What Happened To Simultaneous Turns??

Seeker · September 9, 2001, 19:53

Back when the list was made it was fairly unanimous that an Imperialism-esque system would be needed to make MP any fun...

But I guess it's the same Civ II turn system?

Another Thing: What is the 'passage of time' like?

In Civ 2, my chariot took 200 years to move from Egypt to Iraq (4 turns large map) during the ancient era...the ancient and medieval times go way, way too fast, while the renaissance and industrial age drag on forever..

What is it like in Civ III? 1 turn= 1year?

AnnC · September 9, 2001, 21:32

Simultaneous turns for MP? I assume you mean IP games only? Simultaneous turns would add a lot of complexity to PBEM.

Seeker · September 10, 2001, 01:45

I wuz actually thinking hotseat

Saint Marcus · September 10, 2001, 04:23

They tried this in CivNet. Didn't work very well I'm afraid. Was very confusing and totally unplayable.

ChrisShaffer · September 10, 2001, 08:16

Well, asynchronous server-based simultaneous turns would be nice. See http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000343.html#5 for a full description. Basically:

All players (human and AI) receive a turn report, which can be reviewed and replayed as desired.
All players create a set of potential orders for units, cities, and diplomacy.
All players submit orders.
All orders are adjudicated (on schedule or when all players have submitted orders). Conflicting orders are decided using a rule-based priority system.
Game generates turn reports.
Repeat.

Adm.Naismith · September 10, 2001, 09:27

Yes, I support Chris explanation! (I'm biased, we are the two who proposed Simultaneous Turn Execution in Essential Civ 3 List

).

There is a lot of misunderstanding around Simultaneous Turn: usually people think is a kind of Multi RTS clickfest.

AFAIK, people I know that played real Simultaneous Turn Execution liked it very much, not only in MP, but in SP also!

Strangely enough, most of people consider old TBS as some untuchable totem, and every one who try to refresh the concept, without shifting to RTS, as an evil person.

Civilization (X) will not suffer from a change to Simultaneous Turn Execution model: it will keep all the pace of strategy, adding full turn "simultaneous stream of action".

Of course it will need almost a complete rebuild of the game engine: forget it from Firaxis, IMHO.

Gramphos · September 10, 2001, 09:52

See the post bellow by Jeff.

Quote:

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

Seeker · September 10, 2001, 23:29

No, they do NOT have this system in CivNet. I have both Imperialism and CivNET installed and the turn system is nothing alike, in CivNET it is real-time, which is crap, versus Imperialism which is turn-based.

Adm.Naismith · September 11, 2001, 05:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Gramphos
See the post bellow by Jeff.

Gramphos, I have red that post before, but IMHO Jeff was speaking of Simultaneous movement, AKA a kind of RTS sliced in turn but where you need to be faster than your opponent, not smarter

That is confirmed by the sentence

Quote:

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.

Fact is, Simultaneous Turn Execution is still a game in turns, not breaking the heart of the concept, but twisting things enough to refresh against the RTS attack.

Look around: almost any strategy game available is now RTS; we are badly lousing, and if we can't accept this and counterattack with new concept we are on the way of Dodo and T-Rex