Slowdown in Multiplayer

[Feinam]

I've been searching google and forums for this, but I wanted to see if there's a more "modern" answer to it, as many threads are either spec based or a year old.

My friend and I are playing in multiplayer on generally large map settings with no city states. We initially were using many AIs but we suffered pretty unacceptable slow downs getting toward the modern era (20-30 seconds wait between turns). As we enjoy marathon mode, this is completely unacceptable.

By suggestions we lowered the AIs down to 4 on a huge map, so that was 6 civs total. Once again we ran into the slowdown.

We have lowered to DX9, and minimum settings... and we have tried the F10 strategic map mode when ending turns... all don't help. We both have cutting edge rigs.

Any suggestions?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Strategic view. Cuts turn times by alot.

Reducing AI won't help much in the long run as they'll spam out the same #cities eventually.

 

[Feinam]

... and we have tried the F10 strategic map mode when ending turns... all don't help.

So should I just expect 20 second turns late on?

 

[CTH]

So should I just expect 20 second turns late on?

Yes... It is not that long compared to what some people are experiencing. Try to see it as a motivation to win quickly I do however agree that 20 seconds are longer than what is comfortable. Remember that the slowest computer in multi decides the turn time.

 

[ShahJahanII]

Its more of a net problem.
I never play with more than 2 other people because it lags and crashes too much.

 

[Feinam]

grrr that's really really bad news. I don't think we have the patience for a marathon game then. Really sad to see.

I noticed the Peloponnese campaign lagged really really hard but the Genghis and wonders one were silky smooth. We'll try either an inland sea or a great plains game and see if it works better.

 

[sagramore]

I made a thread asking the same thing as this a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately I only got the same answers

I'm waiting for them to "fix" the game to let us turn the EVERY TURN autosave off..... which is totally unnecessary if they can fix the manual game save/load feature. This certainly can't be helping the turns (especially for anyone with a weak internet connection)

(my thread for completeness: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=435832 )

 

[Feinam]

Okay I've been doing some testing with my buddy. We just finished a Marathon game up to GDR's on Great Plains and the turns at the end were 2-3 second wait. We will try inland sea next or crater lake setup...

Single player peloponesian campaign is ridiculously awful from turn 1, whereas wonders and genghis are smooth.

I'm coming to the conclusion that oceans are the culprit. I'm looking through our playthroughs that we quit and the problem kicked in right about when the enemy Ai's were getting ocean travel.

For whatever reason, auto explore (or some other factor I can't see) on ocean confuses the game greatly... whether it is the player OR the AI doing it.

Going from auto explore to manual on the peloponesian campaign smooths it considerably.

There MUST be a way for them to patch this, or perhaps some sort of mod that gives the AI worldwide vision from the start so it doesn't resort to exploring? I really feel we have nailed what the problem is.

Someone else please test my theory about ocean maps with a few sessions on planes or amazon.

 

[jtb1127]

Strategic view will help if it is going too slow, which it often does.

 

[madm]

We got the same observation about oceans. In a multiplayer game, our turn times are just a few seconds. However, as soon as ocean travel is possible (by the AI) turn times all of a sudden increases to 30 seconds or so. This does not happen when playing on worlds with no ocean. We saw this behavior consistently in quite some games now.
AI ocean travel (probably auto explore) seems to greatly slow down the game... :-(

 

[Tabarnak]

AI ocean travel (probably auto explore) seems to greatly slow down the game... :-(

I noticed that water maps are faster to play. Probably because there is less information to handle.

-More you have AIs, more it's slow.
-Less CS and no barbs help too.
-Playing under dx9 add some speed.
-Playing with people with less than 50 ms(ping) grantly helps. You need to live inside a 300 miles/480 km of circunference from the host's house to have this. When i play with friends that live below 100 miles from me, i can see below 20ms sometimes, which is very good.

But everyone should also have at least high speed internet and a quad core to make everything fine.

That is a lot of ''if'', but this is all needed to play full 6-8 players games without much problems.

 

[KillingMeSoftly]

Auto-Explore is the culprit, or at least one of the many things causing slowdowns. I was in a multiplayer game about a month ago and as soon as I switched on auto-explore with my 8 Ships of the Line, wow... massive lag between turns. As soon as I cancel'd auto-explore the problem went away.