What does everyone think about the prospective multiplayer problems? Will it be feasible to enjoy a game on multiplayer, or will the darned thing keep dropping all the time? aAnd what effect will simultaneous moves have on game play? How will someone be able to protect his artillery if the other human player can simply attack them with cavalry when the move begins?

Any thoughts or insights?

Don't worry about multiplayer - neither does 2K. Multiplayer is some kind of easter egg feature. It is just like small fun addon and has never been considered as a serious CIV game mode. Also playing against human is not such fun because most of people will not get apropriate experience and game satisfaction ratio losing most of the games. When you play against AI you can save and reload and eventually win which is unfortunatelly impossible in multiplayer. Therefore you better stick to single player and never ask about multiplayer again.

Don't worry about multiplayer - neither does 2K. Multiplayer is some kind of easter egg feature. It is just like small fun addon and has never been considered as a serious CIV game mode. Also playing against human is not such fun because most of people will not get apropriate experience and game satisfaction ratio losing most of the games. When you play against AI you can save and reload and eventually win which is unfortunatelly impossible in multiplayer. Therefore you better stick to single player and never ask about multiplayer again.
What? That's... not what they've been saying at all, and that's not how it was handled in Civ 4. I don't get what you're meaning to say with this attack. 2K doesn't directly control the strength of the netcode anyway.

On topic: Firaxis has said that they're putting more effort into making MP playable/fun. Using Steamworks netcode should help make connections more stable than gamespy.

It'll be like any other multiplayer game. Fun with the right people, a nightmare with the wrong people. There will be lag, people will drop for no reason and until the game has had a chance to get some patches out to handle people with 12,000 viruses and all the worthless crap from the manufacuturer eating up their resources it'll have stability problems. ;)

If you're really interested in Civ 5 multiplayer, check out betaleague.civplayers.com . These folks play Civ 3 and 4 multiplayer tournaments and the like and are setting up to play Civ 5. There is a strong Civ multiplayer community out there and people do have fun playing it.

What does everyone think about the prospective multiplayer problems? Will it be feasible to enjoy a game on multiplayer, or will the darned thing keep dropping all the time? aAnd what effect will simultaneous moves have on game play? How will someone be able to protect his artillery if the other human player can simply attack them with cavalry when the move begins?

Any thoughts or insights?

Since my crystal ball is currently on the fritz, I'm afraid I cannot accurately answer a question that wants to know something that is impossible to know in the present.

[QUOTE=bjbrains;9524928]What? That's... not what they've been saying at all, and that's not how it was handled in Civ 4. I don't get what you're meaning to say with this attack. 2K doesn't directly control the strength of the netcode anyway.

[QUOTE]

That's very funny what you wrote - you getting better than me with taking the piss. BTW - CIV 4 is the best example how not to make multiplayer games.....

hopefully gamespy will have absolutely nothing to do with Civ5 multiplayer.

Civ Revolution multiplayer was a shocking act of violence.

If you're really interested in Civ 5 multiplayer, check out betaleague.civplayers.com . These folks play Civ 3 and 4 multiplayer tournaments and the like and are setting up to play Civ 5. There is a strong Civ multiplayer community out there and people do have fun playing it.

Thanks Gre, that is our revamped league that is in beta right now, for the current Civ3 and Civ4 leagues you can look here www.civplayers.com

But yes, MP is alive and well and Civ makes a great MP game despite what some people think. I'm happy that people enjoy SP and Civ is a great SP game, but please refrain from raining on the MP parade just because it is not for you. It is enjoyed by thousands of players over the years and will continue to do so with Civ5.

Civ5 is using Steamworks not Gamespy so we hope the issues will be less. Though no service can make up for the internet, so players will drop on occassion. But I'm told that Steam/Civ5 will handle that more gracefully. We can hope.

As to how simutaneous MP and IUPT will work out that is something we well just have to test in the demo, hopefully the demo will have MP enabled.

But I don't see it any worse than moving stacks around in Civ4, yes it will mean that players with quicker reflexes might get the advantage in busy combat maneovres but it is a lesser evil that turn based combat and getting attacked without any ability to respond until your turn, not to mention the lenght of the game with separate turns....

CS

When you play against AI you can save and reload and eventually win which is unfortunatelly impossible in multiplayer. Therefore you better stick to single player and never ask about multiplayer again.

You must be the person who keeps reloading on every fight in order to win it, eh?

The only real challenge is in MP games, there is no challenge in playing solely against AI - a human will always win at the end simply because of what the poster I quoted said.

If Civ 5 did not have MP, I would not purchase it.

But I don't see it any worse than moving stacks around in Civ4, yes it will mean that players with quicker reflexes might get the advantage in busy combat maneovres but it is a lesser evil that turn based combat and getting attacked without any ability to respond until your turn, not to mention the lenght of the game with separate turns....

CS

Interesting point. I haven't played MP since the days of having to buy CivNet to play Civ 1 with my buddy. I can't remember does the game wait for everyone to have the turn loaded or does computer speed come into the equation of who loads the given turn first? I guess reflexes would come into play cycling through troops with hotkeys too... That said I hope the multiplayer rules. I'll always prefer SP but, as long as you go into a game ready to lose to some silly things, you can enjoy MP in this game or any other pretty easily. Most people that play computer games online after the first few months are the people that are really good at the game and that's why most people don't like MP online, it's just not fun. I like to lose a game here and there just to make me enjoy playing the AI in games that much more, I'm a winner there! But on point, Steam hasn't given me any problems playing games online, and I play Bad Company 2, Borderlands, and Dawn of War 2 so some pretty fun ones to play online. So I think there are lots of good things to look forward to at this point.

Whatever the regular MP system is for quick games, it will be boring and annoying, but that's just because of how the civ game is. There will be a contigent of players who enjoy the equivalent of axe-rushing every game and more power to them, but that's all you can expect out of typical matchmaking-style MP anyway.

I do hope something equivalent to pitboss and IP connections exists though, so you can play more reasonably paced MP games with folks.

I think clearly the <unit XYZ whose stats we don't know yet> will be overpowered, while the <UA ability whose impact we can't evaluate yet> will obviously be useless.
Plus, OOS errors.

I think I remember reading somewhere that OOS errors are not in Civ 5.

Since my crystal ball is currently on the fritz, I'm afraid I cannot accurately answer a question that wants to know something that is impossible to know in the present.

Totally agree, the amount of people saying "what do you think this will be like" and so on, on topics we know nothing about are a little annoying, first of all people, learn what information we do have, or ask a simple question like "what do we know about Multiplayer yet" before ramming home some "do you think the games will keep drpping out?" very specific and completely redundant questions.

