AU402 DAR6: After 1500AD

vmxa1 · June 29, 2003, 20:16

Ok slap me if thsi is not proper. I can see it may be some time before this puppy is finished, at least by me.
I figure this could be a place to drop in any thoughs, progress after 1500AD and maybe one more thread for the finish or in this one.

vmxa1 · June 29, 2003, 20:33

I had planned to do a small update after my war with cleo, but this game is killing me. I had gotten several crashes today and the last one really hurts. I was going around the horn making trades and had done all but 4 and boom. I mean I am not anxious to load this back up (almost a minute for that alone). The game was starting to be fun as I had some action, but the trades are unreal. Often I just sit there after saying I accept and it looks like it is stuck. I can move my cursor and after maybe 20-30 seconds it goes to the next screen? I had many of these is this session, so I almost saved it in case, but I was worried that I would come back and not know whom I had not traded with. Then the game crashed

The lag for turns is almost 3 mins all the time now. Wars are starting and Oceans tiles are open to many.
It is 1580AD and I recently built my only wonder (Observatory). I had Adams underway and no one has start it. It is a long build for me, so it is not a given.
I elected to trade Econ to get Nav and what ever else I could and hope for the best.
I had gotten Nav and was able to trade Gems and was getting all kinds of lux and cash. I was finally going to be able to make some moves. I had a few caravels off to attack Cleo, but was waiting on MPP/RoP for Arabia.
I got an elite with some of the units Cleo landed on the NewCastle island. A bunch of places were about to finish their banks.
I was 9th out of the 23. All civs known. I was working towards Newtons. I had some hopes of getting a leader out of my war.
I am well under way with the tundra island and probably the only player still growing into empty lands.
Lots of weak civs near by, once I go to full out troop building. Magnetism not that far off and then UU for a nice big fat GA.
I need a break before I start this crying again.
Now all I have to do is remember what trades I made to whom.

CorpusScorpius · June 29, 2003, 23:56

Dont feel bad Vmx1 I was Playing the Spanish on Regent & made it to 1756 AD & the same crash happened to me

But I am restarting from an earlier save & will see if it is salvageable.

vmxa1 · June 30, 2003, 00:33

I normally play with no auto save and only save when I walk around for awhile, but I am not saving at the each turn and even in the middle of trading. It sems if I trade with the mongols it kill the game. This meant I could not trade with them and someone else got to trade my tech to them, ugh.

vmxa1 · July 1, 2003, 01:00

I ran down the lasted sound driver and it turns out RADEON had a new drive this month. Put them on and ran for a few hours and then it was dive dive dive.
Seem to happen during trading. This has hurt me several times as I find a race that I can not trade with or it will crash. This cost me a nice deal with the Mongols and the next turn tehy get my tech from one of the civs I traded to, thinking it would swap it all around.
So it has cost me stuff and put it in some one else hands.

So I am still slugging away, but it is brutal. Times range from 3 minutes up to 6 minutes. Not sure what is going on at those times. I want to just play peaceful as I can to see how far the game will go before I lose my mind or it end. The whole idea for me was to see what the impact of this map was on the sysem. It is pretty severe.
I intend to drop a save at some point on to my Win98SE system and see how it handles it.
I am at 1770 and about to end my GA. Bad timing as no wonders were available to build, but I will have factories in place.

