Civ 5 Multiplayer: Some Simple, Important Changes Are Needed

[jbadams]

Alongside the major improvements in computing technology and multimedia quality since the early days of the Civilization series, online gaming is something that also has grown dramatically--even since the release of Civilization 4. While the first couple of "Civver" generations predominantly played Civilization by themselves, today's gaming generation is vastly more interested in matching wits with other, real players. At the same time, Civilization 5 is a strategy game, so it is natural and appropriate to model the actual gameplay around how AIs react to various circumstances.

Firaxis is to be applauded for creating a strategically-rich product in Civilization 4 and committing itself to basic multiplayer functionality. I've spent countless hours playing Civilization online, and multiplayer Civ easily accounts for 99.99% of the total time that I have spent playing the game. Nevertheless, there are some simple and important changes that Firaxis absolutely must address in Civilization 5:

1. Make multiplayer gaming easier to set up.
For me and countless other folks (just take a look around these forums), Civilization 4 caused more technical problems than any other game in recent memory. Firaxis has always blamed GameSpy, and GameSpy has always blamed Firaxis, but the bottom line is that peer-to-peer gaming MUST NOT be as buggy, unreliable, and annoying as it was in Civilization 4. If people can connect to an online battlefield and blow up entire cities in real time on games like World in Conflict, then surely Firaxis and its partners can implement a multiplayer platform that allows players to easily connect to each other and play. The GameSpy Civ 4 community has probably "restarted Civ" tens of millions of times simply so that they can connect to this or that peer/host. Other nonsense such as perpetual "out of sync" errors, game timers freezing, etc., were always blamed on the multiplayer interface. Well, Firaxis: fix it. I know of no other game released in the past five or six years that had so many unavoidable, unbearable online glitches as Civ 4.

2. Overhaul the multiplayer "pause" and "join" features to prevent players from hot-joining and deliberately ruining games.
For those who played on GameSpy, the following is an all-too-common experience: a particular player gets upset that he is not winning the game, so he decides to press the "Pause" button, repeatedly, in order to prevent the game from moving forward. Thousands of games have been ruined in this way. In Civilization 4, it was not possible to stop a person from pausing the game indefinitely. In Civilization 5, it would be very simple to place limits on how often a player can pause a multiplayer game. While it's nice to think that people would be "above" such juvenile behavior, it's hard not to expect this sort of nonsense when people can change their usernames online after every single game, if they wish. A feature must be included in Civilization 5 to address this problem.

Similarly, the process of players hot-joining a game must be modified. Under the Civilization 4 system, a trouble-making player could maliciously join a game very slowly (perhaps by clogging his bandwidth while connecting to a game) and constantly attempt to rejoin a game. Meanwhile, for the players in the actual game, the timer is frozen and gameplay is impossible. Quite often, malicious players in Civilization 4 caused games to CRASH by repeatedly joining/dropping/re-joining games. It would be easy to implement a limitation on hot-joining (beyond disabling "Take Over AI," which is an over-protective feature since players who drop must be waited for or else they can never rejoin the game).

3. Fix the vote screen so that malicious players can't destroy a game simply by refusing to vote to continue a game.
For some crazy reason, Civilization 4 had the concept of a "vote screen." All too often, malicious players would "hot-join" games and either refuse to cast a vote to continue a game, or they would intentionally vote against continuing the game. The effect of this was very simple: the game could never, ever continue. It would be extremely simple to reform the multiplayer vote system to preclude this sort of misbehavior. Firaxis, please fix this major problem.

I will add to this post in the future, but the main reason that I'm posting here is to solicit agreement from other multiplayer users who have experienced the problems that I describe and who agree that these problems should be fixed.

These are all easy fixes for Firaxis, and I hope that they will take these issues seriously. I assure you that I am a Firaxis customer who would hold out on buying this game if the multiplayer was broken to the extent that Civ 4 multiplayer is broken.

 

[MrBanana]

Those are all good ideas. I haven't played mp, so I'm surprised that sutff happens.

