Turn Time Discussion

[TinCow]

I've seen many people complaining about the wait time between turns, particularly late in the game and I want to know what's going on. I've got a 750mhz P3 and I don't think I've ever experienced a wait of more than a minute or two. I admit that I haven't played on a Huge map yet (playing Large right now, annd only around 1AD, so dunno how it will slow down later), but I don't see how people have to wait 10-15 mins (people have said this) between turns unless they have machines below the specs on the box.

What's going on here? I know my machine isn't top of the line, and from the complaints I read here I would expect more than a minute wait for a turn with 16 civs on a standard map, but I have not experienced this.

As for the turns themselves taking too long... turn trracking of automated units off and put all your workers on auto. They really do work perfectly fine. If you need a couple workers to build a road and want it done faster than the comp would do it, then just take controll of a couple and do it. As for everyone who complains about the slow cleanup of pollution with 2 stacking workers... how much damn pollution are you guys making? I've put out massive amounts of pollution and never had it reach anything close to annoying levels. I never have more than two squares around a city polluted and more than one is very rare. At that rate, who cares if the workers take a couple turns to clean it up on auto? I'd prefer to lose that one itsy bitsy square of production for a couple turns than to have to micromanage the workers. Besides, when you get ecology and recycling, pollution essentially disappears... so what's the big complaint? Sure, Firaxis needs to make it so that more than 2 auto workers will work a square... but even as it is now it's not a big deal.

Feel free to agree, disagree, flame, rant, and discuss further this and other related issues.

[Bill9999]

Well, my specs are just below you processor wise @ 700mHz, and memory wise I have 512MB. I still have about 5-10 minutes during the AI turns from the mid twentieth century on, when I play on HUGE maps with 16 civs. But I have given up on Huge maps, I just don't think they are fun due to the large amount of corruption, waste, micromanagement of workers, and AI turn time. I find playing on large maps works pretty well, still a bit tedious near the end, but much, much preferable to Huge maps.

As for automating workers, I think you just have a different style of play than others that are complaining about it. Saying that they work perfectly is bad. They do not work perfectly, but to some extent what "perfect" is is different for everyone. With specialists as useless as they are, it is pointless to ever have a city over 20. With automated workers they will build much more irrigation than is needed to reach size 20.

There are many other reasons they are not "perfect" but I am not even going to rehash what has been extensively talked about on this subject in previous posts.

The other factor is that some players like to micromanage, such as myself, but given the choice, I would gladly like to turn over management to the AI when I have other things to worry about. But I can't because I can't trust the automated workers to build correct improvements (the ones I want) or the governor to build the most prudent thing that I need in my city/empire. So I am forced to micromanage on all levels, and when dealing with over 100 cities, with at least that many workers, and at least double that many military units, build orders, movement, managing population, maximizing research, maximizing shield production, and clening up pollution, turns all of a sudden take close to 20-30 minutes.

As for pollution, 1 square of pollution that goes uncleaned for 1 turn is unacceptable. It hurts the production of my cities which are carefully managed to be maximized, and leads to global warming which again hurts your land, thus again screwing with the maximizing of the city's land.

Micromanagement is not done by mass amounts of people, which is why are first glance, and I will admit, the AI looks like it does a good job. It really does much better than past games in the area but I think there could be further refinement done.

OK, I'll shut up now, so someone can flame you about how unperfect the automated workers are, because I konw someone will...even though it has already been said....

Bill9999

[Bill9999]

Well, my specs are just below you processor wise @ 700mHz, and memory wise I have 512MB. I still have about 5-10 minutes during the AI turns from the mid twentieth century on, when I play on HUGE maps with 16 civs. But I have given up on Huge maps, I just don't think they are fun due to the large amount of corruption, waste, micromanagement of workers, and AI turn time. I find playing on large maps works pretty well, still a bit tedious near the end, but much, much preferable to Huge maps.

As for automating workers, I think you just have a different style of play than others that are complaining about it. Saying that they work perfectly is bad. They do not work perfectly, but to some extent what "perfect" is is different for everyone. With specialists as useless as they are, it is pointless to ever have a city over 20. With automated workers they will build much more irrigation than is needed to reach size 20.

There are many other reasons they are not "perfect" but I am not even going to rehash what has been extensively talked about on this subject in previous posts.

The other factor is that some players like to micromanage, such as myself, but given the choice, I would gladly like to turn over management to the AI when I have other things to worry about. But I can't because I can't trust the automated workers to build correct improvements (the ones I want) or the governor to build the most prudent thing that I need in my city/empire. So I am forced to micromanage on all levels, and when dealing with over 100 cities, with at least that many workers, and at least double that many military units, build orders, movement, managing population, maximizing research, maximizing shield production, and clening up pollution, turns all of a sudden take close to 20-30 minutes.

As for pollution, 1 square of pollution that goes uncleaned for 1 turn is unacceptable. It hurts the production of my cities which are carefully managed to be maximized, and leads to global warming which again hurts your land, thus again screwing with the maximizing of the city's land.

