MULTIPLAYER (ver1.0): Hosted by tfs99 & DanS

[tfs99]

>>>>> Aredhran

Ideally, sending a subject only PBEM turn completion message would be an option.

I have tried both notification approaches (i.e., e-mail messages & posting in a forum) and they both work. I guess I prefer the e-mail to posting in a forum because it takes a significant amount of time to load forum notification topics after a while.

In any event, unless there is some kind of dedicated PBEM server, it is doubtful whether an automatic posting can be made.

Currently both notification schemes suffer from the dependency on the player to initiate notification. Thus, my suggestion for an automatic notification. E-mail notice is the only viable method without dedicated servers.

But I can understand the desire to be flexible and allow for different notification means. My main point is that notice seems to be important to PBEMers.

Civ3 n ... Ted S.

[yin26]

-=*BUMP*=-

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CIV3 DEVELOPMENT LIST COORDINATOR

**(un)Officially Making Lists for Firaxis Since SMAC Enhancement 3!**

[tfs99]

Ref: SMAC

For Civ3, I'd like to request that there be a Save option along with the Save and Exit option for PBEM and Hot Seat play.

Frequently I play several PBEM turns in a row and it is a royal pain to have to reload the game each and every time I want to play a PBEM turn.

Also, if you are playing Hot Seat and want to make a save file "just in case" of a crash, you are forced to exit the game as well.

Another thing that is difficult is the way that one cannot <Esc> back to the previous dialog. Having played a number of PBEM turns I have occasionally pressed "Save and Exit", rather than "OK" to start the turn. Then I say "D'oh!" and wish I could just press <Esc> and get back to the first dialog to choose OK, but instead I am forced to exit the game and start over again.

[This message has been edited by tfs99 (edited May 23, 1999).]

[DanS]

tfs99 and the other PBEMers: at the earliest stages of a game, would it be helpful to be able to play five turns at a time instead of one? When the server or client (depends on if we can get a server) predicts overlapping movement, the turns could be ratcheted down.

[Rong]

Cross-posted from the AI thread:

It seems strange to me people are argueing over trivial things (no need to mention which ) while ignoring the most important improvement Civ3 needs: AI. Let me just throw some more ideas around.

I've been thinking about a "Client/Server" model of game play. Namely, the whole game runs on a Server, with its own AI, open source or not, and everyone just connects to it to play. If it's a solo game, you run the server on your localhost, and connect to it as a single, local Client. If it's a multiplayer game, the host starts the server, and everyone, including the host, connects to the server to play. Your local civ3 process becomes nothing more than a graphical client. All the actions are resolved on the server.

What does this have anything to do with AI? Well, if they open up the network protocol, then we can write autonomous clients that connect to the server and play just like a human. You know where this came from if you've ever heard of "client side Quake bots".

Benefits:

* Unlike OSxAI where you are limited by how Firaxis decides to do, here the option is in your hands. You can use your favorite language (Java, C++, Assembly), run it on your favorite OS (Linux, Mac, Be), play with different algorithms (NN, GA), save your AI data however you want (flat file, relational database, OODB), as long as your client speaks the Civ3 protocol.

* A well written, well tuned, perhaps even self-learning client can provide unlimited challenge, whether you play solo or multiplayer.

* For Firaxis, good seperation between client and server code helps maintain modularity.

Issues:

* The guy who wrote the first client should win the Turing Award. In another word, for a game of such complexity, a fully autonomous, smart client may be too hard to write. But who knows? Maybe some one out there is clever enough to pull it off. After that, it'd be a lot easier to follow the example and make minor changes.

So what do you think?


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The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.
- Mark Twain

[Kris Huysmans]

I found civ3 multiplayer must be possible at game zone and not at its own server.
because:
When you go to civ2 at game zone there are normaly around 10 players
When you go to alphahq.net there are normaly around 0 players !

