whats a normal turn wait time to you?

[tenkk]

I would like to know how long folks wait between turns on Huge maps, in mid to late game. That way I know whether what I put up with is normal, which is around 30 seconds.

 

[jtb1127]

On a huge map it will probably be around 2-10 seconds. Kind of a large margin, but never that much above.

 

[BjoernLars]

If I am not counting all the time watching my new Allied CS beat the crap out of each other, it is definitely less than 10 seconds. I think in the future I am going to turn off Combat Animations.

 

[sav]

With animations turned off, it starts at about 5 seconds a turn, and doesn't really get much longer as the game goes. Civ4 would start being half a second, then end up being almost a minute, or longer if it was a decent mod, up to 5 mins.

Civ5 starts much slower, but the endgame isn't anywhere near as bad as Civ4.

 

[fmlizard2]

Usually under 10 seconds. It doesn't get hairy until at least 1800 AD. And by that point, many games are near the end.

 

[GfxJG]

I rarely play Huge maps, or even Large maps, because my game window enters "Not Responding" mode. But when it does work, 5 seconds max I think.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sorry to say, but either we have a lot of players running strategic view only, or we have a lot of unreasonable votes that don't actually play huge maps into the late game . People with supposed dual-cores running sub-20 second late game times I call bs on instantly. How many actually pull out a stopwatch?

 

[Cicerosaurus]

I play large maps and have a quad core with i7 processor. Graphics are okay but it still seems to take around 20 seconds.


(BTW- how do I vote for 25 seconds in that poll?)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^ at the poll range oversight. All of them.

Look, there's a reason I didn't make a poll about this, and the reason is simple; we have 0 verification and a strong reason to doubt the accuracy of assessment of waiting time:

- People with markedly superior machines report longer wait times than people with inferior machines
- People hand-wave animations. While combat animations can be turned off, normal animations can't be turned off
- There are factors that aren't considered, such as difficulty
- I question the #respondents that actually play huge maps
- The poll itself is poorly constructed in this case with no less than 3 ridiculous oversights in its construction.
- People have tremendous incentive to downplay the amount of time the spend actually doing nothing.

The strongest proof of my point is obvious:

1. Look at the instructions in the poll.
2. Look at the actual thread title.
3. Look at responses:

On a huge map it will probably be around 2-10 seconds

.......Probably?

If I am not counting all the time watching

......So in other words, this respondent has ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA on the turn time, and admits it. But votes.

With animations turned off, it starts at about 5 seconds a turn, and doesn't really get much longer as the game goes. Civ4 would start being half a second, then end up being almost a minute, or longer if it was a decent mod, up to 5 mins.

No confirmation of game settings here...

Usually under 10 seconds. It doesn't get hairy until at least 1800 AD. And by that point, many games are near the end.

same deal...and why the defensive language?

I rarely play Huge maps, or even Large maps, because my game window enters "Not Responding" mode. But when it does work, 5 seconds max I think.

.....you think? Can it be more obvious that the majority of the respondents don't even know the answer to the (misleading) poll question?

I play large maps and have a quad core with i7 processor. Graphics are okay but it still seems to take around 20 seconds.

Interesting as most people don't have these specs, and yet somehow are rolling turns at 4x the speed. Very interesting...

(BTW- how do I vote for 25 seconds in that poll?)

.

This poll is worthless to the point of misleading the community. The irresponsible thread titling and overtly waffling answers (on the people who bothered to explain anything) show nothing less than a combination of 1) lack of clarity 2) ludicrous bias and 3) invalid participation/answers in the poll.

Any serious analysis of this kind of data would throw it out instantly.

 

[Cicerosaurus]

My question was very much tongue in cheek. Times always seem very long, and for me at least, it is difficult to estimate. I think it also depends what else your computer may be running in the background and competing for resources.

I'm a bit surprised at the answer above about Civ IV being slow towards the end. Even with my old steam powered computer on a large map it was never an issue.

 

[Mods]

On huge I easily wait up to a minute late game If I still want ok graphics, and I run a pretty powerful machine.

 

[Camikaze]

This poll is worthless to the point of misleading the community. The irresponsible thread titling and overtly waffling answers (on the people who bothered to explain anything) show nothing less than a combination of 1) lack of clarity 2) ludicrous bias and 3) invalid participation/answers in the poll.

Any serious analysis of this kind of data would throw it out instantly.

This is true. However, do you think the fact that people don't know how long it actually takes in between turns, or are underestimating the time, indicates something as well? If they were concerned about the wait time, then they'd presumably give a more accurate measurement, so maybe the evidence, whilst not giving an accurate measurement of turn wait time, do show us that a lot of people don't really notice long wait times.

 

[Ellye]

Almost instantaneous, even on Huge maps.
Core 2 Duo, 2.1ghz.

The sorcery?
Strategic View Mode.

 

[Glassmage]

i have i7 2600k, gtx 580 graphic card and on huge pangaea map when I go domination turn times are around 10-20 seconds as slowest if there were lots of units fighting with combat animations turned on.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This is true. However, do you think the fact that people don't know how long it actually takes in between turns, or are underestimating the time, indicates something as well? If they were concerned about the wait time, then they'd presumably give a more accurate measurement, so maybe the evidence, whilst not giving an accurate measurement of turn wait time, do show us that a lot of people don't really notice long wait times.

