Few basic questions about mods and creating your own map

[SlingShield]

Hi everyone, I thought about placing this thread in the Creation forum but because it's asking general questions, I thought it might get more responses in here. I've been tinkering with the Civ3 map maker lately and have a few ideas but I wanted to run them by the Civ3 community first.

I'm not satified with the world maps out there. I want to create one with more accurate resources, historic starting locations, and a few custom civilizations that aren't included in the Civ games. This would be a pretty big map with 25+ civs. Would the slow down be worth it? I have a 1.5 Ghz processor and approx 512 MB RAM, and I have problems with 16 civs on the large maps. Do you think the slowdown with the map I'm planning would be worth it or do those with better computers not have these problems? What do you recommend the max dimensions be on a map before the slowdown is too much to endure?

[Rhothaerill]

Honestly, no matter what you're computer size, you will still experience a noticeable slowdown in the later times. A while back I played a game with a 250X250 and 24 civ game up until the 1500s before the between turn times became over 30 minutes. That was on a 850MhZ with 128MB RAM. I recently bought a computer and tried out that old game for a while again and the between turn time at 1500ad (mid-industrial age) was still two minutes with a 3.2GhZ machine with 2GB RAM.

EDIT: 3.2 GHZ

[vmxa1]

I played AU402 (IIRC) anyway it was a about 250 by 250 24 civs with lots of water (PTW). It cold at time drop my 3.066HG system down for 25 minutes in th emodern age. Some turns at that point took only 2 minutes, so it depending on what occured during the turn.

A number people will be glad to see it so go for it.

[SlingShield]

I've decided to limit it to 180x180 for practical purposes but I'm still sticking with 25+ civs. I'm going to design my own custom map projection that won't be mathematically accurate but will provide more land masses. I was once a geography major in college, I knew I'd use all those classes for something. HAHA If anything, my map resembles a projection I once saw where the map designer enhanced areas of cultural or world power signifigance. So basically, Europe and the Middle East are going to get a lot of space to work with to keep the historical starting locations intact but still provide balance. I plan on establishing more Native American tribes and the American civ will be eliminated from my map because I want culturally linked civs only.

[bvoncranium]

SlingShield decided:
I've decided to limit it to 180x180 for practical purposes but I'm still sticking with 25+ civs.

With my old Civ machine (1GHz 640M RAM) a game with similar map and fewer Civs completely bogged down in the Industrial Age.
I'd suggest that while running the game you shut down all other unnecessary Apps on your computer. If your game will be single-player, in the later stages you might also want to take your machine offline and shutdown the anti-virus as well - you can restart these after playing.
Best of luck - bvc