1BC Civ Forums / News & Announcements / 1BC News, Help and Information

New IF Code

mongoose201 — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:27:46 GMT

Greetings all, I have installed a new IF Code that should help some users quite a bit.

The code is for easy embedding of youtube clips.

The tag is as follows (without the spaces): [ youtube]Video Code (the code after the v= in the youtube url) [/ youtube]

So, if the youtube url is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-wEBmLht5g , then the Video Code is [b]1-wEBmLht5g[/b]. Just cut or copy it out of the url and insert it in the youtube tag as follows (without the spaces)

[youtube ] 1-wEBmLht5g [/ youtube]

and you will get the following:

[youtube]1-wEBmLht5g[/youtube]

Enjoy some David Bowie with the Arcade Fire while you are here...

Gone for a week or so...

mongoose201 — Sat, 03 May 2008 00:27:44 GMT

Greetings all...

Hell has indeed frozen over, as I'm taking my first vacation in 6 years... I'm heading down Houston way to see some friends and see my beloved Houston Astros (quiet LC)...

Any problems can be referred to the moderators that are here, and any admin stuff can wait till I get back.

(I've caught up on all of the GOTM business such as file submissions and will be back in time to close out the April game by the 10th)

I'll try and check in on my pda, but that's dependent on finding a wifi signal, which shouldn't be a problem, but who knows...

Now, I left all the emergency numbers on the fridge, and I had better not hear about any parties in my absence... :P

Forum Streamlining

mongoose201 — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:01:16 GMT

Greetings all,

I have streamlined things a bit, as you may have noticed when looking at the list of forums.

Since it isn't utilized often, the "Other Games We're Playing" category has been removed. All of the forums in that category still exist, but they have been moved.

The most often used section of the "Other Games" category was the "General Gaming Discussion". You will now find this forum under the Sports Discussion in the Off Topic category. All of the other forums in the "Other Games" category now join the Chess forum as a subforum to General Gaming Discussion.

This should help clean up the front page a bit.

Visitor Map

mongoose201 — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 09:49:57 GMT

I've added the above image to the bottom of every page on the site. It's a "widget" that tracks site visits and such. By clicking on it, you can access a world map that shows the locations of all current visitors. It also compiles statistics over time as well.

I don't think it should cause any issues, but if anyone has any problems other than the ones we have been having lately (server errors and page loading delays), let me know and I'll take it down.

ADDED: Removed because the site that hosts the stats is down which slows the load time of the image... Ah well, was a good idea while it lasted... I may give it another try later. *shrug*

Welcome New Moderator

mongoose201 — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 09:28:29 GMT

Greetings fellow 1BCers,

Comedy Dave has been added as a moderator..

His long standing membership and helpfullness to others could no longer be ignored (even though I tried for quite a while ;))

Anyway, welcome him or suffer dire consequences... :)

New Moderator

mongoose201 — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 03:22:55 GMT

Greetings all,

RabiAkiva is now a 1bc moderator. He is the first new moderator here since August of 2003 when Cleo was added.

Welcome him appropriately or suffer the consequences! :D

About to upgrade forum software... hang tight!

Sean — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 05:40:44 GMT

Upgrading from 4.1.2 to 4.1.4. The latest version fixes a bunch of issues, the biggest I see for us is the [quote] function. On the back-end, it will stop taking up so much bloddy memory.

I'm backing up everything before doing the upgrade.

Will post once finished.

Over 100 new avatars!

Sean — Tue, 23 Jul 2002 14:30:17 GMT

Howdy all -- just finished uploading 105 new avatars. A few already exist (I sharpened them up some), but most are brand new!Over the next couple of weeks, I will be fixing everyone's avatars so they are more anti-aliased.Thanks!S

New Board Skin: Larger Fonts

Sean — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 05:19:02 GMT

At the bottom of the home page, you will see a drop-down that has "1BC Default" in it. Click that drop-down and you will see an option titled "Larger Fonts". Select that and hit GO and the forum will resize using the CSS font-size "small" (about 13-14px). By using a CSS friendly font attribute, this also means you can control the font size via View > Text Size on your browser.

