vickerl: hi@all,
since the current available GOG version of MAX 1 (v1.04 - r21516) already contains the last available DOS/32A v9.12 extender, I had very high hopes to see round based gameplay above 100+ rounds... but sadly, nothing changed at all!
After I've crossed round 95, either from there the game crashes permanently everytime you try to end the round, or it developes some weird behavior, and finally after round 102-105 it's really game over, at least for me! :((
Tried it with 2 fresh game starts, until round 95 starts everything run smoothly, and after hitting round 96 you're doomed!
Really sad, because I totally like MAX 1 since its first appearance back in the 90's (then played on an P75 with W98SE, and already buggy like hell ^^ ), but yeah, since the game never got any proper W2k/XP/Vista/7/8.1/10 upgrade I guess it's finally the end, especially since Interplay seems as dead as a doornail... their webpage is mostly empty now, but it seems it was still alive some time ago...
It's really unbelievable to me that no one was able to do some kind of fan made patch or fix since the release in 1996, and it seems the original developer crew shifted into another dimension?! (or dead already?!)
Well. I'm going back to my corner and will shed some tears about the situation... :/
Regards
I think the problem is the total amount of units and AIs on the map and whether or not they do something to bug out the game - which is a matter of luck. I had 400+ turn games without issue at the same time I was also running into permabugs at about 200 turns a couple times. Playing vs 1 AI is definitely safer than a 4v4 ffa, however even a 4v4 game may work ok. One other thing you may want to do is to allocate 64mb of RAM memory in DOSbox instead of standard 16.