Well, given that OP has more or less admitted that he made an ass out of himself going in, much the challenge of the prospective smackdown has been removed. And many have already made the point that even his subsequent explanations are inane. But his attitude is just so bad....

Come on..give me a reason.

i think the way StarDock supports this game is amazing, I'm certainly not annoyed when they come out with another update. The only other company I have seen that did something like this was 1C and that game is still the #1 flight sim because of it.

..."Here's your problem! You have an IRQ conflict."

Usually when the PC is giving me the hourglass for no apparent reason I wiggle the mouse and mutter under my breath "Here's a few IRQ13's to think about".

I'm a hardware engineer and had designed PC's from 1990 to 1994. The last PC that I designed was a 90 Mhz P54C. Even up until then they had the logic in the chipset to implement the memory wrap that occured at 1 Megabyte (Gate A20) in the original IBM PC. I wonder if they've finally gotten rid of it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was still in PC's today. Video BIOS still exists at C0000h and as someone mentioned Himem still exists.

Just to add my thoughts to this big thread...

As many already said, the patches were not really needed to make the game stable. Sure, there were some bugs in it but after 1.1, the fixes related to minour issues. There are still some left (mind control center?) but they don't break the game.

Everything after 1.1 focused more on player feedback to make the game last longer. It was about gameplay. The simultaneous attack/defence is a good example of this, as well as the fiddling with morale and population growth. Stardock tweaked the game so players wouldn't be able to 'crack' it so easily. With cracking, I mean seeing a set path to victory that requires little or no thinking. Fast ships with lots of weapons were the norm in the early days for example. Now, things are more nuanced.

Also, the game prides itself on it AI. In strategy games, a fair AI will always have a hard time since players can adapt over games whereas the AI can't. Stardock's commitment to including new strategies based on player information is to their credit. Every time the game changed, player strategies had to change and then Stardock adapted the AI to counter that. Of course, one can only go that far in it but I don't think anyone can claim Stardock doesn't care for its customers.

Some companies do the same, such as Blizzard while others release games that most people can get running and then they make a half-hearted attempt at patching things, sometimes leaving more destruction in their wake after the patch. It is a sad thing indeed when you find that the copy-protection software was the only perfomant aspect of the game and even that would at times lock up your PC.

Main changes will be an AI crash bug fix

And in case some of you missed this from the original post.... this update isn't just for content as some of you have chastised me over. So before jumping on my back about all of the great additions that are in the update remember, you all seemed to miss the bug fix issue. What the bug is, I really don't know, but whatever.

Every once and awhile you could let one slide.

I know Mumblefratz, I know. For some reason this one just seems to want to keep on poking, you know? And it was addressed at me even though you wouldn't think so due to the OP issue. Seems that those certain few people who troll to jump on my comments don't always realize that I wasn't the OP. Guess that shows the mentality that we are dealing with in here at times. But after dealing with ten cranky mechanics before nine am on a Monday, all I want to do is immerse myself in this forum. To find personal attacks continuing just pisses me off to no end. Opinions are what make us who we are. Debate is the cornerstone of knowledge. I can handle sounding idiotic, being "right" or "wrong", whatever. I just tire of the same grade school drivel that seems to be continuing to no avail. Why even have the forum then, if you can't voice opinions without being "stoned" over them. Hell, maybe I should just tattoo heretic on my forehead.  

I clicked on this thread expecting a discussion on (1) what v1.4 would include and (2) its expected release date and instead a see a very long flame war!

Please let's get the discussion back to (1) and (2)!

As for another free update from Stardock, whoya! Not only do we not have to wait for DA for these changes, they will be available for those who don't choose to purchase DA (although, I think DA is well worth the money)!

Actually, his main problem isn't that he is so hotheaded, but rather that he is so muddleheaded. I get angry, but atleast i'm somewhat articulate when i decide to show it and make sure that those i'm venting on know what i'm angry about. I don't go on some underthought rant and then back off when i'm called on my stupidity, "No, this is what I really meant."

And, if i were to revise my earlier point, I would atleast make sure that point was a good one, and not some idiocy about people lacking internet access or the inevitable introduction of new bugs that comes with pretty much any patch.

Feel free to be angry, just stop being an angry idiot.

We're way off topic here. It's not fair to those who really want to discuss the upcoming v1.4 update to have to wade through these "extraneous" posts, at this point they probably outnumber the on topic posts.

Yes, but then we miss out on our own little drama unfolding daily!

Jasmacarl and Evil Stormbringer, if you MUST continue this, take it to e-mail.  The web devs put a lot of work into putting in the e-mail feature.  However, I suggest that you both just let it drop.  This is your official warning that if you continue in this thread, you will get time out as a Visitor. 

I agree with ND3G.

Having Stardock around to keep the game interesting is great!

I do not believe that there is a single game out there that had a perfect release, meaning no bugs. Being able to chase down, find, and correct bugs is very important. Also I believe it is important for them to hunt down cheats and eliminate them as well. If the game becomes unbalanced through their corrections, they can then try to balance the issues. With this also comes improvements to the game. Now I do not think that they intentionally cater to the "creme of the crop players" so to speak but sometimes the suggestions those players make are very relevant to the game.

I love the fact that when a new patch is released that I have to be more careful with my play style, and learn to adapt to the ever changing landscape of what we know as GalCiv2.

Everything else aside. I believe Stardock did one heck of a job with this game when they released it, and an even better job keeping things in check, in line, and interesting.

I was going to make a 1.4 thread but I saw this one and just decided to go with it.

A couple of observations about 1.4 that I have noticed so far

1) as most people know by now, no more morale bonus for stock exchanges, and more expensive morale buildings
2) even harder to form alliances now than it was before
3) ai won't sell mid to high range weapon or invasion techs

all of this (as far as I can tell) adds up to lower metaverse points, and basically locks the door for anyone to ever have a high scoring game without extending it out several years past eminant victory. are the top players now comfortably secure at the top of the rankings? is it possible to work around these new speedbumps, or is the top 10 locked in now with no chance of ever bumping your way up?

edit: I now see that the thread in the dev journals section of the forum goes into great detail about this very subject and a lot of other players are feeling my pain. I am glad I'm not the only one unhappy right now....not that people being unhappy makes me happy...you know what I mean...