guests looked as good as possible. What's the matter? Where's the story? The countess is battier than usual, and started attacking, and got smacked around by her own guards with her jiggly bits flying around while she ran like a chicken. Oh, did I forget to mention? She's essential, so she can't be killed, only knocked unconscious. Since she's also a coward, she's run away while being smacked by her own guards over and over, while I guffaw trying to find a way out of the castle, seeing "Countess of Leyawin" is knocked unconcious every 10 seconds.

Oh to be the poor countess, streaking with 'stark' reality all over the party guests and slapped around by her own guards for going batty.



Has anyone completed the Molag Bal shrine quest? I'm supposed to get this man to kill me with the cursed mace, but all he does is pray at his wife's grave.

Lately, I have been fiddling around with a version of the invincible monk build (also known as the 77HP monk) of my own design. It is called the poor man's because anyone can afford to build such a monk. The build does not use all superior runes, rather, it uses all major runes which can be bought for 100 gp at the dealer. I decided to spot a sup rune on the head tat which is still a reasonable purchase for a poor man. This will bring the HP down to 205, then bring the HP down to 155 by adding a minus 50HP focus (CoA quest reward).

Being poor has its disadvantages. No Duh! Running your run of the mill invinci monk skills set is not going to cut it when you have 155HP. So, the major difference is the use of Aura of the Lich to bring the HP down to 77, which turns this into two major differences ;p meaning you are now short one elite skill for the kill. Most 55 monk use SoJ or SS.

The PM build also need more management since there are two major enchantments to refresh, PS and AotL. I have some success solo farming with this build, tho, it is not ready for prime time, aka the Under World. It needs more tweaks, and perhaps it will be more viable when Factions goes live.

The PM build does have one advantage over the 55HP monk, in that, it can be resurrected without a Healing Signet when you are not soloing.

To those who are not familiar with the invinci monk build - Proct Spirit reduces the damage you take to 10% of your max HP. That means you would take a maximum of 5 Dmg per single attack if you lower your health to 55. That damage can be negated with a lvl 13 mending's +4 regen (vs a single target). When the 55HP build dies, the DP will put this monk into negative HP and cannot be res'd without a Res Sig.

-----------------------------------------------

As a spin off, a variation of the PM build works in the UW with a two man team - as tested in the UW tonite

The idea behind this is a reversal of your usual two men team.

The tank, in this case, was SoulFlayer's N/Me using runes as above to bring his HP to 205. He uses Arcane Echo'd Spiteful Spirit as his main damage, as well as a host of other Messy dmg skills.

The monk, Half Moons in this case, keeps him alive without healing, tho, it can be said that it's the monsters that keeps him alive. Sweet irony

First try in the UW was a disaster with Xyngy as support damage dealer and observer. I have the timing all wrong and I even cast Essence Bond on myself instead of Soulie. The second run with War Blade (he did managed to stay connected that time) did much better although we still got party wiped due to human errors. But the build works, all we need is a bit more practice and some fine tuning of skills. The skills Half Moons used were:

Healing 10+1
Prot 11
Divine 10+4

Healing Seed - Heal 21 after taking dmg (just enough to cover dmg taken)
Healing Hands - Heal ~35 after taking dmg
Proct Spirit - reduces dmg to 10% (of 205HP). 18 sec duration.
Divine Boon - Bonus indirect healing when I cast the above on Soulie
Healing Breeze - Only needed when all monsters are dead and Soulie still suffers from condition(s)
Rebirth - Screw up, us?
Essence Bond - enough energy returned with 3 and more monsters. 2 is cutting it tight. Will need a different tactic with only one monster attacking - such as just keeping PS up and use Breeze to touch up.
Blessed Aura - the key spell to make it all work.

Healing Hands and Seed each has a duration of 10 seconds leaving a 5 second gap. A +20% encht staff can help (not to mention I don't have one now. Cough, Cough) but still leaves a gap with no margin for error. Blessed Aura at 16 gives a 37% duration bonus, tho, rank 14 was working well.

We will run again tomorrow night. Half Moons will be bringing Blessed Signet instead of Divine Boon so I don't have to rely on high monster count ;p

There is still room to improve, especially if she gets her hands on a +20% staff. It will let her drop a few ranks from Divine and pump a lvl10 damage dealing skill, for example.

Everyone is welcome to come along tomorrow night, the more the jollier. All you will need to bring is non melee range damage skills, and perhaps one or two safety spells in case you get in trouble.... Because I AM NOT A HEALER

Catch you guys tomorrow

KoP

More amusement in the latest build.

The 4th hour message has the same advice. I haven't seen any later ones.

Adventure Five - Waiting For Godot

Sponsor: Sirian
Opening Date: Thursday, April 6
Duration: As Long As It Takes For Godot To Arrive!
Map Script: Continents
Game Speed: Normal

Difficulty: Prince
Civilization: Germany
Leader: Frederick
World Size: Standard
Victory: Space


Concept: In honor of the Civ4 patch fiasco, and in memory of the play by American playwright Sam Beckett, in which a couple of bums sit around waiting for Godot to show up. (Hint: he never comes.)


Scenario Information: I'm sure I'll have it ready any day now. In the mean time, why don't you get started?


CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS GAME!


Closing Date: The Monday after Civ4's patch is released -- however long that takes.