What map sizes are avaliable?

[ml_4da3]

I am wondering if anyone know what map sizes will be possible. I love to play epic games on huge maps for weeks/months. I do not like to play quick games on small maps.

In civ II i think you could have 200x200 maps? In civ III something like that, maybe more if you used the map-editor-trick to generate a superhuge random map.

What will the avaliable max sizes be in CIv IV? I have understood from articles that the max size will be "smaller" because of higher hardware requirements. But exactly how much smaller?

Also; this is the question I would really want to know the answer to; will maximum map size be hardcoded, or will the game be coded so that the supported map size is well beyond current hardware capabilites? So when we have better hardware in future, we will be able to play serious games on super-huge maps (maybe after some simple .xml tweaking)? (maybe 500x500 or 1000x1000, or more)

[GeoModder]

Better not put your hopes up too much. My guess is that the max settings with the game will be smaller then those with which Civ III came...

[ml_4da3]

Yeah I guess so.

But what I would really like to know is if there are a possibility for those with yberfast computers with tons of ram (or those in 2-3 years with normal computers) will have the means to play super huge maps (maybe thorugh non conventional means, such as altering XML files or whatever).

It would be really sad if they have "painted themselves into a corner" by programming the game with somekind of hardlimit. Maybe I want to play 1000x1000 maps yber-slow? The only limit should be that of avaliable system resources. My point is; I hope those that want to play super huge maps, can do so on "their own risk", now or in the future (when the game is no longer maintained by firaxis)..

It was quite sad that Civ II was made for computers with eight megs of RAM while supporting maximum 100x100 maps or so, while modern computers anno 2001-2002 had more like 256 megs and could probably have supported 500x500 maps or far more, if it was not for the hardcoded limits..


Hm This brings up another question I have:

What about hardcoded unit / city limits. I think there was a 255 city limit in Civ II, which I reached quite a few times.. Will there still be such a hardcoded limit in Civ IV? I can understand if the game RULES only allow X cities; but those are changeable, I presume.

[MrFun]

I like larger sized maps over standard or smaller sized maps.

[nbarclay]

The maximum map size in the Civ 3 editor is 362x362. Unfortunately, I doubt that that would be particularly playable because there is a seriously flawed algorithm in relation to trade route calculations (and possibly some other things) that causes a major slowdown on significantly oversized maps. I really, really hope they've fixed that in Civ 4, because there is no inherent reason why it ought to be impossible to create super-mega-maps in this day and age.

Regarding increases in computer speed, we've started to run up against a limit to how many megahertz processors can run without overheating. The main future source of speed improvements will be putting more CPU cores on a chip; AMD and Intel both already offer dual-core processors. But unless Civ 4 is programmed in such a way as to take good advantage of multiple cores, the move to multicore processors will have very little effect on how fast it can run. So unless Civ 4 is designed to take good advantage of multi-core and multi-CPU systems, I'm not expecting a major leap in the map sizes that will be practical.

[Boris Godunov]

They've already said that the map sizes will be smaller than Civ3. That's fine by me. Although I would be in awe of the huge maps you could get there, in terms of playability, the medium-sized ones were best. That's where I had my best games.

[Son of moose]

I have been informed that maximum mapsize is NOT hardcoded in Civ 4. Therefore it should indeed be possible to create oversized maps.

However, there is a caveat .... there could be serious performance issues.

However, personally, I am not overly phased by some degree of lag.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Son of moose
However, personally, I am not overly phased by some degree of lag.

The question is, how do you define "some degree of lag"? In one of the Apolyton University games back under PtW, we played with 24 civs on a 250x250 archipelago map. A player with a 3 GHz Pentium IV (essentially state of the art at the time) reported typical times of three minutes for the AIs to take their turns, and sometimes up to six minutes, when the game was in the 1700's. Just building a new city could trigger calculations that took quite a while. As I said, I really hope Civ IV can cope with oversized maps better.

[Son of moose]

nbarclay:

Yes .... point taken.

Anything substantially more than this would most certainly destroy the fun.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
They've already said that the map sizes will be smaller than Civ3. That's fine by me. Although I would be in awe of the huge maps you could get there, in terms of playability, the medium-sized ones were best. That's where I had my best games.

I never liked the super-huge maps. Too many cities and workers to keep in line. Spending an hour moving your workers isn't fun.

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by Son of moose
Anything substantially more than this would most certainly destroy the fun.

Everything more then half a minute is already boring.

[alva]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
They've already said that the map sizes will be smaller than Civ3. That's fine by me. Although I would be in awe of the huge maps you could get there, in terms of playability, the medium-sized ones were best. That's where I had my best games.

May have alot to do with playtesting, these maps are to be tested more than others thus you get a better balanced game than you get with any other mapsize.

[Boris Godunov]

It's also the slowdown issue. Having to wait 10 minutes between turns is a real drag.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Odin

I never liked the super-huge maps. Too many cities and workers to keep in line. Spending an hour moving your workers isn't fun.

From some of what I've read, both worker automation and city governors are supposed to be a lot smarter in Civ 4 than they were in Civ 3. That should make big maps a bit less painful if players are willing to use those features for outlying cities instead of trying to manage everything themselves.