WOTM 04: Octavian (Augustus Caesar), The First Roman Emperorhttp://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/wotm04civ.jpg

This game MUST be played in Warlords patch version 2.08. We will NOT accept any games played under any other patch versions, and you can't play it in vanilla (plain) Civilization4!

Further, it MUST be played using the HOF mod version 2.08.003 for Warlords (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mods/HOF-2.08.003.exe).



Game settings:
Civilization: Rome (Leader: Octavian (Augustus Caesar); Traits: Creative & Organized)
Rivals: 6
Difficulty: Emperor (Augustus was the first Emperor after all..)
Map: Fractal (pangea-like)
Mapsize: Standard, cylindrical
Climate: Temperate
Water level: Low
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: marathon
Victory Conditions: all enabled
Other settings: all standard settings (unchecked)


Augustus Caesar:
Augustus is Creative and Organized; starting with fishing and mining. Creative gives +2 culture in all cities without any improvements, and gives double production on libraries, theatres and collosseums. Organized reduces civic upkeeps to half, and gives double production on lighthouses, courthouses and factories. The two bolded buildings received the double production with 2.08 patch.

Unique unit: Praetorian (iron working)
The Praetorian replaces the swordsman. The Praetorian looses the +10% city attack bonus swordsmen has, and they cost more (90 hammers instead of 80 hammers on marathon speed), however their strength is 8 instead of the 6 of swordsmen, and you can keep building praetorians untill you discover rifling (instead of civil service for normal swordsmen)

Unique building: Forum (currency)
The Forum replaces the normal market. It has same effects as the normal market, but in addition gives +25% great people points in the city where it has been constructed.

The starting screenshot is here (Click for larger version)
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/wotm04small.jpg (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/wotm04large.jpg)

Adventurer Class bonuses:
Start with a worker and an archer.
Start with knowledge of The Wheel.

Challenger Class Equalizers:
Start without the starting warrior

Since this game will go over the holiday season and it is on marathon speed, you will have 7 weeks to complete the game.
(WOTM5 will still start on Jan. 15th 2007)

Finally a quick note about the latest HOF mod.. the most notable change here is that barbarian spears and galleys will spawn in the fog of war. Check the change notes for details of other changes (either on the HOF mod download page (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php) or in the readme file that is found in the HOF mod dir after you have installed it)

>>Go to the download page HERE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/index.php?month=60004).

wow, not even stickied yet :D

here I come, red ambulance award! Either that or my first military win in the GOTM

Praetorians, present yourselves in rows of 10! :)

ohhh I get home form work and it's time to play!!:king:

Oooh, and I've not even finished GOTM13 yet. I guess this one can wait a few days, much as I'd desparately love to know whether there's a cottageable river to the North and where the iron is. (How worked up can you get over the value of a couple of memory locations in a computer file...?)

*yawn* damn you and your WOTM. It's my first on,e and without giving out any spoilers, I was up from when I got home from work at 2:30am till 7am last night playing it.

I was up from when I got home from work at 2:30am till 7am last night playing it.

Home from work at 2.30am??????? What on Earth do you do for a living?

I got a problem:
I has to reinstall from scratch (win XP and so on), then the GAMES.

not all options was OK (i has not set language to english, forgot to modify the INI file, to set the HOF) - now they are.

When i discovered a tech, i took a SS to plan the cities placement in a graphic app, in the meantime some people came here and i closed forgetting to save.

The problem is: my last turn (see from autolog) is 3055 BC, my last autosave is 3040 BC.

My in-game activities were close to nothing, and probably i can repeat exactly anything.

I'd like to have a confirmation the game is (or not) valid.
I promise i'll pay more attention after a system reset.

Two side notes: i forgot how terrible is the official civ4 italian translation, and the HOF is all in english (perhaps 'cause i already have vanilla set to english?).

The problem is: my last turn (see from autolog) is 3055 BC, my last autosave is 3040 BC.

My in-game activities were close to nothing, and probably i can repeat exactly anything.
How many turns is this? 3? (I'm not familiar with Marathon)

Normally, we could not accept this. If you have the autolog log and can play them exactly, then we can verify it and allow you to submit it.

Note to others: The general rule is no replaying. If you have an issue like this, then please PM us for guidance - don't assume that its OK.

How many turns is this? 3? (I'm not familiar with Marathon)

Normally, we could not accept this. If you have the autolog log and can play them exactly, then we can verify it and allow you to submit it.

