Few things that could improve MP games

[Chicoutimi]

Alright guys, im not that much experienced in multiplayer but here are a few thoughts to improve the gameplay. To be discussed, id be interested to see what MP veterans think about it.

- cultural victory. Right now the only way to get it is through the autocracy tenet giving you +250 tourism for each GA/GW/GM born. Flat tourism alone just doesn't work in multiplayer and thats probably something that should get fixed.

- science path should get fixed. science is king in this game, making some tech paths absolutly necessary in order to stay competitive. i guess universities and public school are pretty fair in the tech tree, but the research labs rush is so straightforward that it gets boring. You basically have no other options than to rush your research labs tech right after unlocking public school. Any tech deviation to unlock a military units will severly punish you later.

- Rationalism social policy. same as tech path, its just not an option. 10% science and +2 science per specialists is too strong.

- piety and honor policy tree, need to make them a bit more attractive. maybe change the Representation policy in liberty tree, which is totally useless once you get it.

- scientists bulb ! Another thing that is not an option, stacking as many scientists all game long, crack them all somewhere after research labs, ending the game pretty fast. It makes modern era and post pretty useless, game is over at this point. You can mess a bit with a few nukes but it just ends to fast. If you main opponent is on the other side of the map you cant do much to stop him.
Its also boring that the only worthy great person is scientist, and maybe one or 2 engineers.
And it makes the rationalism policy tree even more powerfu.

- a few minor change in combat units. I think range units are a bit too strong pre industrial era, you basically spam them to have an effective army, whether its for defence or attack purpose. Maybe a -30% defense malus against melee units would make other units a bit more useful (yea mounted units are good enough already but at least we would have a reason to build swordsmans and such).
Also a little more defense on siege units would be appreciated. Except for the unique siege units like battlering ram / siege towers, they are totally useless pre artillery.

- improve multiplayer interface, game finding, allow scenario and mods on multiplayer, if possible fix the crashes (which happen extremly often, sometimes feel we're in a beta)

 

[TheGuineaPig]

I think fixing the science bulbing so that it's the last x turns when spawned would be the best single fix. So many problems of balance stem from just that.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

True. Having Great People wait around for centuries really bothers me as immersion. Removing that creates another instance of a kind of bonus that isn't all upside based on timing, like golden ages or a free tech. Not all bonuses have to be all upside. Indeed, even in a game where the design direction is "everything is all-upside", the choice of when to choose what is still the essential one, and so bonuses that are different based on timing are not out of place. But it depends on what unlocks them.

If you are forced by the game to take a certain thing, then taking that thing shouldn't, ever, be worse than having delayed that from triggering and gotten it later. Technologies are nicely all-upside like this. Social policies are almost like this. Either of these things is great when you pick it, and maybe greater if you pick it later, relative to doing something else later, but if you want it its value should be maximal -now-.
Espionage is not like this. Tech stealing is on a timer (which is already dumb because maybe you want sight with no risk of intrigue), and maybe you need to start that timer later to get a tech at the time the rival learns it. It's dysfunctional in a few ways like that, but it is an example of something that nothing forces you to do - you can put the spy to another use. Choosing when to trigger it is indeed part of the game, so it is, I suppose you could say, homomorphic to other decisions to build a building now or later.

Golden ages also. You want them at certain times, but, though it's tricky and indirect, you do get to choose how you accumulate GAPs. What' violates my principle is when a bonus that's forced "gifts" you a golden age. It drives up the Golden Age counter!

So Great People. Every bonus great person claims it's free but I think only one of them actually is? True, it's not a penalty since it can be viewed as achieving exactly X points of whatever meter it is would trigger that great person, And since it's a great person you want, and great people are all upside, then that's great for you. Unless it's not.

Great People in Civ V itself is messed up.

GP points are these things you build up, and sometimes you don't want them, but you have to take them anyway, ironically because you want Great People. Great Merchant Points as far as I can tell are some sort of penalty for puppet cities because those always work the Merchant Specialists.

The social policies are -all- strictly upside, with two exceptions: Humanism, and Entrepreneurship. Because by implementing more frequent great people as actually more GPPs of a certain kind, it makes it harder to obtain Great Engineers - you have to disuse alternative specialists more frequently.
And wonder GPPs. Before BNW those were neat flavour. Now they're out of place.

I know Civ IV's system had flaws. So does Civ V. Does anyone think an earlier civ game had decent GPs?

