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Installed Civilization IV Complete edition. Patch is 3.17 but when I go to install this patch, it runs the program, but once I select Install, it just closes. No update confirmation or anything. Game version is still 3.17.

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Desert Island Discs is a radio show broadcast here in the UK on the poshest of stations, BBC Radio 4. In the show, various celebrities and politicians choose which particular gramophone recordings they would choose to be stranded with if they found themselves on a desert island. Should Radio 4 ever decide videogames were culturally relevant and subsequently launch “Desert Island Games”, then it’s a fairly safe bet that Sid Meier’s Civilization series would feature frequently. In the fourth instalment of the game, the rules are remixed and the graphics are tarted up, but the engrossing turn based strategy remains as compelling as ever.

Installation

The game should install just fine from its original optical media discs. Simply place the first disc in your computers optical drive and follow the on-screen prompts. If installation does not start automatically, browse to the CD in Computer/This PC and run the “Autorun.exe” file manually. At the end of the installation process, the installer may offer to install Xfire. Unfortunately the Xfire service shut down some time ago, so simply skip this part of the process.

If you’re installing the Steam version, installation is automatic and managed from your Steam library from within the Steam program itself.

Patching

Before starting your quest for world domination, you should install the latest patch. Users who purchased the game on Steam do not need to install any patches, as the Steam service itself keeps the game fully up to date. For those of us playing using the original retail version, you should download and install patch 1.74. You can download the patch here.

Once the patch has downloaded, simply run it and follow the on-screen prompts.

Uncivilized copy protection

The retail DVD versions of Civilization 4 are protected with a copy protection system known as Safedisc. Unfortunately, citing security concerns, Microsoft removed support for Safedisc protected games both in Windows 10 and, retrospectively through Windows update, in Windows 7 and 8 as well. Unfortunately this means that in order to play the retail version on a modern PC, you will need to obtain a de-protected or cracked version of the game. Due to copyright laws we can’t link to this file directly, we can tell you however that the cracked version of the game we obtained was by a group called “Reloaded” and had an MD5 hash of AE3B47863E7D88636A5C87D90643E845. As always, take extra care on the shadier parts of the internet when looking for these files.

When you obtain the cracked Civilization 4 executable, you simply need to replace the existing one. Use Windows Explorer or File Explorer to browse to the games installation directory, by default that is “C:Program Files (x86)Firaxis GamesSid Meier’s Civilization 4”. Find “Civilization4” or “Civilization4.exe” and rename it (e.g to “old”). Now, copy over the de-protected Civilization4 file. Once it is in place, you can start the game from the Start menu or screen normally.

Graphics and other settings

Civilization 4 isn’t a game that’s big on fancy graphical effects, but that’s no reason why it shouldn’t look as pretty as possible. From the games main menu, choose “Options”, then on the window that appears, choose the “Graphics” tab. The window shown below should then be displayed.

Some settings here are down to personal preference, for instance “Show Health Bars”, while other settings affect the visual quality of the game. For the most part you can simply set every setting to the maximum. You should set the following options as shown below for maximum visual quality:-

Globe View Buildings Disabled – Deselected

Full-screen Mode – Selected (unless you wish to play in windowed mode)

High Detail Terrain – Selected

You can also set the games screen resolution from this window. Generally you should set this to the highest available option. If you use a widescreen resolution (such as 1080p, 1920×1080) some of the games cut-scenes may appear a little stretched, but the game itself should look fine.

Troubleshooting

“Please login with administrator privileges and try again” or similar error when starting the game – This is the games copy protection failing to initialise, you will need to find a crack/hacked version of the game or purchase the Steam edition instead.

Multiplayer and other notes

It is possible to play Civilization 4 in multiplayer mode, though the services that facilitated this originally have long since shut down. 2K games very generously started a program whereby customers could get a free Steam key for their copy of Civilisation 4. Since the Steam gaming service includes Multiplayer functionality, this meant that Civilization 4 is fully playable online again. You can find more details of this offer here. This program is due to shut down in June 2017, so hurry if you want to take advantage of it.

The game is also compatible with direct IP connections and therefore compatible with the Evolve gaming service, however we haven’t tried multiplayer using this program so we cannot comment on how well it works.

Save games for Civilization 4 can be found in C:Users(your username)AppDataRoaming, or, if you’re running the Steam version, in C:Users(your username)DocumentsMy GamesSid Meier's Civilization IVSavessingle.

Screenshots

…but they soon find high-tech ways to kill each other.

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The Spring 2017update for Civilization VI will be coming the week of March 27 - April 2 to PC and will be coming soon for Mac and Linux. This update will include a number of balance changes, AI adjustments, multiplayer changes, and bug fixes.

The Harbor balance change, included in this patch, will bring the strength of the various Districts in line with each other. In addition, there will now be added nuances to the warmonger penalties so they only hit with their full strength if you are truly wresting valuable cities from your opponents.

