Desparately need tips on speeding play for Civ 4 BTS

[mmontgomery]

I am an expert SMAC player who bought Civ 4 complete and have been playing BTS, primarily on Monarch level. The game has been fairly easy to win, with a few loads as I discover some aspects of the game.

However, the game seems incredibly slow, especially combat.

Part of the issue is that even though I play on a fairly fast computer (Dell M65 2 GHZ dual core) with the graphic level scaled down to minimum, there is still a noticable delay between moves.

Part of the issue is that it is incredibly time consuming to send transports back to pick up units, load them, protect them, and drop them off, as well as to advance units every turn. Is there any way to partially automate combat? (I already use group moves for units on the same square.)

Part of the issue is the sheer number of turns involved in a typically game. Most of my SMAC games take around 100 turns, while most Civ games are over 300 turns! Even if I wipe out a civ or two early on my starting continent, I just can't get a good invasion force ready until turn 200 or so.

Bottom line is that the game is just so slow, I can't understand how people can find time to play it, so I figure I must be missing some techniques for greatly speeding and automating game play. Can someone clue me in on how to speed up my games? Because as things stand now, I think I am just about done with Civ 4 unless someone can give me some good advice.

Also, how do people play multiplayer games that take so long??? Do they just dedicate 12 hours on a Saturday?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[Wiglaf]

There's speed options. In the option menu. You go and change them, and this changes the number of turns in the game. It's sort of like a light switch, in that you can press a button, and then the change in the game's length happens, but this analogy may not convey the nuances of exactly what I'm trying to say here.

[guermantes]

Not really answering your question, but my games typically last 20-30 hours and I spread them out over weeks. Actually I see the length of the game to be one of its strengths. But that's just me, and sorry again for not answering your question.

[Vampgelus]

You can turn off the combat animation, this will help to win some time (options menu, fast combat), same thing with movements. Anyway, i'm the same kind of player as quermantes, and i love next war games on marathon speeds... ok, i'm student, so i have the time... But, after some games, i cut the combat animations off too.

btw... what's SMAC ?

[#07]

Yeah, same thing as they said. Games take a long time for me to, but I kinda like that...

Part of the issue is that it is incredibly time consuming to send transports back to pick up units

Build more transports, you can never have too many.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Vampgelus
btw... what's SMAC ?

Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri

[draethor]

Another option that hasn't been mentioned here is "stack attack." Be careful when you turn this on at first, I definitely screwed up a couple games when first using it (a misclick sends all your units into an attack, usually in a horrible order). Between that and quick combat, it makes a long siege against a city take less than a minute instead of 4 or 5.

The other obvious one is the game speed. What speed are you playing on? One BIG thing to remember is that there's a production bonus for units the slower the game is - for instance, marathon has 3x as many turns as normal speed does, but it only takes 2x as long to build units (those numbers may be off, but you get the idea). Also, on slower speeds it'll still take just as long to move a unit a certain number of tiles, so slower games generally have MUCH more military manuevering.

If you're playing epic, try normal. I personally like epic > marathon > normal > quick... but your preference may be completely different.

[Vampgelus]

Originally posted by Nugog


Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri

Thanks... silly me

[mmontgomery]

So far, I have been playing games on Normal. I had been playing with the Standard map size; my last game, I took it to the next smaller map, but surprisingly, it did not have as much affect on game time as I figured it would.

I already turn off animations and use quick combat. It did not take me too long to discover those options. Frankly, I am surprised this is not the default. Considering how slow the game is, the last thing I want is for each individual battle to take another 5 seconds.

I also got burned by group combat, since the computer seems to use a random combat order, until I realized the only sensible way to do it was to only use groups with one kind of unit, and even then, to exclude units that have already been damaged.

Another couple of things I forgot to mention about things that slow down the game, are the stupid Apostolic Palace and UN. Even if you build them, they are usually used against you, at least until you have conquered enough to totally dominate the vote. One game, Ragnar declares war, his attack falters, and when I bring the war to him, suddenly there is a vote for peace, which I have already learned not to oppose due to the huge 5 unhappiness penalty in almost every city. So we have a 10 turn peace treaty. Then there is a vote to return the city I took back to him. Now I have zero progress in dealing with him. Later, he attacks again, I force him back, another vote, peace. He gets no penalty for starting these wars! Finally, I have built up enough force to hit him on multiple fronts, and start to take him out. Another vote for peace; this time I defy. I have almost finished him, and another vote comes up, and I defy again. I finish him off, and my war weariness goes to zero, but I still have -10 happiness from defying the votes.

Another time, I have spread Sid's Sushi and Mining Inc to each of my cities, and the UN calls for Environmentalism, which I must defy. Against, -5 happiness everywhere, which really hurts. The only good thing is that I can now spread my corporations to all of the countries that I formerly could not (probably because they had been using Mercantilism), so I build executives like crazy. Probably because of playing on Monarch, I don't get the feel that the other countries are punished by Environmentalism as much as I would have been.

Anyway, it is really hard to mount an offensive if the Apostolic Palace or UN are butting in all the time. It is OK once you have enough votes to override, but getting to that point can be a pain. Frankly, I think they add nothing good to the game, and I wish there was a simple option to just turn them off.

[Virulent]

Turning off diplomatic victory will disable the AP and the UN (you can't even build them).

Also I play on normal and my games tend to last 5-10 hours depending on how much fighting I do.

[mmontgomery]

Great, I'll turn off Diplomatic Victory! Thanks for the tip.

But how do you get your games down to 5-10 hours? What specific things do you do? This is what I want to learn, is how to fit games into this kind of time span. Thanks!

[Garth Vader]

Make an effort to build the AP. Especially if you have a religion that not many others have. You will always be the president, and you get the +2h bonus for all buildings mostly to yourself.

[Virulent]

Playing on the smaller maps sizes helps to speed things up but the main thing that slows the game down is war, especially late in the game.

Try playing a game a on a continents map. Knock out your neighbors early on so you have the continent for yourself. Then you can cruise to a spaceship or culture victory as long as you maintain good relations with the rest of the world and maintain a decent defending force so you don't fall too far down the power graph and present yourself as a tempting target.

[TriMiro]

I can do a normal speed, small map in about 5 hours. I have even done standard map in less than 10 (domination victory).

I play on Pangea, that reduces the need for navy.

[TriMiro]

To counter AP. Spread religion to all of your cities and make friends with other civs. I have never had much trouble with the AP.