Civ 5 Multiplayer problems

[cpukilla]

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.

[bossconian]

Originally Posted by cpukilla

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....

[bjbrains]

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.

[bossconian]

Originally Posted by bjbrains

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.

[Falcan]

Demo should have multiplayer. CivRev demo had multiplayer.

[CanuckSoldier]

Originally Posted by bossconian

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

[bjbrains]

Originally Posted by bossconian

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.

[Some guy]

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.

[bjbrains]

Originally Posted by Some guy

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.

[The_Shadow]

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?

[CanuckSoldier]

Originally Posted by The_Shadow

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

[The_Shadow]

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.

[parabellum9x19]

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.

[CanuckSoldier]

Originally Posted by The_Shadow

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

[The_Shadow]

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.

[wapamingo]

Originally Posted by bernlin2000

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.

[SeismoGraf]

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.

[wapamingo]

Originally Posted by SeismoGraf

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.

Originally Posted by SeismoGraf

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.

[ddd123]

Originally Posted by SeismoGraf

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

[CanuckSoldier]

Originally Posted by SeismoGraf

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