Multiplayer Setup Screens

[ChrisShaffer]

quote: I find the most frustrating thing about PBEM games is that it takes so long to get going. You move one unit and tell your city to build something and then you have to wait for your opponent to do the same and send it back to you.

Ha! More like "take your turn, send it to player 2, who sends it to player 3...who sends it to player 7, who sends it back to you." And you're lucky if the group is reasonably active and can play more than one turn per week.

Still, we do it. Repeatedly. I'm in games that have lasted more than a year.

Hopefully, Firaxis will provide server-based asynchronous multiplayer -- see my messages above for a description.

[dognheat]

One game that I just recently came across that has a great multiplayer setup/chat/messages/community is Tribes 2. The interface is better than just about anything I have seen yet. It has a tab that is used to join/setup servers, another for IRC chats, another tab for messages from the dev. team, info about patches etc. , and another for buddies and email info. Not sure how a FPS multiplayer screen would benefit a LONG turn-based strategy, but I think it deserves a mention.

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*PLOP*

[Alexander's Horse]

Jeff, thanks for thinking of the multiplayer community.

First off, the civ 2 multiplayer platform, as patched, is very stable so I'd be happy if it was retained. If its changed, please don't make us go to a dedicated server. A player should be able to act as host.

Also, the ability to use icq, aim and other toolbar features whilst playing is very very important to multiplayers. Will this be possible????

On multiplayer features, I think the option menu should be expanded. the following would be a good list of additional options:

. No starting techs. Most of us restart a game if someone gets a tech because the advantage is too great. Sometimes in civ 2 this means we have to open several maps before we get a game. Very frustrating.

. No city bribe, no unit bribe. Most of us play without city bribe, many without unit bribe. These would have to be separate options because some play one but not the other.

. Simultaneous movement. This is huge. With civ 2 we can bring up the option by modifying the windows file. Please make it a game option. Multiplayer can be very slow in turn based. If some how there could be another option to make movement simult but fighting turn based that would settle a lot of arguments. Maybe separate the two if feasible (simult movement, simult war options).

. Alliance victories. We have tribes and teams now. People should be able to share wins.

. Surrender civ. Currently can't do this. It would be nice if there was civ surrenders if capital taken option too.

. Win Points. Just thought of this. Better than the PG for multiplayer.

That's all I can think of for now. Please E-mail me if you want to discuss further. I'll link this thread to the multiplayer forum where the hard core civ 2 multiplayers hang out.

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Its over.
[This message has been edited by Alexander's Horse (edited April 23, 2001).]

[jordanz19]

I haven't got the Civ2 MP, but a few months ago I got SMAC. I can't find a site to play it online, so I've been playing the IP games quite often. It takes a few sessions to get the game finished because one of us has to leave for some reason. I haven't played it with more than two other people because its too much work to get everyone organized. Multiplayer is vital and adds aw whole new dimension to the game, and I hope it will be bigger and better in Civ3.

Oh yeah, in the SMAC IP Multiplayer setup, when I'm not the host, and we continue our game, I have to re-type all my custom fraction names in, it get annoying after a while.

[ChrisShaffer]

GNGSpam, you're describing a variant on Turn Based Simultaneous Execution which I certainly hope is included in the game.

[GNGSpam]

It doesnt suprise me the idea has been mentioned. Its reminiscent of the old Avalon Hill board gaming rules. Avalon Hill, along with other wargame companies like SSI, turned turnbased gaming into an art form. Civ2, compared to many of those games, is a very crude turn based game. In Civ3, I feel they should probably break out some of the old fashioned board games like Diplomacy, Civil War, or Third Reich and take some notes.

[OzzyKP]

As a Civ 2 IP Multiplayer, i agree with much of what Markus, DaveV, and Alexander Horse had to say. I like playing games through IP and alot of people would be upset if that were removed, as for other ways of playing mutliplayer i don't really know about them and can't comment. Also be wary of comments by those people who preface their ideas with "i've never played multiplayer before, but..." you should listen to those of us who've really invested lots of time into multiplayer and know every small foible and fallacy.

Perhaps the top suggestion i can give, and i'm sure everyone else will agree on, for both Multiplayer and Single player is to make the game WINDOWED! Nothing frustrates a player more than having the game take up the entire screen and being unable to do several things at once. The modern gamer and computer user typically has ICQ, AIM, webpages, a word document, a game, and all sorts of things going at once. I know that one reason i don't especially like CTP and SMAC is that everything else i'm doing has to be forsaken because the game takes over the entire screen. Keep the windowed version of Civ 2. DON"T CHANGE IT!!! It helps for multiplayer too, because often people communicate through various chat software like ICQ, so being able to use that and play is essential.

