Why is the 18 civ cap limit not raised!?

[Watiggi]

Maybe it was patched so that it is easily changed. Is there a switch in the configuration file or something? If not, then it wouldn't surprise me if instructions appear on how to do it soon (either from Firaxis or modders). I would be surprised if they didn't change it in any way and still made it difficult for modders/people to change it.

If anyone could change it though, then that might creat massive problems for the person with a low end computer who just tries a huge 24 civ game. If this is the case, then it would probably be a good idea to make it really easily accessible to modders or via a switch in config, and not make it the default function.

 

[King Jason]

This poll is meaningless unless you take into account of additional resource and secrifice in game speed.
Any one will perfer more Civ than 18 Civs if they can play more Civs without slowdown.
You shoud ask like this : "Will you prefer 24 Civs in 70% of current game speed OR keep 18 Civs in current speed?"
I will prefer 12 Civs cap with 150% of current speed if possible.

I think that extending or removing max Civ number cap does not worth additional resource and slowdown of this game.
18 Civ cap is more than enough for 90% of players. Changing 18 to 24 will make 90% of player unhappy with the overhead and slowdown.
Peek into Civ4 SDK source code. Lot of data arrays size and loop conter are hard-coded to MAX_PLAYER_NUM. (Maximum number of player = 18) This means that lots of memory are wasted even when you play just 2 Civs game.
Changing the 18 to 24 will waste even more memory and CPU and slow the game further down in later game.
Changing them to variabe dynamic array will remove the cap but it will take more CPU times and slow whole game even further.
I will prefer limit the Civ to 18 and play fast geme than playing 24 Civs game in slower speed than current game speed.

What are you smoking? My computer can barely run standard at times. Why raise the limit if it's going to make everything slower?

So if your computers can't handle it, don't do it. If mine can, I should be able to take advantage of the option. Maybe I wouldn't mind the speed decrease with more civs. Infact. My computer just starts to lag slightly if I play on a huge map, with all 18 civs, and get late into the game. Do I mind? no.

People aren't dumb. They don't need a hard cap to tell them their computer can't handle something. If 30 civs were allowed on a map, and someone elected to have all of them. Then their computer crashed or something. Obviously, they would'nt go with 30 civs again. If Other peoples computers can handle it, then they should be able to do it.

That's why it's called an option.

 

[Dale]

Yes, it can be done. Change the value in CvDefines.cpp in the SDK and recompile.

Dale

 

[Prestidigitator]

Yes, it can be done. Change the value in CvDefines.cpp in the SDK and recompile.

Dale

Thank you SO MUCH Dale ! It's nice to have experienced modders in the forum. Perhaps you can do that and post it somewhere?

 

[Red Door]

Dale, I have a question. You say it's moddable to 24 civs, but is it moddable to any number of civs?

 

[Dale]

Prestidigitator:

Ummm..... I can't do that yet. Warlords is still on a ship bound for Australia.

AlCosta:

Probably shouldn't say, but I've seen more than 24 civs.

 

[zx1111]

So if your computers can't handle it, don't do it. If mine can, I should be able to take advantage of the option. Maybe I wouldn't mind the speed decrease with more civs. Infact. My computer just starts to lag slightly if I play on a huge map, with all 18 civs, and get late into the game. Do I mind? no.

People aren't dumb. They don't need a hard cap to tell them their computer can't handle something. If 30 civs were allowed on a map, and someone elected to have all of them. Then their computer crashed or something. Obviously, they would'nt go with 30 civs again. If Other peoples computers can handle it, then they should be able to do it.

That's why it's called an option.

You misunderstood the meaning of 18.
Old slow computers can not handle even standard sized map.
But player with new and fast computer can play even huge map, or even larger one. This is option.

But maximum number of player is different. As I said before it is hard coded in many array data size of the Civ4 SDK.
So even player who plays only 8 Civs should pay memory price of 18 Civs game in many game data memory consumption.
(So half of the memory is wasted).
But if Firaxis sets the maximum to 32. Then all players should pay memory consumtion of 32 player game and
3/4 of memory is wasted even when player playes always 8 Civs game only and never plays 24 or 32 Civs game.
This is not option.
The memory consumtion of Civ4 is not only proportional to CURRENT number of actual players in the game
but also the MAXIMUM number of players legardless of actual players.
To let players with high-end machine to play more Civs,
the player with low-to mid ( 1G ore less) machine should pay bitter price of game slow down
for the feature they will never use. It is not fair.

 

[Rhye]

Dale, I have a question. You say it's moddable to 24 civs, but is it moddable to any number of civs?

Yes, any number.
But 24 civs is the cap for other interface problems. The civ score list in the bottom right would be too long and would need to be rewritten adding arrows to scroll it.
But I think there will be no mod or scenario with more than 24 PLAYABLE civs. A lesser number + a few MINOR civs won't cause any problems.

 

[El Koeno]

Although my PC stuggles with 8 civs, I think the cap is quite silly. Maybe it's just an oversight by Firaxis?