Thanks for the answer, and sorry to bother :blush:

i was duped by the reverse count of BC years, the last saved turn is 3100, and the SS was took in 3055 (the turn i exit game).
i can see from the SS where the warrior is, anyway he's in the way home, so no map revealed.
The autolog is empty for those turns, apart the completed tech.
If it can help i can PM you the SS in 3055BC.

I can confirm they are 3 turns, and despite this i was NOT able to repeat the same moves:
my warrior was (last autosave) on a hill, with a long row of forests to back home... i let him just follow the row east, but he was attacked (and won) by a lion, but this doesn't happened in the previous attempt.
I don't remember if i moved him NE-SE-E instead of E-E-E, anyway i did nothing (consciously) to change events... i hope this not invalidate my game.

Useless to say, i've changed the .ini to save every turn.

Edit2:
i've play the game, but don't worry i'll won't submit this time:
some stupid mistakes droven me to let it go... i'm in pretty good shape, but definitely not to have a good score, if not to loose the game.
I'll take more care next time, and i'll be less lazy (speaking of the game itself).
So i deserve it.

It's 1 turn.

Heh yeah i did something simelear lastg gotm, and didnt report the game bacause of this. This time im taking great care of making sure autosave is on. (I turn it off for mp games to fastmove a tiny bit faster)

Home from work at 2.30am??????? What on Earth do you do for a living?

I deal cards at a casino, I'm usually home later but I didn't stay after for a drink because I was too tired. lol

The download site is stating that the saves are not available. I tried all three versions and get the same statement.

Sorry, now fixed. :blush: It was a bug I added as a bonus when I made the Worldbuilder saves downloadable :p

I deal cards at a casino, I'm usually home later but I didn't stay after for a drink because I was too tired. lol

:lol: That's neat!

This sounds like a good one! Romans are my preferance! But I hate to see that there is so much water around. That implies we have to focus on water techs and taht means bye bye great piramids.

What are the biggest dificulties on Emperor level?

Can someone give me some advice. I went and downloaded the HOF patch. Then I went and downloaded the WOTM 04 and I get the following when it tries to run.

Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library

Runtime Error?

Program: ‘’’mes\SidMeier’s Civilization 4\Warlords\Civ4Warlords.exe

This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
Please contact the application’s support team for more information.


Any suggestions?

do you have the warlords 2.08 patch installed?

do you have the warlords 2.08 patch installed?

Thrallia,

Thank you. That did the trick. I didn't realize that I had never installed that patch.:D

I'm only a few turns from a diplomatic loss in the latest GOTM! I hope I win green ambulance! :D

Let's see what I can do with this baby, since my ability to play SG's is hampered at the moment.

Adventurer Class bonuses:
Start with a worker and an archer.
Start with knowledge of The Wheel.

Challenger Class Equalizers:
Start without the starting warrior


As a WOTM newbie what do these two settings mean?? Do I have to set them up somewhere??

Thanks..
I

As a WOTM newbie what do these two settings mean?? Do I have to set them up somewhere??

Thanks..
I
There are 3 different starting saves.. check the game release page (linked in the first post) for more info.

Can anyone post some of the characteristics of marathon speed? I dont know any...

they can be found in the WOTM4 pre-game discussion thread

I have a problem! :run:

I'm in the mid to late game now and I am experiencing a lot of slowdown after 10-15 turns of loading up a save. Eventually it gets to a point where cycling from one city/unit to the next takes about 30 seconds. Obviously, this is not ideal!

I have discovered a solution to my problem is to save the game, quit, then restart and reload. This will last me for another 10-15 turns. This leads me to believe i am experiencing a memory leak. I have never experienced this before, but then again i never play marathon speed.

Question - Am I going to be disqualified/slapped for these 10-15 turn sessions? If so, I need to start figuring out some sort of fix to this before I start playing again.

Question - Am I going to be disqualified/slapped for these 10-15 turn sessions? If so, I need to start figuring out some sort of fix to this before I start playing again.

Short answer: No, as long as there's no replaying.

Long answer: 10 to 15 turns per session has never caused a problem in GOTMs, particularly during intense phases of the game.

However, it would be interesting to investigate whether this is peculiar to your system or a general problem. If you email a copy of your save at the stage where this is happening to alanh <at> civfanatics <dot> net, then I'll see if I can find someone to look at it. Meanwhile, please carry on.

However, it would be interesting to investigate whether this is peculiar to your system or a general problem. If you email a copy of your save at the stage where this is happening to alanh <at> civfanatics <dot> net, then I'll see if I can find someone to look at it. Meanwhile, please carry on.
From what I have seen this is a general problem for people who has low amounts of computer memory compared to what the particular game require.. the slowdown happens when civ4 no longer totally fits in memory and has to start using the swap file.