The AI will cheat... as always! My friends will cuss at it and my computer will slow everyone down. Nothing will change. :)

Don't worry about multiplayer - neither does 2K. Multiplayer is some kind of easter egg feature. It is just like small fun addon and has never been considered as a serious CIV game mode. Also playing against human is not such fun because most of people will not get apropriate experience and game satisfaction ratio losing most of the games. When you play against AI you can save and reload and eventually win which is unfortunatelly impossible in multiplayer. Therefore you better stick to single player and never ask about multiplayer again.

the first problem in multiplayer will be... ppl

the first problem in multiplayer will be... ppl

Well apparently we won't have to worry about bossconian and his like minded firends, they won't be their :P

CS

true, thats a good news

Well apparently we won't have to worry about bossconian and his like minded firends, they won't be their :P

CS

When CIV IV was released there were many games on the market with proper multiplayer mode implemented. The 2k/fraxis doesn't give damn about constant complaints and clearly broken multiplayer mode. The whole lack of managibilty and reliability of multiplayer mode is just a big JOKE. Just imagine playing starcraft where you need to update location of hundreds of units every single fraction of second having such a lag and issues as CIV IV has. Have you guys ever played a game (3 years old by now) called world in conflict ? Have you seen how the multiplayer has been implemented ? Seemles map downloading / game management / stats / comunity etc... i don't think CIV V will get anywhere close to reach these standards if it will try at all.

Also to all you guys wondering what's the multiplayer like in CIV. Just try to play this mode one day and see how huge potential it has if only the implementaion was properly done. Don't worry about simiultaneus moves - it just works great.

When CIV IV was released there were many games on the market with proper multiplayer mode implemented. The 2k/fraxis doesn't give damn about constant complaints and clearly broken multiplayer mode. The whole lack of managibilty and reliability of multiplayer mode is just a big JOKE. Just imagine playing starcraft where you need to update location of hundreds of units every single fraction of second having such a lag and issues as CIV IV has. Have you guys ever played a game (3 years old by now) called world in conflict ? Have you seen how the multiplayer has been implemented ? Seemles map downloading / game management / stats / comunity etc... i don't think CIV V will get anywhere close to reach these standards if it will try at all.

Also to all you guys wondering what's the multiplayer like in CIV. Just try to play this mode one day and see how huge potential it has if only the implementaion was properly done. Don't worry about simiultaneus moves - it just works great.

Oh I certainly agree that MP can be done better than it has been. But that is not what your original statement was about. You said people should basically ignore MP because it won't be fun for people and that is what I disagree with.

Thousands of MP players have had fun playing MP in Civ3 and Civ4( not to mention the days of Civ2 MP on the MS Gaming Zone) despite the problems with what Firaxis has given us to use.

So unless Civ5 MP is a complete and total failure on the code side, thousands more players will continue to have fun beating on each other in MP games as no matter how good the AI is it will never think like a human and that is why people play MP, you will never get an adrenaline rush from an AI trying to attack you, not in the next 20 years anyway.

CS

I just said it's a fun ... addon. But not so funny when you wait an hour in the waiting room to have the game started only to have the game crashed at turn 0. Totally unfinished and broken feature.

Well - I'm just sarcastic as much as 2k/fraxis has been ignorant in this subject. I play CIV IV multi regularly - since CIV 2 I stopped playing single player games. I cannot understand how they could not have implemented such simple options in multiplayer games as e.g. kick player / change password / limited time for vote... etc. I just can't count how many games and hours were wasted because lack of these simple features. The worst was complete ignorance from developers to tackle these issues. They were releasing patches that had mostly impact on singleplayer games and multi was never sorted. Therefore I don't expect anything this time either and be better mentally prepared for a big overhyped arcade single player game rather than solid civ multiplayer platform.

I hope you are wrong.

I agree with bossconian on one thing--Civ multiplayer has huge potential if it were to be implemented correctly. I don't understand why it isn't. I played civ for 5 years on single player, and had a lot of fun. I then met a person at work that was a husge civ fan, and he and I began to compete on multiplayer (revolution). We had a blast, and it was much funner to actually know the person that you were competing against. It just meant more. You could look them in the eye after you won (or lost), and rub it in (or shy away if you lost).

Beating the AI means nothing; you turn off your computer, apologize to your wife for being on the computer for so long, and move on with your day; and you have nothing to show for it. At least in multiplayer, you have some pride and bragging rights at the water cooler the next day.

I agree totally that MP could be a huge hit in Civ if given the proper resources, and you will notice I've said that over and over on this and many other fan sites, and directly to the devs as well.

CS

I have a question for CanuckSoldeir directly: what do you honestly think will be the case with this iteration on multiplayer on September 21? Do you think that it will be playable? Or do you think that it will be a dissapointment? And please state a reason for your opinion.

I have a question for CanuckSoldeir directly: what do you honestly think will be the case with this iteration on multiplayer on September 21? Do you think that it will be playable? Or do you think that it will be a dissapointment? And please state a reason for your opinion.

Well you are asking me to peer into my crystal ball here. But from my experience with Firaxis in the past and the fact that we are using Steamworks now and not Gamespy, I do think the game will be at least as stable as Civ4 is now, if not more so because GS is out of the picture.

Will there be bugs? Sure, because all the inhouse testing in the world can't replicate the internet with thousands of players. But Firaxis has always been quick to solve release day bugs withing a week or two if not faster. And even though Steamworks is better than GS, there may also be growing pains with Steam and Civ5 as they are recent partners and Steam may even have some bugs that don't appear until thousands of players start loading the steamworks backend down a bit, but I'm sure that Steam will be responsive to Firaxis's bug reports as well.

MP may not be Firaxis's first priority, but they do their best to support us within the limitations of the developement process that is used, and the decisions that they upper manageement makes that the programmers have to live with.

CS

CanuckSoldier. That was a pretty good explanation, and it clears up a lot of things. I have one final question on this topic: What would you recommend if my only interest was to play one-on-one with my friend? What would be the best format, and how could i limit the problem?

Your insight is much appreciated.

CanuckSoldier. That was a pretty good explanation, and it clears up a lot of things. I have one final question on this topic: What would you recommend if my only interest was to play one-on-one with my friend? What would be the best format, and how could i limit the problem?

Your insight is much appreciated.

Well the technical issues for a duels are pretty few, not much data has to be transmitted each turn between just two players. As to what to play that depends on what you want out of the game. If you want a long peaceful game with more building and economic stuff then a larger map with water inbetween you too is best. But if you want the possibility at least of early battles and warfare then you are best at using a pangea like map, many people prefer mirror maps in these situations as well.

But there is also co-op MP games were you and your friend team up against the AI. The settings you can chose from are endless and all depend on the game you want to play.

Myself I prefer to have the option to attack early, but I'm not really a huge warmonger, I like to build into the later era were if war is needed at least you can use modern units and it's more fun.

But time is also an issue, if you can save and continue the game then time isn't a big deal, but if you need to finish the game in 5 or 6 hours then a smaller map is best too.

CS

So what you're saying, canucksoldier, is that as long as our connection problems are resolved (by having powerful modems plugged into our computers, and high speed internet), the games issues would be limited or eliminated? Right?

We plan on playing duels on large maps with 8-10 AI civs involved. And we plan on playing longer games with only one victory condition: Conquest. And simultaneous turns. Based on your explanation, i feel a little better about this upcoming iteration.

In civ 3, that was not possible. When we used to play, i would take one of his cities, and that wouldn't show up on his screen. He would still be in possession of the city on his computer. A few turns later, he would then see that he lost the city. those were the sorts of wierd problems that we used to have.

Do you expect that sort of stuff this time around? Or has it been resolved with Civ 4?