Why don't they also have a reporting system, so you could report an specfic user for malicious acts?

 

[jbadams]

Those are all good ideas. I haven't played mp, so I'm surprised that sutff happens.

Why don't they also have a reporting system, so you could report an specfic user for malicious acts?

While I like the idea of such a system, it's too easy for people to lie, fake screenshots of bad behavior, etc., that a reporting system would just encourage pissing matches between people who dislike one another.

If you're asking why there was no reporting system in Civ 4, the answer is that Civ 4 was based on GameSpy IDs. Based on a decade of personal experience, GameSpy refuses to punish bad behavior by players online and in some ways actually encourages people to ruin games and ruin everyone else's experience. They don't even have a working mechanism for reporting game-wreckers. (They have the façade of one, but that's just to make you think that someone, somewhere, is reading your complaint about a guy who just hot-joined 57 Civilization games and paused them until people gave up on trying to play anymore.)

 

[King Lewie XIV]

Hey JB,

I feel ur pain, although I haven't played a lotta MP Civ IV, I want to get back into it now that Civ V is coming. Were/are u in a league? The Civplayers MP ladder pretty much addresses the problems u are talking about. I know there are of course people in ladders who do this kinda behavior too. In the Civplayers league u have to use the name on Gamespy exactly as ur name is on the ladder, and I imagine they will kick out players if they are reported a few times on their ladder. But I guess the best thing to do is find a group of players of similar skill on these type of ladder sites and then battle it out with them. I wish I could say that they will fix some or any of the problems u mentioned in Civ V, but im not that hopefull. So, until they do I would just suggest being in the ladder and such. Maybe u already do and our just frustrated about these things anyway. In which case, nevermind.

 

[King Lewie XIV]

It would be nice if they had an automatch (or a decent one if they have one) in Civ V, but I just don't think there will be enuf people playing MP to make it any good. The vast majority of all players from what I hear dont play games online, jus do single player. That is why it is good to use Comrade or some sort of IM program to keep track of ur friends in Civ so u can find them for games even when their not in the Gamespy lobby.

 

[jbadams]

Hey JB,

I feel ur pain, although I haven't played a lotta MP Civ IV, I want to get back into it now that Civ V is coming. Were/are u in a league? The Civplayers MP ladder pretty much addresses the problems u are talking about. I know there are of course people in ladders who do this kinda behavior too. In the Civplayers league u have to use the name on Gamespy exactly as ur name is on the ladder, and I imagine they will kick out players if they are reported a few times on their ladder. But I guess the best thing to do is find a group of players of similar skill on these type of ladder sites and then battle it out with them. I wish I could say that they will fix some or any of the problems u mentioned in Civ V, but im not that hopefull. So, until they do I would just suggest being in the ladder and such. Maybe u already do and our just frustrated about these things anyway. In which case, nevermind.

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately, these problems can occur on the ladder/league just as much as they occur in non-ladder/non-league games. Just yesterday a guy hot-joined a ladder game and crashed it in the same manner that I describe above. Nothing can be done about it, because the guy who did it wasn't a ladder member (or at least wasn't using a ladder username when he did it).

Ultimately the problem is that even though my friends and I have a pretty solid list of whom we can trust to be a good/decent player, still nothing prevents a malicious player from jumping into a vacant AI slot, or presenting himself in a normal way and then suddenly acting like a maniac after 100 turns have passed in the game.

Also Lewie, I think there's a very bad tendency on Civfanatics for folks to assume that nobody plays this game online anymore. There have been thousands of games played in the last few days alone. Also, remember that the presence of the problems I outlined above has had a major impact, over time, on the number of people who play the game. I bet there are 5,000 users on this forum who spent a few days trying to get Civ4 to work online, and gave up. That's millions of games over the years that would have been played online.