If it is low memory, then it's easily and cheaply fixed. More memory is a cure for many ills, and is the cheapest upgrade you can buy for your PC.

I have 768Mb RAM which i believe is more than the recommended.

However, I have recently read testimonies that people upgrading from 1 Gb to 2 Gb are experiencing significant improvements in late-game huge maps. So maybe the recommended memory specified on the box is not sufficient?

I am going to treat myself to a new computer in a month or so for my birthday so i'm not sure I want to buy another a gig just to tie me over for a month. I'll just wait.

Anyway thanks for your offer Alan. Next time I play I'll send you my save. If you manage to find somebody willing to take a look that would be great.

yeah...the amount of memory the box asks for is sufficient most of the time....but Firaxis didn't do all the testing that they should have. They got the game into great shape, but it had lots of memory issues that have mostly been fixed since then(patch 1.52 and 1.61 got rid of most of the problems) but there is still massive slowdown sometimes even on computers with more than the recommended memory because of the way Civ4 accesses your memory.

*note* All this is from what I've gathered from what I'm told..even though I am told I'm a computer programmer, I don't know C well enough to tell if that is really the reason.

FWIW almost ever since I had Civ, I've been playing with similar problems to those reported by chunkymonkey (though not as bad). The symptons, and the way they are partially relieved by restarting, suggests to me that there is a memory leak. (I've also noticed that if I'm playing in windowed mode, exiting by closing the window doesn't work nearly as well as exiting by telling the game to return to the desktop, which suggests to me that someone at Firaxis forgot to implement a handler for WM_CLOSING (or whatever the message is called). :)

I've recently bought a new computer (WOTM04=first full game being played on it), and it's great being able to play smoothly for the first time: Seeing the scrolling work instantly and without any juddering, being able to watch wonder movies without the risk of hanging, etc. I'm slightly surprised though to note that even on this spanking new mid-range machine, Civ still often hangs for a few seconds, usually in the middle of some obviously graphics-intensive thing, like a unit moving.

I definitely hope that in Civ5, Firaxis focuses on improving the gameplay and user interface and that they don't try to 'improve' the graphics :)

I would prefer they hire Harkonnen to help out with their memory usage on Civ5...and then they can do what they know how to do, which is make a good game :)

oh yeah...and hire Blake to do the AI

I don't believe Civ IV/Warlords has significant memory leak issues.

Loading WOTM4 (date unspecified, but BC) takes about 250 megabytes of real memory, and 300 megabytes of virtual memory.

Loading GOTM12 shortly before my domination victory in 1940 something, takes 330 megabytes of real memory, and 420 megabytes of virtual memory.

In either case, Chunky, these numbers are more than enough to push your PC to the edge, depending on whatever else you have open in your process list. The operating system and virus checker alone probably run you at least 250 megabytes more real memory.

Basically, this game demands ram and a properly set pagefile. It's just plain BIG.

Harkonnen's fix dealt with video card memory usage issues that showed up as virtual memory issues. Post Civ IV v1_52, it is no longer necessary.

Buy more RAM. It's good for you. ;)

For example, a pair of 512mb modules, Kingston ValueRAM 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141423) will cost you $99.99 + shipping from Newegg.

At that price, consider getting two. :D

Also consider a 256 megabyte video card. Civ IV ran a lot better for me when I upgraded to that from a 128 megabyte card.

The GIGABYTE GV-NX76T256D-RH GeForce 7600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814125025) works well for me. Similar products are available for AGP.

it did have a memory usage issue at first, ewokimpi...because it would take more memory the longer you played, but wouldn't give back the memory it didn't need anymore...it also used to assume(from harkonenn's conclusions, not mine) that your computer had a set amount of RAM based on your CPU, not on your actual system specs(I believe he said it assumed 1GB of RAM if you were using a P4, 512 if you were using an athlon or celeron).

besides, I'm not sure a program is supposed to use virtual memory unless your computer is out of actual memory, as virtual memory is slower.

Try rebooting the computer before you start playing. I only get these memory problems, I have recently noticed, if I have run some MS programs first, like MS Word and IE Explorer.
My guess is that these programs keep claiming memory, or the memory is not properly freed, after they have been closed.
Fresh on a rebooted computer, the game runs fine and keeps running fine on my 256 MB.

besides, I'm not sure a program is supposed to use virtual memory unless your computer is out of actual memory, as virtual memory is slower.

Key Alt-Ctrl-Del to open Windows Task Manager and select the Processes Tab. In the View menu, in the Select Columns option, check on Virtual Memory Size.