vmxa1 · July 3, 2003, 16:34

Had Celo declare war and send a few units to Iron isle, which were easy to handle. After awhile we made peace with no more action.
Mongols declare war and send piece meal about 20 ships and more than 20 units. They were no problem as they tried to atack me on the homeland, where I had a big fleet of ManOWar. I sunk all, about half landed.
Eventually we made peace. Mongls are in first place by far.
I had my GA then as well. Very tempting to try to grab more land, but not doing that in this one.
I trade tech for luxs, gpt and gold until I have all the 6 missing luxs.
When they expire I do it with another tech. Of course I trade that tech to all that are without it. Not allowing others to trade it.
One time India's spice trade expired and I did not want to trade tech at that time. I offer about 800 gold and map, they would be insulted? They had basically no money and 5 spice doing nothing and could not see a benefit of a trade?
1896 or there abouts Russia sent one lone Med Inf to attack a city in the tundra island that had a wall, forted infantry or two and a calv unit? They sent a galleon to the far edge of the island. This was funny as the city was only a few tiles from one of their own cities? I sunk the ship with artie and Ironclad.
Russia made two embargos against me with civs I had no trade with.
I got nasty and the next turn a few lux expired. I went around and traded a tech for lux + cash + gpt and all but one accepted ally vs russia as an after thought.
Even a couple that did not want to trade for the tech agree to ally anyway. Russia is 2nd or 3rd. I am 5th.
So now 1 civ is not involved and all others declare war on russia. I will not do anythng but defend.
Battle field up, IA up, Wall street soon. 1300 gpt extra to add to 23k or so I have on hand.
Hoover Dam is 3 or 4 turns away and I have not seen any one start it yet. No leader, man these non mil civs are brutal for leaders. A few vets had 4 wins and no promotion to elite.
Still having lots of crashes and have opened dialog with Firaxis and my PC supplier. I think this would have been over otherwise. Time lag is not changed much, but with all civs at war we shall see.

vmxa1 · July 3, 2003, 22:48

I think we need a table or an array for the civs like in Warlords III. I have no reasonable way to know who is trading with whom or if they are at war.
I would have to cycle through selecting a new civ, 16 times and write down the info. Anyone doing that?
I have seen a few want to have 32 civs in a game, ouch.
At around 1920 so many civs were at war with someone and often more than one civ, that turns are runnning 17 + minutes. It was 14 minutes in 1916, but more civs declared war with Germany.
I am shooting straight as I can for Flight. This will give me the ability to bust an airport on each island. I will stick many in the home land. This will allow me to ship units to any island that comes under siege and put out the fire.
Eventually all cities will get one, except on the tundra island. Then it will be bullet proof until nukes. I would hope a vote comes up by then. Without armies it will be hard to invade anyone, not that I want to do that.

BigDork · July 3, 2003, 23:18

Hi all...

Things are going slow for me. But I've got a good book so it's all good.

I've only managed to get in a few more turns but now my war with the Arabs is over. Every turn a few galleys would sail up and drop off some units. I'd send my berserkers out to deal with them. Every turn I'd lose one or two more. Soon it was starting to look ugly.*

Luckily my little task force of 9 berserkers was nearing it's destination, Damascus. It wasn't a pretty fight in any way. Damascus was size 12 on a hill. Pikemen vs. berserkers for the most part. I lost several but won the day. Then I went for peace. There were other Arab units in sight and I didn't have the defense to deal with them. My musketmen were still a few turns away. Also I only had 2 berserkers actually in Damascus. All the other living ones were still on the boats with no movement points left.

Peace wasn't as profitable as I was hoping. I really wanted to get chivalry out of the deal but it didn't happen. Instead I got 150 gold. Eh, it's something. Then I turned around and got chivalry from the Germans in a big deal which also got me ivory.

Oh yeah, I know have contact with the French and Germans. It cost me a bunch to get world maps and stuff but I quickly got that back selling them contact with the Chinese. I then got RoPs with both so I could sail on to discover more civs.

I'm starting to build up a bunch of horsemen and knights. As soon as I get MT they're gonna be cavalry and then I have to decide who to go after. I'm thinking China and all their incense. But I just might take out the Arabs and finish what I started. I might even have Cleo help. And then take out Cleo. Dunno, we'll see when it happens. I'm gonna try to get frigates and galleons first.

*I can be stupid as hell sometimes. What I should have done was line my units along the shore so they couldn't land. I have no clue what I was thinking.

Here's a screen from the turn I took Damascus and called off the war with the Arabs. The boat to the east of Damascus is my musketmen. You can also see all the galleys around the small island.

