I give up - 5 minutes between turns is silly. Please let their a fix in the patch.

tsawicki · November 25, 2001, 04:36

Sorry, I know this has been discussed ad infiniteum, but I just can not take it anymore. Until the game speeds up the AI between my turns, I can not play it anymore. Overall I like the game, but I have never been so bored to tears by a game. Damnit, Firaxis, fix this please. Civ2 is the benchmark. I am now climbing down from my soap box.

Fromage · November 25, 2001, 04:41

Just wondering, what kind of processor do you have?

I haven't seen any slowing down on large maps with 10 civilizations (1,33ghz t-bird+512mb)

jack_frost · November 25, 2001, 07:03

At modern, especially during large scale warfare the game slows to a crawl on 800mhz systems. I've used two well tuned gaming systems at this speed, celeron and p3. Although not state of the art anymore, either of these systems should be enough to sit around waiting for minitues between turns.

I usually play 12 civ, large map.

Hex · November 25, 2001, 07:05

For a bit faster turns (no unit sliding) press shift... Works in SMAC too. (yes this is only faster when you _see_ the units move.

player1 · November 25, 2001, 07:05

With my Celeron on 333Mhz & 64MB RAM, I have no big problems with standard map (8 civ).

But on large & huge...
5 of more minutes.

Rathgar1 · November 25, 2001, 10:36

I have a 1.7 P4 with 512 Ram, when there was 16 civs on the largest map, I would develop wait time of almost nine to ten minutes in the industrial age. I did notice significantly faster times when the number of civilizations was reduced. Now I have just eleven to twelve civs, and the turns last about minute and a half. I can tolerate waiting two to three minutes but anything beyond that is not good.

Matte979 · November 25, 2001, 10:56

Seems the time per turn is related to

1. Map size
2. Number of Civs
3. War or not war

Other things.
1. XP or not XP. XP runs everything slower it seems
2. Graphic Card. Not sure how but seem to make a diffrence
(Drivers, memory .....)

So before the patch Standard size is the highest i go.

Toadboy · November 25, 2001, 11:35

Dear tsawicki,

Here's an idea to help speed things up:

Limit the length of your move to the time it takes the AI to move all the rest of the civs!

Seriously though folks, there must be some link between the intelligence of the AI and the computing power/CPU time needed for an AI move. I think the AI is dumb enough the way it is, and if I had a choice/option, I'd be happy to wait LONGER if it meant a more competent opponent.

What do you think, should this be a modifiable game option in the .bic file?

Regards,
JR

Smash · November 25, 2001, 15:24

Quote:

XP or not XP. XP runs everything slower it seems

nonsense.It runs beautifully for me.p4 and xp.No problems at all.None.Notta.

What do you expect?..16 civs on a huge map

Have you ever played civ before?Ever play Red Front?..if you want a fast game,go play checkers.

Ralf · November 25, 2001, 16:05

tsawicki - I dont think your problems is a game patch-issue. The problem is perhaps that you have a slow outdated computer?

I have relatively modest AMD 800MHZ machine, with 256K RAM, and I experience no such end-game speed-problems - even with 8 civs on the map, and with everything animated.

tsawicki · November 29, 2001, 17:45

Actually I am running on a two diff. 800mhz machines - one win2k and the other 98SE. After reading this thread I would say that I have the same problem others do - 16 civs, large map and once you hit the industrial age its all over. Through in a war and its close to 10min btw. turns. Max Civ2 ever got it seemed was 2-3 minutes in the late 20th cent. with way too many large and warring civs.

I know that the game is a huge CPU hog - its actually the first game I have played in a long time that uses 100% of the available CPU cycles all the time. I do not think anything less then a 2GHZ cpu will solve our problems entirely. Hopefully Firaxis will figure out how to reduce the CPU cycles necessary to run the game. That should help speed things up.

Moral of the story play with 8 civs, play on med. maps.

And btw, I need more then 2 zoom settings.

Capt Dizle · November 29, 2001, 17:57

There is a problem with the code. I have long wait times after exiting the city screen.

This is not good. It is worse with big map/high number of civs..

Therefore, something is going on in there that isn't optimized.

I can understand waits while AI is doing stuff, and I can understand waits after a city is razed cause the border has to be redrawn.

But a wait exiting the city screen? Goofy.

I do not get a similar delay with the advisor screens.

CapTVK · November 29, 2001, 18:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Toadboy
Dear tsawicki,

Seriously though folks, there must be some link between the intelligence of the AI and the computing power/CPU time needed for an AI move. I think the AI is dumb enough the way it is, and if I had a choice/option, I'd be happy to wait LONGER if it meant a more competent opponent.
JR

If you want competent opponents why are you playing SP? Eventually you'll have learned the tricks and you'll be running circles around the AI. A human opponent is unpredictable and will be running circles around YOU!

