Bigger world sizes...Ok, how?

[HPR]

1 grid equals 4 tiles(or what you may want to call it).
(2x2=4).

(ok, Sirian. is that the correct word for it?(tiles).

 

[ShroudedMist]

Well you can think what you want about TBS games. The niche wargame TBS can get away with an outdate look. A modern game put out by a well-known and highly visible production team such as Firaxis, Sid Meier etc is not going to simply ignore the evolving technology and incorporate it into their game. Imagine if Maxis released the next Sim City with Sim2K graphics and merely said in response "well the simulation, formula, and AI is really advanced over SimCityIV". That would be unacceptable to your average consumer shelling out $50 here in 2005 soon to be 2006.

Civilization is a mainstream game my friend. Do you think it continually tops the list of Best Games Ever and isn't considered mainstream? Noone wants to play a sophisticated game full of depth if it has the graphics of NetHack. You might like it but it would flop in the marketplace and thus would be a failure. The fact is CivIV isn't a failure despite you being annoyed with it not meeting your lofty expectations. It's almost guaranteed to sell well and has gotten plenty of positive reviews.

 

[Sirian]

1 grid equals 4 plots(or what you may want to call it).
(2x2=4).

No. One grid cell is four plots wide, four plots tall, sixteen total plots.

 

[HPR]

civ has never been a mainstream game. it has been a "mainstream" in the turnbased category. with other gametypeplayers taking part in the gameplay. but still it has been a turnbased strategyworld, not for the big mainstream market.
and good that you took sim city 4 in your post, because that was a big f*ckup.

as i said 3d is nice, but the turnbased strategymarket isnt a market for 3d. first priority is the ai and gameplay NOT 3d. offcourse 3d and visual effects are nice, but turnbased strategyplayers are alot more demanding then other gamecategory players. in other types of gamecategories you often want something nice to watch,etc. while in turnbased its basicly all about good algoritms(ai,etc),maps,etc. which all takes ALOT of resources in itself.
where 3d is no must at all, but its nice. but its like buying a superluxery car just because it looks good. and then after buying it you realize that you cant handle the loan, because it just costed to much. so you would have to sell out your house etc.
3d is no high requirement in strategy games, gameplay is!. 3d is a bonus(as long as it doesnt cost your "house"(gameplay) to buy that fancy "car"(3d)).

we do agree that civ4 has reached the mainstream market long time ago, through it beeing a very good turnbased strategygame of its time. but the gamestyle is still not that mainstream. adding 3d makes it more mainstream yes. but then the question comes down to if its going to focus on beeing a mainstream game or a turnbased strategygame. (turnbased games do require alot of resources, but thats usually in memory and cpu, without even 3d. add 3d and ....well).

and as you said, it will sell good anyway. but that doesnt justify everything. it has become a brandname loooong time ago, the civ series however havent involved much.(actually the civgames seems to just get more and more incomplete for each release. and thats sad. one should think that when they earn so many millions that they would care about making a game more or less complete).

 

[ShroudedMist]

No, the whole point is that you're sitting here crafting an argument which is so utterly biased that one can't help but conclude that CivIV shouldn't have been done in 3D.

as i said 3d is nice, but the turnbased strategymarket isnt a market for 3d.

Rubbish. People in the RTS arena were arguing the same thing when the conversion to 3D started occurring. The simple fact is that the time of 2D for major titles is over more or less. Get used to it. Maybe you don't appreciate the improved graphics but plenty of people out there do.

On top of all this, do you really think 3D is a larger stress on a game engine operating in turns vs one operating in real-time? Right!

 

[HPR]

you really dont get how turnbased games operates. and yes there are ALOT of users who do NOT appriciate the 3d, when it comes on the cost of the gameplay!.
(everyone likes 3d, its just the cost that is not appriciated).
so yes plenty of ppl like 3d, but even more couldnt care less about 3d when they play the games for its gameplay(strategy!) and not how nice trees blows in the wind,etc.

 

[Adam7Eight]

Well, I have to throw in the towel here. My system just can't handle these larger maps. Even if I raise the values in the .py file by just a couple, it chugs so bad around the time world maps can be traded that I'd rather watch grass grow. I'm a little past half-way through the tech tree in my current game and it's already around 30-50 seconds in between turns, with a crapload of choppiness, with other unexplainable pauses here and there. Hell, sometimes I have to keep hitting the Num Lock key to see if my system froze. Anyways, I've tried adjusting graphics options, clearing cache, doing restarts before loading games... nothing has really helped. Yet, I can run default huge maps all the way through without any problems. I find it a little odd, that performance drops like a rock just by raising the map size up a notch or two from huge...

Athlon64 3400+
GeForce 6800 Ultra
1GB Corsair XMS PC3200 DDR400 RAM

I've thought about adding more RAM, but I'm not sure the cost right now would be worth the gain (if any). Besides, if I throw any money at a PC, it's gonna be the next one I build when the new generation of video cards come out.

 

[Fenryial]

Im playing now on a 22000 plot map and it works ok so far. Ive played around 300 turns so far. This size loads ok but if its any little bit larger it crashes a lot at load time. So Ive been keeping it here. I havent had much lag but Ive only played 4 AI's so far. But what Low was saying is true, why when making a map just a tad larger than default HUGE it slows by a HUGE noticable way. Im running which may help for the lag anyways
AMD FX57
Geoforce 7800GTX
2GB OCZ PC3200 Titanium

You think it wouldnt lag at all!

Fenryial

 

[zizziz]

fantastic post. how do you "save" posts so i never forget how to find this again?

 

[VaporStrike]

Can I necro this post? Because I would like some help with this. I can't find a guide anywhere else for larger maps, and this one no longer works. Heck, one of the files you needed to edit doesn't even exist anymore. Does anyone know how to create bigger maps? Or am I doomed to small, low-AI-count games?

 

[The Snug]

Hey there, you can actually just use a map script to override map sizes. My favorite is smartmap. I play maps that are 160+x160+ with 50 civs

 

[isenchine]

or read this thread.

What is the file that does not exist anymore?

Edit: in particular, look at the signature of the last guy who posted in this thread, Kjotleik of Norway.

 

[VaporStrike]

Ah, cool, thanks guys!

Also, it's the "CIV4GameText_Help.xml" file that's not in my game files anymore. So I tried to just do it with all the other files and it didn't work.

 

[isenchine]

CIV4GameText_Help.xml is still there as a vanilla file in the Sid Meier's Civilization 4/Assets/XML/Text folder. It is still loaded when you play BtS.

Anyway, it's just a text file, it could not prevent you from doing what is explained in this thread. Besides, all the text tags can be in whatever text file. You can even create one by copying the structure of a text file, have only one entry in it and call the file VaporStrikeText.xml, as long as you place it in the Text folder, it will be loaded.

 

[VaporStrike]

Ah, no, I see now. This is probably also the reason for all my CTDs. Steam missed downloading some files, and that was one of them.

 

[The Mad Monk]

If there are world sizes you've not using, you can just appropriate them and fill in suitable numbers -- my "duel" setting is at 50*80.

 

[evmcmunn]

this is old post but i looked at the instructions and they fit but it is not in the wordpad or whatever I use that works, is that why? Anyone have a method they use today that works, trust me, just editing "igridwidth/height" isnt working.

 

[Reg Pither]

I'm having trouble, too. Just altering those values does nothing for my Huge maps, they're still the same size with 96 tiles height every time (yes, I've counted them). I've tried in the Vanilla Civ4 Assets folder, and in the BTS Assets folder, neither makes any difference.