Civilization IV

I have recently received from a friend the Macintosh game Civilization IV. I’m a regular fan of this kind of games, and from time to time I dust of my old copy of Alpha-Centaury to play a game.

The problem of Civilization IV was visible on the requirements on the box: it requires a G5 or a newer intel processor. This is quite a steep requirement for a turn based game. I can understand that a RTS or are FPS game would require some serious processing power and a good graphic card, but a turn based game?

Still I installed the game, downloaded the latest version and ran it. The game ran reasonably fine (it crashed once), but was unbearably slow. Why? My laptop is by far no powerhouse, Rise of Nations, a RTS with 3D effects ran perfectly fine. Civilization IV also includes some eye candy, like a three dimentional view, but nothing that impressive and nothing justifying the absurd processing requirements. OK, units are animated and so are the rivers and the sea. Now can I turn it off and play?

Actually I don’t even understand the need to run in full-screen mode and re-implement a windowing system with panes and all the stuff. It makes no sense to have an RTS where you can still use your e-mail program or chat with friends, but a turn based game? The fact they even added the option to display a clock in the interface is an indication of the way people play. In the case of Civilization, the people at Fireaxis have reimplemented a window system and done a shoddy job of it – basically the interface runs slower than Java applications.

The internals of the game are partially written in Python, I don’t know to what extent the fact that a scripting langage is used can be blamed for the bad performance. When the game crashed, I got a stack trace, that revealed some strange stuff: what the hell is going on in the RaiseException function?

0 com.aspyr.civ4 0x009d0074 _ZNSt14__tree_deleterISt4pairIKPKvmESt20__base_value_compareIS2_mSt4lessIS2_EESaIS4_EE7destroyEPNSK_4nodeE + 1019616
1 com.aspyr.civ4 0x00074004 RaiseException + 263364
2 com.aspyr.civ4 0x00074f48 RaiseException + 267272
3 com.aspyr.civ4 0x00a05cb0 _ZNSt14__tree_deleterISt4pairIKPKvmESt20__base_value_compareIS2_mSt4lessIS2_EESaIS4_EE7destroyEPNSK_4nodeE + 1239836
4 com.aspyr.civ4 0x009fd300 _ZNSt14__tree_deleterISt4pairIKPKvmESt20__base_value_compareIS2_mSt4lessIS2_EESaIS4_EE7destroyEPNSK_4nodeE + 1204588
5 com.aspyr.civ4 0x0006e27c RaiseException + 239420
6 com.aspyr.civ4 0x00a05edc _ZNSt14__tree_deleterISt4pairIKPKvmESt20__base_value_compareIS2_mSt4lessIS2_EESaIS4_EE7destroyEPNSK_4nodeE + 1240392
7 com.aspyr.civ4 0x00074ce8 RaiseException + 266664
8 org.python.python 0x98a8c8e0 PyObject_Call + 48
9 org.python.python 0x98aec35c PyEval_GetFuncDesc + 2268
10 org.python.python 0x98aebd4c PyEval_GetFuncDesc + 716
11 org.python.python 0x98ae9414 PyEval_EvalCode + 9612
12 org.python.python 0x98aebedc PyEval_GetFuncDesc + 1116
13 org.python.python 0x98aebd34 PyEval_GetFuncDesc + 692
14 org.python.python 0x98ae9414 PyEval_EvalCode + 9612
15 org.python.python 0x98aebedc PyEval_GetFuncDesc + 1116
16 org.python.python 0x98aebd34 PyEval_GetFuncDesc + 692
17 org.python.python 0x98ae9414 PyEval_EvalCode + 9612
18 org.python.python 0x98aea5e4 PyEval_EvalCodeEx + 2132
19 org.python.python 0x98aa1530 PyFunction_SetClosure + 3436
20 org.python.python 0x98a8c8e0 PyObject_Call + 48
21 org.python.python 0x98aeb9a0 PyEval_CallObjectWithKeywords + 256
22 com.aspyr.civ4 0x00244810 RaiseException + 2165968
23 com.aspyr.civ4 0x00243f0c RaiseException + 2163660
24 com.aspyr.civ4 0x00243864 RaiseException + 2161956
25 com.aspyr.civ4 0x004e2b00 RaiseException + 4911040
26 com.aspyr.civ4 0x004e0330 RaiseException + 4900848
27 com.aspyr.civ4 0x004e1d78 RaiseException + 4907576
28 com.aspyr.civ4 0x0045d430 RaiseException + 4364528
29 com.aspyr.civ4 0x004e5a28 RaiseException + 4923112
30 com.aspyr.civ4 0x0073e854 RaiseException + 7384340
31 com.aspyr.civ4 0x0073e01c RaiseException + 7382236
32 com.aspyr.civ4 0x0073e0a0 RaiseException + 7382368
33 com.aspyr.civ4 0x006ebd5c RaiseException + 7045660
34 com.aspyr.civ4 0x006da4c8 RaiseException + 6973832
35 com.aspyr.civ4 0x006e70c0 RaiseException + 7026048
36 com.aspyr.civ4 0x006e72b0 RaiseException + 7026544
37 com.aspyr.civ4 0x00629960 RaiseException + 6250016
38 com.aspyr.civ4 0x0061f028 RaiseException + 6206696
39 com.aspyr.civ4 0x00492500 RaiseException + 4581824
40 com.aspyr.civ4 0x0023d954 RaiseException + 2137620
41 com.aspyr.civ4 0x004e009c RaiseException + 4900188
42 com.aspyr.civ4 0x00002664 0x1000 + 5732
43 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x931ea554 DispatchEventToHandlers(EventTargetRec*, OpaqueEventRef*, HandlerCallRec*) + 692
44 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x931e9cac SendEventToEventTargetInternal(OpaqueEventRef*, OpaqueEventTargetRef*, HandlerCallRec*) + 372
45 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x931e9b28 SendEventToEventTargetWithOptions + 40
46 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x931f0e9c ToolboxEventDispatcherHandler(OpaqueEventHandlerCallRef*, OpaqueEventRef*, void*) + 704
47 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x931ea7a4 DispatchEventToHandlers(EventTargetRec*, OpaqueEventRef*, HandlerCallRec*) + 1284
48 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x931e9cac SendEventToEventTargetInternal(OpaqueEventRef*, OpaqueEventTargetRef*, HandlerCallRec*) + 372
49 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x931f0a60 SendEventToEventTarget + 40
50 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x932317a0 ToolboxEventDispatcher + 92
51 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x9323172c HLTBEventDispatcher + 16
52 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x9322fce4 RunApplicationEventLoop + 148
53 com.aspyr.civ4 0x00002714 0x1000 + 5908
54 com.aspyr.civ4 0x000028a4 0x1000 + 6308
55 com.aspyr.civ4 0x00002184 0x1000 + 4484
56 com.aspyr.civ4 0x00001fb4 0x1000 + 4020

2 thoughts on “Civilization IV

  1. As today, the “scripting language” terminology is not a valid one anymore.

    Fact is that the EVE Online game is mostly Python and is quietly fast. I do not know what they have done with Civ4 but I agree that it is a heavy ressource hog, and not a stable one. Don’t know why, really.

  2. EVE Online is using a modified version of python though, stackless python, which is quite efficient. I don’t know what kind of python VM is used in Civ IV. I think python is used for all the application logic, 3d rendering is usually still good old C++

    http://www.eve-online.com/faq/faq_07.asp

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