16 civ games ARE WAY too slow!

[Fayadi]

I got Pentium4 1.3 ghz with 128 memory RDRAM pc-800 400 mhz!
MY MEMORY IS 400 mhz u know!Thats the most popular ram i bought in march!Guess what 16 civ games on huge map are way too slow.In early games of course it looks fast but in 800 + ad
for one turn it took 1/2 minutes.Well i never really measure the time it's very long to be considered "a computer game"
So i normally play 8 civs game!Those who plays 16 civs game really will vomit when all the other civs got large empires already!it is too long !!to be considered a game!!

[Simpleton]

Get used to it. Firaxis only supports the use of 8 civs per game. If you modify the game to play with 16 civs it's not going to work as well as it was designed. It's not Firaxis' fault. It runs fine with 8 or less civs

[Kolyana]

Civ3 is a perfect game. It has flaws that are the players fault. if you didn't want perfection and a game worth $45.00, there wouldn't be a problem.

Upgrade your computer. Reformat, defrag, up the memory size, install a SCSI drive ... whatever you need to do, but don't look to blame the flawless, hallowed Civ3.

You will find that everything is editable in the editor*, bugs** are actually fixed in the patch ***

Any gripe is considered a whine. Please don't whine here. This is the Civ3-General forum**** and a balance of posts must be kept. *****

16 civs is intended for those people who are willing to put up with it taking twice as long as 8 civs. Play ona map half the size, reduce the civ count by 8, or play two games on two computers at the same time. ******


* Except anything you need or want.

** Design features.

*** Which doesn't work exactly as intended and causes a few more problems.

**** No whining allowed.

***** Please scour the hundreds of threads and find something vaguely appropriate to your subject and tag it on the end of 100 previous posts, thus resurrecting a very dead thread.

****** Multiplayer currently not supported.

[Fayadi]

I believe u r a spy of Civ 3.Did u work for Civ III.U know the 16 civ games are easily the longest computer games I had ever played!
We all are trying to improve the game....and u r thinking that the game is perfect.If firaxis is professional they should learn from complains.If it is wrong it is wrong,u cant say it right.My com load everything very fast,I WILL BLAME CIV3.Please if u r defending civ 3 u r doing more harm than good it will influence them not to come up with a sensible patch!

[Simpleton]

It's fine that you would like the game to run with 16 civs but my point was that Firaxis did not design the game for 16 civs. They optimized the code so that 8 civs would run well. I really don't see Firaxis dedicating a lot of time to making the game run better when more than 8 civs are used because there are alot of people pushing for the MP option and a second patch. It may be possible that in the expansion pack Firaxis might offer this as a feature but I would say it is unlikely.

PS: no need to get testy. boy, some people really carry a chip on their shoulder.

[felder]

It'd seem to me that the simple thing to do in this case is not play the game with 16 civs. If you play 16 civs on a huge map...then yes you're definitely in there for the long haul.

[Fayadi]

Then why firaxis does not want to fix the problems,16 civ games are too long to be considered a game,its sooo sloowwww 1/2 minutes per turn what the hell? in starcraft in 10 min I got bunch of armies already!duhhhh in civ 2 it took so fast!

[gozpel]

Fayadi, I restarted after playing huge map and 16 civs...around 1800-1850 it started to go REALLY slow...like 5 mins between turns, and then 3 civs was already wiped out.

And I have an Athlon 1200 with 512 sdram...should work with anything...as well as your comp...so the ppl here says it right, the game was made for 8 civs only...too bad I think, I like the multicultural idea....and I saved the last savegame, maybe I take it up when I have time

I restarted thou, with 8 civs on large map...seems to work ok...it's only the bastard chase for land in the beginning of smaller maps I hate, otherwise it's quite ok...I am in 1900"s now and have fairly quick turns.

So try it!

cheers

[Ancientfool]

I thought it was decided that it was the number of cities, not number of civs that was the slowdown....

