Turns taking forever in late game!

[Sakiar]

After playing civ 4 for some time, I returned to civ 3. I like the fact that you get stronger and stronger economy as you get more and more cities (as opposed to civ 4 where your economy gets weaker when you get more cities, although production raise and economy late game raise too).

However, am I the only one who find it extremely time consuming (and a tad boring) late game? I played a huge map for the first time (usually Standard), at Emperor (usually Demigod, but I wanted a victory after getting pummeled at Deity), and all is good. I am at roughly 1300 AD, spent time teching since enemy got infantry (vs. my cavalry, not so good, plus I lost a against last enemies). I am 1 tech away from Modern Armor (having researched Rocketry and the prerequisite for Modern Armor, cant remember name of tech). Enemy is still at first half of IA, and wont have old tanks before I crush them with my Modern Armor armies.

I got the economic power (for teching at 100% and still have surplus) by scientist farms. I think I got roughly 200-300 cities, according to unit support. I am controlling roughly 35-40% of the map, so victory is certain. However, moving those several hundreds of slaves to irrigate new territory takes forever! also, I dropped the idea to settle new areas simply because its taking too long. In other words, I can use 10-15min a turn simply to move slaves around and build improvements on newly conquered lands, as well as expanding with settlers (10-20 settlers a turn), also I have to micromanage my science farms to get the most out of them.

In other words, I am not in war atm, all cities producing tanks and gathering at one point, but still every 4-turn technology takes me 1+ hour to research because my turns are so slow!

Do people just ignore new science farms and improvements at this stage? (except for HoF ofc.) or do they put workers on automated? I am very tempted to do the latter.

[Cyc]

Yes, it's a little bit too much like real life, huh? Much better to whip out the sword and kill your imaginary friends enemies....

You could always put it to a vote (I assume you've built the UN?) and find out if the way you've treated you fellow earthmates reaps you the benefit of a winning game.

[vmxa]

Well I have no issues with much larger maps than huge and more than 300 cities. The massive slave tasks are a pain though.

I do not waste my energy on making imporvements in towns at that point. Just found them and either slip the lone pop to sci or let them grow unattended. I would only be making units in 3-4 cites as I only want enough to fill armies as I get them and maybe an MP now and then.

Armies will do nearly all the fighting, unless it is an AW with lots civs still alive.

[MysteryX]

You might enjoy playing games on a large map instead of a huge map. I've never played a game managing 300 cities, but it must be ten times worse than managing 30 (and 30 can be a pain).

More than the size of the map is that you get exponentially more units to track through each age. By the time you reach the modern age, your cities are all super-productive, you run out of buildings to build, and there is nothing left but to produce massive stacks of death. If you don't have a plan to win the game before you hit the modern age, have a plan to take one of the peaceful win scenarios in the modern age. The drudgery of moving around 100s of units per turn in a game you know you have in the bag anyway isn't worth it.

I've never played a huge map in Civ because I learned my lesson playing Master of Orion.

[Fiddlin Nero]

Do you have to keep all of your workers busy? Why not just enough to work a single town each turn? I find it a nice pace.

[Bamspeedy]

Originally Posted by Sakiar

Do people just ignore new science farms and improvements at this stage? (except for HoF ofc.) or do they put workers on automated? I am very tempted to do the latter.

If it's not a competition, then yes I sometimes do use shift-A, but only when I'm obviously in control of the game. I hate to do it because the sooner I get everything done, the sooner I can 'get rid of' some of the excess workers to save the unit costs (if they are not slaves).

Originally Posted by Fiddlin Nero

Do you have to keep all of your workers busy? Why not just enough to work a single town each turn? I find it a nice pace.

If I have the workers (not slaves) then they should be doing something or I get rid of them. I don't pay them to sit around (with few exceptions like pollution control or if I know I will need a bunch of them soon such as if I'm about to invade another continent, or I'm just about to get railroads, etc.).

[Verarde]

Turns do seem to be a bit more boring late game. In terms of forever, that depends on how many units the AI has to move around, and how many cities and such there are...so huge maps with loads of AI will take longer compared to tiny maps with 2 or 3 AI.

[Registrar]

I have the same problem playing The Great War - Division. After about the 50th turn my computer cannot handle the game and it freezes. To large a map and to many
units I think. I wonder if a better computer would help? Faster processor and more RAM?

[CommandoBob]

Yes, finding tasks for a bunch of workers/slaves can be a bit of a pain. And then moving them to do that task.

Once my empire has most/all cities connected by rail, I bring all my workers/slaves home to the capital and park them in stacks. I keep the workers and slaves seperated, since it makes allocating units easier. As needed I will wake them and use them, first to help in any military adventures and use any leftovers for interior terrain improvements, which is generally roading, railing and irrigating. Sometimes all the units are used and sometimes not. Every few turns (it varies) I'll cycle through the cities and identify places that need more citizens or specific improvement.

Most of the time, I'll have several groups of improvers in an area, so they will stay in that area doing what they are doing (railing is a good example). At some point it gets too time-consuming to cherry pick where to put rails. Then I will start someplace and just start railing/irrigating, row by row, to get the job done as quickly and brainlessly as possible.

For military help I may allocate some workers to rail to a stack of wounded units, so that they can be shipped to the capital and heal in one turn. But generally I will send most of these workers to the capital, fortify them, and then plan where I want to use them.

I don't automate workers because it slows down the IBT. The game has to decide for each worker what it can/cannot do for each available tile. On a 500MHz machine, which I had at the time, and a huge, pangea map, that greatly lengthened the IBT. So, any unused workers/slaves got fortified. I put them outside cities so that I could find them when I needed them.

It still takes time to give the workers tasks, true. But like you, once I've built up 300 cities I just can't seem to let them stagnate, regardless of how much time it takes.

I also tend to park a lot things around the capital, not just worker/slaves. It is a bit tedious, but I want to know what units I have to work with before I make serious plans for that turn.

[Sakiar]

Originally Posted by Registrar

I have the same problem playing The Great War - Division. After about the 50th turn my computer cannot handle the game and it freezes. To large a map and to many
units I think. I wonder if a better computer would help? Faster processor and more RAM?

Your computer must be quite old then?

[rilnator]

I know the point has already been made, but if you're in such a dominant position do you really need to irrigate?

I find the game gets boring as well. when rockets and modern armour kick in I usually start a new game.

BTW, is there a way you can freeze scientific research so basically so the warmongering stays WW2 style?

[timerover51]

Originally Posted by rilnator

BTW, is there a way you can freeze scientific research so basically so the warmongering stays WW2 style?

The simplest way to do that is simply make all of the Modern Units unbuildable by any civilization. Then you do not have to mess around with the Tech Tree at all. You are not looking at the many units: Modern Armor, Mech Infantry, Radar Artillery, Aegis Cruiser, Nuclear Submarine, Jet Fighter, TOW Infantry, Cruise Missile, Tactical Nuke and ICBM, Modern Paratroops, Mobile SAM, and the Stealth planes. You would have to decide about the Helicopter, as that is marginal for World War 2. You did not have troop-carrying copters until the 1950s, although you could argue that if more effort had been expended prior to World War 2, it would have been possible to deploy some helicopters capable of carrying a squad or so.