Civilization 5 update aims to fix multiplayer, squashes bugs and exploits

It takes plenty of patience to make it to the end of a multiplayer game of Civilization 5, patience often stretched to breaking point by de-syncing games and ponderous AI turns. A new patch has arrived for Civilization 5 brings "significant improvements to general multiplayer stability" and does something fancy to the AI move caching, "improving turn-times significantly."

Out-of-sync errors should be less frequent and the UI has been updated letting players see details of a game before jumping into lobbies. On the downside, Firaxis have plugged a few loopholes. In a move sure to be welcomed by the confused citizens, we'll no longer be able to trade cities back and forth to heal them and "generate endless City Strikes." Aw. Here are the full patch notes, from Steam .

Multiplayer

Significant improvements to general multiplayer stability.
Significant improvements to Hot-Join stability.
Multiplayer now using the same AI move caching as single player, improving turn-times significantly.
Lobby improvements: We now display game details in the lobby list (players in each game, map size, map type, DLC required, etc.).
Host can now kick players from the staging room when loading a save (if a player cannot return to a game, the game can now be continued by the rest of the players).
Found and corrected additional causes of Out-of-Sync.
Exploit: Corrected an exploit that allowed players on the same team to trade cities back and forth to auto-heal it.
Exploit: Corrected an exploit that allowed players on the same team to trade cities back and forth to generate endless City Strikes.
Exploit: Corrected an exploit that allowed a player to “lag” the UI to gain multiple free techs.

Change “Load Game” save sorting to be “Last Modified” by default.

Bugs

When scrapping a unit, make sure any “cargo” units are scrapped as well.
When a unit is destroyed that is carrying another unit, make sure to kill both (missiles sometimes lingered).
Corrected a bug that was causing eliminated Civ's to not generate notifications correctly.
Changed notification language for when a Research or Trade deal is cancelled due to the AI running out of funds to pay for it (per-turn deal), or are eliminated. It was currently displaying a “because of war” notification which is incorrect.
Corrected an issue that could cause unhappiness from city count and number of specialists to become incorrect over the course of a long game.
Changed Frigate obsolete tech to Combustion.
Fixed Korean science building exploit.
Fixed a problem with City Strike that gave the user the impression that they could not end their turn, when in reality, city strike was still active.
Crash: Fixed a crash that could occur in hot-seat when exiting to the main menu.
Crash: Fixed a crash that could occur when a unit was eliminated by standing too close to a Citadel.

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.