C3C Scenario - I've almost finished it, but the loading time makes it useless

[Sim]

I've spent the last four days making a historical scenario (Imperialism in 1903) on the huge 362x362 world map, about 12 hours each day.

When I regularly loaded the unfinished version, it took no longer than 5 minutes at startup to load - so far, so good.

But now, after I've configured the 24 civs (set which techs and money they have, renamed them), when I try to load it, it has not finished loading after one hour (!) - and I've not even placed units yet !!!

It can't be my computer, it's a 1,4 GHz /512MB RAM.


Is the only possibility to make a new scenario with a smaller world map, less civs, less cities?

Or is there anything I can do about it?


I can't even say how disappointed I was with Civ3 in general.
I don't care much for mods, but I love playing historical scenarios, and I couldn't believe that there was no possibility to make some when Civ3 was released 2 years ago.

It has taken 2 years for Firaxis to release a scenario editor that actually deserves that name (although there is still a lot you can't set, like the diplomatic status between civs, without connecting them in a locked alliance), and now, it's not even possible to make scenarios with acceptable loading time?!

Civ3 is a total mess.

When "Call to Power" came out, I just thought it's a badly programmed plagiate, and I couldn't wait for Civ3.
But when it was released, I was disappointed very soon - instead of releasing a great game, they imitated CtP by trying to be just all in colour and detail on the cost of solid programming.

I love the idead in Civ3, like culture and resources. But sorry, the game is just very clumsy - and in two years, they have not managed making it possible to create real historical scenarios.

Sorry that I whine around here, but I'm just very frustrated and angry now, as you can imagine.

[asleepathewheel]

I can't imagine how disheartening it would be to put a lot of effort into a scenario just to have it too large for a regular pc to handle. You have my deepest sympathies. However, that Civ3 is an extreme resource hog has been known since its release. I have a 1.7ghz 784mb rdram and it runs quite well under regular game conditions, but if I max out the mapsize and civs it takes quite a long time, maybe 10 minutes a turn into the early industrial age-thousands of units and max cities (512) with war rampant just taxes a computer. Most of it is due to culture calculations and pathfinding and other sorts of reasons, sometimes I have to wait a few minutes after capturing ai cities late in the game, a real drag. But again, these problems have been known since release, and yes, it does have to do with your pc's specs, a faster processor and more ram would help out considerably. I would recommend working on a more reasonable map size, like the editor defined huge or something, hopefully that would meet your needs. Again, sorry that you spent so much time on a futile endeavor .

[Bane Star]

I am mid creation, 362x362, 400 techs, 800 units game,... and have no problem with load times as of yet... at what point did the load time start to lag... can you identify it, you have older versions backed up?

if nothing Else I will look out for the exact moment this starts to happen to me, and will inform you of its problem... as I back-up my current version and add only 1 tech, civlopedia and pediaicon file event at a time...

oh and I'm on a P3 733Mhz, with only 256Mb Ram...

[asleepathewheel]

I think the cities are much more of a problem than units, 800 units is certainly reasonable, I see that many on a huge map in a regular game, its whne you get 500 cities that it bogs down-all those culture calculations and what not.

[Sim]

I am mid creation, 362x362, 400 techs, 800 units game,... and have no problem with load times as of yet... at what point did the load time start to lag... can you identify it, you have older versions backed up?

It started from the moment I had placed improvements into the cities.

When I loaded the unfinished version without improvements, it took only between 3 and 5 minutes ... but after I had placed them, the game had not initialized even after one hour (!).

Hope you are more lucky!

[Sim]

I would recommend working on a more reasonable map size, like the editor defined huge or something, hopefully that would meet your needs. Again, sorry that you spent so much time on a futile endeavor

Thanks for your sympathy.

That is exactly what I've done now ... I've taken Warnazuma's 260x160 earth map and set 16 civs only.

I consider the useless work on the first attempt as ... little exercise to become familiar with the editor ... sort of. Yeah.

I've just finished the scenario - it does take about 15 minutes to initialize the scenario, but once it is loaded, it's acceptably fast.
Well ok, when every civ is in war with each other, one turn can take 3 minutes to wait, but I consider that still as acceptable.

I've waited so long time for having historical szenarios on Civ3 ... that was why I mostly remained at Civ2. I'm very glad it is finally possible.
I actually really play with the thought of buying a faster computer now.