 

[zx1111]

Although my PC stuggles with 8 civs, I think the cap is quite silly. Maybe it's just an oversight by Firaxis?

No, it is wise design compromise to keep minimum requirement computer spec to resonably low
and keep this game playable for wider consumer base.
If Firaxis had set the number to 32, then player with 512M RAM will not be able to play the game
legardless of how many Civ they play. (Below minumum spec)
And players with 1G RAM will barely able to play standard size map with 8 player at very slow speed.
This will actually reduce number of Civs most players can play comportably
except players with very high end machine with 2G of RAM.
So total sales of Civ4 4 copy sold would be half of actually sold Civ4 and Civ4 would never hit million copy.
And Firaxis would have gone belly up this year due to slow sales and wave of consumer complaint that
the game won't run on their machine.
Even current 18 player limited Civ4 was blamed to have too high machine requirement.
Most game bug complaint is related to insuffucent memory. Civ4 run on machine with 1G RAM dont have much bugs.
Do you believe current 512 MB RAM (Windows XP) is resonable miminum? I dont think so.
1G seems to be more resonable value.

 

[dh_epic]

Whew this is good news. I'm glad they lifted the limit to 24. I knew it just had to be a modding thing.

 

[El Koeno]

No, it is wise design compromise to keep minimum requirement computer spec to resonably low
and keep this game playable for wider consumer base.
If Firaxis had set the number to 32, then player with 512M RAM will not be able to play the game
legardless of how many Civ they play. (Below minumum spec)
And players with 1G RAM will barely able to play standard size map with 8 player at very slow speed.
This will actually reduce number of Civs most players can play comportably
except players with very high end machine with 2G of RAM.
So total sales of Civ4 4 copy sold would be half of actually sold Civ4 and Civ4 would never hit million copy.
And Firaxis would have gone belly up this year due to slow sales and wave of consumer complaint that
the game won't run on their machine.
Even current 18 player limited Civ4 was blamed to have too high machine requirement.
Most game bug complaint is related to insuffucent memory. Civ4 run on machine with 1G RAM dont have much bugs.
Do you believe current 512 MB RAM (Windows XP) is resonable miminum? I dont think so.
1G seems to be more resonable value.

This might be a stupid question, but: How does the cap matter if I'm never ever even coming close to it?

 

[zx1111]

This might be a stupid question, but: How does the cap matter if I'm never ever even coming close to it?

Because many data array items in Civ4 is pre allocated in fixed size to MAX_NUM_PLAYERS.
So even when you play just 2 player game, the whole memory for 18 Civs are allocated but only first 2-4 elemets of the arrays are actually used.
They are not dynanamically resized proportionally to actual number of players.
Many things are pre-allocated before you choose game and decide actual number of players and playing actual game.
So they must be allocated to maximum possible size of the array ( 18 in current Civ 4)

If you mod the MAX_NUM_PLAYERS constant to 24 or 32 then the data items are pre-allocated to that size
so that you can play 32 Civs according to Dale. It is improvement over previous vanilla version.
By doing this, Such change will not adversely affact minumum requirement of the game for low to mid range machine
and will not slows down players who does not want to play more than 18 Civs. Wise move for Firaxis..

 

[Paasky]

Yes, any number.
But 24 civs is the cap for other interface problems. The civ score list in the bottom right would be too long and would need to be rewritten adding arrows to scroll it.
But I think there will be no mod or scenario with more than 24 PLAYABLE civs. A lesser number + a few MINOR civs won't cause any problems.

But I thought that minor civs can't be talked to. Right or Wrong?

Also, Dale: I can send you that .dll, because I need 22 civs for my Crimson Skies Mod. And 24 for WWII.


Oh: I doubt the amount of civs is a problem, but the mapsize. I can easily play with 18 civs on a normal map. And I've got 800MHz, 364RAM & 64mb GeForce 4MX!
But even 10 on a huge map makes the game almost unplayable.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Yes, it can be done. Change the value in CvDefines.cpp in the SDK and recompile.

Dale

But that doesn't actually work... it's still hard-coded in the .exe ... or at least it was before Warlords... I don't know what the situation is now, but considering that you haven't even got Warlords yet, neither do you

 

[Rhye]

But that doesn't actually work... it's still hard-coded in the .exe ... or at least it was before Warlords... I don't know what the situation is now, but considering that you haven't even got Warlords yet, neither do you

It was before Warlords.

If you want the proof that now it's possible, get it from here

 

[IrishDragon]

well at least it can be done wit 24 civs but the cap shud av been removed

 

[Paasky]

I think the current "max" of 24 is because that's the number rhye put in the .dll. He could've put 50 000 000. Or maybe that's a tad bit too much... 500 should be enough, fo now

 

[Dom Pedro II]

It was before Warlords.

If you want the proof that now it's possible, get it from here

Well, if it was possible before warlords, why were all the programmers saying it was hard-coded into the exe when I brought up the CvDefines.cpp issue a few months ago?

Oh well... so long as it works.

 

[Rhye]

No, it is possible NOW, not before Warlords