Should I reinstall Civ3?

[awckie]

I was so looking forward to CIV 3 and bought it the day it came out, but then uninstalled it about 6 months later

It just runs soooooo slowly on my computer. I can handle a 20 second wait between turns but it was getting to the point of being 1 min+.. Frutrating..

Have any of the patches addressed this problem.

Is it worth it to reinstall? (I'd just do it, but I'm low on hd space so will have to uninstall something to put it back on)

My main problem is that I like big maps, I'm all about expanding!

My computer is a P3 700MZ 192 ram Windows ME Compaq Laptop....

[Harovan]

I played a game on Marla's map with a 350MHz P2 till the industrial age and quit it only, because the turn times got over 15 minutes. But that says only, that I'm a masochist.

The game performance is slightly increased with the patches, but not enough to guarantee turn times of 1 minute or less on every map. So if you find turn times over 1 minute frustrating, you probably should not reinstall the game. Or do it and don't play on large and huge maps. A 700 MHz P3 with 192 MB should do fine on standard and below.

[The Pioneer]

I have a 500Mhz PIII with 700+ RAM, the game plays fine on smaller maps. I usually play huge with 4-8civs and at latter stages the game takes a lot of time! But hey it's Civilization and that's ok

So long...

[fittstim]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I played a game on Marla's map with a 350MHz P2 till the industrial age and quit it only, because the turn times got over 15 minutes. But that says only, that I'm a masochist.

Geez! Only 15 minutes per turn?!? You should be jumping for joy. My turns late in the game run about 2 hours each.

IME, the length of a turn has almost nothing to do with computer speed and almost everything to do with the total number of cities on a map. Everything else that slows down speed is related to the total number of cities.

The map size comes into play because there are (usually) many more cities on huge maps.

The number of units is directly proportional to the number of cities. More cities == more units being produced. More units == more time being spent calculating the least distance travel to any particular spot that the AI wants to send the unit.

The number of things being built and thus the requests for new build orders naturally is related to the number of cities. Try building a harbor or an airport late in the game when you have 511 cities. It'll take (no kidding) at least 15 minutes just for that single improvement to be built (presumably because the program iterates through lists and calculates which cities are now connected to each other with the addition of the new harbor or airport).

In order to speed up the game significantly, you can reduce the number of cities that the AI is interested in building (lower the # of ideal cities in the Editor). The AI usually tries to aim for about ½ of this number. This will increase the unhappiness in your civ as you approach and exceed this number. It's a trade off but you can usually temper this increased unhappiness with other creative use of the Editor.

Another way of reducing the number of cities is raising the number of citizens needed to build a settler to 4 or 5. This will slow down expansion and allow for some weak civs to be destroyed early on. If you raise it to 6 you'll see a lot of settlers coming out of goody huts because the civs can't build settlers until a city has an aqueduct.

[Willem]

Re: Should I reinstall Civ3?

Originally posted by awckie

It just runs soooooo slowly on my computer. I can handle a 20 second wait between turns but it was getting to the point of being 1 min+.. Frutrating..

If you can't handle waiting more than a minute then don't even think about playing Civ ever again. Go get yourself a shoot em up instead, or maybe some Mario Brothers title. With all the computations involved in moving all the units in the game, plus AI build decisions, it will never be a fast game. Even Civ I & II had wait times longer than one minute. The game is clearly not for you, so don't even bother.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by fittstim
Geez! Only 15 minutes per turn?!? You should be jumping for joy. My turns late in the game run about 2 hours each.

I figured, that this would happen to me in the Modern age, and therefor quit soon after Steam power.

[ACooper]

Originally posted by fittstim


Geez! Only 15 minutes per turn?!? You should be jumping for joy. My turns late in the game run about 2 hours each.

How in the world? 2 hours is not a turn, it's a lock-up.