Yes, it does mean something. I already conceded in another thread that while I don't understand it, losing 2 hours per game doesn't seem to bother most people. My suspicion, however, was that this is a hidden drain on people's enjoyment of the game that they don't realize. A poll like this fails in all ways:

1. It does not expose actual times
2. It does not prompt people to consider the true issue
3. It is actually EXTREMELY misleading. If my market research professor a few years back saw this thing she'd have a FIT.

A better approach to this would be to create 2 polls:

1. A means of estimating the amount of time people would care about losing time in an individual game. I'm almost 100% certain that everyone has a limit they're willing to tolerate vs not, but that limit varies. There are lots of ways to approach this question and eliminating bias would be difficult. This is the primary reason I didn't make a poll. If I thought the devs cared enough or it would be useful to the community, I'd have made it.

2. A poll that times an exact turn time on an exact map size and speed on a specific turn, with a stop watch, that clearly excludes players who have not gone out of their way to specifically time it. Possibly, a save could be provided as a benchmark. A few of these at different years/map sizes/difficulties would give an accurate picture. Is it worth the effort though? I'm thinking not. Firaxis probably knows its turn times, and that it lags turns with things like animating off-screen actions.

Now, onto some specific things about this poll that REALLY need to be addressed for it to be even remotely reasonable:

1. Thread title completely undermines the intent of the poll, and is throwing people off.
2. The poll itself lacks instructions that make it clear.
3. Range overlap. 10, 20, and 40 are all choices that could be voted into 2 different stratifications. Which do people pick? It won't be consistent.
4. Leaving numbers out! There is NO WAY to pick 21-29 seconds, it's simply not an option. The exact same is true of 51-59 ----> if your machine takes that time you technically shouldn't vote because it isn't an option .
5. Redundancy: The poll is redundantly redundant unless someone can somehow explain the difference between 0 second turn times and "almost instantaneous". Isn't a 0 turn time instantaneous? Wouldn't that then mean "almost instantaneous" is actually in the 0-10 range?
6. Speaking of 0-10, it has a longer numerical range than other options, and this tends to lead to bias
7. There is absolutely no reason to represent some choices in all text and others in numbers in this poll. That DOES effect answers. Options should be as uniform as possible. Changing units of measurement is iffy too.

A better range set would be:

0-9 sec
10-19
20-29

and so on, and then maybe a final answer choice like:

60 or more seconds.

Although one can and probably should run the ranges longer than that, because people have indicated longer turn times than that.

I DO realize that I'm going a little overboard here because it simply grates on my training , but at the same time polls like this are very misleading. I don't want people linking me to this later as if it's some kind of useful proof.

 

[Inception7]

Uh yeah, I can say that many of the people who responded must not be accurate. I'm running a 6 core i7 at @3.8 and on a large map it's around 20 sec towards then end. So... yeah.

 

[Cheeseisgood]

About 15-20 seconds here on a huge map in mid to late game.

Though to be honest, I really don't notice it as by that point I'm normally so engrossed in the game, I'm planning strategy, thinking what my next moves are going to be, or watching the AI. Very rarely do I find myself sitting there thinking "Well this is taking a long time"

 

[drubell]

I opened up my most recent 10-civ map (is that Huge?). I was using default visual settings. I had forgotten to check quick combat. I opened up at Turn 359, 4 turns before my space victory (King). 8 civs and 18 city-states existed on the map. I was at war with Denmark and Russia, and Russia was also at war with Songhai. I have a decent computer; it was a beast computer I got in 2007.

Turn 359- 137 seconds. I'm sure some of that time was just opening the game and stuff was still loading so I went to the next turn:

Turn 360- 114 seconds

I don't know how much better it would've been with quick combat. I know a good 15 seconds was wasted on airplane garbage. But even if I were to drop my settings and use quick combat, I don't think the time drop would've been significant enough to drop the time below a minute.

It wasn't really until Turn 250 that the turn times were just getting atrocious and I’d just stand up and do something else between turns.

I've been thinking that a lot of the process time is city-states at war (I had plenty of them warring with/against me and against each other). 18 city-states can add up. Even if it only takes maybe 2 seconds for a city-state at late-stage to process, when there's 18 of them, that adds up to a lot of time.

Otherwise I don't know, but 10-civ just gets so long. For fun I tried to do the largest map once but was running in 10 second intervals by like turn 15.. no way that I was going to continue that game.

 

[jtb1127]

.......Probably?

Sometimes it will take a lot longer depending on the amount of stuff that takes place that turn.

 

[Buccaneer]

I have a quad-core, 16gb RAM, 460 graphics card and Huge/Large maps do take an average less than 10 seconds per turn with animations off. It ranges from 10-20 seconds late game to near 0 early game.

Most of my games take 15-25 hours to play, including keeping detailed notes. So no, the wait does not bother me and I can be patient between turns.

TheMeInTeam, why have this always been a huge issue with you?? Considering all of the processing that needs to take place, I think it is truly remarkable that they have optimized this to the extent that they have.