BigD

vmxa1 · July 3, 2003, 23:52

BigDork that is what I did you prevent a landing on the Horse Island. I set a worker on one mountain and a troop on the other two and they could not land.
This prevents any attacks there until Marines.
I could have sent over enough units to defend, but why bother.
Last turn was 18 minutes and then it crashed as soon as it popped up for me to act. I actually had it Cntl-S to save it, but was too late.

vmxa1 · July 4, 2003, 17:26

By 1934 I was forced to clear out the tundra island. I had intended not to take any cities, but when Russia took the one Ottoman city next to me and I looked at the fact that Russia had 266 infanry, I decided to not let them be on the island.
I sent 4 arties and 1 calv with 3 infantry over to augment the meager troops. I think I never had more than 20 units at any time on the island.
I used my 5 arties to bomb down cities from 11-12 size to 1 or 2. when they had only 2 units in the city and none had more than 2 hp, I attacked and captured. The Russians never sent any help to the island. I slowly took all cities over.
They even had one infantry attack my forted 3 calv units? I lost a calv, but they lost a unit that could have help hold a city.
If they had sent even 10 infantry from their huge army I would have never tried to take down the cities. If they send 20-30 units they could have captured the whole island.
I have not looked at the mongols who are in first place, but they must really have a large army. They have more than twice as many cities as I have.
My total unit count including workers is 212. I am not adding more than 3-5 per turn.
I only have one spy placed as I am only adding them as a civ declares war on me.

vmxa1 · July 4, 2003, 21:37

OK at 1940's with 21 of the 22 civs at war with someone, turns are running 20 minutes.
I have had so much touble on this PC (Pent IV 3.06GH 1GB memory, Radeon 9800 PRO with XP PRO) that I move the save over to my Win98SE PC (Pent IV 1.7GH 512MB, I forget the video card I think it is a Geforce 3).
The load of the save took almost 4 minutes. The first turn took 36 minutes.
I did not look at the usage, but on XP box it was using 50-52% cpu and around 288MB memory.
Both have the 7200 rpm hard drive.
The Win98 machine is in another room so it will be a pain to keep an eye on it.

BigDork · July 4, 2003, 22:59

vmxa1...

That sounds nasty. My copmuter is only about a 1.8 with 128MB or memory. I'm so looking forward to the modern age....umm, no. But I'm gonna see just how bad it is.

Time for some more 402 action.

BigD

vmxa1 · July 4, 2003, 23:39

If the civs are not all at war it is not so bad or if you eliminated some. I am not doing that just to see how painful it can get.

BigDork · July 5, 2003, 00:13

Psycho

vmxa1 · July 5, 2003, 12:11

Yeah, but it not so bad now as I just wander over to the PC from time to time and respond to any pop ups.
It is hard to keep track of any thing you wanted to accomplish.
Right now that is not much. I have Airports on all island and I am making bombers/fighters until I get tanks.

vmxa1 · July 6, 2003, 19:11

15 hours of play yesterday and less than 10 turns finished, nasty.
I thought there was a preference to disable all of those notifications of treaties, but I did not find it.
This means you get so many pop ups about someone alliance with someone else and the next followed by a war declaration. Like I care or could keep track of them all.
It seems most are not doing anything with these wars as no cities have changed hands except the few I took on the tundra island. with everyone having at 200+ units and no tanks, I do not see much going on. Only place that looks like it could is the Arbia/Egypt land. You will need so many transports to get enough troops to ground that it is not hapening. I have seen very little come at me so far. The Germans have sent maybe 3-4 galleons and 10 frigates/ironclads. They are in second place.
I am making tanks now and I am considering attacking Japan as they were so ungrateful. They broke their deal with me after hundreds of years of my gifting them tech and joined germany in war against me. I did not plan on expanding, but I may just have to punish them and also assure myself of a third lux.
Broken deals have dropped my income from nearly 2,000 gpt to 150 and only 4 luxs.
I am researching Radio now and that will put me into the modern age.
Seti and MI will be my top pick there.
Using bombers on attacking ironclads and fighters to recon to find them before they can bombard.
Very painful game as turns are soooo long. At least on this PC they have never crashed. Good thing as it took 9 minutes to load the save to start the day this morning.

