Dissapointing quote

[MeteorPunch]

On the GameSpot long video, Soren said something about the engine getting bogged down if there were too many units. What's up with that? Will there be a certain amount you can have at one time or is it that too many different unit types bogs it down? Either way, seems like the engine will be a problem for weaker computers.

He mentioned this as part of the reason there is less units.

 

[dc82]

yeah, with the whole 3d engine, a globe view, and animation everywhere it's a lot harder to support numerous diff. units all at once.

 

[Darwin420]

Time to build those new computers, everyone. Let the fun begin!!

 

[Arathorn]

He didn't say the computer bogged down...he said the game bogged down. I think we've all experienced the "move 300 units every turn" end-of-game drag and aren't too fond of it. I certainly took the quote to mean that type of bog down, not a computer overwhelmed bog-down. Human bog.

Arathorn

 

[MeteorPunch]

I just don't want it to affect gameplay. On a standard map with 300-400 units, my computer runs civ III fine. I wouldn't want to be limited in the amount of units available or something silly. I'm just thowing a possibility out there because we won't really know everything until it's released.

 

[stormbind]

On the GameSpot long video, Soren said something about the engine getting bogged down if there were too many units. What's up with that? Will there be a certain amount you can have at one time or is it that too many different unit types bogs it down? Either way, seems like the engine will be a problem for weaker computers.

He mentioned this as part of the reason there is less units.

Why not use clipping?

 

[stormbind]

Human bog.

Arathorn

Maybe you have to be British to understand that a bog is a toilet?

 

[warpstorm]

Why not use clipping?

You may still have to "touch" each one every animation frame. Even if they are out of the frustum (there are kinda fast ways to determine this, but it still involves math) and don't need to be sent to the renderer, they may need some minor animation loving so that they look right when they finally are on screen.

In addition (and more importantly), if you are zoomed way out, everything is on screen i.e. they all need done. The engine has to assume that this is the case, as it may very well be.

 

[stormbind]

Why not merge units (and reduce polygon count) where applicable?

You might have 3x archer units on the same tile, but when the game gets too big it could auto-merge them into 1x archer unit with increased stats - and it would not bother you because you have a squizzilion too many units anyway

 

[Horus Kol]

waiting for those 50 or so Babylonian cavalry to make their way through my territory takes long enough - i start reading between turns when I get in to the last 500 years of the game.

 

[MeteorPunch]

waiting for those 50 or so Babylonian cavalry to make their way through my territory takes long enough - i start reading between turns when I get in to the last 500 years of the game.

hold down "shift."

 

[ThePrankMonkey]

caps lock button for the win!

 

[Horus Kol]

yeah... i just discovered "shift" last night - i was amazed... I've been playing CivIII from day 1 and never found it before.