Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions - Page 3

ProPain · 28-09-2010, 17:16

Not a clue about the borders nor the unit upkeep. Sorry guys

I did found out that the domination victory is very abusable. Started a duel sized pangea map as Greece, king level. Build two hoplites and attacked Rome. Got the city after 2/3 turns with my last hoplite which was hurt to the point of death. Rome still had some healthy unit that he'd called back after my attack, I had just one fresh hoplite coming in.

Now I'm sure I'd have pulled of a less cheesy victory should I have waited for that 3rd hoplite to arrive to the scene before I attacked. But the whole thing shows that especially on these small maps you can rush your opponent with ease. Gonna try this on deity level as well.

Beorn · 28-09-2010, 18:18

Companion cavs do this on deity like it's nobody's business.

ProPain · 28-09-2010, 20:50

[...PP runs of to try that ....]

Samson · 08-10-2010, 02:11

So this game is really flacky for me. It crashes quite often, like every 5 - 10 turns (or sometimes every other). When it crashes sometimes I have to restart steam, which has updated itself (and civ) twice tonight. Sometimes I have to restart. One time it would not let me play civ because I was not on line to log in.

Sometimes when I get a crash I get a Visual Studio debuger popup. I think they developed it with VS 08, and I have VS 10.

My laptop has the bottom of the required video card (ATI radeon HD4600) and well above the sugested everything else.

Is this normal flakyness, or is my setup?

ProPain · 08-10-2010, 08:25

No expert on computer components and set ups but it seems my laptop is a bit more on the low end than yours and I don't experience that much crashes at all.

I've had civ crash twice untill now, both times when switching quickly between 2d and 2d mode. Also I have some movement issues on water in the late game were the cursor will remain red even though a unit can clearly move to that tile anyway. Experienced this once on land as well, discovered then that the unit will move to the hex even though the cursor is red, have yet to try and see if that works no water as well.

Steam log in should not be required, you should be able to play offline as well. I've never tried this for Civ V but I did for other Steam games and never had any problems with offline play

My system props so you can compare
- Intel core duo T9400, 2,53 Ghz
- ATI mobility HD 3650 graphs card
- 4GB RAM
- Vista business, 32 bit

Have to say the game gets very slow though when the whole map is revealed and everybody is moving their units (standard map, no large/huge maps). Also the game takes quite a while building up the terrain textures when a game is loaded.

Shabbaman · 08-10-2010, 10:11

Hm, it doesn't crash for me but playing it it's clear that 2GB isn't enough memory for this game. Other than that it runs OK, but I have only a 17" screen and I run without AA. Apparently I'm blind, I can't see the difference between AA on or off, I don't use this in any game. What did increase my enjoyment with Civ5 dramatically was playing in windowed mode. Alt-tabbing almost kills my system, and I tend to do that a lot. Windowed mode solves that. Running native resolution isn't a problem with my tiny screen anyway.

Frequent crashes usually point to either faulty drivers or faulty hardware. Last year I found out that my graphics card had some deficiency. It only shows in in FPS games. If you didn't play graphically stressing games before, it could be that your graphics card just sucks monkey balls. The memory on it could be faulty, you'd never have noticed it before. Unfortunately you can't test it without changing the graphics card. But you could test your normal memory with Memtest. I doubt that's the cause of your problems, that'd have shown in other processes as well.

You did upgrade your graphics card driver, didn't you?

Samson · 08-10-2010, 22:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shabbaman

You did upgrade your graphics card driver, didn't you?

I had the latest one on the laptop manufactures web site, but there was a newer one on out there. Download it and it seemed to be better (slightly less ropey graphics), but it has just crashed again after about 3 turns. It may that it is much better now and that was unlucky.

I had completely assumed it was the pressence of a newer copy of visual studio, but perhaps not.

My laptop is :

Acer travelmate 7720
Intel core2 Duo CPU
T8300 @ 2.4 GHz
4 Gig Ram
Window XP Pro 32 bit

[EDIT] Doh, it just crashed again without finishing a turn. This is still in the medievil era, standard map.

Shabbaman · 08-10-2010, 23:34

Just a weird thought, but perhaps the game has a memory allocation issue with your 4 GB and your 32 bit OS. You could try this by removing a memory bank. OTOH, that's probably not that easy with a notebook.

ProPain · 09-10-2010, 00:43

Isn't the OS handling memory allocation instead of the game itself?

I have vista 32 bit and 4gb, no problem at all. I would think the excess, non adressable memory is just sitting around in your comp being pretty.

another thought: Can it be a swapfile related issue? (harddrive is too full, swapfile size set to a too small amount) Just a wild guess, no expert by any means.

Shabbaman · 11-10-2010, 09:55

Is there any way to make more money? In my current game I'm going for a cultural victory. I have 4 cities, 8 units and 3 workers and I'm already in the 20th century.I have trade shops about everywhere, but I have to focus on gold production to get a positive GPT. 100 GPT is going to building upkeep, and I haven't even build happiness buildings besides temples. I try to build as less buildings as possible to keep upkeep down. Compared to civ4 I have the feeling that my trade network is too small. Is it worth it to connect foreign cities or citystates, or to build harbors? Do harbors connect foreign cities?

Cranking out 350 culture a turn btw.

