Timed Turn Civ III Multiplayer

[Daniel Frappier]

I will give an example,

note: #of seconds by turns are given as an example, you might feel OK playing faster or slower but the same principle apply.

I played both Civ II MGE and CTP, they work well (for me) with something like 120 seconds/turn, you have an enjoyable and relax game and maybe take 90 seconds/turn on average. You can lower that limit to have a faster game but pretty soon you get to a turn were you have to conduct diplomacy, moves dozens of units, etc. and you are stuck sorry not enough time!! If you try to play at a fast rate maybe something like 40 seconds/turn it will be enough most of the turns but on some occasions not enough to carry out you're plans wich in my opinion ruins the game. So you have to get back to a more relax time limit. On the other if I had 40 seconds with carry over i could play most of my turns in 30-35 seconds and would be OK if a turn I need 120 seconds.

The principle is that it rewards you for playing fast but gaves you enough time to do everything you need to do.

[JimMac]

As another frequent player of multiplayer CIV II and CTP (and HOMM) on a home LAN system, I vote for Daniels carry over time system.

I would just like to add a couple of comments;
-The players timer would pause while a Wonder movie is shown.
-There should be an option to limit the maximum carry over time, so that, to take an extreme case, one player should not be able to build up say, half an hour of carry forward time to be used in a single turn.

In general though, I would like to be able to carry out as many game tasks as possible when it was not "my turn", including giving movement orders to units, PROVIDING this does not lead to the dreaded Re-sync problems evident in CTP.

[TechWins]

Well, I don't really like the idea of simultaneous moves because it takes away from that TBS feel. I will be willing to try it, though. Daniel, I like that idea a lot. In fact that is the best idea I've heard for improving MP.

i don't play Civ 2 MP, but this sounds new doesn't it? Could this mean that in an alliance, you and your partner can actually controll each other's peices? That would be cool

What this means is that if you're lets say the French and your ally is the Romans you two will be able to have your turn at the same time. You won't be able to control each other's 'pieces'. This will enable greater strategy for coordinate attacks with an ally.

[MidKnight Lament]

I think you guys are underplaying this. This is awesome!! Options are good. Simultaneous turns was identified as being something that people have deemed to be quite important in the various lists we've done on here. It's never going to replace the old TBS system that we love Civ for, but being able to choose simulataneous for a change is fantastic.

Consider me a happy camper.

[ChrisShaffer]

I want asynchronous simultaneous moves, where each player submits orders by a deadline and then the game engine runs the whole turn all at once and sends out turn reports. It's like PBEM, but you can run one (or two or even twelve) turns per day, instead of the usual PBEM snails pace of one-two turns per week.

[Alexander's Horse]

Thanks for letting us know Jeff

Originally posted by Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS
Timed turns and simultaneous moves will be a part of multiplayer, but in reality it doesn't significantly reduce play time (at best ~15%). Often MP games take longer anyways because of having to coordinate multiple play sessions with multiple people, not to mention disconnects and restarts. For the average customer winning a solo civ3 game by space race, on default settings, can't really happen in one sitting. MP is the same way. We've got a pretty different approach to simul-move, and features like alliance simultaneous moves will reduce game time even more. The SMAC favorite of dynamically increasing turn timers will be present as well.

While these areas of MP aren't being ignored, most new stuff will be in turn based. Civ3 is a turn based game at it's heart, and we believe it can be a great internet game without ignoring or sidestepping that fact.

Jeff

Its great to read you guys are taking multiplayer seriously

[gibboso]

simultaneous moves

I like the idea of simultaneous play ... i don't like to sit and wait too long. thant's why i usually don't play turn base games in MP .. which is a pity.
i get too ususally.

also simultaneous moves may account for some real stuff like guerrilla warfare

on the other side ... how are resolved conflicts ? ... moves are executed in turn based on civ score, maybe (the worst moves first or something like that) ?

I really hope you can it get fun with MP too!

[tniem]

What about a time limit on PBEM games?

If the person I am playing against does not play his turn in a day, why can't we have the game or a server play the turn and send it on to the next player. PBEM is the only MP I will probably play, I hope you considered a central server to store games that we would log on to get the game without cheating and would have to play the game within a certain time limit.

[Alexander's Horse]

multiplayer games hardly ever go the distance

One thing about mulitplayer games is they hardly ever go to spaceships or even to the modern period. The game is usually won or lost, or abandoned by then. The exception here is so-called "diplo" games.

Improving the pointscoring somehow would be a boon to multiplayer. That way people could get a decision even off a one session game - just look at the points. The powergraph in civ 2 is currently used for that but its not very accurate because its too heavily weighted to population and doesn't give scores as such.

On simult, it does speed up the game immeasurably during its early stages - combat is the big problem with it. Later in the game there are big time savings too but not as great!

[phoenixcager]

Originally posted by tniem
What about a time limit on PBEM games?

If the person I am playing against does not play his turn in a day, why can't we have the game or a server play the turn and send it on to the next player. PBEM is the only MP I will probably play, I hope you considered a central server to store games that we would log on to get the game without cheating and would have to play the game within a certain time limit.

Yes! This is a brilliant idea! Would it be possible/feasible for Firaxis to do this, though?

[Rasputin]

Re: multiplayer games hardly ever go the distance

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
One thing about mulitplayer games is they hardly ever go to spaceships or even to the modern period. The game is usually won or lost, or abandoned by then. The exception here is so-called "diplo" games.

perhaps firaxis should make MP civ3 more like Diplo then , seeing as that type of Civ 2 game usually lasts much longer...

[Alexander's Horse]

Simult simult

I played one game, Third Reich or something, where all players programmed in their moves and then the moves were executed simultaneously in real time. That was neat, the game only stopped to resolve conflict, you could choose to fight, withdraw, whatever. The trouble was the game kept hanging.

[Rasputin]

how did it know if movement paths crossed , the timing of move sin simul can cause units to intercept or not depneding on which units the players move at which time

[Daniel Frappier]

Simultaneous Turns and other idea like that are great and might produce a very good game but it will not be Civ anymore.

For those wishing to play great Civ online how about my chess clock idea ?

Damm..if only Firaxis could see it.

[Rasputin]

No timers

I hate timers , and firmly bleeive they should never be used. Internet too riddled with LAG to allow timers to ruin a Great Game