[/rant]

[nato]

Wow, that is proof. I hope you never serve on a jury I'm in front of!
Actually, by decreasing the large and huge mapsizes, Firaxis has sped up the game. Less space=fewer units=faster game. But its awfully convenient to ignore contrary facts.

Really that is not a solution to the problem. That is evading it, not solving it.

That is similar to saying that if the game is too slow, don't play ... problem solved!

I am sure the game would go very fast if huge maps were 16x16!

Not that I ever had a problem with game speed ... I just find that logic and tone faulty.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by nato


Really that is not a solution to the problem. That is evading it, not solving it.

That is similar to saying that if the game is too slow, don't play ... problem solved!

I am sure the game would go very fast if huge maps were 16x16!

Not that I ever had a problem with game speed ... I just find that logic and tone faulty.

Whats faulty about that? The amount of units affects the speed of the game? True or not true? the more cities you have, the more units you can support. True or not true? So if you decrease the map size, you decrease the over all amount of units, correct? Thus speeding up the game.

Wheres the faulty logic in that?


A real solution: get a computer made in the 21st century, or play on standard maps. They aren't called standard for nothing, eh? Like Captain said above, Firaxis listened to consumers and gave larger maps, and now has to listen to whiners complain about the slowdown. Firaxis really can't win, can they?

[Capt Dizle]

I beg to differ. The larger maps were nothing new. They were standard in Civ2 and SMAC. Slowdown on larger maps is a design flaw. Trying to mask it by reducing the default size of maps in the game is consistent with prior patching, namely, lame and not fooling anyone.

One of the user friendly elements of earlier Civ line games was the fact that they tried to design games that would not exclude the many folks
who did not have state of the art machines. Firaxis's failure to stick to this philosophy is one of the many nails in their coffin.

jt

[Capt Dizle]

BTW, Firaxis has flat lied about more than one thing related to Civ3. The implementation of culture drastically slows down the game, but Firaxis won't admit it. But in earlier comments they did.

[Inverse Icarus]

... fighting ... urge ... to ... rant ...

... damn ... apolyton ... addictive ...

... must ... head ... to ... OT ...

[Capt Dizle]

no, go ahead and let it out........

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
BTW, Firaxis has flat lied about more than one thing related to Civ3. The implementation of culture drastically slows down the game, but Firaxis won't admit it. But in earlier comments they did.

Can you prove this? where are these earlier comments?

you could run a game on a huge map, where you turned off all of the culture of all of the buildings, and play through the modern age, to show that the lag is no longer there. post that and then I will believe you.

[nato]

Whats faulty about that? The amount of units affects the speed of the game? True or not true? the more cities you have, the more units you can support. True or not true? So if you decrease the map size, you decrease the over all amount of units, correct? Thus speeding up the game.

Wheres the faulty logic in that?

I wouldn't go on at length about this, but since you ask...

Here is the fault: keep following that train of thought to its logical conclusion.

According to that idea, the optimal game would be on a map composed of one tile ... after all, that would be the least units and least cities, so it would be the fastest!

The point is, the units and cities are the game. So minimizing them to increase speed is not really a solution ... sure, if you have less game, it will go faster ... but the problem is, you have less game.

A real solution would increase speed while holding all else equal. That is why it is an evasion rather than a solution.

Not that I am bitterly complaining, I don't really have a problem with the speed. But it is not really something I would praise.

A real solution: get a computer made in the 21st century, or play on standard maps. They aren't called standard for nothing, eh? Like Captain said above, Firaxis listened to consumers and gave larger maps, and now has to listen to whiners complain about the slowdown. Firaxis really can't win, can they?

Blaaa

My computer is fine. I agree people with speed problems should have played on normal size maps probably, though that is not ideal, since it reduces their game.

However I disagree that reducing map size is a solution to the slowdown. It doesn't solve the problem, it sidesteps it by providing less game.

Maybe this was the best that could be done, fine. But it is not the same thing as solving the slowdown. BTW I am not whining, I am discussing ... I am generally fine with the speed.

I will agree that Firaxis can't win with EVERYONE ... there will always be some people unhappy, through no fault of Firaxis's. However, the game and Firaxis's communication could have been better.

[Capt Dizle]

Do you really want proof that they lied? Hmm, Multiplayer. Scenarios. Editor. Heck, as Vel so eloquently put it, a note from the designer is NOT designer's notes.

Civ3=The Big Lie

You would have to be a chump or a chimp not to recognize that.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
Do you really want proof that they lied? Hmm, Multiplayer. Scenarios. Editor. Heck, as Vel so eloquently put it, a note from the designer is NOT designer's notes.