PeaSoup · July 7, 2003, 06:35

I donno if I'll be able to finish my game because it is taking 5-10 minutes between turns.

It is 1838AD in my game, and I managed to get my average gpt of 2000 gold up to 3000 gold. Germany was willing to trade combustion for 999gpt + about 1000 gold.

I took over Spain (spice island) and rushed all improvments and irrigated the tiles so that the cities grow faster. They are all 15-20 in size and productive with all jungles cleared and the grassland mined.

Took over China (incense), and in the process of doing the same thing.

Russia declared war because I refused to give them gems, so I signed MPP with everyone except Japan (because I wanted their furs, but didn't want the earlier WW that comes with declaring war). Just as I expected, Japan signed a MPP with Russia against me + half the world..

Didn't take long to take over Japan's island.

Some civs signed peace with Russia, then later declared war against other civs that are still fighting Russia, so it's pretty much world war.

Egypt has finally declared war on the Arabs, and looks to be in a position to take them over.. good, one less civ to deal with.

I don't think I'll be taking over anymore civs. Corruption is only a minor problem on Japan's island, and I haven't built a FP yet.

I may go with a diplo victory just to finish the game quicker

nbarclay · July 7, 2003, 07:33

My only embassies at the moment are with Korea, the Ottomans, and Germany. I've built others to check for MPPs before attacking (and, in one case, to set up an alliance with a civ I later annexed), but I'm not generally in a habit of setting up embassies without some specific reason. In this game, that may be paying off in terms of fewer interruptions.

Catt · July 8, 2003, 15:26

From the other DAR thread we know that, at 1500 AD, Elizabeth's empire was at war with the Mongols and alied with Germany and Persia. Temujin actually dropped a few cavalry off in the Queen's American colonies, but all such landings were easily destroyed. With the English discovery of Scientific Method, a pre0build (military academy) was switched to the Theory of Evolution -- it was due to be completed in approximately 6 turns, and rather than reassign citizens and delay its completion for a time sufficient for the English scientists to complete their research into Atomic Theory, the Queen focused on the dsicovery of Sanitation (5 or 6 turns). With access to four local luxuries and easy tech trades for the remaining 4 luxuries, Elizabeth wanted people power -- all size 12 cities would become size 15 - 20 cities as soon as possible.

In 1535 AD the Germans, who had conquered all of France, prematurely made peace with the Ottomans, breaking a trade deal providing the Queen's treasury 800+ gpt which still had some 8 or 9 turns to run. Bismark effectively short-changed the English empire some 6500+ gold. Elizabeth was livid. But as time passed, she realized that she had needlessly risked such an outcome. Part of her reasoning in securing an allaince against the Mongols was to ensure good relations with England's technology customers. She could have very easily negotiated two separate deals -- one for te technology sale and one for the miltary alliance, both during the same turn. With Germany a monarchy, just coming out of many years of war against France, and facing the challenges of an intercontinental invasion of Mongolia, it should have come as no surprise that Bismark might prefer to make an early peace, revolt into a democracy, and rejoin the tech race with Elizabeth. Negotiating two separate deals on the same turn would have enabled Bismarck to break his alliance without also breaking his gpt payment obligations -- only a declaration of war from Germany would ease that burden. Instead, by bundling te two distinct deals together, Elizabeth must have made the premature withdrawal from a military alliance more attractive, as it would also terminate the substantial payments. The Queen understood the decision, but couldn't say she was not still very angry.

