[Discussion] Minimizing 'lag'

I'm sure we all hate that 'stutter-step' that happens when a game has so much processing to be done it decides to inflicts its fury upon its player. Of course this only really happens on larger maps - never for indoors, as they're always much smaller. But sometimes for those big cities you really can't avoid having a fair bit going on inside them. You need places to go and people to talk to.

So I'm just curious as a creator what strategies other people have come up with to minimize this lag as much as possible?

For me, I've seen a noticeable difference in performance when there are no shadow source events on the map. So as much as I love that effect, I'm currently in the process of removing them from the game so that hopefully things will run more smoothly. I've added in gatehouses were previously there weren't any, so that the game has fewer map connections to process. I used also to occasionally use events as a sort of 'fourth layer' when needed, but am now also in the process of removing these and replacing them with custom individual tiles (this is not a fun process at all - especially when you've got seasons implemented and four outdoor tilesets to work on).

The one map I'm struggling on now though is an 80x60 city as much as I've tried I can't make it operate at 100%.

So what works for you? Any lag minimizing tricks out there I've not thought of?

Well you can split your larger maps and connect them with the editor.

You could remove every unnecessary parallel event.

You can convert every mp3 and ogg file in midi.

You could even go as far as to replace every event with a common event call, but the benefits of this method are minimal.