@OP: Only the last of these is a multiplayer change. You just proposed gameplay changes and balance changes.
I have a social policy mod that is experimental, in which I modify the Rationalism branch so that it doesn't have the 10% science boost, and Secularism is a tier 3 instead of tier 1. I modded the game so that social policies can give percent modifiers to science yields from trade routes and made the Rationalism opener give +200% science from that. It plays real nice.
I am working on a major change to religion in that mod, and I am considering what happens if you make Rationalism not allow Faith purchased Scientists (if, in fact, only To The Glory of God enables that), but turns out that experimenting with this requires modifying not only game code, but extraordinary, horribly, embarrassingly nonmodular game code at that, to change that part of the game.

The Community Patch and related projects, if I understand, have tried routes that make Rationalism do something with Espionage, too. Anything to get rid of that stupid "+4 gold per city before modifiers" policy that inexplicably outclasses everything in the Commerce tree and maybe Commerce opener itself.

 

[nimling]

Play sequential turns. Simultaneous turns is not playable, civilization is not designed to be an rts, and it's nearly impossible to find people who will play anything but simultaneous turns. Anyone who defends simultaneous turns as anything other than a time-saver is a freaking idiot.

Bad game design inevitably leads to the people who flood the scene being bad people, since good players wouldn't want to waste their time playing a bad game.

That said a lot of the problems with CiV single player are problems in multiplayer. There's really only one tech path, not much choice in social policies, ranged units are simply broken, etc. etc. Mostly comes back to 1UPT and the stupidity of ranged units, which can't be fixed. There's a reason Shafer acknowledged CiV as a failed game. It's not something that can be fixed with patching over a few things, although some things can be tweaked. It's not really possible when MP is dominated by simultaneous turns, which can only degenerate into spamming units endlessly. It's not even a game, it's a contest to see whose ping is faster, and arguing with idiots who think that actually playing a turn-based game is "unfair". And that has led to a death spiral in actually trying to play the game as anything other than a timesink.

Before anything can be suggested, you have to assume that you're playing actual civ in MP, not this simultaneous turn horsehockey. Then you'd have to look at the core design flaws in CiV and try to remedy them, by weakening ranged combat drastically or simply removing it altogether. Risk-free damage is always going to win over risk damage, especially when that risk involves your non-ranged units getting shredded before they can even act.

PolicyPlus remedied some of the policy tree silliness without introducing wacky and unbalanced bonuses, but sadly mods can't be used in MP.

 

[CraigMak]

Play sequential turns. Simultaneous turns is not playable, civilization is not designed to be an rts, and it's nearly impossible to find people who will play anything but simultaneous turns. Anyone who defends simultaneous turns as anything other than a time-saver is a freaking idiot.

Bad game design inevitably leads to the people who flood the scene being bad people, since good players wouldn't want to waste their time playing a bad game.

That said a lot of the problems with CiV single player are problems in multiplayer. There's really only one tech path, not much choice in social policies, ranged units are simply broken, etc. etc. Mostly comes back to 1UPT and the stupidity of ranged units, which can't be fixed. There's a reason Shafer acknowledged CiV as a failed game. It's not something that can be fixed with patching over a few things, although some things can be tweaked. It's not really possible when MP is dominated by simultaneous turns, which can only degenerate into spamming units endlessly. It's not even a game, it's a contest to see whose ping is faster, and arguing with idiots who think that actually playing a turn-based game is "unfair". And that has led to a death spiral in actually trying to play the game as anything other than a timesink.

Before anything can be suggested, you have to assume that you're playing actual civ in MP, not this simultaneous turn horsehockey. Then you'd have to look at the core design flaws in CiV and try to remedy them, by weakening ranged combat drastically or simply removing it altogether. Risk-free damage is always going to win over risk damage, especially when that risk involves your non-ranged units getting shredded before they can even act.

PolicyPlus remedied some of the policy tree silliness without introducing wacky and unbalanced bonuses, but sadly mods can't be used in MP.

Simultaneous turns is fine. Only MP noobs complain about this. I have won wars without getting first moves. If your infrastructure and production are superior you will win and building up good infrastructure and production are what makes playing civ the game that it is.

War is just the culmination of that infrastructure into a battle of who built up better or who went for xbows while the other guy beelined universities foolishly.

I have seen it too many times where some idiot blames his loss on first move when the opponent had double or triple his army and production.... Sorry that wasn't your downfall buddy.

Now if you are both on equal footing with similar production and tech then first move can turn the tide. But usually will not allow some one with significantly less skill to win. If some one beats you only due to first moves then you were probably pretty equal in skill anyways.

 

[nimling]

Simultaneous turns is NOT fine, it's stupid and boring and not worth playing.
It shows when people resort to petty insults when they're told why simultaneous turns is stupid and boring, which inevitably happens. It's a good litmus to see who are people I wouldn't want to play with in any game.

