Hotseat is pathetic

Maraudus · November 12, 2002, 02:00

The only reason why i bought ptw is to play hotseat. As I played it, i noticed that countless aspects of the game are extremely buggy. There are so many bugs I have found that i cannot mention them all. Many of these bugs make the game virtually unplayable (there is a bug that does not allow you to see the active diplomatic deals which means you cannot declare war, or terminate deals)

Also, hotseat does not give ANY alerts of what has happened. For example, if a country declares war on you, there is no message that tells you. When one of your cities is conquered, there is no alert to tell you, same for nuclear attacks. Units just "disappear" when they are killed, and the player has no idea what happened.

The diplomatic system on hotseat is pathetic. You cannot demand/request anything from the other human player. You have to offer something, and prey that they will give you what you need. So disappointed.

Hopefully firaxis will improve/fix hotseat in the next patch.

Wise Ass · November 12, 2002, 02:48

I agree with most of this. I wouldn't say that the Diplo system is pathetic but it could use some work.

I did have the same problem about having war declared and not knowing it, settlers conwured yata yata...

notyoueither · November 12, 2002, 03:14

They really need to add better events messaging and a way to review them all for the previous interturn period.

Maraudus · November 12, 2002, 05:50

now its crashing when i click on "active" diplomacy sigh

Tiberius · November 12, 2002, 06:16

Hotseat is one of the main reasons I'd buy PtW. I thought it's OK and I sadly hear the bad news. This is not a bug but pathetic development. Probably hotseat wasn't a focus for the development team. I hope they will fix it in a patch.

Adagio · November 12, 2002, 10:15

I haven't got PTW yet, but I have tried hotseat in ctp2...and that's pathetic:

- Only the following player, gets the news about when a player starts building a wonder (or cancelling, or whatever)...the other players don't have a clue...

- It's impossible to do diplomatic with other human players...you can set up, and send the wish for an agree-ment, but the other player never recieves it, so he/she can't agree

- Sometimes some tiles of the map, just turns to "undiscovered"...well, it's not "somtimes" it's all the time...

- And by using quicksave, it automaticly saves to a filename, that doesn't make sense... In the current game, it started saving as Mayan or something (since the first player was Mayan...), but then I chose to start a SP game, with the Vikings...I used quicksave...then we continiued our hotseat game, but now it saves the quicksave as the Viking quicksave...everytime

Bella Hella · November 12, 2002, 10:46

the only thing i've noticed is that it takes longer to negotiate deals with human players because of the way diplomacy is set up. this is a pain, but i haven't yet noticed the other stuff you've described, the bugs. i agree that bugs will probably be fixed in a patch. sometimes you just have to be patient.

Tiberius · November 12, 2002, 10:49

But the fact that CTP2 had a pathetic hotseat doesn't mean that PtW sould be the same. Especially that events messaging or a decent diplomatic system are not rocket science. I just think they didn't have enough time or weren't focusing enough on hotseat. Hopefully they can patch it.

Wise Ass · November 12, 2002, 13:28

Umm... Guys CTP2 didn't have HotSeat "out of the box"

player1 · November 12, 2002, 13:39

Quote:

Originally posted by Maraudus
The only reason why i bought ptw is to play hotseat. As I played it, i noticed that countless aspects of the game are extremely buggy. There are so many bugs I have found that i cannot mention them all. Many of these bugs make the game virtually unplayable (there is a bug that does not allow you to see the active diplomatic deals which means you cannot declare war, or terminate deals)

I play it for Hotseat and it IS NOT buggy.
It's pretty playable.

And I enjoy it.

And haven't see anythining like you describe.

Quote:

Originally posted by Maraudus
Also, hotseat does not give ANY alerts of what has happened. For example, if a country declares war on you, there is no message that tells you. When one of your cities is conquered, there is no alert to tell you, same for nuclear attacks. Units just "disappear" when they are killed, and the player has no idea what happened.

Now, this thing IS a problem. Only last hotseat player gets the needed info while others are a little bit blind.

The best way this could be solved is to add some sort of Replay button, which would allow other players to see (form their point of view) what has happened in last turn.

That's how it was done in HoMM3.

By the way, many other games had thing kind of probelm too.

Quote:

Originally posted by Maraudus
The diplomatic system on hotseat is pathetic. You cannot demand/request anything from the other human player. You have to offer something, and prey that they will give you what you need. So disappointed.

It is a HOTSEAT.
You are one near other.
DEMOAND IT VERBALY.

In game dimplomacy is only there to make deals official.