This skin also stretches the forum width to be 100% of your browser.

HistoryDude

mongoose201 — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 19:33:02 GMT

Greetings fellow 1BCers,

Our good friend HistoryDude created an epic almost 2 years ago.

http://www.1bcciv.com/Topic1029790-19-1.aspx

Calling it a staggering work of creative genius would not be an understatement.

He was nominated for this award way back when, and it went unanswered, not because of any single factor, but because of a number of "real life" situations and conditions which left many of the 1bc admins/mods inactive for long periods of time. The nomination got "lost in the shuffle" I suppose.

That is no longer the case, as HistoryDude is now adorned with the markings of a Master Storyteller.

Congrats.

Return of Official Site GOTM's

mongoose201 — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:59:39 GMT

Greetings all,

As most of you are probably aware, the official site Games of the Month for CivIV are newly underway. Those who wish to participate or are curious about results can view them here.

For those of you who don't have CivIV or have it and still prefer CivIII, the 1BC GOTM's for CivIII are returning in the next few days. Comedy Dave will be bringing you the games each month. Those games will be found here.

Both GOTM's bring glory and the adoration of ten's of people to the champion. Reigning champions will have a custom member level image (where the blue dots are under the avatars) signifying your champion status. As the games progress, past champions will have similar graphics which will denote their number of past GOTM championships.

If we can get enough interest in the games, there will be multiple games in the month to challenge different skill levels. Until then, there will be a single game at a mid level difficulty.

Happy Gaming (or some other similarly sappy expression) :P

New Admin Coming Through!

Sean — Wed, 24 May 2006 01:08:18 GMT

Please welcome Mongoose201 as a new admin here on the 1BC Civ boards. With both myself so busy, the time has come for some fresh blood in this position.

There may be other admin positions posted soon.

1BC Membership Doubles!

mongoose201 — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 23:55:22 GMT

Greetings all... I thought this was worth of an announcement and celebration.

I took this screenshot on Nov 24th of last year:

-----------------

This screenshot was taken tonight Feb, 2nd:

:w00t::Wow:

New Emoticons

Sean — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 13:01:43 GMT

I've added a bunch more -- you can see them when typing a new reply or message. You can also insert them automatically by using the correct code (for instance, : santa1: will insert :santa1: ).

If you have one you'd like added, reply to this thread and I'll see about getting it up for you :)

If you're looking for emoticons, see http://www.emoticons4u.com/

S :pirate1:

Medals are coming back... sort of...

Sean — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 16:42:30 GMT

I'm bringing the medals back, but they won't be what you're thinking of. No longer will members earn medals by post counts -- from here out, medals will be given based on merit or accomplishments.

Winning a 1BC GOTM, for instance, will give you a good first ranking. After you've earned a few rankings however, just simply winning a GOTM might not ensure your advancement.

I'm still working out the scoring for the ideas I have in mind, but I wanted to open up a thread to solicit the opinions of others.

Here is the BASIC model of what I'm thinking... Please note that neither points nor rankings are set in stone yet.

Settler -- 10 points

Chieftain -- 25 points

Warlord -- 50 points

Noble -- 100 points

Prince -- 200 points

Monarch -- 500 points

Emerperor -- 900 points

Immortal -- 1400 points

Diety -- 2000 points

Gaining points will be based on a multitude of things, and will by no means be static. New methods can be suggested at any time. Here's what I'm thinking for starters -- would love to hear other ideas:

Becoming a member of the site: 10 points

Winning a GOTM: 25 points

Membership: 50 (Year 1), 100 (Year 2), 150 (Year 3), etc

BTW -- you won't have MULTIPLE badges. You will have ONE (except for very special circumstances). You will advance up the ranking system and receive a new badge.