Yes there are only two issues that can effect a duel alot, one is that one or both of you have weak internet(high ping) because of using dialup, ISDN, dsl-lite, satalite etc. You can always check that now by one player hosting a pw protected game in the Civ4 lobby and the other player can look at the ping displayed, anything over 500ms is going to be a possible issue.

The other issue is if one or both of you have computers that don't meet the min specs, and preferably if you want to run large maps, well about min specs, especially on the amount of memory to have. All the tiles and units on large maps have to be stored in memory prior to being sent to your graphics card. If you only have 1-2 gig ram, windows is going to use virtual ram to store the textures and it runs out of main ram, virtual ram is just a fancy way of saying your hard drive. Which of course is a 1000 times slower than main memory.

So if your friends computer is going to virtual ram to play the game, it is quit likely that is computer will constantly time out in the game as it is not responding in the time allowed to transmit data to your game. And you will get OOS errors. I'm not sure how Steamworks deals with OOS problems of course though I assume it works better than GS, but playing with OOS errors is how you two can get different results in your game like you described.

Hope this helps.

CS

that was a huge help canucksoldier. thank you so much.

So Canuck! The "easter egg" feature will be there or not ? I'm just asking after your deep study of screenshot of pdf manual's index....

What does everyone think about the prospective multiplayer problems? Will it be feasible to enjoy a game on multiplayer, or will the darned thing keep dropping all the time? aAnd what effect will simultaneous moves have on game play? How will someone be able to protect his artillery if the other human player can simply attack them with cavalry when the move begins?

Any thoughts or insights?

This is why i don't enjoy civ multiplayer, with simultaneous turns the game is broken, and without its even slower than heroes of might and magic.

This is why i don't enjoy civ multiplayer, with simultaneous turns the game is broken, and without its even slower than heroes of might and magic.

YEAHH - The worst thing is that multiplayer is full of people much smarter than me and I don't like being defeated all the time....

YEAHH - The worst thing is that multiplayer is full of people much smarter than me and I don't like being defeated all the time....

lol, well that is the hazard of playing real people, I'm not the best MP player on the league either, but I still have fun even when I lose.

As far as easter eggs, I'm afraid my crystal ball is broken this morning but I'll keep an eye open for any.

CS

You must be the person who keeps reloading on every fight in order to win it, eh?

The only real challenge is in MP games, there is no challenge in playing solely against AI - a human will always win at the end simply because of what the poster I quoted said.

If Civ 5 did not have MP, I would not purchase it.

That's pretty extreme, especially considering that Civilization has always been, at its core, a single-player game, with multiplayer elements on top of that experience. The fundamental problem is that multiplayer Civilization is nothing more than a slower version of RTS games: you're not going to get the complexity of various victory conditions (i.e. do people actually play for a diplomatic/cultural victory in MP?) It's just going to be a rushfest to take down your closest neighbors. I haven't played MP in civilization but I played AOM and AOE, and I know that those games were much more hectic not particularly strategic when you added other humans.

In MP you don't need a "diplomatic" victory coded into the game, the game is full of real human diplomacy, the fact that you convinced one player to ally with you or just trade tech etc, is real diplomacy. Using this to put yourself in a posiiton to win by conquest, expansion, or even a space race, or just being the biggest baddest Civ with the highest points at the end, is a result of every aspect of dealing with other humans in a dynamic game.

Yes simu turns MP is a little more RTSish than turn based SP games, but it is the compromise we make to play MP games in a relatively short time frame, you are not going to get 10 players to play for a 30 hour turn based MP game on a wed night, that is just the reality of human nature. But don't beleive that Civ MP is any less strategic than SP is, beleive me MP players are kings of micromanagement of resources. You can't go to war successfully with no infrastructure to fund and produce your army. So MP players have a indepth understanding of the game, they are just more likely to use that eventually for conquest, but not always.

Yes MP can be hectic, but that is the point, MP players want an adrenaline filled 4 hours of strategy against another human, that is why 99% of all MP players can never go back to SP, as playing the AI is just dull and boring after playing competitive MP.

Yes it is not for everyone, but just like SP players like their 30 hour marathon sessions kicking Ghandi's ass, so do MP players like 4-6 hours of fast paced strategy against other humans. To each his own and we should all respect that both games have an equal right to exist.

CS

That's pretty extreme, especially considering that Civilization has always been, at its core, a single-player game, with multiplayer elements on top of that experience. The fundamental problem is that multiplayer Civilization is nothing more than a slower version of RTS games: you're not going to get the complexity of various victory conditions (i.e. do people actually play for a diplomatic/cultural victory in MP?) It's just going to be a rushfest to take down your closest neighbors. I haven't played MP in civilization but I played AOM and AOE, and I know that those games were much more hectic not particularly strategic when you added other humans.

I like when posts begin like - "I've never had icecream but I don't like it. I had once milk and it wasn't my thing. The fundamental problem with icecream is that is made off milk."

Just wanted to say that civ multi is very dangerous for your health. Your face gets red, you sweat all over your body, your hands are shaking before making a move and you feel fear. The stake is not "how do I want to win the game" but "will I survive another turn ?"

Diplomacy is the best. There is Rome + France + Germany one earth game. Both F and G are feared of R's legions early rush. F and G seem to be allied against Rome and ready to help each other. In the meantime France convinced secretly Rome to get the Legions on Germany. War started and France broke the agreement and invaded Germany too. Germany got prepared for them. In situation where Rome has 5 legions against 5 german axes fortified in the capital on a copper hill was clear to a human player that Rome would not waste those legions on hopeless rush and endless war. So little chat with Rome about having them better used against France that doesn't have metal yet ends war against Germany and France is in fire. Since then Germany had a peaceful Roman Empire to the south and west and could start florish to east north/south.
Seeing France player quiting in shame - priceless.

Can you convince AI player the same way ? Or you'll see your AI friend splashing his units against yours untill the lose factor reaches the level when it's ready to have a peace.


Simiultaneous moves makes you learn to think fast and deeper than ever. You need to analyse situations in seconds not minutes. It's even more realistic than having your units being attacked by whole turn whilst you need to wait till end of it to counterattack as it's in singleplayer.

I've played with a group of friends where we played the same game for weeks - we're very close and can't really play the whole game without one of our buds. A lot of times when one person was taken out by the AI or bad luck, we counted the person with the highest score winner and started a new game. Definitely going for diplo victory, points victory and setting the AI really high and just trying to stay alive against it (Civ IV with various mods to make it hard). It's a lot of fun with the right people that are crazy enough to play every night.

That's my one concern about not being able to run Civ V on my computer - will I miss out on our games? I may have to build a whole new computer just to play MP Civ V! I must spend the time with my friends. :)

And, oh yah, they ARE better than I am!

I had to register to reply to Bossconian, because I played Rome in the game he mentioned. His point illustrates the best parts of Civ IV multiplayer, it is damn exciting to plot a war against germany to clear the way for my epic conquest of Europe, only to find that France bungles the joint attack and leaves me facing an equal number of fortified axemen. After talking it over with Bossconian we decided to turn on France while he was weak, and I "agreed" to raze Paris. Of course I did no such thing and took the city for myself, planning to turn on Germany once his axemen were in the open.

