Please read: A reminder.

[bradleyfeanor]

Is 6 turns per hour in the mid-game reasonable? Did some of you experienced players spend this much at it when you were learning?

In GOTM 37 one single turn took me an hour and a half. Much of that was time spent deciding my strategy for the next 25 turns, but still...

So, yeah, I would say 6 turns per hour isn't bad at all in the mid-late game when you are micromanaging. In the mid game, if I am at war and have units in several locations, each turn takes about 20 minutes. I would certainly love to change that though! When I was in a steeper part of my learning curve turns took even longer.

Regarding programs running with civ, I have had no problem with Word, Civassist and Mapstat running. Currently I have only 256megs of ram, and if I open Netscape or Photoshop in addition to the other programs, bad things often happen. That wasn't the case when I had 512megs, so I would say upping memory is probably the number one way to keep civ humming along with lots of other programs running.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I think most stability problems here are caused by Musicmatch in combination with civ3.
eDonkey is also always running, but i think that is the case for most people. Dunno if that is cause of any problems.

I don't use civassist except to look at my domination limmit near the end, so that is not causing much problems.

I also have 256 MB (soon to have a new PC with 1GB )

PS i use win98.
I don't have so many problems that it is a true problem though, just once in a while, like once every 3 nights i play.
IF i have a problem, it most usually starts with my buttons disapearing from my screen.

Still, civ seems to be the most instable game i am using. Which suprises me mostly so because it seems to me that a game like civ is so easy to program.

So within a few weeks i will know how civ runs on an AMD 64 3000+ with 1 GB . Maybe i should just go play a large map with all civs to REALLY test the new PC

 

[Sandman2003]

With my new video driver, I have now spent several hours on a second session without the expected glitch. SO while a sample size of one is far from scientific to say the least, I believe my former issue has now been resolved. So hopefully, I can continue to run a highly stable civ!

Thanks to everyone who gave me some feedback!

 

[AlanH]

@Sandman2003: That sounds like good news

Let's hope more players can find their latest video drivers and solve their crash problems. Don't forget also that Civ is very memory-hungry, and memory is now pretty cheap. Specially with Christmas coming up

 

[Darkness]

Just been reading through this interesting topic...

I've been having some crashes too lately. Fortunately I know the cause: My computer probably predates the Flintstones.... It's started to slow down at every application, so civ3's probably not the problem here.
It tends to freeze at various points in the game. After capturing enemy units, after founding cities, etc. No real pattern here, just an old, tired computer, up for replacement. The only solution to this problem is saving (which for some strange reason works when all else except the main menu is forzen) and then loading the latest save again, which then has snapped out of the freeze it was in when I saved. I've had 3 or 4 of these in the current gaem (COTM7)
Fortunately I'll be getting myself a new computer somewhere in the new year (probably februari or march, so it's at most 2 more COTMs with this old monster)...

 

[Offa]

Crumbs, you guys have some old computers. How on earth do you cope with Doom3 and Half-life 2? I suspect though that you may be right that old 'puters are causing crashes. Civ pretty much never crashes on me, so my reloads are my own.

I am still a bit unclear why the game takes so long on interturns because it really doesn't have all that much to work out: eg my simulator chugs through about 20000 simulated attempts at taking a town in well under a second. Perhaps someone could enlighten me.

 

[grs]

Crashes in civ3 are not that unfrequent on a slower machine. I exp. some when hitting f3 and have a huge army.

 

[Renata]

Re: interturns, someone said it was calculating trade routes that takes up most of the processer time. Don't know if that's correct, but since the number of possible trade routes, unlike most other calculations, would increase exponentially with map size, it makes some sense.

Renata

 

[the Wastelander]

After getting man-handled many times by the AI on diety I found this website. If I do something wrong and get my GOTM rejected I will treat it as a learning experience. Try and get it right the next month. I'm much more interested in taking part in the post game forms and learning new tricks to the game.

That said, thanks to the host and staff for a really cool website and a ton of information.

Kevin the Wastelander

 

[AlanH]

Welcome

There's no reason for you have an entry rejected, and we'd much rather not do it. So just read and follow the rules and you'll be fine. We try to make them simple, but if you are in doubt then PM one of the staff.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

When I only have about 15-20 min I often open a game, take notes on what I think I should do next, then close it as I don't like to actually play for such as short period. This speeds me up when I actually sit down again for my next few hour run. Is this something I should stop?

 

[AlanH]

It will have no effect unless you actually change something and create a new save.

 

[gervond]

I just finished Austria. (Not good, I lost ) But anyway : I had to reload twice around the 1900rds since my 1.5 year old daughter kept hitting space when she was on my lap. .

