My civ 4 games last too long! Help!

[estro]

Deleted double post.

[karadoc]

Originally Posted by rah

Isn't that [(ie. simultaneous turns MP)] the default?

Yes, but if playing a single player game in multiplayer mode, I would highly recommend turning simultaneous turns off.

[jordiflor]

Yesterday I finally reached a diplo win with Darius on East Asia map (reported as Large, but I think it is actually Huge), on Normal speed at ~1836. My second Emperor win.
Clock reported 44 hours!!!!! which actually means much more time, at least 50 hours. It has been really exhausting. I normally play Standard maps, but love these realistic maps (Asia, SAmerica, Africa ones).
I will follow tips in this thread and those from old TMIT's one. My health will thank you so much

[rah]

Originally Posted by karadoc

Yes, but if playing a single player game in multiplayer mode, I would highly recommend turning simultaneous turns off.

Now that I know it's an option, I will. But I know what will happen. I'll change it and forget to change it back and it will really confuse some people.

[Antilogic]

Originally Posted by oryx

Set options to quick combat

This significantly dropped my time--the sound effects tell you who won or lost, so I use quick combat for my offense and attacking 20 units in a city becomes a 10-second affair or less.

I tend to leave combat animation on for defense just so I can see the order of attacks and process what is happening. Never felt the need to turn it off.

Originally Posted by TheWilltoAct

Make sure to enable Quick Moves as well, it saves a ton of animation time.

I'm so used to the option that I almost didn't think of it.

While the birds fleeing the forest as your warrior enters is cool the first 100 times you see it, it just wastes your time after that.

[uat2d]

Instead of Marathon Huge games, try Normal Standard games.

Doing this, mine went from 24h games to 8h games.

[TheWilltoAct]

Originally Posted by Antilogic

This significantly dropped my time--the sound effects tell you who won or lost, so I use quick combat for my offense and attacking 20 units in a city becomes a 10-second affair or less.

I tend to leave combat animation on for defense just so I can see the order of attacks and process what is happening. Never felt the need to turn it off.

Good points. I guess leaving combat animations on, even for offense, makes me feel a bit more invested in the outcome. Except that the animations are misleading and repetitive, which makes me extra angry when I lose at 95% odds!

[God-Emperor]

The combat animations would be far more useful if they actually showed some quick little animation for each round of combat indicating what happened. It isn't that complicated as there are only 4 possible combat results in each round (attacker wins round and does damage, attacker won round but defender has a first strike so attacker does no damage, defender wins round and does damage, defender won round but attacker has a first strike so defender does no damage) and withdrawal (either from attacker losing round but making chance or hitting the limit of the damage the unit is allowed to do). The length of the animation would tell you how quickly it was over and you would get a good idea of the damage taken by the winner (or both, in the case of withdrawal).

Why they did not do this, I do not know. As it is, a quick combat that was only 1 round long can show a long pointless animation that makes it seem like it was some epic struggle instead of the slaughter that it was.

[karadoc]

@God-Emperor, I just glanced at some of the code for how this stuff is decided. I can tell you that there is at least a bit of what you described in there already: the number of first-strike rounds is used in the animation. It's particularly noticeable if you have a ranged unit fighting a melee unit - the number of ranged shots fired before they get up close is the number of first-strike rounds.

But apart from that, it's just a semi-random mess with essentially nothing to do with what is reported in the combat log.

Maybe I'll have a go at changing it for K-Mod.

[edit]
One good reason why the animation shouldn't simply mimic the 'actual' combat is that it would take too long. There's usually more than twice as many actual combat round as there are animated combat rounds.

[karadoc]

In case anyone in interested, I did end up changing the orchestration of the combat animations in K-Mod so that more closely reflect the actual underlying combat mechanics. It's still not a blow-for-blow representation, but it's a hell of a lot closer than the original orchestration.

[Ataxerxes]

For really quick games, try an OCC. Even with my mad micromanagement the game still takes under 2 hours.

[History buff33]

Play Civ Rev

[mizzile]

Originally Posted by iggymnrr

Exit the game before going to bed.

Neva, Play the game straight through!!
(Remember the monster energy)

[happyturtle]

Originally Posted by Ataxerxes

For really quick games, try an OCC. Even with my mad micromanagement the game still takes under 2 hours.

I agree completely, and direct readers to the OCC Club links conveniently placed under this post.