I've played enough MP games, and only the idiots make a big deal about simultaneous turns being good. The veterans acknowledge that it sucks, the people who actually want to play civ would agree with me 100%.

So what is this, are people really infantile enough to think that people would complain about settings that "make them lose"? I can win on simultaneous turns, it's just stupid and pointless to even play such a game. Usually this is the argument pro-simul noobs make, and it's dumb as all hell.

If more people are willing to play actual civ instead of simultaneous turn garbage, then you can look at how to make MP better. Until then, the game is too much of a mess to even bother with (never mind the huge, gaping bugs in CiV). It's a shame because CiV has some good ideas and could work fine (even with 1UPT), but they get wasted on bad implementation and a bad player base.

 

[Chicoutimi]

i agree that simultaneous turn is far from being fair. myself i dont have a good pc configuration and i see the difference in a lan with someone with good pc: they can usually play 1/2 - 1 second before me at the start of each turn, and even when moving units its less laggy. Host also get a bit less lag on moving units.
i gave up trying to move first and i usually wait for my opponents to move his units before i do. it is very often frustrating, allowing the opponent to do moves that i could never do, and it makes siege units absolutly useless as they get hit 2 turns before they can attack a city (the turn when you move it in range of the city and the next turn when you can attack but the opponent attack you first)

BUT this game is not playable in turn per turn. simultaneous turn, 6 players no quitters, takes 4 to 6 hours. turn per turn it would make it 24 to 36 hours.
i guess some people keep playing the same game over days and days but its not my way of playing

however even if i feel my wars are usually most costly than my opponents, it doesnt stop me from winning wars. Like it has been said your production capacity matters a lot in a war, your tech too (if you were able to rush a new era unit), and diplomacy (try to ally everyone against the leader)
also the landscape, dont attack this guy behind hills and mountains as it will usually be a suicide before artillery
if the outcome of your war is defined by "who plays first" with simultaneous turn, your war was probably very close and you didnt deserve to win it

 

[nimling]

with all the stalling people would do on simultaneous turns, the clock will be run out every single time. not so with sequential turns, especially early turns should resolve pretty fast.

simultaneous turns isn't just unfair, it's unplayable and the game was designed to be turn-based.
health promotions just make it worse. there is so much bad in civ 5, simultaneous turns exploits all of those bad and makes it worse on top of being inherently dumb.

the worst though is that you can't play a public mp game without being berated for saying the truth, that simultaneous turns is unplayable and not fun, and 90% will proceed to insult me and make the stupidest arguments. i've said it was stupid when i was winning and it doesn't stop people. simultaneous turns is bad game design, and bad game design encourages people to act like douchebags. i used to just shrug and accept that if i want to play mp i have to put up with it, but the attitude of the player base in defense of such a horrid system has turned me off from playing mp unless i get to play actual civ. why can't those people play an actual rts if they want that, there are much better rts games. i'd just prefer to play actual civ instead of talk to buttheads.

if it's a big deal, just save and play the game is 2-4 hour sessions. shouldn't take more than 3 days to run through most games, and simultaneous turns is way too much crap in modern era.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Now if you are both on equal footing with similar production and tech then first move can turn the tide. But usually will not allow some one with significantly less skill to win. If some one beats you only due to first moves then you were probably pretty equal in skill anyways.

Are you explicitly saying that you care less about instances of a competition in Civilization V that are between two players close in skill?

 

[tommynt]

i m playing best players of this game regularly while having slow connection and relaxas - lossing nearly every quickmove.
I still win 90%+ of my games

skill USUALLY wins game. Saying that I dont enjoy unit spammage and fastmoving - but non sim turn isnt the solution.

The most other points of balance op mentions dont affact only mp but sp aswell - so its not a mp issue. ANd sp is allways prio for civ game design.

 

[CraigMak]

with all the stalling people would do on simultaneous turns, the clock will be run out every single time. not so with sequential turns, especially early turns should resolve pretty fast.

simultaneous turns isn't just unfair, it's unplayable and the game was designed to be turn-based.
health promotions just make it worse. there is so much bad in civ 5, simultaneous turns exploits all of those bad and makes it worse on top of being inherently dumb.

the worst though is that you can't play a public mp game without being berated for saying the truth, that simultaneous turns is unplayable and not fun, and 90% will proceed to insult me and make the stupidest arguments. i've said it was stupid when i was winning and it doesn't stop people. simultaneous turns is bad game design, and bad game design encourages people to act like douchebags. i used to just shrug and accept that if i want to play mp i have to put up with it, but the attitude of the player base in defense of such a horrid system has turned me off from playing mp unless i get to play actual civ. why can't those people play an actual rts if they want that, there are much better rts games. i'd just prefer to play actual civ instead of talk to buttheads.

if it's a big deal, just save and play the game is 2-4 hour sessions. shouldn't take more than 3 days to run through most games, and simultaneous turns is way too much crap in modern era.