The next turn, Elizabeth called on Bismark to see how much of his 800+ gpt obligation he had already redeployed elsewhere -- not quite 500 gpt was still available for trade. Elizabeth believed that several civilizations were researching Industrialization, and decided the time was right again to drain foreign treasuries -- Industrialization was traded to Germany for 471 gpt (all avalable); to Persia for Democracy and 80 gpt (all available); and Elizabeth purchased Free Artistry for 11 gold. Bismark would be closely watched -- another broken deal and Elizabeth would forever break off all trade deals with Germany; furthermore, an assault on German luxuries would be planned and executed.

In 1545 AD, the Queen recommenced hostilities with America. The colonioes had been reinforced with additional cavarly units, muskets had been upgraded to infantry units, and an amphibious force of 8 infantry landed outside Washington to sever all trade routes to the Americans, denying them access to iron, saltpeter, and horses. The trade isolation was successful, and the war plodded along; the Queen dictated that each city be taken and all resistance subdued prior to the next assault; the city layout employed by Abe and te hilly / mountainous terrain to the west prevented a real blitz attack, and the Queen's troops were content to tke one city every few turns -- war weariness was nowhere to be seen in the English republic.

By 1640 AD, the world had chaged considerably, although Elizabeth's dominance remained unchallenged. The American's had been completely subdued many years before, and the Ottoman's had finally relocated their palace to the southern ice isle -- in a questionable diplomatic manuver, the Ottoman foreign ministry convinced their King to allay with a smaller civ against the Mongols; several Ottoman cities were promptly razed.

The English technology lead seemed now to be unstoppable. A GL from the Americanc campaign had rushed Hoover Dam in London (AI denial as much as benefit), securing the last remaining wonder of the age. With research commencing on Combustion (6 turns) the nearest competitors to England's power (Mongols, Persia, Germany, even Rome after a gifted tech) all have yet to discover RP, SM, or the Corporation and all are broke, having ust purchased Sanitation at bargain basement prices. England hasn't traded for Nationalism, so it is possible that others have discovered Communism or Espionage, but at least it is clear that England possesses at least 7 required technologies that no one else has.

The screenshot below includes a variety of images. London, which remains the English capitol and completed Newton's University, had several workers jon the city to bring it up to full capacity and is producing almost 10% of the entire empire's scientific research -- completion of a commercial dock in the near future will further add to its scientific productivity. The trade panels show AI versus England trade options - they are virtually all the same (England still hasn't disclosed the existence of the Greeks solely because Elizabeth is curious to see how long they remain isolated). The empire's rank of 3rd in Approval ranking comes despite the presence of all 8 luxuries -- many English cities have grown to 15+ citizens and without Sistine to add content citizens, the unhappiness begins somewhere around 13 or 14 citizens, even in those cities with a cathedral and colisseum.

Catt · July 8, 2003, 15:30

Don't know how much more I'll play. Turns are taking +/- 20 minutes each -- I had a screensaver set to go off after 10 minutes and it happened during each phase of the turn (building / science if there are no diplomacy pop-ups; and unit movement). The tech lead seems insurmountable, and while I have half-heartedly prepared for an invasion of Japan solely to claim the entire western portion of the map for English glory, I just can't bear the waits in between turns. I'm going to give it a few days break, I think, and try to make it a little further on before deciding whether to abandon it or shoot for the earliest victory possible.

Catt

vmxa1 · July 8, 2003, 16:50

I got Cyberpower to agree to send me a new video card, I hope that is the problem I am having with PTW.
Not sure how many days it will take to get here, probably right after I finsh AU402 for the max pain.

