Matrix Games Forums

I seem to recall that the excessive computing time between each turn was one of the major complaints with PoN. I'm slightly considering getting the game in the future (plate is pretty full at the moment)so I was just wondering:

1) Has it been improved any?
2) Could someone with the game on a mid-range system give some idea of just how long we are talking?

Thanks

I'm in the same boat as you and from what I've read and been told the time lag for the AI to do a turn is still an issue, unless you want to go to the bathroom or something.

ORIGINAL: Ranger33

I seem to recall that the excessive computing time between each turn was one of the major complaints with PoN. I'm slightly considering getting the game in the future (plate is pretty full at the moment)so I was just wondering:

1) Has it been improved any?
2) Could someone with the game on a mid-range system give some idea of just how long we are talking?

Thanks

its improved since release (& the demo) but it is still an issue.

I use a 3 year old laptop, not sure of the specs but it cost £1000 then and I reckon that from about 1850-1860 I was on 2-4 mins per turn (so no big deal), I'm now up the 1880s and I reckon 4-5 mins a turn. I just work around this - so I play a lot of PoN when I'm also doing something else ... working on another computer, domestic chores, cooking etc. All things where I can spend time, set up a turn and wander off while it does its thing. If you are at war, its helpful to observe the actual turn processing element as it will give you clues about enemy moves, otherwise, its a case of check the end game log, review things and do it again.

Its (in my uttterly non-technical opinion) unlikely to come down a huge amount as a quick check of the log files for each turn gives you some idea how much info the game processes. A simple eg is that Paradox's Victoria uses the fantasy concept of a world market (so everything for sale is there and the dispute is who buys it), in PoN every trade is 1:1 and each country estimates what it has for sale and what it wants to buy.

Not terribly scientific but:

my PC: dual core 3.30 Ghz, 4 Gig Ram Windows 7, 32 bit

Grand Campaign turn 1 took aprox 40 seconds for the AI to process its turn
Obviously as the game progresses and if there are a lot of wars etc no doudt this will be longer
Not enough time to go to the bathroom at least early game

There has been improvements, probably a 50% speed gain since 1.00. In the next PON patch, we are gaining again 10% roughly, from AI optimizations (unpublished patch for now). What takes the most time is AIs when at war. When juggernauts as the British Empire or late game Germany are calculating their move, it takes for this single faction 15 seconds. Top that with the rest of the processes (as Loki says, the market is not an abstracted world market e.g) and you can climb to 2 to 5 mn per turn, depending of your computer. We understand it is too much for some of you, but if you can cope with that, you'll see how detailed the simulation is.

Thanks for the input! Like I mentioned, I have a lot of games lined up to learn as it is (including RUS and WiA). The more I see of PoN, the more I like it though.

In my view maybe some parts should be torn out and abstracted to make the game playable as 5 minute turns are just not acceptable to most working people.

Stop being stubborn.[:)]

That's not as easy as you think. Some processes which are complex don't take that much time. What uses the most is AI, by far, and AI has already been stripped of some non essential stuff in PON, unless in specific cases for major nations only. Going further would dumb it down significantly. The problem, if this is one (and this might is that the engine has only two threads: one handles the map, the other handles the rest. If, with a magic wand, we could multi thread it extensively, with the AI done while you think with your slow biological brain [:D] then PON would be much more awesome, true.

well, since today modern cpu - even while only 2 cores support 4 threads - how hard it will be to rewrite game engine to support 4 therads instead of 2 ? For native 4/6 core procesors i dont see issue here