Small problem

from GalCiv2 Forums
Hey everyone! I have a slight problem with the game so here goes:

I'm currently playing on a HUGE map so naturally I have many planets. I'm pretty far into the game and decide I want to make ALOT more space stations So I create a rally point, set all my shipyards to send newly built ship there and then set all shipyards to build some constructors. Well all my (30+) planets pump out a constructor on auto-pilot and now my end of turns last longer then my regular turns!! These are custom builders so they have a movement range of about 24 (if I remember correctly) so waiting on just one to finish its move takes a few seconds.......multiply that by 40+ builders and you can start to see my problem lol.

I've tried searching the forums to see if this has been brought up before but all I could find were topics about actual ship movement points. Sorry in advance if it has!
3,718 views 11 replies
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I do not think there is any way around it. Ship movement is hardcoded.

I do it a bit differently.
I do not set waypoints, I just launch them as they are built. I let them sit next to the planet until I have enough for a large fleet, fleet them up and move them where I want them. Then I break the fleet and distribute them to build or upgrade the starbases as needed.

It goes a lot quicker.
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Your problem might be because you are running on a low-end machine. I played most of my games on a sub-spec rig (emulating DX 9 instead of running it natively) and saw a *major* change when I finally tried the game on an OK video card running on a fast CPU with decent RAM.

A couple of things you might try other than buying Vista too soon:
* Be sure you're running the latest update for the game and your video drivers
* Don't leave the map zoomed in to detail level when you process a turn; all those polygons slow things down (this can help, but isn't a cure)

If you've already tried that, I fear hardware might be your only fix (other than seriously practicing patience). Before the new rig, I always got to a point like this in my gigantic map games. I also suspect that player ships moving through AI sensor coverage is a factor, which could be why the zoom out only helps some and why better CPU & RAM could help.

p.s. Making your subject line a bit more specific might have drawn attention more effectively, e.g. "Small problem with long turn processing."

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I do it a bit differently.
I do not set waypoints, I just launch them as they are built. I let them sit next to the planet until I have enough for a large fleet, fleet them up and move them where I want them. Then I break the fleet and distribute them to build or upgrade the starbases as needed.


What size maps do you play? Waypoints are pretty important to most of us who favor the biggest maps. The pattern you describe here would drive me batty with click overhead.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I only play on Gigantic. But I don't normally have more than 10-15 planets producing constructors.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well...you can look at it this way...

You aren't playing a Huge/Gigantic map to finish a game in a couple hours, so what's a min or two extra per turn? lol

Seriously, though, without doing fleet movement, you're bound by the limitation of the hard coding. That limitation is that it doesn't just place the ships where they end up, but moves each one individually...

Another thought is perhaps convert some of your rear guard to doing something other than ship production and only make your more forward planets produce ships. Next, make a median ship (one with only, say, 12pc movement). With this, you'll have less end of turn overhead.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You aren't playing a Huge/Gigantic map to finish a game in a couple hours, so what's a min or two extra per turn? lol


My whinging about click overhead is not about the time, it's about bad wrists. I'd gladly trade a bit of turn processing time for better keyboard support, sizable windows for rally points, etc. I never even thought about how long a game took me until those Metaverse folks roped me in.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sometimes I like to zoom in all the way to where I can't see anything before ending the turn, it seems to make everything go faster, especially when I've got 80 ships flying all over the place. I guess they move faster if your graphics card doesn't have to process them doing it?
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ahhh...from the original post, it seemed as if it was because of end-of-turn processing overhead.

If you're sending them all to the same few stations, then fleet them up once they get to the rally point is all I can advise.

Say you have 40 constructors and 10 bases you're sending them to... fleet them up in groups of 4 and you've just quartered your overhead (and clicking).
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sometimes I like to zoom in all the way to where I can't see anything before ending the turn, it seems to make everything go faster, especially when I've got 80 ships flying all over the place. I guess they move faster if your graphics card doesn't have to process them doing it?


This is part of the big, messy question set that I don't know enough about coding games to ask clearly. I am fairly confident that keeping ships out of view when you're zoomed in for the eye candy must help some. But my last corrollary to this practic was to zoom out to tactical and also make sure I was looking somewhere that no ships would pass.

But I never took a stopwatch to the game, so I still have that lurking suspicion that AI sensor coverage is also a factor.