[DanS]

Rong, that is truly a radical, but fun extension of the server-client model we've been discussing. It's not my area, but what about those Quake bots. Are they any good? Could you, for instance, create a bot that would act like a human player (down the "Bite Me" and everything)?

[Kris Huysmans]

I play often quake and I must say the bots play total diferent then human players. And when bots win is this because they react faster then humans and they don't make any bad shot. I realy found that the smac AI is more human then the quake bots.

[DanS]

So how do we assess this idea? Even if there aren't "bots" per se, the server should still call the shots on the AI, I would think. This would do a couple of good things, not the least of which is when Firaxis gets a good idea for AI, all they have to do is update the server and it affects all mp games. If you're playing solo, you'll have to install the patch.

What do you guys think?

[TitanTim]

All these ideas are great. All this talk of PBEM is interesting as well as using bots for AI.

With respect to bots, I must agree with Rong that this idea would greatly enhance the AI. The normal game AI should be released as a bot plus there should be a randomness ability included with any bot thereby allowing for a more 'human' opponent. I think that the next step for Civ3 would be a Quake-like approach: console commands, bots, client/server, etc. If possible, make the maps bigger and with more players (Ultima on-line approach). Mind you, we may be getting a little carried away (or maybe just me) but the ideas from everyone are great.

There has been a lot of talk about PBEM and turn-based movement but I think CivNET is superior to Civ2-MGE primarily for its excellent simultaneous movement. The reason that I think this is important is because it allows for faster internet, and especially, faster network play. Many of my friends and I play primarily by these means and we are torn between the superiority of Civ2 for play and CivNET for networkability.

To begin with, I think that anything but a 'unit queue' would be killing the idea (no freezing of map squares). I realize that something like this would be network intensive but it makes for a fast, fluid, and fair game. I realize that there are some issues to be worked out with type of play but I think it is vastly superior to Civ2-MGE (and SMAC?). Most of us just decide to forego playing Civ2-MGE at all.


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TitanTim

[DanS]

Damn, lost a post...

Titan Tim: thanks for your in-depth ideas. What do you mean by "console commands"? I'm not a Quake player...

Like you, I think Civ2 MPG is unplayable in the traditional sense after a while (some games have evolved into arena, scenario, and diplomatic games to cope). Unfortunately, I haven't played CivNet, but IIRC, it did not rely on square locking. I have only heard it creates some "interesting" gameplay. Does it distort the multiplayer experience to a great degree?

In the event that BR wants to start locking squares, what would be the order of battle you would like to see? For instance, which units go first, whom do they attack, surviving units, etc. We could draw on the experiences of the board gamers and SMAC players out there.

[TitanTim]

Console commands are sort of like a user programming language like Visual Basic for MS Excel or MS Word. They allow for specific customization to the user as well as macro capabilities. It is especially popular in Quake because you can create a batch command and bind it to a key (basically a macro bound to a shortcut key combo).

Should we give suggestions on how to resolve multiplayer unit movement issues as you (DanS) specify or is the point to just give a general overview of how we feel the next Civ should take shape?

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TitanTim

[DanS]

[This message has been edited by DanS (edited May 26, 1999).]

[DanS]

The latter. I was only throwing out examples to get us to start thinking about more ideas.

[will I]

I think the key for making PBEM work in CivIII is to allow for simultaneous turns. The current round robin system on SMAC seems to result in one turn per week, if that. Turns come so infrequently that I start forgetting to look at my PBEM account every day. When a turn does come, I miss it for a day or two.

With simultaneous turns, we wouldn't have to worry about the cycle taking so long. Each player could download the game file at leisure, process the turn, and return it to the game host. Even if the slow guy on the list takes three days, the game would move twice as quickly as the typical SMAC pbem.

It seems that simultaneous turns are practical, since CivNET and one variant of SMAC use them. The big complaint seems to be that processing time makes them impractical for live games. Since the pace of pbem is so much slower, processing time should be less of an issue.