A complete list of changes in the Spring 2017 Update is below:

• 1Balance Changes

Balance Changes[edit | edit source]

Harbors now give a major adjacency bonus with the City Center, +1 Food to all Coasttiles when the Lighthouse is built, and +2 Gold to all Coast tiles when the Seaport is built.

Australia now gets +1 for Charming/+3 for Breathtaking on the four affected districts (had been +2/+4) to compensate for the Harbor boost above

Royal Navy Dockyard now always provides +1 Trade Route capacity, even if the city already has a Commercial Hub. This makes it more useful, even when England builds it on its home continent.

Added 'Future Civic' to the end of the Civics Tree, a repeatable Civic to research and add to the player score.

Bomberunits are now more effective against cities.

Swordsman are now reduced to 36 combat strength.

Damages now remain on City and Encampments when a city is traded.

Siege units with bonus movement (e.g. from Great Generals or Persian surprise war) can still shoot after moving as long as they still have 2 MP.

Warmongering Adjustments[edit | edit source]

Adjusted Warmonger penalties for Diplomatic status:

When applying a warmonger diplomatic penalty for EITHER declaring war or capturing a city, reduce that penalty if you are enemies with the target of that warmongering as follows:

-20% warmongering if this is against a player you have denounced

-40% warmongering if this is against a player you are at war with

NOTE: This is not used in situations where you are fighting a Joint War against the target power or when Sumeria joins as ally in war (in both those cases the penalty is still zero).

EXAMPLE: Macedon is at war with Persia. If India goes to war with Persia sometime in the middle of this Macedonian/Persian War and captures a Persian city, Macedon will reduce its warmonger penalty against India by 40%.

Adjusted Warmonger penalties for City Population:

When applying a warmonger diplomatic penalty for capturing a city, reduce that penalty if the city is smaller than the average city in the game as follows:

If the city’s population after conquest is below the average population of all the cities in the game, reduce the warmonger penalty by the percentage that city’s population is below the average.

EXAMPLE: Persepolis is conquered and its population after conquest is 6. But the average size of a city in the game is 8. So this city is 2 / 8 = 25% below the size of the average city in the game. Therefore the warmonger penalty is reduced by 25%.

Civ Iv Patch 1.61

AI Tuning[edit | edit source]

Improved coordination for multiple attacking units.

Ranged units better understand how to capture Civilian units.

AI should now generally accept embassies when neutral, and reject when unfriendly.

When asking an AI to equalize a deal that has elements on both sides of the deal, it will consider a gold-only change before looking at other possibilities.

Increased AI’s desire to repair pillaged Districts and Buildings.

Minor civs will no longer go after policies that give them extra influence they can never use.

Made it easier to meet the positive side of the environmentalist Agendas.

AI will now build multiple Neighborhoods.

Bug Fixes[edit | edit source]

The Great Works tooltip in the deal now shows extended information.

Melee units can no longer attack embarked units.

Pillaged improvements no longer provide Pantheon bonuses.

Fixed double-counting of Appeal from Improvements.

Fixed broken gossip message about Seaside Resorts that made them always mention a 'lost city'.

John Curtin is now referred to as “Prime Minister” and not “President” in the Outback Tycoon scenario.

Fixed an issue where previously constructed buildings were not showing up properly on the Production Chooser.

The World Tracker now keeps its open/closed state between turns.

Additional bug fixes.

Multiplayer[edit | edit source]

Updating Global Thermonuclear War scenario's Proxy War victory condition to support team play.

Expanded internet games list to show results from additional regions

Games list was frequently not showing all available games due to UI bug.

Misc[edit | edit source]

Added more civs to the True Start Location Earth map.

Separated war/peace notifications into major civs vs. city-state.

Added additional information to Defeat/Victory screens, so players will be clearer on why they have lost the game.

Added 'special ability' stars to techs and civics that unlock new functionality.

Added invasion warnings to Poland scenario

Added new Capabilities data base table to disable select game systems for scenarios and mods.

ARX functionality updates for scenarios.

Added text labels differentiating Official and Community content in the Lobby screen.

Additional Content[edit | edit source]

Civ Iv Patch

In Game

Fixed issues in the Additional Content menu with mods that contained very long strings.

The 'ImportFiles' modding action now works as a Frontend action.

The 'UpdateIcons' action now supports SQL files in addition to XML files.

Multiple files can now be specified in the 'AddGameplayScripts' Ingame action.

Added a 'DoNothing' Frontend action and Ingame action. This action is useful as a placeholder or as a container that includes other actions.

The localization database is now written out to the cache folder.

Development Tools

The SDK launcher will now close after the user has clicked on an application to launch.

ModBuddy will no longer display a 'Parameter 'escapedValue' cannot be null.' error when the Development Assets are not installed.

Added SQL syntax coloring to ModBuddy.

Civilization Iv Patch Download