Turns take too long. What can I do?

[Tripwire]

Recently I started a PTW game on Emperor, 256x256 tiles (Earth map) with 12 other Civs. As of right now, the majority of the other Civs are destroyed or 'insignificant' (few cities, low tech). China, Spain and myself are the only real competetors left. I own all of North and South America, and China has most of Asia. Spain has a lot of Europe and most of North Africa.

Anyway, we've just hit the end of the modern era. I'm researching stealth, while at the same time building up a massive army to take over the world. The game hasn't ended yet (1000 turn limit), and I'd like to be able to try for a domination victory. Every other condition except Conquest is turned off.

Unfortunately, the turns are taking upwards of 10 minutes to complete. Some have taken 30 minutes! I've resorted to alt-tabbing out of Civ3 while waiting, this allows me to surf the web, eat, get food, hit the bathroom, watch TV, etc.

But it's starting to get old. I want to be able to play the game and not wait 15 minutes inbetween turns. It's really getting to the point of being ridiculous, especially when I have a very fast CPU and lots of RAM.

Is there anything I can do, either for this current game or future games on the same settings/map, that can lower the time between turns? (Including anything I can do in the editor; I don't mind changing the rules.)

I remember playing vanilla Civ2 on the biggest maps I could generate, and still building up massive armies... and even on a machine 10 times as slow as this one, the turns never took nearly as long. WTH is going on?

 

[Tomoyo]

You think you have it bad. All of my turns in my 5CCC are taking 30 minutes and higher.

Anyway, I think it has to do with :civ3:'s trading system. Not sure though.

You should read AGsomething that was on an ultra huge map. Then you'll feel much better.

 

[affay]

I have to say that the only way to solve it is waiting~~

 

[truckingpete]

Smaller map...

 

[ManOfMiracles]

Go to Preferences and shut off some of the animation. I usually shut off the animation for enemy moves if the AI is taking forever. I haven't been desparate enough to shut off all animation yet, but it is an option.

 

[WildFire]

Press shift, makes the AI move much faster...

 

[MSTK]

Also, take the thirty minutes to plan ahead.

 

[Aggie]

Tripwire, 30 minutes isn't bad on a 256x256 in the endgame. I have seen interturn of.... 3 hours(362x362, 31 civs)! You should kill as many civs as possible as soon as possible. That reduces that wait. In our succession game AG3 we got back to 2 minutes when we got to only 4 civs. I think that every trade route option between civs is calculated every turn. Every city with harbours, connections by roads and airports are considered in this calculation.

Playing lager than huge maps with a lot of civs will always lead to long interturns.

 

[warpstorm]

The game was designed to run smoothly on computers from about 3 years ago with 100x100 maps with 7 AI opponents. Going above that will slow the game down.

 

[Ksim3000]

Well, I will admit, when playing on my Civ3 on my old Pentium 3, it took ages just to advance a turn, possibly 15 minutes or so. However, while playing the game on my new P4, so far, I haven't noticied the turns taking too long, touch wood.

 

[Megabyte]

Hi !
try writing "NoAIPatrol=1" in your conquest.ini or civ3.ini , that will prevent the AI´s from using every spare unit they have as scouts.

Have Fun !

 

[Ksim3000]

Hey, thanks Megabyte, you know something, I feel that indeed will come in handy.

 

[Tripwire]

Ouch... well, sounds like I'm not alone then. (And yes, I've tried the NoAIPatrol=1 thing, can't notice the difference though )

Would culture calculations have anything to do with tying up significant amounts of CPU power?

And I heard Rhye's mod does something in the rules that really cuts back on turn waiting. Can't seem to figure out what it is, though. I assume trade? Anyone here happen to know?

 

[tehfreak]

Waiting kills me as well.
The game was more laggy but interturns were similar when I was using an IMac266. Now I'm on an athlon800mhz, with 100mb more ram and it's kinda the same.
I noticed a biiiiiiiiiiiig slow down between old and new patches.
Vanilla & PTW.

 

[troopper5]

When I played Civ3 on 200mHz computer, huge maps with 5 civs left didn't take that long... Maybe 2min one turn?

I have no idea how.

 

[ManOfMiracles]

I know what it is like. My old computer was P3 and lag was ok as long as I didn't run more than 4-5 civs on a huge map. Then the hd died and I got a 3 GHz P4 with 1 G of RAM and I can max out civs in a game with no problem. Well, it does increase my chances of dying in the game, but lag is not an issue.

 

[Khift]

Try Rhye's of Civilization. Look for it in the "Completed Modpacks" forum.

Not only is it a good mod that emulates history well, it has the added benefit of reducing late game In-Between-Turn-Time by 95+%. All I know is that, around turn 375, with 28 civs remaining, the IBTT was around a minute.

 

[Padma]

Just a note to point out that Rhye's of Civilization is a full "modpack" - it is *not* the same game as designed by Firaxis. (Not to take anything away from Rhye - it IS an excellent mod.)

Map size is a key factor in the length of inter-turns. Note: Rhye's map is only 170x170.

Most other factors are hard-coded in the game (poorly translated from design to code), and can only be dealt with by severely changing some of the rules using the Editor.