Kudos or Flames to GOTM17

[hbdragon88]

I've just timed the lag, and it sucks. 25 seconds - at a 256MB RAM, 1.3 GhZ processor. I've found myself obsessing over grammar and spelling in my qsc, which I never do - and adding more and more to halt the boredom. There are three to four new sections I added from my previous qsc.

Too much writing...

 

[LKendter]

I voted in the undecided category, and almost went for the Love it! Unlike GOTM#16 I know to expect the unexpected.


To improve it to love it:
1) Don't bury the save location in the documentation. I download that ahead of time. I then went to the site to get the save, and was going to install the updates AFTER getting the save. I wasted time looking for the save on the web site and was getting frustrated until I found a post from someone else about the same issue. I was less then a minute from contacting Cracker to find the game when I got lucky.

2) How about self-installing graphics update. A simple batch file would not be that difficult to build. I have done it myself to add new units to my LK world map games.

Now that I am playing I don't mind it at all, and I might have even voted for Love it in a few more days. This one is interesting now that I don't have a pre-conceived notion about what to expect.


On the lag issue - I had very little problems compared to many. The key was the fact that I rushed to map mapmaking (pre-build first galley!), and went fog busting ASAP. The lag time seems to be directly related to the amount fog and other units on the map. Fog had a very short life in my game.

 

[Shillen]

Originally posted by LKendter


On the lag issue - I had very little problems compared to many. The key was the fact that I rushed to map mapmaking (pre-build first galley!), and went fog busting ASAP. The lag time seems to be directly related to the amount fog and other units on the map. Fog had a very short life in my game. [/B]

Hehe that's funny. I used to play a MUD and people stayed pretty in-character in it. Whenever they got lag they called it fog.

 

[guardianciv3]

Well, I am glad the lag issue is widespread. I was worried I had done something wrong. I hope it does get better, I don't have alot of free time. Other than that I appreciate the thought put into these new GOTM. It really makes a difference that the game has a "point" and I can't just create it by random generators. So "kudos" but work on that lag issue.

 

[Justus II]

I had some pretty major lag times, but that was partially self-inflicted. I was very excited to get the save game over the weekend, and I moved my worker, printed a map, and started to analyze/plan what to do. However, on Monday night, my wife wanted me to see what that strange, burning smell coming from under her desk was. Funny, motherboards aren't supposed to give off smoke, are they? Anyway, that meant the Athlon 1700 was down, (at least until I got a new motherboard, which turned out to be friday), and I was stuck on my old 400Mhz. I did upgrade to 512k Ram, but even so, it was 4-5 minutes between turns, sometimes longer. So my QSC was played at 10-20 turns per night. Take a turn, read half a chapter in Inside the PC (or whatever else was handy), get a soda, check on the dog, tiem for another turn, repeat. It did make me very deliberate in my turns, there is nothing worse then moving a worker to the wrong tile, or forgetting to switch a micro-managed citizen back, and then having to wait FIVE MINUTES, staring at the screen, to switch him back.

That said, when Friday came and I had installed the new motherboard and video card, I was ready to go. (I told my wife that CIV would be the best test for speed and video quality on the new board, so I could play it before she got into Zoo Tycoon!).
Anyway, what a difference, lag times were about 15 seconds. I'll take that anyday. I usually spend that much time thinking about what I am going to do anyway. Awesome game, I love the special features, even if a couple of them did frustrate me. It is a challenge!

 

[tao]

I have to fully congratulate the GOTM staff. Being a Mac player, I appreciate very much the painstaking effort they put into giving "us" a chance to participate.

And archipelago is nice, because I never met a real one generated by the computer.

BTW: turn time is between 15 and 30 seconds on my 1 GHz MDD w 768mb; with full animations at 1600x1200, this is not really bad and it encourages some thinking on how to proceed.

 

[hotrod0823]

I enjoy the feature but the lag is kiling me. I haven't completed my qSC yet and the lag is on the order of 5 minutes. I want to play further than 1000BC but if it doesn't improve I may have to pass this up. My machine is a dog I know but wow 5 minutes is a killer.

Hotrod

 

[Pie Man]

Heh, I had just bought PTW and this was my first game on it. Phew, was I relieved when I found out the lag was not a normal thing!

Even though it's only about 40 seconds on my PC, I get bored enough waiting for myself to finish the turn! It'd really kill the game for me, except that I have been playing normal everything type games, and I'm really enjoying the large pangea aspect a lot. Really glad I discovered this GOTM malarky.

I agree that it must be something to do with the additional bells and whistles - when I tried to emulate the map size & number of opponents on a different map, it was as fast as blinking.

PS: ControlFreak: Sorry you had to remove your response to my removed response on the other thread - I'm a bit new at this.

 

[hbdragon88]

When you get into the ADs, the lag becomes a lot more bearable - more things to do. Before Map Making I was bored to death waiting for turn after turn. With the idiot [other civ] attacking me, and me sending out galleys to explore, I hardly noticed the lag.

In the BCs I couldn't stand it.

 

[haegint]

I voted Love it. I'd say it's a "Love it minus" though. The setup procedure with the link in the Readme was a bit painful. But it probably helped cracker in disciplining us in the future. If we can have it always that way, fine!

The map itself and the goodies are a piece of art. Someone at spoiler2 thread said it is a bit overfabricated. I would agree to that. Certainly unlike any map I have never played on, so it provided a new challenge which is good!