Unfortunately, at that point the PO'd french player rejoined the game and used the retire bug to completely break the game. I think you can tell that playing with/against real people is both the best and worst aspect of civ multiplayer. I hope that CiV takes multiplayer to a new level, and (hopefully!) fixes many of the instability and griefing issues that plague CIV multi. The simultaneous move issues will still be there, but atleast you will have to move each unit one at a time, instead of double moving a 50-unit stack in one click. The biggest factors in the success of multiplayer will be 1. Bugs, 2. Stability, and 3. Griefing. If these issues can be kept to a minimum I expect CiV will be the best multiplayer civ in the series.

I had to register to reply to Bossconian, because I played Rome in the game he mentioned...

HEY !!!

Indeed, it was you. That was one of plenty games I played last month and amazing is that not only me remember it. Good to know what you were plotting in your "silly" mind after all. And great you pointed out the bigest problems multiplayer suffers from. The game was the best example how amazing and how craaap is the CIV IV multi. Enough to mention we wasted about 30 minutes and lost couple of players because of that guy who screwed our game. I'm not sure if he's done that deliberatly but he was angry for sure taking on you with Greece - another proof of how emotional the multi is.
But coming back to the subject - the unresolved problems of CIV IV developed by fraxis/2k make us to suffer every game. The game can be easily screwed up intentionally or not and there is nothing we can do about it and neither will do fraxis.

May biggest concern is that CIV V multiplayer problem may be there will be no multiplayer at all....

Boss. They've talked enough about multiplayer that speculating that there "will be no multiplayer at all" is ludicrous. It's there and implemented, what is not (but is planned to be post-launch) is hotseat, pitboss, and PBEM.

Boss. They've talked enough about multiplayer that speculating that there "will be no multiplayer at all" is ludicrous. It's there and implemented, what is not (but is planned to be post-launch) is hotseat, pitboss, and PBEM.

Nobody have seen multiplayer / nobody reviewed multiplayer / the manual index screenshot didn't contain any multiplayer topic. I'm just being reasonable.

Demo should have multiplayer. CivRev demo had multiplayer.

Nobody have seen multiplayer / nobody reviewed multiplayer / the manual index screenshot didn't contain any multiplayer topic. I'm just being reasonable.

Yes I agree that MP info would be great and 2K Greg has promised a blog on it. But he also did emphatically state that Civ5 would ship with the standard MP options, and that only the secondary modes of playing MP would be delayed, ie Hotseat, PBEM and Pitboss. Greg may not be able to tell us everything we want to know, but he has never lied to us either.

CS

Nobody have seen multiplayer / nobody reviewed multiplayer / the manual index screenshot didn't contain any multiplayer topic. I'm just being reasonable.
So in other words, you're accusing 2K Greg, Jon Schafer, every press release about the game, and pretty much everyone involved with the game of lying about multiplayer? If that's "reasonable" to you, I want what you're smoking.

What's hilarious about it is that it's all hearsay too; and of course, representatives of this game are unable to defend themselves because of business security which only works to feed the fearmongering.

What's hilarious about it is that it's all hearsay too; and of course, representatives of this game are unable to defend themselves which only works to feed the fearmongering.
It's not all 'hearsay'. Stuff directly from 2K/Firaxis is not hearsay. Whether people are logical or not isn't controllable though. Unfortunately people can ignore all the evidence in the world until a certain point (aka, until the game is released and it's there), because certain people think that sticking to their point is more important than being logical.

I agree with canucksoldier. Multiplayer is king. There is no way that single player can compare.

CS, do you think that we will be allowed to save, and restart our games in the basic MP functions?

I agree with canucksoldier. Multiplayer is king. There is no way that single player can compare.

CS, do you think that we will be allowed to save, and restart our games in the basic MP functions?

I'm pretty sure that saving a MP game and continuing it later, would qualify as a basic function of MP, yes. And it's really a core function that is part of the SP code, and there are already documented reviews of players loading saves from Gamescom etc, so I'm pretty sure we are safe on the save and reload later front.

I would think that like Civ4 that you can not load a MP save as a SP game, this is basic anti-cheating after all.

CS

CS. On civplayers.com, you mention that there is no cheating. What type of cheating do you mean? How do people cheat in multiplayer? I want to know so that i am not victimized by it.

he means if you load up a MP save in SP, play against AI and then later reload that save in MP that would be cheating, which is why such things are disabled. nothing to fret over. we don't really know what a future MP cheat might entail, because nobody has even played it, much less figured out exploits.

CS. On civplayers.com, you mention that there is no cheating. What type of cheating do you mean? How do people cheat in multiplayer? I want to know so that i am not victimized by it.

Remember that CivPlayers is not just for Civ4, which is a fairly cheat free game thankfully, but we also run a league for Civ3 Conquests. And unfortuanately that game is not so cheat free, so we as a league put rules and consequences in place to prevent players from wanting to get caught cheating.

Also one of the primary misison statements of CivPlayers is that we don't tolerate players quiting game which is rampant in open lobby games.

And in the end there still things considered cheating for us that are not code related, like the host changing his difficulty level at the last second before starting the game and hoping no one noticed :P Or loading the map on a second computer in a LAN game etc to look at the map.

I expect Civ5 to be a solid cheat free code base as Civ4 was but human nature being what it is, people will find a way to cheat if they can.

CS

hey Canucksoldier et al. I posted a new thread titled "One unit per hex & other gameplay issues." Please visit it and post your comments when you have a minute. Thanks.

That's pretty extreme, especially considering that Civilization has always been, at its core, a single-player game, with multiplayer elements on top of that experience. The fundamental problem is that multiplayer Civilization is nothing more than a slower version of RTS games: you're not going to get the complexity of various victory conditions (i.e. do people actually play for a diplomatic/cultural victory in MP?) It's just going to be a rushfest to take down your closest neighbors. I haven't played MP in civilization but I played AOM and AOE, and I know that those games were much more hectic not particularly strategic when you added other humans.

Indeed there are other victory conditions that are pursued.

We always put AI opponents into the mix as well, and with all victory conditions (except for Time; we play the FFH-modmod).

Conquest is the ultimate fun factor (and really once you defeat the human player is your conquest), and indeed as Bossconian mentions in one of the follow-up posts it is an adrenaline rush. Having other victory conditions in there is the rush-factor. Just in one recent game I am 30 turns away from cultural victory and my human opponent is pushing hard to take me out - he even got most other AI to declare war on me (but the AI cannot compete so it's just a nuisance not a threat).

AI will never be able to come up with complex strategies. You will always be 264 steps ahead of the AI, whereas against humans you are always catching up.

With the weeks, months and years Civ5 in SP mode will become less and less challenging for a CivFanatic. Then he may want real opposition. Competing in multiplayer, having a ladder and tournaments will be great fun.

Certainly simultaneous turns pose problems. One could just avoid them by playing team matches e.g 3v3, with consecutive turns for each team, but simultaneous turns for the 3 players of one team. If Civ5 has this feature. Could be a nice trade-off.

With the weeks, months and years Civ5 in SP mode will become less and less challenging for a CivFanatic. Then he may want real opposition. Competing in multiplayer, having a ladder and tournaments will be great fun.

Wholeheartedly agree.


