"Turnless" Mode - Any thoughts?

[Andrew_Jay]

This bit of information has really intrigued me, since I had thought that some kind of Real Time civ game would not be half bad and would in my opinion allow you to do more stuff, i.e. not just sit there waiting for techs and city improvments to be built, especially in the early game.

However; my idea involved units slowly crawling, more or less pixel by pixel across the map like any other RTS, and stuff getting built and researched by percentages also like any other RTS. Anyone think that this is how the "turnless" mode is going to be?

In fact, anybody play the game "command HQ" (it's really old) it was just like my idea; a world wide, real time strategy game, where combat commenced when two units collided, and victory was decided by terrain type and what unit was fighting what.

http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?name=Command+HQ

My other idea is that it is actually "turned" but turns are resolved every 30 seconds or so, so if you have a unit like a warrior sent some where, he will 'hop' a square every 30 seconds. Also, if your city with 13 shields is building something, 13 shields will be added onto the something every 30 seconds till it is finished. To be honest I kind of like this way, and hope it will be available in single player, just to at least try it out since single player is where I still expect to be doing all my playing.

Anyone, those are my ramblings, what does everyone else think?

[Daftpanzer]

I like the europa universalis system, have you heard of that game? its kind of real time, with each day as an individual turn, you can really speed things up and do several years each minute or take things really slowly, but the best thing to do is set the speed to max, and pause and unpause the game whenever something needs to be done.

[Inverse Icarus]

another old school game called "Lords of The Realm" by Sierra had one turn in which everyone could move. you did all your stuff, and when you were done moving / managing cities or whatever, you clicked on "end turn" and you waited for the others to finish.

the problem with this was that me and my friends often "waited" for our enemies to make their moves, and we often ended up in stalemate. perhaps a timer would make it work

but i'm sure firaxis already has the turnless mode done, so why bother ranting about which is better?

[Andrew_Jay]

So that's how Lords of the Realm worked, everyone resolved their turns at once? I played it with my friend once but it crashed while one of us were killing a bunch of peasants.
I think this is the simultaneous option of multiplayer.
I haven't actually played EU, but it is close to 'turnless'. You say each day is a turn, does that mean you get to do whatever you want and then hit and 'end turn' button, or do the days tick away at a regular rate? I think that's what 'turnless' will be, you won't be prompted to end your turn when you are finished, the turns will just tick away.

[TheBigTurkey]

Originally posted by Andrew_Jay
So that's how Lords of the Realm worked, everyone resolved their turns at once? I played it with my friend once but it crashed while one of us were killing a bunch of peasants.
I think this is the simultaneous option of multiplayer.
I haven't actually played EU, but it is close to 'turnless'. You say each day is a turn, does that mean you get to do whatever you want and then hit and 'end turn' button, or do the days tick away at a regular rate? I think that's what 'turnless' will be, you won't be prompted to end your turn when you are finished, the turns will just tick away.

In EU the days tick away at a regular rate.

[Pythagoras]

IMO Age of Wonders is the game that best implements multiplayer TBS. Its one of the few that I've actually played extensively multiplayer. Basicly the game was set up to allow simultaneous turns, so within the turn it was real-time. You wait for the turn to finish. It feels sort of like a RTS-TBS hybrid, but I liked it.

[zulu9812]

Risk II was a TBS game with optional turnless mode - everyone made their tactical moves at the same time, then the computer resolved all the combats at the end of the turn.