Turn length (revisited)

[Koljan]

Good, evening, fellow KGCM fans and players.

On this fine evening, i'd like to discuss the one and only downside that this glorious mod has in it - AI turn length.

As I, myself, am no technical expert on the matter, the question i raise is simple:

What parts of the system (software and hardware) hold the most responsebillity when it comes to turn lengths?

I've removed the garrison script, and yet, the turn rate is just too slow for my personal liking, though I am unsure if other players share this feeling.

My hardware setup isn't quite as magnificent as I would like it to be, and with all sorts of economic troubles around the world, I find myself only able to upgrade 1 part in the near future.

AMD Athlon 3600+ x2 (2 years old)
2GB Corsair DDR2 ram
GeForce 8800GT (by Albatron, thermaltek cooling, pretty new)
3 year old WD 160gb HD.
M2N Plus SLI Vista Edition mobo (2 years old)
Running Windows XP service pack 2.

So, What would be your first upgrade to this rig if you were to do it thinking strictly of faster KGCM turn speed?

If you have ideas about software solutions, they will also be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Bored-of-waiting Koljan.

[pwf224]

I don't mind the turn length, and have gotten use to it. For me it rarely lasts over 45 seconds, and in that time ill go to the bathroom or clean up my room a bit or do some push ups or sit ups (just get creative), or I will simply wait. IDK how long your turns take, but here is a useful website that will help you determine which areas of your pc you can improve on to run a certain game. Just scroll down to Medieval Total War 2 :Kingdoms and run the scan and it will give you a detailed report on what you need and what is recommended as far as parts are concerned.

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest


Also, some users have reported that turning off campaign map shadows helps speed up turns a lot. For more info on how to speed up turns, do a search in the Stainless Steel forums. Their turns are 3x's the length of ours so the question gets posed alot, and sometimes good tips can be found there.

I hope this helps you out a bit. Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Koljan]

Wow, thanks a bunch!

Both for the fast reply and the links and leads.

I haven't time my turn time really, but thats a good idea, to have a comparison at least.

Thanks a bunch!

p.s. your hotseat campaign you are doing with dave and co. got me all excited and i started a new irish campaign.
Thanks for reigniting my KGCM passion!

[pwf224]

your welcome, that site helped me design a new comp that could handle m2tw at some pretty decent setting, so I figured it would help you where needed better that I could just by reading your specs.

As for the hotseat, the Irish campaign is pretty challenging, especially in a hotseat. Unlike the difficult challenges you face playing alone, the human players present real and difficult threats, as well as being smart and having strategies and objectives that you must watch out for. It is the most fun I've had playing total war in a very long time, and its only turn 8. Its also unfortunate that you can nvr play defense, even against the AI, so you will actually lose quite a few battles.

[Koljan]

during my experiments i've stumbled upon a nice way to reduce ai turn speed:

Open the windows task manager and right click on the Kingdoms process.
Set it's priority to High.

This doesnt make it as fast as vanilla, but it doe help quite a bit!