Opening strategies

[Krill]

How long do turns take on your PC?

I normally play on a normal map, but when the AI hits the industrial age the turns take about ~3 minutes to compute. The amount of time taken per turn when I enter the industrial era does not change, It is just the AI that messes it up.
If I play to the modern era, then the time taken triples.
It is becoming very annoying.

My spec: 1.4Gz Athlon, 256Mb DDR RAM, onboard graphics card.

[Krill]

PS. The title got changed in the forum. I don't know how, but sorry if anybody turns up looking for a thread on that topic.

[Theseus]

Have you tried turning off animations?

[Krill]

Yes, because if I don't it takes closer to 10 minutes per turn. Animations are good for the early game, and hell at the end

[vmxa1]

Depends on the map. If it has lots of islands and lots of civs it is much worse.

If a contient or pangea, then some civs will be gone and the number of wars is low, so it will take no time at all.

3.066GH with 1GB, 9800 PRO with raptor drive on XP PRO.

I have a 1.7GH with 512MB and turns take twice as long on it.

[Fake Boris]

Turns used to be really slow on my 1.4 GHz Athlon with 256 MB (like 5 mins) but now they are fine (rarely more than 1 min) with my 1.8GHz and 512 MB.

I think it may have more to do with the crap that was plaguing the OS install of the first than the hardware upgrade.

[DrSpike]

I have a ninja PC and turns can still lag for a few seconds in the endgame, particularly with a large map. Civ3 is prone to this to an extent no matter what the specs.

You need more RAM, and onboard graphics eugh.

[Krill]

You need more RAM, and onboard graphics eugh.

I would love to upgrade my PC, but at my age that isn't possible. I live in the middle of nowhere, and can not get a paper round, since I get home from school about an hour later that everyone else. There are literally, no jobs open to me at the moment. (Though I did get paid £50 for working for my dad last month).

[DrSpike]

Do you know anyone with an old card? Anything really, an old Geforce card (or a low end Radeon) that's been replaced perhaps. That would improve your computer no end. You can pick them up new for £50, and if you can find one second hand it'll be very cheap. That's the obvious thing to improve; the RAM upgrade can wait.

Having said that your problem is with slow processing of moves. Have you tried reinstalling the game? Also make sure your motherboard drivers are up to date, and DirectX. If it's been a while since you installed windows that might also be worth considering.

[Krill]

I'm only 15. Would you trust me to re-install an OS? I'm competant enough to re-install software and basic hardware, nothing more. I would get my dad to do it, watch, and learn.
DirectX 9.1, Civ re-installed 4 times, 3 of them in January, defrag hard disk every fortnight, and virus check afterwards.

[bongo]

Take a look at your system tray(normally bottom left). If it has more than 15 objects, then it is cleaning time.

My comp is a P3@450MHz,256MB RAM, wait-time between turns is less than yours.

[notyoueither]

More than 15? Hahahahahahaha. Did you mean more than 4 or 5?

[notyoueither]

I have 3, btw.

[bongo]

Well, it's just that people who have that kind of problems usually have more than 15 objects there.

3 is a bit on the low side though. Personally I rather have only the system clock there but there's so much you actually *need*, all with their own little icon (virusscanner, popup-killer, network-status, mail-status, icq etc...)

[Skog]

Huge problems...

I have huge problems playing my current game.

I am playing a huge map, lots of islands, 12 civs left, modern age. I usually calculate a minimum of 45 minutes per turn, in peace time that is.

Around 30 minutes is used for administrational purposes, like managing my cities and moving workers. (and no, I NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES automate workers, that is the worst sin one can do... as long as there is anything useful whatsoever left for the workers to do, they should never be automized...)

I estimate approx. 15-20 minutes for the AI to take its turn. The most annoying thing is when the program needs to recalculate the map, for instance if new trade routes are created of if there is a cultural expansion. Such events take a few minutes to complete. That is the major reason why the AI turn takes such a long time.

This is REALLY annoying, I am thinking about buying a new computer... (Mine is an old P3-500 / 512 MB / Geforce2)