Timed Turn Civ III Multiplayer

[DarkCloud]

This should be an option for Civ III to allow civ III multiplayer games to progress fast, perhaps one game in an hour.

Thus the games would be faster paced and decisions would have to be make quickly!

[Kassiopeia]

How would you accomplish this? Online? I always thought that online was a nonexistantly supported option with TBS
I don't think that's a good idea, maybe three hours. If there are about 400 turns, that's way to little time per turn, especially in late game.

[Footie Mad]

Im all for this as an option, especially useful when you get the knack of everything and everything goes real speedy with shortcuts-keys and all.

[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

[DarkCloud]

How about this then:

4000-2000BC- 3 Minutes
1999-0 AD- 6 Minutes
1-1000 AD- 10 Minutes
1001-1300 AD- 15 Minutes
1301-1600 AD- 25 Minutes
1601-1800 AD- 35 Minutes
1801-2000 AD- 45 Minutes
2001-2050 AD- 55 Minutes

[DarkCloud]

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%).

This sounds good. Hopefully it will reduce play time more, however

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

Well, this sounds good. Besides, I've never played Civ II Multiplayer
The only MP games I've played are Starcraft and Total Annihilation!

-Thank you for posting on Apolyton and for posting a response, we appreciate it

[Footie Mad]

Well they have said that they are bringing something totally new to multiplayer so, in Firaxis we trust. Nice knowing someone from Firaxis takes the time to answer some questions

[TechWins]

Timed turns

I'm glad timed turns are in but shouldn't be a given that they will be in the game? Considering they were in Civ2MGE.

With this info. it seems that MP not coming as an expansion is diffenent.

The SMAC favorite of dynamically increasing turn timers will be present as well.

This will really help things out a lot.

Something that if implemented correctly could be a great addition into MP, pre-turn unit orders. So lets say you are waiting for your turn and you know that you want your legion to move to x tile you move you give your unit the order to move to x tile. This could be done by simply doing it the same way you would when it's your turn. When it then becomes your turn the unit will automatically move to x space. It's just a thought.

The more you can plan when it's not your turn the less amount of time your turn will take. Something that adds to this goal is city build ques, which thankfully will be in Civ3.

Oh yeah, thanks for posting Jeff. Could you give us any more insight in when the Civ3 site will be up? Possibly a more precise date, such as sometime this week, next week, not saying soon or sometime in the near future. That would be nice, thanks.

[Jon Miller]

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

that is interesting

maybe it only felt much faster using simultaneous turns

it would be interesting to know the phsycology of that

I agree that I found SMAC better ballanced in TBS rather than Simu

Jon Miller

[cyborgasm]

features like alliance simultaneous moves

, 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.

[ChrisShaffer]

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.

Well, this is great news. I'm just champing at the bit wondering what the "new stuff" will be....

[Admiral PJ]

it would having special ally player simultaneous turns.. helping you coordinate troop movements and attacks by seeing what each others doing as it happens.

It would be interesting if this could happen with enemies too, so if an enemy cavalry emerges and moves next to your city you can retaliate before it attacks in that same move.. That would solve one of the main combat problems in civ - maybe in Civ4 tho.
You could also use this in single player, just allow units in sleep mode to be moved during an enemies turn if something comes into range of them,
your unit could just run away, or usefully if its a fighter jet attacking soldiers near your base your plane in standby sleep mode could wake up and you could use it to fly over the soldiers to attempt to defend them in air (not able to attack though as they are at a disadvantage as doing a emergency manoeuvre etc)

Admiral Pete author of Mantra and the 3d Voxel graphics engine QM

[Daniel Frappier]

Jeff,

Did any of you guys ever played tournament Chess ?

I guess not because it got a great time system that would be extremely beneficial to Civ III.

Any unused time is carry over from turn to turn.

What is the big deal you might ask ? The big deal is that it lets you set a very fast time limit, then by saving a few seconds here and there you can accumulate a good deal of time that you can spend when you need it. example: to launch a full scale invasion.

It rewards good time management and was found to be the only way to go for chess. It is the most efficient way to have the player do a maximum of things in the minimum of time.

[DarkCloud]

Originally posted by Daniel Frappier
Jeff,

Did any of you guys ever played tournament Chess ?

I guess not because it got a great time system that would be extremely beneficial to Civ III.

Any unused time is carry over from turn to turn.

.

That is a great idea.

[Ecthy]

sorry Daniel F, I didn't get the point in that one... exactly WHAT makes you save time?

I'm sure there's a simple explanation. There must be one, i feven DarkCloud got the point

[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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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