Some users have suggested that we prune/moderate the GalCiv II forum. The reason for this is because what inevitably happens is that as a software product gets out there, you end up with a lot of people in absolute numbers who have a problem, ignore pinned topics, and just make an obnoxiously titled posts such as "This game sux! bugz! Rushed to release!!11" or something to that effect.
If you have a 2% problem rate and you have 50,000 people running the game, that means you've got a 1000 people with problems. And some number of them are going to make posts. It only takes a half dozen to a dozen posts to change the perception of a forum. So I do recognize the temptation to eliminate duplicate posts or venting posts. But I also feel that people should have the right to go out and vent. They paid $40 for the game, they should be able to vent if they have a problem.
Of course, I reserve the right to vent back at the guy who posts a diatribe about how the game is a "bugfest" only to find out that they're running a video card with 3 year old drivers and literally ignored the warning dialog that popped up. Or to remind the person who's screaming how his machine can't run it that he posted no info on his machine.
That said, I don't want to give the impression that the game is perfect. It's not. Every software product will have some problem, somewhere. It's purely a matter of percentages. Even consoles have problems. Go to any forum for the recent launch of any software (console or PC) and watch.
We don't like getting yelled at by customers who run into some problem any more than you like running into problems. And we especially get no joy out of people making forum posts that ignore the stickies proclaiming the game is buggy.
Let me put it like this, if the game crashes, we consider that unacceptable. After months and months of testing, we made sure it was rock solid before sending out. So far, we've only encountered two crash bugs since release that were due to bugs in our code, the rest have been old drivers, bad drivers, etc. (and people wonder why developers like consoles).
So below is a list of things we've compiled that cause people problems and how to work around them.
Whenever you have some problem, you should look at your debug.err which is created in the game's directory. This will tell you a lot about your system. And if a person does experience some problem with the game, they should go to the pinned topic in the forums that is appropriate to them and post their debug.err info there. That's where tech support watches the most
I'm going to put this vaguely in the order of what causes a problem.
#1 Game crashes immediately.
Happens to approximately 2.5% of users.
Most common cause: Running your desktop at below 1024x768 or running your desktop in 16-bit color. This resolves 99% of users.
#2 Game crashes randomly while playing!
Happens to approximately 2.5% of users.
Most common cause: People with older video drivers. We weren't kidding, you MUST HAVE A RECENT (past year) set of video drivers. If you don't, the game will crash randomly. The readme says this. The stickies say this. We're not kidding around here. You must update your video drivers. Ignoring all that and running into the forum and saying "How could they ship this piece of #$@#!" is not going to update your video driver. You must update the video driver.
Next most common cause: People who have eliminated their page file or have a very small page file. That's your virtual memory. Check the debug.err and near the top it will say how much virtual memory you have allocated. If it's less than a gig (heck, nowadays you should have at least 2 gigs for virtual memory) then there's your problem.
Next most common cause: Overheating. The game's 3D engine has no polygon count, no texture limit. It's designed so that even 2 years from now, you can with mods plug in advanced textures. Some modders have already put in ships from popular sci-fi movies that have over a million polygons and it works. But it comes at a cost: Your video cards are fully utilized. And that can translate to heat. This mostly affects people who have built their own machines and thrown in a powerful video card. Version 1.0X (and later) support GPU throttling which should solve this.
Ex: If the player is running the nvidia 81.95 drivers, update them to 81.98 or better.
Next most common cause: People with AMD64 Dual Core who haven't updated their chipset drivers. GO here, get your drivers, play game, have fun.
#3 Game crashes when I save a ship design.
THIS one is our bug. Cause: If the player selects a planet from the GNN dialog, clicks on the star port, clicks on the shipyard, builds ship, it will die in 1.0. Basically the Z-order of the windows gets confused. Obviously, nobody in the beta/gamma/RCs ever tried to build a ship this indirectly (we just clicked on the shipyard icon). It was fixed essentially immediately. You'll need to download the update or not go to the shipyard via all those dialogs.
#4 Game crashes when I invade a planet once in a great while when playing as a custom race.
THIS is also our bug. It only occurs when you play as non-human and only once in a very great while. Fixed in 1.0X. Though at this point, we're talking cases that can be counted on one hand.
OTHER TIPS:
Read the stickies! Post your debug.err. Or at the very least tell us what kind of computer you have (though debug.err will tell us all about your computer).
If the game crashes on the player, they should be able to assume that there's a reason for it and that there's probably a solution for it.