Simultaneous turns

Having achieved win consistency on Emperor (and feeling a little down from the artificial difficulty of AIs), I've been thinking of giving multiplayer a try.

However - simultaneous turns. Assuming no radical changes have been made to the configuration of MP, this is really a deal breaker for me: I just don't see how you can have interesting tactical gameplay when every turn degenerates into who-moves-first.

And it really irks me that instead of improving the game so as to produce a balanced and fun alternative to SP, which really does wear on after a while, Firaxis chooses to release generic map pack or wonder set number three or four or twenty. I mean, really guys, come on. It's just a little netcode; turn-based games are supposed to be easy to wire.

Those that have played MP significantly, how painful is it? Seems like it would at the very least make war into a set-piece slobberfest.

Simu turns are fine. It's more clicking and a better internet connection can give you the upper hand against players of equal skill. Every game takes a few hours though unless you decide to save and continue later.

You could play GMR if you want completely turned based but it's really really slow instead.

My son and I played G&K with simultaneous turns, and that seemed to work great! We also involve the AI, and usually have a rule that we wipe them out first, and then go for each other.

But, in any event, the option we selected was that it was simultaneous turns *unless* he and I were at war, in which case it would revert to being turn-based. That seems to be the best of both worlds, as I'm not into a "click-fest" either (and would lose that battle handily to him lol).

Play some games, simul turns work just fine, in duels, losing a unit or 2 because of fast clicking never really makes a huge difference, usually the more clever player wins. If you are consistently slower than your opponent, then that maybe means that he is thinking faster than you, and does probably deserve to win the game. Certainly simul turns makes the game more about thinking quickly, but finger dexterity almost never matters. Also, simul turns makes it easier to attack, because you are able to save units which are being focus fired, and you can shift move, which is a good thing since BNW is pretty peace biased in the first place.

Simul turns have forced the subjective rule though of "don't wait to move during war." Apparently there's an advantage to waiting to the last to make all your decisions, knowing the enemy won't move as you execute it.

This rule though, lacks an objective standard of enforceability that would seem to be required for a competitive ruleset. How long is "waiting"? Why force a unit to take action when it has achieved a strong position of stasis? And how do you tell what is waiting and what is just getting to that part of your turn later?

I think you're concerned about the wrong thing though. Civ MP games can be hugfests , with scarcely a rational agreement in sight. Geopolitics simply don't exist . Plus, when are tactics ever relevant to a war in this game? Military superiority or bust, especially on Quick.

@klaskeren: Competitive thinking is that shift-click is overpowered and is banned in No-Quitters league.

Horseshoe_Hermi said:

Simul turns have forced the subjective rule though of "don't wait to move during war." Apparently there's an advantage to waiting to the last to make all your decisions, knowing the enemy won't move as you execute it.

This rule though, lacks an objective standard of enforceability that would seem to be required for a competitive ruleset. How long is "waiting"? Why force a unit to take action when it has achieved a strong position of stasis? And how do you tell what is waiting and what is just getting to that part of your turn later?

I think you're concerned about the wrong thing though. Civ MP games can be hugfests , with scarcely a rational agreement in sight. Geopolitics simply don't exist . Plus, when are tactics ever relevant to a war in this game? Military superiority or bust, especially on Quick.

@klaskeren: Competitive thinking is that shift-click is overpowered and is banned in No-Quitters league.

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not really, playing without shift moves is really stupid, as it favors fastclicking instead of planning

I'm in the same position as OP in terms of moving from consistent success at emperor to MP and trying out immortal from time to time. I find simultaneous turns necessary to speed up the game during wartime. I've only tried hybrid once and the game takes much longer and is more vulnerable to connection crashes where everyone freezes. The only way to solve that issue is when someone (not a host) leaves and returns.

My main issues with MP are game crashes as host and connection freezes rather than slow simultaneous wars. You eventually get used to it. The main thing is to move your units ASAP and then attend to your cities and workers. Turn timers really help speed up the game and I would like to know an ideal fixed turn timer. Currently I think 90 seconds is decent mid-game, but not later on.

Multiplayer is done very badly in this game, a shame since it wouldnt take much to fix it.

First of all, the lobby and game creation is abysmal, like, really really bad. Then there is the whole connection problems and resyncs, disconnects and random crashes....but really its not unplayable, its just not as good as it could be.

Simul tourns well, in FFA Games which most play its the only option, because otherwise games just take too long (imagine 5 players taking turns). However, if you are new to the game, or your opponent is simply very good at *abusing* the mechanics, you have absolutely no chance of winning.

We are talking *losing everything and killing nothing* here. Its entirely possible to save every low HP unit and killing of every unit of your opponent if you abuse the shift click mechanics and the end of turn movements and using your units faster and using promotions faster than your opponent, its really that bad.

