Turnless Mode Manageable?

[neonext]

obviously the more units you have, the harder it will be to control all of them and have them all do what you want them to do in time, but that is fairly realistic.

i think it is a great plus to the game, because it helps out people who have smaller armies.

but despite that it will be interesting to see what turnless games are like on huge maps (assuming lag isn't too much of a problem)

[Wrongbutton]

Originally posted by CiverDan
I'm not concerned about moving units, I'm more concerned with negotiations and the difficulties that could present in turnless. If the "clock" is running while I'm trying to negotiate, especially for peace, it could put me in a real disadvantage in that my opponent could move his units and then start a phony negotiation with me to keep me from moving mine. I'd be even worse if alliances are involved. i.e. someone starts phony negotiation w/me while other person attacks Someone may say "well, refuse contact for 20 turn".. but what if I want to end the war, then I certainly don't want to refuse contact for 20 turns.

I am concerned that it may be difficult to conduct "quality" diplomacy in Turnless Mode - mostly because of the lack of time. I am accustomed to making the diplomatic round every few turns; however I suspect that with TM, diplomatic decisions will be more hasty and immediate.

On the other hand, I may finally get the chance to enjoy fighting true proxy wars; I expect it might be possible to simply pay another player to wage a war against a third party. I imagine a world full of mercenaries and puppetmasters ...

I expect that there will be much more of an incentive to break trade deals now. For example, I may urge a potential ally to break his existing trade deal with another player in order to furnish me with the resource I desire. Of course, that might be enough of a reason to start a war.

With chat and voice functionality available, I suppose diplomacy might actually take less time now. Players may informally strike bargains via chat and then simply call up the offical diplomacy screens to seal the deal. Another possibility is to have a small diplomacy dashboard or screen in which current offers remain "on the table", to be accepted, negotiated, or rejected; that way, diplomacy is an ongoing activity rather than something done only at a discrete time.

In the Turnless Mode, how long will deals last? Is there a time-based equivalent to 20 turns? Can deals be specified in terms of minutes?

My biggest question, though, is: how long will a game last? My current games sometimes last for several weeks or even months. Will I now have to remain glued to the computer, without break, for several hours? I can't imagine putting the game on hold every time someone needs to take a break.

[aahz_capone]

With voice chat you can do diplomacy while playing the game... interesting.... That is if your brain can multitask.

[alva]

It might only run at 1MhZ, but it can do a million things at once

If I understand it well we will even be able to switch between options. Now, that would be nice. We could use turnless in the beginning, switch to a turn based on-line game later on and eventually (when we get really busy and need much time) end it as a PBEM game.

Are you sure about this???? I don't think this is possible. Maybe from turn-based to PBEM , but not from turnless to PBEM

[Zero]

Originally posted by aahz_capone
With voice chat you can do diplomacy while playing the game... interesting.... That is if your brain can multitask.

It might only run at 1MhZ, but it can do a million things at once

Certainly if your brain wasnt multitasking ud be dead!

Imagine not ebing able to breathe while you were adding 1+1 in your head, or not being able to alert danger while ur driving and listening to radio

[Sarxis]

Turnless mode seems to defeat the whole point of playing a TBS game.

But maybe I'm just being the nay-sayer here.

[Jon Shafer]

It still works in a TBS sort of way, only sped up. After all, few people have large 5 hour blocks of time to dedicate to playing a game of civ.

[Serotonin]

It'll be managable (i tried it and so far it is).. but you need to depent HEAVILY on governors, auto-improve (workers.. irrigate, etc. forgot what its called), stacking, etc....

and above all.. don't get into diplomatic discussions... I got into one and had built 5 spearmen in the meantime...