@Glider1
I am particularly interested in knowing if you experience any MAFs. I mean 28 civs on a huge terra and already beyond 2000, even with 2GB it seems pron to MAFing. By the way, do you toss in VD for flavor or do you go with plain BTS + RevolutionDCM.
I've been contemplating the idea of turning off time limit along with domination, and culture victories on a huge terra map. I just don't wonna invest in such game if MAFs would make it impossible at some moment to keep going.
By MAF I had to think for a moment. I think you mean disk fragging and not "Mass Air Flow" which I get too
I think the trick is to have plenty of graphics memory. I run this game I've been playing for the last two months between two different computers. On the XP box the graphics card has 512MB of dedicated memory. Thus the 2G system memory handles disk swapping pretty well. You are right that it does take a huge chunk of memory and the game takes up to five minutes to load initially. However once loaded, it swaps to the desktop back and forth real nice. On the Vista x64 box the graphics card has only 256MB of dedicated RAM and so part of the rest is shared with system memory. However the disk swapping algorithms in Vista x64 are noticeably more efficient and so halving the graphics memory has no effect. All in all it's really stable so long as you turn off certain DCM components known to be volatile.
I was "incorrect" last post on time between turns in the 21st century. It can be highly variable but seems to be in the region of 2-6 minutes per turn on a core duo. Now that's not bad at all considering that on normal speed, the detail per turn is so high that during a war, I'm easily spending 45 minutes on a single turn dealing with all the various issues...
As for the late game, it is a hell of a lot of fun most definitely if you have colonised and are running DCM. Dale's work like fighter engagement add to the tactics. Strategically, it is really hard to hold a big colony abroad because of various civil instabilities combined with conquered leaders that re-emerge in unstable regions in the new world. What also is cool is that inevitably, the minor civ that was inhabiting the fertile temperate regions of the new world before you arrived, if not quickly *removed* expand rapidly and become a major player in the new world. They tend to fall under your radar because their growth is so meteoric that you imagine they can't be competition...but on aggressive ai.....they are.
Also, the minor civs that become full blown in the new world, can actually fight each other for a while until they sense that you are stealing a lot of territory from them as a coloniser, and they will stop warring each other and begin to cooperatively harass the coloniser. In my game now I am facing a situation where Hatshepsut and Napoleon were fighting it out big time in the new world. I propped up the weaker party Napoleon to maintain the status quo so that I could continue colonising in peace after having conquered Japan there. However now Hatshepsut and Napoleon have made up, Hatshepsut has invaded me big time and Napoleon is harrassing me psychologically threatening to DOW. Simultaneously, the conquered leader Toku keeps re-emerging in unstable regions of the new world, and whenever he does so, my colonised population cheer for him behind closed doors, whenever I turn my back on them.....
There is still a lot of fun late game but you are completely correct to say that crashes and computer slowdowns would be a big kill joy. I recommend a 512MB graphics card on XP combined with 2G ram and a Core Duo processor. That should keep the monkey off one's back so long as you never ever entertain the idea that such a computer would be adequate for CIV 5 if that were ever to emerge.....
As for the late game monkey on your back, there is one other issue. Obsession. To control the deep immersive psychological split with reality that one faces playing civ and restrict game hours to just an hour or so a day, you have to take notes. I run notepad in the background and record the "history" of the game as it unfolds. This way I get a sense of continuity in my mind which is nothing more than a psychological "trick" that I use that gives me the ability to stop playing for the day or night and get on with the real world, feeling that there is a thread between one game session and the next that I can let go of...However that notepad narrative "thread" is already up to three thousand words in only one game!
Cheers.
PS) Yeah I've thought about turning off domination victory too. However under Revolutions, it's very difficult for an AI to pull off a domi victory so it's not an issue. A human can achieve it though even with Revolutions running. At some point your people love you for all that conquering
I've never contemplated turning off culture wins, because if an AI actually does win by culture on aggressive ai, as far as I'm concerned they deserve it!