Certainly simultaneous turns pose problems. One could just avoid them by playing team matches e.g 3v3, with consecutive turns for each team, but simultaneous turns for the 3 players of one team. If Civ5 has this feature. Could be a nice trade-off.

Good solution to speed things up.

With the weeks, months and years Civ5 in SP mode will become less and less challenging for a CivFanatic. Then he may want real opposition. Competing in multiplayer, having a ladder and tournaments will be great fun.

Certainly simultaneous turns pose problems. One could just avoid them by playing team matches e.g 3v3, with consecutive turns for each team, but simultaneous turns for the 3 players of one team. If Civ5 has this feature. Could be a nice trade-off.

WHY shouldnt it have this function? it was the normal option

With the weeks, months and years Civ5 in SP mode will become less and less challenging for a CivFanatic. Then he may want real opposition. Competing in multiplayer, having a ladder and tournaments will be great fun.



Well I can say for sure that CivPlayers will be running tournaments for Civ5, and if Civ4 and Civ3 tournaments are any indicator they will be great fun. I'm sure that Civ5 clans will form too and that we will run a very exciting Clan Championship Cup competition as we have done for the Civ4 and Civ3 leagues for 9 years now.

We will likely have to wait until the dust settles a bit on Civ5 MP to see what the best game settings are best for different eras etc, but tournaments are certainly a key part of the MP community.

CS

Certainly simultaneous turns pose problems. One could just avoid them by playing team matches e.g 3v3, with consecutive turns for each team, but simultaneous turns for the 3 players of one team. If Civ5 has this feature. Could be a nice trade-off.

Simultaneous turns are not a problem at all. If you are not sure just have look at civ IV multiplayer. It's pretty rare that two player are making a move to occupy the same square. However if that happens "the lag wins". You then learn how to avoid such situations. It's true that some players cheating using so called "fast moves" but it's not a fault of simultaneous turns idea but its implementation (read a developer which ignores it and doesn't release a patch ).

Regarding CIV V simultaneous moves it sounds pretty scarry for me to move every single unit separatelly. They say that big armies are something about 20-40 units. Imagine clicking on 20-40 units and move them one by one every turn just to move them. I'm not talking about fights where multiple selectable clicking is often necessery but at least you can select all your 5 catapults at once and attack at once.... I'm just curious if there will be some group movements and attacks in civ V....

One more thing - the newly produced unit has to be moved away from city. What if player didn't move that unit before enemy forces proceed with their attack on the city.

will see....

Simultaneous turns are usually not a problem except where AI attacking stack of Human, and another human then decides to attack same stack, and where Human stack attacks another Human stack and where fight in progress, and human that was attacked goes to attack the attacker with another stack (however, the non-AI scenario - scenario 2, is alleviated by using stack-attack game option). These will cause game crash.

Simultaneous turns are usually not a problem except where AI attacking stack of Human, and another human then decides to attack same stack, and where Human stack attacks another Human stack and where fight in progress, and human that was attacked goes to attack the attacker with another stack (however, the non-AI scenario - scenario 2, is alleviated by using stack-attack game option). These will cause game crash.

Of course not !

Frist thing. I don't thing AI will be using sim-turns. In Civ IV ai moves only after turn ends and before next turn starts.

There were plenty of situations that where 2 - 3 stacks of different players were rushing to take a city. And that hasn't been a problem. PC always queues and orders these moves. So even if for you these moves were in the same "blink of eye" for server there is alwyas an order against which the battle is being calculated. So no worries- it works and works well...
Just go and play civ IV multi to see that it's ok. If there was a crash however its not a problem in the idea itself but its implemenation.

In MP sim turns in civ4, when AI stack attacks a human city, it does to unit-by-unit. While this occurs, I can still play my turn and either reinforce the city (which I often do, and is in a way abuse) or attack AI back while his attack is in progress. The latter always causes a game freeze. Also, if AI stack attacks human city (again, it will always do so unit-by-unit) and another human stack attacks same city at same time, game freezes.

The way we go around it in our games is that we declare: "I'll do my attacks 1st, and you do yours after" and we switch next turn (simulating turn-based) - only when human-vs-human occurs or human vs human+AI. Also we use stack-attack mechanic (whole stack attack resolved immediately - but this does not prevent freezes in scenarios described in first paragraph)

It's true that some players cheating using so called "fast moves" but it's not a fault of simultaneous turns idea but its implementation (read a developer which ignores it and doesn't release a patch ).

Can you explain what a "fast move" is? And what do you mean when you say that the developer ignored it?

Sorry. I didn't put bossconian's quote in there correctly on my last post. The first paragraph was a qoute from bossconian's post.

I still say Civ2 had the best multiplayer especially considering it wasn't even designed for it. It ran completely smoothly without OOS errors, had the production pop-ups (Unlike Civ3 luckily Civ4 restored them) and didn't take a ton for processing power to run unlike Civ4 hosting. Also thanks to a trick someone (I forget who sorry :blush:) you can edit your .ini file and play it with simultaneous moves.

The main concern I have is with Steamworks, I play Modern Warfare 2 from time to time on Steam and it is not the dropouts that really concern, but that does happen quite often, but it is the hacks to my game I get all the time, usually about 1 a week.

It gets to be very frustrating having to wipe out a few days or more worth of progress to get rid of the hack. I expect we would see very little of that in this community.

This thread is crazy
but hopefully civV will have great multiplayer.
i would imagine that getting multiplayer right is a huge priority for the developers.
cannot fathom how people think civ is a single player game, or that simultaneous turns are not preferable to some long drawn-out mess.

also wapamingo what in the world are you talking about>??? it doesnt sound like civ to me.

Simultaneous turns are not a problem at all. [...]

Simultaneous turns are usually not a problem [...]

It seems obvious to me, that simultaneous turns are very problematic! Not from a technical point of view - here the simple "first come, first serve" principle is usually enough to solve a conflict.

The real problem lies in gameplay. First of all, turn-based strategy games have a different philosophy than RTS, but with simultaneous turns suddenly you have a big advantage in reacting quickly. With consecutive turns you can allocate your turn time limit freely, do things in any order, usually prioritizing important decisions over detail optimization. Simultaneous turns, although a necessity due to time constraints, change the game radically and not for the better.

In my view, Civ is not about rush-buying 4 cavalry, 500ms before the enemy pillages your horse resource. Not about hastily attacking somewhere with all your units, just to get the first strike advantage. Not about attacking an enemy submarine with your own 250ms earlier than the enemy and destroy it, instead of vice versa. Not about retreating that wounded elite unit 100ms before the enemy can attack and kill it.

I agree, and that's why the only official podcast I realy care about is multiplayer...

With stack it was rarely a problem, but I don't think that the way CIV 4 was played will work with the new 1 unit/tile of CIV 5.

Maybe having everyplayer set their action for each unit but then having the move resolution and battle occuring between the turn with an initiative given to differant player each turn like in a boardgame could work... something like that I don't know.

But I bet they though of something good.

The real problem lies in gameplay. First of all, turn-based strategy games have a different philosophy than RTS, but with simultaneous turns suddenly you have a big advantage in reacting quickly.



That's the whole point in multiplayer - you have to think fast and act fast. However there is still huge space for strategic thinking as you have to run your empire as in normal turn based game.


If you don't like it - don't play it. I don't like single player so I don't play it.