You see I play CIV even when I need to keep an eye on her. So I hope I am forgiven ?

Anyway : not reloading really helps to keep concentrated and to keep a good overview.

Greetz

 

[Offa]

Dianthus, in the time saving thread, suggests saving every turn to moniter happiness etc at the end of the turn. Would this run foul of the reload count. I presume not, as you would just carry on playing and not actually load up the saves but would like to be sure.

 

[AlanH]

Your presumption is correct. save as often as you like. Just don't reload unless you've quit or crashed.

 

[Abegweit]

My computer has a consistent method of crashing (if that is the proper term). It is a laptop with a 1650x1050 display. When CivIII loads, it switches the resolution to 1024x768. Why does it do this? Who knows? CivII knew how to adapt to the screen resolution. Anyway... that's not the bug, just a programming defect.

The problem is this. The computer will hiberate if I have left it idle too long (like overnight). When I bring it back up, the display resolution has returned to native and I see civilization in the upper left corner! The game is playable but it looks extremely ugly and it is very annoying. The only reasonable solution is to save the game and reload.

Has anyone else had the same problem?

Edit: BTW, this can also happen while you are playing the game. If you are on battery power, you get no low battery warnings since civIII suppresses all Windows messages. Then, all of a sudden, the computer will decide that the situation is critical so it must hiberate. When you come back up, it's the same as I described above.

 

[ainwood]

My computer has a consistent method of crashing (if that is the proper term). It is a laptop with a 1650x1050 display. When CivIII loads, it switches the resolution to 1024x768. Why does it do this? Who knows? CivII knew how to adapt to the screen resolution. Anyway... that's not the bug, just a programming defect.

The problem is this. The computer will hiberate if I have left it idle too long (like overnight). When I bring it back up, the display resolution has returned to native and I see civilization in the upper left corner! The game is playable but it looks extremely ugly and it is very annoying. The only reasonable solution is to save the game and reload.

Has anyone else had the same problem?

Edit: BTW, this can also happen while you are playing the game. If you are on battery power, you get no low battery warnings since civIII suppresses all Windows messages. Then, all of a sudden, the computer will decide that the situation is critical so it must hiberate. When you come back up, it's the same as I described above.

You can set the resolution to use in the .ini file.

Look at this post.

Go to your Civ3 directory, and find the civilization3.ini file. OOPen it with something like wordpad, and then add a line line:

KeepRes=1

or:

VideoMode=1600

Of course - you could change your laptop resolution to 1024x768 to avoid the problem, or maybe go for an intermediate like 1280x1024.

 

[Xerol]

My computer has a consistent method of crashing (if that is the proper term). It is a laptop with a 1650x1050 display. When CivIII loads, it switches the resolution to 1024x768. Why does it do this? Who knows? CivII knew how to adapt to the screen resolution. Anyway... that's not the bug, just a programming defect.

The problem is this. The computer will hiberate if I have left it idle too long (like overnight). When I bring it back up, the display resolution has returned to native and I see civilization in the upper left corner! The game is playable but it looks extremely ugly and it is very annoying. The only reasonable solution is to save the game and reload.

Has anyone else had the same problem?

Edit: BTW, this can also happen while you are playing the game. If you are on battery power, you get no low battery warnings since civIII suppresses all Windows messages. Then, all of a sudden, the computer will decide that the situation is critical so it must hiberate. When you come back up, it's the same as I described above.

You can set the resolution to use in the .ini file.

Look at this post.

Go to your Civ3 directory, and find the civilization3.ini file. OOPen it with something like wordpad, and then add a line line:

KeepRes=1

or:

VideoMode=1600

Of course - you could change your laptop resolution to 1024x768 to avoid the problem, or maybe go for an intermediate like 1280x1024.

The problem with the second one is that 1) I think it goes with 1600x1200 there, and 2) LCD screens are generally not very good quality outside of their native resolution, since they can't change the size of their pixels like CRT displays. KeepRes=1 works though.

 

[Greebley]

Should we not reload for mis-clicks? The one I have a tendency to do is accidentally gift an AI an exclusive tech. When I initially scanned the GOTM rules (GOTM17), you could redo misclicks.

The above rule seems to disallow replaying a mis-click. I wanted to verify whether or not they are allowed. I misclick (usually only once) every few games or so.

If they are no longer allowed, then I will not replay this situation in the future.

 

[Abegweit]

Yeah.

I've done that too.

Another thing which often happens is that I send a unit somewhere really weird through the touch pad. You can catch it the next round but it still wastes a turn.