City limits

[drake]

I tried asking the almighty all knowing dan, but he ignored me because I didnt give him a virtual cookie .

So whos got the answer? Are we going to be stuck with the lame amount of 255 cities as a cap or are we going to have a nice fat number like 400?

This is particularly important for the success of large map games.

[Gramphos]

With the larger maps they would most likely have at least 1024 cities, most likely more.

[orange]

I highly doubt it. It certainly wouldn't be 256 if there was...probably 1500 or something

[Pembleton]

He probably didn't answer because he didn't know the answer and I can't blame him. I certainly didn't even know a city limit existed until you brought it up. Once a game got to a lot earlier than that point I quit playing. It's no longer fun but tedious busywork.

But I understand fun means different things to different people.

[Jason Beaudoin]

Actually, I don't think Dan would actually know.

[drake]

over 1000? uh no way. Thats an absurd number. Way off.

I'm looking for an answer that has some basis, not just guesses.

[drake]

Once a game got to a lot earlier than that point I quit playing. It's no longer fun but tedious busywork.

So you never finish games? What then may I ask is the point? (or do you always play on small and medium maps?)

[Earthling7]

I don't see the point. Why limits at all? We'll all have 2gHz puters soon.

[drake]

every program has its limits, and no, we all wont have 2 ghz processors soon

Thats called overkill unless you're running 5 or 6 major 3d rendering programs or something.

But hey, I'm sure all the computer geeks will have them.

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by drake
So you never finish games? What then may I ask is the point? (or do you always play on small and medium maps?)

I stop when I know I've won. Why continue the inevitable? It's no fun continuing when you have more than twice as many cities as the second place civ. The fun is in competing, not going through the motions.

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Earthling7
I don't see the point. Why limits at all? We'll all have 2gHz puters soon.

The reason for a limit is memory, not speed. But memory shouldn't be a problem either.
They could easily make the limit 65536 cities (one city/square), but as cities not can be next to each other it would be more then enough. Also 128 x 128 (16384) would be more then the maximum. (As cities wouldn't fit diagonally either.)

[drake]

I'm not interested in what they can do, I'm interested in what a reasonable guess as to what they did do.

[Asesino_Virtual]

I think its gonna be expanded to 512 cities. More would be a waste of processor´s capability. As u mencioded, everyone doesnt have a 2000HGz processor.

[Gramphos]

It is the memory, not the processor that is the main factor, and they should have abilities to have a big number, but it maybe should be set to a smaller limit, without being a technical limit, that could be edited with the editor.

[orange]

Originally posted by drake
over 1000? uh no way. Thats an absurd number. Way off.

I'm looking for an answer that has some basis, not just guesses.

Jesus drake, it was a joke. Hence the ""

[Gramphos]

If uou want a good guess you should concentate on first answeing this questions. (Some are quite simple)

1. How mush bigger are the maps then they were in Civ2?
2. Did you ever have problem with the city limit in Civ2?
3. How many more civs will play at the same time in Civ3?
4. How many cities could you fit on a Civ2 Map (No cities next to each other)
5. How many cities will fit on a Civ3 Map
6. What is a good computer number for the limit.
7. Do they have any other limit set under the technical limit?

Regarding Q6 I'd like to say something before you start.
Most new games (and programs) are more concerned of speed then of memory and therefore uses at least full bytes for numbers. If they are really concerned they stay to the OS system allows as it its fastest.
So we could have 8, 16, (24) or 32 bits. IMO thy would mot likely not set the limit to 24-bit at it ain't used by ant operating systems.
16 bit would be enough to cover the maximum number of cities you can fit on the map, which make me believe that they have chosen that. A 16 bit limit would give the technical limit of 65536 cities (compared to 256 of 8-bit limit). Now they could have a setting for the limit that could be altered for the game and/or scenarios. If they have such a limit Dan would know about it, and he would most likely have answered, therefore I believe that the city limit will be no problem.

