Why Does Processing AI Hirings Take So Long?

[Spoons]

I don't know if it's just me, but I've noticed that, while everything else loads relatively quickly between days, "Processing AI Hirings" takes FOREVER, often pausing for minutes at a time on nearly every company it processes. It doesn't even like, freeze the game or stop responding either, which means it's actually taking that time to hire people. It did this in 2020, too. Anyone know why it does this? 

Edited September 10 by Spoons

[VBigB]

Well I suspect it’s directly proportional to the amount of workers in the database. Basically each company is potentially different and just thinking it about logically it’s one of the more complex algorithms in the game. It needs to cull every worker it can’t hire from the list and then would need to rank the remaining potential hires based on numerous factors including (and this would require going through the remaining workers 1 by 1):

- hiring rules

- hiring preference of the booker 

- hiring preference of the owner

- probably some kind of score for popularity and skill level

- adjustment due to age

- probably a bunch of other thing I’m not thinking of, etc.

It just seems to me that this would be an extremely heavy algorithm. I’m at work so I’m not sure if I’m remembering correctly but I don’t think it’s done every day likely due to the computation cost. Only Adam can tell us what goes into it but that’s my best guess.

[Spoons]

21 minutes ago, VBigB said:

It just seems to me that this would be an extremely heavy algorithm. I’m at work so I’m not sure if I’m remembering correctly but I don’t think it’s done every day likely due to the computation cost. Only Adam can tell us what goes into it but that’s my best guess.

Oh no, it's done every single day. Every in-game day, specifically the transitions between them, take WAY too long because of it, to the point where I have to be doing something else while I play the game lest I spend hours of my life doing nothing while the game loads. 

I do think you're onto something with how it most likely works, though. I just can't imagine why that'd take so much longer than every other loading time that's affected by the number of workers in the DB. Like, processing workers, contracts, etc. takes comparatively no time at all. It's by far the longest part of the loading process, taking more time than everything else combined, which makes me think that it'd be that way regardless of how many workers were in there, though maybe not, since it's not every company, it's only the ones who want to hire people in the first place.

Edited September 10 by Spoons

[eayragt]

How old is your PC and what database are you using? It definitely is the most time consuming part of the AI turn, but your quoted times are significantly more than my grotty laptop running the default database, so I'm wondering if one of those are having an undue influence.

[Spoons]

13 minutes ago, eayragt said:

How old is your PC and what database are you using? It definitely is the most time consuming part of the AI turn, but your quoted times are significantly more than my grotty laptop running the default database, so I'm wondering if one of those are having an undue influence.

My laptop isn't that old, I don't think, maybe 4 to 5 years at most? But more like 2-3. Though I do often have other things running as well. Doesn't make much of a difference whether I do or don't, though, since the disk & CPU don't go red in Task Manager. The DB I'm using is a heavily edited version of a converted port of the 2020 "War of the Immortals" DB, which... I have no idea how it compares to the default, honestly. I can't check right now because the game is loading, and is stuck on... well, take a guess. xD

I'm legitimately glad, though, to hear that it's worse than yours, because that means that the "several minutes per company" thing is not standard, which is a big relief. 

Edited September 10 by Spoons

[Doctor Crunch]

As a question, are you on Windows 11 with the auto backup to OneDrive turned on? When that default changed it significantly slowed down everything involving reading or writing from databases on my machine.

[Spoons]

7 minutes ago, Doctor Crunch said:

As a question, are you on Windows 11 with the auto backup to OneDrive turned on? When that default changed it significantly slowed down everything involving reading or writing from databases on my machine.

Nope. Windows 10 with OneDrive turned off. 

[MainOffender]

WOTI is an absolutely huge mod if I'm remembering correctly with a ton of workers and companies. Maybe the biggest that exists? Loading times are going to be rough. You can try turning off game areas, deleting some companies, and/or mass editing workers so they're available in fewer areas (thus giving the CPU less options to consider when hiring).

[Spoons]

23 minutes ago, MainOffender said:

WOTI is an absolutely huge mod if I'm remembering correctly with a ton of workers and companies. Maybe the biggest that exists? Loading times are going to be rough. You can try turning off game areas, deleting some companies, and/or mass editing workers so they're available in fewer areas (thus giving the CPU less options to consider when hiring).

It's decently big at least, yeah, especially with what I'm adding to it. Maybe I'll take your advice about the game areas thing, since some don't make much sense, like I'll look at it and go "Really? They can work there?" Like, so many people can work in America, probably because most of the companies are in America, but if they're not American then that doesn't make sense unless they've worked there before. 

 

There are 185 companies and 5494 workers, so yeah, significantly more than default. 

[alpha2117]

38 minutes ago, Spoons said:

It's decently big at least, yeah, especially with what I'm adding to it. Maybe I'll take your advice about the game areas thing, since some don't make much sense, like I'll look at it and go "Really? They can work there?" Like, so many people can work in America, probably because most of the companies are in America, but if they're not American then that doesn't make sense unless they've worked there before. 

 

There are 185 companies and 5494 workers, so yeah, significantly more than default. 

185 companies answers your initial question.  Thats 185 different processes that the AI has to go through every time.  The number of workers is less significant because most can sit unemployed and not have anything happen most days.  The default has what 35 companies and any more than 70 is probably going to slow things down pretty significantly.  

Edited September 11 by alpha2117

[Spoons]

1 hour ago, alpha2117 said:

185 companies answers your initial question.  Thats 185 different processes that the AI has to go through every time.  The number of workers is less significant because most can sit unemployed and not have anything happen most days.  The default has what 35 companies and any more than 70 is probably going to slow things down pretty significantly.  

Default has 88, I checked. So quite a lot fewer, but not quite the 35 you mentioned. 😛

 

And I don't think all of them check, since there are some that basically never come up because their hiring rules and rosters are such that they have no need to hire anyone, but yeah, that does certainly hinder things. Though if it didn't take so long for each individual one then that would be a non-issue, since again, everything else that would be made longer by having more companies takes way less time than this. And I'm not certain what all of that goes to. Like, I've got to wonder, like the first response said, if it's figuring out who to hire, or if it's more that that doesn't take long but the negotiation takes longer? I dunno, I'm just guessing. I'm sure it needs to take as long as it does, it's just a shame that it makes long playthroughs take even longer in bigger DBs, and that it's the sole contributing factor for the loading taking forever.

[alpha2117]

Yeah but 35 active.  Most of the others are closed or potential future companies - they dont cause any slowdown of hiring because right now they aren't hiring anyone. Babes of Sin City isn't going to hire anyone given they no longer exist but for historical purposes they remain in the company data. 

[Zero]

The amount of companies (and workers is what slows the game down).  My TEW 2020 1985-2019 game took 3-5 minutes eventually going from day to day.