There are ways to speed up your system. start with: Scandisk, defrag, MSConfig (remove all unneeded programs from running at startup), free up as much harddrive space as you can (about 20%), defrag again and of course their are hardware upgrades such as memory and processors, etc.

The #1 thing that has been found is that most people have too many resource used up from backgroud processes (look in your systry, it should be as clean as possible).

Have fun!

[awckie]

Re: Re: Should I reinstall Civ3?

Originally posted by Willem


If you can't handle waiting more than a minute then don't even think about playing Civ ever again. Go get yourself a shoot em up instead, or maybe some Mario Brothers title. Even Civ I & II had wait times longer than one minute. The game is clearly not for you, so don't even bother.

That was nicely condescending

Actually, I never had noticable wait times on Civ 1 or 2. No wait times on Alpha Centauri either. I believe I had some wait times on CTP, but that was on my computer for such a short time, I don't even remeber anymore.

I guess my issue is that I like large maps and lots of expansion! I could limit myself to standard maps and try some of the edits you guys suggested...

[Willem]

Re: Re: Re: Should I reinstall Civ3?

Originally posted by awckie

That was nicely condescending

It was meant to be. Civ is a game that requires patience and planning. It's never been about instant thrills.

Actually, I never had noticable wait times on Civ 1 or 2. No wait times on Alpha Centauri either.

It must have been awhile since you've played, in the end game there was always a delay while the AI did it's thing. Not as bad as Civ III but it was there just the same.

I guess my issue is that I like large maps and lots of expansion!

Yes that would be part of your problem. I'd sugesst you stay away from 362x362 maps then. Even I don't have the patience for that size. I'll settle for 256x256 myself.

And yes, PTW is a bit faster in some ways but not by much. And it's actually slower in other areas.

[Stuie]

Buy more RAM.

I went from 256mb (10+ minutes/turn) to 512mb and I have yet to experience a turn lasting more than 1 minute since the upgrade.

[Stuie]

Oh, and that's playing on a 180x180 map with 24 civs (to start, anyway........).

My processor is slightly faster (AMD 1.1ghz) but I really think it's the RAM that matters for this game.

[asleepathewheel]

Like someone else said, PTW seems to make it go a lot faster. I am playing a map with probably 400 cities, but no slow down in the modern age. Compares very favorably to standard Civ3.

Also, take care of your computer, I disable everything while playing, helps out.


edit: now I realize that Willem says it moves faster in some areas slower in ohters. For me, the turns move faster, but it takes more time to exit the game, i stare at windows for a minute or so before being able to do anything. but the turns themselves seem improved for me.

[Willem]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
now I realize that Willem says it moves faster in some areas slower in ohters. For me, the turns move faster, but it takes more time to exit the game, i stare at windows for a minute or so before being able to do anything. but the turns themselves seem improved for me.

I get annoyed sometimes when I'm waiting for my queue list to finish scrolling down. And the Military Advisor screen is certainly much slower than it was. But at least I don't have to watch every single unit in a stack make an individual move. That's certainly a time saver!

[awckie]

So I cleaned up my lil 7 GB hard drive last night to make room for Civ III. Reinstalled - Patched it & played, & played, & played, & played..

Actually I played until 1:00 AM (& I have an 8-5 job)

I didn't realize how much I missed Civ (My fiancee brought me over to the dark side and I've been playing RTS's for the last year)

I didn't play on anything larger than a standard map and the lag time was pretty nil. I just know I'll be tempted to go huge, and get frustrated..

Now, is it worth it to get PTW, if you aren't planning on any MP games? Are there any enhancements that make it worthwhile for a solo player?

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Willem


I get annoyed sometimes when I'm waiting for my queue list to finish scrolling down. And the Military Advisor screen is certainly much slower than it was. But at least I don't have to watch every single unit in a stack make an individual move. That's certainly a time saver!

Right.
The military advisor is quite annoying to use now. very frustrating. good thing I have that spy, right? even though it takes a minute to see what type of units he has. very frustrating.