28-09-2010, 17:16	#21
ProPain Customized Admin :) Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: sailing the seas of cheese. Posts: 5,852	Not a clue about the borders nor the unit upkeep. Sorry guys I did found out that the domination victory is very abusable. Started a duel sized pangea map as Greece, king level. Build two hoplites and attacked Rome. Got the city after 2/3 turns with my last hoplite which was hurt to the point of death. Rome still had some healthy unit that he'd called back after my attack, I had just one fresh hoplite coming in. Now I'm sure I'd have pulled of a less cheesy victory should I have waited for that 3rd hoplite to arrive to the scene before I attacked. But the whole thing shows that especially on these small maps you can rush your opponent with ease. Gonna try this on deity level as well. __________________ I fed my Dog the American Dream Well, he rolled over and he started to scream He said, I dig the taste of salt but it don't keep me alive yeah, yeah

28-09-2010, 18:18	#22
Beorn Disabled Vet Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: RAWR! Posts: 1,555	Companion cavs do this on deity like it's nobody's business. __________________ Please do not annoy, torment, pester, plague, molest, worry, badger, harry, harrass, heckle, persecute, irk, bullyrag, vex, disquiet, grate, beset, bother, tease, nettle, tantalize or ruffle the animals. San Diego Wild Animal Park

28-09-2010, 20:50	#23
ProPain Customized Admin :) Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: sailing the seas of cheese. Posts: 5,852	[...PP runs of to try that ....] __________________ I fed my Dog the American Dream Well, he rolled over and he started to scream He said, I dig the taste of salt but it don't keep me alive yeah, yeah

08-10-2010, 02:11	#24
Samson Warlord Join Date: May 2004 Location: . Posts: 397	So how normal is this? So this game is really flacky for me. It crashes quite often, like every 5 - 10 turns (or sometimes every other). When it crashes sometimes I have to restart steam, which has updated itself (and civ) twice tonight. Sometimes I have to restart. One time it would not let me play civ because I was not on line to log in. Sometimes when I get a crash I get a Visual Studio debuger popup. I think they developed it with VS 08, and I have VS 10. My laptop has the bottom of the required video card (ATI radeon HD4600) and well above the sugested everything else. Is this normal flakyness, or is my setup?

08-10-2010, 08:25	#25
ProPain Customized Admin :) Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: sailing the seas of cheese. Posts: 5,852	No expert on computer components and set ups but it seems my laptop is a bit more on the low end than yours and I don't experience that much crashes at all. I've had civ crash twice untill now, both times when switching quickly between 2d and 2d mode. Also I have some movement issues on water in the late game were the cursor will remain red even though a unit can clearly move to that tile anyway. Experienced this once on land as well, discovered then that the unit will move to the hex even though the cursor is red, have yet to try and see if that works no water as well. Steam log in should not be required, you should be able to play offline as well. I've never tried this for Civ V but I did for other Steam games and never had any problems with offline play My system props so you can compare - Intel core duo T9400, 2,53 Ghz - ATI mobility HD 3650 graphs card - 4GB RAM - Vista business, 32 bit Have to say the game gets very slow though when the whole map is revealed and everybody is moving their units (standard map, no large/huge maps). Also the game takes quite a while building up the terrain textures when a game is loaded. __________________ I fed my Dog the American Dream Well, he rolled over and he started to scream He said, I dig the taste of salt but it don't keep me alive yeah, yeah

08-10-2010, 10:11	#26
Shabbaman Administrator Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Costa La Haya Posts: 8,493	Hm, it doesn't crash for me but playing it it's clear that 2GB isn't enough memory for this game. Other than that it runs OK, but I have only a 17" screen and I run without AA. Apparently I'm blind, I can't see the difference between AA on or off, I don't use this in any game. What did increase my enjoyment with Civ5 dramatically was playing in windowed mode. Alt-tabbing almost kills my system, and I tend to do that a lot. Windowed mode solves that. Running native resolution isn't a problem with my tiny screen anyway. Frequent crashes usually point to either faulty drivers or faulty hardware. Last year I found out that my graphics card had some deficiency. It only shows in in FPS games. If you didn't play graphically stressing games before, it could be that your graphics card just sucks monkey balls. The memory on it could be faulty, you'd never have noticed it before. Unfortunately you can't test it without changing the graphics card. But you could test your normal memory with Memtest. I doubt that's the cause of your problems, that'd have shown in other processes as well. You did upgrade your graphics card driver, didn't you? __________________ "Our spam is backed with COMETS!"

08-10-2010, 23:34	#28
Shabbaman Administrator Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Costa La Haya Posts: 8,493	Just a weird thought, but perhaps the game has a memory allocation issue with your 4 GB and your 32 bit OS. You could try this by removing a memory bank. OTOH, that's probably not that easy with a notebook. __________________ "Our spam is backed with COMETS!"

09-10-2010, 00:43	#29
ProPain Customized Admin :) Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: sailing the seas of cheese. Posts: 5,852	Isn't the OS handling memory allocation instead of the game itself? I have vista 32 bit and 4gb, no problem at all. I would think the excess, non adressable memory is just sitting around in your comp being pretty. another thought: Can it be a swapfile related issue? (harddrive is too full, swapfile size set to a too small amount) Just a wild guess, no expert by any means. __________________ I fed my Dog the American Dream Well, he rolled over and he started to scream He said, I dig the taste of salt but it don't keep me alive yeah, yeah

11-10-2010, 09:55	#30
Shabbaman Administrator Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Costa La Haya Posts: 8,493	Is there any way to make more money? In my current game I'm going for a cultural victory. I have 4 cities, 8 units and 3 workers and I'm already in the 20th century.I have trade shops about everywhere, but I have to focus on gold production to get a positive GPT. 100 GPT is going to building upkeep, and I haven't even build happiness buildings besides temples. I try to build as less buildings as possible to keep upkeep down. Compared to civ4 I have the feeling that my trade network is too small. Is it worth it to connect foreign cities or citystates, or to build harbors? Do harbors connect foreign cities? Cranking out 350 culture a turn btw. __________________ "Our spam is backed with COMETS!"