Now, there are special circumstances. I have no idea what these are, but I imagine they will present themselves and will be obvious. These are the "Silver Star" type of awards and will be very rare.

That should be enough to get everyone's thought patterns started... I look forward to everyone's input.

Guess who's deleting posts today?

Sean — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 17:03:43 GMT

This is for all the old-hands. In the CivIV boards, please keep the topics... on topic. I've deleted two replies to a thread seeking help that were offering zero help at all.

I know it's funny -- but to the person seeking help, it's not. With more newcomers to arrive shortly, I don't want them feeling like we're laughing at them when they ask for help.

Thanks!

Ads removed from site

Sean — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 13:38:34 GMT

A whopping $2.70 from the Google ads in the last week make them soooo not worth it. $12 a month doesn't even cover the bandwidth bills, so I've decided "no ads" are better.

I won't swear this won't change, but for now, they're gone!

Change to post counts & replying to old posts...

Sean — Sun, 01 May 2005 20:11:21 GMT

Replying to any thread older than 14 days will not increase your post count, effective immediately.This board is *not* here to be a spam fest. There are plenty of other forums and Civ sites you can go to if that's your thing. We try hard here to have relevant conversations and even harder to keep out the spammers. With the upcoming release of Civ4, we'll see another surge in membership and we are not interested in attracting those whose grand purpose is to spam or cause disruption.S

Sorry about that...

Sean — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 13:17:20 GMT

Not 100% certain why the boards were down, but posting abilities are back.

Moving to new boards

Sean — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 20:59:19 GMT

I'm going to go on and pull the plug and move us to the new boards. Before I do, I wanted to point out some things I just couldn't get done before the move and get feedback on them.First off -- I won't be able to move over avatars. I was trying to make this a possibility, but in the end, it just didn't happen. What I'm going to do is post ALL avatars after the move so you can get yours if you want. The good news is, anyone with 300+ posts will be able to have a custom avatar, and you won't have to wait on approval before uploading it. I'm considering allowing those with *less* than 300 posts to have a custom avatar as well -- I'd appreciate feedback on this (I'd like to make it a minimum of 50 posts).Second, any photos currently attached to posts, or images under the "photos" tab, will NOT be moved. Again, I'll make a post with all the photos we currently have on hand and you can attach them to your profile after the move. One of the really neat things about the new boards is this ability. Everyone will have space on their profile where they can upload files or images.As for emoticons, I have plans to move most, if not all, of the current ones. There is a system in place that allows for custom emoticons, and that is the system that will likely be used.Other than that, everything else will go. All threads and replies will be moved over, along with all members, post counts, etc. There is a system in place in the new boards to reset user post counts (based on live data). I'm going to try very hard not to push this button, and will instruct kring to not click it either.One more BIG note -- to log into the new boards, you will have to use your EMAIL ADDRESS -- NOT YOUR USERNAME. So update that email address you have on file here NOW.S

About the Google Ads

Sean — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 23:20:14 GMT

There are new ads being displayed on the site. I do not expect them to bring in very much, however, monies earned will be used to give back to the site. I cannot say how, as it might encourage clicking the ads, which I don't want to encourage.

The ads have a 1 in 20 chance of being displayed, and even if they are displayed, they have a chance of not showing an ad at all (at present, when I spot checked, I saw 50 ad units come up, but only 3 actually had an advertisement displayed -- the rest were just empty blocks of color).

If you have any questions or concerns, please reply to this post only.

Thanks!

Free copy of Civ IV just for asking!

Sean — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 14:42:21 GMT

IMPORTANT: Please read this COMPLETE post.

Hi guys -- I've been thinking lately what I could use the money from the CivIV sales. Granted, it won't be much (I expect to earn *maybe* 20-30 bucks).

Then I got to thinking... I know we have some members here who probably, for whatever reason, cannot afford to outlay the cost for CivIV at this time. Be it a recent hurricane, medical emergency, being a poor college student or whatever, some folks just don't have the discretionary funds to buy a video game. That being said, I'd like to put the money earned from game sales to giving away copies of the game to people who would love to have it, but just can't afford it at the time.