 

[King Lewie XIV]

Yeah I hear ya JB. Why not play more Direct IP games then? I havne't really tried that, im guessing u have. Are there problems with that? What types of MP games do u typically play? Me, I almost always play 1 v 1 matches. I guess I would try some FFAs here and there in the future, and have played a few in the past. I could never really get into 2 v 2, 3 v 3 etc. For me it is too much effort and frustration to try and work with even one teammate (even if he is friend, although it can be cool at times). But if u are talking about teaming up in these games with strangers, I couldn't handle that.

 

[jbadams]

Yeah I hear ya JB. Why not play more Direct IP games then? I havne't really tried that, im guessing u have. Are there problems with that? What types of MP games do u typically play? Me, I almost always play 1 v 1 matches. I guess I would try some FFAs here and there in the future, and have played a few in the past. I could never really get into 2 v 2, 3 v 3 etc. For me it is too much effort and frustration to try and work with even one teammate (even if he is friend, although it can be cool at times). But if u are talking about teaming up in these games with strangers, I couldn't handle that.

Direct IP sucks. Here's why: suppose that I host a Direct IP game with you and five of our friends. Then suppose that I have to leave, or I lose or whatever, and I leave the game. At this point, the game randomly assigns the "Direct IP" of the game to another person. The problem is: you don't know which person that is, so for the remaining players, you can't reconnect to the game if your connection is lost to the (now "unknown") host.

 

[ArcadicGamer]

Direct IP sucks. Here's why: suppose that I host a Direct IP game with you and five of our friends. Then suppose that I have to leave, or I lose or whatever, and I leave the game. At this point, the game randomly assigns the "Direct IP" of the game to another person. The problem is: you don't know which person that is, so for the remaining players, you can't reconnect to the game if your connection is lost to the (now "unknown") host.

Assuming your all friends, all it takes is a save game and a reload and anyone can host the game again. Not a major issue.

 

[Ellestar]

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately, these problems can occur on the ladder/league just as much as they occur in non-ladder/non-league games. Just yesterday a guy hot-joined a ladder game and crashed it in the same manner that I describe above. Nothing can be done about it, because the guy who did it wasn't a ladder member (or at least wasn't using a ladder username when he did it).

Password a game, that's how we played it all the time

 

[jbadams]

Password a game, that's how we played it all the time

Then all it takes is for one naive person to give the password to a malicious player.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Then all it takes is for one naive person to give the password to a malicious player.

While I certainly agree with your points above and will address them if I'm given the opportunity to beta test Civ5, there is a point were we can't design code to over come human nature.

But yes the Civ5 MP system should have functions like we programmed into the Game Monitor Mod, like the host being able to kick players out of a running game, and being able to change the game speed mid game as desired etc.....

And some of the issues you pointed out with Gamespy are a result of the contract that Firaxis made with GS, GS was simply not contracted to moderate the Civ4 lobby and as you pointed out the league admins can only enforce law and order on league members.

CS

 

[redifederal]

Im one of those guys who restarted 1000's of times and have seen literally 1000's of games launch and fail to start or go oos within a few turns. Plain and simple Gamespy has to go or they need to make some dramatic changes.

Another thing I suggest with CIV V is allowing select players to test patches before they are released and required to install. I quit playing civ for a long time because of patches that did nothing but cause oos issues in MP. Requiring players to update in order to log into gamespy or any other lobby is fine as long as the patch doesnt make the game unplayable.

 

[jbadams]

Im one of those guys who restarted 1000's of times and have seen literally 1000's of games launch and fail to start or go oos within a few turns. Plain and simple Gamespy has to go or they need to make some dramatic changes.

Another thing I suggest with CIV V is allowing select players to test patches before they are released and required to install. I quit playing civ for a long time because of patches that did nothing but cause oos issues in MP. Requiring players to update in order to log into gamespy or any other lobby is fine as long as the patch doesnt make the game unplayable.

Absolutely! Thanks for posting.