Watch out for these things:

1. Shift Movement. Pretty much nothing you can do here, your opponent moves between turns to close distance into your defense, or to move cav next to your units from 4 tiles away, attacking and moving away with it, hope you have high frustration resistance. Be prepared to lose workers to units (especially scouts) you didnt even know are there, they can shift move out of fog of war and steal your worker/pillage without you having any chance of saving them. If you know other players are in that general direction, always escort them.

2.End of Turn Movements: this is really a dumb thing but its done very often. Essentially people will let the turn timer run down to the last second and move their units in that last second so that you cannot react to that movement (even with shift clicking). this really sucks because not only is it highly advantageous, but also does it make turns take A LOT longer because every turn is run down to the last second. A good example of this is Archers moving 1 tile and shooting to get essentially a free attack of on you or declaring war in the last second and stealing workers/attacking settlers/killing units the next turn.

3. The *Bait*: VERY Common. What happens is that you move a unit in range of your opponents units (2 tiles away), best done out of fog of war for maximum effectiveness. Now your unit has 1 movement left, but your opponent doesnt know that, or he could know but doesnt have the time to think it trough (have to react very fast in simul games). Now your opponent can essentially attack it, but because they have to move fast they will attack by moving their unit onto yours most of the time even with ranged units. Now you know he will attack it, and you just wait 2 seconds and move your unit BACK 1 tile and your opponent unit will MOVE into the tile instead of attacking. This will almost outright kill the unit most of the time since its out in the open without defenses. You can also just move a unit 1 tile forth and then immidiately back and your opponent will try to attack it but cant stop the motion anymore and move his unit instead. This is one of the most frustrating things in the game.

4. Faster movement: This is why i say *lose everything kill nothing*. You opponent has a low HP unit, you try to finish it off but he moves away, your unit moves on the tile. Both players have a low unit, but he shoots faster and kills your before you can move it away/shoot, you lose the unit. You have a promotion but before you can take the bonus HP he kills your unit cause he clicked faster. you have a general and want to create a fortress but he kills all units on the tile before you can do it. You want to recapture a worker but he can dismantle it before you can move on the tile. The list goes on and on.

Now the problem is that this doesnt just happen once, if your opponent is faster he generally is ALWAYS faster. So you lose all low units, he saves all low units, he gets all his promotions you get none, he captures your workers but you cant capture his, he settles first so you settler cant settle anymore etc. etc.

Fortunately outside of leagues, there are not that many players that can abuse it this well (me and my friends can, so we stopped playing simul entirely, its just way to much abuse and no fun at all). Now i wish that Turn based has been done better, cause that sucks as well. You cant give commands while its not your turn, cant change production, cant even open civilopedia or any other menu, its horrible.

However, if you are new to the game, or your opponent is simply very good at *abusing* the mechanics, you have absolutely no chance of winning.

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dont you figure that these guys are maybe not only better at abusing the mechanics, but just better at the game?

for every1 complaining about sim move fighting i can just suggest to make it turn based yourself by simply waiting 20 seconds till opponent had done its move and then move yourself.
Might just try to heal or pull back a injured unit fast (might be clever and dont try to fastmove this 1 unit which is obvious to being attacked fast, but another ...)

Voila - you got turn based fighting

If have won 2 front wars vs the best players in the game like that - but it seems to be easier to complain instead of doing a simple adjust thing.

tommynt said:

dont you figure that these guys are maybe not only better at abusing the mechanics, but just better at the game?

for every1 complaining about sim move fighting i can just suggest to make it turn based yourself by simply waiting 20 seconds till opponent had done its move and then move yourself.
Might just try to heal or pull back a injured unit fast (might be clever and dont try to fastmove this 1 unit which is obvious to being attacked fast, but another ...)

Voila - you got turn based fighting

If have won 2 front wars vs the best players in the game like that - but it seems to be easier to complain instead of doing a simple adjust thing.

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Im sorry but simultaneous turns adds nothing to the game but abuse, absolutely nothing else. The only reason they put it in was that with 1UPT mechanics they figured that games would take 10x as long as in previous Civ Games since the combat would become more strategic and with 100 times more units to move.

But people never really cared about games taking long, civ games always took multiple hours or even days to finish, so the whole thing backfired (thats why people created Multiplayer Robot and they added the playmodes back in). Its just that their multiplayer development *team* did a really bad job at it, and much to late.

If sequential turns had been implemented properly they wouldnt take much longer than even simultaneous ones, because people wouldnt wait for the timer to go down to the last second. Id wager it would actually be faster in 1vs1 and 2vs2 etc games. But they ****ed up that game mode as well, you cant do city maintenance, cant do diplomacy or give build orders, not even civilopedia. And there is absolutely no reason for that than lazy and bad development. Everything about Multiplayer in this game is just not done very well.

civ games always took multiple hours or even days to finish

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this is simply a lie, civ3 and civ4 mp have been with sim turns aswell and games did take about as long as in civ5 - maybe slightly more as real reloading was needed when crashes happened

I see constant references to shift click. I never even use that button and I still consider myself decent at MP. I've thwarted 2 warmongering players who played as Germany and China in different games.