If you would like a copy of CivIV and cannot, for whatever reason, afford it, send me a private message. Do NOT post here. It's noone's business (including my own) if you can't afford it -- I just don't have a way of giving you the game if you don't let me know LOL. When writing, do NOT tell me the reason why you cannot afford it. Again, it's none of my business.

Here's how this is going to work. As much as I would like to buy everyone a copy, that just ain't gonna happen. So the first requirement is that you must have been a member of the site for a stipulated time frame, and have a stipulated number of posts. Don't go run out and make a bunch of posts -- I just did a snapshot of the database and the numbers will be off THAT data, not off the data in a couple of days.

Member for at least 6 months and have at least 250 posts.
Member for at least 12 months and have at least 150 posts.
Member for at least 24 months and have at least 100 posts.

I am putting $300 of my own money into this, and if there are more than 6 requests, I'll put out the word on the forums asking for donations from members. If there are just a slew of requests, then I will give out as many copies as we can, based off the following rules:

For every 1 post, you earn 1 point.
For every month of membership, you earn 30 points.

I will then sort based off those numbers and give away from top to bottom until we run out of funds.

I don't expect a ton of requests, but wanted to be prepared just in case.

Now, if we end up with only a few requests, I'll use the money and just give away free copies to everyone, no matter how long they've been a member.

If you would like to be considered, just drop me a PM and let me know you'd like a free copy (subject to rules above). I'm going to put a cutoff date of October 20th at midnight EST for requests. At that time, I will solicit funds from members if we have more than 6 requests. If we have less than 6 requests, I will take additional requests for THREE DAYS and will do a drawing from all names entered at that point.

Please do not just request a copy to be Mr. El Cheapo -- please have a genuine need.

Thanks all!

Should be able to log in now

Sean — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 12:54:51 GMT

Thanks all -- had datacenter issues and long story short, I had a stored procedure that never ran this morning. All should be well now.

Pardon the dust...

Sean — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:05:06 GMT

... while I move things around over the next couple of days.No bug reports just yet, please.S

New Boards -- take two!

Sean — Mon, 08 Aug 2005 14:03:29 GMT

Some of you are already aware of the new boards coming, but for others, this will be your first notice. Either way, this is an important post.I have purchased a license for InstantForums by InstantASP.com and am in the process of converting all existing data over to the new forums. I thought this was going to be a pain, but thus far, things are cracking right along, and I'm pretty amazed at how much I have gotten done already.This post is to serve as notice of the new boards coming. When I am ready to make the final transition, these boards will shut down for no longer than 10 minutes (hopefully) and during that time, I will do a data trasfer (man I love DTS). When the new boards come back up, you will need to log in again as your existing cookies will not work.Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available!S

New medals galore

Sean — Sat, 14 Aug 2004 23:01:16 GMT

All members that signed up the first year this site was in operation, regardless of post-count, who have checked into the site within the last 60 days have been awarded an "Original Crew" award. Thanks for sticking it out with us and making this one of the best communities on the web -- regardless of post counts! (One fellow has only one post, see if you can find him ;))Also -- some have been given an award in their name. These are the folks who have give a lot of their time to this site to make it what it is today! We're not the biggest, but we've always had one of the best attitudes of any of the Civ boards. :)Thanks all!S

Today's downtime

Sean — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 23:00:30 GMT

Hi guys,Here's the scoop. January is upon us and in my business, that means a LOT of business. Today we booked more vacation rentals than any other single day ever -- and it's only going to get better.This is a blessing, and a problem. The blessing being our business is taking off by leaps and bounds. The problem being our SQL Server. In any given 5 minute period today, we were doing 25,000+ database queries -- some 5 minute periods saw that number shoot to 40k.We have ordered additional capacity, SQL Server wise. In the meantime, I may, repeat MAY, have to take this site down during some parts of the day when capacity is at its peak. This is only a temporary measure and will stop the instant we have additional capacity.Thanks all for understanding.S

