AU402 - Gargantua - Page 4

Rhothaerill · July 9, 2003, 12:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Jawa Jocky
Can I make a suggestion for the next AU

"Its a small world after all"

I hear that. I'm in the 1400's right now (almost to writing a new DAR) and my time per turn is about 12 minutes.

This will definitely be the last humongous map I ever play!

Theseus · July 9, 2003, 14:29

Yeah, I'm gonna stop at 1500AD.

Does anyone like my idea of AU Intro games? They should be on small or standard maps anyway.

sozopol · July 9, 2003, 14:43

Hi all, I lurk here at Apolyton sometimes, but barely ever post... I've been wanting to participate in one of these AU thingys for a little while, but have limited time (running a small tech business, a two year old daughter, a second baby due next week

)... Anyway, I'm going to give this a shot, due to a little down time here at work, though that could end at any time.

Looks like no one is playing the Greeks, so I'll give it a shot with them, they suit my style pretty well anyway... I'd go with Carthage in a heartbeat, but many are playing with them, and anyway clearly the designer would prefer we do it without Industrious, so what the hell...

Here goes, I'm not the most experienced or sophisticated Civ player, so forgive any silliness...

Rhothaerill · July 9, 2003, 15:06

Good luck Sozopol. Hope you have a fast computer. I may end up leaving off after 1500 as well...though I've read two books and am 200 pages into a third while playing this AU course.

to Theseus...yes I like your AU introduction course idea.

No huge maps!

vmxa1 · July 9, 2003, 17:08

Wimps

, just kidding this is the most brutal game of Civ I ever played. I am nearly finished.
Yes a nice std map or any thing less than huge would be good.
Will they have 32 civs in Conquest now? I mean they will have 32, but will you be able to use them all at once? Not that I would try it on anything larger than standard.

Rhothaerill · July 9, 2003, 17:26

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
Wimps

, just kidding this is the most brutal game of Civ I ever played. I am nearly finished.
Yes a nice std map or any thing less than huge would be good.
Will they have 32 civs in Conquest now? I mean they will have 32, but will you be able to use them all at once? Not that I would try it on anything larger than standard.

In terms of computer load it's the most brutal game I've ever played. Besides the 12-minutes-plus in between turns it also takes roughly four minutes to settle a city (the ice continent). And it's getting worse. I just can't see myself spending an hour to play three or four turns...and after 1500ad it'll probably go up to an hour to play two or even one turn. Give me a nice standard map for the next AU course.

I don't know about it having 32 available to play in one game without modding, but it might. 32 civs on a standard map...ouch! They'd be right on top of one another.

Theseus · July 9, 2003, 18:51

Did you guys get the huge pauses when selling Astronomy and Navigation to AI civs?

Rhothaerill · July 9, 2003, 19:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Theseus
Did you guys get the huge pauses when selling Astronomy and Navigation to AI civs?

Yes, but for me it's been any time I try and sell a tech to any civ (which has been often...I managed to get about three techs ahead and stay there while still raking in the gpt and techs I didn't prioritize). My computer is just too slow to handle this thing.

vmxa1 · July 9, 2003, 19:20

Of all the things that I can not understand, the time lag for the settler to get from the squat to a city view is the strangest. It can take many minutes and I have no idea what it needs to be calculating for city in the midst of a bunch of other cities of mine.
Yes turn will get to an hour late in the game if you have not eliminated a bunch of civ and are less than a 2gh machine.

Rhothaerill · July 9, 2003, 19:25

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
Of all the things that I can not understand, the time lag for the settler to get from the squat to a city view is the strangest. It can take many minutes and I have no idea what it needs to be calculating for city in the midst of a bunch of other cities of mine.
Yes turn will get to an hour late in the game if you have not eliminated a bunch of civ and are less than a 2gh machine.

Sigh, I just don't have the time for it. It's taken me several days just to get from 1000ad to 1420ad (where I was when I left off last night) and I had a lot of time to play on Sunday. I think I'll just get to 1500, write my DAR and stop.

I really liked this game too.

Theseus · July 9, 2003, 19:44

Yeah... I'll be keeping it though, waiting for 10gigahertz and 1gig RAM!!

You hear about the FPS's requiring the latest hardware... who'd expect CivIII would be the killer?!