Kolyana · November 29, 2001, 18:53

Quote:

And btw, I need more then 2 zoom settings.

What's wrong with VIEW FROM 250 MILES UP and VIEW FROM 25,000 MILES UP ?

Seneca · November 29, 2001, 20:28

I'm getting loads of reading done playing this...

Dis · November 29, 2001, 22:14

everybody complains about the computer taking too much time in turns.

Doesn't anybody care about the poor computer when they have to wait minutes for the damn human to move all his units? The computer is just getting you back for taking too long between turns.

TechWins · November 29, 2001, 22:57

at Dissiden'ts comments.

Yes, the amount of time it takes for the AI is ridiculous. I understand having to wait a bit, but the amount time I'm expected to wait for the AI is out of control. Jimmytrick, I also notice slow downs when coming out of certain screens or going into certain screens, especially the Science Advisor screen.

I too wish the game had some closer zoom levels than the satellite view and the lost, 'Mars Rover' view.

eweast · November 30, 2001, 00:13

Hey - It has nothing to do with the speed of your processor. It's poor programing. There's not enough lines of code on a huge map to slow down a PII 400. Sorry, any half @ss 3D game producess more lines of code than Civ3 does. Very very very poor programing. End of discussion.

How do i know? Let's see:

Huge map, 16 civs, late in the game
not witnesing any computer moves - takes several minutes

What do I have?

P4 1.7GHz - 256MB Ram - and, not like it matters, but Geforce 3

Simpleton · November 30, 2001, 01:32

I don't know what everyone is complaining about. The game was made to have 8 civs. If your playing with more than 8 why would you expect Firaxis to patch the game? If I were Firaxis I would say "too bad" "If you are running 8 civs with the minimum system and having problems we'll help you but if not go back to 8 civs". It's just like with mod's. Companies never support problems encountered when you change how the program was supposed to run. If Firaxis does address this issue I would be extremely surprised AND I would be VERY greatful.

yin26 · November 30, 2001, 01:51

Yep. They designed to game to be bare minimum. Make it worth playing at your own risk. That is the theme these days from Firaxis and Infogrames.

Dis · November 30, 2001, 03:00

well personally I don't play with more than 10 or 12 civs. but you can't expect people to play with 8 civs. Why bother putting in 16 civs if people can't play with that many? Personally I don't care, but a lot of people do.

yin26 · November 30, 2001, 03:07

We are Firaxis.

We purposely program stuff that won't work and then blame you for trying to make it work.

We think, actually, you enjoy bugs since it gives you something to talk about.

We are Firaxis.

Iceword · November 30, 2001, 03:21

Don't blame the machine. It's definitely the code itself. I play the game on both an Athlon 800MHz and an Athlon 1.4GHz. It takes pretty much the same time for a single turn on both machines with 512MB RAM. It's on a huge map with 16 players, tho.

I wonder what they are doing with all those CPU cycles.... It appears to me they are recalculating the culture boundary every single turn using some kind of loop within loop within loop, among other things.

Imran Siddiqui · November 30, 2001, 03:32

Hey look! It is the anti-Firaxis Yin. Knew he couldn't stay away.

Proves JKM's statement right, doesn't he?

yin26 · November 30, 2001, 03:40

Imran: I'm here DESPITE the bugs. Trust me, I'd much rather be playing a good game. Let me know when Firaxis makes it.

Imran Siddiqui · November 30, 2001, 04:04

They already have. It's called Civ3

.

And if you even try to say people should play EU2... then I KNOW you are biased against Firaxis!

yin26 · November 30, 2001, 04:05

Gee, you're quick on the uptake today, Imran...

Zanzin · November 30, 2001, 04:12

Quote:

Originally posted by yin26
Imran: I'm here DESPITE the bugs. Trust me, I'd much rather be playing a good game. Let me know when Firaxis makes it.

Hang tight, the patch is on its way

yin26 · November 30, 2001, 04:13

Well, to be fair, I'm curious what the game will look like a year from now.

Mizaq · November 30, 2001, 05:06

i don't see where anyone brought this up yet, but i believe that a big part of the problem is how the AI handles workers. i fortify my workers when they have nothing to do, but the AI keeps moving them around. I have been fighting a max (16?) civ game on warlord, and the world was filled with cities (large earth). as i was overrunning the bablyonians, i found each city had about 5-20(!) workers in it at the time i captured it, one time i even caught a group of workers (babylonian controlled, but most of them were not originally babylonian) moving across the map, the group had 12 workers in it!! they were just moving around on the map! argh.