Civilization III 1.21f 'open beta' available

Mac game publisher MacSoft has announced the release of an open beta version of a new upgrade to Civilization III, the popular turn-based strategy game published for the Mac earlier this year.

The publisher described the new patch — which upgrades Civilization III to version 1.21 — as “massive.” Accordingly, MacSoft and conversion company Westlake Interactive have elected to do the final phase of testing as an open beta, due to the depth of changes made in this version of the high volume of requests that they’ve received from existing Civilization III users.

Available for download from MacSoft parent company Infogrames’ Support Web site, the patch reportedly contains dozens of improvements, fixes and changes to the game, both in its cross-platform and Mac-specific code.

Mac-specific changes to 1.21f include:

Nav Services dialogs are now resizable.

Delete key (PC backspace) now hides the UI properly.

Fixed “Ctrl-F” error in advisor text. It now properly reads Cmd-F.

If you try to load a custom scenario or map that references a file you do not have installed, Civ3 will now warn you about that file and quit rather than crashing.

Fixed issue whereby music volume would sometimes be ignored when transitioning between songs.

Added support for larger resolution of 23″ Cinema Display.

Fixed issue where some sounds would not play.

Dozens of other Mac-specific changes included with the 1.17f and 1.17g releases are also included here, along with myriad changes made to the PC code base, which adds features, fix problems or enhance gameplay. More complete details are available from the Read Me file included with the update.

If you experience bugs you’d like to report to MacSoft using the new patch, you are directed to e-mail them with details.