 

[Mercade]

This really is an excellent GOTM! Kudos to Cracker and team.

- The fog and volcanos really add to the gameplay a lot.
- The squid is OK. Nice addition.
- The lag isn't too bad in my view (especially with animations off).
- Regent is my current level of play, so I'm happy with it.

Only remark, earlier made also by ControlFreak:
- Please add some concise installation instructions next time. For experienced people it's a lot of text before one understands you just mean "copy the file F to dir D", especially if pro's don't right-click in My Computer anyway. Total Commander rocks.

 

[z0dd]

The lag began to annoy me in the late game where most of my turns consisted of only pressing the next turn button.

I was surprised to have any lag (20 secs/turn; yes I know I'm whining), as I have a pretty powerful rig (P4 3.06, 1gig 1066 RDRAM, Gf4). All I could think of was how long I'd have to wait on my slower computer.

As a personal preference, I would have enjoyed the map even more, if we didn't have knowledge it was a island hopper. I prefer not having any more knowledge of a map than a civ would at that time. It makes me prepare for everything until more is learned.

Did I still enjoy the game? Oh yes!! Great job GOTM contributors.

 

[ControlFreak]

I agree that less is more when it comes to the type of map.

 

[Nightfang]

Some good, some bad here.

I think the scenario is great, and I have really enjoyed what I have seen so far. The GOTM staff did a good job on it, I think. The "special" units freaked me out the first time I saw them, and I liked being surprised by them.

I had a hard time locating the save file. Since it was in a text file, buried in there with a bunch of other text, I did not see it the first time. I had no problem getting the graphics files in place, but I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out where the save was. I would suggest a better way to get it to us next time.

My computer is no slouch, but it isnt the top of the line, either. Athlon 1.2 with 512 Ram and 64MB of video memory seems to run everything just fine for me, but this GOTM is really taking a long time (2 - 5 minutes) between turns. I was trying to keep up with the QSC timeline this time, but I would get frustrated with the long turn waits and forget to record anything on it when it was finally my turn again. As a result, I may submit my save for the QSC, but I will not have a timeline.

This is assuming, of course, that I don't give up in frustration before the deadline. I have quit out of the game on many occasions because I felt I could do something better with my time in another game.

This really disappoints me, because Regent is my level of ability at the moment (still learning on Monarch) and I felt I could give a good showing this time.

*crosses fingers*

Hopefully I can get this one done on time...

 

[LKendter]

My original vote was:
Undecided. Some good, some bad.

My new vote is:
Hate it! What were you thinking?

=============================

Why the change?
1 - When I got into the industrial age having to constantly shuttle workers around to the various islands was a royal pain.
2 - The moving of the military units between the various islands as the are produced is getting very tiresome.

In the end too many islands is making the game management to much work.

 

[tao]

Originally posted by LKendter
1 - When I got into the industrial age having to constantly shuttle workers around to the various islands was a royal pain.

Having some industrious workers on each island allows to change tile improvements in 1 turn and gives great opportunities to use 1 less turn for producing a unit (irrigation -> mine) or increasing food without delaying production (mine -> irrigation).

2 - The moving of the military units between the various islands as the are produced is getting very tiresome.

In the end too many islands is making the game management to much work.

I have ships between the islands, after flight you can build at least 1 airport on each island.

But preferences and playstyles vary. You seem to like pangeas.....

Edit: remove progress-specific statements

 

[hotrod0823]

I still can't sit down and play more than 3-4 turns at a session the lag is a real downer and I most definitely will not be able to finish the game. I struggled through the QSC portion but now I am not much further along and the game is still pushing more than 2 minutes between turns. For my K6 AMD chip this game is too much.

I was really looking forward to a good game but the added stuff has made it just no fun for me. I am looking forward to the next GOTM ( hopefully with less lag) and the Quick games cracker is looking to get started with.

Hotrod

 

[aggiemath]

I haven't found this complaint yet, but this game CRASHES! I have been playing (not as much as I would like) for about 15 months and have had less than a handful of crashes. I am now giving up on GOTM17 since the newest crash occurs when I hit F1 to adjust my budget. Makes it rather unplayable. It is 1780AD and this has just happened this turn.

Earlier (800AD) I noticed when I tried to look at one of my cities (Oea, with my forbidden palace) it would crash. It is quite reproducable and still occurs (I just checked again). Well, guess I can't tweak the production in that city!

So, this game of the month is extremely disappointing. After suffering the horrible lagging to be unable to complete the game has really taken the shine off of these fancy games for me. My computer is a Dell Inspiron 8000 running Windows XP. It is a 700 MHz machine with 256 MB of RAM. Not state of the art, but I had no problems until this game (I didn't play last month - too busy at work!).

Hopefully this behavior is limited to this game! Anyone else have multiple odd crashes?

 

[hbdragon88]

Don't know. Please submit a save file so I can see. Such crashes are game-specific. In one game it would always crash whenever I press F3.

 

[cracker]

Do not post save game files from GOTM17 or discuss game specific issues in this thread will the game is still open for play or you will result in this thread being closed. That would be two closed threads for spoiler inconsideration in one month and that would be baaaaaaaaaaaaad Karmaaaaaaaaaa!

hbdragon88, we also do not need you advising anyone on game play or technical issues that may involve save files until after you have completed and submitted your game. - cracker