Grumbold · November 12, 2002, 14:46

Quote:

Originally posted by player1
It is a HOTSEAT.
You are one near other.
DEMOAND IT VERBALY.

In game dimplomacy is only there to make deals official.

I can see your point, but in-game diplomacy and messaging can be used to discuss strategy and make deals that you don't want other players to know about. This is the ideal way to make deals because you can do it with a poker face. Disappearing into the kitchen with the same two other players every couple of turns is a dead giveaway

Maraudus · November 12, 2002, 16:43

I totally agree with the replay idea. Firaxis must implement something that shows the first player what has happened. My god, even ctp1 had this feature....

akulla · November 12, 2002, 17:06

God, what a bunch of winers, obviously non of you have ever developed a software product.

The system works great for me, and my friends, if you want to make a deal just talk to them they are in the same room after all....

Akulla.

player1 · November 12, 2002, 18:27

Quote:

Originally posted by Grumbold
I can see your point, but in-game diplomacy and messaging can be used to discuss strategy and make deals that you don't want other players to know about. This is the ideal way to make deals because you can do it with a poker face. Disappearing into the kitchen with the same two other players every couple of turns is a dead giveaway

But it adds so much flavor to cold war.

Especily when 3 players are playing, on everybody turn other two are discussing about third one.

Zero · November 12, 2002, 19:51

some of the things u described (like alerts) are not as major problem as it is in PBEM. The problem is multiplied ten folds since some games progress slow and you forget if you had 25 spearmen in that square or 2 that you see now. i dont see why PBEM doesnt replay enemy movements to you....

Tiberius · November 13, 2002, 03:09

Quote:

Originally posted by akulla
God, what a bunch of winers, obviously non of you have ever developed a software product.

Actually I had, even if not complex ones. I don't think you could afford yourself to make a software program for the accounting department that does miscalculations, do you? So, what was your point again?

Next, I don't have PtW (though I preordered it) so I couldn't whine even if I'd like to; there's no reason for me to do so. I was expressing my concern that even simpler aspects of MP, like hotseat, have flaws. Not seeing what happened in the last turn (events messaging) is a big issue, especially in PBEM.

A replay option (or button) would be just fine.

player1 · November 13, 2002, 06:22

To sum up:

Hotseat IS NOT pathetic.

It is VERY ENJOYABLE the way it is.

But has one "information gathering probelm".
But those who like to play Hotseat very much would ignore it and still find Hotseat VERY ENJOYABLE.

P.S.
On the other hand, Internet MP is not enjoyable since it's not playable (LAG).

And Hotseat is VERY PLAYABLE.

Tiberius · November 13, 2002, 06:34

Quote:

Originally posted by player1
It is VERY ENJOYABLE the way it is.

And Hotseat is VERY PLAYABLE.

I admit it is better to hear this than "hotseat is pathetic". I just hope they can fix (add) event messaging in a patch (especially for PBEM).

tinyp3nis · November 13, 2002, 07:52

Quote:

Originally posted by player1
To sum up:

Hotseat IS NOT pathetic.

It is VERY ENJOYABLE the way it is.

But has one "information gathering probelm".
But those who like to play Hotseat very much would ignore it and still find Hotseat VERY ENJOYABLE.

P.S.
On the other hand, Internet MP is not enjoyable since it's not playable (LAG).

And Hotseat is VERY PLAYABLE.

How can anyone disagree with arguments like those?

Th0mas · November 13, 2002, 13:54

Quote:

Originally posted by player1
To sum up:

Hotseat IS NOT pathetic.

It is VERY ENJOYABLE the way it is.

But has one "information gathering probelm".
But those who like to play Hotseat very much would ignore it and still find Hotseat VERY ENJOYABLE.

P.S.
On the other hand, Internet MP is not enjoyable since it's not playable (LAG).

And Hotseat is VERY PLAYABLE.

The hotseat concept is not pathetic, however without being able to see those opponents moves you would normally have in SP is, IMO, a show stopper.

I really really really hope that Firaxis include the replay feature in the next patch, but I am not holding my breath

player1 · November 13, 2002, 18:13

Yes no replay is indeed annoying, but it's not like "I'll never play Hotseat again and PtW CD if it's not fixed again" thing.

You'll definetly still enjoy it.

P.S.
Now, for best Hotseat experince we'll need some patchwork.

Zero · November 13, 2002, 20:02

I would play hotseat w/ my friend but not PBEM... I can remember how many stacj of unit i had somewhat when it was 15 min ago, but not when its been weekend ago.