However in Civ IV you were able to prevent rush actions of the attacker by stacking units so they were less exposed to a rush. In CIV V it looks that we are having a huge problem with that....

That's the whole point in multiplayer - you have to think fast and act fast. However there is still huge space for strategic thinking as you have to run your empire as in normal turn based game.


For me the whole point in multiplayer is to have strong competition and share experiences with real people. Long-term, I find it much more interesting to compete with people skilled in their quality of decision-making, rather than those skilled in speed and quantity of actions. I want time to chat with other players, be it in-game allies or enemies. Real diplomacy. Play by E-Mail removes time pressure, but it is slow. Consecutive mode with only two players/teams and a turn timer of say 1m+2s (1 minute base plus 2 seconds per unit), as well as a limited amount of short timeouts for each player, that would feel about right for me.

Thinking and acting fast can be enjoyable, too. That has traditionally been the domain of RTS, like e.g. Company of Heroes. Many of us see Civ as the exact opposite, e.g. marathon players, who optimize everything and take weeks or much longer to finish their games. Singleplayer will, with little doubt, sum up the lion share of play time in Civ5.

Of course it is a matter of taste and Civ5 will have many game modes that should suit the vast majority of people. On top of it there is modding. To repeat an opinion I wrote elsewhere, I'd like Civ5 to be the antithesis to Starcraft2. Not because SC2 or fast RTS are bad, but because popular, slow-paced and deep, mulitplayer strategy games are underrepresented.

That's the whole point in multiplayer - you have to think fast and act fast. However there is still huge space for strategic thinking as you have to run your empire as in normal turn based game.


If you don't like it - don't play it. I don't like single player so I don't play it.



However in Civ IV you were able to prevent rush actions of the attacker by stacking units so they were less exposed to a rush. In CIV V it looks that we are having a huge problem with that....

You've obviously never played a PBEM game. That or you consider it not to be multiplayer.:crazyeye:

I take quite a leisurely pace as I play my turns, thank you very much. :) I've won two games being by far the slowest player.

Oh, and both were very enjoyable as MP games.

Don't worry about multiplayer - neither does 2K. Multiplayer is some kind of easter egg feature. It is just like small fun addon and has never been considered as a serious CIV game mode. Also playing against human is not such fun because most of people will not get apropriate experience and game satisfaction ratio losing most of the games. When you play against AI you can save and reload and eventually win which is unfortunatelly impossible in multiplayer. Therefore you better stick to single player and never ask about multiplayer again.

Playing online is part of the reason why I loved CIV VI so much. Nothing beats playing against a logical and cutthroat enemy that doesn't make the same exploitable and stupid mistakes and habits the AI has.

Also reloading after every fight and everytime things look even a bit bad is the lamest thing I've ever heard. It's obvious that we're two different players but don't insult Civ's multiplayer because YOU don't like actually having a worthy challenge where you can't simply reload every second and can *GASP* sometimes lose.

Playing online is part of the reason why I loved CIV VI so much. Nothing beats playing against a logical and cutthroat enemy that doesn't make the same exploitable and stupid mistakes and habits the AI has.

Also reloading after every fight and everytime things look even a bit bad is the lamest thing I've ever heard. It's obvious that we're two different players but don't insult Civ's multiplayer because YOU don't like actually having a worthy challenge where you can't simply reload every second and can *GASP* sometimes lose.

There is no decent multiplayer in CIV V. SHOW ME YOUR ANGER !!!!

At least something going on here. Hopefully there are some people for who the multiplayer is important feature....

Multiplayer in Civ5 will be epic, as long as the technical/networking part is done professionally. I'm looking forward to play small and big mods exclusively designed for MP.

also wapamingo what in the world are you talking about>??? it doesnt sound like civ to me.

Of course it is. However, I play FFH mods.



For me the whole point in multiplayer is to have strong competition and share experiences with real people. Long-term, I find it much more interesting to compete with people skilled in their quality of decision-making, rather than those skilled in speed and quantity of actions. I want time to chat with other players, be it in-game allies or enemies. Real diplomacy.

{snipped}


There is all of that. You still have to build your empire, and there are different victory conditions other than conquest - but people like to duke it out. In the duking it out case, sometimes acting fast / thinking fast makes the difference but you still have to plan ahead and plan accordingly. Cannot compare to RTS games.


Multiplayer in Civ5 will be epic, as long as the technical/networking part is done professionally. I'm looking forward to play small and big mods exclusively designed for MP.

My biggest concern with Civ 5 MP is that its going to be slow as you have to act with every single unit separately.

Turn timers are a must, IMO. The only issue is the "cannot end your turn IF IF" rule with regards to city and >1 unit - must have an gameplay option that automatically resolves this by deleting offending unit when and if timer runs out for your turn.

The beginning of a new turn in a match with simultaneous turns (ST) will be very hectic. The winner of battles will be determined by hand speed, network latency and pure luck. Concerning the management of your empire (e.g. assigning citizens, choosing techs & SP, producing items), there should be less problems, because there are fewer ways other players can interfere with it.

In Civ4 I only played a handful of public games with ST. The experience was not the greatest, not even talking about the terrible lag. Most players left soon. Not much chatting. Diplomacy virtually non-existent. Weired chaotic wars - and I haven't even fought multi-front wars involving 2 other factions.

I fear ST in TBS games to be "the worst of both worlds". Therefore I will try to find people interested in 2-team games with consecutive turns. This will roughly double the time required to finish a match, but for me it is well worth it. Anyway, I enjoy time spent with Civ and I prefer playing one fascinating match instead of two average ones.

The beginning of a new turn in a match with simultaneous turns (ST) will be very hectic. The winner of battles will be determined by hand speed, network latency and pure luck. Concerning the management of your empire (e.g. assigning citizens and producing items), there are less problems, because there are fewer ways other players can interfere with it.

In Civ4 I only played a handful of public games with ST. The experience was not the greatest, not even talking about the terrible lag. Most players left soon. Not much chatting. Weired chaotic wars - and I haven't even fought multi-front wars involving 2 other factions.

I fear ST in TBS games to be "the worst of both worlds". Therefore I will try to find people interested in 2-team games with consecutive turns. This will roughly double the time required to finish a match, but for me it is well worth it. Anyway, I enjoy time spent with Civ and I prefer one fascinating match instead of two average ones.

I sounds like you played only open lobby games, so no wonder you had a bad experience. That is precisely why we invited CivPlayers Leagues way back when Civ3PTW came out, to make some rules of conduct for games. Like no quiting, cheating and treat people the way you want to be treated.

So beleive me there is a world of difference between open game and organized league games. The league promotes competition and players tend to become very good at the game.

This is why I state that simu turns is not going to effect the over all strategy and tactics in MP. Yes for individual battles, the random number generator is going to effect the outcome, and who has the fastest internet connection or faster CPU will effect who moves first.

But good MP players never put themselves in a position were a bad single battle loses the game. The same can be said for Civ3 and Civ4, battles can be decided be who moves first in those games too, but we all know that and no one that is better than average puts there entire strategy on that one battle. So for us the fastmoves/double moves issue is a non-issue, it's just an excepted part of the game and everyone knows how to deal with it.