Civ3=The Big Lie

You would have to be a chump or a chimp not to recognize that.

looking at the Civ3 box now

hmm
nope . no mention of multiplayer
hmmm
nope. no mention of scenarios
hmmm
editor? well. I have an editor that fulfills my expectations
"game editor suite lets you create customized civilizations, maps, and rules"

where is the lie there? have you actually looked at the editor? you can change almost every part of the game. and the patches are increasing the functionality.

hmm
designer notes"
granted, what they gave was incredibly pointless, but if you were buying the game for designer notes, then I think you have other issues.

you would have to be a chump or chimp to buy a game without reading the box.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
One of the user friendly elements of earlier Civ line games was the fact that they tried to design games that would not exclude the many folks
who did not have state of the art machines. Firaxis's failure to stick to this philosophy is one of the many nails in their coffin.

jt

well, when civ 1 was released, what was the standard pc? 386, 486? w/ 2 mg ram?
a lot easier to make a game that everyone could play, as there was little variance in pcs

[/lecture on]
now with computers so standard in homes, the variation in computers is so much more drastic. I have a 1.7 ghz w/ 512 mg ram, many have better computers than me, many are running 350 mhz machines w/ 32 mg ram. Quite a drastic difference, eh?
The realities of computing today are different from the day of civ1, so a comparison is faulty.
[lecture off/]

Firaxis did include small and standard maps so that people with older computers can play at a reasonable pace. What is wrong with that?

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by nato
Here is the fault: keep following that train of thought to its logical conclusion.

According to that idea, the optimal game would be on a map composed of one tile ... after all, that would be the least units and least cities, so it would be the fastest!

of course you can take this to a ridiculous extreme.

Originally posted by nato
My computer is fine. I agree people with speed problems should have played on normal size maps probably, though that is not ideal, since it reduces their game.

However I disagree that reducing map size is a solution to the slowdown. It doesn't solve the problem, it sidesteps it by providing less game.

You're right, of course. But shouldn't people realize that if they want to play a massive game, it might tax their system resources? I know that you are not whining about it, but others are. It seems to me that there are people who don't like the slowdown and can have reasonable discussions about the problem, and there are those who just hate the game and criticize every facet of it.

In this case, maybe Firaxis was acting as a babysitter. Some people complain that the game isn't fast enough, but refuse to play on smaller maps, so Firaxis changes it for them. is this right? probably not, but it can just be changed in the editor.

Further more, did I say that Firaxis solved the time problem? No. I said that firaxis sped up the game. Which is true.

Originally posted by nato Maybe this was the best that could be done, fine. But it is not the same thing as solving the slowdown. BTW I am not whining, I am discussing ... I am generally fine with the speed.

I'm not saying that I like the slowdown or that it doesn't affect me. I'm just saying that people should take some responsibility for themselves.I want to play the huge maps, 16 civs. I understand that that will cause some delay. its requiring a lot of memory to process all of that information. I've run taskmanager while thats going on and it sucks up basically all the free ram i have. And sure, does decreasing the map size solve the problem? no. but I don't know what would? I'm not a programmer, I don't know what it would take to decrease the lag.

Originally posted by nato
I will agree that Firaxis can't win with EVERYONE ... there will always be some people unhappy, through no fault of Firaxis's. However, the game and Firaxis's communication could have been better.

agreed


as this is my third post in a row on this topic, i will stop now. thankyou

[Capt Dizle]

You can't possibly try to take the position that Firaxis didn't lead everyone to expect multiplayer. That is ridiculos.

From an interview given during the development process:

Sid: We're working on a really fun and unique multiplayer concept that we'll talk more about when we're closer to completing it.

Reportedly they are working on it still, but apparently are still not close enough to talk about it (or even admit that they are going to charge the suckers for it).

[notyoueither]

I don't hear too many people complaining about stupid path-finding. Maybe that's because the path-finding implemented is very good, however it takes horse-power. On very large maps the amount of horse-power required is beyond the ability of most 3 year-old computers to accomplish quickly. Firaxis has admitted this. Maybe it would be better if Firaxis changed things to stupid path-finding. Then people would complain about that...

[simwiz2]

"Firaxis did include small and standard maps so that people with older computers can play at a reasonable pace. What is wrong with that?"

Nothing, except 1.21 breaks the game's speed on slower computers EVEN ON A TINY MAP. The game is constantly getting stuck on my units with no moves left, and this happened only rarely in 1.17. It takes almost 10 seconds for it to figure out how to make the roads dissapear after I bombard them, and it takes almost 20 seconds to realize that when a unit has no moves left, its time to go to the next one. 1.21 has completely broken the industrial/modern ages for me. it just becomes so tedious, and no turning autosave off did not help.

Whatever they did, it either drastically increased the demands on the computer, or added a lot of unit-moving bugs. I know this isnt quite the same as the AI turns taking forever, but it is a serious speed problem.