New board software

Sean — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 17:27:06 GMT

Basically, I've started looking at outsourcing the boards to a more modern and feature rich set of message boards to take the load *off* our database server. Every page here generates a minimum of 20 sql queries and if they weren't stored procedures or we weren't running a clustered SQL Server environment, we would have melted long ago.So to that end, I've created this thread to get community feedback on the various board systems out there. At the moment, I am looking at vBulletin, InvisionBoard and UBB (will be outsourcing the hosting, but this means going to a new domain name for the website -- don't worry, things will move you over automatically.I'd like to hear folks' opinions about these boards, or any others they are aware of, complete with links to the maker's websites.The board system *must* allow me to export our current data and import it into their system. I can export the data in virtually any standardized database format required, but the following must make the move to even be considered: usernames, passwords, avatar, signature, post-count, and at least 30,000 messages from the current system.[URL=http://www.invisionboard.com/]http://www.invisionboard.com/[/URL]I wrote these guys and have already heard back from them. They say they *can* take a data dump and place it into their system. They've transfered me over to their tech people. They're going to want a data sample from me, but we probably won't hear anything back till Monday. I need to hear any opinions people have about this board system.Please also give feedback regarding the other systems mentioned (or not mentioned)!Thanks!S

Testing Results...

Sean — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 16:40:22 GMT

... were very interesting.Basically, I discovered that the Civ3 site is hitting the DB server too hard. This is a result of a poor database schematic on my part in the beginning when I designed the message boards, and further compounded by the fact that I've added to that poor design over the years.The good news is the site isn't going away. While I don't have the time to re-write the boards from the ground up, I do think there are a few things I can do to lesson the load. I'm considering putting caching in place, but it will be a very difficult endeavor because of the way the site is coded now.I'm also considering a purchase of a new board system. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm open to them. Cost isn't as much of an issue as the ability for me to migrate existing data to the new boards. I do *not* want to make folks start all over again, so I *must* be able to import via sql all current user information and existing threads. It needs to be Windows based, but I don't care about the database (prefer SQL Server, but will consider MySQL).Thanks all.S

Test over...

Sean — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:37:53 GMT

Thanks guys! :)S

Site may go down for a bit today...

Sean — Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:30:56 GMT

Hey guys -- I may have to take the site down later today. We're having some issues with SQL Server and everything seems to be pointing to these boards as the problem. I *believe* I have fixed the problem, but only time will tell really. If the problem pops back up, I will have a redirect explaining the problem so those that don't see this note know what's up.Sadly, if I have to take it down, it may be down the better part of the day (at least until 7pm EST) as I have other issues more pressing at the moment.ThanksS

Official Recognition:

Sean — Mon, 10 Feb 2003 14:53:46 GMT

kring has, since almost the very beginning, been a [B]very big part[/B] of this website. That's not to say others haven't been, but kring has gone above and beyond, and has taken the administration piece that I've been too busy to handle, and performed greatly. I'm certainly not the most eloquent when it comes to words, but I am very thankful to him for all he's done. This site could not exist if it weren't for the day to day dedication that kring has shown us all!

I have just sent him a gift certificate from amazon.com from the proceeds that have been earned from our Amazon links here on the site and a little extra just to say "Thank you" from me.

Please welcome me in thanking kring for all he has done for this site!

Thanks all -- and thank you kring! :)

Sean

Search the Archives?

Chuck — Fri, 05 Dec 2003 20:57:49 GMT

I must be a booby. How does one search for topics? TIA, chuck

Happy New Year!

Sean — Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:57:05 GMT

Here's to fulfilled dreams and little sorry (Edit: errr, sorrow LOL).Cheer's all :)S

Save This Thread! now enabled...

