A question for Virgil

[Tero]

Have you tried loading CW onto a newer computer and an older computer.  Then played the same map, and compared scores?  When I say the same map.  I mean a map with just the city and a totem.  All that is required is to build a collector or fly the city closer to the totem.   I been having trouble with some of the expert maps.  All things being equal.  I have reason to believe a newer computer will produce a better score than an older one.  Any thoughts?

[Aurzel]

the only possibility would be that the lag caused on the older computer makes it harder to keep up?

[knucracker]

Everything in CW is keyed to the game update loop... even time and score.  This is done on purpose so that slower machines will get treated fairly.  So the elapsed time in the game is actually game elapsed time, not real elapsed time.  If you run CW on a really old clunker from 10 years ago, and maximize the game, you may see that in 1 minute of real time only 30 seconds of game time pass.  Everything in the game will slow down.  It will be like you are playing the game in slow motion.

So if you make all of the same choices and moves as you would if it played faster, you will get the same score.  But, a human perceives things differently when things move at a different apparent rate.  So players will play differently when the game moves slower of faster by significant amounts.