Kensai wrote:Well, I already have 22-25K files (each .hst and .trn) by 1884. This is not a good sign. It's not only the greater infrastructure and armies around the map, it's also the accumulation of past interventions (scripts) which we overdid in the PBEM. It's remarkably slow by the 80s already, I crunch a turn at 3-4x the time needed for a fresh 1880 game (which is supposed to have similar army arrangements).
Sometimes I wish the AGE engine was built in a swift C++ infrastructure. Delphi is kind of slow for PON.
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To your game: what will the USA do? Won't they interfere in the British woes?
I don't think my problem is old scripts. The majority I put in a file called 'use and delete' and then remove them – mainly as in-game all I'm interested in is making something happen. I think its a combination of a very large Russian army that is badly organised, so every now and then the AI tries to move it around and the processing demand is too much.
May also be related that I started this in 1.02, upgraded with all the 1.03 patches, started using the 1.04 betas, went back to 1.03 with the immortal garrison and the lag on F4, so I suspect my experience is a-typical.
I've solved the problem by a radical prune of the Russian army (by script) and removed some of the pre-conditions for a Russian revolution – think of it as the Tsarist army deserting. Its just this last hang up was 56 turns from the end ... and having got this far, I do rather want to get to the end. Even if its just a couple of largely peaceful years (I'm near the end of 1917 in game play now).
I think the US is content to sit out all this madness and just take on the missed trade and developments. They did go very close to war with GB a while back and it would have been interesting to see the fall out. But a lot of states now have very poor relations, so I suspect there is a real scope for more diplomatic surprises before the end.
Jim-NC wrote:I'm completely sure that your troops and their loose matches had nothing to do with the port "disappearing" from the British. My question is what "accidentally" caught fire this time?
errghhh, shuffles feet, well I might have been ... . This time I have done some vandalism, in particular to destroy things that never come up for sale like automobiles and planes.
Gen. Monkey-Bear wrote:Either way, I think this war really should end soon. What can Italy gain except some African colonies? Yup, I'm officially anti-war here [ducks as a chair is thrown which narrowly misses, and background comments are heard shouting "go back to Russia!" and "take a bath, Hippie!"].
Stuyvesant wrote:Was Kitchener any good in real life (obviously not a great swimmer, but that's not what I mean - was he a decent military commander)? You certainly got trounced in that round of combat. I wonder if the British are going to keep that wrecking ball of an army (42,000 power? Zat right?) together, or if it disperses.
Nice victory at London. Apparently, concentrating 8 admirals (with 3,400 troops - about 450 soldiers per admiral) does not offset the numerical advantage of having 200,000 troops and 1,100 cannon to throw at the city.
What are your plans for the British? As Gen. Monkey-Bear points out, you can only obtain marginal territorial benefits. And I doubt that you're too concerned about trashing their industry even more, considering that you want to have markets for your Italian goods to stay ahead of the Yankees. Are you just humiliating them (really, really humiliating them) by burning down London so that they'll go away and let you prepare for the next tag-team contender in the war(s) against you?
You're both right about the value of this war. If they had had no decent army in England, then I could have pushed the war score to the point where I could grab a large chunk of South Africa. As it is, I'm in a war of attrition for no realistic gain.
My logic when I set up this possibility was it would add spice to the general European war (I really didn't expect France to conquer Berlin) and I wanted to see if having a decent navy would set off a conventional naval battle. All that has happened is I have caught large chunks of their fleet in the commerce boxes and all I have to show is a message that I've done some damage.
The British stack was about 12,000, so in theory I should have won easily as I have more power, men and morale. But clearly most of the Italian army is on the
grappa in an attempt to cope with the British climate.
Having said all that, there is something pleasing at having captured London for the second time.
Not sure about Kitchener in reality. He seemed to do pretty well with his colonial wars, not least he realised the importance of logistics and having a large enough army to guard his supply lines. To his credit, by early 1915 he'd worked out that offensives without sufficient artillery were a total waste of lives. But like a lot of that generation, he couldn't work out any alternative, nor, of course, could he conceive of just making peace. He was probably the main architect of the Gallipoli disaster but he didn't share Haig's enthusiasm for just one more attack. So on balance, I'd say competent, basically decent and utterly out of his depth in the horrors of 1915 style warfare.
Gen. Monkey-Bear wrote:Okay, how about this: the next war nations are Spain and/or Portugal? They haven't had a war for a while. Or the constantly revolting Swiss? No, I've got it, the Scandinavians!
Or maybe Greece? You have some of their territory, after all. Czechoslovakia? Romania? I'm really just guessing any European nation at this point, because Europe is just a mess.
The Andorra-Monaco war of 1916?
You were half right in the very first sentence, yep, the new secret ingredient is Spain ...
enf91 wrote:Wow. The Czech Republic has 30 million people JUST IN CITIES? TODAY they have 10 million altogether!
I see you've captured the Ashes Formerly Known As London. I guess we can forget about Arsenal and Chelsea dominating, huh?
I think late game, population becomes far too much. The regular development cards (and the AI is good with this) push the population up by around 8-12% per year, plus the regular gains in city size. So my wee creation in the centre of Europe is quite a powerhouse (if it survives)
Aye, I think we'll have to accept that SerieA is the place for European football. The Bundesliga is looking a bit sad, La Ligue is going to lose a lot of prestige soon and Spanish football teams never do well against Italian sides ... Of course, the wonder that is the SPL is pretty well placed.
Gen. Monkey-Bear wrote:Or France? An alliance turned evil.
Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne wrote:German, British, Turkish, Austrian, Russian, and Brazilian alliance vs Italy, France, Netherlands, and Croatia! Spain, Portugal, and Scandinavia join in the end to occupy the rest of a devoid of life Europe...
Fortunately not, as things stand, the next round of wars Italy-Spain; Russia-Germany seem to remove the urge for further mass slaughter (maybe)