Sean — Sun, 25 Aug 2002 01:06:58 GMT

Note: The rules are as follows....The post [B]must[/B] have [B]at least[/B] five (5) replies and the latest reply must have been longer than sixty (60) days ago for the [B]Save This Thread![/B] option to appear.If there are less than five replies, or the latest reply has been within the last 60 days, the option [B]will not[/B] appear. Those messages will also not be marked for deletion.You have [B]two weeks[/B] to save any threads you want saved. On [B]Sunday, September 8th[/B] I will start the moving of saved threads to this folder and the axing of all other threads.Once threads are in this folder, they will be looked over by mods and any irrelevent threads will be removed.Every month or so, I'll post a message in this folder announcing the newest thread cleaning. [B]You will not have to mark threads in this folder to save![/B] Any thread in [B]this[/B] folder will automatically be marked for saving!Have at it!S

Chat room usage

Sean — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 16:45:01 GMT

Yesterday I turned on the ability to create chat rooms. Today I log on to see 9 people in chat (which is great -- that's what it's there for!) and 6 chat rooms -- only two of which were being used. One named "FREE FOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"If this continues, I will remove the ability to create chat rooms. I will also start handing out 24 hour bans (something that has NEVER been done on this site). I understand some of the new people don't get the "flow" of our little corner on the web yet, which is why I've been letting alot of things slide, but I cannot allow it to continue. There are other people here besides you, and I'm asking you to respect them as well.Do not create a room unless you intend to put it to use.Do not create a bunch of useless threads that reference other threads.Do not post for the sake of posting.This is a "new member friendly" site -- at the same time I expect new members to try and fit in, not change everything based on their likings. The last few weeks have seen just too much chaos IM(NSH)O.Thanks all!S

Ability to edit posts is back

Sean — Wed, 23 Jul 2003 12:36:11 GMT

Removed due to feedback.The delete piece stays in unless I can be convinced to take it out.S

Editing and Deleting Your Posts

Sean — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 13:29:29 GMT

Effective Immediately:You may no longer delete or edit a message of yours that has been in the database for more than 30 minutes. Within that 30 minute timeframe, you may delete or edit all you like, but after that, those features will become unavailable.This, of course, does not apply to mods or admins -- there are times we need to be able to delete or edit messages after that timeframe (which are almost always done to make the message clearer or easier to read -- not to change context or content).S

Post Count Update

Sean — Tue, 19 Nov 2002 20:31:43 GMT

Hi guys...I just finished creating a temporary table and triple-checking the data before updating everyone's post count -- all went well.For those of you who have been around for longer than 30 days, your posts count should be right on the money (based on totalPosts / numOfDays -- I carried this out to the 15th significant digit). For those of you newer members, things may be off a bit. If you notice your post count is off [B]significantly[/B], reply to [B]this post[/B], and I'll be happy to go into the database and manually check out things.Thanks for hanging in there!S

One Year Anniversary

Sean — Wed, 20 Nov 2002 09:42:56 GMT

Today is the first aniversary of this site!I wanted to take a moment to give you all my heart-felt thanks for all you've done to help with my 1BC project. A lot of the time you didn't even know you were helping me test, but the things you guys have done has been such a huge benefit to 1BC, I cannot begin to thank you enough.A year ago today I was looking for a way to heavily test the message board software -- I loved Civ3 and happened along civ3.com, where I noticed they listed the sites alphabetically -- I knew Civ3 had to have a huge and loyal following, so I decided to create a site and submit it to them. It was slow going at first, but it only took about a month for there to be enough content here to keep folks' attention spans longer than five seconds -- and we took off.And took off we did -- within a matter of just a couple of months we became the third most popular Civ site around. The two sites that are more popular than this one have been around for years and years, and they don't cater nearly as nicely to the new player. We carved out our own niche by being friendly to all who came, and while we had our our share of trouble-makers, the number was limited. I cannot think of a single instance where we closed off a thread just because it drifted off-topic, and I'm proud of that.Here's to hoping the next year is even better -- and here's to hoping I still see a lot of the same faces here in the next year!Sean Stallings