Between turn time... downtime blues

Glendar · February 4, 2002, 11:00

I have a read a bit about this big wait between turns is just part of the game. Is there anyway to shorten it? What causes it? I do not have the "watch others unit moves" option on, and I still get an annoying amount of time between my turns. I am on a Huge map with 16 ppl and it is about 1300 AD. Maybe the larger map and max number of others is my problem.

Any insight would be very helpful.

Pingu: · February 4, 2002, 11:18

Although I'm playing on a fairly slow machine, I've noticed that playing on a Standard sized map, with 16 Civs suffers from Slowdowns quite a lot less than a Huge map with 16 Civs.

I think the map size has more to do with this than the number of Civs, although my standard sized map game does slow down a little now that the world is completely full. I guess I'd have to play a Huge size map with 5 CIvs on it to play the other extreme, and see what it was like, but I like my worlds cramped with lots of civs, so I won't.

Pingu:

Flight · February 4, 2002, 11:19

I am on a Huge map with 16 ppl and it is about 1300 AD

there ya go

but seriously, without a relly fast pc you're not going to get good performance with those settings. I think it's been said that firaxis only put in the 16 AI player option in at the last minute, understanding the problems.

Basically all you can do is reduce the map size, number of civs and increase your pc speed.

The AI does seem to take rather a long time compared to earlier games, maybe its cos of the workers :/

Ironikinit · February 4, 2002, 11:43

Turn off all movement animations, if you haven't already.

If you must play on huge maps, try increasing the amount of water, cutting back a bit on the #of civs and bringing a good book.

Defrag.

Make sure you have no background progs running (other than Explorer, Systray, and in my case, Winamp... I never listen to in-game music).

cassembler · February 4, 2002, 12:55

I've also heard rumors that holding down "shift" will speed things up, but I haven't scientifically tested this...

It IS a way to kill time and think that you're helping out...

Anybody play Chessmaster?
There was a cool "force move" feature there...

Thrawn05 · February 4, 2002, 13:30

From the way I understand how Firaxis coded the game. The computer considers each square tile of the map. What it can do with the tile, if it can move the tile etc.

I am playing on a PIII 550MHz with 256MB of 100MHz SDRAM. I do notice a long wait time on a huge map with 16civs. It is just the way firaxis coded the game, and unless they release it, there is nothing I or anyone else could do.

Besides, I'm still tinkering with AL|EN v Predator's scource code that was released, so I don't feel like being bothered toying around with any other released source code at this time (I guess it's because AvP is practicly coded with C++ macros

). So firaxis can take their time if they want.

August Borms · February 4, 2002, 19:33

Holding shift only speeds up the movement of visible units...

(x)To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time for every purpose, under Heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep (x)

A time to build up,a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together(x)

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing(x)

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late

TinCow · February 4, 2002, 19:53

I get very little wait time, even on a Huge map with 16 civs. Maybe 20-30 secs max with watch other unit moves turned off and no major attacks against me to display. I'm running a 1.6ghz with 512mbs of 400mhz RDRAM, so I guess if you upgrade enough, it's not a problem even on large maps.

Pingu: · February 5, 2002, 06:45

Well obvisouly the game will play fast enough if I could afford a quad 2GHz processor machine with 6000MB RAM..

ooooh I can't quite afford such a machine, what a surprise.

Oh well, at least we now know that map size is more important than theh numer of Civs.

Thanks for the confirmation Thrawn.

Pingu:

Thrawn05 · February 6, 2002, 13:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Pingu:
Well obvisouly the game will play fast enough if I could afford a quad 2GHz processor machine with 6000MB RAM..

ooooh I can't quite afford such a machine, what a surprise.

Oh well, at least we now know that map size is more important than theh numer of Civs.

Thanks for the confirmation Thrawn.

Pingu:

FYI, not only are there quad motherboards, but there are motherboards that can hold EIGHT CPUs!!! I can see it now. A motherboard with eight 3GHz CPU (24GHz!!!).