vmxa1 · July 11, 2003, 03:05

Getting close now. I am at 2018AD. Not sure why, but India has not called for a vote so far.
I took out Japan even though I intended to not expand, I just had to pay them back for the back stabbing and the lost of the furs.
2011 I figured I would do the same to China as they were even less thank full. I sent 8 transports full of units. Two settlers, 5 arties, a few calvs and the rest tanks and MI.
2015 Landed next to Nanking on the hill. Took out the 21 size city and use one of my settlers right were it stood on the hill. Send the ohter settler as far as it could go and covered it with units. Next turn crank out another city so I can reach out farther.
Got my FIRST leader of the game. It is a shame as I thought I would finally do a whole game with no leader.
Use it to make an army of MI's and won a quick fight, you know the rest.
I have moved into 4th place which is as far as I will get as the next one is about 500 ahead.
No space ships or even any parts are likely in this game as I am ahead in research and will not even research those techs.
So unless India calls a vote it will be 2050 to the finish.
Anyome else manage to stick it out this far. I think there are about 14 or 15 civs left. It is funny how some of the smallest ones have been at war with everyone at one time and are still around.

nbarclay · July 11, 2003, 12:39

I'm anticipating a space race victory in the very early 1800's. I have no desire to prolong the game beyond what it takes for me to win it.

vmxa1 · July 11, 2003, 13:38

That is good thinking and I now wish I had played it as a normal game to win quickly rather than see how big it could get. Man was that a mistake.

One more rant. I would like to see a penalty for civs that sign alliances and do not engage in any combat.
Note this did not happen to me after the first round as I of course knew they would behave that way.
In a std game, no sweat, but in these huge games with lots of civs, there is so many alliances that are wasting time. Many of these tiny civs sign up with no navy at all. Others like Japan did and now China are making pacts to fight civs while they are being dismembered. Japan signed them right down to the last city left standing? Why would another civ want to sign up with a dying civ against a very large one?
I would like to see at least some disorder if they do not engage in any combat and then maybe Firaxis could tighten up the logic so they would be more cirsumspect about making these pacts. It would help reduce the long times for the late turns, that is all I am really after.
They could put in some flags to skip all the logic for this alliance process for very weak civs to save processing.
Just a thought.

nbarclay · July 11, 2003, 15:23

Why would there be disorder for signing alliances and not participating? I can see there being a penalty in terms of other civs' willingness to sign deals with the offender, but that's a different matter. Also, Firaxis could tighten up the AI logic regarding deciding whether or not civs seek/accept alliances without having to create a penalty for signing but not actively participating.

BigDork · July 11, 2003, 17:37

:sigh:

Well I've kinda abandoned my game for the moment. I have some crazy RL stuff going on and with the 1.10 Diablo2 patch I've been playing that some more.

Hopefully at some point I can finish up but I dunno. I have a feeling my computer may not be up to it. Maybe I'll go buy a new GBA game to play while I wait between turns.

I'll hopefully get back into this next week and let you all know how my game turns out.

vmxa1 · July 11, 2003, 19:15

Originally posted by nbarclay
Why would there be disorder for signing alliances and not participating? I can see there being a penalty in terms of other civs' willingness to sign deals with the offender, but that's a different matter. Also, Firaxis could tighten up the AI logic regarding deciding whether or not civs seek/accept alliances without having to create a penalty for signing but not actively participating.

I am not adamant about the disorder any real punishment will be fine. A rep hit is of no real impact as far as I can tell. The AI will still do deals with each other.
right now it is a freebie.
What is often wanted is not an alliance, but a Neutrallity pact. A civ that has no means of getting to the action is still signed up to prevent them from going against you. If you could get them to agree to not join either that would solve things. Once one agree to fight, they should. If they do not they should be penalized. A rep hit is not a punishment in most cases.
Maybe a loss of treasure as a fine or a surrender of some troops to the original signature of the deal. I mean you come up with the damages or award.

vmxa1 · July 12, 2003, 00:34

This must be a first. In year 2029 I got my second leader and will finally get teh FP built in China's island.
Most of the game I had too few cities. When I finally got enough it was too long of a time to built from scratch.
Two leader both after 2015. Not sure how many hundreds of ears of wars this covers.