You disagree with 90% of the community but still think you are correct. Alrighty then. Seriously, if you just get used to it you will not think that way. It's fine just don't be a noob at it.

 

[CraigMak]

Are you explicitly saying that you care less about instances of a competition in Civilization V that are between two players close in skill?

No because it's only an issue when one player gets every single first move. Most of the time one guy will get some and another guy will get some. The times that it really matters is when it's really lopsided and the guy with first moves plays in a way that he knows he will always get first move. IE baiting and moving etc..

It's rare though. There are some ppl who abuse the system though and get 2 -3 moves before I can get one. Just chalk that up to a loser who can't play fair and move on.

 

[nimling]

Being right is not a matter of popular opinion. If 90% disagree with my point it's probably because a lot of people don't waste their time with Civ V MP.

The argument "but with sequential turns one player always gets first move" is all kinds of silly - that's called playing a turn-based game. The second player gets to build and move all of their units after the first, and so on. Being Team 1 has a slight advantage beyond that in simultaneous turns, but in hybrid turns the early game will be played out in simultaneous anyway, which nullfies the (relatively small) edge Team 1 receives - and that edge is dwarfed by players with better geographic position, who drew a better civ, and who were able to build their empires better.

Simultaneous turns basically means conceding the city-management side of the game, because if anyone wants to manipulate simultaneous turns for maximum advantage, they will stall, force standoffs, and otherwise eat up clock every single turn they're at war. Additionally, warfare is largely defined by having a big pile of cbows/xbows and the reaction speed to click them, moreso than it is in standard sequential-turn civ.

I have not yet seen a single argument where simultaneous turns is any good, and even people who are familiar with simultaneous can acknowledge it's a bad system.

A typical hybrid turn game should use a shorter turn timer than the default. This leads to longer early turns, but early turns are likely to be simultaneous and players can make an agreement not to run out clock. Thus, the first 50 turns (barring early war) progress just the same as they would under simultaneous, perhaps longer.
It only gets really time chewy if all 6 humans are at war, and even then, keeping turn timer to 2minutes should limit turns to 12-13 minutes maximum - this gives enough time to move a modestly sized army and do city management. Sometimes city management needs to be automated via queues to fit the time constraint, but that is still far better than the time alloted in simultaneous. A hybrid turn can be resolved in 1 minute even, if players are willing to use more automation in order to move the game along.

Simultaneous turns, they're always going to wind down the clock, with 4-5 minutes per turn in later eras. Most of that time is wasted on stalling and other horsehockey, and basically stuff that isn't fun or strategic - it's just a game that is very un-fun. That leaves very little time to actually play civ, and players are left wondering what the hell they're actually playing for. Never mind that simultaneous means that basically cbows/xbows/chariot archers are the only viable military unit until naval and air war are a thing, whereas with sequential turns, mounted, melee, and siege have at least a sliver of use.

It would help if civ5 MPers actually played good games (even with hybrid making MP playable, Civ 5 still has problems). Unfortunately the game culture has stagnated and left people who want to play actual civ out in the cold, so the problems with Civ 5 MP are exacerbated by people who want bad game design. There are way better RTS games and way better MMO online-only games, I seriously had people compare the game to League of Legends (a game which is pretty god-awful and un-fun, but also completely different from civ - also suffers from a terrible online culture around it).

So yeah, play sequential or hybrid turns, even if it means sitting through multi-day sessions. Otherwise, you have an unplayable mess and there really isn't a game, or a way to fix it. Fixing policy trees would help but with simultaneous turns you basically don't get to play city management.

 

[tommynt]

have not yet seen a single argument where simultaneous turns is any good, and even people who are familiar with simultaneous can acknowledge it's a bad system.

its good cause it does exactly what its supposed to do - speeding up the game to a degree making it playable and fun.

Its not like a matter of taste, or what we want, its the only working way to play the game with multiple people.
if you dont like it you should look out for another game.

And to me it seems that you dont like the military aspect of the game at all.
But unlike in sp military is core part of the game in mp.

Maybe try my favourite setting - duel - mirror map - east vs west setting and suddenly u might enjoy the game as eco will win game.

 

[LordBalkoth]

Its not like a matter of taste, or what we want, its the only working way to play the game with multiple people.

If you mean in one sitting, perhaps. But I've played dozens of games with friends on hybrid.