Sometimes simultaneous turns can be very annoying because players take advantage and abuse it all over. Quick movements, hidden movements and end of turn moves all become their success. I keep failing in multiplayer simultaneous particularly in double teams. I guess it becomes very annoying to lose to some ****** in multiplayer and difficult to finally get a decent win.

How do you turn on simultaneous turns during wartime with human players? Is there an option for this?

Simultaneous turns is fine. Usually you get a few first moves and your opponent gets a few first moves. If the other person always gets first moves that can be frustrating but not game breaking. Try focusing on a different unit at the beginning of the turn that you know he will not be focusing on.

Or wait until the quick mover has moved already and can't do anything before you move. The only people who really complain about simultaneous turns are total noobs who aren't used to it.

I have won plenty, plenty games where I was getting out clicked due to far superior unit production. If it's a really close game with close skill levels then yes, first move can tilt the balance but it's not going to let a horrible player beat a much better player unless they are getting off like 3 moves to your 1. Even then, if you have double their production, they're not going to win.

sendos said:

I'm in the same position as OP in terms of moving from consistent success at emperor to MP and trying out immortal from time to time. I find simultaneous turns necessary to speed up the game during wartime. I've only tried hybrid once and the game takes much longer and is more vulnerable to connection crashes where everyone freezes. The only way to solve that issue is when someone (not a host) leaves and returns.

My main issues with MP are game crashes as host and connection freezes rather than slow simultaneous wars. You eventually get used to it. The main thing is to move your units ASAP and then attend to your cities and workers. Turn timers really help speed up the game and I would like to know an ideal fixed turn timer. Currently I think 90 seconds is decent mid-game, but not later on.

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A good host really is the key to a successful MP game. If the host drops, the game is usually a bust. The best timer is a scaling timer. There is no possible time you can set that is going to accommodate the early game and late game. It's either going to be too short late game or too long early game or in the case of 90 seconds both.

Simultaneous is horrid, awful, and unplayable. How anyone could think it was a good idea is stupefying. It's exacerbated by Civ5's inherent design flaws like ranged units and 1UPT.

It would work better if simultaneous turns were actually turns, instead of a bad attempt at RTS; resolve movement on the same tick, if two units are on the same space they fight. Trying to shoehorn simultaneous turns into civ5's mechanics is just bad.

Civ5 is just a deeply flawed game though, even without the bugs.

Simultaneous is just fine. You have to understand going into the game that it is an entirely different game. It can be a click fest at times but oftentimes clicking first hurts you anyway. If you let your opponent move his units first then you have free movement do what you need to do.
Multiplayer has it's problems but is a different game than single player. Personally I only play MP because SP bores me. The challenges playing a real person present make it so every game is different and strategies change all the time. If you have a set way of winning in SP I guarantee if you play a person more than a few times they will counteract your strategy.
My friends and I have been playing for years and the winning formula changes all the time.

I dont like hybrid that much. I prefer to use simultaneous.

Waxhaw said:

Simultaneous is just fine. You have to understand going into the game that it is an entirely different game. It can be a click fest at times but oftentimes clicking first hurts you anyway. If you let your opponent move his units first then you have free movement do what you need to do.
Multiplayer has it's problems but is a different game than single player. Personally I only play MP because SP bores me. The challenges playing a real person present make it so every game is different and strategies change all the time. If you have a set way of winning in SP I guarantee if you play a person more than a few times they will counteract your strategy.
My friends and I have been playing for years and the winning formula changes all the time.

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If you withhold your movement, then your only option is to watch whatever unit die whenever someone moves their ranged units, or pull away your armies every turn. The effect of this is that, playing rationally, every war turn is spent in a staredown that will run down the clock, once both sides have a sufficient number of units - effectively, whatever time saved from using simultaneous turns instead of sequential is burnt on a staredown that the game mechanics weren't designed to address, and anything that is not moving units is neglected. There is no space for actually playing civ, instead players are forced to play a really bad rts.

No, it's clear to anyone who has played civ for as long as i have, and has a sense of decent game design, that simultaneous turns is a terrible idea, and Civ 5's mechanics just make the flaws worse than ever. Even something like Civ4 by comparison is much more playable on simultaneous turns, due to the lack of ranged unit stupidity. Every defense I've heard for simultaneous turns has been stupid, yet the people who defend simultaneous think they are somehow better than me. The ONLY reason simultaneous turns should be accept is due to time constraints when playing sequential turns, except that simultaneous turns still take too long for a standard gaming session.

Play sequential turns or stop playing civ MP, otherwise it's a waste of time and energy. I'm looking for people who are going to play actual civ MP, not simultaneous turn bullcrap.