I am sure that what ever mechanics are present in Civ5 will be no different we simply will adapt and the playing field will be level.

CS

Thanks for your answer CanuckSoldier. I'll certainly consider joining a Civ5 league for the community and other advantages. It is a bit early to know how the new MP will be and maybe ST is not as bad, as I imagine. You certainly have a lot more MP experience than me.

Just one sentence suprised me a bit. At first sight it seemed obvious, but after a bit of thought I am unsure, if it is true:
But good MP players never put themselves in a position were a bad single battle loses the game. [...]

First thing to come to my mind was the very early game, rush situations. When all the military you have is 3 or less units, one or two bad combat outcomes could be fatal. Either lose immediately or be crippled to a point, where winning becomes impossible. Probably in Civ5 this will be less of a concern, because cities have combat strength on their own.

How could losing a single unit turn the tides of battle in a decisive way? Carriers! A carrier can hold up to 3 aircraft and battles between two fleets composed of 1 fully loaded carrier should be very common.

Losing one carrier with 3 aircraft on board is a huge setback. Consider following scenario:

http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/6323/navieswcarriers.gif

Two opposing fleets, player A and player B, each with one carrier plus escort. In this example the escort is 3 destroyers, but it could be 2 subs and a battleship or anything not too numerous.

In a SP game with player A to move, he would probably feel very confident. First, snipe the carrier with ranged or "melee" attacks of 2 or 3 destroyers. Then unleash the power of your airforce on the destroyers of player B. And last, the most important step, retreat the carrier, so the enemy can no longer attack and destroy it.

Player B will have lost 1 carrier, 3 aircraft and suffered 3 aerial attacks. Now he is fighting with at maximum 3 (damaged) units against 7 units. He should retreat or lose his entire fleet. Retreating may not be an option.

Above example is symmetric, so if it was player B's turn, he can do the same to player A. Ok, that was for Civ in SP mode, with consecutive turns.

Now comes my concern about MP with simultaneous turns. Lets say I've played for 2 hours, made it into the modern era and a new turn begins. For whatever reason I divert my attention from my navy for 5-10 seconds. In above image the two navies would not see each other, except via recon missions or the like.

For example, I fight a millisecond battle to retreat my 3 tanks I have under fire elsewhere, before the enemy can destroy them. Or I have promised an ally immediate help at the start of the turn on another front.

My enemy (player B) moves one of his destroyers and sees my carrier. He attacks the carrier with everything he has, destroys it and maybe retreats his own carrier. Player B will probably annihilate my whole navy.

Whether he used his destroyers in suboptimal way does not matter, as long as he sniped my carrier before I could react and has his own carrier safe before I can counterattack.

Losing one's whole fleet looks like a plausible reason for losing the game.

Losing one's whole fleet looks like a plausible reason for losing the game.


Yeah - multiplayer is full of people quiting by any reason e.g.

I failed to build stonehange - I quit
I failed to discover religion firs - I quit
I faied to take hut first - I quit
My land sucks - I quit
My neighbour is french - I quit
My gf wants sex - I quit


Regarding you example - that's the whole fun of multi - you need to anticipate such situtations and don't let you get into such troubles - for example send one ship /submarine couple hexes in front to do the recon task first etc etc.

Also there was some solution in CIV IV implemented which didn't work as well as it should but was a solution for such dilemas. The idea was to stop player who had huge advantage in attack - axe vs sperman - from moving his axe for first couple of seconds. Basicly you weren't able to select it becasue the focus was instantly moved onto another unit. Some people however knew how to bypass it.

In your example forces are in full symetry. In my opinion destroyes could be unselectable for first couple of seconds in which carriers could be moved away from trouble.

Regarding you example - that's the whole fun of multi - you need to anticipate such situtations and don't let you get into such troubles - for example send one ship /submarine couple hexes in front to do the recon task first etc etc.
Decimating a spread out navy 1 ship at a time doesn't sound like a bad idea either ;)

Also there was some solution in CIV IV implemented which didn't work as well as it should but was a solution for such dilemas. The idea was to stop player who had huge advantage in attack - axe vs sperman - from moving his axe for first couple of seconds. Basicly you weren't able to select it becasue the focus was instantly moved onto another unit. Some people however knew how to bypass it.

That kind of things is exactly what I meant with having "the worst of both worlds". RTS-like rules, that no good RTS would ever implement.

That kind of things is exactly what I meant with having "the worst of both worlds". RTS-like rules, that no good RTS would ever implement.


To see your forces under attack and being unable to do anything about it is much less strategically approach to the game imho and much more frustrating. It's more or less as if one year only one army could attack and the second just defend nad the latter had to wait till next year to do somethng about it - e.g. send some forces to front and retreat weak units.

But don't worry - there will a be lovely single player mode where you could spend days watching great battle animations and wonder movies and nobody will attack you untill you end your turn. Btw - battle animation would be my first option to turn off.

Just to remind one big difference that makes the civ multi not any RTS at all - you have limited move points so you think first before you make a move. And you need to think bloody quick.

Yes battles can have long term effects, but like in your example, if the player had a sentry net, he would have seen the enemy coming and been able to react to the situation long before it was a threat to his NAvy.

When I say good MP players use tactics that make individual battles not game changers, Sentry Nets be they land, sea or air, and critical parts of the MP tool box, to do that.

And if your being attacked by forces that you can't defend because they are an entire generation ahead of you, well you did something wrong in the game to be that far behind your opponents in tech. And you deserve to die :p

About the only exception to this is in the early game were players decide to take a risk and send their one warrior out to explore and hopefully kill some other player's empty capital, and do a first turn worker. This strategy can be a winner in that getting that early worker has a huge snowball effect and the possibility of knocking off one of your neighbours early has great benifits.

The risk though is that you are the guy killed by someones elses warrior with your empty cap producing a worker.....but it's all a calculated risk that alot of experienced MP players take, and when it works it works well, or you end up in a thread we have called "the warrior death wall of shame" :p

In Civ3 we did recognize that the double move was an issue to a point, and when we designed Civ4 we made the 8 sec move timer, so that units that moved in the previous 8 secs of the last turn could not move for the following 8 sec of the new turn.

Hopefully they will keep this in Civ5 as it is a good balance for the DM/FM being a reflex mechanic, but simu turns on general are not an issue to the competitive MP community.


CS

Just to remind one big difference that makes the civ multi not any RTS at all - you have limited move points so you think first before you make a move. And you need to think bloody quick.

Very differing opinions indeed. You write "so you think first before you make a move", but I fear "attack first, think later, if you can still move" will apply to ST.

Consider the most simple case: two opposing archers. Is it better to get the first strike or watch the arrows rain on your unit and later have the advantage to decide what to do with the now wounded archer?

Might as well bring him to the hospital at 100% HP. Btw wonder animations are no more.

Yes battles can have long term effects, but like in your example, if the player had a sentry net, he would have seen the enemy coming and been able to react to the situation long before it was a threat to his NAvy.

Sentry nets will probably be less common in Civ 5 given the seemingly more constrained ability to build military units. But it shouldn't matter since I don't think a unit can get destroyed immediately unless you attack it with many units at once.

Sentry nets will probably be less common in Civ 5 given the seemingly more constrained ability to build military units. But it shouldn't matter since I don't think a unit can get destroyed immediately unless you attack it with many units at once.