As you will see, every application in Windows XP uses virtual memory.

Keep the Task Manager open while running Civ IV/Warlords and you can measure the memory and other system resources allocated to the game over time.

Oh, and if you use FireFox, watch THAT memory hog. It's something else!

Try rebooting the computer before you start playing. I only get these memory problems, I have recently noticed, if I have run some MS programs first, like MS Word and IE Explorer.
My guess is that these programs keep claiming memory, or the memory is not properly freed, after they have been closed.
Fresh on a rebooted computer, the game runs fine and keeps running fine on my 256 MB.

Sadly not for me. I essentially use my new computer only to run civ (as I haven't yet got round to installing much else useful on it), and it still has problems.

Sadly not for me. I essentially use my new computer only to run civ (as I haven't yet got round to installing much else useful on it), and it still has problems.

Dynamic, what are the specs of your new computer?

Specifically, the processor name, amount of main memory, video card/video subsystem name. For example, my main computer has an Athlon X2 Dual core 4400+ processor, 2gig of main memory, and a separate video card, which has a nVidia 7600GT chip. That is the level of detail I'm looking for.

:) Just trying to be helpful. Sometimes a simple change can make a huge difference.

If you like, PM me on this, we kinda got the thread hijacked here.

Since the tech discussion is going strong despite the topic hijack, I'll add this here.

My HP notebook has a Turion 64 X2 (1.8 GHz + 1 MB cache), 2 GB ram, and nVidia GeForce Go 7200 (which I was told had dedicated video memory but now I am reading that it uses up to 256 of shared memory, which may explain the video freeze problems - "thread stuck in device driver" - I had in GOTM 11 and 13 and may mean it was not really a driver issue).

I observe some slight slowing of response in late huge games even with this much RAM, and yes, a reboot improves it.

On the video, the source I am reading http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=74493 says that the 7200 is rather weak for games (no wonder the box was so affordable). But, if I go to the low graphics settings in Civ 4, it seems to be performing well so far, even in the big games.

So I am sure that extra memory will help, but I suspect if the game gets big enough (there must have been 1000 units in play across all civs in GOTM 13), some slowing may still occur.

And for those experiencing video limitations, set the graphics items on the left side of the screen to low, it automatically selects the lowest settings for the itemized list on the right (graphics tab in options), and see if that helps (if you have not already).

dV

So I am sure that extra memory will help, but I suspect if the game gets big enough (there must have been 1000 units in play across all civs in GOTM 13), some slowing may still occur.

I don't think 1000 units would impact the graphics card at all, since only a few units get displayed. Away from the graphics card, the memory required to store the units is pretty low too - you should easily be able to store all details of an unnamed unit in about 10-12 words [1][2] (assuming it the game uses words internally, 10-20 bytes if the programmers took the trouble to use bytes instead), but even if it was say 100 bytes, that's 100K total memory, which ISTM is negligible. So I suspect slowing in late game is due to CPU time; if the game is vaguely sensible and tries to coordinate unit movements, then the time to calculate unit moves will grow substantially faster than the number of units (I wouldn't be surprised if it was something like (no. of units) squared). Of course it could be a memory issue if the algorithm to calculate moves is really greedy on memory.

[1] on the 1 word = 32 bits = 4 bytes definition

[2] offhand, I would guess the minimum, assuming word as the basic storage unit and without doing too much compression, is:

One word each for the x-and y- coordinates of the location
One word for the type of unit (this could be a pointer to the static information for that unit type)
One floating point number (1 word?) for the strength
One word for a pointer to the unit's name if there is one. This'll be null in almost all cases.
One word to indicate if a warlord is attached to the unit.
1-2 words for the promotions, if stored as bitwise flags.
One word for remaining movement points.
One word to indicate if fortified/healing/on sentry duty/on a boat/etc.
One word to indicate how many turns fortified.
One word to indicate nationality (may not be necessary, depending how units are accessed)
Possibly one word in a list of units on that tile, if the game does that.


Air units would need slightly different info, and boat units might also have pointers to the units aboard them.

(No doubt someone who's actually looked at the SDK would be able to say more precisely what the storage requirements are)

There were some issues associated with (number of units)^2 performance in earlier versions of Civ4. I think those have been fixed, though. Also, I wouldn't really expect them to go away when the game is saved, exited, and reloaded.

Perhaps there are some other kinds of issues. E.g., there's space allocated for units that don't exist any more, but, the program still spends time checking that those nonexistent units don't affect play. Saving and reloading could eliminate them from the system. Just a guess, really.