Commander Bello
Say No 2 Net Validations
First of all, your advice "why don't you run the game on a truely highend machine" makes you appear quite unmature.ShadowDagger said:First why don't you try playing the game on a truely highend machine. You stated yourself that you do not have one. My machine can handle huge, 18 civ games on highest settings and resolution, and so can many others. I am willing to bet that most people who have a high end machine don't have a problem either. The thing is that the people who do have a problem will be the most vocal and it will seem like everyone has a problem.
Progress has advanced in many more ways than graphics. Sheer processing power just to name one. With games pushing the limits on processing the hardware companies are forced to create faster processors. This is not just mere eye candy but it is performance which is what you are complaining about.
Because you do not understand how the engine runs, it is not an excuse to claim it is poorly programed.
There might be people around who just cannot afford a "real highend machine" just for a game's sake. Many of those people will have a family to provide, and therefore may not have the financial capabilities to buy a "highend machine" each time a new game requires number crunching power for almost nothing.
But, for your information, I am running all my games on modified gigantic maps of 220*140 tiles, minimum, with all 18 nations. This is something my machine can handle quite well with all settings at max, and it gives at least a feeling of an epic game.
I don't like the little sandbox games which are provided by the standard settings. That much to your brilliant machine which obviously prostrates already at huge maps.
But enough about this "but mine is thaaat long" babbling.
Obviously you haven't read the paragraph you've quoted. Regardless of which power your or mine machine may have, there are a lot of values calculated within this game, which seem to be either completely useless, or aren't used properly.
I have mentioned the example of calculating different individual values in diplomacy.
You may terminate trading with nation A and nation B. Both will react differently upon this fact, and this is fine. Yet, in total they may both have a net value of +12 in your favour. Nevertheless, they still will react differently.
I don't complain about their different behaviour, but if the outcome is different, where is the point in calculating the individual values?
And why do AI's gladly accept to go to war against another nation, but for nothing in the world they would stop trading with that same nation?
These have been the questions I have put in my posting you have quoted. Nothing of this has anything to do with pure machine power (and if you would have read more carefully, you would have seen that even if I don't have a highend machine, it will clearly be somewhere in the upper third).
Seems as if all you have intended was to tell the world, how great your computer is. Huge maps with 18 nations. Wow.
Machines like mine do that during breakfast.
For me it looks very much like you haven't understood what this particular game engine does. Sure, it utilizes my machine constantly at around 50% of processor capacity and in the late game it utilizes around 80% of memory (this is RAM, just for your information, not swap file).
But why? Why does it have to render a trillion polygones, which at the chosen camera angle and height never will be displayed?
Why, for all in the world, is it impossible to make messages appear at the same time as the appropriate incident is displayed at the screen?
Why has a modern game to have lags of 5 and more seconds between sound and display of the respective message?
Why is it impossible to make the mouse over tips appear each time? Why do one have to constantly manually update the respective routine?
Why don't those incredible, brilliant and never seen before wonder movies have to stutter, although even a Microsoft MediaPlayer is able to display complete movies without problem?
Why have units to "skate" over the screen, when they are moving more than just one tile? Why have the programmers not been able to create proper routines, as in other games?
This is bad programming, and has nothing to do with lack of processing power.