 

[Shiggs713]

look who we have here, its JBAdams, I'm assuming thats OCC, and redifer? Its like a reunion thread. Agree with all that, but like Canuck said, some of that stuff may take more effort than its worth, but still even a better reporting system or something would be welcomed.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Im one of those guys who restarted 1000's of times and have seen literally 1000's of games launch and fail to start or go oos within a few turns. Plain and simple Gamespy has to go or they need to make some dramatic changes.

Another thing I suggest with CIV V is allowing select players to test patches before they are released and required to install. I quit playing civ for a long time because of patches that did nothing but cause oos issues in MP. Requiring players to update in order to log into gamespy or any other lobby is fine as long as the patch doesnt make the game unplayable.

Normally with most patches they are tested by players before release. And I think you are overstating the bugs that are in patches or XP's, one patch had a OOS bug when "boating" another player in MP. So realistically over the entire history of Firaxis patching Civ3 and Civ4 that is not a bad record. Even experinced community testers can't think of every scenario that might have a bug.

CS

 

[Jamesds]

Im one of those guys who restarted 1000's of times and have seen literally 1000's of games launch and fail to start or go oos within a few turns. Plain and simple Gamespy has to go or they need to make some dramatic changes.

I don't think it's just GameSpy to blame, I have played many LAN games and all too often there's an OOS error that forces someone to leave and return. It's worse with more people - i.e. 1v1 was generally fine for me.

Good points jbadams, as I've hardly ever played online MP CivIV it never occur to me the system was so easily abused. Hopefully we'll see an improved MP system in CivV because I agree it is an integral part to the game, despite what others here may think.

 

[CiverDan1]

There were other problems as well..

1) not being able to communicate with anyone in the lobby while you were in-game. Given the problems that could occur from attempting to rejoin games (OOS, etc.) and well as to need to determine is someone if actually is attempting a rejoin as opposed to quitting, this was very problematic. The civ4fans third party program addressed this (although GS was going to ban it until Firaxis stepped in).

2) Games just took too long to set up.

I am afraid if they use GS again (which they probably willl..sigh) improvements will only be marginal at best

 

[redifederal]

Normally with most patches they are tested by players before release. And I think you are overstating the bugs that are in patches or XP's, one patch had a OOS bug when "boating" another player in MP. So realistically over the entire history of Firaxis patching Civ3 and Civ4 that is not a bad record. Even experinced community testers can't think of every scenario that might have a bug.

All I know is that I paid for a game that didnt work because of a patch that I was forced to install to log into Gamespy. I understand the reasoning behind forcing people to intsall the patch but it was very obvious they didnt test it as well as they should. Im almost positive that the players that do test the patchs probably are mostly ladder players and because they are ladder players they rarely encounter every scenario because their game is over before turn 150 (and rarely even have naval battles). Im not downing the ladder or the fine players that participate in ladder games but the best group of players to test patches for online play is the earth community. We routinely play till someone wins by a victory condition or till the nukes start to fly so we encounter virtually every scenario long before ladder players. Let us help you make the game more enjoyable for everyone!!!!!

 

[bossconian]

This topic is exactly what was my intention to write stright after I'd been struck by the news of CIV V. I started to write a post which shortly became a huge rundown of complaints and wishes regarding multiplayer engine of the game.... I really got tired of pointing out all the flaws of civ IV multiplayer that have been making all of us to suffer throughout years and putting off countless others from playing this mode of game if not the whole CIV at all. I just dropped that idea hoping these all problems have been to obvious and impossible to not address in the new release.... But perhaps not and maybe somebody from fraxis will read this ? Anyway thanks jbadams for starting this topic.

I remember that when Civ IV was released there had been plenty of games on the market already having implemented all these multiplayer features we can only dream off till now - the year 2010. In 2005 I had chance to play loads of (already aging by then) rtss / fpss. If we compared CIV IV with them all the guys responsible for CIV IV multiplayer mode should be put in hall of shame of the industry. Honestly. So as you, guys from Fraxis, should be completely aware off by know the CIV IV is a complete disaster in terms of multiplayer. Such a great potential this game had was wasted by countless issues of which only a few have been mentioned by jbadams.