Anyone finished a huge map game with 8 civs? slowdown or no?

[Cruzz]

Re: 16 civ games ARE WAY too slow!

Originally posted by Fayadi
I got Pentium4 1.3 ghz with 128 memory RDRAM pc-800 400 mhz!
MY MEMORY IS 400 mhz u know!Thats the most popular ram i bought in march!Guess what 16 civ games on huge map are way too slow.In early games of course it looks fast but in 800 + ad
for one turn it took 1/2 minutes.Well i never really measure the time it's very long to be considered "a computer game"
So i normally play 8 civs game!Those who plays 16 civs game really will vomit when all the other civs got large empires already!it is too long !!to be considered a game!!

Fast memory doesn't matter that much, it's useful in high graphic situations when bandwidth is everything but CIV III will benefit a lot more from a lot of ram. I've got 512 MB DDR(PC-2100; 133mhz doubled; CAS 2,5) and it's still not enough for everything, but the turns run pretty fast up until ~1700 AD. Sure the turns go a bit too slow and I hope they can improve the perfomance atleast somewhat, but the patch already helped me a little. Anyway for gods sake get another 128mb stick of ram and plug it in; you won't regret it, 128mb is way too little by todays standards.
Oh...what do you mean by 'the most popular ram'?

Oh right and this example was with a 16 civ game on a huge map with all the land taken by cities

[Peets]

don't act like you are spoiled!
it's a game ahead of his time, that's why it can become slow!

[Simpleton]

Originally posted by Fayadi
I believe u r a spy of Civ 3.Did u work for Civ III.U know the 16 civ games are easily the longest computer games I had ever played!
We all are trying to improve the game....and u r thinking that the game is perfect.If firaxis is professional they should learn from complains.If it is wrong it is wrong,u cant say it right.My com load everything very fast,I WILL BLAME CIV3.Please if u r defending civ 3 u r doing more harm than good it will influence them not to come up with a sensible patch!

(1) Why can't you be civil? I'm just giving my opinion pal...Sheez.
(2) I have no problem with improving the game. Go for it. My point is that I don't think making the game compatable for 16 civs is a priority for Firaxis. They have other things that I think they will address first such as making the game multiplayer or making more scenarios.
(3) I don't think Firaxis will do it because in my opinion it would result in a major rewrite of the game not in a simple patch. This is something that Infogrames would probably not put up the money for. They would first have to do some major optimization of the program code and then develop some new graphical screens to display all the civ's.
(4) As I've said before Firaxis designed the game for 8 civs. If they wanted the game to run well with 16 civs they would have designed it to run but they didn't. Just because you can alter the game rules to play with more than 8 civs doesn't mean it has to work. You could probably change many things in the game but I believe it would be unfair to fault Firaxis when it doesn't work.

For the record: I am not against criticism of the game and I would love for the game to support 16 civs.

[Zanzin]

Originally posted by Ancientfool
I thought it was decided that it was the number of cities, not number of civs that was the slowdown....

Anyone finished a huge map game with 8 civs? slowdown or no?

Currently finishing one off. I have an Athlon XP 1700+, 512mb PC2100 RAM. With 8 civs, modern age, all continents filled up with cities, time between turns is at a maximum of about 20 secs. The biggest delay I get is when pillaging roads, as the computer has to then figure out how this affects the trade network and what not.

Haven't tried a 16 civ game yet, but I'd expect slow downs, from what others have written.

[Malleus]

Fayadi: Kolyana was making a joke. He is not a spy for Civ3.

I am.

K

[cassembler]

Jeez people! I run 16 civs on a tiny, small, or regular map on an OVERCLOCKED PII 333!!! It runs fine.
Sure, huge maps are um, huge, and yeah, there's lots of thing going on. Small maps are inherently shorter as far as the length of game is concerned.

How many multiplayer games are going to be played on gigantic maps?

ZERO...


[of course, this argument works on all map sizes, but I selectively took it into my own twisted context.]