Takes 3 seconds to move unit playing on LAN?

[Floobie]

I picked up Conquests last night and started a new game with the wife. We were both extremely disappointed to find out that it took 2-3 seconds just to move our units 1 step. Are we missing something here?

We're both on state of the art machines and running on a 100Mbit LAN that goes through a Linksys BEFSR41 router.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks!

FLOOBIE!

 

[Floobie]

Does nobody else have these issues? Or is it common?

 

[Dragoon10]

Hi, thought I'd register and complain a bit too
I was looking forward to a bit of civ3 multiplayer in conquests.... until I found it takes a couple seconds to move just one unit. This isn't exactly playable as it takes a while to play a game as it is. I don't even want to imagine attacking with more than 5 units!
This was an internet game with both using adsl and <100 ping between us.

I'm supprised anyone bought the play the world expansion if this is as good as multiplayer gets

 

[Floobie]

Is this the way it is for everyone? If so then yah, I agree - the game is really unplayable. But could it be some weird configuration issue on our end and everyone else plays MP smoothly?

 

[onedreamer]

2-3 seconds is an exaggeration, however it does take more than in single player, but just for the computer that is not the game host... when you give move orders, you will get like 1 second latency before the unit will move.
To counter this problem, use go-to orders, so that if your unit can move 3 times in a turn, you will get the 1 sec delay only once. Also if the unit will need more than 1 turn to get to the destination with the go-to order, you won't get the delay next turns.

EDIT: I would also suggest that you connect directly or through a hub or eventually a switch and not a router.

 

[Dragoon10]

2-3 seconds is an exaggeration

Well it isn't an exaggeration for me.
It happens just as much with the game host as the client. I've been reading a bit about it and it seems that it works as a p2p connection, so everyone has to play at the speed of the slowest computer and connection. Although that still shouldn't cause 2 second delays with a ping of 100 and >1.5ghz computers
I do use go-to orders, but it doesn't help much when you've got a whole load of units to move i.e. when attacking. (Not to meantion getting no feedback about what you built last turn and so having to check every city for what it's building).

I can't see how on a LAN connecting directly would improve things very much, as a router is going to degrade the ping only very slightly. Or did that help for you?

Anyway, they really did a poor job on this I think. I'm sure it can't be that much data to send across a connection.
Also, why did they make everything so dependent on the connection. They could have just allowed the client to make all their moves while in the background it's sending the data from a buffer (on Turn Based anyway).... whyyyy didn't they do it like that... whyyy!

That's enough whining for now I guess

 

[Floobie]

yah, 2-3 seconds is no exaggeration here either - as a programmer who has written network code I can say there's no excuse for this lag, which appears to be standard.

Shame on the guys who wrote this - apparently they just 'threw it out'.

 

[JayJayShabadoo]

Im having the exact same problem.. 1-2 second delays on all unit movements or commands. I have a WRT54G Linksys router, however the computers two computers that I play Civ on are hardwired to it.

 

[Floobie]

Jay, from what I can tell, this is just the way it is on everyone's machine.

It just blows my mind that people are willing to play with such a speed issue; we certainly aren't. I've got a support ticket in with Atari - I'll let you know if they give me any information that helps, but my guess is they won't

 

[JayJayShabadoo]

I can tough it out but its a shame they didnt do more to fix this.

Oh well.. look forward to hearing what you find out. Thanks Floobie

 

[Red Ant]

I experienced the same thing trying to play a LAN game with my mate yesterday. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge CIV fan but in multiplayer this game simply sucks beyond description, to put it mildly. Apart from the fact that moving your units seems pretty laggy there's another MAJOR showstopper. The game doesn't even show you when your units are under attack. Instead when it's your turn again you're simply left to wonder what could have happened to those couple units that still used to be there when you finished your turn. If this is my mistake (wrong settings or whatever) then consider all I've said null and void, but otherwise I frankly fail to see how these guys managed to produce 3 generations of Civ with the umpteenth patch/extension and still not get it right.

 

[onedreamer]

3 seconds is an exaggeration, the delay is not of 3 seconds. 1-2 seconds is exactly half of it so I wouldn't put them together heh.

 

[Himalia]

Just a shot in the dark but a friend of mine had a problem like this, I asked what else is his PC running and he told me it had a bittorent client running in the background. When he shut that down it was fine again. If thats the case on yours it might be worth a try.