A simple fix
 

The unit limit is a royal pain for freespawn races on large maps.

One thing that would reduce the pain: Make freespawn last. Process summons, then recruitment and finally freespawn.

The battles I know about + the wrath of god killed 941 units + unknown losses in a fortress battle. I'm not recruiting anything--yet no summon worked. To add insult to injury you still lose the gems.

Re: A simple fix
 

Lol http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A simple fix
 

What's so funny? A simple cap-removal would really allay all the grief. And I suppose it wouldn't be too difficult to carry out. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/yawn.gif

Re: A simple fix
 

It is funny that players play the game in ways we never imagined when we made it in the firsat place.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking: suit yourself if you want that big a map. But that is not very nice of me. After all we gave you the means to be frustrated http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

We have increased the cap several times, and the complaint reemerges from time to time. In part it is a trade off between slower hosting, especially on slower computers, and problems in large games (in my experience really large, but I'm biased).

Freespawns last might alleviate the problem.

Re: A simple fix
 

I dont think that a long Hosting Time is any trouble in a TBS (especially when it is made for multiplayer like dom3 and there is one turn a day at max), and as it only shows up on very large maps so people with slow Computers can take smaller maps for their own benefit.

Re: A simple fix
 

The biggest problems would be Late Era games with R'lyeh and Ermor on the map. Either one of those and a large map hits the unit cap fairly fast.

If you really want to pay a massive, ridiculously large map, you should do it with a blank mod enabled, then copy-paste the No Independents mod into that. It will prevent the AI from recruiting hideous hordes of low resource indie chaff (because they all cost 9k gold, so can't be bought) except for the event spawned militias, which seriously cuts down on the number of units in the game. If you also avoid R'lyeh and Ermor in late era, you eliminate the biggest freespawn problem.

Re: A simple fix
 

While I understand the desire to increase the speed of the game for people with old computers it really sort of defeats the purpose if it just creates new all new frustrations (i.e. loosing the ability to recruit anything at all).

Putting freespawns last in the recruitment sequence would help a lot, but also giving people a the option to simply turn off the limit (even if only via a command line switch) would be the best fix (IMHO).

Re: A simple fix
 

You thought you had made allowances for that by letting me into beta? And that I had tested the limits? I thought I had also. I ran games with 79 nations on 1500 province maps doing immeadiate auto-hosting for days (hundreds of turns).

Actually I think you guys have done great. In the first couple Doms there was a definate "what the devs feel is a reasonable game". With Dom3 you definetly made an effort to allow things lower and higher than you thought was anywhere near being reasonable. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

But of course there will always be someone who will push it farther.

Re: A simple fix
 

Not to hijack a useful discussion, but a similar turn-order solution could perhaps remove the 'feature' that lets you fill your opponents labs with crap items via messages, and deny them slots for their forged items. The number of lab slots is a big limiting factor in very large games, so code the actions so all the nation's new forged items are made and go in the lab slots first, and only then items which come from messages.

On the other hand, perhaps it is designed that way on purpose, in which case I will simply hate them with a hateful firey hate burning with hate fire.[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Campfire.gif[/img]

Sill ( http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )

Re: A simple fix
 

Well then the best long term solution would be to create an "advanced options" section. A location where the host can specify the maximum number of units on the map and/or battlefield. A location where the host can specify how long a battle should last until the attacker is forced to flee. A location where the host can disable the death match arena because the AI opponents blindly send their large pretenders. Your customers with the more powerful computers can benefit at the same time your customers with the old computers will not suffer.
Creating this advanced options section places all the blame/yelling on the individual hosting the game instead of at the developers.

Re: A simple fix
 

Many simple fixes have been suggested. But the first question is whether or not they are looking for a fix. A large game is considered to be 18-25 nations on a 500 province map.
Has anyone gotten a game to the point that the cap is a problem and sent it in?

Ive run games with 79 nations on 1500 province maps set to auto-host immeadiately. Ive run them for days and hundreds of turns without a problem.

At the risk of (again) irritating the crap out of everyone, this sounds like less of a fix and more of a desired feature. And if anyone is going to want it that would be me. Im the one pushing the 1500 province maps and games that include all 3 ages of nations at the same time. And IF that runs into the unit cap then I at least would have a reason to ask for the increase.

Re: A simple fix
 

We'll find out with Perpetuality.

Re: A simple fix
 

That would be a fantastic solution. If that is too much work simple dom3.exe switches to enable/disable some advanced options would work as well...