I let myself to throw some points into too. As this is pretty tiring task I'll do it by play day of a typicall CIV IV multiplayer gamer.

Lazy sunday - 12pm. Logging in into gamespy (gs). Logged in but no servers. Lets log off and log back in.

4. GS sucks

all fine - in lobby with list of servers. But hold on - why all nicks are followed by TK-TK2 ?

5. GS sucks big time !!!

Let's add somebody to the buddy list then. Right click - add to buddies - eeeee eeee - no such name - well - you've got to type nick manually without TK-TK2

6. GS .....

But these were just small and funny inconvieniences - the programist responsible had just an hangover that day - and just forgot to fix it.

12.05 pm - good time to watch for regulars to play earth game - 14-16 people would be great. 14-16 people per game is just as common as a cell phone these days. Not here though. Let's convince somebody to host the game. There are only some widelly known palyers that are likely to host successful game - if you don't know what it's all about just read..
12.07 pm - game hosted - sunday earth - 18civ map. Passworded. Waiting.

12.10 pm - 3 ppl joined. No bad. But hold on - what's that message popping up ?- you're blocking somebody from joining the game ? some firewall issues ? never heard off such issues in other game ?

7. one's firewall blockinig other person from joining ??? How comes ? How to fix it?

12.15 pm - more players joined - the one who had a problem restarted civ and did some magic cache clearing. Didn't help.

12.25 pm - 10ppl - wow - going really good. Well- in other games the would have been already started - but hey - this game is worth to wait.

12.45 pm - 15ppl - nice - lets start ? No - lets wait for fullhouse. No - fullhouse crashes the game - lets start. No - we cannot - somebody afk - cannot start the game without the persong ticked ready. Let's kick him after 5 minutes grace time - done !!!

12.50 pm Long awaited start...... There was a word.... Well not quite - map transfer first. Takes 5 minutes to transfer 800kb....

8. Map transfer speed -

12.55 pm - wow - screen changed - initialising - we were lucky - eventually we're there....not quite.... timer stopped + people still joining. Some euforic texts of people that we are nearly there. Couple minutes later first signs of doubt. Will they ever join? We can see the world - we are almost there just to start .... They never joined - they dropped. We're 13 now - shame but still willing to go. We could only start if not the

1.00 pm


9. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS

Why ? Why is it flashing in the middle of the screen ? What does it mean? Why we have to try to press pause in right time to see who's oos? Why? Well two of us have to rejoin. Round 0 and we lost 4 ppl by now with a prospect of 2 returning. Give the chance to rejoin.

10. It only takes further 5 minutes to rejoin.

Great - lets go and get some snack.

1.07 pm Good news - one rejoined - Bad news - only one of them. Even worse news - somebody afk and didn't press continue. Perhaps cannot find snacks and asked himself "Will they notice if I only popped to the corner shop to grab one?" YES WE WILL !

11. Voting system sucks

1.14 pm The one came back - said sorry. In the meantime we lost one not so regular player that didn't have chance to get used to the fact that waiting is what the civ multiplayer game is all about. Ok - lets go. After 1h nad 15 minutes my first city was build - I must say - not so bad....

1.18 pm Round 6 - Game stopped - WTH ? ahhh - the other eventually joining ...... It will take only 5 minutes.

1.25 pm Round 8 - 12 ppl nice. Worker done..... in 11 minutes - nice.

to be continued....



Jbadams mentioned the World In Conflict game. I couldn't even imagine how great CIV V would be if had multiplayer mode as good as this nearly 3 years old game.

One last word to all of you guys who just want to come and say that the CIV is not a multiplayer game and no effort should be done to improve this mode. Please - with all respect to you and understanding the whole fun you have playing single player game - do not comment. Just ignore this topic. Should you dare do so I would only recommend to you the plants vs zombies game - enjoy playing against AI.