For sure military units are more valuable in Civ5. But with horse units having 4+ units, I would think sentries will still be important, even if it is just a well placed archer on a hill.

CS

Probably I should just accept, that multiplayer with ST (simultaneous turns) and CT (consecutive turns) are very different games. At least when it comes to battles. What are brilliant military tactics in CT, could be the worst blunder in ST, and vice versa.

Maybe I'll become a fan of ST and even wish a feature, allowing you to move several units simultaneously. It's called simultaneous turns, why not also simultaneous moves, after all? Then I could train moving one unit with my mouse and the other with the left hand on my keyboard. I'd fetch the racing pedals, so my feet aren't idle and do useful actions, too. It will feel almost like Starcraft. When an eye-tracking device comes to the market, I'd be the first buyer, so I can control a third unit simultaneously. All this will help greatly to counter the predominant MP ST "sentry-style" of play, by allowing me to focus attack and pick off sentries faster. At the start of each turn, my enemy will suffer from 3 attacks in the blink of an eye.

Forgive my blasphemy in regards to ST mode. I just can't get used to the idea of playing Civ like a robot.

I always played Civ multi on hotseat. And what I hear about simultaneous moves makes me don't like them at all.

I'd prefer Heroes V style where the moves are simultaneous before players have a chance to interact. And after that the game converts to consequent moves, so all the time you make your turns in the same way as standard consequent moves.

I always played Civ multi on hotseat. And what I hear about simultaneous moves makes me don't like them at all.

I'd prefer Heroes V style where the moves are simultaneous before players have a chance to interact. And after that the game converts to consequent moves, so all the time you make your turns in the same way as standard consequent moves.

Not a bad concept at all. Although, I don't know Heroes V and how it works there.

Instead of switching to CT for all players, as soon as two players interact, the program could divide players into "non-interfering groups", which then take consecutive turns. With interference e.g. defined as "2 civs (*at war) with units in attack range".

(*By forcing players to declare war, 1 turn before they are allowed to attack, the system may work even more efficiently)

For example: on one continent there is "group A", Greece and France at war, on the other continent a conflict between "group B", India, China and America. Plus 3 isolated civs on islands. In CT mode you would need 8 rounds to finish a turn. So with normal CT expect games to last 8 times longer than ST.

Can we use a trick to make it look like CT without needing 8-fold time? Maybe; I haven't studied the problem in-depth.

Group B must take consecutive turns: India, China, America (or whatever ordering was set beforehand). But while India moves, Greece from group A can move simultaneously, without (militant) unit interaction with India. So can the 3 civs on islands. Then, on the second round, France (A) and China (B) can move in ST mode. Last, America makes its turn.

If this works, there would be an illusion of 8-player CT, but it took only 3-fold time. What do you think?

afaik, the steam version lets you use their servers, so that's nice.

gamespy would suck though.

If this works, there would be an illusion of 8-player CT, but it took only 3-fold time. What do you think?

Yes, I though about something like this, just tried to make it simplier. It should work.

Probably I should just accept, that multiplayer with ST (simultaneous turns) and CT (consecutive turns) are very different games. At least when it comes to battles. What are brilliant military tactics in CT, could be the worst blunder in ST, and vice versa.

Maybe I'll become a fan of ST and even wish a feature, allowing you to move several units simultaneously. It's called simultaneous turns, why not also simultaneous moves, after all? Then I could train moving one unit with my mouse and the other with the left hand on my keyboard. I'd fetch the racing pedals, so my feet aren't idle and do useful actions, too. It will feel almost like Starcraft. When an eye-tracking device comes to the market, I'd be the first buyer, so I can control a third unit simultaneously. All this will help greatly to counter the predominant MP ST "sentry-style" of play, by allowing me to focus attack and pick off sentries faster. At the start of each turn, my enemy will suffer from 3 attacks in the blink of an eye.

Forgive my blasphemy in regards to ST mode. I just can't get used to the idea of playing Civ like a robot.

Well no one is wrong here, if you can find a bunch of friends to play CT MP go right ahead and enjoy the game. But if you come to the lobby to try MP out don't expect to find to much love for CT MP :P

CS

Accidentally, I just stumbled upon a recent article via weplayciv.com, GameInformer Civ5 MP Review (http://gameinformer.com/games/civilization_v/b/pc/archive/2010/09/10/multiplayer-hands-on.aspx). The quote below is very relevant in regard to the title of this thread:

Another issue with playing cutthroat Civ V is that early all-in strategies are almost impossible to counter without going all in yourself. This is partially due to the relative shrinking of the world since unit movement speeds are so much higher than in previous Civilizations. I've generally been on the winning side of this situation (what can I say, I like conquest!), but it doesn't make for a very fulfilling strategy game when it's all decided on the Prisoner's Dilemma. Without playing Archipelago maps that forcibly segregate players across water from each other, the following set of situations plays out too often:


Player A rushes an early military strategy. Player B plays a typical early expansion game. A conquers B, giving A an enormous boost along the development curve.
Both Player A and Player B rush early warfare, resulting in a brutal war of attrition that leaves both nations weakened and behind their rivals.
Neither player rushes and they play nice together. At least until someone gets antsy and starts cranking out an army.

Accidentally, I just stumbled upon a recent article via weplayciv.com, GameInformer Civ5 MP Review (http://gameinformer.com/games/civilization_v/b/pc/archive/2010/09/10/multiplayer-hands-on.aspx). The quote below is very relevant in regard to the title of this thread:

Yes I've read that too, but I wouldn't take anything a mag reviewer says about competitive MP as gossple, they baring qualify as average SP players let alone experienced MP players.

I have one of the MP beta testers writing a MP review for release on the 21st, it'll be posted at CivPlayers and I'll cross post links into all the other fan sites.

At least then we will have a review from someone that has played Civ3 and Civ4 competitive MP for a decade now. And his ideas on the game play of Civ5 will be much more revealing that any of the pre release mag stories.

CS

Can't wait to hear what the pros say about multiplayer, be it ST or CT. It would be awesome to watch their games live!

Accidentally, I just stumbled upon a recent article via weplayciv.com, GameInformer Civ5 MP Review (http://gameinformer.com/games/civilization_v/b/pc/archive/2010/09/10/multiplayer-hands-on.aspx). The quote below is very relevant in regard to the title of this thread:

since there SHOULDNT be player c i dont see the problem

ofc like every other game of the world a early rush will be a favored but in civ defense should be way easier than in other games

and i agree that mp reviews count nothing

What the heck are the ports that need to be open to Join/Host a game? All I keep getting is "Contacting Host" and "Retrieving Host Information" but it never does anything else. Please Help

The only real challenge is in MP games, there is no challenge in playing solely against AI - a human will always win at the end simply because of what the poster I quoted said. If Civ 5 did not have MP, I would not purchase it.

Wholly agree on all counts. Haven't even considered buying any single-player-only games in...well several years now.

And Civ4 is a _great_ MP game.

this game is so much like Civ 3. It may as well not have multiplayer because you can tell the developers could not work it out in time. Maybe in the expansion they will have unit animations and more thorough options.

maybe not - whoever bought this game may just bugger off now.