Can I speed up this game? Time between turns are so long!

[Apple_The_Man]

Hello, I have been playing civ since the first game... I have been converted to civ III Now, but I am finding that the time between turns is outrageously long, and it is getting longer! Just a time while my CPU is doing nothing....

I have a 1.8 GHZ P4 with a Geforce 4 mx460, and 536K RAM

Can I speed this up?

[vee4473]

the only way to speed it up is to choose smaller maps, at least thats the only way i have found.

for my pooter, the lag becomes a fun sucking force to be reckoned with at huge maps into the industrial age.

possibly large as well.

i tend to stick with standard maps.

[vee4473]

oh and turn off the unit animations

[steven8r]

Apple, There are a couple of things that you can do to help speed-up the AI moves (in addition to those already mentioned above).

1. Hold down the Shift key while the AI is moving. This will make them move faster. Rather than showing a unit pass through each square, you will see the unit start to move and then see where he ends-up.

2. Add a line to the coquests.ini file, "NoAIPatrol=1" (w/o quotes). This keeps those stupid AI ships from just moving around next to your coast while not actually doing anything except annoying you with their presence (and taking so long to move).

[vee4473]

seeing ai ships go around in circles is quite annoying.

does changing that file mean that the ai never moves its ships?
or just never patrol?

[Willem]

Originally posted by vee4473
seeing ai ships go around in circles is quite annoying.

does changing that file mean that the ai never moves its ships?
or just never patrol?

It just means it won't send it's troops around and around in circles. It still moves them for strategic purposes, but they tend to stay put when they're at their destination.

I find this adds something to the game frankly. Before, I could pretty much tell what the AI military strength was by watching them patrol. Now they just sit within cities so I can't know for sure how many troops it has in the area.

Plus I've noticed that Barbarians tend to stack up more, making them harder to get rid of.

[Apple_The_Man]

Thank you all for your help! For the record, I am on the second biggest map setting (I think that is large), I already had animations all turned off, as well as moves.... Yep, when I got to the industrial ea it started to really suck the fun away. Anyhow, I think I will start fresh, on a standard size map.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Depends on which version you are on too. With the v1.27 patch of PtW the between-turns time was sped up by a fair amount. Ensure you have the latest patch (v1.27 for PtW, v1.29f for Civ3), and that may help a little.