Too many cities

[jgp]

Last time I pressed 'B', I got a small message box with 'Too many cities'.

Any idea on the limitation?

Depending on the civ? Depending on the era?

I fill stucked...

 

[Bamspeedy]

I believe the limit is 512 cities (all the civs combined) with v1.17f. The version that came with the game (1.07f), the limit is 256, not sure about v1.16f. I guess they set a cap on the maximum cities so it doesn't demand too much from the program when doing all the calculations for all those cities.

 

[jgp]

That would then explain why cities can be overthrown... The problem now is that I must shoot the others to get my cities.

I wonder why they have such a limit, a good old list of cities would do th trick...

 

[simwiz2]

IIRC it is because of software limitations. before they added a limit i think civ3 used to crash if too many cities were built.

 

[etj4Eagle]

The limit is in there as well to keep memory requirements and processor time within reasonable limits. The developers have been asked before to increase the max number of cities, but they have said that doing that would just make the games memory print too large. I guess maybe in the future (around their last patch or so) they could put that value in the ini file and let people play with it if they wish.

 

[slothman]

Would increasing the max number of cities actually change the speed if the current number is the same? I would guess that just after the begining when there are 8 cities, 1000000 max wouldn't be any slower than 512 max.

 

[rangers85]

Originally posted by slothman
Would increasing the max number of cities actually change the speed if the current number is the same? I would guess that just after the begining when there are 8 cities, 1000000 max wouldn't be any slower than 512 max.

Sure, it's the same at the beginning. But each city after 512 would slow it down just that much more. Remember, it has to cycle through all cities every turn. Plus, it has to cycle through all units on the map too. Therefore, more cities creates more units which creates more cycling, which creates longer waits between turns.

 

[slothman]

If that's true then I wouldn't mind more cities. To me at least it's obvious that more "stuff" including cities and units would make the game slower. I would rather have the option of a slow game with many cities then have to limit myself to 512. If somebody thinks it is too slow then they can raze enemy cities and not build more.

 

[jgp]

Originally posted by slothman
[...]If somebody thinks it is too slow then they can raze enemy cities and not build more.

Or buy more memory / CPU, which I did...

 

[Tripa]

or just play smaller maps. there should be no limits. if you dont want a slow game its your choice but what if i did want more then 512 cities. This is sad the more i read and play on the less i seem to like. Not to sound favoriting here but CTP2 never had this problem. To tell you the truth i think sid is loosing the plot in his old age. myte be time to get some one new in. who knows how to make a game fun.

 

[Attilla]

How many cities did you build (more than 100?)

 

[eliminat]

I just hit the Too Many Cities limit... and it sucks... I just wasted 2 perfectly good settlers, on a HUGE map (actual 256x256 limit), and I like having lots of cities.....
oh well... least that should stop the computer from sending settlers across my land from now on.....
with 512 MB of RAM, I don't worry much about memory...

 

[CivHobo]

Ah this sucks I just hit the limit just now, got about 1/5th of the world uninhabited. Its pretty strange that u can set the optimal cities to '1000' but u cant have more than 512 cities. I mean how many cities can u build on a 256*256 map? Well one thingas for sure the latest patch 1.21 doesnt change this, shame

 

[CivHobo]

My guess is that it isnt entirely just a memory problem. U can load all the cities in there, but more of a city intra-relational problem. Each city entity has to know its surroundings and perhaps be aware of other cities too. the data array or whatever probably reaches peak efficiency at some point which friraxis deemed to be 512 (a number derived from the power of 2, some thought here). So they would proabably have to increase by next order,say 1024?

Anyway, please fraraxis give us the option to increase max cities, hey if it dont work u wont have us chewing your ass some more, hehe