Restart our Democracy game? - Page 2

BigFurryMonster · July 28, 2003, 11:34

I understand it that way, too, however, some people have been starting plans for a MiniGame in this thread. This is good for those who want to play such a game, but should not be confused with the decision to start the game over or not.

GhengisFarb™ · July 28, 2003, 12:01

Yes it should because it is a proposal to start the game over, or have you not read this thread and the others?

BigFurryMonster · July 28, 2003, 13:23

I have. I just think that we should make a decision about the main game first, and later consider spin-off games. I view this thread doing the former.

Master Zen · July 28, 2003, 14:02

Defninitely a new game nothing special. It's not about ending what you've begun, it's simply because each turn in the turnchat takes over an hour and frankly some people don't have the time or the patience for it.

Moonbars · July 28, 2003, 14:23

I play with the Betatester's mod (BTM). This has a lot of the improvements in DyP, but no new buildings, luxuries, etc. I think it would make for a good Demo game, and is not so different from the existing rules that people would be able to get to grips with it fairly easily.

Master Zen · July 28, 2003, 18:10

I've seen the BTM and it's not badl, perhaps we can combine some of the things in tha mod with the superb AU mod for a real challange.

But pleeease, just keep the thing standard sized!

Moonbars · July 29, 2003, 02:20

Yes, keeps things standard sized so more of us can actually play the thing!! Has anybody noticed that it can take about 5 minutes for a game to load; with the slider stuck at 34% for most of that at later stages of Huge map games??

Epistax · July 29, 2003, 09:01

q: Are these load times due to the map size, number of civs, or a combination? If we wanted a lot of expansion for any reason, we could play a larger-than standard with a normal number of players. Just another thought.

GhengisFarb™ · July 29, 2003, 09:20

I like a Large map with 16 civs. Gives all the AI a chance to establish themselves so WE will get to wipe them out, not the other AI.

Moonbars · July 29, 2003, 09:30

I have seen maps with less than the "optimal" or "default" number of civilizations produce unfair starting locations - For example civilizations on islands with 2 "empty" locations from the civilizations that are not playing on their landmass - instant unbalancer.

If there was a way for a person to to check the map for this and other problems before we started playing and fix it up?...

Epistax · July 29, 2003, 09:35

Oh well the solution to that is to have the map specially made again. And then for us not to double the number of civs it's supposed to have hehhe

GhengisFarb™ · July 29, 2003, 09:41

The larger the map, the more fair the starting postions the generator produces.

BigFurryMonster · July 29, 2003, 09:45

We'll make a hand-made map again. No worries about unfair start positions.

Epistax · July 29, 2003, 15:37

I think we can agree that the vote will be YES to restart, however with the number of people voting not to restart, I do not believe this poll should be used to decide how we will restart. I think we should come up with ideas for a new poll on different restart options.

* Succession
* No Succession
* DYP
* No DYP

And etc. In light of the other two demo games going on, we COULD also add if we want this to be mini-game based. This is because we are thinning out the fan base to so many different games. There could even be a vote on whether or not to put this to vote

. Perhaps this should be a new topic rather than a reply, and I invite someone to do so.

Gramphos · July 29, 2003, 16:32

A new game, nothing specail. I just have missed too mush of this game.

Panzer32 · July 29, 2003, 16:35

question: is GhengisFarb's proposed $minigame game and this one going to be the same one? If its not, I'm only going to join one of them. There are far too many DGs going on. Better to have a few fun ones than many where people are very thinly spread.

Panag · July 29, 2003, 16:36

Quote:

Originally posted by Gramphos
A new game, nothing specail. I just have missed too mush of this game.

hi ,

what do you have in mind when it comes to the use of a mod or premade map , .....

have a nice day

GhengisFarb™ · July 29, 2003, 20:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Panzer32
question: is GhengisFarb's proposed $minigame game and this one going to be the same one? If its not, I'm only going to join one of them. There are far too many DGs going on. Better to have a few fun ones than many where people are very thinly spread.

I think we may end up with two different ones and there are two very polarized camps.

The $MiniGame group wants to manipulate the game with assets and personal agendas.

The other group wants absolutely nothing to do with that. So, I see it branching into a traditional DemoGame and a new twisted type of DemoGame.

I will most likely go the twisted route and not be that involved with traditional one. Once I had a taste of the PTWDG and the personal interaction and political manipulation of others, I find it a hard addiction to break.

Keep in mind that in the $MiniGame Demo game we are working on you DO NOT have to be involved in the $MiniGame part. You can be an observer and simply offer advice and fun for offices, etc. And you can always decide to enter the $MiniGame part later in the game.

YuMMz · July 30, 2003, 01:57

Just out of curiousity what kind of computer do you guys have running the game that is running so slow? I have never really had a problem with end turn times.

Epistax · July 30, 2003, 09:20

Yummz: I have a P3 900 Mhz, 512 ram, GF2. Most civ games run fine. On a huge, highly dense map, it often takes several minutes between turns later on.

