Huge + Terra + 18 Civs = awesome game

[Dr,ape]

I am playing on a huge map, with 3.4GHz P4 and 1GB of RAM, and the same 6600GT. By 1800s the game is slowing down significantly, and crashing every now and then simply by panning around the map in 2D.

[astreeter]

War doesn't pay

One problem I've noticed with Huge maps is that wars become progressively more not worth fighting the larger the map is. Taking and holding each enemy city requires a massive military buildup over a long period of time, during which you have to devote most of your resources to military instead of research, and since there are so many other AI's there are always some peaceful ones that will keep reseaching and so progress much faster than you can while you are concentrating on fighting.

In the previous Civ games it was pretty easy to get a Conquest victory even on Huge maps. In this one I'm lucky if I can conquer a dozen cities throughout the entire game if I want to keep up with the others technologically.

Maybe its more realistic this way?

[MattPilot]

Re: War doesn't pay

Originally posted by astreeter
One problem I've noticed with Huge maps is that wars become progressively more not worth fighting the larger the map is. Taking and holding each enemy city requires a massive military buildup over a long period of time, during which you have to devote most of your resources to military instead of research, and since there are so many other AI's there are always some peaceful ones that will keep reseaching and so progress much faster than you can while you are concentrating on fighting.

In the previous Civ games it was pretty easy to get a Conquest victory even on Huge maps. In this one I'm lucky if I can conquer a dozen cities throughout the entire game if I want to keep up with the others technologically.

Maybe its more realistic this way?

What you could do is attack the peaceful, well researched, civs and then demand tech for peace.

That would kill 2 birds with one stone - You gain land for domination victory, and you stay in the tech race

[astreeter]

What you could do is attack the peaceful, well researched, civs and then demand tech for peace.

Three problems with that:
1. On a huge map, those peaceful nations are usually really far away.
2. It's almost impossible in this game to fight two wars at once.
3. The AI seems to be pretty stingy about diplomatic agreements and trades (not nearly as bad as Civ 3 though). No way are they going to agree to your demands if they are more advanced than you are.

[MattPilot]

Originally posted by astreeter

Three problems with that:
1. On a huge map, those peaceful nations are usually really far away.
2. It's almost impossible in this game to fight two wars at once.
3. The AI seems to be pretty stingy about diplomatic agreements and trades (not nearly as bad as Civ 3 though). No way are they going to agree to your demands if they are more advanced than you are.

I've made different observations regarding #2 & #3. Don't know about #1 'cause i don't play huge maps.

[Solver]

Re: War doesn't pay

Originally posted by astreeter
One problem I've noticed with Huge maps is that wars become progressively more not worth fighting the larger the map is. Taking and holding each enemy city requires a massive military buildup over a long period of time, during which you have to devote most of your resources to military instead of research, and since there are so many other AI's there are always some peaceful ones that will keep reseaching and so progress much faster than you can while you are concentrating on fighting.

In the previous Civ games it was pretty easy to get a Conquest victory even on Huge maps. In this one I'm lucky if I can conquer a dozen cities throughout the entire game if I want to keep up with the others technologically.

Maybe its more realistic this way?

It's definitely one of my favorite things how wars cost now. In previous games, going to war was a good decision as long as you had an army capable of winning it and the enemy had at least something valuable. Plus, even with the Civ3 corruption model, any city would always be good for you, if only a little bit.

I like how wars are fought now, they're a tradeoff, and they are expensive. If you have the biggest and the baddest army, that doesn't mean that it's a good idea to attack everyone.

About realism... let's put it this way, has anyone ever conquered the entire world? No. And those who did manage to conquer a lot always found it expensive to maintain the new lands - this is pretty much how it's in the game now.

[LordShiva]

Re: Re: War doesn't pay

Originally posted by Solver
About realism... let's put it this way, has anyone ever conquered the entire world? No. And those who did manage to conquer a lot always found it expensive to maintain the new lands - this is pretty much how it's in the game now.

I definitely don't like this aspect of Civ 4. Civ for me, since the days of Civ 1, has always been about conquering at least enough of the world for it to be "unrealistic."

[Merzbow]

Yeah, the biggest problem with this game is that war has simply been nerfed (along with there being too many religions, which makes diplomacy very difficult). With all victory conditions allowed, it is NEVER a good idea to go to war because some other peaceful civ can always outrace you. Boring. I think the key to enjoying this game for me will be to play with the epic length mod that gives you many more turns per tech, with unit costs not scaled. I also turn off the space, time, and diplomacy victory conditions.

[ElConejo]

Originally posted by Merzbow
I also turn off the space, time, and diplomacy victory conditions.

This is interesting: does the AI play to take advantage of this? Or is it like most previous Civ games and the AI just keeps going on its normal path?

[polarnomad]

Hmmm... My specs:

P4 3.4 Ghz
1024 MB RAM
6600GT w/ driver version 81.85

Had to reduce the graphics to medium with 2AA in order for the game to run quickly on a normal map. I tried huge, but the frame rate drops dramatically from the start, and generally gets glitchy.

You have less RAM and a slightly slower processor and yet you run huge maps... What are your graphics settings? Are you tolerating slowdowns to play?

I get the feeling something's not quite right with my system.

[MxM]

Snoopy does not post here since his second post. I wonder if he is still loading his save game.

[polarnomad]

I hope you're right. I was a little disappointed when I first started the game up and chose a huge map, only to see everything slow down. I don't mind waiting but the framerate issue is hard on my eyes.

Of course then I discovered, contrary to complaints I've seen posted by some members of Apolyton, that the standard map is in fact quite large. I'm not sure I need to even bother with huge maps ATM. Although, I don't know what kind of system they intend to run them... (Unless of course there is some other problem behind the slowness.)

[FrostyBoy]

Ok, I stopped playing, around 1400AD, it really started to slow down.

I had all the graphics set to high (no AA though).

I haven't experienced any slow downs up until 1300-1400.

[ElConejo]

Aye. Theres the rub.

[Metaliturtle]

I've found that the more map that is uncovered the slower it gets for me.

Edit, my specs are almost the same as Sn00py's I was hoping he knew a way to up the performance.