GAH!!! Civ3 lags like hell!!!

[Uber_John]

Its driving me crazy. I've chose 15 AI opponents, now its taking at least a minute to finish one turn. I'm wondering if its because there are too many countries around or cities (I'm playing Arpelego map Huge) or something else. This is the first time happening to me cause it never happened to me before I installed the patch.

My specs are;
Pentium 4 1.8Ghz
256 DDR ram

I'm thinking too much opponents, whats a reasonable amount of opponents that wont make my game lag?
By the way is their way to remove some civs in game, like a cheat or a trainer program so I can get rid of the weaker civs thats wasting my memory.

 

[JG99_Korab]

The bigger that map the longer it takes. also the more opponents there are the longer because they have to do their turns too.

 

[Twonky]

There is of course an in-game solution to reduce the number of civs ...
I think the game lag you described is perfectly normal, your hardware is not the problem.
You might want to adjust your preferences (hide enemy moves, uncheck animations and so forth).

 

[Turner]

The algorithm for computing trade routes is very processor intensive. Of course, that's in addition to the longer time IBT with bigger maps and more opponets.

 

[cheesejoff]

Try the Rhye's of Civ mod. it can cut your laoding time 95%. It also adds more unique units, religions, more civs a world map, and more.

Mod found here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=111977&page=1

 

[gmaharriet]

My specs are;
Pentium 4 1.8Ghz
256 DDR ram

I'm thinking too much opponents, whats a reasonable amount of opponents that wont make my game lag?

I have a P4 1.9Ghz and have the same problem running anything on a huge map and it just gets worse as the game progresses. Now I stick to large maps or less and no more than 8 civs (including me) in my games.

 

[Gyathaar]

256MB memory seems a bit low for playing a huge map IMO

 

[Aardvark]

I have a slower chip, but 1 gig memory and I do not see the kind of lag you seem to be experiencing. I have not played against 31 civs, either, though. If you do not have enough memory (and XP uses a lot of it) you get disk thrashing with large data sets - like a large map.

 

[.Shane.]

Just double your mem and you should be good.

 

[Own]

Any game on huge map will be that slow, just go make some coffee inbetween turns .

 

[Theoden]

Weird, your game seems to be as slow as when I had a p3 400mhz playing huge maps. There ought to be a much easier way of improving performance since my current comp, about as good as yours, can run even the largest maps with interturns happening instantanously.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

256MB memory seems a bit low for playing a huge map IMO

Not really - I have 256MB of RAM, and am playing LKendter's WM (I know you are familiar with it). I am on Monarch for a trial run before I move up, and in the Middle Age, turns only take about 2-4 turns in the IT ... even with wars going on. But I wouldn't argue if someone gave me more RAM.

 

[Gyathaar]

Not really - I have 256MB of RAM, and am playing LKendter's WM (I know you are familiar with it). I am on Monarch for a trial run before I move up, and in the Middle Age, turns only take about 2-4 turns in the IT ... even with wars going on. But I wouldn't argue if someone gave me more RAM.

Just wait till the AIs start building rails and airports...

 

[Desertsnow]

1.8 GHz is plenty. Definately upgrade your RAM though.

 

[ScaryRussian]

I've never heard the words lag and Civ3 in the same sentence.

I can't imagine what piece of a carboard box you'd have to have for a computer to have it lag on a 2d game, with almost no graphical effects, no 3d anything, almost no animation, almost no anything in terms of graphics?

 

[Theoden]

I've never heard the words lag and Civ3 in the same sentence.

I can't imagine what piece of a carboard box you'd have to have for a computer to have it lag on a 2d game, with almost no graphical effects, no 3d anything, almost no animation, almost no anything in terms of graphics?

Every time the AI takes a decision it will consider all possibilites (which is lot when moving units along rails) and this can add quite up. Also remember that windows takes about 128ram so if there is 256 on the comp that's only 128 for the game.

 

[Moonsinger]

In addition to what everyone just said, the higher the dificulty level, the longer it will take (since the AIs can easily max out their number of units; Fascism is usually their favorite government; so, they usually have a lot of units). With a Sid game on a huge map against 8 other civs, it usually take about 5 minutes for the computer to move during the industrial age (I have a P4-3.4 GHz with 1 Gig of PC4400 DDR RAM).