Panag · July 30, 2003, 09:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Epistax
Yummz: I have a P3 900 Mhz, 512 ram, GF2. Most civ games run fine. On a huge, highly dense map, it often takes several minutes between turns later on.

hi ,

thats mainly because of all the units involved and the number of cities , .....

defrag , closing of programs you dont need , etc , ..... help to speed things up

have a nice day

Epistax · July 30, 2003, 10:04

Panag: I run a tight ship. Around 60 megs of ram are being used by background programs, as oppose to the over 100 or so by most XP systems. I have no ram fragmentation issues. Heck I don't even use paging files so speed things up further. This computer is simply not fast enough to run the game quickly, which is really what YuMMz was asking.

It should be noted that this computer is a Inspiron 8000. I benchmark higher than many ~1.2 ghz systems with better graphics cards, so I'm not complaining at all. It's a good system, just old.

Panag · July 30, 2003, 10:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Epistax
Panag: I run a tight ship. Around 60 megs of ram are being used by background programs, as oppose to the over 100 or so by most XP systems. I have no ram fragmentation issues. Heck I don't even use paging files so speed things up further. This computer is simply not fast enough to run the game quickly, which is really what YuMMz was asking.

It should be noted that this computer is a Inspiron 8000. I benchmark higher than many ~1.2 ghz systems with better graphics cards, so I'm not complaining at all. It's a good system, just old.

hi ,

well you could always do the panag mac trick , ......

get a dual mac g4 with loads of ram to dual install a windows just to play civ , .....

actually most people may not complain , for hat we have its still low waiting turns , unfortunatly ( no not you ) there are people who complain about turns taking ten minutes and more on a comp thats above 3mhz and 2 gig of ram , ....

why

simple , you should how many windows they have open , mail , camera , word , phote editing tools , firewall running a virus check , etc , ....... no wonder most people have long waits in between turns , ....

defrag , must be an option that only comes with few comps , .....

etc , .......

have a nice day

BigFurryMonster · July 30, 2003, 10:33

Quote:

Originally posted by Epistax
I have no ram fragmentation issues.

What are those? How can you avoid them?
I thought 'defragmenting' was something you do to your hard disk, not to your ram.

Quote:

Originally posted by Epistax
Heck I don't even use paging files so speed things up further.

Interesting. I just increased my paging file, and now Civ3 works a lot better (faster) than it did!

BFM

Epistax · July 30, 2003, 10:51

Ram fragmentation was a miswriting. I meant to write memory which would also be incorrect. Storage.
I've never capped my 512 mb ram with Civ. I've done it with Fallout BOS, however. Windows has a habit of using paging files long before they are needed. Overall this is actually a good idea, however it makes everything slower. If the paging file is disabled, the average access time to memory goes up. You can prove this using simple math. This is how it's usually done.
99% chance memory is in cache * 1 ns
90% chance memory is in ram * 3 ns
90% memory in paging file * 6 ms
.....
Now those times are random guesses, but as long as they increase as you go on, the point is made.
With the paging file, average access time is about 6 ns.
Without it, average access time is about 1 ns.
Things are actually a bit worse than this with the page faults, and depending on the selection tool being used by the processor. By happy you're not running with a round robin.

edit: those %'s are usually higher, with the ram closer to 99.99%, but it's windows, so I'm sticking with 90%.
not suggesting that ermoving your paging file would make things six times faster either, again those are all in the %'s. I'd wager with real numbers a difference of perhaps 10-20%

Kuciwalker · July 30, 2003, 16:44

We really shouldn't do DyP. It doesn't really add anything, there are just now fifty thousand buildings that provide +25% production. Plus it's confusing.

MrWhereItsAt · July 31, 2003, 08:09

Well DyP could be great fun, and it would force a lot of us to examine the possibilities of it more.

But I agree that perhaps we should aim for a Deity Viking game that we can actually play before, as I think there's still a fair amount of mileage to be got from these two options.

I'm surprised at the number voting to continue this game. I was as impartial as possible with the first post but I must stress that the option to continue would kill the game. Those of us who are keen to play would be PREVENTED from playing if we continued as we simply cannot do two-turn 3 hours chats. I urge no-one else to vote that option unless they want the death of this game anyway, and they want to kill interest in the game as well.

As it is I am hoping the trend continues with more voting for a restart and we can actually get the game going properly!

Togas · July 31, 2003, 13:43

In case anyone was wondering BFM and I have picked up the torch and are emailing ideas back and forth for a new and map for the game, should the restart take place.

--Togas

YuMMz · July 31, 2003, 15:20

I can see how you would run into some speed issues Epistax, although it does seem like you know what your doing and are pushing the most out of your system. I ran Civ3 on a P4 1.7 256MB Ram and a p4 2.4 512MB Ram machine both running XP when I was playing. I never had problems with end turn, but I also tried to disable everything I could since I could care less seeing animations and such

.

I might have to join the game if you guys restart. Too late to get involved in this one now I think.

GodKing · July 31, 2003, 17:02

An idea - although a long time to wait - wait for conquest. It isn't released til this fall (northern hemisphere) however, so people may not want to wait the 3-5 months.