Rhothaerill · July 9, 2003, 19:59

Quote:

Originally posted by Theseus
Yeah... I'll be keeping it though, waiting for 10gigahertz and 1gig RAM!!

You hear about the FPS's requiring the latest hardware... who'd expect CivIII would be the killer?!

And that would be next week when that comes out?

My computer is two years old. Certainly not up to par for this kind of map. It works well for up to large maps and 12 civs though.

vmxa1 · July 9, 2003, 20:14

1 GB mem won't help as I have that.

Theseus · July 9, 2003, 20:36

Fine... 10X10 then.

The reason this occurred to me is that there was an article in the NY Times last month about the hotsh*t gaming computers from companies like Alienware and Falcon, focused on Quake3 and the like... no one has any idea that AU402 is probably the most resource intensive game on the planet today.

vxma1 prolly has one of the best PCs money can buy... and a turn can take an hour to process??!!

AND... the FPS's (I think) are so tough on hardware mostly 'cause of eye candy, versus what CivIII processes.

Pretty cool.

Theseus · July 9, 2003, 20:59

It's a real pity not to play this out, BTW... it's some of the most fun I've had with CivIII.

VIKINGS!!!

vmxa1 · July 9, 2003, 22:40

Oh I will play it out, but I am not having much fun. I did learn a few things about playing on water.

Jawa Jocky · July 10, 2003, 16:45

Quote:

Originally posted by Theseus
no one has any idea that AU402 is probably the most resource intensive game on the planet today.

Do you think IBM would let us borrow deep blue (or some other supercomputer)?

Between turns at 2000AD would only take 4 minutes

Theseus · July 10, 2003, 21:34

Atari should use this from a marketing perspective.

Actually, Atari should use AU altogether from a marketing perspective!!

vulture · July 11, 2003, 08:11

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
Of all the things that I can not understand, the time lag for the settler to get from the squat to a city view is the strangest. It can take many minutes and I have no idea what it needs to be calculating for city in the midst of a bunch of other cities of mine.
Yes turn will get to an hour late in the game if you have not eliminated a bunch of civ and are less than a 2gh machine.

Almost all that time is spent calculating trade routes and updating the games internal representation of the trade network, as I understand it. It may seem trivially obvious to us what the connections are, but we have an awful lot of processing power in our heads dedicated to nothing but jobs like this. For a computer it can be fiendish, and any 'simplified' algorithms tend not to work because you never have to look very far to find a problem that breaks the algorithm, and one will come up at least a few times per game.

The same applies for obvious reasons to the lag noticed by Theseus selling navigation and astronomy. Building and destroying harbours and airports is also costly in time for the same reason. There isn't much that can be done to reduce this without abolishing the trade system entirely (I'm assuming, not unreasonably, that the algorithm implemented in civ 3 is close to optimal, since such problems are very well studied these days and the fastest solutions are probably widely known).

cumi · July 11, 2003, 08:56

We should find the algorithm for finding of Hamilton-Circles to improve the game. We will get a Nobel-prise for it, too. (But not from the intelligence agencies

)

nbarclay · July 11, 2003, 12:34

Vulture, half the battle in choosing an algorithm is picking a definition of the problem that lends itself to an efficient algorithm. It may well be that Firaxis is using an excellent algorithm, but if so, it is an excellent algorithm to solve an extremely poor definition of the problem (assuming that trade route checks are what causes so much slowness when cities are founded, captured, or disbanded).

In Civ 3, there are enormous numbers of tile-equivalences for trade purposes. All connected cities are equivalent, so if there is a trade route to one, there is a trade route to all. Similarly, the vast majority of the ocean is equivalent for trading purposes, the exception being cases of blockades. That should lend itself to algorithms that can resolve at least the vast majority of trade situations in a small fraction of a second even on a 250x250 map.

vmxa1 · July 11, 2003, 13:44

Yes that is my presumtion, it is about checking routes.
My point is that it is not done well if that is the case.
A quick check could end the checking. Am I now connected to my civ, yes. Do any of the cites close to me and connected have a Harbor or an Airport, yes. End of checking for now.
The same issue comes when I raze or capture one of their cities. They lose a city that was in the midst of a lots of other cities. All have RR. How much checking is need to be done here? Not much, but it takes a lot of time? Now if this city had the only harbor or airport, that is another story.