Do you prefer Online or Single Player?

[GunnDawg]

So I have been playing multiplayer/online lately and lately have come back to single player.

For some reasons I find the games more interesting and more fun while playing single player. I think its because when you play online you miss out on all the diplomacy and all that great stuff. (I love diplomacy)

So which do you prefer, and which do you play more often ?

[Unimatrix11]

What ? You enjoy doing diplomacy with the A.I. more than You do with real players ? I find that odd...

[GunnDawg]

The only games I have managed to play online are rather short games and are more or less team games, So there are two teams and thats it. No making and breaking alliances, trying to convince one civ to attack the other for your own personal gain and all that good stuff.

[LDiCesare]

Online games are very constraining. You have to take the time to play with others which means scheduling stuff and htat's enough to make it a no goer for me. It's possible to play mp in pbem but Civ is not well suited for that (too many turns, many of which are made of a single move or just pressing end turn).
Diplomacy is infinitely better with real humans of course, but I think there are better mp games than civ.

[Ming]

I find MP games to be far better than SP. First, the AI just plain sucks and is too predictable. Second, it's a level playing field and you everybody is playing by the same rules vs the "cheating" the AI needs to be competitive. Third, the diplomacy is far better (assuming you aren't playing a team game)

SP is a great way to try new things, and have some fun, but the AI is still stupid and predicatable. Humans opponents aren't

[eris]

I have tried MP as a LAN setup here at home and could never get the Out of Sync messages to get cleared up. We tried several of the fixes mentioned on the forums, and either we messed up or they don't really work. It was more than the rest of the family wanted to spend time fiddling with.

I look at the way most MP people describe their games and realize I would only be cannon fodder for them, assuming I lasted long enough to reach Cannons. That scares me enough that I will not even try MP with strangers. I have never been able to find a way to arrange MP with strangers who play as badly as I do. And even then, I have no idea if my setup would cause OOS or not.

So, I play SP.

[Ming]

You could always start a thread in the MP forum. I'm sure there are a lot of beginners who would love to experiment with you. Direct IP connection works fairly well as long as everybody has the same version of the game. One trick for out of sync problems is to turn special events off.

[joncnunn]

What I do is play a SP games but also am involved in the BTS Democracy game on this site.
(I was also involved with the Vanilla one but that game's been in limbo for over a month now. I skipped over the Warlords one since that took forever to get off the ground.)

[astrologix]

Pitboss games (PG) are the best MP for me. The pace is good (1 turn per day), the diplomacy with other players is great and you have the time to think what you are doing.

I'm currently playing some 18 players PG and two Democracy Games based on PG. It's great !!

If you play several PG in parallel, you can have plenty of fun !!!

Thanks Firaxis for giving us this possibility of play !!

[Unimatrix11]

One thing, that holds me off from trying to play with strangers, is the simple fact, that they are... strangers... (uhhh - compelling point, eh ?).

I once did that with Civ2 - people kept quiting mid-game. Once someone stuck around long enough for an alliance - but he cheated, wanting me to gift him units for him to move, then return them to me, so i could move them again the same turn - cheat in my eyes...

I dont know, if such a thing already exists with Civ4, but if not, what would certainly help, convincing me to try MP with strangers is some kind of player profile in the game. It could look ´somewhat´ (!) like a myspace profile (one or more pics, some general info, like age, gender and such - all optional of course) and keep a record (how many games at what levels won (by what condition ?) or lost - average playing time per day, timezone). If players added some text about themselves as well, that would be nice, too. There could be a ´general self-description´ and an extra box for ´current interests´ in which statements go like: ´Since they gifted us a tech in 1000BC, we are closest friends with XY - while YX shouldnt even try to talk to us, because...´

And they should add more diplo-options, such as the AI cant handle, for human-human-interactions. Like fixed borders, which would allow for gifting tiles, overriding cultural influence (so if it´s that gold you want, also for your city to use, you can have it without taking my city).

[fed1943]

I like the Pitboss games, both one man=1 team or team game.

But I don't like the classic MP: no time to think,perfect domain of the
keyboard and interface are the top skills.

Best regards,

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by astrologix
Pitboss games (PG) are the best MP for me. The pace is good (1 turn per day), the diplomacy with other players is great and you have the time to think what you are doing.

I'm currently playing some 18 players PG and two Democracy Games based on PG. It's great !!

If you play several PG in parallel, you can have plenty of fun !!!

Thanks Firaxis for giving us this possibility of play !!

1 turn a day? Considering civ games last hundreds of turns how are you ever going to play a good long game?

[snoopy369]

You play it for a year and a half PBEM is the old way to play, realize, hundreds or thousands of people would play by e-mail - take one turn, email it to the next player - which literally takes three years or more to finish (and often does not finish). PTBS is WAY faster, and usually finishes...

[Traianvs]

So you can play one or two games and that's it. Sucks if you made a wrong decision here and there. Hmm, great mp!

[LDiCesare]

You play it for a year and a half

Which is a bit long imho. Particularly considering 1 turn a day is very constraining. I play Dominions III Pbem when I want mp rather than Civ IV.

I vastly preferer Dominions III for mp over Civ IV because:
-We usually end up with 50h quickhosts (1 turn every other day), and often have delays due to real life being unkind to gamers. With these settings, the games last less than one year.With equivalent settings, a Civ IV game would take more than two.
-Simultaneous turns are REALLY simultaneous. I once had a Civ IV turn where both opponents waited for the other to move in the same turn. If I said end turn or moved one way, my opponent would have moved the other way. That ment we could have waited for a long while just because the game mechanics made it the best strategy for him. In Dom III, you give orders simultaneously, which are then solved. In CivIV SP, this is not an issue because turns aren't simultaneous at all.
-Civ IV Turns are often uneventful. You often just move units in your territory or move nothing, change zero build orders and generally only hit next turn, which is less than exciting for something that must be done and you have to log in that day. You can also decide that you don't need to do anything and not log in to the server, but in this case you won't know if someone starts moving troops against you. This can mostly be avoided by having the first turns played in a single session, but it's not always possible, and some mid game turns are just click end turn anyway.
-On the other hand, Civ IV also requires more micromanagement to get the best out of your civ.