Yep, yep... sounds like the rule still holds. The first release of
anything is a public beta. Don't buy until it has been patched.
I just got Civ 3 Last fall when the 1.29f patch came out. It's still got balance problems (as many have complained, the combat system is much too simple and needs to be better designed) but it's playable. Unlike the original release.
I'm considering whether to get PTW with some further changes. I waited for SC 3K Unlimited before upgrading from SC 2k (which I bought on a 'Special Edition' CD after it had been out for years). Now I will plan to get SC 4 sometime next Fall or maybe next Spring.
And actually, I disagree on SE IV. It was also incomplete when originally released. It was a patch to Gold that finally fixed several interface problems -- like 'escape' and 'enter' working like button clicks, the help said they worked but they did not -- and the ridiculously simple feature of filtering ships without cargo out of the cargo transfer window or ships without unit launch/recover out of the unit launch/recover window. Granted, SE IV didn't have the kind of nasty glaring crash bugs that SC 4 seems to have, but SE IV was also a far less demanding program. No real time, no 3D graphics, etc.
Since Moo 3 finally has a release date we can now prepare to hear about
this public beta...
[ January 25, 2003, 00:25: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]