Civ 5 Multiplayer problems

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 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
 
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!
 
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