The giant 42-player Civilization V game has broken down on Day 12, Turn 239 while it was Japan's turn. Japan seems to be the destructor of one of the most-loved spectator sports, but, apparently, it is not their fault.
The reason for the break down is developing more navy units in one turn, which was out of proportion for the game. The perpetrator seems to be Tojo, the leader.
The concept was very simple though, according to The Daily Dot. Forty-two AI-controlled civs were battling from head to toe for supremacy on the audacious, Earth-shaped map. All of these civilizations were selected by the denizens of the game, including both Modded Historical and Vanilla civilizations.
The game was an AI-only, 42-player battling ground that came down to a stuttering halt within two weeks. It has been reported that the game was taking twenty minutes of time just to load before the break down.
The game had too many units and cities on the entire map, and constant fight in all the cities meant it required enough gaming technology to keep the game alive. However, the organizer TPangolin seemed perfectly poised for the challenge for as much as 11 days.
The organizer was documenting the war constantly to keep the payers up to date, Kotaku reported. His galleries were full of commentary and images, showing the bulky nature of the game.
On the other hand, the sheer volume of the game provided clue that it was something out of ordinary. TPangolin did his best in keeping the game alive. Some folks have also been donating new PC hardware for speeding up debugging (and game performance). But, as things turned out on day 12, the game could not return from the dead zone.
The only ray of hope for the gamers and spectators now is that the Battle Royale's saved files go to 2K support, the game creator, who will find the reason of the breakdown and fix it. However, since it was a heavy- scale game, and as it was using mods, the hopes are faint.
The most important info, though, is that everybody might not have the required gigantic PC performance to even be a spectator.