Seilore, we definitely appreciate your saves. I spent yesterday afternoon on the one you sent in and provided a break down of where all the time was being sent in it. Our developers went through that breakdown for performance optimizations. And we updated the 1.1 patch with the updates we could get that were significant and we could get in quickly. On the save you provided it reduced the turn time by about 30 seconds per turn.
We have more to do, certainly. We want to make it as fast as possible, but do keep in mind (as I mentioned in the other thread) games with that many players and on that large of maps are going to take time.
As for support asking for latest versions, sorry, that is in their DNA. Please understand that a huge percentage of issues are addressed with that single question. And that if they don't ask and we get developers looking into issues that have already been fixed then real issues aren't getting fixed and it makes it slower for everyone. Also if you aren't on the latest code and the issue is something that has changed with the latest code it may not be relevant anymore. But we understand this is harder on a game that can take weeks to finish one game.
Also you are not our typical support customer. You have been cataloging bugs and supporting the game throughout. You are an expert. But they don't know that and can't assume everyone is an expert, so they have to start with the basic stuff. I feel the same way when I call into my provider about an internet problem, I have already run a trace route, I know my PC is setup correctly, I can ping my router, I do not need to check to see if the cable is plugged into my PC. But I do it because they can't know that I know that.
I do agree with you on the point of asking if it happens with 10 players. I don't mind the question as a "did you notice if?". Like if you crash when starting the game as the Iridium they may ask if it also happens with the Terran to try to get the devs as much information as possible. But you certainly don't need to feel pressure to go test in these other situations. You are doing us a favor by calling in at all. We are not doing you a favor by lowering the turn time in your game, that game is gold to us. I'll mention it to support.
The only case where support should check and really isolate off before it comes to us is Mod support. They should ask if you are running mods and try to isolate out if the issue is caused by that. You can break the game in all kinds of crazy ways with mods and we don't have the bandwidth to help a modder figure out why his specific mod doesn't work (it's "best effort" support, post it and we may check it out and help, but I don't want anyone to expect that if they make a mod it's Stardock's responsibility to make sure it works). Outside of that we support 100 player games, we support MP, we support steam workshop, so bring on the issues.
And thanks again for your help. If you ever make it to Michigan you need to stop by the studio and I'll buy you a drink.