Catt · July 12, 2003, 15:57

I'm calling it quits on this one -- a shame since I really enjoyed the game and would like to formally finish. I've gotten to 1675 AD. Where I am in the game:

Techs I recently traded some out-of date techs to Carthage in order to acquire Nationalism (Steam Power and Medicine), convinced that the lesser powers must have discovered both Espionage and Communism -- nope, Babylon is the only civ with Communism, but doesn't yet have Electricity. That means that Communism is the only tech I'm missing, and I possess Sci. Method, Atomic Theory, Electronics, Rep. Parts, The Corp., Refining, Steel, and Combustion. I'm researching Mass production in 6 turns at 90% -- perhaps commercial docks could get me to a 5-turn pace. A world war against the Mongols has erupted, with the entire continent and several overseas civs (including Germany and Babylon) at war with Temujin -- none of the strongly positioned civs, except perhaps Babylon, will be able to get back to a Democracy soon (most are Monarchies). So the tech race is effectively done.

Economy The monarchy-inducing warfare infesting my game means that it has been harder to bleed off large sums of gpt from the AI's. Still, I'm collecting about 900 gpt from a variety of civs, which allows research at 100% with a surplus of several hundred gpt -- without the foreign income stream, I think I'd have to drop back to 90 % research and still run a small deficit. The treasury contains about 6000 gold, and we're rushing improvements in the colonies just about every turn. The addition of maintenance-free commercial docks should erase a deficit at 90% science without foreign income.

Warfare England has conquered both China and America, both to our north. America is not yet fully railed, but is close and is reasonably productive (the capitol remains in London). An invasion force composed of cavalry and some infantry cover is steaming towards Japan (far north), about 4 turns away from landing, to take control of the world's fur supply and to claim the entire western portion of the minimap for the Queen. Japan has now traded for supplies of iron and saltpeter which means that Tokugawa will have samurai and muskets, although the perpetually broke Japanese probably haven't been able to upgrade many units. I was looking forward to seeing how efficient / economical trade embargoes against Japan would be, after the American flub, and the trade for Nationalism was the last piece of the puzzle I needed. The English military is still very small - undoubtedly "weak" compared to numerous other civs.

As of 1675 AD, turns are taking about 20 - 25 minutes, sometimes a little bit quicker. Completed harbor builds alone seem to hang for a few minutes (even though the city is already attached to the trade network); rushing airports in the next 10 - 15 turns will be a mess. It's not just the wait though that calls for the end -- I'm encountering repeated and repeatable crashes. If I try to upgrade a particular unit or units - crash. I've suffered through 4 or 5 crashes over the last two turns, and each crash entails a relaunch, reload (5+ minutes) and replay from autosave. Too much pain for me.

I'm really happy to have experienced a "bigger-than-huge-map" game - it was a great idea, I enjoyed the game, and I am enjoying the DARs. But having done it, it will be back to standard and the occasional large map game for me.

Catt

vmxa1 · July 13, 2003, 02:51

Yes I actually did finsih this brute. I lost, but I never intended to play normally. This was a Monarch.
I played as English and they do stink for this game. Man O War or not. The industrial trait was sorely missed through out the game.
The start location had very few strong tiles, so most cities could not generate all that many shields.

My intend was to play the game as far as it would go to see how big it could become and what the impact would be on my PC. In that vain the game ran out to 2050 and ran out of time.
I played part of the game on my 3.06GH with 1GB mem
and part of my 1.7GH with 512MB mem.
In general the turns were twice as long on the 1.7.
Some was probably due the faster mem and bus and the cpu was nearly twice as fast as well. I did not see much impact for the mem as it seem to stay under 300MB. The video card was a 256MB on the 3.06, not sure on the other, but I doubt it was a big factor.
Also the 1.7 was Win98SE and the other was XP PRO.
So anyway I stay out of any land grabs until around the late 1980's. I did not want to knock anyone out or let them get knocked out.
Once it got to they late part where all land was occupied and it was clear the AI would not take out anyone that was on its own land mass. I went after Japan and then China. Mongols were twice my size by then. I think I was 8th or 9th.