Turn end slowdown - completely gone, or still present in multiplayer?

Hello all,

First off, I didn't want to post this in technical support since I'm not looking for support so much as just gathering data on the subject.

So, here's my situation. I usually play multiplayer with a small group of friends and have only been able to get together with one of them since the patch. We were originally overjoyed at the promise of significantly decreased time between turns and feel that the patch has really delivered in single player, but find that in multiplayer turn time has not been decreased much at all since the previous patch.

We've played about five games which we've actually quit pre-infantry - some pre rifling - because the turn times reach up to or over five minutes between turns. We've played exclusively on continents or small continents, huge map initially but downsized to large map size with max supported civs and default city states. Turns go at a reasonable rate (well under a minute, mostly under 30 seconds) before the world has been explored by one of us, and then the game starts chugging horribly - as in, turns start taking between 3 and 6 minutes - once we start to discover the rest of the world. We usually quit after a half hour or so of this, and have never made it to infantry yet.

We've tried reloading the game, restarting Civ, and re-installing Civ, and of course, starting new games on progressively less intensive settings. So far, we're down to large at slightly less than maximum civs and we're still getting horrible slowdown at around the same period.

Here's the thing though - I initially thought it might be his hardware (he only has 4 gigs of RAM) but he's playing single player games on fully loaded huge maps with under 30 seconds slowdown and he's fighting wars with infantry. Same deal for me, running an Asus G73 laptop with 8 gigs of RAM.

What I'm wanting to know is, what are your experiences with turn time in multiplayer? And specifically what I'm trying to figure out is, was the turn-time reduction of the last patch basically single player only? If others are having this problem as well, have the devs not completely solved the stupidly-long turn time issue?

I've considered that it might be our connections, but, we both play FPS's with very solid latency, and both have broadband connections that cap out at over 1 MB/S download rates.

And just to to give a tl/dr reiteration... Computers that run the game fine singleplayer on huge maps are suffering *tremendous* slowdown in multiplayer on large maps. Did the last patch only fix turn time delay in single player? Can anyone corroborate my experiences in multiplayer on larger maps at a period past when you've started to explore the world with astronomy ships?

PS - his stats... Intel Core i5 CPU, GEforce 9800 GT 512 MB GDDR3, 4 GBs DDR3 RAM. I'm on an Asus G73 laptop, 8 GBs Ram, Intel Core i7 CPU, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870. If the mods feel this should be moved to tech support, fine - but I'm not sure it should be, since I'm more looking to see whether this is an issue others are having rather than looking for actual technical support.

All players should have a good computer(dual core at least, quad core prefered) and a good connection first.

I found some games better than pre-patch. Fastest so far. If players take the whole time for later turns, they are incredibly slow.

Playing with local opponents helps too.

For 6 players or under it's usually fine. For 8 players and more, unfortunately not.

Tabarnak, first off, thanks for the response. I'll keep that stuff in mind.

In my current situation, we have two computers which run the game reasonably to the bitter end in huge, fully loaded single player games and net connections with solid latency and download rates, but our multiplayer games start chugging horribly in the later game. That's even with smaller maps and fewer CPU's than our computers run fine in single player.

Are the rest of you not having this problem when you play big-map multiplayer? Late game, are you all running it just fine? I just want to know whether it's Firaxis coding or whether the problem is on our end...

So, anyone else having this experience? Please feel free to just pitch in if your large-game multiplayer experience isn't marred by late game slowdown like mine is. That'd be very helpful.

Sorry i can't help you for large maps because the largest i played in multi is standard(8 players). So hard to start and play many turns with 8 humans that i can't even know if 10 or 12 people is possible!

Let me know if you found something related to larger maps and possibly working.

Yeah, I'll let you know. At this point, I just want to know - is anyone out there even playing larger maps with human players, preferably on epic or higher speed? It's a huge time investment which is part of why I only play with people I know.

So yeah, can anyone comment if they have any experience playing large/huge maps in multiplayer? Do you notice significant between-turn in the latter game? Anyone? Please? I just want to know whether this is an issue Firaxis has to look at or it's something to do with hardware.

I am playing a huge pangaea map with a friend with the latest patch and the turn times are about 3-5 minutes after 100 turns. The host will finish loading the turn in a minute or two, then he can see the next turn but cannot move any units until the other player has finish loading. This leads me to believe that it is not calculations that are causing the slowdowns, but rather poor netcoding which tries to send data in a fragmented fashion.

My friend and I both have superior computers and good internet connections. In my experience the turn times are exponential in proportion to map size and number of civs.

Thank you Esci - that's exactly what I was curious to hear. It seemed like it was a netcode issue rather than a hardware issue, but hearing someone else confirm it is good. Actually, your description of the host finishing loading but being unable to move another for several more minutes is precisely what's happening to me.

Anyone else noticing the same things? I'm suspecting this is a legitimate issue which I hope they'll address in a future patch. It's all good and find to reduce turn time drastically in some game modes, but multiplayer could obviously use it as well - and since a multiplayer patch has to be coming sooner or later, it's an issue I hope they deal with in said patch...

Final bump. Can anyone else confirm or deny the turn end slowdown in late game multiplayer on large/huge maps? Would be hugely appreciated before I think about putting this in the issues thread...

I play in a regular 5 player game, and we have definately seen an improvement in turn times, but it is not as much as we had hoped. It still struggles pretty badly from around turn 250 on making the game nearly unplayable.

I have been playing Multiplayer teams with my brother. Us vs 4 different teams of two computer players, and the turn time is still horrible. It is alright for the first hundred or so turns, but it slows down to about 5 minutes between turns by turn 200 or so.

I do really enjoy the economy changes in the new patch, but sadly the game slows down to the point where we can't really finish a match, do to turn end times.

Thanks a ton for the feedback guys. I'll be working on a few posts for issues threads here and at 2K and such. Hopefully this is an issue they deal with in the inevitable (I hope) multiplayer patch.