Micromanagement is not done by mass amounts of people, which is why are first glance, and I will admit, the AI looks like it does a good job. It really does much better than past games in the area but I think there could be further refinement done.

OK, I'll shut up now, so someone can flame you about how unperfect the automated workers are, because I konw someone will...even though it has already been said....

Bill9999

[Grrr]

Slowness

I am well below you guys spec wise. I have:

A PII 366mhz
64MB RAM
4MB S3 Trio Graphics
6.4GB HDD
Quad Speed CDROM

I play on 255x255 maps, which are a lot bigger than HUGE. With 16 civs, and I run around 250 workers around manually each turn. I don't mind this, but in the Industrial to Modern times, the AI turns can take up to 25 minutes to compute. That makes for about 1 turn per day!

I to find the corruption no fun.

[GePap]

advantage of turn times

I have a 450MHz computer with 64 RAM, and because of that i never play 16, the max 11 civs (which is still a lot) and on large or huge maps. Turns can take a few minutes, but its not that bad if you have readings you need to catch up or feel like doing. Think of it, in 5 hours of playing the game you also get to read a book!

[Grrr]

Re: advantage of turn times

Originally posted by GePap
I have a 450MHz computer with 64 RAM, and because of that i never play 16, the max 11 civs (which is still a lot) and on large or huge maps. Turns can take a few minutes, but its not that bad if you have readings you need to catch up or feel like doing. Think of it, in 5 hours of playing the game you also get to read a book!

I agree that it is usful for your first game when you have to keep refering to the manual, but the thing is I am very severly allergic to dust mite, so I can't touch a book without severe repuccusions.

BOOKS MAKE ME SICK

[kimmygibler]

"I don't think I've ever experienced a wait of more than a minute or two"

I usually give up long before it gets even this bad...

[Captain]

Whoah! that's insane!

But I see how it could happen.
Of course, I haven't played on HUGE maps yet (except for ancient era on Marla's map). I imagine it'd be devastatingly slow later.

It was already getting tedious when I had fifty workers running around twenty cities. Irrigate, irrigate, road, road, etc...
Longest my turn took was 15 minutes (I'm very meticulous).
The longest AI turn was maybe 1 minute (only 8 rival AI).
Not bad but life's busier now than when I was a kid and could play Civ I for hours on end.

I quit because I had barely contacted the other civs by then and I realized just to keep up I'd have to have gazillions of cities and even more units! Takes forever...

AMD Duron 800MHz, 256M RAM, Windows 98, 20GB, 52X CDrom
Got a lot of other crap using up resources though...

[Cookie Monster]

Just read this thread and thought I'd contribute another data point for you.


PIII 650
256mb ram
geforce 32mb ram


Large maps
8 civs
turned off all computer AI animations and moves.

Modern Epoch's wait time between turns is around 1 min. This is of course taking into account that every shred of usuable land has been settled.

[Arrian]

I stick to Normal maps, as my specs are:

400mhz, 64MB

On normal maps, with the "friendly" moves turned off, the turns fly. Even with the moves on, the wait is measured in seconds, not minutes. Again, this is on normal maps. I fear HUGE maps. I imagine my computer would just gasp and die

Oh, I do play with the music off, because I discovered very early on that my computer just can't deal with it (it's all choppy and the game slows to a crawl).

-Arrian

[korn469]

ok my specs are

p2 400mghz 128mb ram, i killed everything in the background

i played one game on a huge map with 16 civs, i got to either 1000bc or 1000ad i don't remember which, i had all animations turned off and i had enemy moves turned off too, but it was still taking like 4 to 5 minutes between turns, so i quit, and haven't tried it again

from what i've heard it sounds like finding trade routes takes quite a bit of computing power and it expands exponentially with the number of cities

so for me on my current computer (i'm saving for an alienware computer for my birthday) i won't play on maps larger than standard

[Kc7mxo]

The consensus seems to be that the AI recalculates what it should do with every unit it has every turn, which of course leads to long waits once the AI has massive hordes of troops.

U want to speed up the game? Go to war and annilate a few hundred ai units. It will speed up quite a bit i'm sure.

[Unregistered]

Another datum for y'all -

1 G tbird, 256 meg ram. Playing huge map, started w/ 16 civs. Only 11 left now, I'm only responsible for one being eliminated. I'm in modern times, working on the third tier of advancements. Two other civs are at about my level of tech, one slightly behind, one slightly ahead. Much warfare happening right now. I'm the #5 civ. Computer turn takes around 5 minutes right now. I'm much slower than that .

korn469 - you'll like your alienware box. They rock!

[Ironikinit]

I have a Pentium 2, I automate all my workers, I play on small or normal maps. Wait time is very short with all animations turned off. I still have battle animations on, but I'll probably turn them off too once I've seen all the different ones.

I let my cities get as big as they want. I think that specialists are cool, esp. tax men. Every taxman generates one gold, and if you have 20 of them, that's an extra 20 gold every turn.

Automated workers rock, I keep automating them earlier and earlier in the game.