Maraudus · November 13, 2002, 21:02

Player1 are you saying that its ok, to not know that another player declared war on you and nuked you, and destroyed your city? That alone is pathetic. In a hotseat game, i was nuked, and i had NO IDEA who did it. Is that fine too?

And there ARE bugs in hotseat. One of those is that if you do any gold per turn deals with other human players, they never expire because if you terminate one old deal, the game crashes everytime you click on "active" in diplomacy, and therefore you cannot stop any deals.

Also, in espionage, there are no alerts AT ALL. If you steal tech, sabatage production, steal plans, or fail a mission, the other player will never know. Now that sucks.

So dont say that hotseat is fine, your obvioulsy lying to yourself.

Wise Ass · November 13, 2002, 23:55

If it serves his purpose that there is no reason for you to try and tell him it doesn't

You do make it sound worse than it is but most of your points are valid (I have not run into the diplomacy GPT issue though).

Colonel Kraken · November 14, 2002, 15:30

I agree with Maraudus, there ARE some major problems with hotseat. Yes, Player1, at least it's playable, but, come on, you have to admit there are definitely some serious shortcomings.

Maraudus, I too just discovered that game crashing deal breaker bug. How pathetic! I'm glad I'm not the only one who's very annoyed about the hotseat afterthought.

That's also nearly the only reason I bought PtW, too, Maraudus. My wife and I are both quite disappointed, but I do have confidence that Firaxis will eventually fix the hotseat problems. Unfortunately, I think it will take a back burner to internet multiplayer.

player1 · November 14, 2002, 16:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Colonel Kraken
I agree with Maraudus, there ARE some major problems with hotseat. Yes, Player1, at least it's playable, but, come on, you have to admit there are definitely some serious shortcomings.

Yes I said that there are problems.
Although I don't thing that they are as serious to stop playing Hotseat at all. So it's not pathetic. Just annoying from time to time.

Quote:

Maraudus, I too just discovered that game crashing deal breaker bug. How pathetic! I'm glad I'm not the only one who's very annoyed about the hotseat afterthought.

I tried to recreate that bug and failed.

Maybe it's just my PC.

Maybe it's because it was ROP for gp, and not lux. for gp?

Or maybe it has to do with which of two human players cancels the deal.

Does it crash when other player cancels same deal?

This thing needs investigation.

Maraudus · November 14, 2002, 16:50

It crashes after you cancel an existing deals after 20 turns or more, and then click on active. Also, the deals never expire sometimes. Right now i'm paying 400 gold per turn to "other civs" but in fact, there are no deals happening...

MC Hawking · November 14, 2002, 17:00

I've played hotseat, and while there are some problems I found the game quite fun. And like player1 said, just talk about the damn diplomatic transactions.

Th0mas · November 15, 2002, 06:05

Quote:

Originally posted by player1
Yes no replay is indeed annoying, but it's not like "I'll never play Hotseat again and PtW CD if it's not fixed again" thing.

You'll definetly still enjoy it.

P.S.
Now, for best Hotseat experince we'll need some patchwork.

I am extremely disappointed that the replay functionality does not function in PBEM and hotseat, as this is probably the only way I will play CIV III against human opponents. This was also the biggest gripe about Hotseat functionality in CIV II. It's a great shame that this was overlooked and I don't believe anyone seriously reviewed the functionality prior to the release

..However I am still going to get PTW when it comes out in the UK. Just reading the forums about all the new stuff is getting me excited. and I am hopeful that Firaxis will resolve the hotseat and PBEM issues.

They have done a very good Job at responding to the Civ communities feedback so far

player1 · November 15, 2002, 06:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Maraudus
It crashes after you cancel an existing deals after 20 turns or more, and then click on active. Also, the deals never expire sometimes. Right now i'm paying 400 gold per turn to "other civs" but in fact, there are no deals happening...

In what exactly time?

When you calcel the deal (by clicking on it), or before then, when you click on Active (that's before canceling).

Also, what happens is that other human player (to whom you are giving all that money) tries to cancel that deal (and not you)?

P.S.
I ask all this since I am unable to recreate that bug.

P.P.S.
You should repot this to bug-thread.
Since this is bug, and that would give good possibilty of fixing it in next patch.

As for lack of replay feture I doubt it would be fixed in fist next patch, since it is "lack of feature", not bug, so it would need much more programming (like subroute which would need to save one turn replays), and Firaxis is trying to give us quick Internet MP fix patch. But I think it would be fixed in some patch after that. Some Firaxian told me that they are looking at that issue, but it would take some time.