Also, things to speed up the game are needed. In some big games with lots of units and players can take hours to get through a few turns. This is very frustrating and discouraging, something that includes simultaneous play but allows for turn based war would work. I like GNSpam's suggestions, but it sounds too complicated to work properly.

Also with IP games there is lots of difficulty starting up. So a window displaying to everyone who else is in the game and what stage they are at is good to ensure everyone that things are happening. And the Kick option that Markus mentioned would be very helpful. Often in games someone gets kicked offline or out of the game and can't get back in because the game never recognized him leaving. So then everyone has to leave and restart which takes time and is a big pain in the ass.

Also i suggest incorporating it better. Multiplayer was just an add on feature to Civ 2, i'd like to see it become more central. I don't have any specific ideas as to how that would be, but i'd like to see some aspects of the game that are open only to multiplayer or new dimensions that open up when played that way.

And wonders like Eiffel tower, great wall, united nations and whatnot loose much of their use when in multiplayer so if wonders like that exist in civ 3 develop functions for them in multiplayer that compliment those that are lost from single player.

More win conditions would be nice. I think you all have already mentioned this, but multiplayer often seems too directed to one thing, and i'd like to see other options open up to allow for other strategies. Anyone kicking around Gameleague and Civ2 multiplayer is aware of how tedious games have become because people have reduced the game to a science and they all know exactly what they must do to win. There isn't any real creativity or variety of game styles, there is just a formula that is applied. If it could be opened up more it'd be real good.

Explaining the factors that contribute to the powergraph would be good, and allow it to be viewed during the game. Likewise with the demographics screen.

Hope it helped, i'm sure i've got more ideas, but i'm busy now. Hey Jeff, check back in so we all know you are listening.

[GNGSpam]

Though possibly over ambitious, I think the game should be seperated into "phases". With City Managament, Movement, and then Combat phases. City Managament and Movement can be done simultanously. During the Movement phase you can "tag" units for attack. Then in the Combat section, you can add in some sort of "intiative" system, where units are given an intiative rating (based of movement and experince). Then, all units tagged for "attack" are moved according to intiative, meaning that the players turns will intersect. Ill move my tanks, then he moves his, then I move the supporting Marines, and then he moves his, etc. Of course you will be allowed to intentionally lower its intiative, so that you can save some tanks for a counter later in the round, if you so choose.

The beauty of it is since you wont know how combat will develop while your moving your units, youll often have to make hard choices of tagging units behind the front for combat so they can counterattack, but them possibly not being needed and therefore sitting unused, or moving them to the front. What about just tagging them for combat and just moving them in the combat section when no enemies are around? Dont allow movement in the Combat round unless they are in range of an enemy unit, and then only in the direction of the enemy. So if you tag 4 tanks in a city behind your line for a counterattack just incase they break the front, but they fail too, you would just not move them that turn.

I havent fully developed the concept but, hopefully your getting the idea.

[Fuzzball]

What I think would be awesome in civ3 multiplayer support , would be if the lobbies/online database for civ3 were just that. An online civ3 database. This would hold civ3 default multiplayer startup files, decreasing multiplayer game connections and runtimes for all. It could store the stuff like the maps, ai data, civ's, all the basic stuff pretty much. If it had an option for players or teams to store a game file there to be continued at a later time, that would be awesome too. Do you think something like this is possible in the future of civ3? And if so, would it be possible to implicate without a 12 meg patch?

[Lord Maxwell]

quote: Originally posted by DaveV on 03-22-2000 08:34 AM A lot of the discussion on MP involves setting up a level playing field for all players. Lots of people restart if the host has techs or someone has more settlers than the rest. It would be nice to have a configuration screen that let you specify certain parameters that would apply to all players: Number of settlers Number of starting techs Goody huts/no huts Min/max distance to other players Min/max island/continent size Number of [specials,hills,grass,etc.] in 4-square radius And more, I'm sure... If the map generator can be improved so that it can produce several medium-sized islands on a small map, that would make a lot of people happy.

I second all the above. This is absolutely vital to include, you want to blow the competition out of the water here. (The competition being freeciv.)

Also make the scales for world setup finer, maybe not as fine as in ctp2, but finer than in smac. (More than three settings for ocean sizes.) Lots of little settings like "All continents should connect via landbridges".

I think three screens will be needed, one for setting things up with players, one for setting rules and victory conditions and one for world parameters. Just make sure that you can skip back and forth without loosing data.

