posted 04-05-99 04:16 PM ET        

Here�s how it goes. Playing UofP, vendetta with Believers (as always, Miriam never lets up with her attempts to extort credits or tech by threats and eventually you have to waste all you resources in an 80-year war), having captured two or three of her bases and with the Gaians (always pact) having captured one. I then move my forces to capture the next Believer base and as soon as I move the first unit in, POOF! the boundary lines do not change and the captured base disappears into thin air! All that work for nothing. Or is this an undocumented Believer ability?

Two more bugs.

UofP with Empath Guild. So I get to see who�s winning the race to get Living Refinery. Strange I say, how come Morgan�s net income is +160 and everyone else�s is about +35? I see that one of his bases by itself is gross +68. So let�s have a look at this amazing base, I say. Strange, hardly any improvements at all, no ranks of boreholes, echelon mirrors and condensers. In fact he has fewer bases than Lal, (PG as always � this double vote nonsense really sucks), Lady Deirdre and myself (Zak), and my bases are much better developed. OK, so how about trade? Well, I suppose that base could be getting +24 if Morgan were friendly with everyone (he�s not PG), but I know he isn�t. NEXT TURN I look at the energy stats and Morgan is +31, much like everyone else, and the amazing base is back down to +11. A few turns later he�s +120. Well it�s obvious to even a blind goldfish that the AI programming has gone haywire. Since he gets all these credits for nothing I figure it�s time to go to Scenario Editor and even the score. Fair�s fair, let�s face it, if the AI can cheat so can I. Funny, though, when I click on �Set Energy reserves�� just to give myself an even break ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happens.

What else is wrong with this game?

 The �Scramble� bug, see my earlier posting
 The occasional �access invalid data� crash in terran.exe
 Inconsistent movies, sometimes they stutter and sometimes they don�t.

As said before, Blade Runner, Jack Nicklaus 5, and (forgot to mention) Dark Colony don�t have these kind of problems.

A few more grievances�.

Aren�t you supposed to be able to eliminate a probe team without breaking a pact / truce (covertly)? Isn�t this what it says in the manual? Don�t you want to keep the trade benefit but punish the transgressor by eliminating the PT, instead of just sending them home with a note asking them not to be naughty again?

Why won�t Lal trade a C4 for a C7? He �won�t trust� Zak with the tech, but then invokes the Charter to get Zak to hand over C7 for nothing. This doesn�t make sense, by that logic he himself should hand over his C4 for nothing.

Miriam and Yang�s only strategy seems to be endless threats to extort tech and credits. I don�t want to waste my time fighting with them while I�m trying to develop but eventually there is no choice � you just get tired of handing over whatever they ask for. If you don�t and start a war early in the game it drains all your resources and you can�t develop base facilities to speed research. So you keep on giving it away until you�re ready to kick their butt, which usually means acquiring Air Power, and then just attacking them non-stop until you eliminate them. Any let up in your attack just allows them to re-arm and then the extortion tactics start all over again. So now, I don�t even return Believer / Hive transmissions, I just eliminate them as soon as I can. Does it always have to be the same?

Why doesn�t the manual say at what level you have to retire at 2400? I�m playing Librarian level and it�s 2302 � do I have 98 or 198 years left? I believe I�ve been playing quite well but the war with Miriam has drained so many resources that could have gone into research that I (Zak ) have nothing beyond tech level 8 with quite a few gaps. The manual, although quite thick (the last third of the book is just a waste of space), is quite sketchy and badly indexed, e.g. in order to find the section on Landmarks I had to page through it from the beginning.

So, I�m just about ready to quit playing this game. In my opinion, as a professional information systems designer, analyst, and programmer, this game should be recalled as if it were a faulty motor vehicle. I�m prepared to say publicly that if I were responsible for the design and programming of the modules that handle the aforementioned operations, these bugs would not be there. It is quite simple disgraceful that a purchased game should perform so badly. I can symapthize to some extent with hardware-related problems (which seem to plague the PC / Windows environment) but when bugs are obviously caused by the programming I can only shake my head in disgust.

All purchasers should be offered instant no-hassle refunds and be supplied with the game for free when the bugs are fixed. Then, if they are satisfied, they can be given the opportunity to make payment. I�ll happily pay for working software but when I spend my time writing emails, collecting crash reports and sending the appropriate saved game, the thought comes to mind that I should be the one getting paid.

What still mystifies me is how people can consider playing multi-player or �ironman�, given the prevalence of these and the many other bugs that have been reported?

Suggestions for improvement.

Make the planet truly spherical so that you can circumnavigate vertically as well as horizontally (and in fact in any direction). Perhaps make it more difficult to traverse the Polar regions, say by having to take 3 turns to cross a Polar square by land. Don�t bother trying to display a 2D world map, just display a 3D map that you can rotate, zoom, etc. as you like.

Use a hexagon-based grid to make distances more logical. Many strategy board games had this feature (remember Starfleet Battles?).

These features shouldn�t be beyond competent programmers but given what I have seen so far I am tempted to suggest either you don�t bother or contract it out to people who do know how to code.

Yours in frustration,

Jeff Chaplin
Toronto
[email protected]

posted 04-06-99 06:40 PM ET            

If the disappearing base phenomenon is described in the manual, then yes, the fault is mine for missing it and I apologize. Yes, on page 104 �Bases and Facilities�, paragraph 3 describes the situation and I failed to make the necessary logical deduction. Pretty poor for a self-professed systems expert. Grovelling apology offered. On the other hand, this situation could easily have been spelled out in plain English. If everything that had to be inferred were spelled out I guess the manual would be a lot thicker so perhaps it�s better that way.

Well Crashguard is still keeping my game going so back to battle.

Thanks to those who have replied.

posted 04-09-99 12:30 AM ET            

It's pretty annoying when the base was targeted because of its being an "outpost" position to launch attacks against another faction.