[Fredric Drum]

256 are a lot of cities! Compared to other games (SMAC, CTP), I don't think I've ever been close to that number (counting total cities on the map - most of which have been mine). We need a very good and very customizable Mayor function to make wheels go around with such a number of cities... I don't trust mayors, so it would be nice to have a mayor you could trust. SMAC mayors were ok, but not perfect.

CIV III will undoubtedly be able to accommodate more cities than any other game, but still... when you reach anything close to 150 - 200 cities, you've won the game.


Fred

[Gramphos]

I speak of total cities for all civs together (and I hope the other in this thread do so to ) if each of the 16 civs get 100 cities each you would be up to 1600 cities. with a limit of 256 cities there would only be 32 cities per civ.

[Rege]

One of the goals of the firaxians was to stop ICS. If they did it correctly it would be strange if you managed to have 200 or 300 cities for yourself. In SMAC there were efficiency penalties for large empires. My guess is CIv III will have them too.

Besides that, my guess about the number of city limits is that they must have enhanced it a bit, say to 512 cities.

[Skanky Burns]

I believe Gramphos is right.
Storing as 2^16 (65536) would most probably be the solution they have used.
They would not have used 2^8 (256) as they would be aware of people actually reaching that limit in Civ 2.
I doubt they would use 2^9 (512) as this could still be reached by players in Civ3. Nor do programmers like using weird 9-bit numbers
2^10 (1024) would be the absolute minimum for storing city information, so my guess is:
Somewhere between 2^10 and 2^16
or between 1024 and 65536 inclusive.

[cassembler]

Damn people!!! I stop having fun when I have to manag more than 20 cities... Yeah, I can understand that on huge maps 16 civs, 255+ cities might be needed, but still... I'm playin' medium sized maps (at biggest) with 16 civs.

[Akillias]

i doubt there is 1500 city names so i sa 150 each civ

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Akillias
i doubt there is 1500 city names so i sa 150 each civ

In civ2, this is where the default city names file took over. Funny how each Civ had their own Cumae, their own Prague, and their own Toronto ...
And of course, when a civ got to the end of the default list, the default list started over again - Cumae, Prague, Toronto yet again ...

[Rakki]

as if we would let the computer become that strong before our transports appear off the coast and start unloading da tankz !

[Skanky Burns]

Just some food for thought:

Maximum size of map: 256x256 = 65536
Minimum spacing of cities: 1 every 4 squares (if same as Civ 2)
Maximum cities possible: 65536/4 = 16384

Damn people!!! I stop having fun when I have to manag more than 20 cities... Yeah, I can understand that on huge maps 16 civs, 255+ cities might be needed, but still... I'm playin' medium sized maps (at biggest) with 16 civs.

Dont worry, there are smaller maps as well

[Falconius]

Originally posted by Gramphos
The reason for a limit is memory, not speed.

It's both actually. With a large amount of cities on the map, the amount of processor mhz (or ghz) has to rise accordingly or the game will play too slow.

The amount of memory determines how many cities you can have, period.

The processor speed determines how fast the computer will process all the information for all the cities. This has to adequate or you could be waiting a looooooong time for your turn to come around.

[Rasputin]

this issue becomes bigger when MP is introduced (eventually) in a current civ2 MP diplo game we reached the 255 city limit back in 1100's , since then we ahve not been able to build any more citys depite having large uninhabited areas and lots of whales not even being touched and that is on a gigaworld map... I beleive Civ3 maps can be upto 6x bigger than civ 2...

If the limit is set for SP (as was case for Civ 2) then once again MP will be ruined by a SP issue !!!!!

[Mars]

Since the map is 6 times as large it would make sense to multiply the number of max cities by 6. that would be 1530. Although i would rather it be infinite, the city limit really sucked. I was making a scenario once and unaware of the city limit when all of the sudden max city limit reached. i lost all the time i put into teh scenario. 1530 would allow 95 per civ

[drake]

Well.....now civ3 is out...can anyway answer this?

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by drake
Well.....now civ3 is out...can anyway answer this?

Well, it is hard to say, but from the file formats I believe that the limit is 2^31-1 cities. (signed long)