[Rasputin]

AS a MP person I would like to think tha tinstead of just an addon like Civ 2 MP was , that Civ 3 MP is an integral part of the game.
I see once again a number of SP people have posted their ideas for MP and whilst some of these will be wonderful, as Alexender Horse says be mindful that only MP people reaaly know what the problems currently are that need fixing and what works well.
I think one big reason I wouldnt switch from IP games to PBEM game sis lack of Diplomacy. In my opinion that is what makes MP far more fun than playing AI. By all means maintain a good PBEM system I know lots of people tha tuse it, but the IP version is still far and away the most popular as it allows human interaction. I would love to see more diplomacy allowed not less. As a few people here have stated, most of us use ICQ or AIM or both to communicate outsdide of the game, some do this to avoid use of spys in KingChat (not sure if this cheating or not ) provided civ 3 is windowed game we can stil lcontinue to do this.
I dont feel the need for a Lobby or server to connect to. There are enough forum sites such as this one to go find players. Perhaps just a note in manual or helpfiles listing such sites as suitable to find other players. These forums tend to maintain a good listing of players including ICQ numbers. To double up on this information by providing your own sserver would seem ot me to be awaste of good resources that could be better used in making civ 3 MP the best game ever.
So although this thread was started mainly to ask how to do setup I hope that you guys at Firaxis have read the Cheats thread so aptly maintained by Ming and remove all of the "bugs" that allow people to utilise loopholes in MP that probalby werent envisioned in Civ 2 SP.

Thankyou for asking for our input, I look forward to finally seeing Civ 3 on my shop shelves very soon.

[ChrisShaffer]

quote: I think one big reason I wouldnt switch from IP games to PBEM game sis lack of Diplomacy. In my opinion that is what makes MP far more fun than playing AI. I would love to see more diplomacy allowed not less.

Huh? This is wacky-wrong. PBEM games allow more diplomacy than IP games, not less. I've had SMAC PBEM turns where the email and instant messaging and chat room meetings (and even telephone calls) have been fast and furious. IP games have less diplomatic capabilities, not more.

The only problem with PBEM diplomacy in previous Civ and SMAC game systems was poorly designed multiplayer diplomacy tools grafted onto the game engines as afterthoughts. Since Firaxis is designing multiplayer from the start and building a more robust diplomatic system, this won't be an issue in Civ3.

quote: By all means maintain a good PBEM system I know lots of people tha tuse it, but the IP version is still far and away the most popular as it allows human interaction.

How do you know that IP is more popular than PBEM? I think you're wrong. I see lots more SMAC PBEM games offered on the message boards than IP games. Until someone presents emprical evidence that IP is more popular than PBEM, I'm not buying it. And at any rate, I believe that turn based simultaneous execution games would be even more popular than the current cluncky PBEM systems.

[Rasputin]

How do you do Diplomacy with another civ in Email games, the AI takes over all contacts while you load as SP virtually in PBEM game. You cant call up another human and do tech trading form alliance or swap citys etc.... This needs to be done live !!!!!


As for your comments re PBEM SMAC being more popular, you will notice I was referring to Civ 2 MP not SMAC, for any one itnerested goto Civ 2 Multipalyer threads to see number of games organissed for IP versus PBEM...

Not all Civ 2 players have migrated to SMAC as it doesnt reaaly interest us. WE are awaiting a Civ 3 not a SMAC 2 !!

For the interests of MP this thread should be moved to Civ2 MP threads as that is where the majority of MP people on APolyton hang out having a good time discussing the games we play.

We MP people havent asked for SP to be altered to suit us and make it better for us to try , so please dont mess with our MP version let us MP people decide what will work better for us.....

[drake]

I just want to say that ip games are the only way I'd ever play. PBEM is way too slow. And diplomacy in PBEM? C'mon now. The whole idea behind PBEM is that its played at peoples leisure. If you're running a continuous loop, talking with everyone while you wait for the game to arrive, you might as well play ip. Besides, getting hundreds of saved games in my email is not my idea of a good time.............

Civ 3 Mp better be good. I'm not buying the game if it's not good.

[rah]

"Number of settlers
Number of starting techs
Goody huts/no huts
Min/max distance to other players
Min/max island/continent size
Number of [specials,hills,grass,etc.] in 4-square radius
And more, I'm sure..."

I agree.

Also agree with options for city OR/and Unit bribing.

Good Idea XIN for customizing while waiting for all to join.

PLEASE CONTINUE TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO HOST>

KICK option good, to avoid having to restart game.

I really like all the connection/speed monitor ideas. It's always nice to know if you're having problems, where the likely cause is. Even though some people with consistent lousy connections might find themselves discriminated against by people that aren't patient.

BUT THE BIGGEST THING>>>>>>> MAKE SURE IT IS PLAYTESTED BY REAL PLAYERS>
unlike, CPT2, nough said..

RAH
Sorry, not a lot of new ideas, but I got here late