Huge Map & Time Between Turns

[fredcdobbs]

At turn 989 I have 49 cities and 1439 units. This is on a huge map with three continents (one is the size of the other two combined). There are only five civs remaining. The wait between the last few turns has been around seven minutes.
My computer isn't top-of-the-line, but it's not too shabby either. Core 2 Q9450, 9800GTX, four Gig ram, Velociraptor HD, 24" Samsung, and Vista 32.
I can live with the waiting, but it makes playing with more than nine or ten civs impossible. Curious as to other players computers & wait times on huge with at least eight civs.

 

[JeffSteel]

That's why I never go larger than standard, and all those vanilla civ uber-huge earth maps are useless. It is the inevitable fate of any game based on Civ IV, if the game goes long enough.

 

[fredcdobbs]

That's why I never go larger than standard, and all those vanilla civ uber-huge earth maps are useless. It is the inevitable fate of any game based on Civ IV, if the game goes long enough.

I ask the same question about the Giant Earth Map mod. Some of the people said they didn't have any problems with the 18 civs and the massive map. I found that difficult to believe, unless they had some super-computer.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

15 seconds or so? But I don't think I've ever gone past turn 400.

 

[Sarisin]

I play all my games on a Huge Fantasy Realm map which is about 90% land.

I used the default number of civs (11) and play at Epic speed.

I finish about 50% of my games, and the main reason I don't finish is what you mention.

I find it all boils down to the condition of the map as you go along at Epic speed. If the map is rather empty of AI civs, you don't have the long time between turns (or the CTDs and MAFs either). However, as it usually the case, the map is just full of units, cities, etc. and it really slows down.

I haven't had times like yours and my computer is similar in specs to yours. I don't use Hell Terrain and that helps a little, but it is not uncommon for me to have times of 2-3 minutes between turns - and frequent CTDs and MAFs. I find that when the save game hits 1mb that's generally when the trouble starts.

If I am close to a victory, I keep pushing on bored between turns. If not close, I will not muddle through it for a possible time victory.

I know when I start a game with the specs above I am looking at deja vu allover again, but I just really MOST of the game on the huge map rather than reducing the size. I used to play marathon speed, but that was even worse.

The only thing you can do, fred, IMO is reduce the size of your map and number of civs to avoid somewhat what you are getting.

 

[LiDDiS]

They need to multi-thread the CIV engine in a patch.

(as if that would ever happen though )

 

[Thunder_Gr]

I play my games with huge maps. My PC, also a mid-rated one. I also played some marathon games on huge maps close to the 1600 turn or so. I do not remember encountering more than 2-3 minutes delay between turns.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

problem with civ4 is that it came out at a nightmareish time. it needs a damn good processor but it doesn't handle multicores. and since now multicores is all we've got, we're majorly screwed. ( insert random curse words here to express extreme anger )

 

[zup]

The only way to play a huge map is to warmonger from the beginning and never stop. Tasunke is good for that. If you can wipe out 15 of 20 enemy civs, it is more tolerable.

Another way to really finish such a game is go Hyborem and then burn (raze) everything. The barb horde will help you. (When the map goes empty, barbs come back.)

 

[FireBlaze]

I usually never have a horrible problem with the lag inbetween, playing (ungodly) huge maps with like 26 civilizations. But then again, doing crazy stuff like that is why I bought a new computer =D

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

what are your system specs, Fireblaze? and how long do you have to wait in between turns at late-game? IMHO having to wait more than 20 seconds in between turns makes the experience a lot less enjoyable :\

 

[zup]

20 seconds? How low are your expectations? It should take so short a time it feels instantenous.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I have a dual core with each core running at 1.6 Ghz. and since Civ4 only uses one core, it's pretty damn slow

 

[zup]

Well a dual core still has the benefit that you can make one core run windows and the other to run Civ4. Or so I've been told.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

Well a dual core still has the benefit that you can make one core run windows and the other to run Civ4. Or so I've been told.

How can you do that? If someone knows of the way, could he possibly share it with us?

 

[Iceciro]

What kills me is that I have three other cores Civ IV could be using, but instead it only plays around with the one.

Oh, the size of the map I could run if civ used ALL of my cores and ALL of my RAM. Curse you, 32-bit process.

 

[Charlie_B]

I build my PC before multi-core CPUs were commonly available, but it manages to keep an 18 civ Earth map on vanilla playable... just. FFH seems to slow down the game quite a lot (or maybe it's just my PC getting older) so I tend to avoid huge FFH games. I get bored managing a massive empire anyway.
Two tips for those suffering long turn times:

• Save the game and restart. Civ isn't as bad as some apps for memory leak, but it certainly happens and if you're like me and keep your PC on 24/7 a Civ game that's been up for 50 hours is noticeably slower than a new session.
• Drop your graphics settings towards the end of the game. This might not be to everyone's taste, but for me the small drop in quality (seriously, who really needs the cow resource to be animated? ) is much better than lag.

 

[civ_king]

My cousin built mine, It is UBER!!!!! running 30 civs on huge map turn 1000 Bwahahaha and only a 3 sec wait...
P.S. I have 200+ Mages 1000+ Adepts

 

[fredcdobbs]

My cousin built mine, It is UBER!!!!! running 30 civs on huge map turn 1000 Bwahahaha and only a 3 sec wait...
P.S. I have 200+ Mages 1000+ Adepts

Hmmm. Need to see some specs on that system. Do you and the National Security Agency share a computer?

 

[Sezren]

How can you do that? If someone knows of the way, could he possibly share it with us?

That will (sort of) automatically happen. And Windows (at least XP, NT, 2000) does not take away much computation power anyways. Unless it is misconfigured or you are running too much (typically useless) stuff on your computer.